by Dan Anthony
‘Don’t start, Steve,’ said Mum.
‘Don’t start what?’ I asked.
‘It’s a piano lesson. You don’t want to go. You’ll say anything to get out of it.’
‘Mrs Gestetner is an evil brain destroyer, you have no idea what happens to me when I step over her threshold.’
‘She’s a piano teacher, Steve, not a Dark Lord.’
‘I’m telling you, if I wasn’t a strong individual with a good grasp of right and wrong, she’d have turned my head towards the ways of the underworld by now,’ I said.
‘Steve,’ snapped Mum, ‘if you were supportive of your sisters you wouldn’t be talking about yourself now. You’d be giving them encouragement.’
I thought for a while as we drove out of our estate and onto the dual carriageway that led to the Bastion Cleverly Leisure Centre roundabout.
‘I like the song,’ I said to Jaydee and Miffany as they sung. ‘Has it got an A in it?’
Mrs Gestetner’s house is in a cul-de-sac called Melody Court, a little way away from the Bastion Cleverly Centre. We pulled up at the end of it. Mum didn’t want to drive down because it wasn’t easy to turn the car around.
I stepped out, holding my music book and Mrs Gestetner’s money envelope.
‘I’ll be back in an hour,’ said Mum. ‘If I’m late, tell Mrs Gestetner to put you in the garden.’
They drove off.
I looked at Melody Court. It was similar to our street except the small brick houses were gathered around a little turning circle. Mrs Gestetner was always looking through her curtains to make sure that people didn’t park on the circle. Everybody who lived on the circle liked to keep an eye on it, to stop the circle parkers. Mrs Gestetner’s house was at the far end of the circle. As I walked across it, I could feel the eyes of all the people who lived around the circle. I knew they’d be checking me out. They didn’t like strange cars parking on their circle and they hated strange people wandering into their circle. Any stranger who came into the circle was likely to be trouble for someone. The people in Melody Court didn’t like trouble, strangers or parkers.
I walked up to the front door of Mrs Gestetner’s house, which was on the side of the building. I pressed the bell. Tingly bells, like sleigh bells, chimed out inside.
The door opened and Mrs Gestetner poked her head around it. She blinked at me through her big glasses. I took a step back, horrified at the piercing nature of her enormous dead eyes.
‘Ah, Steve,’ she said, holding out her bony blue hand.
I placed the money envelope into her hand and she let me in. I followed her down the thickly carpeted hall into the piano room. I sat on the stool in front of the piano. Mrs Gestetner sat beside me on her stool.
I put my book on the music holder.
‘Ah,’ said Mrs Gestetner. ‘Wrong again, Steve.’
‘But I haven’t done anything yet,’ I said.
‘We don’t start with Wolfgang Amadeus Lofthouse, do we?’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I was just putting him on the music holder ready for when we do.’
‘I’ve got a new piece,’ she said, standing up.
Mrs Gestetner’s piano stools were like boxes: you lift up the bit you sit on and find sheets of music underneath. I think Mrs Gestetner thought this was cool. Probably to her, the idea of a seat you could keep music in was like the idea of a mobile phone that could access YouTube and Facebook: two apps in one piece of hardware. As she rummaged around her chair, I looked around the room.
The walls were white, the carpet was grey, the window looked out over the empty cul-de-sac. Pictures of former pupils hung on the walls with captions underneath. I read one of them – a fat boy wearing a gown and flat hat was holding a rolled-up certificate: Snooks Creamer – Certificate of Merit –International Pianists’ Federation. A little further down the wall was a girl standing next to a piano wearing a purple prom dress: Pansy Jenkins-Jones – National Keyboard Institute Award For Excellence. And then in a really big frame was a studenty-looking guy with thick glasses and a strange centre-parting haircut. This was Mrs Gestetner’s pride and joy: Mostyn Reginald Victor Norris – First Class Honours – Performance Piano, Newport Conservatoire of Performing Arts.
