If Rhea Silvia was seventeen years old and she had been born the year of the great earthquake in AD 62, then the year that she and her brother and the Dream Master were living in at Pompeii at this very moment was AD 79.
Cy kept his eyes pressed closed. He didn’t need to look at the book again. The last sentence he had read was clear in his head:
In AD 79 the volcano Vesuvius erupted, killing most of the population and completely burying the town of Pompeii.
CHAPTER XII
THE NEXT MORNING at breakfast Cy’s head was sore and he felt so tired and achy all over that he could hardly lift his spoon out of his cereal bowl. His dreams of the previous night, the normal everyday run-of-the-mill ones, had been confused and disturbing. He hadn’t slept properly and he knew that he needed some mental rest so that he could cope with the problems to be dealt with when he was able to return to Pompeii.
Lauren was more grumpy than usual, and complaining about the warm weather. ‘It’s always the same,’ she moaned. ‘The sun comes out as soon as the holidays are over.’
‘I don’t know what’s the matter with the two of you,’ said Cy’s mum. ‘Yesterday Lauren was mumping about here yawning her head off, and this morning you’re as bad as she is, Cy.’
‘By this time in the holidays they really need to be back at school,’ said Cy’s dad. ‘They’ve not got enough to do, that’s why they are both out of sorts.’
Cy scowled at his bowl of cereal. Every year at the end of the summer holidays either his mum or his dad always said something along the lines of ‘I think you need something to occupy your minds: some school work would soon sort you out.’ They claimed it was because they thought he and Lauren were bored. Cy suspected it was because his parents were fed up having them around the house all day. In the last week of the holidays they caught up with house-cleaning and decorating and Cy was sure that he and Lauren only got in their way.
‘It’s time you were back at school’ was one of his most hated adult expressions, although it was true that he was a bit fed up. His school friends Vicky and Innis were away on holiday and Basra had family visiting from India. Grampa was staying with his other grandchildren, Cy’s cousins, for a few weeks and Cy missed his company. If Grampa were here he’d have been able to advise Cy what to do about the Mean Machines.
‘What are you doing today?’
Cy realized his mum was asking him a question. ‘Doing . . . today.’ Cy felt his brain do one of the slow slides it often did when he was asked a direct question. ‘Ahhh . . .’ he groped in his pocket and found the curtain ring Grampa had given him to help him remember things. His fingers connected with the piece of paper he had wrapped round it yesterday. It was a note of his Internet appointment! ‘Library,’ he mumbled through a mouthful of Oat Crunchies. ‘School project work.’
‘And you, Lauren?’ Cy’s mum turned to his sister.
Lauren rolled her eyes and ignored her mother.
Cy’s dad caught Lauren’s look. ‘Is one allowed to enquire as to what plans you might have for today?’ he asked in a sweet voice.
Lauren stood up and marched like a robot towards the door. Then she stopped and, staring straight ahead, she spoke in a monotone:
‘I – am – now – going – out.
I – am – meeting – my – friend – Cartwheel.
We – will – go – to – the – house – of – our – friend – Baz.
Baz – and – Cartwheel – have – previously – been – cleared – for – close – contact – by – the Parents – division – of – the – FBI.
I – will – be – home – late – afternoon.
I – will – not – speak – to – strangers.
I – will – not – do – drugs.
I – will – not – imbibe – alcoholic – substances.
Goodbye.’
Lauren spun on her heel. The door crashed shut.
Cy’s mum looked at his dad. ‘I would never have spoken to my parents like that.’
‘Let’s look on it positively,’ said Cy’s dad. ‘She didn’t actually throw things.’ He turned to Cy. ‘Do you think you could do us a favour, old son? When you get to puberty, press the “skip” button.’
Cy’s mum had picked up a large ring binder which lay on the kitchen table. It contained the notes for the modern language teachers’ staff development course that she had been studying during her school holidays. ‘Perhaps there’s something here that might help us with situations like these,’ she said. ‘I’m sure there was a whole section called “Aspects of Communication”.’
‘There hasn’t yet been a course to cover the years of teenage carnage,’ said Cy’s dad. ‘Whoever devises that module will become a millionaire. We’d be better off having a sign made up saying “HORMONE HAZARD ZONE” and pinning it on Lauren’s bedroom door.’
