by James Erith
‘Archie, I really do hate to make an example of you,’ Solomon continued, ‘but this morning you have beaten your spectacular record of being a total and utter shambles.’
Cautious laughter flittered around the hall.
‘It is almost as if you fail to realise that a dress-code actually exists. In fact, you are almost the perfect example of how not to appear in school.’
The head addressed the assembly once more.
‘Let us take a closer look at our specimen. His shoes are filthy; he has no belt and, as a result, we can see rather colourful underwear. His socks are around his ankles because there are no elastic garters holding them up, and even these are torn to bits—like everything else.’
Solomon paused as laughter pealed into the rafters. ‘His shirt has a button missing, his tie is halfway across his chest and, I’m not sure how this happened, but he appears to be wearing the wrong coloured jersey! Please turn around, de Lowe.’
Archie shifted.
‘Yes, just as I suspected,’ Solomon continued. ‘Blazer ripped and, of course, his hair is not only too long, but a decent imitation of a mop head.’
Archie feigned a smile while others pointed and grinned.
On Solomon’s instruction, while hopelessly attempting to pull his attire together, Archie sat down and glanced up towards his sister, Isabella.
Her hard, cold stare drilled into him. He spotted her grinding her jaw.
Never a good sign.
Solomon’s tone softened as he smiled, showing his small, tea-stained teeth.
‘Is there a reason for this mornings astonishing mess, Archie?’
Archie ran a hand through his hair, removing a burr. ‘I, er, well, yes, sir.’
‘And?’
‘I found an injured leveret, sir, in the forest. Its legs were trapped. I carried it down—’
‘A baby hare, trapped in the woods? An unlikely tale, de Lowe, as hares live in open land. Furthermore, they are not creatures one ordinarily carries about.’ He paused for effect. ‘You do come up with the most hare-brained schemes.’
The other teachers laughed politely. Students groaned.
Archie bowed his head.
‘Hare or no hare,’ Solomon continued, ‘let this be a lesson to you all, not just you, Archie. Today, and today only, and because you are a key part of our famous football team, you are excused. And this, of course, leads me on to the other main item on this morning’s agenda.’
With these words, the mood in the hall lightened as if a gust of fresher, happier air had blown in. The noise level increased.
Along the row, nibbling her nails, Daisy stared at the floor.
The headmaster raised an arm for quiet.
‘Most of you are aware of the situation. As a small school, our selection for teams is limited and I regrettably endorsed that a girl could play in our boys’ team. As you know, this team has gone on to great things to the tremendous credit of our school. However, we… were found out.’
The headmaster pulled a letter from his breast pocket and waved it in the air.
‘Let me interpret the relevant parts of this communication I received yesterday from the president of our Football Association.’
He nudged his glasses onto the bridge of his nose and thumbed his way down the page.
‘What they are saying, is this: if Daisy de Lowe has played in ten matches in a row this season, they are willing to be lenient. Well, anyone, has she?’
He spied a hand from the back.
‘Yes. Sue Lowden. Do you have the answer?’
‘Daisy’s played in twelve, sir. Thirteen if you add the German team.’
‘Thank you, Miss Lowden.’
A buzz moved around the room.
‘It is our opinion,’ he read, ‘that Upsall School has taken advantage of the goodwill of our league. However, until we received an anonymous letter highlighting the anomaly, not one opposition team reported or noticed Miss de Lowe’s disguise.’
A hissing noise developed and several heads turned to the right.
Mr Solomon continued, this time up a gear.
‘Our decision is this,’ he read. ‘Should Upsall School win, then, with the full backing of the Football Association, Miss de Lowe will be allowed to continue playing for Upsall School boys and the regulations across the county will be changed with immediate effect—’
Cheers filled the air.
‘However,’ Solomon said, and he raised his hand for quiet, ‘should Upsall lose,’ and here, his voice went so quiet, ‘then it will be Miss de Lowe’s last game for the Upsall School’s boys eleven.’