‘Ah, Mostyn,’ said Mrs Gestetner, slotting her music in place above the keyboard. ‘I see you have spotted M. R. V. Norris. He really was a special one.’
‘I know,’ I said.
‘By your age he was playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto number 21 so well that it used to make me cry.’
I shifted in my seat. I didn’t know whether Mrs Gestetner meant that if I could make her cry through my piano playing that would be a good thing or a bad one.
‘He looks good,’ I said, nodding towards the picture of Mostyn. ‘Like he means business.’
‘Oh, Mostyn,’ said Mrs Gestetner again. ‘There will never be another Mostyn. Now, Steve, are we ready for “Pigs’ Trotters”?’
‘What?’ I asked.
Mrs Gestetner nodded towards the music. The new piece called ‘Pigs’ Trotters’.
‘It’s very simple, very basic, it sounds like pigs’ feet — it’s good for boys like you, who find it difficult to bring a sense of rhythm to their music.’
I looked at the rows of black blobs on their long lines. I hadn’t quite got used to what notes the blobs meant. I tried. I pressed a key.
‘Wrong,’ said Mrs Gestetner.
I tried another.
‘Wrong,’ said Mrs Gestetner.
I tried another.
‘Honestly,’ she said, ‘have you any idea what you are doing?’
I shook my head. I couldn’t speak. I felt so angry with Mrs Gestetner – I mean, I was there because I didn’t have any idea what I was doing. I was supposed to be finding out.
‘It’s a C,’ she sighed.
I pressed the C that Toby had showed me.
‘Good,’ she said.
I relaxed.
‘And the next note.’
I stopped relaxing.
In the end Mrs Gestetner said that I hadn’t been practising, that I didn’t have any sense of rhythm and I would never make even a quarter the piano player that Mostyn Victor Reginald Norris of the Newport Conservatoire was. I told Mrs Gestetner that she was a weirdo witch living in a cul-de-sac full of curtain-twitching zombies. She opened the piano stool and stuffed a sheet of music into my hand. She said Mostyn Norris could play this when he was two. Then she said I couldn’t go into the garden, which was just as well because she probably stuffed it full of the bodies of the ones who didn’t get the reason why music starts on the third letter of the alphabet. I felt her eyes eating my brain and dived under the piano stool covering my eyes with my hands. I shouted that it was ridiculous that everything begins with C. It should be begin with A.
Mrs Gestetner kind of quivered; her blue eyes fixed me with a death-ray glare, I avoided it by staring at her reflection in the photograph of Mostyn the Magnificent holding his awards.
‘I think you’ve said quite enough, you had better leave,’ she whispered.
I ran out of her house to the top end of the cul-de-sac and sat on the sign pointing down to Melody Court. The day was going badly. I tried to add up the problems. There were so many of them that I began to cry. Not like a baby, more like a person who’s got too much stress.
Problems:
Kyled had been sick in the school keyboard – now it didn’t work.
I’d washed the keyboard – that meant it was my fault.
Mrs Gestetner would tell Mum I’d been bad – I’d probably get grounded.
I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. Mum liked me to be where I was supposed to be – she wouldn’t like finding me not in Mrs Gestetner’s garden.
Music begins with the third letter of the alphabet – this makes no sense.
If I got grounded I’d be stuck in the house with Kyled – this would be terrible.
If I didn’t get grounded I’d be stuck outside with Toby – th
at would be terrible.
Dad would be told about Mrs Gestetner – he was working in Khazakstan on the oil rigs, but he’d still go mad.
Possible Problems:
Dad might get so mad with me he’d make a mistake and blow his rig up.
This would cause serious trouble. For a start, we’d all have to go to Khazakstan to make sure he was OK.
An international incident might be triggered off, causing a big war.
The more I thought about it the longer the list got. There was one other thing. While I was sitting on the Melody Court sign I looked up into the sky, the way people do when they’ve got a lot of problems. I saw a seagull flapping across the blue sky, or what I thought was a seagull. It came closer and closer until I realised, almost too late, that it wasn’t a bird. I had to duck to avoid it and it clattered onto the pavement beside me.
