The Dream Master

by Theresa Breslin

  As he raced past Cy glanced back and saw Eddie and Chloe hurry to cross over. He heard Mrs Turner yell at them. ‘Stop! Don’t either of you move until I come back to take you across the road. After all,’ she continued in a loud voice, ‘we can’t have little boys and girls crossing a busy road on their own.’

  Cy grinned. Mrs Turner was a mate of Grampa’s and she would delay those two for as long as she could on the other side. Cy kept a watchful eye as he entered the playground. Eddie and Chloe weren’t the only aliens that he had to be wary of, but they were the worst, and with them held up for a bit he felt a lot easier as he pushed open the double swing doors.

  It was always better inside school. The janitor and teachers were very strict about people being picked on and made a point of talking to each pupil they met in the corridors. The new head had put up be bullyproof posters all over the corridors with a list of DOs and DON’Ts, although Eddie and Chloe were good at finding some sly way to annoy their victims and look innocent at the same time. When things were bad last term, Cy’s mum had sometimes waited with him until his bell rang before going on to the school on the other side of town where she taught foreign languages. Occasionally she had made Lauren accompany him all the way to school. That had been hell. Cy would almost rather have faced the bullies. His sister, annoyed at having to miss time with her friends, insisted on waiting with him until the bell rang. Then she would plant a huge smacky kiss on his cheek, leaving a lipstick trail, and coo ‘Bye-byee, little bruvver’ so loudly that Eddie and Chloe and the rest of the nasties would snigger and shout ‘Bye-byeee’ to each other until a teacher came out and told them to stop.

  ‘There are bullies everywhere,’ Cy’s Grampa said. ‘You think Eddie and his team are one-offs. They ain’t.’ He tapped Cy on the head. ‘Out-think them, son. The way I had to at the club.’

  Grampa had told Cy that for a while every Wednesday at the Old Folks Club Mrs Nirijandi always took the best set of dominoes to play with her friends, and Grampa had to make do with the set with the faded dots and pieces missing. Once, when Grampa had got there first, she had actually snatched the new box right out of his hand! And he had been too much of a gentleman to grab it back.

  ‘But I out-thunk her son,’ Grampa told Cy. One week he had waited behind and swapped the sets over, putting the old dominoes into the new box. The following week Mrs Nirijandi got a very nasty shock when she opened her box, and after that she didn’t know which set to pick.

  ‘There’s always bad guys,’ said Cy’s Grampa. ‘Fortunately, there’s also always good guys. Just you make sure you’ve got yourself sorted as to which team you’re in.’

  Cy shouldered his rucksack and went into the school assembly hall. It was nearly the end of term, and Cy’s class were decorating the walls with a frieze on the Ancient Egyptians. He went to the section he was doing, the picture-writing on the great columns which held up the Pharaoh’s hypostyle hall.

  Cy took a felt-tip from his schoolbag and carefully outlined a red oval mouth shape on one of the long pillars. He had been amazed that Mrs Chalmers had let him do the hieroglyphs.

  ‘Cy’s not good at writing,’ Chloe had sneered, when the teacher was discussing who should do what.

  ‘This is special writing,’ Mrs Chalmers had replied smartly. ‘I’m sure Cy will be as good at it as any Ancient Egyptian.’

  Cy drew a small bird below his mouth shape. It didn’t matter if these were a bit squint. The Egyptians didn’t know about ruled jotters, although they did draw little oblong boxes round special names. Cy hated writing in class. He was so clumsy, his wrist and fingers didn’t seem to be in tune with his brain. And especially he hated doing it when sitting opposite Chloe, whose tidy letters sat so smugly on the page. It was such an effort for him to keep every single character straight, and his hand got so tired. He was looking forward to the age of telepathic communication which would take all that bother away. Only, the trouble with telepathy was that it would work both ways. So, if he could read the minds of others, then they could read his. Cy recalled his conversation earlier with Lauren, and what he had been really thinking about her nail varnish. Perhaps not yet.

  Cy looked at his watch. He might manage another symbol before the bell went. It must have been even worse learning letters in Egyptian times. There were hundreds of different ones! He glanced along the wall to the figure of a boy being taught by a scribe. It was the first time Cy had seen this bit, as Mrs Chalmers had only begun outlining the scene yesterday. She must have stayed behind after school to finish painting the details. The boy had his script brush in his hand and broken pieces of pottery and stones lay around him in the sand.

