CHAPTER 1: A DESPERATE SITUATION
I am walking to Beth Tfiloh, which is the Jewish day school that I attended from 1st grade through 9th grade. This school taught pre-school through 12th grade until 2003, when the school board decided to open a new campus in the Glyndon area. Now, that campus is where students below 5th Grade go to school if they attend BT. As I approach the intersection where Lightfoot Drive and Old Court Road intersect at a "T" intersection, I think I see someone in the woods across the street, but I cannot be sure. Oh! By the way, today is the first day of President George W. Bush's second term in the White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, and consequently, there is a layer of white snow covering the ground.
Now, the big question: why would I be walking toward my former school? Well, everyone misses me there, and since I get out of school 2 hours before they do, I decided to make the fifteen-minute journey from Pikesville High School to Beth Tfiloh Day School to say "Hello" to everyone. Well, I didn't quite make it that far in this dream.
Anyway, I see someone in the woods, so naturally, I assume that someone was visiting the Rabbi, since he lives practically next door to the school. Once I cross Old Court Road, I reach the snow-covered concrete steps that lead to a sidewalk that then follows Old Court until it gets to Heming Way, which is the front entrance to BT's campus.
As I walk up the first step, I see that the person might be within calling distance, but I cannot be sure, since the snow has screwed by depth-perception. So, I call to the person, who seems to have seen me and is walking in my direction. "Hey" I call. That's how I say 'Hi!' if I'm not thinking too hard about it. As the person approaches the metal handrail, I can see that the person is definitely female, wearing pink shoulder- and elbow-pads. She is definitely under-dressed for the weather. She replies, saying something that I don't understand, though it sounds like Japanese (I don't actually know the language, but I have a way of recognizing languages. Actually, EVERYTHING sounds like Japanese to those who don't understand it, but that is besides the point.). Now I see that she looks vaguely familiar, and especially with the Japanese language... Sango! Unfortunately, we speak different languages, so that is a dilemma. So, I go to plan B: If we cannot communicate verbally, then I'll have to read her body language, and communicate back the same way. I wave to her, and she breaks into a sprint, running toward me. She again tells me something, and while I know that communicating orally is futile, it is the only that she will figure out that I do not understand what she is saying.
The good news, however, is that I can try guess what she is trying to say"Hi, mister. I'm lost and I was wondering if you can give me directions." Of course, all of my guesses are based entirely on what I think I would say if I were in her shoes. Speaking of which, I instinctively looked down, to see that she is wearing sandals! Yes, she is definitely not dressed for this snowy winter day. I bite my lip, and in English I say "My name is Ben, I live right down that road there (pointing to Lightfoot Drive), and I while I don't understand a word you are saying, I will certainly try to help you as best I can." She looks back at me like I'm crazy; as if to say "And in my language that means..."
Logically, if she is so inappropriately dressed for the weather, she must not have had much choice in what to wear today. That means she came from somewhere else: either she just "popped" into existence out of thin air, or she got kicked out of her house until whenever someone felt like letting her back in. Guess which one would be believed more easily? Right. Of course, since she speaks a language that sounds like gibberish, and appeared out of nowhere that I can discern, I might as well have found a stray, but I don't think so. No one's going believe this, of course, so so-much for my trip to visit my own past at BT. I realize that I cannot just leave her out in the cold here, so I give her a friendly smile, and I beckon and gesture back the way I came. She looks unsure of herself, so I try to smile reassuringly. Yeah, right. I probably look like I'm trying to seduce her. I hope she forgives me. I repeat my first gesture (back toward my house), and finally she makes up her mind: she wants me to show me where she came from. At least, that's what her own gesture seems to imply.
So, I duck under the railing, and we follow a frozen stream for a while (and I mean a while), until we come to a place deep in the woods. There is a hole in the ground, and I wonder whether she is kidding. But then again, she is definitely not from a house, because then she would have been wearing something a wee bit more suitable for the cold weather. She jumps into the hole, and of course nothing happens. She looks up at me, and I wonder whether she is serious about asking me to go into the hole with her.
