Read Online Across the Universe by Beth Revis - Free Book Online Page B

home.
    Grandma looks up at me and smiles—
     
    And sometimes I’ll lose the dream right then, because having Grandma again is the most unbelievable part of any dream—
    She smiles, and it seems to make all her wrinkles disappear.
    “Let’s go!” Daddy says. He’s dressed in sweats. He jogs a little in place, and his sneakers squeak on the linoleum. Then Mom runs up behind him in running shorts and a sports bra—
     
    And sometimes I lose the dream there, because Mom never ran with me, it was always just me and Daddy—
     
    And we start running.
    And the new world spreads out around us as we run. It’s always beautiful. It’s the best parts of home made better. It’s sandy beaches where the sand doesn’t slip under our racing feet and the water’s gold, not blue. It’s cool forests with breezes that smell like lemons and honey, where strange woodland animals with soft fur play with us. It’s deserts with towering sand sculptures that offer us sweet water to drink.
    The new world is always beautiful, always perfect.
     
    And if I’m lucky, the dream stays here.
     
    I’m not always lucky.
     
    As we run, the path curves around. We start to circle back. And I see our house, a mixed-up house that looks a little like our home in Florida where we lived when I was young, but it’s brick like the one in Colorado, and Grandma’s on the porch, waving and calling us in.
    And Mom leaves the path and goes to the house.
    “Come on,” Daddy says, and he jogs up the steps of the porch.
    But I can’t quit running. My feet won’t turn toward home.
    I can’t stop.
    I have to race, round and round, in a world that’s beautiful and serene and perfect.
    I try to stop. I circle back to the house, and Mom and Grandma and Daddy are there, eating pancakes, and sometimes Jason’s there too, and my dog from when I was little, and my friends from high school.
    And I can’t stop.
     
    Because sometimes the dreams of the new world turn into nightmares.

10
    ELDER
    ELDEST HAS APPARENTLY DECIDED TO PUNISH ME WITH LESSONS. He was silent during the long ride up the elevator, and did nothing but grunt at me in disdain when I tried to question him about the girl as he led me down the path from the Hospital to the grav tube. Now, in the Learning Center, he throws me into the hard blue plastic chair beside the faded globe of Sol-Earth.
    I start to ask about the girl again, but Eldest collapses in the chair opposite me, shifting his weight uneasily. He grimaces as he props his leg up on the globe. His shoe covers Australia.
    “Well?” Eldest growls.
    “What?” I am unable to keep the whine from my voice.
    “Well, did you figure out the third cause of discord?”
    “No,” I say, my eyes on the mountainous bumps on the globe.
    “Oh, so you had plenty of time to go poking around places you don’t belong but not to do the one thing I asked you to?” Eldest’s sarcasm is cruel; he spits the words out at me.
    “Why didn’t you tell me about that hidden level filled with frozen people ?” I shout back. “I’m the next frexing leader of this ship! I should know everything about it!”
    “You should know everything, huh? Then why don’t you tell me the third cause of discord?”
    “I don’t know!” I shout.
    “Then stay here and learn!” Eldest roars, and he throws a floppy at me, its screen already flashing Sol-Earth history. Before I can hurl it back at Eldest, he tears from the room, knocking over the globe on his way out. Sol-Earth spins in his wake, a blue-green nothing, clattering against the table’s leg.
    Eldest’s temper is worse because he’s held it in until we were in private. I know that if we weren’t here, in the Keeper Level, alone, he wouldn’t have spoken like that.
    Eldest leaves the Learning Center door open, and as he storms away, my eyes drift up to the metal screen, behind which are the twinkling lightbulbs I thought were stars.
    Why lie about the screen, about the hidden level of the ship?
    And