Locked in her room, she took off her dress and tore at the stockings—but they wouldn’t come off. Baxter liked being bonded to her skin, and no matter how she pulled and pried, he wouldn’t budge. She even tried using a letter opener, but its metal edge bent backward before it could separate Baxter from her skin even a tiny bit.

Finally, she lit a match and held it near her foot. Baxter squealed and squirmed.

“Don’t make me do it!” she said, and held it closer.

Baxter reluctantly peeled off her and resumed spherical form.

“Bad Baxter!” she chastised him. “That was bad!”

Baxter flattened a bit, drooping with shame.

Lavinia flopped onto her bed, exhausted, and found herself thinking about something her father had said: that taking people’s nightmares was a great responsibility. He was certainly right about that. Baxter was a handful already, and the more nightmares she took from people, the bigger he would grow. What was she going to do with him?

She sat up quickly, lit with a new idea. Some people deserved their nightmares, her father had said, and it occurred to her that just because she took them didn’t mean she had to keep them. She could be the Robin Hood of dreams, relieving good people of their nightmares and giving them to the wicked—and as a bonus she wouldn’t have a ball of nightmare thread following her around all the time!

Figuring out who the good people were was easy enough, but she would have to be careful about identifying the bad ones; she’d hate to give the wrong person nightmares. So she sat down and made a list of all the worst people in town. At the top was Mrs. Hennepin, the headmistress of the local orphanage, who was known to beat her charges with a riding crop. Second was Mr. Beatty, the butcher, who everyone said had gotten away with killing his wife. Next was Jimmy, the coach driver, who had run over blind Mr. Ferguson’s guide dog while driving drunk. Then there were all the people who were simply rude or unpleasant, which was a much longer list, and the people Lavinia just didn’t like, which was longer still.

“Baxter, heel!”

Baxter rolled over to where she was sitting.

“How would you like to help me with an important project?”

Baxter wriggled eagerly.

They began that night. Dressed all in black, Lavinia put Baxter in his bag and slung him across her back. When the clock struck midnight, they snuck out and went all over town giving nightmares to people on the list—the worst to those at the top, itty-bitty ones to those further down. Lavinia pulled strands from Baxter and sent them wriggling up drainpipes and through open windows toward their intended targets. By the night’s end they had visited dozens of houses and Baxter had shrunk to the size of an apple—small enough to fit in Lavinia’s pocket. She returned home exhausted, falling into a deep and happy sleep the moment her head touched her pillow.