Gladiator Read online

  ‘And the next one is Krakatoa.’

  Cy had barely finished his sentence when he and his Dream Master tumbled with a great felump! onto the bottom of a tiny boat.

  ‘Not the South China Sea!’ moaned the Dream Master.

  ‘Is that near Krakatoa?’ asked Cy.

  ‘We don’t want to be near Krakatoa,’ said the Dream Master. ‘The tidal wave? Remember?’

  Cy looked again at his notebook and began to read aloud: ‘Etna, Olympus Mons, Krakatoa, Mount St He—’

  The Dream Master grabbed the notebook from Cy’s hand. ‘Don’t say it!’ he screamed. ‘DON’T EVEN THINK IT! That last one on your list is the most dangerous of all. If you’d studied your subject at all over the summer holidays you’d know that the force which blew the top off that mountain was equal to over a thousand nuclear bombs. The pyroclastic surge which followed scorched the whole area for miles and miles. If we go anywhere near that one we’re both goners.’

  CHAPTER III

  ‘CAN I STOP us going there?’ asked Cy.

  ‘Of course you can. It’s your dream.’ The Dream Master spoke slowly and distinctly. ‘But you will need – to – concentrate – very – carefully – indeed.’

  A part of Cy’s brain registered that the little man was speaking to him in the same way that some adults address the very old, the very young, or the very mad. He’s scared, thought Cy. He is really scared at what I might do. He is so terrified, in fact, that for the first time ever he has stopped shouting at me.

  ‘I need help,’ Cy whispered.

  The Dream Master gripped his arm. ‘Think of some other volcano,’ he said in an encouraging voice.

  ‘I can’t.’ As always, when in a tricky situation, Cy’s brain had slipped to the bottom of his head.

  ‘San Francisco?’ suggested the Dream Master. ‘Didn’t something happen in California at the beginning of the twentieth century when San Francisco nearly burned down?’

  ‘That was an earthquake,’ said Cy. ‘We don’t do earthquakes until after we’ve done volcanoes.’

  ‘Excuse me!’ said the Dream Master. ‘I’m sorry I’ve not kept up to date with the changes in the school curriculum.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. Nobody can,’ said Cy. ‘You should hear my mum about how little attention is given to her modern languages department, but that’s not the point anyway.’

  ‘Ten out of ten, Cy!’ The Dream Master spoke through gritted teeth. His face was contorted with the effort of trying to keep his temper. ‘You are absolutely correct. That is not the point.’

  Cy gave himself a shake. There had to be some kind of safe thought in his head . . . something comforting . . .

  Suddenly from nowhere there was a blur in the air above the raft.

  The Dream Master waved his arms. ‘What is going on? What is flying about up there?’

  ‘It’s Peter!’ said Cy. ‘It’s Peter Pan!’

  ‘I can’t stand it!’ shrieked the Dream Master. ‘At this moment in Time you must not get involved in a dream where myth gets mythed— mixed up.’ He pointed upwards. ‘Get rid of him. He can’t help us in this situation.’

  Cy felt that familiar panicky feeling when things happened too fast for him to cope with. It would sometimes happen in class if he had to read aloud. Mrs Chalmers usually gave him time to gather his thoughts but even she could be impatient. ‘Why can’t I think of anything fast or quickly enough?’ he moaned. ‘It’s always like this with me. My brain doesn’t work at speed, especially when I’m under pressure.’

  ‘Stop whining,’ snapped the Dream Master, ‘and think of something relevant to the situation.’

  ‘I’m trying to think of something. I must have thought of Peter Pan, but that was to do with you having your cloak sewn back together.’ Cy turned to the Dream Master. ‘Why didn’t that work then? Why didn’t we move on to a dream about Peter Pan?’

  ‘Don’t be a Dimwit,’ screeched the Dream Master, beginning to lose it again. ‘Haven’t you learned anything in all the dreams you’ve done previously? There’s got to be a link.’

  ‘A link?’ Cy repeated.

  ‘Yes,’ said the Dream Master impatiently. ‘Think of story sequencing, think of continuity. You can’t just jump randomly from one topic to another unless you establish a link.’

  ‘What’s that then?’ asked Cy.

  ‘Transition!’ yelled the Dream Master. ‘The change or passage from one state or stage to another. Find a way to move from one scene to the next without losing control of the story – or, in your case, the dream.’

