Dream Master: Arabian Nights

by Theresa Breslin

  Cy looked to where she was pointing. Eddie and Chloe had slipped in and sat down. They looked a bit wet but had obviously stopped arguing with each other. Close behind the Mean Machines drifted an almost transparent mist. There was a faint rumble in the air and a wisp of smoke curled above Chloe’s head.

  ‘Sounds like a bit of thunder,’ said Basra. ‘Hope the rain holds off.’

  It wasn’t thunder. The vague ball of mist coiled upwards and hung above the audience.

  Below the genie Chloe spoke under her breath to Eddie. ‘This is going to be so funny. Putting those old vegetables in Innis’s juggling bag when he was in the loo was a brainwave.’

  ‘I can’t wait to see Basra’s face when he discovers the inside of his cannon is blocked,’ said Eddie.

  Someone else had seen the entrance of the Mean Machines and the genie. Shahr-Azad nudged the Dream Master in their seats behind them. ‘I know this genie has not treated you well, O mighty Dream Lord, but for Cy’s sake . . .’

  The Dream Master fixed his gaze on the top of the tent. Then he stood up and opened his dreamcloak. The smoke from the top of the tent spiralled down towards them. From under the dreamcloak the form of the genie took shape and he emerged, shaking himself. A mother in the seat next to Shahr-Azad took her child by the hand and moved to another row.

  ‘I’m totally knackered,’ said the genie, flopping into the vacant seat. ‘I’ve got to follow that odious girl around until I fulfil all of her three wishes. And was she pleased earlier when I gave her exactly what she asked for with two of them? No she was not. She is a very discontented young lady.’

  ‘Has she made her three wishes?’ asked Shahr-Azad.

  ‘Yes,’ said the genie. ‘Although her very first wish I have yet to grant. When she released me from the bottle by letting it smash on the ground she said that she hoped the boy Cy’s act today would be “truly spectacular”. I have still to arrange for that to happen.’ He peered around the tent and caught sight of Cy and his friends being ushered onto the stage. ‘Oh there he is,’ he said. ‘I’d better do something about that now.’ The genie raised his hand.

  ‘Not yet.’ Shahr-Azad placed a restraining hand on the genie’s arm. ‘Not yet,’ she murmured.

  ‘Another thing,’ the genie moaned on. ‘My bottle has been smashed. What am I supposed to do about that? Eh? Where do I go to put my feet up and have a bit of shut-eye now?’

  Shahr-Azad took the little teapot from under her jacket. ‘I have brought you a new resting place,’ she told him. ‘For when your work is done here.’

  ‘A teapot?’ The genie regarded her disdainfully. ‘Then I’d be known as the Genie of the Teapot! I don’t think so.’

  ‘I didn’t see it as a teapot,’ Shahr-Azad spoke softly. Her great eyes darkened and her voice became as smooth as satin. ‘When I look at this . . .’ she held the teapot up and turned it in her hands, ‘ . . . I behold a lamp. A magic lamp.’

  ‘Really?’ The genie peered more closely. ‘Oh . . . yes I see what you mean.’

  ‘You would be the Genie of the Lamp. The Genie of the Magic Lamp.’

  ‘Mmmmm.’ The genie preened himself. ‘It does have a certain ring to it, doesn’t it?’

  Shahr-Azad smiled in agreement. The Dream Master nodded furiously. All three turned their heads to face the front as the ‘Magical Mixture’ act was announced.

  Basra began by firing off his cannon full of confetti. At least that was what he intended to do . . . Basra pulled the lever and stood clear. The cannon made a small phut! and coughed out a few feathers. Basra bent down to examine the mechanism anxiously, while Vicky mounted her mono-cycle and started to pedal around the stage.

  ‘It would be such a laugh,’ Chloe muttered to Eddie, ‘if Vicky fell right off that bike.’

  The genie exchanged a look with Shahr-Azad. ‘You see how this child’s mind works?’

  ‘It might not be totally inappropriate,’ Shahr-Azad said thoughtfully.

  On stage Innis reached into his prop bag, but instead of his special soft juggling balls he found a cabbage, a cauliflower, and a turnip. He carried on gamely, but the turnip was very old and rotten, and he could not keep all the items in the air simultaneously. He moved to one side.

  Seeing his predicament Cy hurriedly began his part of the show. ‘I will now make something vanish,’ he said hesitantly.

  ‘I wish something would go splat,’ said Chloe viciously.