The hole is certainly deep enough to stand in; she is about my height, and she is only up to her hips, and it is not as though we'd be squashed together if I go in. I walk around the hole, and I see that there are no other adjoining burrows. So how could she have come from here? Well, either she did, or I completely misinterpreted her invitation. I jump in and I give her the raised-eyebrow look (oô). She starts digging, and looks back up at me as if to say "Aren't you going to help me" As much as I think this is nuts, I can't go back now.
We dig through the thin layer of snow, but the ground is frozen solid, so I stop digging after awhile and tap her on the shoulder again, again giving her the eyebrow. Now, she really looks cold: her face is flushed, and she is shivering. Oh, boy. I came all the way out here to help her dig a hole in the ground, and now, she's freezing to death! I hope I didn't come all the way out here to help some poor soul dig her own grave. I gesture for her to follow me as I climb out of the hole (which has not gotten much deeper), but she shakes her head stubbornly, and says something in her native language. Judging from her insistent tone of voice, I take that to mean that she wants to keep digging. I look into her eyes, and I see a tear. I don't think she's saddened that I'm about to give up on her. I think she's more scared about something. Well, the only house around here belongs to my Rabbi, and this girl is most definitely not being forced by him to dig a hole. Maybe that other house down there? I'm looking downhill from where we are, though 'downhill' doesn't say much because the ground is only slightly steep. I can see another rancher (You know? Those one-story houses), but there's clearly no one home. I purse lip and shake my head to communicate the pointlessness of this task. I gesture for her to follow me, and again, she stubbornly refuses. I pretend to shiver, and then point at her to emphasize "You're freezing! You can't stay out here" She reluctantly concedes, and comes out of the hole.
I smile slightly ("Good girl") and then I put my gloves in my coat pockets and took off my coat. I hold it behind her with one hand, and with my other, I gently guide her left arm into the corresponding sleeve. She is clearly suspicious, and that tells me that she either is not used to kindness, or she doesn't know what a coat like this is for. Unfortunately, her elbow pads won't fit, so I have to throw my coat over my own shoulder, and I gesture that her elbow pad is in the way. She figures it out on her own, and she takes off the pads on her shoulders and elbows. Then she takes the coat off of my shoulder, and puts it on all by herself, watching me the whole time to see how badly I react. Once it is on, I zip it up for her, and I demonstrate how the zipper works, since she looks at me as though I were trying to trap her.
I'm not cold yet because I'm wearing a kind of shirt that I fondly refer to as a "fuzzy" because that's exactly what it feels like. I am also wearing blue-jeans, and those are warm enough for now, though they are wet below the knees because a slipped earlier today, when I was going up the ramp to my chemistry class in "Educational Cottage 3". Why it is called that, I may never know. The "cottage" is more like a trailer that you would see at a construction site, where the contractor's office is. Because of this, the students at Pikesville High School refer to these mobile classrooms as "trailers" despite he school's attempt to indoctrinate us into calling them "ECs" or "Educational Cottages". I will only consider changing that word (indoctrinate) if another intelligent PHS student throws a hissy-fit that that word is too strong. But let's get back on topic…
The girl is now wearing my coat and gloves, and she really looks a lot more comfortable now. I led her back the way we came, following our footprints back to Old Court Road. After ducking under the metal railing, we stand at the edge of the pavement. I look both ways, and I hear something coming from behind the hill. It is nearly impossible to see incoming vehicles at this crosswalk, and the girl was about to cross the street. I stopped her by sticking my arm out in front of her. I think she got the message that to cross was dangerous because she stopped walking, and looked in the direction where I was looking. When she heard the noise, she pulled her humungous boomerang off her back, and looked like she was about the throw the darned thing!