Solomon picked Daisy out of the assembly and spoke directly to her.
‘So, there we have it, Daisy. I have spoken with the authorities to make sure we completely understand this ruling. You will play in tomorrow’s boys final against Sutton. Lose, and it will be your last game for the school until we have enough girls willing to play in a girls team. I hope that moment will not be too far away.’
Daisy nodded back.
‘Very good,’ he said. ‘Regardless of the outcome, this doesn’t mean your sporting career is temporarily over here at Upsall,’ the headmaster continued, as a smile slipped onto his face.
‘No, no, no! Not by any means. It would appear that your exploits on the soccer field have been "talent-spotted”.’ Solomon’s eyes sparkled. ‘After half term,’ and here he slowed, using every ounce of his experience to engage the assembly, ‘you have been invited to join the England ladies national training squad.’
Gasps shot out from the assembly floor.
‘Yes, yes, I’ll repeat it again. The England squad. It is a terrific honour that you’ve been picked to train with your country, the youngest player ever to be invited. Daisy, we are extremely proud of you.’
Applause rallied and Solomon let it continue for its deserved time.
‘There we have it, Daisy. There’s plenty for you to look forward to after half term,’ Solomon said. He crashed his hand down on the lectern, making the juniors in front of him jump.
‘But let’s make sure that we jolly well win, so we can change these silly rules forever!’
Kemp watched as Daisy headed down the assembly row. As she neared he thrust out a leg stopping her in her tracks. Shrugging, Daisy promptly kicked his shin hard enough to hear a whimper.
‘I only wanted to say congratulations,’ he said, rubbing his leg.
‘Yeah, right.’ Daisy sneered, looking up at him. ‘You’ve never congratulated anyone on anything, have you Kemp?’
‘I meant it,’ he said, hurt.
‘Sure. If you really meant it,’ she whispered, leaning down, ‘you’d give me a kiss.’
Kemp almost toppled over the back of his chair. ‘Jeez Daisy, you’re weirder than both of the other two—’
‘You’re referring to my brother and sister, Kemp?’
He flushed and blustered. ‘Yeah. I mean, no. Oh heck—’
Daisy tousled her hair and pouted. ‘Don’t be a shy boy, Kemp. I’m waiting.’
Kemp tried to pull himself together. ‘No way. I wouldn’t kiss you if you paid me—’
She smiled at his deep discomfort and whispered. ‘Know what, bad boy, I sooo think you’re on to me.’
Kemp reddened and his nose expanded sideways, incredulity sketched on his face.
A bellow of laughter came from big Gus Williams listening to every word in row behind. ‘Daisy,’ he said. 'You are totally hilarious. Forget this loser, if it’s any consolation, I fancy you!’ he flashed his friendly, toothy smile at her. ‘I’ll give you a kiss!’
‘Yes, I know you would, Gus,’ she said, as an entourage of fans approached. ‘Thing is, you like everyone. Hey girls,’ Daisy said, pointing at Kemp’s red face. ‘Look! And all I wanted was a kiss!’
Daisy winked at both the boys before being whisked away by the giggling, chatty crowd.
Gus turned to Kemp, his large eyes bulging with excitement.
‘Kicked
by a girl, but not kissed by a girl, Kemp. That’s not right for a tough boy like you?’
‘You’re asking for it, Williams,’ Kemp spat.
‘Anytime,’ Gus replied, his voice levelling. ‘Happy to oblige, whenever you’ve got a minute. Just you and me, Kemp.’
Four
Asgard Understands
Asgard the dreamspinner sat alone, floating, watching planet Earth spinning, as it always did.
Every so often a tiny burst of light, invisible to other creatures, flashed for a nano-second. He mused that he was not the only dreamspinner taking time from dream-giving to reflect upon Genesis’s extraordinary news.
Asgard noted Earth’s moon rising in the near distance against the endless expanse of space.
Twisting, as if his legs were made of rubber, he dabbled several slender legs in his maghole, enjoying how the warmth from the blue electrical field bathed them.
