by Dan Anthony
‘What d’you want?’ asked Steve shakily.
‘The dummy, dummy,’ said the man, looking around. ‘This isn’t what I’d expected, when they said you lived in Wales I thought you’d be up on a mountain looking after a flock of sheep. This place is flat, it’s got roundabouts and a KFC.’
Steve shoved his hand into his pyjama pocket. He sighed with relief as his fingers clenched the blue dummy he’d found among the chips. He held it out.
‘This is a new town,’ he stammered, ‘it’s not very new though. And Newport, which is nearby, is actually old and it doesn’t…’
‘Spare me the geography lesson,’ said the man, taking the dummy and holding it up to his eye, like a diamond.
Steve could see through the arch now. Huge flaming torches hung from the sides of massive stone columns within. Steve took a step towards the man. A roof tile skittered down and landed on the ground with a crash.
‘How do you know about the dummy?’ asked Steve, sticking his arms out, trying to keep his balance.
Steve took another step, now the huge arched entrance was so close he could reach it. He stuck his foot out.
‘Go on,’ said the man, ‘one giant leap for mankind.’
Without warning everything changed. Suddenly Steve found himself inside the building looking out at night-time over Oliphant Circles and Pendown. He could see the distant hills and the roof tiles and the open window through which he’d scrambled and the slow-moving star dragging itself across the sky.
Steve turned his back on his house. Inside the building was like a cathedral. A forest of ancient-looking circular columns rose up. Torches burned on staircases and stacks of books and scrolls of paper were piled high in corridors and on walkways. Between them, people wearing loose-fitting, hooded brown robes hurried backwards and forwards. They never spoke. They just scuttled past with their books and paper.
The man in the pork-pie hat was still there, leaning on the inside of the doorway.
Steve hesitated. He stepped back.
Suddenly Steve was back on the outside. The walls, columns and floor shrunk back and Steve was tottering on the rooftop, wobbling in the night air. Another slate slid from under his feet and crashed down to the ground. This time Steve jumped towards the entrance. The walls shot forward surrounding him in the enormous building. He was back on the inside. As his eyes grew accustomed to the orange glow of the lanterns he began to see rows of wooden booths stretching away through the corridors of columns for what looked like miles. Above them were staircases leading to infinity of smaller rooms and rickety-looking bridges between the columns.
‘Stop playing games, Steve,’ said the man. ‘You haven’t got much time. You can’t stay at home with your mam forever. You’ve got to step out.’
Steve hesitated.
‘What? Where? Why?’ he stammered.
‘This,’ said the man, proudly, ‘is the Library of Dreams. Don’t ask too many questions, it’ll freak you out. Where have you been by the way?’
Steve blinked at the man. He flicked the brim of Steve’s hat.
‘We’ve been trying to contact you, but you’ve ignored our messages. It’s very irritating.’
Steve pulled his hat off.
‘You sent me this?’
‘Fat lot of good it did,’ said the man, as he moved away from the entrance.
The man stuck the dummy in his mouth. He seemed to be tasting it. He nodded slowly.
‘Yep, it’s the right one,’
‘Whose is it?’ asked Steve.
‘The Ice Baby’s, I guess that’s why you crossed the line.’
Steve didn’t like to say that he didn’t really know where he was or why. He guessed he was having some kind of dream or nightmare, but he had never had a dream before which had actually taken him out through the window and onto the roof.
‘Who are you?’ he asked. ‘I’ve never heard of the Library of Dreams.’
The man smiled.
‘Nobody’s heard of you or Oliphant Circles but it doesn’t mean you don’t exist.’
Steve nodded his head, confused.
‘The name’s Big Mo,’ said the man, extending his hand and shaking Steve’s. ‘Step this way, you need to get ready. It’ll be very cold where you’re going; you’ll need weapons and some information.’
Big Mo opened the door to one of the wooden booths. Inside, behind an old, ink-stained desk, sat a young man wearing a brown-hooded robe. In front of him, resting on the desk, were a pile of sheepskins and a round stone. On the wall behind him was a map, it was all white, apart from one dot in the bottom left-hand corner. Next to the dot were the words ‘Mount Gneargh’. And then, in brackets, the word ‘dangerous’.