It was a boomerang. I picked it up. There was a message, written on the back of the boomerang in black ink.
‘To Steve, from the library – HELP.’
There was no doubt about it. Big Mo was after for me. Strangely, I felt almost relieved to get the message.
After a long wait, Mum arrived in the car. They were all in it. I climbed in the back and did my best to explain what had gone wrong. Nobody seemed to care. Jaydee and Miffany had won the singing competition. They really were musical. Pendown loved them and the Bastion Cleverly Leisure Centre had gone mad when they sang their song:
We are the Piratellas,
We sail the seas and blow up fellas.
We take their boats and steal their treasures,
And sing all day and dance all night.
They had been entered into the regional final which would take place in Newport, at the Riverfront Centre. Everybody loved the Piratellas.
But my mind wasn’t on the music. As they sang their song over and over again, I was thinking about something else. What did Big Mo want? What was going on up in the Library of Dreams?
That night I climbed up the ladder, lay on my bunk and stared up at the skylight over my head. Gently, so as not to wake Kyled, I sat up. Through the skylight I could see stars and planets appearing high above the orange glow of Pendown. I reached up and pushed the skylight open. I saw the archway floating in the black sky just like last time. I could just about make out figures hurrying back and fore in the flame-lit hallway of the Library of Dreams.
Outside on the roof I could feel my feet slither on the damp, dewy tiles. This time I didn’t hesitate. It had been such a bad day I didn’t really care about the possibility of sliding down the roof and crashing into the garden. I took a step forward into the air.
4
The New Mission
A hand clamped down on Steve’s shoulder. It was Big Mo. Grey hair shot out from the sides of his pork-pie hat and he smiled broadly. All around the librarians hurried backwards and forwards wearing their hooded robes, ferrying books from the racks that twisted far away into the distance.
‘Welshy!’ said Big Mo. ‘How’s things in Wales?’
‘It’s Steve,’ said Steve. ‘And I live in Pendown.’
Big Mo gave Steve a look and guided him through the forest of stone towers wrapped in wooden staircases which climbed up the towers like ivy.
‘Hard to remember and difficult to find –just the way we like it,’ said Big Mo. ‘Good to see you. Glad you got the message.’
‘On the boomerang?’ said Steve. ‘You could have taken my head off.’
‘I thought it was a neat idea. I have to say, rescuing the last Neanderthal baby in your first dream, using nothing more than a paperweight borrowed from the correspondence section of this library seemed pretty impressive to us. There’s no way you’d let a little stick with a message on give you any trouble.’
The lanterns lighting the library crackled and spat. Steve could see the head librarian’s little wooden office in the distance.
‘Are you sure?’ asked Steve.
‘People up here think you’re pretty cool.’
‘People down there think I’m a fool,’ grumbled Steve.
Big Mo pushed the door to the office open. The librarian was sitting behind his desk just like the last time. His brown robe and hood made it difficult for Steve to see his face. Behind him, on the notice board, he and Big Mo had written staves of music and notes.
‘Know anything about this kind of stuff?’ asked the librarian, jabbing his thumb at the board.
Steve looked at the notes, then the librarian, then Big Mo.
‘Is it a tune?’ asked Steve.
The librarian nodded, he seemed impressed.
‘I’m more of a blues man myself,’ said Big Mo. ‘Two or three chords, a howlin’ guitar and boy, can I sing the blues. But when it comes to dots on pages — I must confess I get a little lost. Steve’s the man for the job. Give him the equipment.’
The librarian stood and handed Steve a neat pile of clothes. On top of the pile was a cat, curled up in a deep sleep. Big Mo picked the cat up and stuck it on Steve’s head. Steve jumped and tried to pull it off.
‘It’s a wig,’ said Big Mo. ‘Calm down.’
