She’d been skipping school, but after a week she couldn’t miss any more. She knew Baxter would follow her, and rather than try to explain her nightmare thread to teachers and classmates, she stuffed Baxter in a bag, slung him over her shoulder, and took him along. As long as she kept the bag near her, Baxter stayed quiet and didn’t cause problems.
But Baxter wasn’t her only problem. News of Lavinia’s talent had circulated among the other students, and when the teacher wasn’t looking, a fat-cheeked bully named Glen Farcus put a witch’s hat made of paper on Lavinia’s head.
“I think this belongs to you!” he said, all the boys laughing.
She tore it off and threw it on the floor. “I’m not a witch,” she hissed. “I’m a doctor.”
“Oh yeah?” he said. “Is that why you’re sent away to learn about knitting while the boys all take science?”
The boys laughed so hard that the teacher lost her temper and made everyone copy from the dictionary. While they were silently working, Lavinia reached into her bag, pulled a single thread from Baxter, and whispered to it. The thread wriggled down the leg of her desk, across the floor, up Glen Farcus’s chair, and into his ear.
He didn’t notice. No one did. But the next day Glen came to school looking shaky and pale.
“What’s the matter, Glen?” Lavinia asked him. “Did you have trouble sleeping last night?”
The boy’s eyes widened. He excused himself from the room and didn’t come back.
That evening, Lavinia and Douglas received word that their father would return the next day. Lavinia knew she had to find a way to hide Baxter from him, at least for a while. Using what she’d learned in her hated home economics class, she teased Baxter apart, knit him into a pair of stockings, and pulled him onto her legs. Though the stockings itched something awful, Father was unlikely to notice.
He returned the following afternoon, dusty and road-worn, and after he’d hugged both children, he sent Douglas away so he could speak with Lavinia in private.
“Have you been good?” her father asked her.
Suddenly and fiercely, Lavinia’s legs began to itch. “Yes, Papa,” she answered, scratching one foot with the other.
“Then I’m proud of you,” said her father. “Especially because, before I left, I didn’t give you a very good reason for why I didn’t want you using your gift. But I think I can explain myself better now.”
“Oh?” said Lavinia. She was terribly distracted; it was taking all her willpower and concentration not to double over and scratch her legs.
“Nightmares aren’t the same as tumors and gangrenous limbs. They’re unpleasant, to be sure, but sometimes unpleasant things can serve a purpose. Perhaps they weren’t all meant to be removed.”
“You think nightmares can be good?” said Lavinia. She had found a small bit of relief by rubbing one of her feet against the hard leg of a chair.
“Not good, exactly,” said her father. “But I think some people deserve their nightmares, and some people don’t—and how are you to know who’s who?”
“I can just tell,” said Lavinia.
“And if you’re wrong?” said her father. “I know you’re bright, Vinni, but nobody’s that bright all the time.”
“Then I can put them back.”
Her father looked startled. “You can put the nightmares back?”
“Yes, I . . .” She nearly told him about Glen Farcus, then thought better of it. “I think I can.”
He took a deep breath. “It’s much too heavy a responsibility for someone your age. Promise me you won’t try to do any of this again until you’re older. Much older.”
She was in such a torment of itching now that she was only half listening. “I promise!” she said, then bolted upstairs to pull off her stockings.
Locked in her room, she took off her dress and tore at the stockings—but they wouldn’t come off. Baxter liked being bonded to her skin, and no matter how she pulled and pried, he wouldn’t budge. She even tried using a letter opener, but its metal edge bent backward before it could separate Baxter from her skin even a tiny bit.
Finally, she lit a match and held it near her foot. Baxter squealed and squirmed.
“Don’t make me do it!” she said, and held it closer.
Baxter reluctantly peeled off her and resumed spherical form.
“Bad Baxter!” she chastised him. “That was bad!”
Baxter flattened a bit, drooping with shame.
Lavinia flopped onto her bed, exhausted, and found herself thinking about something her father had said: that taking people’s nightmares was a great responsibility. He was certainly right about that. Baxter was a handful already, and the more nightmares she took from people, the bigger he would grow. What was she going to do with him?
She sat up quickly, lit with a new idea. Some people deserved their nightmares, her father had said, and it occurred to her that just because she took them didn’t mean she had to keep them. She could be the Robin Hood of dreams, relieving good people of their nightmares and giving them to the wicked—and as a bonus she wouldn’t have a ball of nightmare thread following her around all the time!
Figuring out who the good people were was easy enough, but she would have to be careful about identifying the bad ones; she’d hate to give the wrong person nightmares. So she sat down and made a list of all the worst people in town. At the top was Mrs. Hennepin, the headmistress of the local orphanage, who was known to beat her charges with a riding crop. Second was Mr. Beatty, the butcher, who everyone said had gotten away with killing his wife. Next was Jimmy, the coach driver, who had run over blind Mr. Ferguson’s guide dog while driving drunk. Then there were all the people who were simply rude or unpleasant, which was a much longer list, and the people Lavinia just didn’t like, which was longer still.