Read Online The Dream Bearer by Walter Dean Myers - Free Book Online Page B

the news or the weather but that little scene, the house and family and all, is still in your head. You think you got it pushed out, but it’s just out of the front of your mind and pushed down into your subconscious mind and you dream about it. They got you dreaming about what they want you to dream about, so they’re controlling you.”
    â€œOh.”
    He kept on talking about how people were trying to control him, and I was getting a little scared. He said Mom was trying to control him too.
    â€œWho is supposed to be the man of the family?” he asked.
    â€œYou are.”
    â€œNow if I’m supposed to be the man of the family and she’s standing up against me, then we’re fighting about who the man is,” he said. “She’s keeping me off balance. Just like you’re playing ball and somebody tries to go around you. They move this way and that way and you’re trying to follow them, and if you lose your balance they go around you. You don’t have to lose it big-time, just a little, and they’re gone. Then, if they don’t want to go around you, if all they want to do is control you, they act like they’re going around you but then they don’t go. That’s what she’s doing. Yeah.”
    He looked like he was getting mad. I tried to act like I wasn’t scared or anything.
    The faster Reuben talked, the more donuts he ate. He finished them all and then he said he had to clean the bathroom. He told me I could go over to Loren’s house if I wanted.
    I wondered what kinds of dreams Reuben had. When I thought about him dreaming, I thought of him having a storm in his head, with lightning and far-off thunder and the wind blowing big raindrops in your face and abigger storm coming just down the street, just around the corner, like a monster waiting for you. I thought Reuben dreamed of monsters that scared him.
    They scared me, too.
    Â 
    Me and Loren took Kimi and Sessi over to the park. We tried to teach Kimi how to play basketball, but all he wanted to do was to write down the rules in a notebook he brought with him. Sessi liked the game, and every time she threw the ball toward the basket, she jumped up and down and clapped her hands. I enjoyed watching her and Kimi, and even the way Loren was enjoying himself.
    â€œHey, man, you’re laughing again,” Loren said. “You’re looking like the old David now.”
    We played two games, with me and Kimi on one side and Loren and Sessi on the other, and after a while we were all laughing and just fooling around. When Sessi said she and Kimi had to go home, I was sorry. Lorensaid he had to go too, and I decided just to sit in the park for a while.
    â€œI’ll e-mail you,” Loren said.
    I watched my three friends walk off, with Kimi trying to dribble by slapping at the ball. As happy as I had been with them, I was sad as they left. I didn’t want to go home. What had Mr. Moses said? There weren’t any homeless people, just people not in their homes.
    I was thinking a lot about Ty and wondering how he was feeling. Was he wondering what me and Mom were doing? Or maybe about his bed? Maybe he would be thinking about his comics, if I was messing with them or just reading them. Maybe he was thinking about Reuben and about being hit. Nobody likes to think about being hit.
    I saw Mr. Moses coming across the playground, sort of shuffling from side to side, wearing too many clothes for such a hot day. He was pushing a shopping cart filled with old clothes and newspapers. There were times I liked to hear him talking, but there were times I liked to be alone with my thoughts, to let them sit in my head and just get the feel of them through me without being disturbed.
    He stopped a few feet away from me and, for a moment, stood perfectly still.
    â€œHello,” I said.
    â€œSometimes…”
    â€œI don’t want to talk to you,” I said.
    â€œSometimes when it