‘Ah, you’re in here,’ said Big Mo to the man. ‘Steve, this is one of our librarians. I asked him to bring as much as he could about the Ice Baby situation.’
Rather apologetically the man held out the stone. He spoke in a quiet, timid voice. His face was pale and Steve noticed that he wouldn’t look him in the eye. It was almost as if he was embarrassed about something. Or ashamed.
‘We’re a little short of information,’ stammered the librarian. ‘You see, at the Library of Dreams we pride ourselves on knowing everything, or at least everything anybody ever dreamt of. When you think about it that means we know about more than everything. Things that don’t exist, do exist here. In fact, everything anyone makes up exists in here. The problem is that sometimes stuff gets forgotten. That’s when we have to act – if you like – we restore them. And to do that we need help. All the librarians you’ve seen, we can’t leave the library, we’re librarians. We need volunteers like you to do our work in the real world. And there have been a lot of cutbacks.’
‘Speak up, man,’ shouted Big Mo.
The librarian took a big gulp of air.
‘Steve, we’re very pleased you picked up our distress signal.’
‘The dummy?’ asked Steve.
‘We took a great deal of time and effort placing it in that freezer full of straight-cut chips. We have to select our agents carefully and you’d ignored all our other signs. The hat, Mrs Prothero, all of our usual methods of communication didn’t work on you. Only someone with a particular kind of intelligence, curiosity and a will to win would have found the Ice Baby’s Dummy.’
‘You mean, there’s no frozen baby?’ asked Steve.
‘Yes, of course there is, but not in the freezer,’ said the man at the desk, still hiding his face in the shadows of his hood. ‘The baby we want you to help is a little harder to reach. It’s in an ice age. Well, to be more precise, it’s in the end of an ice age.’
Big Mo looked at his watch, and tapped it impatiently.
‘Steve, could you stop asking questions and listen. We selected you because you’ve got a good imagination – use it. This is the Library of Dreams where nothing is beyond belief. Picture this,’ added Big Mo. ‘The last ice age on earth has finished and the great ice sheets that covered the land are retreating. The temperature is rising and the glaciers covering the place the Stone Age people call Mount Gneargh are melting.’
Mo tapped the map. The librarian nodded. He picked up the sheepskins.
‘Put ’em on, Steve, you must blend in AND stay warm.’
Steve wriggled into the sheepskin coat. It reached his feet. He felt like a bear.
Mo removed Steve’s hat and the librarian placed a sheepskin hat on his head and handed him a pair of sheepskin boots.
When Steve was dressed Big Mo looked at him.
‘Man, you’ll be safe in that lot. You look like a pile of woolly washing,’ he said.
Steve didn’t feel safe at all. He felt extremely worried. He looked at the rock in the librarian’s hands.
‘What’s that for?’ asked Steve.
‘Ah,’ said the librarian.
‘Speak up,’ said Big Mo, ‘we haven’t got all day. Steve’s got a mission and he’s got to sort things out before that baby freezes.’
; ‘What mission?’ asked Steve. ‘You can’t pick on me just because I found a dummy in the chips freezer.’
‘Good thinking like that, Steve, is exactly what we at the Library of Dreams like to see,’ said Big Mo, patting Steve on the back of his sheepskin coat.
The librarian handed the rock to Steve.
‘It’s the best we could do,’ he said. ‘At this time, tribes had wooden and stone tools. But we’re not entirely sure what they were like. Forty thousand years is a long time and much of the evidence has been destroyed. We thought at the very least we could give you this to defend yourself with.’
Steve turned the stone over in his hands.
‘It’s a stone,’ he said, slightly unimpressed.
‘A paperweight actually. I borrowed it from the Correspondence Section. I thought it might be better than nothing.’
The librarian smiled. Steve took the paperweight. It didn’t feel like much of a weapon.
‘Haven’t you got any guns or lasers?’ he asked.
