Dream Master

Cy felt his muscles slowly relax and he began to breathe. They weren’t after him today. It was someone else’s turn.

‘That’s all set up.’

Cy turned his head. The librarian was speaking to him.

‘There’s a few good websites on volcanoes. I’ve bookmarked them for you. I’ve got some work to attend to so I’ll leave you to browse but you can let me know if you need any help.’

Cy sat down and began his Internet search. There was a bewildering amount of information on volcanoes. Ones that exploded, ones that poured lava, ones that were under the sea – the largest of all was the one in outer space! Cy made lots of notes and then began his search for information about the eruption at Pompeii.

He found an extract of a report written at the time by a Roman known as Pliny the Younger who had actually seen it happening from across the bay. He wrote of a column of smoke and a strange dark cloud which blotted out the sun. It had started in the late morning of 24 August and, by present-day reckoning, the year had been AD 79. There had been minor earth tremors before the first eruption occurred. But it wasn’t the eruptions of showers of rock or the hot ash that killed so many of the citizens. It was the scorching gas that came some hours after this, travelling at a terrifying speed. The volcano was nine miles from Pompeii, but within minutes of the gas clouds racing down the mountainside thousands of people had suffocated.

Cy looked at the photographs of the archaeological site that was now Pompeii. He could see the ruins of the Via dell’Abbondanza, of the Amphitheatre, of the Barracks of the Gladiators. The streets he had run along with Linus – they had all been destroyed in a matter of hours.

The top of the mountain had exploded around midday and for twelve hours rocks, ash and pumice had fallen on people and buildings like hot hailstones. Then the great towering pillar of smoke had collapsed and – Cy wrote the phrase out carefully in his notebook – the pyroclastic flow had come racing down the mountain and nothing could withstand it.

Cy decided to print the pages and then go. He was worried about leaving the Dream Master so long without his dreamcloak. And something about the description of the destruction of Pompeii was disturbing him, but he didn’t quite know why.

As he got up, Cy noticed that Vojek was hunched in his seat, trying to take up as small a space as possible. Cy looked around. Eddie and Chloe must have eventually stopped annoying him and gone on into the Reference section. But Vojek still sat on in his own misery. The younger boy had pulled his head and neck down into his shoulders, curled like a snail in its shell. Cy remembered what it was like to be picked on at that age. He looked at Vojek and saw himself.

There was something wrong. But it was none of his business, Cy decided. He had his own problems: the Dream Master to rescue, his school work to do, and anyway, he especially did not want to go looking for trouble with Eddie and Chloe. Vojek would need to look after himself – just as Cy did . . .

Except that he didn’t – not totally, anyway. Cy’s friends Vicky, Basra and Innis often backed him up and he had his grampa to talk to. Who did Vojek have? He tried to remember what Mrs Chalmers had said about welcoming those fleeing persecution, and how we should try to help them in any way we could. But it was difficult to do this. The families who had sought asylum in the town knew very little of the English language.

Cy thought about language and how it helped make life easier. He thought about his sister Lauren and her friends and the crazy text messages they sent each other on their mobile phones. How easy it was for them to do this and have fun because they knew what the letters meant. When he travelled with the dreamcloak it didn’t seem to matter. In some way he understood the language and Linus and Rhea Silvia understood his. What must it be like not to understand? And not in the way a very young child doesn’t understand – when you were tiny you were too little to know about things. But Vojek did know. He would have been able to speak and laugh in his own land. Now he would realize that he was prevented from studying or even playing properly in this country.

Cy walked slowly across the library, paused and looked at Vojek’s computer. The screen was showing gobbledegook. Vojek kept his head down.

Cy gently touched his shoulder. When the younger boy looked up, Cy pointed to himself and said, ‘Cy. My name is Cy.’

‘Vojek,’ the younger boy mumbled. ‘Name Vojek.’

Cy indicated the screen. ‘What’s this?’

‘Lit-er-acy.’ Vojek spoke carefully. ‘I try to learn English.’

Not from that, you won’t, thought Cy. Something was malfunctioning, or . . . of course! The Mean Machines! It would be just like them to fiddle about and mess up Vojek’s program.

Cy pointed to the computer and then to the Reference section. He made signs with his hands. ‘Did Eddie and Chloe touch your machine?’

‘Yes,’ Vojek whispered. He looked fearfully over his shoulder, and then jumped in alarm. The librarian was standing behind them.

‘What’s the problem?’

‘The keyboard’s frozen,’ said Cy, ‘and the mouse isn’t working either.’

The librarian looked at the screen. ‘I put on a CD with a basic literacy program. You’ve changed the settings,’ she said to Vojek.

Vojek said nothing.

‘I don’t think he did,’ said Cy.

‘But he must have,’ said the librarian. She tutted. ‘You kids. This is the best equipment and it’s put here to help you. If you muck around with it, it’ll just get broken.’ She closed down the program and switched the computer off. Then she reached over and swivelled the machine round. ‘These serial ports have been changed over. What you’ve done here,’ she said crossly, ‘is actually dangerous!’

Vojek gave a terrified little moan. ‘No! No! No trouble. No trouble. My mother afraid . . . if trouble.’

Cy looked at the fear in Vojek’s eyes. Mrs Chalmers had told her class that Vojek’s parents had brought their family here to be safe. His father had been a doctor who had tried to treat patients from both sides of the conflict in their own country.