  The genie raised an eyebrow and Shahr-Azad smiled. On stage Cy was pretending to wrap the old key up in the red spotted scarf. From the back of the tent Shahr-Azad took her scarf between her fingers and wafted it gently to and fro. The next moment the elastic snapped up. The key boinged into the air and Cy had to duck his head to avoid being struck in the face. He stumbled backwards, almost colliding with Vicky. She managed to keep upright by reaching out and grabbing hold of Innis’s hair.

  ‘Er, er,’ Cy stuttered glancing round wildly. ‘I’ll now burst this balloon. I mean I won’t. That is, it won’t. Burst that is. But I will. Burst. The balloon, I mean. Not me. Later. In a minute.’

  Cy looked around for help. Innis was gamely throwing vegetables in the air one by one with Vicky clutching his head. Basra was peering down the barrel of the cannon.

  Cy lifted up the balloon and slowly slid the long skewer inside from end to end. There was some applause, but it was mainly, Cy saw, from their families who had come along to support them. He withdrew the skewer and prepared to burst the balloon holding it high by the trail of coloured ribbons. Meanwhile Vicky regained her balance and resumed cycling. Basra whispered urgently, ‘I think I’ve got rid of the blockage now. Let’s go for the finale.’

  One of Princess Shahr-Azad’s scarves wafted to and fro, and she winked at the genie. Suddenly, metres and metres of ribbon unravelled from both Cy’s sleeves, cascaded down his legs and began to pile up on the floor around his feet. He stumbled around the stage almost colliding with Vicky who was going backwards and forwards on her trick cycle.

  Basra’s cannon still wouldn’t work. He got to his knees in front of it and stuck his hand down the barrel. Then he drew back with a very strange expression on his face. A pigeon hopped out. Basra let out a yelp as it tried to peck him. The bird flew up and landed on Cy’s head. Then Basra’s cannon exploded and a blizzard of bird feathers poured out. He sneezed and flailed his arms about helplessly. At the same moment Cy tripped forwards into the huge mound of coloured ribbons, Vicky wobbled horribly and cannoned into Innis. The rotten turnip sailed through the air and landed splat! in Chloe’s lap spattering both her and Eddie with rancid mush. Vicky fell off her cycle, and, dragging Innis with her, they both ended in a heap on top of Cy.

  The four friends disentangled themselves and stood up. The tent was rocking with laughter. It was too much humiliation and disappointment, thought Cy. He saw Eddie and Chloe mopping up goo from their clothes but still jeering at their terrible performance. His face flared with shame. And then Cy saw and heard something else. The crowd were cheering, not jeering. The audience were clapping furiously. Led by Grampa and Mrs Turner, everyone stood up and began to shout ‘Encore! Encore!’

  ‘That was so clever, Cy,’ said Vicky afterwards, ‘putting all that extra ribbon up your sleeve and having it stream out like that.’

  ‘And you too,’ said Cy. ‘To do a trick fall from a mono-cycle isn’t easy.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it to happen quite like that,’ said Vicky truthfully.

  ‘Yes, but you got up and took the bow,’ said Innis. ‘That was really smart, Vicky.’

  ‘It’s the sign of a true performer,’ said Basra. ‘Able to ad-lib.’

  ‘I can see how you fixed the ribbon and the feathers,’ Vicky said to Cy, ‘but I don’t know how you managed the dove.’

  ‘I’m not too sure about that myself,’ said Cy. His mind sought desperately for a solution as his friends waited for an answer. ‘I think maybe Grampa helped out a bit. One of his friends has access to a lot of b
irds.’

  ‘Oh that’s right,’ said Innis. ‘Mrs Turner’s neighbour keeps pigeons.’

  Fortunately at this moment Cy’s mum and dad interrupted and Cy didn’t have to say any more.

  ‘Congratulations, son,’ said Cy’s dad. ‘You should rename your act “Magical Mayhem”. I don’t know how you stage-managed that finale at the end, but it was brilliant.’

  Cy’s mum was still wiping away tears of laughter. ‘It was so funny. I thought I was never going to stop laughing. Excellent comic timing. You must have practised so hard to have Basra disappear in a storm of feathers, Vicky tumble off on top of Innis, and you trip up into the piles of ribbon, all at exactly the same time.’

  Cy and his friends looked at each other.

  ‘Hilarious,’ they agreed.

  AS CY HAD expected Shahr-Azad had a huge attendance for her storytelling session.