‘Wait!’ Cy’s mum pulled out a sheet of printed paper. ‘Here’s a bit about one-to-one responses. It says that not only should we listen and pay attention, we must also tell the person that we are doing this. And we must do so both in our body language and verbally. “Make eye contact. Let them know that they have your full attention. That you notice them and are listening carefully.”’ She glanced down at the course notes. ‘“Notice and listen carefully,”’ she repeated under her breath. She looked over at Cy and then pulled her chair closer to his. ‘I notice you,’ she said.
Cy looked up from his breakfast.
Cy’s mum locked eyes with him. ‘I notice you carefully,’ she said.
‘What?’ said Cy in alarm. His stomach dropped. He must have left some evidence of his trip to Pompeii lying about his room. ‘What was it you noticed?’
‘You,’ said his mother, not taking her eyes from Cy’s face. ‘I notice you. You have my full attention.’
‘I don’t want your full attention,’ said Cy. ‘Why are you always picking on me?’ He got up and, slinging his rucksack over his shoulder, he went out of the kitchen, slamming the door behind him.
‘I don’t think I got that quite right,’ he heard his mum tell his dad as he went down the path. ‘Instead of “notice you carefully” perhaps I should have said “carefully notice you”.’
When Cy reached the library the first two people that he saw were Eddie and Chloe. He had just entered the building and they were walking ahead of him. Whenever he met them Cy always felt slightly sick. He knew that Grampa gave good advice when he told him to try to ignore them, but Cy also knew that it took a lot of will-power to do that. It meant that he had to concentrate really hard on something else and he just wasn’t up to it this morning.
Eddie and Chloe went past the front desk and straight along to the computer area. Cy almost turned at once to go away. But as he hesitated, the librarian spotted him and waved him over to his computer terminal.
‘I’ll log on for you and if you give me an idea what you’re looking for I can point you in the right direction.’
Cy nodded his thanks. He was only half listening. The Mean Machines were further down the library and Cy couldn’t help but let his gaze wander towards them while the librarian was busy logging onto the terminal for him. Despite his best intentions his eyes appeared to have a will of their own. Cy watched Eddie and Chloe stop and put their bags on the floor. The two bullies sat down close to another computer terminal where someone else was working. Cy recognized Vojek, a younger boy who had only come to his school last term. Cy wondered what the Mean Machines were up to. Suddenly Eddie looked up and saw Cy staring. At once Eddie nudged Chloe. Chloe turned her head and glared.
Cy dropped his eyes, but it was too late. He had been spotted! The Mean Machines had seen him!
CHAPTER XIII
CY FELT A great wave of nausea sweep up from his stomach. He swallowed carefully, trying to hold onto his Oat Crunchies. Eddie and Chloe stared at him for a long, long moment . . . and then an amazing thing happened. Chloe shook her head. She pointed at Vojek. The Mean Machines had found a new victim.
‘That’s all set up.’
Cy turned his head. The librarian was speaking to him.
‘There’s a few good websites on volcanoes. I’ve bookmarked them for you. I’ve got some work to attend to so I’ll leave you to browse but you can let me know if you need any help.’
Cy sat down and began his Internet search. There was a bewildering amount of information on volcanoes. Ones that exploded, ones that poured lava, ones that were under the sea – the largest of all was the one in outer space! Cy made lots of notes and then began his search for information about the eruption at Pompeii.
He found an extract of a report written at the time by a Roman known as Pliny the Younger who had actually seen it happening from across the bay. He wrote of a column of smoke and a strange dark cloud which blotted out the sun. It had started in the late morning of 24 August and, by present-day reckoning, the year had been AD 79. There had been minor earth tremors before the first eruption occurred. But it wasn’t the eruptions of showers of rock or the hot ash that killed so many of the citizens. It was the scorching gas that came some hours after this, travelling at a terrifying speed. The volcano was nine miles from Pompeii, but within minutes of the gas clouds racing down the mountainside thousands of people had suffocated.
Cy looked at the photographs of the archaeological site that was now Pompeii. He could see the ruins of the Via dell’Abbondanza, of the Amphitheatre, of the Barracks of the Gladiators. The streets he had run along with Linus – they had all been destroyed in a matter of hours.
The top of the mountain had exploded around midday and for twelve hours rocks, ash and pumice had fallen on people and buildings like hot hailstones. Then the great towering pillar of smoke had collapsed and – Cy wrote the phrase out carefully in his notebook – the pyroclastic flow had come racing down the mountain and nothing could withstand it.