Was there still a need for inspirational, magical dreams? Dreams that offered insight or inspired change or for dreams that prompted love and joy?
Asgard cranked his small, round head, and stared at a distant star, as he replaced one leg in his maghole with another.
Their purpose as dream-givers would not end simply because no joyful dreams remained. So long as any dream were given, he reasoned, from any powder blended from any spider’s web, surely the dreamspinners would continue to have a purpose? If dreams were nightmares, at least the dreamspinners would exist to knit and spin them?
This, he realised was the choice.
He thought of the boy. The boy who knew nothing.
What had fate in mind for him, and his sisters? Immediate death?
It was clear that Adam had failed in his task to nurture and train the Heirs of Eden, if indeed these three children were the Heirs of Eden.
Even Genesis could tell Adam was no longer the man he once was. The old man’s sharp mind was but a shadow. Earth had drowned him in a pool of denial and apathy.
Asgard had tried to explain to Genesis that it must be a mistake. But the elder dreamspinner would not listen. Genesis had swept aside the doubters and told them that the words on the great stone could not be twisted.
He’d visited the monolith to see them for himself. And it was exactly as Genesis said:
The three Heirs of Eden of the human race are those who live under the protection of Adam on Earth.
They alone must receive the Tripodean Dream.
But the Heirs of Eden were children!
If they didn’t die at the very first hurdle it would take them seven years, not seven days. If these children were the measure of life on Earth, then perhaps the planet deserved its outcome.
Maybe Adam was in the wrong place, caring for the wrong people.
Asgard noticed a pinprick of yellow light coming from a spot on the Moon’s dark surface. The birthing of dreamspinners, he realised, hatching from cocoons in caverns dotted around the universe. More dreamspinners, to nurture, guide, and instruct in the art of dream-giving for the booming populations on Earth.
Asgard reached into his maghole with one hand and weighed up his last dream dusts from the planet of the Garden of Eden. Forty dreams, he estimated; more if he thinned them out. But did he really want to dilute such precious cargo?
Asgard flashed out of his maghole, landing in a huge cavern. He hovered in mid-air, extended his legs wide and switched, by thought alone, out of his invisible mode.
Suddenly, a flurry of activity appeared, like magic, in front of him. Dreamspinners dashed here and there across the sky, blue flashes denoting the arrival of some, the departure of others.
He turned his wiry neck upward towards the roof of the cave, and found it packed with yellowy-brown cocoons stacked in layer upon layer like the neat chambers of a beehive.
Walking across the air, he passed younger dreamspinners, who turned or bowed their heads in a sign of respect for their Elders.
He noted a flash next to him and turned.
‘Gaia,’ Asgard said, her fingers vibrating together so fast as to form words. ‘I see you.’
‘And I you, Asgard,’ she replied, her vibrations softer. ‘You have come to see the birthing of young dreamspinners?’
‘By their movement, the time is close,’ he said, indicating lines of dreamspinners perched in the air. ‘Many crowd the chamber.’
‘It has always been so,’ Gaia replied. ‘They are our future. But what kind of future do we leave them?’ her vibrations dimmed. ‘Have you heard who the Heirs of Eden are?’ she said.
‘I am aware that they are young. But, of course, this is nature’s will—’
‘There!’ cried a voice. ‘See! The sun is nearly in line with the entrance.’
A sudden flurry of activity began, with blue lights flashing everywhere. Asgard and Gaia were almost blinded as dreamspinners flashed into the chamber, unfurling from their magholes and into their visible forms as they did so.
The entire cavern buzzed with excitement.
From the cocoons high above, one chamber wriggled and shook more violently than before. Then another, and, before long, multiple cocoons along the length of the huge ceiling rattled, cracked, and split, exposing tiny dreamspinners.
Then, the entire ceiling seemed to open up like popcorn and before long, the tiny, stick-like creatures flapped about like new-born chicks, clawing at the air as if swimming in a thick soup.
The onlookers, dreamspinners of all shapes and sizes, vibrated words of love and encouragement.
