‘Your dreams are your own, Cy,’ a voice said quietly.
Cy turned round. Grampa was sitting on the long bench in the tunnel. Cy held up the ankh. ‘Do I have to let it go? Lose all my dreams?’
Grampa looked at him seriously. ‘You’ll never lose your dreams, Cy. No-one can take your dreams away from you. No-one.’
Cy reached out and touched Grampa’s hand. ‘Thanks, Grampa,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’ Then he turned to Aten. ‘Think hard of the school assembly hall,’ he said, ‘and then put your hand on your amulet for a single second.’
There was a rushing roar of white light, and with an enormous ripping noise Cy and Aten fell out through the side of the cardboard pyramid.
‘Hey!’ shouted a loud voice. ‘What are you boys up to?’ Cy looked up to see a very annoyed janitor. ‘Why are you two still here? The bell went nearly ten minutes ago.’
Cy and Aten scrambled to their feet and explained why they were in the assembly hall. ‘Well, now that you’ve found what you were looking for you can clear off home,’ said the janitor.
‘Do you think Lauren is all right?’ said Cy as they went out into the corridor.
‘I think it was my dream, and that I ended it, so . . . yes,’ said Aten. ‘I hope so,’ he added.
Cy twisted the cord of the ankh firmly round his wrist. It was safe, for the moment. Now he realized what the Dream Master had been so worried about. Dreams out of control were . . . nightmares.
‘What about Chloe and Eddie?’ asked Cy. ‘They couldn’t really have been those two crocodiles, could they?’
Aten gripped Cy’s sleeve. Walking ahead of them towards the front door were two bedraggled figures. Mud and slime clung to their legs and shoes.
Suddenly the staff room door opened and the teachers came out to go to their staff meeting. Miss Fullbright caught sight of Eddie and Chloe.
‘You two have obviously been down at the river,’ she said in a stern voice.
‘No,’ said Chloe.
‘Then if you weren’t by the river, where did all this pondweed come from?’
‘We were in the assembly hall, Miss Fullbright.’
‘Yes,’ Eddie chimed in. ‘We were with Cy and Aten.’
Miss Fullbright turned round. Aten opened his mouth. Cy’s heart shook.
‘Only these two boys were in the assembly hall,’ said the janitor, who had followed them along the corridor. ‘Said Mrs Chalmers had given them permission to look for something they’d lost.’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Mrs Chalmers. ‘Did you find the ankh?’
Cy held up his wrist.
‘So, what have you two got to say for yourselves?’ Miss Fullbright fixed her eyes back on Eddie and Chloe.
‘But we were in the assembly hall!’ shrieked Chloe. ‘That’s how Cy got the ankh back. Because I showed him where we hid it . . . I mean . . . I . . .’ her voice tailed off.
Mrs Chalmers raised her eyebrows and folded her arms.
‘Don’t lie,’ snapped Miss Fullbright. ‘Lying only makes things worse. There are written warnings everywhere about this, and all school pupils have been told many times that they must not go near the river. It is extremely dangerous, and if you older children persist in doing it then the little ones will copy you.’ She glared at them fiercely. ‘Report to me first thing tomorrow morning. I will think of a suitable and severe punishment for you.’
At the patrol crossing Cy and Aten saw Eddie and Chloe limping across the road. Chloe’s face was white, and Eddie’s legs were shaking so much that he could hardly stand up. There were tendrils of green slime still trailing from their shoes. Eddie’s mum was giving him a row. ‘Look at the state of you! You’ve been mucking about by the riverbank, haven’t you?’
‘I . . . I . . .’ stuttered Eddie.
‘That is so dangerous, Eddie. I hope the school finds out and punishes you for it.’
Chloe’s mum was standing well away from her. ‘Chloe, dear, you pong something awful. We can’t possibly go and buy those new shoes you wanted. You’ll have to walk a good bit behind me on the way home.’
‘What happened to those two?’ asked Mrs Turner.
Cy and Aten exchanged glances.
Aten shrugged. ‘Yo?’ he said.
Cy’s dad was waiting to pick him up. ‘Would Aten like to come home with you for dinner?’
Aten nodded quickly. ‘I would be honoured.’
‘We’ll have to let your parents know.’
‘He can telephone from our house,’ Cy said at once.
When they got home Cy made a pretence of telephoning while his father prepared the dinner. Aten watched him in the kitchen.
‘In your forward time, men cook,’ he said. ‘That is very unusual.’
‘You’re telling me,’ said Cy.
‘Yes, I am,’ said Aten. ‘In fact,’ he gave Cy a puzzled look, ‘I just did.’
