The Dream Bearer by Walter Dean Myers Page B

like something made up. They seem to come from someplace deep inside of him.”
    â€œMy grandmother said she once knew a woman who died of grief two days after her husband,” Sessi said.
    â€œWas she old?” Loren asked.
    â€œThe woman who died?”
    â€œYour grandmother,” Loren said.
    â€œShe is really old.” Sessi wiped at the tip of her nose with her finger. “I know she was seventy-two last year, because we received a card from her family.”
    â€œSeventy-two isn’t old,” Loren said. “Mr. Moses said he’s about three hundred years old.”
    â€œNobody is that old,” Sessi said.
    â€œDid the woman get weak before she died?” I asked.
    â€œMy grandmother didn’t say,” Sessi said. “And I don’t want to talk about it anymore. You know, it’s bad to talk about the dead.”
    â€œThat sounds like more African stuff.” Loren gave me a look. He seemed uncomfortable. “You want to come to my house and watch television?”
    â€œDo you have people in Africa who keep dreams?” I asked Sessi. “Mr. Moses said that it’s his responsibility toremember all these dreams.”
    â€œHow is it his responsibility?” Sessi asked. “Nobody should have to dream if they don’t want to. If I had to dream when I didn’t want to, I wouldn’t want to go to sleep.”
    â€œHe calls them dreams, but when I think about them, the way he tells them, they’re like a way of seeing into people, a way of knowing what their visions are all about,” I answered.
    â€œI don’t want to dream anything bad.” Kimi was getting nervous. “When I go to bed, I don’t want to dream at all. All I want to do is sleep.”
    â€œSome people believe in magic.” Sessi leaned forward. “In Africa there are people who say they can see the future in their dreams.”
    â€œI’ve never heard of that.” Loren was shaking his head.
    â€œIt’s not something you put into the papers, silly,” Sessi said. “Especially in the United States, because nobody believes anything in this country.”
    â€œWe could take a collection for him,” Kimi said.
    â€œMy father says that people have to make their own way in the world, and you shouldn’t help everybody just because they look sad,” Loren said. “He doesn’t like people begging.”
    â€œHe gets mad at them?” Kimi asked.
    â€œHe doesn’t go off like David’s father,” Loren said.
    As soon as the words came out of his mouth, Lorenknew they were wrong. They made me feel terrible. The tears came to my eyes and they were burning, and I wanted to hit Loren for saying what he did. Sessi looked at me and saw how I felt and tried to put her arm around me. I pushed her away and then I got up and started downstairs.
    Loren is my best friend and I like him so much, and he knows everything about me and I know everything about him, but sometimes there are things we don’t talk about. One of those things is Reuben.
    I didn’t like Loren talking about Reuben, but by the time I got downstairs, I wasn’t upset about it. Just thinking about what Reuben might do, and never knowing at any moment just how he would act, kept me a little nervous. I had some milk and a banana and then checked my e-mail and found a message from Loren. It said, “I’m sorry.” There was a sad-face symbol next to it.
    Mom had folded my pajamas and put them on the end of the bed. I put them on and lay across the bed. I was thinking about what Sessi had said, that no one should have to dream if they didn’t want to, including Mr. Moses.
    The dreams were important to Mr. Moses, but they were things he had seen and done, or at least things that he knew about. They were his dreams. He said he was tired of having them, that he had been a dream bearer for hundreds of years and wanted to pass them on. But