  ‘Uh.’ Cy stared through the blurring rain that had begun to fall. The wind was rising and the swell of the sea started to buffet their little boat.

  ‘Didn’t you do any research at all?’ the Dream Master yelled, at Cy.

  ‘Of course I did,’ Cy shouted back.

  ‘Well, try and remember some of it. Find a link to get us out of here.’

  Myths . . . The Dream Master’s voice echoed in Cy’s head. He had said something about myths. In times gone past it was how people explained happenings that they couldn’t understand. That was where a lot of the old stories and legends came from, mankind trying to make sense of things for which they hadn’t enough scientific knowledge. Anything violent in nature, they would say that the gods were angry. The Japanese thought that a volcano was a giant catfish moving underwater . . .

  The boat heaved. A few miles away the ocean began to boil. Breaking the surface of the waves was a huge fin.

  The Dream Master put his head in his hands. ‘I can’t look,’ he moaned. ‘Now we’re going to be eaten by a catfish. Cy,’ he said urgently, ‘now would be the best time for you to focus that thought. Cy!’ he yelled as the boat began to up-end itself. ‘Cy! Cy!’

  ‘Cy . . .’ Cy repeated his own name. ‘Cy . . .’ He searched in his mind for any piece of information which might help him out of this fix. ‘. . . clops,’ he finished, and grinned wildly at the Dream Master.

  ‘Clops?’ The Dream Master gave him a baffled look.

  ‘Transition!’ cried Cy. ‘I’ve done it! In Italy somewhere there’s an extinct volcano. I read about it in one of my books. From a distance the crater looks like a giant eye. In ancient times it was thought to be the one-eyed giants who helped the fire god in his underground forge. They were called the Cyclops who fought with fire and rocks.’

  The Dream Master spread apart his fingers and peered at Cy with one eye. ‘Cy . . . cyclops?’ he said.

  ‘Yep,’ said Cy.

  ‘Is that the best transition you can do?’

  ‘It’s a good one,’ said Cy. ‘Vesuvius was a volcano but it hasn’t erupted for quite a while.’

  ‘And we hope never again,’ said a soft voice at Cy’s elbow.

  Cy turned. He was among vineyards on a sunny hillside. A young woman stood beside him.

  ‘Although –’ she looked upwards – ‘the sky has been cloudy, which is unseasonal for this time of year, and there is a strange breeze blowing offshore. Like this.’ And she blew softly into Cy’s face.

  ‘That’s not how you wake someone up,’ said a kind voice. ‘Wake up, Cy. Wake up.’

  ‘Wendy?’ said Cy. He blinked, and looked at the figure standing between him and the light from his bedroom window. It was Wendy! She must have come to sew on Peter Pan’s shadow. Great, thought Cy, she can mend the dreamcloak at the same time.

  But she only laughed when Cy told her this. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘This afternoon you and I are going shopping.’

  ‘Mum!’ yelped Cy.

  ‘You’ve been dreaming,’ said Cy’s mum. ‘Come on, school starts next week. It’s time to get you a new uniform.’

  Cy sat up on his bed. ‘Please no. I’m very busy today. I’ve got a school project to do.’

  ‘We have to shop for new school clothes,’ replied his mum. ‘I don’t enjoy it any more than you do. Don’t make a fuss,’ she begged. ‘I’ve already had Lauren moaning at me and
we haven’t even started yet.’

  ‘Can’t you just buy the stuff and I’ll wear it?’ pleaded Cy. ‘You know I don’t care what it looks like. I’ll wear anything.’

  ‘No deal, Cy,’ said his mum. ‘It saves time if you come along. Then I know that we’ve got the right size.’

  ‘It doesn’t save my time,’ Cy grumbled as he stood up. This was going to be an afternoon of torture. Lauren and his mother would now have pitched battles in every store in town, and still not agree on what was suitable school wear. For that to happen would require a peace commission more powerful than for any war-torn country.

  ‘I’d like you to be downstairs ready to leave in ten minutes, please.’ Cy’s mum stopped on her way out the door. ‘There’s a burning smell in here. You’ve not been playing about with matches, Cy, have you?’ She looked at him closely.

  ‘No!’ said Cy.