Then the librarian handed Steve a small stick. Steve thought it looked like a wand. He pointed it at the librarian’s desk and tried to turn it into a bunch of flowers.
‘It’s a conductor’s baton,’ said the librarian. Now get changed quickly – we’ve got an eighteenth-century emergency for you.’
‘Isn’t that the time of pirates?’ asked Steve as he changed into a long jacket, trousers that only came down to his knees and a pair of boots with huge buckles on them. ‘Can I be a pirate?’
‘If we need to help a pirate, we’ll be in touch,’ said Big Mo. ‘For the time being, it’s a musician who needs our help.’
‘Use the wand, sorry, baton,’ said the librarian opening the door at the back of the room. ‘It’ll help you.’
Steve looked sadly at his baton.
‘This is just a stick,’ he said.
‘Good luck,’ said Big Mo, holding the door open to a small empty room with white walls, a wooden floor and a window looking out onto a street.
‘Wait a minute,’ said Steve. ‘Who am I trying to help? How will I find them? What do I do?’
Big Mo’s hand came down on Steve’s shoulder. Before Steve could react he found himself forced out through the door.
‘Wait!’ shouted Steve. ‘I’m not ready.’
But it was too late. Steve tumbled into the room. ‘Wigs,’ he muttered, as he moved to the window for a closer look. Everybody outside, the men, the women, even the children, were wearing wigs. Steve rubbed his eyes. In the distance he could see a lady wearing a huge pink dress, with a wig like white candyfloss on her head, walking her dog. Even the dog was wearing a wig. Or perhaps the dog had had his hair cut to make it look like he was wearing a wig.
Steve listened to the sounds of the old city. Gradually over the constant clop of horses’ hooves on cobbles and the grinding of cartwheels a new sound crashed into his ears. Strange, harsh-sounding music blasted down onto the street. Somebody was practising an instrument. They weren’t very good. To Steve it sounded worse than The Piratellas.
‘Will you be quiet!’
From inside the house a gruff voice echoed upwards. Steve span on his heels and hid behind the door.
‘Shut it!’
And again.
‘So help me, if I have to come up there I’ll slice that thing up into strips with my cutlass then blow you to smithereens with my blunderbuss.’
Steve’s ears pricked up. Whoever was shouting sounded to Steve like he might know something about pirating after all.
5
Wolfie
A bell tinkled outside Steve’s room. He pushed the door open and edged into a hall. There was no one around. If he could get to the front door he might find out what was going on.
Steve crept on tiptoe, towards the front door. In the corridor, ticking loudly, was a grandfather clock. Steve tried to tim
e his footsteps with the ticks, but the wooden boards still creaked as he crossed them. Steve noticed a couple of wooden crutches resting against the side of the clock. Then he heard the noise again. Crashing down the staircase from the top of the house was the strange, horrible music. It sounded really bad, thought Steve, much worse than when he practised.
He stopped in his tracks. Now he could hear a new sound. The staircase descended below ground level and someone, or something, was grunting and puffing their way up. Steve shrank back from the hall, back into the empty room. He watched through a crack between the door and its frame.
A small man, wearing a huge scraggy ginger wig, with a wooden leg and patch over one eye stumbled up into the corridor from downstairs. He hobbled to the front door, picking up his crutches as he went. Steve could see the jewel-encrusted handle of a long sword sticking out from under his coat.
The man pushed the front door open to reveal a crowd of people. A young woman with an angry look on her face shouted from the front.
‘Will you tell whoever it is that keeps playing that damned harpsichord at the top of your house to stop it,’ demanded the woman. ‘Day in day out, in the middle of the night, first thing in the morning, none of us can get any sleep. It’s keeping my baby awake.’
‘The worst thing is,’ said a tired-looking man at the back of the crowd, ‘it doesn’t change — it’s the same old song over and over again. After a while it does things to your mind … terrible things. I CAN’T STAND IT ANY MORE!!!!’