hot. Brooke sat down on the floor again. Am I talking too much, she said, because I have been known before now to talk too much? No, Mr. Garth said. Please keep talking to me. Okay, Brooke said. Sometimes I have this dream, do you ever have the dreams that mean that you don’t know whether you’re asleep or awake in them? Yes, Mr. Garth said. I often have dreams like that, tell me your dream. Are you sure? Brooke said, because sometimes it can be very boring to listen to people’s dreams, at least that is what my mother tells my father at breakfast sometimes. I’m not bored, Mr. Garth said, and I will tell you if I am. Okay, well, there’s this dream, I had it like weeks ago, like it was ages ago back when I was only just nine, Brooke said, it’s a historic kind of dream, and there is a boy in it and it is back in history except I am there too, and he is the same age as me. He is dressed in torn clothes, much much more torn than yours are and much dirtier like he is a very poor person from the past, and he is standing like with a crowd behind him, like the crowd outside your window kind of except in historic clothes, and behind the crowd, what the crowd are all looking at, there is like a stage with a tall post with a rope on the end of it and the rope has a noose on the end. And then the boy comes up to me and he holds up a loaf of bread and he says, look, and he points over his shoulder at the crowd and he says, they’re going to execute me to death because I stole this, and he holds up the loaf. I was hungry and I took it, he says, and now look, it is not fair that this is happening. Then I woke up, and then I couldn’t get back to sleep, do you ever have that kind of dream? Not exactly the same, but I think that’s a very healthy dream, Mr. Garth said. Do you? Brooke said, because I mean when I woke up I knew it had happened, and if it was real it had happened way back in history and there wasn’t anything I could do, and even if it hadn’t happened in reality and was only happening in my dream I still couldn’t stop it from happening. I think, Mr. Garth said, that the boy in your dream simply wanted you to agree with him that what was happening wasn’t fair. It really really wasn’t, Brooke said. No, Mr. Garth said, it wasn’t. Then he said, that was a very clever dream you had. Yes, Brooke said, but maybe is it too clever? No, Mr. Garth said, not at all, there’s no such thing as too clever anyway. Brooke looked round the room and wondered if maybe it would be a good place to come on the days when she didn’t go to school. Then she asked Mr. Garth did he really think there wasn’t anything wrong with being cleverest. Top of Mount Cleverest, Mr. Garth said. Brooke laughed. Then Mr. Garth said really slowly:
the fact is, that at the top of any mountain you’ll feel a bit dizzy because of the air up there. Cleverness is great. It’s a really good thing, when you have it. But there’s no point in just having it. You have to know how to use it. And when you know how to use your cleverness, it’s not that you’re the cleverest any more, or are doing it to be cleverer than anyone else like it’s a competition. No. Instead of being the cleverest, the thing to do is become a cleverist. Then Mr. Garth told a great knock knock joke where what you do is you say knock knock and the other person says who’s there? and you say Granny, and the other person says, Granny who? and then you say again, knock knock, and the other person says who’s there? and you say Grandad, and the other person says, Grandad who? and then you say knock knock, and the person says who’s there? and you say Granny again, and you keep going exactly like that, saying Granny and Grandad for a few more times, and then you say knock knock and the person says who’s there, and you say Aunt, and the person says Aunt who? and you say Aunt you glad I got rid of all those grannies and grandads. Brooke laughed until she nearly choked. Then she said, the thing is, I can see the point of a joke, and I can see the point of a fact, but what is the point of a book, I mean the kinds that tell stories?