  His mum went to the window. ‘Oh, it’s Mr Bridges next door. He’s got a bonfire blazing away there. It’s such an end-of-the-summer smell, isn’t it? Some smoke seems to have drifted in,’ she said, wiping the soot marks off the window-ledge with her fingers. ‘I wonder what he’s burning?’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘It’s got a very strong smell.’

  Dragging his feet, Cy began to follow his mother out of the room. Then he too stopped and sniffed the air. His mum was right. There was an odd smell in his room. But it wasn’t the smoke from their neighbour’s bonfire.

  The smell was like sulphur, he was sure of it. The type of smell you got from rotten eggs . . . the same kind of smell that hung around a volcano when it was about to erupt.

  CHAPTER IV

  ‘THAT SKIRT IS way too short.’

  In the girls’ clothes department Cy’s mum and his sister Lauren were in a fashion stand-off.

  ‘’Tisn’t,’ said Lauren. She hauled on the hemline of the micro Lycra skirt which clung to the top of her legs. Then she flounced back into the changing room and dragged the curtain closed.

  ‘Lauren, come back out here!’ cried Cy’s mum. She opened her mouth to speak to Lauren again and then stopped. ‘Remember the Communications Course,’ Cy heard her mutter under her breath. ‘Give yourself time to gather your thoughts. Breathe deliberately. In through the nose and out through the mouth.’ Cy’s mum took a deep breath in, then she let air out of her mouth very carefully. ‘Slowly, slowly. Now . . .’ She contorted her face into an artificial smile. ‘Lauren, dear,’ she said in a jolly voice. ‘Do come back out and let me have another look at your new school skirt. Please,’ she added quickly.

  Cy hated it. He hated shopping. He particularly hated shopping for clothes. And he especially particularly hated shopping with his sister. Lauren and his mum clashed on every item. When Cy had to get geared up for school he usually chose the path of least resistance. Unless his mum was trying some awful outrage he just stood about, like today, raising and lowering his arms while she held trousers against his waist and jumpers across his shoulders. When he was forced to try something on he did so as fast as he possibly could and avoided looking in any mirrors. Whereas his older sister Lauren fought action on all fronts. School rucksack, skirt, shirt, pullover, shoes, the lot. She conceded nothing.

  Once, when Cy’s mum had been unwell, Lauren had been given enough money to go shopping for all the items needed for her return to school in the autumn term. After a nine-hour shopping trip with her friends she had wandered home with one item, a designer-label jacket.

  Cy’s mum had gone pale. ‘You were supposed to get two skirts, a pullover, shoes and some other things as well.’

  ‘You don’t really expect me to wear clothes that are cheap and nasty,’ Lauren protested.

  ‘With that amount of money I could have fed a family of four for a week,’ shouted Cy’s dad.

  ‘We are a family of four,’ Lauren said immediately. ‘And can I remind you that your attempts to do just that on the evenings that you cook dinner are a trifle pathetic.’

  ‘What?’ Cy’s dad’s mouth dropped open.

  ‘Oh, Lauren, that’s unfair.’ Cy’s mum glanced anxiously at Cy’s dad. ‘Your meals are . . . um . . . lovely, darling.’

  ‘Don’t take it from me. Ask anybody.’ Lauren flapped her hand about, then swiftly gathered up her shopping and left the room.

  ‘I’ve never heard anyone complain.’ Cy’s dad turned to him. ‘Is there anything wrong with the meals I prepare?’

  ‘Cool.’ Cy shrugged casually. He’d always found that a good way of getting out of tricky situations. And he’d perfected his shrug so that it was neither a yes nor a no. ‘Cool,’ he said again, and slid unobtrusively towards the door.

  ‘Is my cooking in some way defective?’ his dad repeated.

  ‘Not at all, dear,’ Cy heard his mum say soothingly as he went upstairs.

  Later from his room Cy could hear his parents still talking, while in the bathroom Lauren hummed to herself as she washed her hair.

  Now, Lauren reappeared from the changing room, and stood in front of her mother.

  ‘Um.’ Cy’s mum called the sales girl over. ‘Do you have this skirt in a slightly longer length?’

  The sales assistant rolled her eyes. ‘’Slongest we’ve got.’

  Lauren and the sales assistant exchanged glances over Cy’s mum’s head.

  ‘Don’t make them any longer’n that,’ added the sales assistant. She put her head on one side. ‘’Sfine, s’far’s I can see.’