  Cy turned back to his drawing and then stopped, his felt-tip pen halfway to the wall. Slowly he stepped back from the frieze and looked again at the writing master and his pupil. Cy stared hard at the face of the boy scribe.

  From underneath a fringe of thick black hair two familiar wide brown eyes stared back.

  Chapter 4

  Cy’s own eyes opened wide. It couldn’t be . . . How was it possible that the boy in his dream last night was on the school’s Egyptian frieze?

  ‘Do you like him?’

  Cy jumped. Mrs Chalmers was standing behind him.

  ‘I’m not completely happy with my young scribe,’ she said. ‘It took me ages to do the face, and it’s still not right. He looks a bit odd . . .’ She laughed. ‘Almost as though he’s scared of something.’

  ‘He is,’ said Cy. ‘He’s going to be executed.’

  ‘What?’ Mrs Chalmers looked at Cy’s worried face and then shook her head. ‘What an imagination you have, Cy. It’s only a picture,’ she said, laughing again.

  ‘Only a picture.’ Mrs Chalmers’ words stayed in Cy’s head all through the school day. Wasn’t that what dreams were? Pictures inside your head. But dreams were usually mixed up memories of previous events. In this case he had dreamt about the boy before Mrs Chalmers had drawn him.

  Later that morning, Cy leafed through the Egyptian resource materials in the classroom project corner. Perhaps he had seen the boy somewhere here? Eventually, in one of the books, Cy found a drawing which was quite similar. An Egyptian priest stood studying a roll of papyrus, while his boy pupil knelt at his feet, reed paintbrush in hand, palette and inks by his side. Except, this boy did not stare out at the world with a frightened expression on his face. His head was bent, his eyes shaded by his heavy fringe of hair.

  ‘That’s the picture I copied for our wall frieze,’ said Mrs Chalmers, leaning over Cy’s shoulder. ‘Perhaps I should have made my scribe have his head bowed too.’

  ‘No,’ said Cy. ‘I like seeing his eyes. It’s more . . . more lifelike. What is he wearing round his neck?’ Cy pointed to the pendant which hung at the boy’s throat.

  ‘It is an ankh, probably made from silver,’ said Mrs Chalmers. ‘Ankh meant “mirror” in Ancient Egypt. The shape had a particular significance. It was linked to your spirit or your soul. People would wear them to keep themselves safe from harm. It appears in many of the ancient paintings and papyruses.’ Mrs Chalmers flicked through the book until she found an illustration. ‘This shows the Journey to the Afterlife when each human being is called to account for their deeds. Here are the scales where the jackal-headed god Anubis is weighing the person’s heart against the Feather of Truth. Thoth, the god of wisdom, is writing a record of the person in his book, while the other gods are acting as judges. They are seated above the scales, and the person awaiting judgement is holding an ankh. And here,’ she showed Cy some picture-writing, ‘when it is drawn as a hieroglyph, the ankh was a word on its own. It symbolized life.’

  ‘Life,’ Cy repeated. He turned the page back to the boy scribe, and traced the outline of the ankh with his finger. He looked up at Mrs Chalmers. ‘Did you give your boy an ankh?’

  ‘No,’ said Mrs Chalmers. ‘No, I didn’t actually.’

  At break-time, as he sat in the classroom eating his packed lunch, Cy took the
silver paper from his chocolate biscuit wrapper and carefully twisted the foil into an ankh shape. He fashioned one long stick about a quarter the size of a straw and put a crossed spar one third of the way down the length. Then he added another piece to the top and pulled it up and round into an elongated circle. In the craft cupboard he found a piece of black cord and threaded it through the loop at the top. Then he held it up to inspect it. It looked quite authentic. Cy spun the amulet round and round, and watched as the twisted cord slowly unravelled. The foil glittered in the light. I should wear it, thought Cy. It might protect me from the Mean Machines.

  Suddenly, with his free hand Cy reached out and stopped the spinning ankh. He stared at it for a moment or two and then he got up, thrust it in his pocket, and hurried along the corridor. The assembly hall was empty, the door creaked in the quietness as Cy slipped in. He went to where Mrs Chalmers’ boy scribe sat patiently on the dusty sand, with one hand holding the russet-tipped brush firmly in his fingers.