It was hard for me to believe that that thing would actually fly, but I have watched Lockheed Martin's C-17A transports take off from Andrew's Air Force Base near Washington D.C., and if those things can get off the ground, then certainly this boomerang could fly. Actually, I've watched the special features on the second Inuyasha movie's DVD, and I knew that this boomerang thing would fly. She raised the darned thing and was about to throw it at the oncoming vehicle but—
"NOOOOOOOOO!" It was like slow motion. I was just barely able to block her before she loosed her boomerang at the Chevy Suburban that just passed. Actually "blocking" makes it sound a bit too heroic. It was more like I got hit by the boomerang. On the bright side, at least my coat hampered her arm action, so the hit wasn't too hard. But it still hurt! I lost my balance and landed in the snow. Bitch! Now I'm cold! Thank goodness that was the only car coming at the moment. Otherwise, we'd probably get hauled into court for breaking a windshield or two, and… let's not think about that. Anyway, I looked up and she was glaring at me. So, I glared back. Now see here, Miss! This is my world, and while I don't care whether you've ever heard of an automobile, I do know that you could have gotten us into a crapload of trouble just now, and I hope to high heaven that you know what "trouble" means! I thought. But rather than shout at her, and possibly earn another bruise from that boomerang thing, all I did was…
"Come on," I grumbled, not caring whether she heard me or not, as I led her across the street. Or thought I was. I was halfway across when I looked back, and she was still standing there, at the other side! How exasperating! "Come on!" I called, and gestured with my right hand over my head. She looked both ways nervously and jogged across to catch up. As we walked down the first hill following Lightfoot Drive, I wondered to myself how we were ever going to figure out how to communicate, and how in the world I would ever find out where she had come from. This whole damned experience was insane! Every so often, I would look around to make sure she was still there, so that I would have my coat with me tomorrow at school. I hadn't thought about actually bringing her to school tomorrow, but now… oh crap! This would just keep getting more and more interesting. Now, the cold air was beginning to get to me where my skin was exposed (my face and hands). Brrrr.
The girl said something but I was too busy with my own thoughts to hear her. She grabbed my shoulder, so I stopped walking and turned around. She said it again and shrugged. What she had asked, I may never know. But it was clear that she had asked me a question, so I assumed she had asked where we were going. Just to make sure, I held my hand up to my ear as if I hadn't her the first (or second) time. She repeated herself (well, it sounded the same) so I repeated it back to her with a degree of modest uncertainty. She repeated herself much more forcefully and gestured all around her. Aha. Just checking, whoever-you-are. So I answered in English, and in my best ASL (American Sign Language): "We-" I gestured toward each of us "-are going-" one hand 'walking' on my other hand (you know: the 2-finger man thing) "-to-" I gestured over the hill next hill "-my-" I gestured toward myself with both hands "-house." I finished by making a pentagon in the air with my hands. She nodded, and I felt relieved while hoping that I hadn't been misinterpreted. Then she said something else, and gestured first by shrugging, and then by pointing over the hill. I hope that meant she wanted to know how much farther. If only I had a watch. I held up nine fingers to mean "nine minutes" and I hoped time was measured accordingly wherever she had come from. But, apparently, one of two possible mistakes had just happened, because she just stared at me. I gritted my teeth, hoped for the best, and said "let's go" while gesturing over the hill. I hope we would come to some understanding so talking would become exponentially easier in time. We kept walking, and I silently thanked G-d that she was physically fit, else she would be huffing and puffing by now, and we would be slowed down quite badly. Anyway, when we came to the top of the hill, where the road came to another intersection, this time where Midfield intersected Lightfoot. (2589 words) I wrapped my right arm around her shoulders and pointed with my left hand at the intersection at the bottom of the hill, where Lightfoot Drive intersected Carla Road. Now that I think about it, the strange girl did look quite comfortable wearing my coat. When she saw where I was pointing, she smiled. I found out after the jog to the bottom of the slope that she thought I had pointed to the house at the intersection because when I gestured that we still had to follow another road up the next hill and turn left at the top, she glared at me harshly. I closed my eyes for a moment and said a silent prayer, baruch Hashem we are almost there. I held up my thumb and my pointer-finger on my right hand with a small space in between. "We're almost there. Just this hill and a little bit farther." She probably didn't have the faintest idea what I had said, but the look on her face said it all: You had damn well better be right this time, boy, or I'll… I'll think of something unpleasant to do to you. Naturally, I smiled good-naturedly at her, and she took a swing at my face. I easily blocked it, but I got her message: HURRY UP, BOY! She got ahead of me when we went up the hill, leaving me on the verge of breathlessness at the top. On reflection, I always get tired going up this hill. I hate that hill! But as tired as I was, I started running when we got to the top. Here was the intersection of Carla and Labyrinth Road. And I live on Labyrinth Road! I ran until I could only jog, and then I pointed at a certain house a little more than halfway down the street: my house! I looked for the girl, and she was right there, pacing me the whole time! She was really fit! She looked at me like "What are you waiting for?" and she took off. Dammit. I was half tired-out from going up that hill, so I ran as best as I could, which was still pretty fast, to catch up with her. But when I did, she was walking, passing the third house from the end of the street. She was looking skeptically at each house. I looked at her, and it took me a moment to realize what was wrong: she had probably never seen a car before in her life! When she looked at me, I just shook my head: you're a nut, girl. That is all I have to say to you right now. You're a nut, and I grabbed her gloved hand, as we ran toward my home.