They hadn’t long to wait before Lauren came rocketing through the door. She scraped back a chair and sat down at the table. ‘Wait ’til I tell you this. At last break, Baz and Cartwheel and I, we were lying out just beside the playing-fields in the sun and we fell asleep.’
‘Obviously the teachers are working you far too hard at school,’ said Cy’s dad, plonking a dish of meatballs onto the table. He pointed at it. ‘Eat,’ he commanded, ‘and no whingeing to your mother about my cooking when she gets back from the hospital.’
Aten watched carefully, copying Lauren as she spooned food onto her plate.
‘And,’ Lauren went on, ‘and then I had a really strange dream. We were in this Egyptian tomb, and Aten was there too.’
‘How interesting,’ said Aten, not looking at Cy. ‘Was I doing anything in particular?’
‘It was a bit odd. You seemed to have two pet crocodiles.’ Lauren took some bread. ‘You were with him, Cy.’
Aten picked up a piece of bread. ‘And also the BearBoyz.’
Cy choked on his food.
‘How did you guess?’ said Lauren. ‘They were there too. And Baz and Cartwheel and I, we were the backing singers.’
‘In your dreams!’ said Cy.
‘Well, exactly,’ said Lauren. ‘But the weirdest thing about the whole thing is that Baz and Cartwheel had the very same dream!’
‘No. Way!’ said Aten.
‘Absolutely, no way,’ agreed Cy. ‘People do not have the same dreams. Not exactly the same.’
‘Well, there were differences,’ admitted Lauren. ‘In my dream I was the one standing right next to Declan, whereas Baz says she dreamt it was her.’
‘No, it was definitely you,’ said Aten.
‘What?’ Lauren stopped with her glass halfway to her mouth.
‘It was you,’ said Aten, not noticing Cy’s widely swinging foot trying to connect with his leg.
‘How do you know?’ asked Lauren.
‘It’s a joke,’ said Cy. ‘Obviously, it’s a joke. Aten’s only winding you up. He doesn’t even know who Declan is.’
‘Yes, I do,’ said Aten. ‘He’s the one with the quiff. Although I prefer it when his hair falls over his eyes.’
‘So do I!’ said Lauren. ‘You have such style, Aten. I spotted that the minute I saw you.’
‘And you are so beautiful,’ replied Aten.
Lauren blushed.
I don’t believe this, thought Cy. He is actually chatting her up. And she’s taking it on. My sister and my friend.
‘I would like to call you Lauren-Nofret,’ Aten went on. ‘In my language nofret means “beautiful lady”. So Lauren-Nofret would be Lauren the lovely.’
‘You are joking,’ Cy told Aten firmly.
‘No, truly,’ Aten turned to Cy. ‘That is why there are Egyptian names like Nefertiti and Nefertari. Nefer is similar to nofret; it means “good and beautiful”.’
‘I meant about the dream,’ said Cy in exasperation, and, as he spoke, he managed to kick Aten under the table.
‘Owww!’ Aten cried out. He rubbed his ankle. ‘It would appear that I am joking.’ He smiled at Lauren. ‘About the dream,’ he added. ‘Not about the name.’
‘Oh, that’s OK,’ said Lauren. She looked at him from under her lashes and then she picked up her fork. ‘Well, anyway. The dream kind of stopped, and we all woke up. But it was a great experience. So lifelike. I thought it was actually happening.’
Aten, too, picked up his fork. ‘Dreams are mysterious things,’ he said. He looked down at his food. ‘More animal spoor?’ he enquired.
‘Don’t you like meatballs?’ Cy’s dad asked him.
Aten speared a meatball carefully on the end of his fork. He shut his eyes and put it into his mouth. ‘The taste,’ he said, ‘is not unpleasant.’ Under his breath he added, ‘Definitely rabbit’s.’
They were washing up when Cy’s mum came back from hospital visiting.
‘Oh, Grampa is so much better,’ she said, as she flopped into an armchair. Cy’s dad went to fetch her some tea. ‘You know, Cy, Grampa told me a funny thing happened today. He had been feeling quite poorly, and then he fell asleep in the afternoon and had a strange dream. He was lost in this long dark tunnel, and thought he would never find his way out. Suddenly you came and sat beside him. You took his hand and he knew then that he would be all right. The nurses told me that when he woke up he was smiling, and he ate all of his dinner. They say he is well on the way to recovery now. You can go and visit him tomorrow.’
‘So, perhaps there was a purpose to our journey in the labyrinth,’ said Aten later as he and Cy walked slowly back to Grampa’s house. ‘If you had not been there, Grandfather might have remained lost.’
‘I thought he was there to help me,’ said Cy. Aten shrugged. ‘Perhaps both. Who knows? What I do know, however, is this.’ He stopped walking and turned to face Cy. ‘I must go back. Back to the tomb.’