  ‘Look,’ whispered Cy. ‘Here is an ankh. If you are in trouble it should help to keep you safe.’ And using some Blu-Tack Cy fastened the silver amulet round the neck of the boy scribe.

  Later Cy wished he had kept it for himself.

  After lunch Mrs Chalmers got the whole class working hard on the props for their Egyptian play. ‘We’ll leave Tutankhamun’s mask until later,’ she said. ‘I want to use plaster and make it very special. Today I would like to finish the Great Pyramid. Everyone to their tasks please.’

  Mrs Chalmers had given out sheets of brown paper, which was meant to resemble papyrus, and Cy was copying out some hieroglyphs and figures. He mixed up some paints in jars and began carefully to paint the outlines.

  Eddie and Chloe were working nearby, tacking pieces of cardboard onto a wooden frame to make the base of the Great Pyramid, while Vicky, Basra and Innis were making a triangular cap to sit on top.

  ‘Cy,’ Vicky called out, ‘could you help us with this?’

  Cy left his painting and went to help Vicky hold the four triangular pieces tightly in place as Innis and Basra glued the pieces together. When it was finished they all stood back to admire it.

  ‘It looks great,’ said Cy.

  ‘We’ve still to mark out the lines,’ said Basra. ‘We had to wait until it was glued otherwise the lines might not have joined up properly.’

  Cy left them to it and went back to his own work at the counter under the window. As he walked past Eddie and Chloe they sniggered loudly.

  ‘“C” for Cy, “C” for clumsy,’ tittered Eddie.

  Cy looked down at his painting. Two of the paint jars had been tipped over and the coloured liquid was spilling out across the paper.

  ‘Oh,’ said Cy. ‘Oh no!’

  ‘Oh dear, Cy,’ said Mrs Chalmers, ‘not again!’

  ‘But Miss—’

  ‘Never mind,’ interrupted Mrs Chalmers in a brisk voice. ‘Just clear it up as best you can.’

  She gave a little shake of her head as she moved away. Cy felt hot tears of shame start behind his eyelids and he blinked quickly. It wasn’t fair. He knew it wasn’t his fault this time. He was sure it had been Eddie and Chloe, but you couldn’t tell tales. And you could never get your own back. Now no-one was even allowed to say anything to them. Mrs Chalmers had heard someone shouting ‘Mean Machines’ in the playground one day and had immediately forbidden all name calling, saying she would send anyone she heard using rude names straight to the Head.

  Cy looked at the mess. As usual, panic was slowing him down. He couldn’t think what to do. He gazed helplessly at the spreading pool of paint.

  Vicky raised her head from her table and gasped. ‘Oh, Cy!’ She grabbed some paper tissues, ran over, and quickly laid them flat across the pool of paint. ‘There, that’ll sop it up.’ She grinned at Cy. ‘I knock over the milk at home practically every day. That’s how I know how to sort it quick.’

  Cy gave her a grateful look. ‘I think it was those two,’ he whispered. He nodded at Eddie and Chloe, who were now industriously hammering away and chatting together.

  ‘The Mean Machines?’ Vicky mouthed the words out.

  Cy nodded.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Vicky. ‘One day, someone will fix them. Someone will fix them real good.’

  After school Grampa was in his usual place, leaning on the school gate.

  ‘Do you believe in dreams?’ Cy asked him at once.

  Grampa repeated the question. ‘Do I believe in dreams?’ He thought for a moment. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think I do. In fact, there are days when I believe in nothing else.’

  That was one of the things Cy liked about Grampa. He didn’t hedge around when asked a question. Most adult answers to difficult questions were qualified by phrases such as: ‘Under certain circumstances . . .’ Or else they added bits on: ‘But what you’ve got to remember is . . .’ or they even managed to bring in boring political messages by saying things like: ‘However, under the present government . . .’ As if anyone cared.

  Cy told Grampa all about his strange dream of last night as they walked to his house.

  ‘I guess I could go along with Time being a concept,’ said Grampa as he took out his key and opened his front door. ‘You know what Einstein said, “Imagination is everything”.’ Grampa knocked the top of Cy’s head very gently. ‘And you’ve certainly got dollops of that in there.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Cy gloomily. ‘But a lot of crossed wires as well. Nothing co-ordinates. And the harder I try, the worse it gets.’

  Grampa laughed. ‘Well, don’t try so hard. I’m serious,’ he added as Cy made a face. ‘Einstein never passed a single maths exam at school.’

