Free The Mask That Sang by Susan Currie Page A

the red brick of the hardware store and the barbershop. The sun could not penetrate it, and so it was dark. Litter scuttled across the alley. A stray cat washed itself on a doorsill.
    â€œIs this it?” Degan asked.
    â€œI—don’t know,” she said doubtfully.
    She stepped into the alley. Somewhere deep in her mind something stirred, a faraway cry.
    Suddenly Cass felt half in one world and half in the other. She led the way silently, as if it was a place where it would be wrong to make any noises. There was just the sound of their footsteps. The traffic noises behind them died away, and new sounds began to be heard from what lay ahead.
    What did lie ahead, anyway? Cass tried to remember the next part of her dream. When she concentrated, an image swam into her mind of something that had been massive, and writhing somehow, curling around.
    A snake.
    She gulped, and slowed to a stop.
    â€œWhat is it?” Degan whispered.
    â€œThere was a snake next. I went by a gigantic snake.”
    Degan let out a slow breath. They stared at each other as the magnitude of it sank in.
    They had no way of protecting themselves.
    Mom didn’t even know where Cass was.
    Then that faraway sound inside Cass thrummed, like a cat’s comforting purr. It seemed to sing that Cass hadn’t died in her dream after all, not even when the snake appeared. The mask didn’t intend to put her in harm’s way. It wanted to be found, that was all. To be with Cass again. It wanted to tell her about things—about how Cass was not the first to be afraid, not alone in being bullied at school.
    She took a deep breath, and suddenly she knew she was brave enough to go on, to face whatever was coming. Ignoring the trembling in her legs, Cass started moving forward again. Degan walked beside her.
    Then she heard it: a low roaring sound that practically shook the ground underfoot. It grew louder as Cass approached the end of the alleyway—as she drew closer to whatever monster lay ahead.
    Did snakes roar?
    But the mask was still thrumming reassuringly inside Cass. Its thin faraway sound was somehow stronger in her head than that roaring noise. She took a deep breath and plunged out the end of the alley into whatever might come next.
    Flashing, bright colors raced by her at a great speed, blowing Cass’s hair back. There was a whir of blurred images, windows blinking one by one, people’s faces seen for only a moment before they were gone. The noise was deafening as it hurtled past.
    Cass fell back against Degan, who stumbled and fell. They landed in a heap as the thing shot past them, then sat up and watched it go.
    Then it dawned on her.
    â€œA train!” she shouted above the din. “The snake is a train!”
    Then they were laughing at the top of their lungs, scarcely able to hear each other over the roar of the engine. As quickly as it was there, the train was gone. Then their laughter was much too loud—which made them laugh harder, with relief as much as anything else.
    Cass stood up, panting and wiping her eyes.
    She grinned at Degan, who was smiling back. It transformed his whole face, and he was suddenly entirely different from the boy she had first met in Ms. Clemens’s class, the boy who had sat with his head in his hand and eyes half-closed, sketching and tuning everyone out. Could it really be only yesterday? Somehow it felt like she had known him much longer.
    â€œYou’re okay,” Degan said.
    â€œYou’re okay too.”
    And she flushed, because no kid had ever told her that before, ever.
    â€œSo where next?” Degan asked at last.
    She straightened, closed her eyes. She had followed the curve of the snake to—somewhere.
    Then, slowly, she remembered an empty, unhappy place. There had been a kind of mist all around, and even the fiery line of the mask’s song had struggled to be seen. Strange shapes had been moving in the fog. She hadn’t been able to see