‘I appreciate that a lot of things must be very strange for you here,’ said the librarian, ‘but you must know that you should not interfere with the back of the machines. You could hurt yourself, and also you might not be allowed to use it again.’

‘Yes. Thank you,’ said Vojek.

Cy stared at him. Vojek was prepared to take the blame because he was afraid of trouble. He had come to this country looking for freedom from fear, and right away that freedom was being taken from him.

Cy knew what it was like to be afraid to speak up. But if he couldn’t speak up for himself, then maybe he could do it for another. He must. He could. He would.

‘Vojek didn’t touch the back of the machine.’

‘Was it you then?’ The librarian was busy unplugging the serial ports and re-connecting the keyboard and mouse.

‘It wasn’t Vojek, and it wasn’t me.’ Cy pretended to look puzzled. ‘I suppose it must have been someone else.’

The librarian gave him a blank look. ‘It was working when I set it up and there are only the two of you here at the moment.’

‘Perhaps earlier?’ suggested Cy. ‘When I arrived, weren’t there a couple of people walking through here?’

The librarian snapped her fingers. ‘There were those two youngsters who were capering about yesterday. They came in immediately before you and went to the Reference section. Do you know their names?’

Cy felt a bit queasy. He hesitated. It was the most awful thing to do – to tell on someone. Then he saw Vojek’s small anxious face watching him. ‘Eddie and Chloe,’ said. Cy. ‘They stopped at Vojek’s desk and were fiddling about while you were busy logging on my terminal.’

‘I’ll just go and have a word with them,’ said the librarian. ‘I’m not prepared to allow someone to vandalize equipment and let another person take the blame.’ She had a very determined look in her eye.

Cy stood in front of her. ‘It was fortunate that you happened to be passing and saw Eddie and Chloe change the serial ports,’ he said firmly.

‘I didn’t, Cy, it was you,’ said the librarian.

‘No,’ said Cy emphatically. ‘It was you.’

The librarian gave him a puzzled look. ‘It was you. You just told me about it not two minutes ago.’

Cy did not take his eyes from her face. ‘It – was – you,’ he said with finality.

As the librarian began to open her mouth, Vojek plucked at her sleeve. ‘Cy no tell-tale,’ he whispered.

‘Whaaat?’ The librarian looked at the younger boy and then at Cy. ‘Oh . . . oh I see. Yes, of course.’ She spoke slowly. ‘Let me get this right. I looked over at this computer terminal to see how Vojek was getting on and I noticed Eddie and Chloe tampering with the back of the machine. This was when they stopped here before going into the Reference section . . . which I saw them doing.’ She smiled at Cy and Vojek. ‘Would that be what happened?’

Cy nodded.

‘Good,’ said the librarian. ‘I think I’ll go now and have a word with those two.’ She set off briskly towards the Reference section.

Cy went to collect his material from the printer. He deliberately turned his back so that he would not see any rude signs or gestures that Eddie and Chloe might make at him as they left the library. Cy knew that the Mean Machines were not finished with him or Vojek or any number of other people. They would go on and on, picking on those who were vulnerable. Some people were like that. They seemed to take pleasure in annoying other people or making them unhappy. If it wasn’t Eddie and Chloe doing it, it could easily be someone else. There would always be another bully to take their place. Cy had to find his own way of coping with them, him and Vojek . . .

Cy glanced over to where the small figure of Vojek had sat earlier, crouched low over his mouse-mat. Except that Vojek’s shoulders weren’t hunched any more. He was sitting up straight and flicking happily through his literacy learning program. He saw Cy looking at him and smiled.

When the asylum-seekers had first come to the area, the librarian had put up flash cards with foreign language phrases all over the library. Cy wandered about until he found one in Croatian. He looked down the list until he found a suitable greeting and then, carefully following the pronunciation guide, he called across to Vojek.

‘Vidimo se! See you later, Vojek.’

The younger boy looked up in happy surprise. ‘Vidimo se!’ he replied. ‘Vidimo se.’

After sorting and stapling his computer printout Cy left the library. He was happier than he had been this morning. His Internet search had given him enough information about volcanoes to write up his school project, and he also knew a great deal more about Pompeii. As soon as he got back home he would try to return to ancient Roman times and rescue the Dream Master. He and the Dream Master could persuade Rhea Silvia and Linus to join their parents at the family’s mosaic workshops in Rome for the remainder of the summer. Then the two young people would be far away from Pompeii and safe from any eruption from Vesuvius. Cy was whistling as he opened the kitchen door.

‘I’m starving. What’s for lunch?’

‘At least one of our children is speaking to us,’ said Cy’s dad to his mum. He had a paintbrush in his hand and was perched on a ladder, painting the kitchen window-frames.

Cy’s mum was dragging wet clothes from the washing machine. ‘I’ve stopped the laundry in mid-wash,’ she said. ‘I’ll need to take a look at the washing machine. When that last load was in, the machine was whining in the weirdest way. It almost sounded as though someone was trapped in there.’

Cy glanced across at the soggy bundle piled up at his mother’s feet. The old beach towel he had taken from the linen cupboard outside his bedroom lay soaking wet and crumpled on the floor. On it and through it ran a filmy squelchy gooey grey mess.

Cy staggered as if he’d been struck across the face. Lying on the kitchen floor, utterly drained of energy, was his Dream Master’s dreamcloak!