‘Wrong temporal sphere, we take care never to introduce technology from the future into the past. This stone we’ve just given you represents quite an achievement for early humans. That paperweight is the equivalent of a surface-to-air, computer-controlled guided missile,’ said the librarian proudly.
The librarian, Steve and Big Mo all looked at the grey stone in Steve’s hand. It was about the size of a grapefruit.
‘Not so interesting to watch though,’ added the librarian.
‘Right, Steve, this is what you’ve got to do,’ said Big Mo. ‘Save the Ice Baby. Use the technology if you have to.’
‘You mean the rock,’ said Steve.
Big Mo pushed open a wooden door at the other end of the booth. Steve gasped as snowflakes fluttered in from the frozen world beyond the threshold.
‘This is what you need to know, the year is 43,567 years BC; the last Neanderthal tribes are being pushed out of Europe by human beings. The human beings don’t understand that to survive they have to team up with the Neanderthal people. Instead they’re just killing them. The place we’re sending you to is where the very last Neanderthal baby lives, it’s a big mountain. The locals who live in these parts call it ‘“Mount Gneargh”.’
Steve blinked at Mo. He found it difficult to follow what he was saying. Everything was happening too fast. Steve scratched his eyes. He looked at Mo as if he couldn’t quite believe he was real.
‘Is this a dream?’ he asked.
Mo ignored him. Steve was in the Library of Dreams; of course it was a dream. Steve’s problem, thought Mo, was that he didn’t realise how important dreams are. That in fact what most people call ‘real’ life is actually controlled by dreams – by the Library of Dreams.
‘Oh, yes,’ added Mo. ‘You’ll be able to understand everyone and everyone will be able to understand you – everything will be translated. Off you go,’ said Mo, shoving Steve towards the door.
‘Good luck,’ said the librarian sadly.
‘Hang on a minute,’ said Steve. ‘What do I do when I get there? Why do I need to save this Ice Baby anyway?’
‘Because if you don’t, the humans will kill the last Neanderthal baby, and by doing that they’ll destroy themselves. They don’t know it – but all modern humans are made of a mixture of Neanderthal and human. That little baby has to survive.’
‘What if I can’t save the Ice Baby?’ asked Steve.
‘We’re all done for,’ said the librarian gloomily.
‘I see,’ said Steve, ‘no pressure then.’
‘Bye, Steve,’ said Big Mo.
‘You can’t just push me out there,’ said Steve.
‘I’m afraid I can,’ said Big Mo, pushing Steve to the door. Snow and ice stretched out in front of him, mountain peaks reared up ahead.
‘Oh, and don’t forget this.’ Big Mo handed Steve the blue dummy.
Steve blinked up at Big Mo.
‘Don’t worry, Steve, you’ll save the day. You always do.’
‘Do I?’ asked Steve.
‘When was the last time you didn’t get out of a dream alive?’ said Mo with wink.
Mo shoved Steve in the back and he stumbled out into the snow. The wooden door closed behind him with a crash. Steve spun around. The door had disappeared; now it was all snow.
7
Mount Gneargh
Steve turned slowly. He shivered. A cold blast stung his face. If he’d been on a skiing holiday he’d have thought the place was perfect. Huge snow-covered mountains rose up around him. Black cliffs of rock overhung with blue ice glaciers reflected the sunlight, forcing Steve to shield his eyes. He could hear the sound of water too. Nearby he spotted a stream cascading down a snow-lined valley. And there were other sounds. He could hear droplets of water dripping down as the ice above his head melted. The snow and ice all around was glazed with a shiny film of melting water. Splinters of ice crystals floated in puffs of wind making the air sparkle and shimmer.
Steve shivered. He felt scared, the wind was icy cold. He was lost in a wilderness so remote nobody would believe it could be real.
‘Help!’ he shouted.
His voice sounded soft. It was muffled by the fat snowflakes and the big white drifts.
‘Mum!!!’ he yelled, ‘I’m having a bad dream. Wake me up. WAKE ME UP!’
A tear ran down Steve’s cheek.
Nobody woke him up.