  Lauren shot her a grateful look.

  Cy’s mum swallowed. ‘I think it’s very short,’ she said weakly.

  Cy closed his eyes. It always followed the same pattern. He wished that he was anywhere else but in the girls’ clothing section of a department store. He slid his hand into the pocket of his sweatshirt. His fingers connected with the piece of dreamsilk. Exactly where had he been with the Dream Master earlier on?

  ‘The skirt is far too long.’ An older woman’s voice spoke firmly. ‘My daughter must have her hemline shorter.’

  Cy blinked.

  ‘Mother,’ replied an equally firm, but more youthful voice. ‘This longer length is how I want to wear my clothes now.’

  Cy blinked again. What had happened? One minute his mum was insisting that Lauren’s skirt should be longer, and now she was taking the exact opposite point of view. Cy opened his eyes wide, and as he did so his mind made a strange little blip and then settled.

  Around Cy everything had changed. From a brightly lit twenty-first-century department store he had flitted in TimeSpace to . . . where?

  He was in a shop. But this shop was stacked from floor to ceiling with cloth. Cloth in bales, in rolls, hanging from the walls and the ceiling. And such different colours, and types of material. Deep indigo, stripes, silks and cotton. Cy peered round one of the bales of cloth. In place of his mum and his sister Lauren there were now two completely different people having a similar heated discussion. The girl had wrapped a piece of dark purple material about her waist while her mother sat on a low bench viewing her. A man with a goatee beard who seemed to be the shop owner was holding several other bolts of cloth under his arm.

  ‘Look,’ the girl appealed to the shopkeeper. ‘Isn’t there a certain grace as the folds of the cloth fall to the ground?’

  ‘Indeed. Indeed.’ The man bowed his head. ‘The Tyrian-purple is most becoming.’

  ‘I think it needs to be considerably shorter,’ said the girl’s mother. ‘The streets are dusty in the summer heat and the cobbles become wet in winter. It is better to have the garment swing free.’

  ‘I could gather it up with a belt,’ said the girl.

  ‘Then, Rhea Silvia, you would look like the matron Celia Andinus,’ said the older woman. She turned to the shopkeeper. ‘Would she not, Master Darius?’

  ‘Indeed,’ said the merchant. He looked from mother to daughter and kept his face impassive. ‘Indeed,’ he repeated.

  ‘He will tell them that which they wish to hear in order to make a sale,’ whispered a voice
close to Cy.

  Cy jumped and turned. There was a boy, younger than himself, sitting right beside him. He had a piece of yellowy paper in his hand and was drawing on it with an odd-looking pen. He had paused in what he was doing to address Cy.

  Cy gulped. An answer seemed to be expected of him. ‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘Indeed.’

  The boy laughed. ‘You are funny. I’m glad that my father bought you to be my personal slave.’

  Cy’s heart crashed. ‘Slave?’ he said. ‘I am your slave?’

  The boy nodded. ‘Surely you remember? My father bought you yesterday. In the market at the port of Ostia when he was on his way to Rome. I think you had just arrived with other captives from Britain.’

  Cy shook his head. Would he never be able to organize his dreams the way he wanted to? If he was going to visit ancient Rome he would much rather be a commander in the Roman army or a Master of Gladiators. He was seriously fed up with this. In his Viking dream he had been a swineherd and now in ancient Rome he was a slave. ‘So, I am a slave,’ he said sadly.

  ‘Don’t look so upset,’ said the boy. ‘Being a Roman slave has many advantages. You will have special privileges, and may even one day be a free man. My father said that you seemed well educated so you have also to be my tutor. Tell me what you think of my drawing.’ He held out his piece of paper. ‘I am making a drawing of a dog. It is a copy of one of my father’s mosaics. It is a savage dog. Underneath it I will write, “Beware of the dog”.’

  Cy looked at the boy’s drawing. A fierce-looking dog with pointed ears snarled up at him. ‘It’s good,’ he said. ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Linus.’

  ‘Linus,’ said Cy, ‘it might make it more lifelike if you did not show it at rest. You could show the dog about to pounce, for instance. Action can make the picture more interesting.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Linus happily. ‘I draw many sketches. I want to be as my father and make designs for mosaics. I’d like to do scenes of the city and the countryside, but it is a picture of a dog that householders want on the ground at the entrance to their homes.’