  Word of her unusual arrival on the field had got round and rumours had spread that she was a member of a European Royal Family appearing incognito. Cy had trouble finding her and the Dream Master afterwards, eventually tracking them down outside one of the TV caravans. Shahr-Azad was in conversation with Greaseball.

  ‘You’ll be big,’ Greaseball was telling her as the Dream Master stood to one side chewing on his beard.

  ‘Big?’ said Shahr-Azad. ‘I am petite.’

  ‘By “big”, I mean—’ Greaseball waved his hand in the air. ‘Well, big, anyway. Your stories are fabulous. Probably need a bit of work on them here and there . . .’

  ‘Work?’ said Shahr-Azad. ‘What kind of “work” do you mean?’

  ‘Nip and tuck.’

  ‘Nip? And Tuck? Who are Nip and Tuck?’

  Greaseball gave Shahr-Azad a puzzled look. ‘You’ve lost me there, honey.’

  ‘Are they characters? This Nip and Tuck?’

  ‘Oh right, I get it. Fun-eee.’ Greaseball made a face. ‘Or not.’ He muttered under his breath, ‘Why is it everyone thinks they can do comedy? Take my advice, honey,’ he said in a louder voice. ‘Leave the jokes to the experts.’

  ‘You think I am not an expert?’ There was a slight edge to Shahr-Azad’s voice.

  ‘Honey, we all got to accept that there’s room for improvement.’

  Cy noticed that the temperature had fallen by a few degrees. ‘Explain, please,’ Shahr-Azad demanded icily.

  ‘Your stories do need a bit of tweaking,’ Greaseball blundered on.

  ‘Tweaking? What is tweaking?’

  ‘A little bit of this and that.’

  Shahr-Azad looked puzzled. She turned to Cy. ‘What is this person talking about?’

  Cy shrugged. ‘Dunno.’ He often found the way that adults spoke confusing. They used what his dad called buzz words like ‘achieving potential’ and ‘turnaround time’. It was almost as though they didn’t want you to know what they meant.

  ‘We’re marketing for a modern audience. We need some good sound bites,’ said Greaseball.

  ‘What is a “sound bite” exactly?’ asked Shahr-Azad.

  ‘It is a sentence that has instant appeal. A phrase that is exciting.’

  ‘You think my stories are not exciting?’ asked Shahr-Azad in what Cy now recognized as a decidedly dangerous tone of voice.

  Cy and the Dream Master stepped back a pace.

  ‘I wouldn’t go there,’ Cy said to Greaseball.

  ‘Not even halfway there,’ the Dream Master added.

  ‘You must admit they could do with a bit more oomph,’ Greaseball blundered on. ‘Our script editors will be able to spruce them up, make them more interesting.’

  ‘Make my stories more interesting!’

  The Dream Master and Cy hurriedly backed away as the full two million candle-power force of Shahr-Azad’s wrath exploded into Greaseball’s face.

  ‘Make my stories more interesting! My stories,’ she shrieked, ‘could not be more interesting. I have entertained the King of all Arabia for one thousand nights. Moguls of China, sultans of the Ottoman Empire, caliphs from Baghdad and maharajahs of India beg to be included in my stories. I created flying carpets, horses that could ride wind and water, magical castles and caverns full of treasure.’

  ‘Honey—’ Greaseball attempted to interrupt. But there was no stopping an angry princess.

  ‘And you, you insignificant ant, you have the effrontery to advise me to make my stories more interesting!’

  ‘It-it-it-it was only a suggestion,’ stuttered Greaseball.

  ‘I can conjure up necromancers and magicians. On my command, genies appear.’

  ‘Not literally,’ reasoned Greaseball.

  ‘No?’ said Shahr-Azad. She reached under he jacket to take out the little enamel teapot.

  ‘No!’ cried Cy and the Dream Master together.

  Shahr-Azad dropped her hand.

  ‘We could offer you your own show,’ said Greaseball in a wheedling tone of voice.

  ‘She’s got her own show,’ said Cy. ‘Come on,’ he spoke urgently to Shahr-Azad.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked Greaseball.

  ‘Never you mind,’ snapped the Dream Master. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘The man with the money,’ replied the producer. He slid his arm around Shahr-Azad’s shoulder. ‘I can get you the best merchandising deals.’

  Shahr-Azad looked at his arm as if it were some particularly repellent snake. Greaseball removed it. ‘Uh, let me tell you the kind of cash I’m talking about.’

