Chapter 20
‘Your dreams are your own, Cy,’ a voice said quietly.
Cy turned round. Grampa was sitting on the long bench in the tunnel. Cy held up the ankh. ‘Do I have to let it go? Lose all my dreams?’
Grampa looked at him seriously. ‘You’ll never lose your dreams, Cy. No-one can take your dreams away from you. No-one.’
Cy reached out and touched Grampa’s hand. ‘Thanks, Grampa,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’ Then he turned to Aten. ‘Think hard of the school assembly hall,’ he said, ‘and then put your hand on your amulet for a single second.’
There was a rushing roar of white light, and with an enormous ripping noise Cy and Aten fell out through the side of the cardboard pyramid.
‘Hey!’ shouted a loud voice. ‘What are you boys up to?’ Cy looked up to see a very annoyed janitor. ‘Why are you two still here? The bell went nearly ten minutes ago.’
Cy and Aten scrambled to their feet and explained why they were in the assembly hall. ‘Well, now that you’ve found what you were looking for you can clear off home,’ said the janitor.
‘Do you think Lauren is all right?’ said Cy as they went out into the corridor.
‘I think it was my dream, and that I ended it, so . . . yes,’ said Aten. ‘I hope so,’ he added.
Cy twisted the cord of the ankh firmly round his wrist. It was safe, for the moment. Now he realized what the Dream Master had been so worried about. Dreams out of control were . . . nightmares.
‘What about Chloe and Eddie?’ asked Cy. ‘They couldn’t really have been those two crocodiles, could they?’
Aten gripped Cy’s sleeve. Walking ahead of them towards the front door were two bedraggled figures. Mud and slime clung to their legs and shoes.
Suddenly the staff room door opened and the teachers came out to go to their staff meeting. Miss Fullbright caught sight of Eddie and Chloe.
‘You two have obviously been down at the river,’ she said in a stern voice.
‘No,’ said Chloe.
‘Then if you weren’t by the river, where did all this pondweed come from?’
‘We were in the assembly hall, Miss Fullbright.’
‘Yes,’ Eddie chimed in. ‘We were with Cy and Aten.’
Miss Fullbright turned round. Aten opened his mouth. Cy’s heart shook.
‘Only these two boys were in the assembly hall,’ said the janitor, who had followed them along the corridor. ‘Said Mrs Chalmers had given them permission to look for something they’d lost.’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Mrs Chalmers. ‘Did you find the ankh?’
Cy held up his wrist.
‘So, what have you two got to say for yourselves?’ Miss Fullbright fixed her eyes back on Eddie and Chloe.
‘But we were in the assembly hall!’ shrieked Chloe. ‘That’s how Cy got the ankh back. Because I showed him where we hid it . . . I mean . . . I . . .’ her voice tailed off.
Mrs Chalmers raised her eyebrows and folded her arms.
‘Don’t lie,’ snapped Miss Fullbright. ‘Lying only makes things worse. There are written warnings everywhere about this, and all school pupils have been told many times that they must not go near the river. It is extremely dangerous, and if you older children persist in doing it then the little ones will copy you.’ She glared at them fiercely. ‘Report to me first thing tomorrow morning. I will think of a suitable and severe punishment for you.’
At the patrol crossing Cy and Aten saw Eddie and Chloe limping across the road. Chloe’s face was white, and Eddie’s legs were shaking so much that he could hardly stand up. There were tendrils of green slime still trailing from their shoes. Eddie’s mum was giving him a row. ‘Look at the state of you! You’ve been mucking about by the riverbank, haven’t you?’
‘I . . . I . . .’ stuttered Eddie.
‘That is so dangerous, Eddie. I hope the school finds out and punishes you for it.’
Chloe’s mum was standing well away from her. ‘Chloe, dear, you pong something awful. We can’t possibly go and buy those new shoes you wanted. You’ll have to walk a good bit behind me on the way home.’
‘What happened to those two?’ asked Mrs Turner.
Cy and Aten exchanged glances.
Aten shrugged. ‘Yo?’ he said.
Cy’s dad was waiting to pick him up. ‘Would Aten like to come home with you for dinner?’
Aten nodded quickly. ‘I would be honoured.’
‘We’ll have to let your parents know.’
‘He can telephone from our house,’ Cy said at once.
