Disney at Dawn by Ridley Pearson Page B

indicating the upper right-hand corner of the photocopy. “That’s a castle and a lightning bolt.”
    “That’s what I told you about,” Amanda said. “And look down here.” She pointed to what was obviously a monkey.
    “Yeah, but this could be coincidence, right?” Philby said, sounding somewhat apprehensive. “Are we actually going to believe a person can see into the future?”
    Finn looked over at him with a dumbfounded expression.
    “Okay, okay. But it doesn’t mean everything on this page is significant,” Philby protested.
    “How do we know it isn’t?” Finn asked.
    “This is several nights’ worth of dreams,” Amanda said. “You can tell because some are pencil, some pen. The movie tickets and postcards—that stuff is memories, reminders.”
    “But what about this decal, or whatever it is?” Finn asked.
    “No idea. A stamp, maybe,” Amanda said.
    The letters were reversed, the image backward.
    “There’s a tiger, a gorilla, and…what’s this, a bowling pin?” Finn turned the page upside down, but couldn’t quite tell what he was looking at.
    “I think they’re all clues,” Amanda said.
    Philby exhaled loudly, so as to be noticed. “We all want to find her, Amanda. But if we go chasing down sketches from her diary, then that’s a lot of valuable time that could have been spent looking for her.”
    “I think we can trust this,” she said.
    “We need more proof,” Philby complained.
    “We have a castle and a lightning bolt!” Finn pointed out.
    “On opposite corners of the page. There’s also an aqueduct, some balloons, and a railroad track.”
    “These are dreams, not instant replays,” Amanda told Philby. “She had visions. Glimpses. How much of your dreams, your nightmares, do you remember? Bits and pieces are what I get. Sometimes more than that, a piece of a story, but not that often. Maybe we all dream pieces of the future but just don’t happen to know it. How often do we write them down or make sketches and keep track? She left us clues, Philby.” She waved the photocopy in the air. “This is the map of her dreams. Maybe she didn’t know she was leaving it for us, but there’s no ignoring the castle and the lightning, is there? So maybe not everything on here is helpful. It probably isn’t. But we won’t know that until we check it out. Right? We’ve got to check out each thing on here, because if even one other thing on this page can help us find her—” She covered her mouth with her fist, on the verge of crying.
    “I’m just saying we don’t have much time. I’m nodding out like every other minute. We fall asleep and we may stay asleep forever. That’s what Wayne said. I just want us to use our time efficiently, that’s all.” He studied the sheet. “For instance, who’s Rob?” In several places on the cluttered page Jez had written, Change Rob.
    “Rob Bernowski,” Amanda said. “From school.”
    “A friend? Boyfriend? Or what?” Philby asked.
    “A little of both, I think.”
    “And she wants to change him? And this is relevant to us, how?”
    “I don’t know. Sure, I guess. She put that into the journal in a bunch of places.” Amanda opened up the journal and flipped through several pages around the ones they had copied. “The way she writes it, it’s like she’s really set on it.”
    “So are we supposed to talk to Rob about this?” Philby asked sarcastically. “You think Rob has her?”
    Amanda glared at him.
    Finn asked, “What can it hurt to call him? I don’t see why we don’t follow up on everything we can. Am I missing something? What if this is important, and we ignore it?”
    “That’s why you called the meeting, isn’t it?” Philby asked. “I say we put it to a vote. We could spend all day chasing a bunch of meaningless ramblings, and we haven’t got all day. How much longer can we stay awake?” He yawned, and then Finn and Amanda yawned right along with him.
    “Stop it,” Finn said.
    “We’re out of time