The Vault of Dreamers Read Online Free PDF Page A

so I could watch my hand get bigger on my computer screen.
    “Hey now,” said the guy.
    I’d entered his no fly zone.
    “One sec,” I said.
    I kept going, leaning farther over him, watching in my screen as my hand grew monster-attack
     large until I finally touched the camera lens, a button on Mr. DeCoster’s desk lamp.
     On my screen, my Forge profile switched to a new camera angle that showed me practically
     in the lap of the guy beside me. He was still working, peeking around me to see his
     own screen.
    “Any day now,” he said.
    “Sorry,” I said, laughing, and settled back. “I just had to do that.” On my computer,
     I closed out of The Forge Show .
    “I know,” he said. “I did it myself, back on day two.”
    He didn’t stop working to talk. He was splicing tracks, unlinking them, and shifting
     them around like bricks in a fluid wall. I watched him collapse the field, skim it
     sideways, and expand another section to drop in a segment of film from his closet.
    I felt a flicker and remembered last night’s brink lesson about laying bricks. It
     seemed suddenly like it could be related to editing. “How did you learn to do that
     so fast?” I asked.
    “Projects back home.”
    I’d been working with videos at home for a couple of years, using the editing options
     within my camera, but I couldn’t do half what he was doing.
    “What’s your name?” I asked.
    He shoved his glasses up his nose. “Burnham Fister.”
    “I’m Rosie Sinclair,” I said.
    “Hi,” Burnham said.
    I pulled my SynchClog file out and sat back as the first shot of the film clip appeared
     in my editing program. To my surprise, it was from my documentary on my sister, the
     one I’d used to apply to the Forge School. The first close-up shot of Dubbs’s face
     brought me instant delight.
    “Who’s that?” said Burnham.
    “My sister.”
    “Nice. How old is she?”
    “Seven.”
    I leaned closer to get lost in the monitor. I knew this section. I’d filmed it myself
     and watched it a million times. Every frame was precious and familiar to me.
    It began with Dubbs’s face up close, bobbing up and down as she rode her bicycle straight
     toward the camera. I’d filmed her five times so I could splice together the shots
     at different angles, and she’d been totally into it, every time. Next, the film showed
     her complete body in profile on the bike, bumping along the road in front of our train,
     with the orange light of the sunset coming through the gaps between and under the
     boxcars. Every color and shadow was deep and strong. I’d added a shot of my sister’s
     tan legs and her bare feet on the pedals. Her short red skirt swirled out behind her.
     The next shot showed her profile, and then came another three seconds of her face
     again, head on, until her hair flew across her lips as she turned to look to her right.
     There the clip froze, ended.
    Beauty shines out of my sister. You’d have to be blind to miss it. If you put her
     in a playground with a hundred other dusty second graders, all loud and teasing and
     running around, in all the commotion, your eye would light on her.
    Something inside me cracked open and homesickness poured in. At the same time, I ached
     to prove to her that I was good enough to stay at Forge.
    “She looks like you,” Burnham said.
    “No.”
    Dubbs is the delicate, light-footed, blond sister, while I’m the dark, sturdy one.
     Her crooked smile is openly charming and unselfconscious. My eyebrows are black, my
     eyes hazel, my teeth straight except for a gap in the front. In short, Burnham couldn’t
     be more wrong.
    “She does,” he said. “Around the eyes.”
    Maybe he meant how Dubbs looked determined. I turned to find Burnham watching me.
    “She’s my half sister,” I said. “We have the same mom.”
    He nodded. “Let’s hear the audio,” he said. “May I?” And he plugged his earphones
     into my spare jack.
    It was only fair, considering I’d practically