When they got home Cy made a pretence of telephoning while his father prepared the dinner. Aten watched him in the kitchen.
‘In your forward time, men cook,’ he said. ‘That is very unusual.’
‘You’re telling me,’ said Cy.
‘Yes, I am,’ said Aten. ‘In fact,’ he gave Cy a puzzled look, ‘I just did.’
They hadn’t long to wait before Lauren came rocketing through the door. She scraped back a chair and sat down at the table. ‘Wait ’til I tell you this. At last break, Baz and Cartwheel and I, we were lying out just beside the playing-fields in the sun and we fell asleep.’
‘Obviously the teachers are working you far too hard at school,’ said Cy’s dad, plonking a dish of meatballs onto the table. He pointed at it. ‘Eat,’ he commanded, ‘and no whingeing to your mother about my cooking when she gets back from the hospital.’
Aten watched carefully, copying Lauren as she spooned food onto her plate.
‘And,’ Lauren went on, ‘and then I had a really strange dream. We were in this Egyptian tomb, and Aten was there too.’
‘How interesting,’ said Aten, not looking at Cy. ‘Was I doing anything in particular?’
‘It was a bit odd. You seemed to have two pet crocodiles.’ Lauren took some bread. ‘You were with him, Cy.’
Aten picked up a piece of bread. ‘And also the BearBoyz.’
Cy choked on his food.
‘How did you guess?’ said Lauren. ‘They were there too. And Baz and Cartwheel and I, we were the backing singers.’
‘In your dreams!’ said Cy.
‘Well, exactly,’ said Lauren. ‘But the weirdest thing about the whole thing is that Baz and Cartwheel had the very same dream!’
‘No. Way!’ said Aten.
‘Absolutely, no way,’ agreed Cy. ‘People do not have the same dreams. Not exactly the same.’
‘Well, there were differences,’ admitted Lauren. ‘In my dream I was the one standing right next to Declan, whereas Baz says she dreamt it was her.’
‘No, it was definitely you,’ said Aten.
‘What?’ Lauren stopped with her glass halfway to her mouth.
‘It was you,’ said Aten, not noticing Cy’s widely swinging foot trying to connect with his leg.
‘How do you know?’ asked Lauren.
‘It’s a joke,’ said Cy. ‘Obviously, it’s a joke. Aten’s only winding you up. He doesn’t even know who Declan is.’
‘Yes, I do,’ said Aten. ‘He’s the one with the quiff. Although I prefer it when his hair falls over his eyes.’
‘So do I!’ said Lauren. ‘You have such style, Aten. I spotted that the minute I saw you.’
‘And you are so beautiful,’ replied Aten.
Lauren blushed.
I don’t believe this, thought Cy. He is actually chatting her up. And she’s taking it on. My sister and my friend.
‘I would like to call you Lauren-Nofret,’ Aten went on. ‘In my language nofret means “beautiful lady”. So Lauren-Nofret would be Lauren the lovely.’
‘You are joking,’ Cy told Aten firmly.
‘No, truly,’ Aten turned to Cy. ‘That is why there are Egyptian names like Nefertiti and Nefertari. Nefer is similar to nofret; it means “good and beautiful”.’
‘I meant about the dream,’ said Cy in exasperation, and, as he spoke, he managed to kick Aten under the table.
‘Owww
!’ Aten cried out. He rubbed his ankle. ‘It would appear that I am joking.’ He smiled at Lauren. ‘About the dream,’ he added. ‘Not about the name.’
‘Oh, that’s OK,’ said Lauren. She looked at him from under her lashes and then she picked up her fork. ‘Well, anyway. The dream kind of stopped, and we all woke up. But it was a great experience. So lifelike. I thought it was actually happening.’
Aten, too, picked up his fork. ‘Dreams are mysterious things,’ he said. He looked down at his food. ‘More animal spoor?’ he enquired.
‘Don’t you like meatballs?’ Cy’s dad asked him.
Aten speared a meatball carefully on the end of his fork. He shut his eyes and put it into his mouth. ‘The taste,’ he said, ‘is not unpleasant.’ Under his breath he added, ‘Definitely rabbit’s.’
They were washing up when Cy’s mum came back from hospital visiting.
