Chapter 10

That day, Steve drove Tori, Soda, and I home. As soon as we got home, I went to bed. I was tired from working hard all day.

I had a dream………………………………...

I was in a dark, dark room and I was sitting on something very cold. I blinked a couple of times in order to adjust to the light. When I could see better, I realized that I was in a room and I was sitting on one of those cold metal chairs. I started to notice that there were other people in the room. At first I didn't recognized them, but then I saw my mom and dad sitting in the front row. My mom was crying while my dad was trying to comfort her but he was crying too. Then my brother and sister appeared next to my parents. And after that I saw my grandparents, they were crying too.

Soon I could see my whole family. They were all crying for some reason. I couldn't figure out why. I looked around to see what they were crying about but I didn't find anything.

I noticed two more familiar faces appear. But this time it wasn't anyone from my family, it was Tori and Soda. Like my family, they were crying. The whole gang was there, sobbing. Even Dallas was crying, which was surprising because he never cries.

The room started to become lighter and everything started to come into focus. I could see a preacher standing at the front of the room behind a long, mahogany box. The box looked a lot like a coffin. Then it occurred to me. I was at a funeral. I quickly got up and ran down the aisle to see who's funeral it was. I looked in the coffin and nearly fainted. There in the mahogany coffin was a dead version of me. I've heard people say that people look peaceful when they were dead. I didn't look peaceful. It looked more like I was asleep.

Then the people started clearing out of the room. I guess they were going to the reception or something. The room started spinning and I got dizzy.

All of the sudden, I could see two newspapers. One was dated 1966. The headline was blurry but it had a picture of me. I had a sad and distant look in my eyes. The other was dated 2006. The headline was hard to make out but there was a picture of my family. They looked happy. I didn't understand what this dream meant………………………………...

"Kelsey! Get up!" Tori was yelling at me and shaking me so that I would wake up.

"What?" I asked, nearly falling out of bed.

"You were screaming. Are you ok?"

"Yeah. Yeah. Fine. Just had a bad dream is all."

"Oh, well, dinner's almost ready. I'd start waking up so that you can eat before everyone else gets here."

"Alright." I ran a brush through my hair and followed Tori out to the kitchen.

"Did you have a bad dream or something?" asked Soda, who was sitting at the kitchen table playing cards with Ponyboy.

"I was screaming that loud?"

"Yeah but don't worry about it. I get bad dreams too" said Ponyboy.

"I know" I said.

"What?" asked Ponyboy.

"I meant I know how you feel. I get bad dreams a lot too." Nice cover up.

Ponyboy just looked at me weird then went back to his card game.

"So where's Darry?" I asked.

"He's still at work. He won't be home till later. He said to go ahead and start dinner without him" said Ponyboy.

"What's for dinner anyways?" asked Soda.

"Macaroni and cheese" said Tori as she got the bowls out for the macaroni.

"I think I'll pass if you don't mind" I said. I hate macaroni. I had a bad experience with macaroni when I was a kid.

"Do you not like my macaroni?" asked Tori with a fake offensiveness to her voice.

"It's not your macaroni. It's macaroni all together. I just don't like it. Makes me sick" I said.

"Well fine then. You don't have to eat it" said Tori.

As I sat and watched the card game that was going on in front of me, I thought about my dream and what it meant. Maybe it meant that I was going to die soon. But then how would that explain the picture of my family in the newspaper? I knew my family wouldn't be happy if I died. If anything they would be absolutely devastated. Especially my mother. Then I thought about my mom and all the trouble she must be going through in 2006. She must be heart broken. I couldn't imagine waking up one day and discovering that my daughter has gone missing. It would kill my completely that is if I had a daughter.

"You guys goin' out tonight?" asked Soda.

"I don't know. I think we're startin' school tomorrow so probably not" said Tori, handing out bowls of macaroni.

"Y'all get to go to school with me, Two-Bit, and Steve" said Ponyboy, stating on his macaroni.

"Great. A whole day with Two-Bit. I'm thrilled" I said, sarcastically.

"It's not that bad. The days never boring with him around" said Ponyboy.

"True. But to hafta spend all day with him, I dunno."

"You get use to it after awhile."

That night surprisingly stayed pretty quite. We didn't do much except have dinner. The rest of the gang came over at about 7 and didn't leave till 11. That made it hard for me to fall back asleep. Like I could sleep though.

I kept thinking about my dream. It scared me so much that I started shaking.

"Kelsey? You ok?" asked Tori.

"Yeah. Just a little cold is all."

"It's about that dream isn't it?" Tori could always tell when I was lying to her.

"How did you know?"

"I just know. What happened? That dream must have scared you pretty bad. What was it about?"

"I dreamt that I was at a funeral. My family and the gang were there. Then I found out that it was my funeral. I don't know how I died. But then the funeral disappeared and I saw two newspapers. I couldn't read the headlines but they both had pictures. One was dated 1966 and had a picture of my with a sad expression. The other was dated 2006 and had a picture of my family. They were all really happy."

"Maybe they were happy about the fact that you died" said Tori, jokingly.

I took my pillow and hit her as hard as I could.

"OWWW! I was only kidding" said Tori, grabbing her arm where I had hit her.

"I'm being serious. What do you think it meant?"

"I don't know. It was probably just some dream. It probably didn't mean anything." When Tori said that, someone starting pounding on the wall from the other room.

"You two go to bed! It's getting late! Don't make me come in there!" yelled Soda from the other room.

"Since when do we listen to you?" I yelled right back.

I could hear Soda and everyone else laughing in the next room.

"Seriously y'all go to bed" yelled Soda after he stopped laughing.

"All right, we're going."

Tori and I fell asleep without any interruptions. I tossed and turned all night that night.