Read Online Dreaming of Amelia by Jaclyn Moriarty - Free Book Online

World champion swimmers join Ashbury in Year 12? I mean, come on.
    Yet I, alone, it seemed, was alone.
    Nobody else seemed to care. Lyd and Cass humoured me because they have to. They’re my friends. But others? Well, I remember saying to one person, ‘Where do you think Riley and Amelia
came
from?’ And that person immediately began to explain the mysteries of human reproduction. (I stopped him, of course.)
    In English, I continued to watch Amelia while she continued to watch Mr Botherit.
    In History, I was unable to watch Amelia because she sat behind me. And she was exasperating in that she sometimes didn’t come to class at all. And when she did, she never said a word and therefore did not give me an excuse to turn my head and look.
    But one day, Amelia spoke.
    It happened like this.
    We had just written a deconstructive analysis of three different perspectives on a relevant historical event. That wasteaching us what History is. (It’s nothing. It doesn’t exist. That’s my conclusion.)
    So, we had just done that and Mr Garcia, our History teacher, was jumping around like a child who has eaten the whole box of Smarties. (Mr Garcia is a lively man and hates having to be quiet for half an hour while people work.)
    â€˜So!’ he exclaimed. ‘Everyone has written the analysis, I think?!’
    At this, a sleepy, husky voice spoke.
    â€˜Does it count if you dreamed that you wrote it?’ said the voice.
    I turned around.
    It was Amelia.
    Oh, profound and beautiful mystery. What did she mean?
    I gazed at her with fascination. She was blinking her sleepy eyes.
    Mr Garcia looked startled. Then he continued with his class. (This was unexpected. Usually he leaps on surprises and follows them wherever they lead.)
    Afterwards, someone told me that Amelia had put her head on the desk and fallen asleep at the start of the class.
    She must have dreamed she wrote the analysis.
    And yet, even this told me little about her. (Except that she was tired and has mysterious dreams. Me too, sometimes, and so, I’m sure, do you.)
    And then! Pay heed, my gothic reader!
    A couple of days after this, my dad drove me to school. I waved absent-mindedly to him as I wandered away from the car.
    I was recalling to myself that this was the morning of the Zone swimming carnival. I knew that Riley and Amelia would swim like the wind, but yet? Their fame would notbe resuscitated. Oh, in the next day or two there’d be an announcement at assembly — maybe a note in the school newsletter — but amidst the students? Barely a ripple. I knew that nobody else — not even Cass and Lydia — would know that the Zones were on today.
    Such is the nature of events outside school grounds. They mean almost nothing to humanity.
    Anyway, I was sunk in thoughtful melancholy about this, when Lyd appeared beside me at the school gate.
    We chatted as we walked, and then Lyd said, like an idling car: ‘Oh yeah, and they’re from Brookfield.’
    â€˜Who?’
    She looked sideways at me.
    â€˜Amelia and Riley?’ I whispered. I stopped still.
    â€˜I ran into Seb at a petrol station last night,’ she explained, still walking, only more slowly so I could hear her from my frozenness. ‘He says they were enrolled at Brookfield but they never showed up.’
    I was shocked, confused, all manner of impossibilities — but you, dear reader, might just be confused. For you do not know this Brookfield!
    So, please be patient and I will explain a background tale. And if you are frustrated by this detour? Let me remind you that the great gothic novel,
The Mysteries of Udolpho
, is 704 pages, at least half of which pages are completely irrelevant descriptions of the weather.
    So, I take you by the hand and lead you to a time two years ago. This was when we were in Year 10, and our English teacher, Mr Botherit, compelled us to write letters to the public school down the road.
    Brookfield is a den