"Only A Dream" ?
At that point I couldn't understand why my parents, and even Darren and Deidre, had all stopped whatever they were doing and were staring at me, all in stark silence. What had I said that caused such a reaction? My parents happy faces had completely vanished and the twins were now actually paying attention to me.
"What's wrong?" I asked, blankly, momentarily losing my common sense. I could've worded that question much better had I not been so confused at the time. The silence seemed to continue for what felt like hours. What was probably seconds later, my father clearly forced the smile back onto his face.
"Nothing is wrong, Doll. Now come on, it's a lovely sunny day outside – why don't you go and play outside with your friends from school?" Whatever had just happened then was clearly something I wasn't going to find out anything more about. My mother also pressured a faint smile back onto her face. After failing to act as well as my father, my mother quickly resigned herself to clearing all the dishes from the table.
I could think of nothing to say that didn't seem prying. I didn't want my parents angry at me and so I too resigned myself. I stood up and flashed a look at Darren and Deidre. They quickly looked away, and to each other – knowingly. Why did they know something I didn't?
As I began to exit the kitchen, my father called me back. I turned round and saw his expressionless face look at me, then look away again. "Forget about your dream. After all, it was only a dream." I nodded towards Daddy after he again looked to me for acknowledgement.
Instead of going outside I walked up to my bedroom quietly and sat on my bed, feeling strangely tired all of a sudden. I thought about what had just happened downstairs. I wasn't stupid and I knew that the chances of me finding out exactly what happened were extremely unlikely. And then I thought that the chances of whatever it was that had happened were of fundamental importance was also unlikely.
After persuading myself that this was indeed the truth, I decided to myself that I wouldn't waste time musing over the whole situation. I knew that Mom and Dad wouldn't purposefully keep a secret from me if there wasn't a point to it. Chances were there probably was no secret. Chances were I had just imagined that whole fiasco…I had had an overactive imagination at the time.
At that point I decided to take my father's advice and go outside, to meet some friends and to forget about the events of this morning. But I wouldn't forget the dream. I couldn't forget the dream. 'Foxworth Hall' was so beautiful. It was the perfect dream. And I promised myself that I would never forget a single detail of the mansion and it's garden as long as I lived. Place's like that only exist in dream and fairy tale, I told myself as I left my bedroom and wandered back down the stairs.
I left the house thinking of that garden and continued to do so as I walked along the street I knew so well. It lead straight to a lovely little scenic park that had once almost been demolished. My mother and father, I remember, had been furious and had organized a protest. And when I saw friends in the park, I then forget about the details of the dream as I used this time to get away from something that now seemed an important to my life – and yet it was something I'd been told to forget.