"I'm so glad you could make it," Mrs. McMillan cooed down at Jen, who was clutching her mother's hand. Jen looked past Mrs. McMillan and through the front door to the living room, where she saw Sarah and a few of the other cheerleaders hanging out and talking. But they weren't quite as Jen remembered them: they couldn't be older than six. Then Jen realized that she was only about six years old, too. She was in a flashback dream.
Jen's mom started talking to Sarah's mom, and Jen let go and rushed into the group of girls.
"Happy birthday, Sarah." The words escaped from Jen's mouth unbidden, but she didn't really think about that. Unlike all of the previous dreams, where Jon had entered of his own accord, Jen was actually a part of Sarah's dream. She had more freedom than a regular figment because she knew it was a dream, but she was being forced by Sarah's mind to do certain things, to play her role. And so long as Jen didn't fight it, she'd play the role perfectly.
"I'm glad you're here. Now we can make a pact," Sarah said. "We're all going to become cheerleaders, right?"
There were six girls in front of Sarah, and all six agreed. "Right."
"And we'll be friends forever, right?"
"Right."
Jen could feel herself getting excited. She knew this wasn't real, but the prospect of growing up to be a cheerleader suddenly seemed so cool. But wasn't Jen here to do something? Maybe she was just here to join Sarah's pact. Inside of Jen, Jon wanted to disrupt the whole party, even try to leave if he could, but all he could do was make a Nintendo appear in front of the television, and get Jen to say her only off-script line of the evening: "Hey, let's play Mario Kart."
It wasn't something Sarah would have thought, but it was consistent with a ten year-old's party. So it wasn't something that gave either Sarah or Jen any second thoughts.
The girls played a round that was significantly closer to virtual reality than Nintendo had ever gotten, but when it ended and Sarah won, they noticed that it was already dark out.
"C'mon girls," Mrs. McMillan said, "I know this is a slumber party, but it's twelve o'clock at night. It's time for bed."
Had time really gone that fast? But then Jen remembered that this was just a dream. It was getting harder and harder for her to keep that in mind. She looked down and found herself in a pink nightie, then looked and saw the other girls dressed similarly. Sleeping bags had appeared on the floor in the living room. Each of the girls snuggled into one, and Mrs. McMillan walked to the stairwell saying, "Now don't you girls stay up all night chatting."
"Awww," the girls all groaned in unison.
"Come on," Mrs. McMillan said, "I'll help you." She stopped at the foot of the stairs and turned to the girls, and said, "one sheep."
Alarm bells went off in Jen's head, but she wasn't sure why. She just counted along with Sarah's mom.
"Two sheep."
There was something wrong. Something about counting sheep.
"Three sheep."
Jen didn't quite realize that it was Jon's anxiety that was pushing her into a panic as she continued following Mrs. McMillan.
"Four sheep."
Jon tried to scream in his mind, doing whatever he could to stop the counting.
"Five sheep."
What would happen if he counted to ten sheep while he was already asleep, anyway? Jon didn't know, and he didn't want to test it in Sarah's head.
"Six sheep."
Jon tried to make an alarm clock appear, but filtered through Jen's consciousness, what appeared instead was a child's mobile that played a lullaby and had pictures of sheep.
"Seven sheep."
Jen looked at the mobile, and then a plush sheep appeared in her arms. What was it about sheep that was bothering her?
"Eight sheep."
Who the hell counts sheep for a children's slumber party!?
"Nine sheep."
Jon absolutely panicked. He tried to think of explosions, of fires, of wild animals. Jen felt like she wanted to cry. She turned over in her sleeping bag as a dog barked outside of Sarah's house, and Mrs. McMillan continued to count.
"Ten sheep."