  As Grampa got down juice and biscuits from a cupboard, Cy took the sand from his pocket and put it on the kitchen table.

  Grampa raised one eyebrow. ‘Now that is very strange,’ he said softly as he let the grains trickle through his long, strong fingers. ‘The last time I felt sand like that I was in the Western Desert.’ He found an empty matchbox and carefully scooped it inside. ‘You must tell me tomorrow if you have that dream again tonight.’

  But it wasn’t until a few nights later that the Dream Master came again.

  Cy was lying on his bed waiting for sleep and half watching the ancient spider’s web which trailed across the Star Wars poster on his ceiling. He studied the tendrils carefully, remembering that he had once seen them as palm trees. Probably because of the glossy green leaves and the brown coconuts. Cy blinked. Somehow he wasn’t at all taken aback to see that there were now coconuts growing on the spider’s web on his bedroom ceiling. He twisted round on his bed to get a better look at them.

  ‘You’ll go squint-eyed if you stare like that.’

  Cy turned his head. Sitting cross-legged on the pillow beside him was the Dream Master.

  Chapter 5

  ‘Where have you been?’ asked Cy.

  ‘Where have I been?’ said the dwarf.

  ‘Hanging around waiting for you, mate. You lead such lives in this time level. Frantic isn’t the word. I’ve been trying to get a word in edgewise for aeons.’

  ‘Several days actually,’ said Cy.

  ‘Days?’ repeated the dwarf. ‘Oh I see. You mean the “sun-up, sun-down” thing. Time doesn’t work like that.’

  ‘How does it work, then?’ asked Cy.

  ‘It doesn’t work at all,’ said the dwarf. ‘It just is. Look, never mind,’ he went on quickly, ‘you wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘Yes I would.’

  Cy knew that adults often said ‘you wouldn’t understand’ when they couldn’t be bothered to go into details. He quoted his Grampa: ‘Understanding relies on things being properly explained.’

  The Dream Master gave him a strange look. ‘You know, Einstein said the exact same thing to me last time I saw him.’

  ‘You met Einstein!’

  ‘We were playing chess,’ said the dwarf. ‘I was winning, if you must know,’ he added smugly.

&nbs
p; ‘You beat Einstein at chess!’ said Cy.

  ‘Well,’ said the dwarf. ‘It was my dream. Anyway, let’s get on. I came back because I made a promise, but I have to tell you that I’ve got a bad feeling about that Ancient Egyptian dream. I think you’d be much better off in a new one which I can create for you.’ He opened up a laptop which had just materialized on his knees. ‘Now let me see what’s on for tonight . . .’ He fiddled with the keyboard. ‘I could do you a rather thrilling adventure with Alexander the Great.’

  ‘No thanks,’ said Cy.

  ‘Alien invaders?’ the dwarf suggested. ‘There’s a good programme called “Beat the Bullies”. You could destroy the Mean Machines.’

  Cy thought for a moment. ‘No. Thanks all the same.’

  The dwarf frowned at his screen. ‘How about leading Hannibal across the Alps? No? Mmm? Fight at Waterloo? Hold on while I check who’s winning at present. Oh no, that’s too awful. Ummm . . . meet Queen Victoria? Wait! I know. Let’s take part in some “Gruesome Gladiator Games” . . . a visit to Ancient Rome.’

  ‘Ancient Egypt,’ said Cy firmly.

  The dwarf was getting impatient. ‘Starring role in Coronation Street? Three episodes.’

  Cy shook his head.

  ‘Present Blue Peter?’ said the dwarf.

  ‘I’ve got a life,’ said Cy.

  ‘A Star Wars spectacular,’ said the dwarf. ‘And that’s my final offer.’

  Cy hesitated. ‘No,’ he said at last.

  ‘What!’ cried the dwarf. ‘I know people who would kill for that. Are you actually telling me that you do not want to be a Jedi knight?’

  ‘Not at the moment,’ said Cy.

  ‘Princess Leia would be tremendously grateful,’ coaxed the dwarf. He glanced upwards. Cy followed his gaze. Princess Leia smiled down from his bedroom ceiling. Cy heard the tapping of the Dream Master’s keyboard. The princess lifted her laser gun and one of her coiled plaits tumbled across her shoulder. With an imperious gesture she dismissed Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. Her huge dark eyes sent a plea across the galaxies.