  ‘Cash?’ said Shahr-Azad.

  ‘Money. Spondoolicks. The Readies.’ And as Shahr-Azad still looked blank. ‘You could buy things. Clothes. Cars. Go on world tours.’

  ‘I would like to see the world,’ said Shahr-Azad.

  ‘You will,’ he assured her. ‘You’ll be big in the old U.S. of A.’

  ‘Where is that, precisely?’ asked Shahr-Azad.

  Greaseball turned to Cy. ‘Is she for real?’

  ‘She’s led a sheltered life,’ Cy muttered. ‘Doesn’t go out much.’

  ‘I can see it now,’ said Greaseball. ‘“Shahr-Azad – the Movie”. We’ll use animation.’

  ‘Animation?’ said Shahr-Azad suspiciously.

  ‘Or special effects,’ Greaseball rambled on. ‘We’ll get top actors for voice-overs. What is that mythical bird you mentioned? The one with the huge wingspan and the great claws that tears people’s heads off?

  ‘The roc?’

  ‘That’s the one. We’ll create a roc using computer graphics.’

  ‘But it is not mythical,’ said Shahr-Azad. ‘I myself have seen one.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ said Greaseball. He looked at Shahr-Azad for a moment and then continued. ‘So we’ll create that anyway, with the flying castles and some of the other things you mentioned.’

  ‘But it is the listener to the storyteller, the reader of the book who creates,’ said Shahr-Azad.

  ‘But this way we save them the effort. We do it for them.’

  ‘You steal the story from them.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Greaseball. ‘We kind of interpret your stories in our way.’

  ‘But, in truth, eventually . . .’ Shahr-Azad spoke very slowly, ‘they are not finally only my stories. I mean they are my stories, but as soon as they are spoken they belong to everyone. Stories are not owned by one person. Each individual brings themselves to the story. That is what makes a story . . . your Imagination, experience, fears, hopes, dreams . . .’

  ‘Film makes it so much better,’ said Greaseball.

  ‘I don’t think it can,’ said Shahr-Azad. ‘It will be different, but not better than the story itself. If you capture the story in this way then it belongs to many people, the person who directs the actors, the person who chooses the actors, the actor themselves . . . You lose the essential . . . the quiddity.’

  ‘Qu . . . quiddy?’ Greaseball looked blank. ‘Is that to do with money?’

  ‘Quiddity,’ repeated Shahr-Azad. ‘The essential nature of it . . . the spirit of the story, that which makes
the story unique. A story is a tale where the reader or the listener becomes involved. They bring their identity to the story.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Cy. ‘When you’re reading a story it is you that makes the picture in your head.’

  Shahr-Azad smiled at Cy in agreement. ‘Though they may be my stories in the telling, when I tell them, they are mine no longer. The story is yours.’

  ‘You’re prepared to sign off copyright?’ said Greaseball.

  ‘What is copyright?’

  Greaseball stopped speaking. A shifty expression came across his face. ‘You don’t know what copyright is?’ he asked casually.

  ‘She might not know,’ said a voice in his ear. ‘But I do.’

  Greaseball turned to face the Dream Master. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded.

  The Dream Master looked him straight in the eye. ‘Her agent.’

  ‘I DON’T KNOW what you were thinking of, telling Greaseball you were Shahr-Azad’s agent,’ said Cy.

  It was the next day, Sunday afternoon, exactly one week since Cy had first begun his Arabian Nights adventure. Cy was waiting for his friends to come round so they could all go together to collect the runner-up prize they’d won and to give their support to Lauren and her friends who were due to perform later.

  ‘I confess I was tempted by some of the offers Greaseball was talking about,’ said the Dream Master. ‘Especially, when he mentioned merchandising. There’s a lot of mileage in merchandising, you know.’

  ‘They might have produced a Dream Master doll,’ Cy said pointedly.

  ‘That idea has a certain attraction,’ mused the Dream Master.

  ‘You’re joking!’

  ‘If it was a tasteful representation . . .?’

  ‘No,’ said Cy firmly.

  ‘Perhaps . . . mugs, pens, pencils?’ the Dream Master said wistfully.

  ‘ . . . clothes, jewellery . . . skateboards,’ continued Shahr-Azad with a sigh.

  ‘Lampshades, toilet-roll holders,’ Cy added

  The Dream Master made a face.

  ‘Exactly.’ Cy looked at them both severely. ‘Once that genie is out of its bottle, there is no going back.’