‘Oh, Grampa is so much better,’ she said, as she flopped into an armchair. Cy’s dad went to fetch her some tea. ‘You know, Cy, Grampa told me a funny thing happened today. He had been feeling quite poorly, and then he fell asleep in the afternoon and had a strange dream. He was lost in this long dark tunnel, and thought he would never find his way out. Suddenly you came and sat beside him. You took his hand and he knew then that he would be all right. The nurses told me that when he woke up he was smiling, and he ate all of his dinner. They say he is well on the way to recovery now. You can go and visit him tomorrow.’
‘So, perhaps there was a purpose to our journey in the labyrinth,’ said Aten later as he and Cy walked slowly back to Grampa’s house. ‘If you had not been there, Grandfather might have remained lost.’
‘I thought he was there to help me,’ said Cy. Aten shrugged. ‘Perhaps both. Who knows? What I do know, however, is this.’ He stopped walking and turned to face Cy. ‘I must go back. Back to the tomb.’
Chapter 21
There was a long, long, silence. Then, ‘Why?’ asked Cy. His voice came out strange and croaky when he spoke. He looked into the face of his friend, and knew that Aten was not going to change his mind. Cy felt desolate, and also very afraid. ‘Why?’ he asked again.
‘It is hard to explain,’ said Aten, ‘but I will try.’ He waited a moment or two and then with a great sigh, he said, ‘I do not belong here. I like it very much. All is wonderful and full of excitement, but . . . it is not my place. I am from somewhere else, some other space, some other time. I do not understand completely. Half is hidden from me. But this I know, I must return and find my own way.’
‘Even to the tomb?’ Cy’s voice was barely a whisper.
Aten nodded calmly.
‘When?’
‘I think after your play, which is . . .?’
‘Friday,’ said Cy. ‘The day after tomorrow.’
‘So be it.’
In school the following day Aten watched fascinated as Mrs Chalmers made and decorated the elaborate Pharaonic head-dress. She painted the plaster face burnished gold, and carefully outlined the eyes and eyebrows with black kohl. Then she placed the head-dress round it and sealed them together.
‘What’s your verdict then, Aten?’ she asked.
Aten nodded once or twice. ‘It is fitting,’ he said.
At lunch-time the boys shared sandwiches in the classroom. ‘How will you explain my leaving?’ Aten asked Cy.
‘My mum teaches foreign languages and she sometimes helps to arrange pupil exchanges so I’ll tell Mrs Chalmers you’ve been placed now,’ said Cy. ‘The long summer holidays start soon, then I go to secondary school. Let’s hope they never get to discuss it properly.’
‘And Lauren?’
‘Oh, she’s nuts about you. She’ll believe anything now.’
‘Nuts,’ repeated Aten. ‘Which kind?’
‘It’s just an expression. Forget it,’ said Cy.
‘Now we must hurry,’ said Aten. ‘Lunch-time is nearly over and we have not yet dropped any of our papers outside.’
‘Oh yeah, I nearly forgot,’ said Cy.
He looked through the classroom window at the two figures trailing round the playground behind the school janitor. Eddie and Chloe had been ordered by the Head to pick up all the litter during every single break until the end of term. This morning Cy had overheard the drama teacher, looking at the sea of orange peel, crisp-bags, sweet-papers, and other rubbish, saying to Mrs Chalmers, ‘The playground suddenly seems to have got so messy.’
Mrs Chalmers had replied, with some satisfaction in her voice. ‘Well, those two have annoyed rather a lot of people over the last months.’
Cy went out into the playground with his biscuit wrappers, whistling, ‘Never smile at a crocodile’.
On Friday afternoon they performed the Procession of the Pharaoh in front of the rest of the school. Mrs Chalmers moved Aten from playing the triangle to being an Egyptian soldier. She said he looked more authentic than anyone else. She gave Cy the triangle and stick. He was sure he struck it at all the wrong places but no-one seemed to notice, and the infant classes adored Aten who strutted about threatening them with his spear. Afterwards Cy asked Mrs Chalmers if he could borrow the small top piece of the pyramid which Innes, Basra and Vicky had made.
‘I’ll be very careful with it,’ he promised.
‘I know you will, Cy,’ said Mrs Chalmers.
‘Oh, and Miss, this is Aten’s last day. He goes off at the weekend.’
Mrs Chalmers shook Aten’s hand. ‘It has been very interesting having you in class this week,’ she said. ‘I hope some of what you saw will be of value to you.’