I ran up the driveway and raced to the side entrance. It was good to be home, even if I had this strange girl with me. I unzipped my shirt a little bit and reached inside to find the lanyard on which I wear my house key. I unlocked the house and took down the note that I had attached to the glass door. The note was so Mom would know that I would be at Beth Tfiloh visiting my friends, but evidently that hadn't happened. I walked past the door to pick up the rest of my books, backpack, AlphaSmart, and lunchbox, which I had dropped off inside the sun-room before initially hiking to Beth Tfiloh after school. By the time I had picked up my stuff, the girl had already entered the sun-porch (NOTE: I will use "sun-room" and "sun-porch" interchangeably because they/it are/is the same room). Now, I had the lanyard wrapped around my wrist so that I could not drop the key. I walked over to the door to the rest of the house, and the girl stood to the side to let me pass. How respectful. Instead of leaving, however, I turned and opened the glass door to enter the house. I put the key in the whole and unlocked both locks, and then I stepped inside just as the house alarm went off. I disarmed it in seconds, and I pushed the inner door the rest of the way open so I could take off my shoes and put on the moccasins that mom gave me for the holidays. I invited the girl inside and I pushed the door closed behind her, forgetting to lock it!
Now that we were inside, the first place I went was to my room to put my all of my school stuff down. I had anticipated that the girl would follow me, and I was not disappointed. I then walked back into the hallway, turning on the light as I passed the switch, and I opened the coat closet and pulled out a hanger. How to communicate that I was going to hang up the coat, I had no idea, so I simply tugged on the sleeve, and she immediately tried to take it off, forgetting that it was zipped. When she started tugging her arm out, I said "Wait! Hold on a second!" I might have said it too loudly since the house was deserted except for the two of us, but she stopped and looked at me. I wasn't sure whether she was pissed, or scared, but I knew that I needed to get my coat back before something happened to it. I reached forward, slowly and explaining to her in English (though I doubt she understands) that I'm going to take the coat off of her and hang it up. But she doesn't get the message and takes a nervous step backwards. I stopped moving, and then I mime unzipping the coat and taking it off, hoping that she doesn't think that I'm telling her to strip.
Well, the message got across on my second try, and I helped her to start unzipping the coat before she figured out the rest of it. I took the coat from her and hung it on a hanger in the coat closet. That done, I negotiated my way to the kitchen, where I removed two Tupperware™ mugs from the back of the middle cabinet. Then I walked to the pantry and picked up two packets of Swiss Miss® Hot Chocolate. The stuff's not Kosher, but I want to use it up quickly. One packet is emptied into each mug and after that, I put first the pink mug then the blue mug under the 190° (Fahrenheit) water tap. Believe it or not, as old as my house is, it actually has an instant-hot water tap! After removing two teaspoons from the "Dairy" cabinet, I place one in each mug and I stir up the hot chocolate. The whole time, I was always keeping the girl within my peripheral line of sight, lest she break something accidentally. I kept stirring the hot drinks, and then an idea hit me: why not let her know what I'm doing? At least keep her suspicions down. So, I invited her take a whiff of the drink. I know that she has never had hot chocolate before because the cacao nuts come from South America, which is only on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, after all. Apparently, she thinks it smells good because I can hear her taking another whiff. She looks at me, and her eyes say it all: This smells good! What is this stuff? I just smile and lick my lips: I'll give you a hint: it tastes good. She pulls the spoon out of the blue mug and is about to lick it (and burn her tongue), but I catch her hand. She lets go, thinking that I'm telling her "don't lick that", but then I take her wrist with my other hand, and hold it out under the spoon. Then, I let go of her, and I demonstrate using my own finger to collect the liquid on the spoon, ignoring the burn so she'll willingly follow suit.
