The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

December 7th

Noelle:
After a few days of enforced bed rest, I'm allowed to resume my normal life. At least, the life that the person in my dream has. The headache I had is gone, but I have a new one from all the rules I have to follow. Who knew living in the Victorian Era was so hard? And I've only been out of bed rest for a day! I have to be über-polite, quiet, have insane posture, and be good at calligraphy. Seriously, my hand is sore from all the rewriting I've had to do today. I LOVE the dresses though, despite the fact that they are itchy, hot, uncomfortable, and hard to move in. But they look so nice that I don't care. I wonder how long I've been in a coma now? I read somewhere that dreams are actually a lot shorter than they seem, but this dream has spanned several days, and I've fallen asleep in the dream. The time travel theory is becoming more and more plausible. I had to spend the entire day being tested by my teachers (yes, multiple teachers for one student) on what knowledge I kept despite my "amnesia". I have no memory of learning Latin, my arithmetic skills are "wonderous", I speak French but not as refined as I am supposed to, geography is great although some countries I name don't exist yet, literature is great, and etiquette is apparently "abysmal" (teacher's words, not mine). So, I have extra etiquette classes today, ordered by Stepmother. Stepmother doesn't seem too bad, just very formal and...well...Victorian ladyish. She reminds me of Fleur Delacour in the 4th book from Harry Potter, minus the French accent and magic. And Fleur turned out to be a great person later on, so maybe Stepmother will be too? But back to the etiquette lessons. They are absolute torture so far. Madame Sevérine has this long sharp pointer that she jabs between my shoulder blades whenever I slouch. I have to practice walking in heels with a book on my head, sit and eat with my arms tied close to me, drink soup out of a spoon backward (yeah, I failed that one), and repeat polite greetings over and over again. Apparently, those were just "a few of zee basics zat a child should know". Yeah, Madame Sevérine definitely has the Fleur French accent. Oh yeah, and she's also my French teacher. Every time I stutter or my pronunciation is the slightest bit off (which is pretty often), she slaps my hands with a ruler. This is a slightly *extremely* painful dream. Math was great, though. Wow, I never thought I'd say that. I'm supposed to call it arithmetic. But I know most of the equations and stuff already. According to Ms. Allen, I have "always had a passion for arithmetics, and was already beyond the normal level, but now seem to possess more knowledge than the average mathematician.". I always thought I stank at math, but apparently not in the Victorian Era. They have advanced math, but I'm not supposed to have learned that level yet. I do have to be a lot neater when doing math, and who knew how hard math is without calculators? I have to remember what five times five is! I thought I was already past that level. I've never had to do school stuff in a dream before, believe it or not. I am seriously considering the magical time travel possibility. But where could Clara Marie have gone then? Did she disappear? Run away? Time travel as well? Clara Marie's father is really nice though. He sat next to me the whole time I was forced to stay in bed (they were such worriers in the Victorian Era) and painted. He asked me what to paint first, and I told him I love ballroom scenes. His style is that old fashioned super realistic one with soft colors. I loved watching him paint. It's so magical how people just slowly appear on the canvas, an arm here, ballgown here, head here. He said he mostly does portraits for rich clients but likes painting scenes better. There's actually a portrait of me he painted in the drawing-room. Well, not me. It's of Clara Marie when she was about five years old, who looks exactly like me when I was five, minus the serious look and old fashioned clothes. There are actually multiple portraits of Clara Marie around the house, all at varying ages. I asked about Clara Marie's mother and he just shook his head. "Died during childbirth" was his response, and he didn't talk much for the rest of the day. That made me so grateful that my mother was okay, although I hope she's not too worried since I'm in a coma. Martha, who is apparently my head maid or something was overly worried, always bringing cool damp cloths to put on my forehead, or hot water bottles. She also keeps bursting into tears and muttering something about "purple ballgown" and "should have checked the invitation". I have no idea what that's about. Christabel was worried too, but I've actually kinda become friends with her. We have a lot in common, we both like daydreaming, ballgowns, and tic tac toe. Well, Christabel liked tic tac toe after I showed her how to play. I was bored out of my mind just sitting in bed and barely moving for three days, so I taught her. She's really good at it, and it's almost annoying how often she beats me now. I told her to call me Clara or Clara Marie. Being called Miss all the time is too weird. So is being called Clara Marie. Multiple times each day, someone is calling for me or asking me something and I don't realize they are saying my name. Because... it's not my name. I'm almost tempted to tell them to call me Noelle. But since it's just a dream, and it'll be over soon, I don't bother. I kinda want to wake up, but at the same time, I don't. I mean, I really miss my mom and Laleh and Emilio, but this dream is so awesome. I wish they could be in the dream too. There are definitely downsides to the Victorian Era, but there are downsides to the modern era as well. I also really hope I don't wake up within the next dream day because tomorrow I'm going to a ball! If I'm going to be stuck in the Victorian Era, I might as well go to a party! What could go wrong?