Aten smiled. ‘You are a wise and kind teacher. I have learnt immeasurable amounts.’
On Saturday afternoon, while the rest of the family were shopping, Cy laid out the cardboard pyramid on his bed.
‘I thought if we sat on either side, and then I let the light from the window shine through the ankh . . .’ Cy tailed off. ‘Well, it’s the best I could think of.’
Aten took his pleated linen kilt from Cy’s cupboard and put it on. He combed and oiled his sleek, glossy, black hair, and then draped a thin strip of linen diagonally across his chest.
‘I am ready,’ he said.
Chapter 22
‘From the corner of Cy’s room the Dream Master stepped forward, and taking the ankh from Cy’s wrist, he placed it round Aten’s neck.
‘I thought you weren’t going to do that until Aten had returned to his own time,’ said Cy.
‘Indeed,’ said the Dream Master. He turned and his cloak spun out behind him.
Cy blinked. The walls of the pyramid were no longer cardboard brown, they had become fawn. Cy reached out his hand and touched the sides. It was solid.
‘Ah,’ he said. He turned. There were the statues, the furniture, the paintings, and the mummy case in the corner.
Aten looked round him. ‘We are as we were,’ he stated in a flat voice. ‘I had hoped—’
‘That we would come back at a different bit,’ Cy finished for him.
Aten nodded. ‘Just a little bit earlier so that I could avoid being captured. But,’ he sighed, ‘here we are. As before.’
‘Mmm, not quite as before,’ said Cy. ‘It said in one of my books that, as well as the official entrance, there were sometimes secret passages leading from the tombs.’
‘But if these passages are secret, how do we find them?’ Aten asked him.
‘I spoke to Grampa when I visited him at the hospital,’ said Cy, ‘and he said that we might need a magnetic compass, some chalk, and a ball of string.’
‘I do not have these things,’ said Aten.
Cy stuck his hands in his pockets, ‘But I do,’ he said. ‘Grampa also said to look carefully at the paintings with the darkest colours where there might be a hidden opening.’
The torch beam was flickering yellow when eventually Cy heard Aten shout out. Aten pointed to the lower part of the wall where he was searching. ‘Look, here! There is a gap in the wall.’
Cy shon
e the torch into the cavity. A long narrow passage curved away and upwards. Cy peered inside. ‘It hardly looks big enough for a person to crawl along,’ he said.
‘I do not think it was meant to take a person’s body,’ said Aten.
‘Then what?’ asked Cy.
‘The soul,’ said Aten. ‘I’ve heard it said that in the pyramids at Giza there are such passageways to enable the dead Pharaoh’s soul to travel freely.’
‘To where?’ asked Cy.
‘These passageways point to the stars,’ said Aten. ‘To Osiris, and the brightest star in the sky . . .’ Aten stopped, and gave Cy a strange look.
‘The brightest star in the sky is Sirius,’ said Cy.
‘Yes,’ said Aten. ‘Your own name. Cyrus.’
Cy opened his mouth and then closed it again.
‘You were sent to lead me to safety.’ Aten smiled at Cy.
Cy shook his head slowly. ‘If what you say is true then this passageway should lead to the outside.’ He shone the torch inside again. ‘It is very narrow. Are you absolutely sure?’
‘We are not so large,’ said Aten, ‘and I will happily follow you.’
Cy groaned. ‘I thought you might say that.’
Some time later Cy and Aten struggled out of a narrow opening behind a rocky outcrop high in the Valley of the Kings. Below them, wide and slow, moved the waters of the Nile.
‘Look!’ cried Aten. ‘Tying up by that jetty. There is a royal barge!’ He turned to Cy. ‘I must go.’
Cy looked at his friend for a long moment. ‘You’re still wearing my trainers,’ he said eventually.
Aten removed one shoe and gave it to Cy. ‘I keep the left sandal, as a bond between us,’ he said. ‘You hold the right one, my friend through Time. I will remember you always, as you remember me.’ He struck his brow with his hand and then touched Cy’s forehead with his fingertips. ‘It is done,’ he said.
Cy watched Aten run down the slope towards the great river. This would have to happen Aten’s way, and he, Cy, would have to accept what fate dictated.
Suddenly he was aware of a presence beside him. The Dream Master was biting his beard and muttering like a bad-tempered child.
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