‘MUUUUUUUUM!’ Steve shouted as loud as he possibly could. Nobody shook him; no friendly face appeared asking him what the matter was.
Steve stamped his foot in the snow.
‘Typical,’ he muttered, ‘she’s going to leave me out here in this dream to freeze.’
Steve shoved his hands into his pockets. They were warm and big. Whoever had made his sheepskin outfit had done a good job. He felt the stone and the blue dummy. They made him feel less lonely. The stone reminded him of the library, which was warm, and the dummy reminded him of the chips freezer in the supermarket, which was home. Steve realised that the only way to get back was to save the Ice Baby. If he didn’t do that he began to believe that he would be trapped on the slopes of Mount Gneargh forever.
Steve waded through the deep snow towards the stream. The snow was thin there and it was easier to walk. Steve looked around. It was a beautiful place, but a strange and lonely one. As he approached the river a word Big Mo had used came back to him.
‘Neanderthals.’
Steve didn’t know much about Neanderthals, but he had heard of them in school. He knew that they were the ancestors of human beings. They were supposed to have been big, strong, thick-set creatures with heavy, bony heads. Steve knew that Neanderthals were incredibly strong, very dangerous and very, very stupid. That was why they had died out.
When he reached the side of the river, Steve scanned the scene. It was clear there were no Neanderthals around. In fact there was nothing living in sight. The white slopes of the mountains rose up to melting blue glaciers peaked with jagged black outcrops of rock. The river flowed down through a valley of rocks and snow. Steve looked up at the crystal-clear blue sky. His teeth chattered, but not with cold. He was scared. At night, Steve knew that the temperature would drop, then it was only a matter of time before the weather changed, there would be snow, there would be rain, then there would be avalanches.
As if to prove a point Steve heard the rumble rolling off a distant peak. Millions of tonnes of snow and ice lost its grip on the mountainside and crashed down. A plume of ice dust rose up into the sky like smoke.
Steve began to follow the river. The river would lead him downwards, off the mountain, to safety.
That was his theory.
Steve trudged along the side of the stream for what seemed to be ages. When he thought he couldn’t trudge any more, he carried on trudging. He trudged so much that he began to kid himself that trudging was good. He told himself not to stop trudging, to keep following the river for as long as there was light in the sky. He had to scramble down c
liffs, trudge along the wide riverbed, and balance his way through deep gorges. He kept his eyes open for bears and wolves but there was nothing other than a few big birds gliding around high above his head in wide circles. Steve had a strange feeling though. He felt as if he were being watched, not by the eagles above but by something or somebody on the ground and close by. But even though he tried to catch the creature out by spinning around suddenly or looking one way and then the other really quickly, he saw only the black shapes of rocks in the snow.
There were no trees, just a few tufts of grass on the valley floor, where the snow had melted. Steve knew he had to get further down the mountain, even if that meant trudging at night. But it got harder and harder to move forward. As the darkness deepened he couldn’t see the rocks he was scrambling over, he kept falling and hurting himself. The moon and stars gave him some light, but it was really difficult for Steve to keep on his feet. The silver light reflected off the snow and the water but the rocks seemed to suck it in. It was like walking in a world full of holes. Steve didn’t know whether his feet would touch something or simply slip away, tripping him over.
‘Ouch,’ shouted Steve, clambering to his feet. His sheepskin was heavy with ice. He was red-faced and furious. His hands and feet were cold and numb.
‘You stupid rock! I didn’t ask to be here. I don’t want to be here. Get me out of here.’
Steve’s voice echoed up the mountain. Steve closed his eyes. He hoped he hadn’t set off another avalanche. He began trudging once more. But now his strides were shorter. He was hardly trudging at all. He was stumbling, blind, into the gloom on the slopes of a deserted, snow-covered mountain in a country he’d never been to at a time he could only just imagine.
At night in the mountains things go dead. The rush of the river disappears from the ears. The crunch of feet on snow or rock becomes an imperceptible rhythm. The mind shuts out the sound and the body gets on with trudging. This is when Steve heard something.