I held the spoon out in front of her when I finished my demonstration, and she followed my example, though she also ignored the pain from touching the hot spoon. When she finally licked her finger, she apparently agreed that the stuff tasted good because of the way her eyes lit up. Good news. I put the spoon back in the cup, and we walked out of the kitchen, and into the dining room. On one side of the wooden table in there, there were two chairs, so I decided we ought to sit there. For the next fifteen-or-so minutes, we just sat there, stirring or sipping our hot chocolate.
It was after 3:00 when we finished. I was rinsing the cups out when I looked at the clock next to the second oven. It would still be two more hours before Dad would come home, so I figured I'd better get some homework done. I walked back to my room and I unpacked my backpack. Half way through the process of unpacking, I realized that I would rather not give anybody any false impressions regarding what this girl and I had been doing in the house, so I repacked everything and carried my pack to the living room. I thought this was a good idea because this room is also warmer than my bedroom, and because it is much more roomier than my bedroom. I think this is so, because the furnace is directly below the living room.(4381 words; includes AN) Anyway, I began working on my math homework. The inconsistency here is that we didn't start learning about trigonometric identities until last week (Jan 23-29, 2005), but this dream apparently took place on January 20, 2005, and that was the day before my math mid-term. This is so confusing. Maybe this all took place on a different date and my introductory paragraph is wrong. Who knows! Whatever. Anyway, the first math problem was something like this (and I know this because the dream was quite vivid at this part):
21. tanθsecθ
cosθ
The answer is "tanθsec2θ", but I decided to do an experiment to see how much of the written symbolic language this girl knew. On separate sheet of loose-leaf paper, I copied the problem and showed the steps that I used to get to my answer:
21. tanθsecθ sinθ x 1
cosθ cosθ cosθ sinθ x 1 sinθ
cosθ cos2θ cosθ cos3θ
sinθ sinθ x 1 x 1
cos3θ cosθ cosθ cosθ tanθ x secθ x secθ tanθsec2θ
tanθ sinθ/cosθ
secθ 1/cosθ
Of course, on loose-leaf paper, my work would be a bit easier to comprehend, even for someone who has never heard of "math", simply because I would be able to fit all of the nitty-gritty details onto the page. I decided to use ""s rather than "" because it's simply more common than the "" in the every-day world. And by the way, this whole time, she's sitting next to me, watching my work and trying to figure it out for herself.
After the next few problems, she looks at me quizzically, trying to ask me a question. Unfortunately, I'm too engrossed in the homework to notice, so her attention wanders to… my Lego™ X–Wing set (the one with 1,704 pieces), which is sitting on its mount on top of the wooden shelf that holds the stereo system. I do not know that she picked up the model until I feel a hard "thump" on my back. I reached my hand back to find out what it was–
But her hand got there first, so when I touched her hand I rolled onto my side so that I could look in that direction, she lost her grip on the model, and dropped it on me!
"OUCH!" I shouted. I was surprised by that, and it hurt. Did she HAVE to drop that heavy thing on me? I was not ticked yet; actually, it takes a lot more to tick me off. Apparently, I scared her when I shouted because she immediately covered her mouth with both of her hands, grabbed her sack, or whatever it was that she uses to carry her change of clothes, and she ran to the door, jerking the knob in a futile attempt to open it. I ran to intercept her, cutting through the dining room where she couldn't see me. When I came around the corner, she jumped backward and suddenly a switchblade knife appeared in her hand! I had no idea where that came from, but apparently I scared her pretty badly when I shouted a few moments ago. Stay calm, Ben. You can do this, just stay calm. She just wants to get out of the house. Keeping my eyes on her, I reached slowly to twist the door knob and open the door. On the sun-porch, I opened that door, and she ran out and down the street without looking back.
-
The whole time, I knew this girl was Sango, because of her armor, hairstyle, and her inability to understand me.
Two days after dreaming all of this, I realized that we (Sango and I) hadn't passed any other cars during the hike back to my house, which was strange since the route we took is commonly used by motorists as a shortcut from Smith Avenue to Old Court Road. I will attribute this to the fact that it was all a dream, and therefore this absence of motor vehicles had to do with either the fact that I took for granted all the motor vehicles that I would have normally passed, or that I had not wanted anymore vehicles to pass us, lest the dream become so complicated.