‘Fall! Jump into the light!’ said a youth nearby, as thousands of shells cracked apart, sections of their nests spiralling to the ground like loose strands of straw.
To the mock-horror of the crowd of dreamspinners, the tiny creatures began to fall, plummeting head over heels towards the rocky ground beneath them. A collective gasp shot out.
Asgard noticed how Gaia covered her black eyes.
As they fell from the dark roof into the bright sunlight, a sudden bolt of yellow light flashed in, enveloping the first hatchlings in circles of iridescent light, stopping them exactly where they were.
Then, as if a firework display had gone into overload, the remaining hatchlings tumbled through the air and into the light. As the energy bathed them these fledglings were now dreamspinners; borne of light and energy, ready for a life of giving dreams.
Asgard too, vibrated his feelings, offering the newcomers strength, love, and a long life.
The energies of creation, he mused, were always beautiful.
He was about to flip into his maghole when an idea of immense magnitude slipped neatly into his mind. Picking his way across the sky, he leaned into the jagged rock-edges of the huge cavern, out of sight.
This last Earth night, he’d taken Cain, the Frozen Lord, to see the boy. Initially, he’d gone to ask the spirit what he thought about having children as Heirs of Eden. After all, if anyone could remember and comprehend the tasks ahead, it was, he suspected, Cain.
Asgard recalled how he had flipped out of his maghole into the main chamber of Cain’s old sprawling palace that stretched above the face of the canyon. The way the building overlooked the ruddy, sandy-coloured rocks reminded him of a beast who had sucked the life out of the city below.
He’d looked over the once bustling rock city of Havilaria, capital of Havilah, and its renowned stone formations and, even for a dreamspinner, the dramatic cityscape, with its huge craggy buttes that soared into the air like icebergs, and the deep canyon that circumnavigated it, filled him with wonder. He remembered how the cacophony of noise had once risen up from the narrow streets, and how the rock faces above were perforated with neat, square holes of ancient dwellings that had once sparkled with a million candles in the moonlight.
Now, the only sounds were echoes of squawks from the large birds, redundant from their past lives of flying people from one great rock to the next, who now inhabited roof tops, their wide, messy nests formed from debris and branches plucked from the river. The city’s once c
elebrated house-caves were overrun with creepers and the diamond, ruby and emerald stones—found naturally in the rock—was now covered over by dust, forgotten and unloved.
Asgard had picked out Cain’s low vibrations and talked to the ghost who’d answered in a brusque, hostile, and bitter manner. Later, in return for information on the forthcoming trials of the Heirs of Eden, Asgard revealed the dreamspinner’s secret of the maghole, and when Cain realised how the maghole might transport him, the former Founder’s mood lifted.
Asgard told Cain that three children were the Heirs of Eden and the ghost had thundered that this was impossible. He demanded to go directly to the Heirs of Eden to see the boy for himself—through his maghole.
Not long after this, Cain, the blind spirit, had faced the Heirs of Eden and stood in front of the Heir the humans called Archie.
Asgard needed to think.
Turning invisible, he flashed his head through his maghole, sending him in an instant to his favourite place miles above the Earth.
As he hovered in space, he remembered how he’d watched the ghost, Cain, produce a knife and flick the boy’s chin. Watched how the ghost had marvelled at the spot of blood.
And all the while, the boy’s eyes bulged. Disbelieving.
Cain had a kind strength ordinary ghosts did not possess. The way he could carry objects for a certain length of time, pull things, lacerate with a small blade.
But an idea had nestled into his mind and it had refused to budge. And now, as he floated alone above the blue and white orb below him, he considered it deeply.
What if one of the Heirs of Eden might somehow ally with Cain? Perhaps with this boy Archie?
Why did this sound so right and yet feel so horribly wrong? The more he dwelled on this idea, the more excited and more fearful he became until he realised he knew exactly what he had to do.
Asgard sensed his maghole expanding as the enormity of his mission dawned upon him.