Cy decided to print the pages and then go. He was worried about leaving the Dream Master so long without his dreamcloak. And something about the description of the destruction of Pompeii was disturbing him, but he didn’t quite know why.
As he got up, Cy noticed that Vojek was hunched in his seat, trying to take up as small a space as possible. Cy looked around. Eddie and Chloe must have eventually stopped annoying him and gone on into the Reference section. But Vojek still sat on in his own misery. The younger boy had pulled his head and neck down into his shoulders, curled like a snail in its shell. Cy remembered what it was like to be picked on at that age. He looked at Vojek and saw himself.
There was something wrong. But it was none of his business, Cy decided. He had his own problems: the Dream Master to rescue, his school work to do, and anyway, he especially did not want to go looking for trouble with Eddie and Chloe. Vojek would need to look after himself – just as Cy did . . .
Except that he didn’t – not totally, anyway. Cy’s friends Vicky, Basra and Innis often backed him up and he had his grampa to talk to. Who did Vojek have? He tried to remember what Mrs Chalmers had said about welcoming those fleeing persecution, and how we should try to help them in any way we could. But it was difficult to do this. The families who had sought asylum in the town knew very little of the English language.
Cy thought about language and how it helped make life easier. He thought about his sister Lauren and her friends and the crazy text messages they sent each other on their mobile phones. How easy it was for them to do this and have fun because they knew what the letters meant. When he travelled with the dreamcloak it didn’t seem to matter. In some way he understood the language and Linus and Rhea Silvia understood his. What must it be like not to understand? And not in the way a very young child doesn’t understand – when you were tiny you were too little to know about things. But Vojek did know. He would have been able to speak and laugh in his own land. Now he would realize that he was prevented from studying or even playing properly in this country.
Cy walked slowly across the library, paused and looked at Vojek’s computer. The screen was showing gobbledegook. Vojek kept his head down.
Cy gently touched his shoulder. When the younger boy looked up, Cy pointed to himself and said, ‘Cy. My name is Cy.’
‘Vojek,’ the younger boy mumbled. ‘Name Vojek.’
Cy indicated the screen. ‘What’s this?’
‘Lit-er-acy.’ Vojek spoke carefully. ‘I try to learn English.’
Not from that, you won’t, thought Cy. Something was malfunctioning, or . . . of course! The Mean Machines! It would be just like them to fiddle about and mess up Vojek’s program.
Cy pointed to the computer and then to the Reference section. He made signs with his hands. ‘Did Eddie and Chloe touch your machine?’
‘Yes,’ Vojek whispered. He looked fearfully over his shoulder, and then jumped in alarm. The librarian was standing behind them.
‘What’s the problem?’
‘The keyboard’s frozen,’ said Cy, ‘and the mouse isn’t working either.’
The librarian looked at the screen. ‘I put on a CD with a basic literacy program. You’ve changed the settings,’ she said to Vojek.
Vojek said nothing.
‘I don’t think he did,’ said Cy.
‘But he must have,’ said the librarian. She tutted. ‘You kids. This is the best equipment and it’s put here to help you. If you muck around with it, it’ll just get broken.’ She closed down the program and switched the computer off. Then she reached over and swivelled the machine round. ‘These serial ports have been changed over. What you’ve done here,’ she said crossly, ‘is actually dangerous!’
Vojek gave a terrified little moan. ‘No! No! No trouble. No trouble. My mother afraid . . . if trouble.’
Cy looked at the fear in Vojek’s eyes. Mrs Chalmers had told her class that Vojek’s parents had brought their family here to be safe. His father had been a doctor who had tried to treat patients from both sides of the conflict in their own country.
‘I appreciate that a lot of things must be very strange for you here,’ said the librarian, ‘but you must know that you should not interfere with the back of the machines. You could hurt yourself, and also you might not be allowed to use it again.’
‘Yes. Thank you,’ said Vojek.
Cy stared at him. Vojek was prepared to take the blame because he was afraid of trouble. He had come to this country looking for freedom from fear, and right away that freedom was being taken from him.
Cy knew what it was like to be afraid to speak up. But if he couldn’t speak up for himself, then maybe he could do it for another. He must. He could. He would.
‘Vojek didn’t touch the back of the machine.’
‘Was it you then?’ The librarian was busy unplugging the serial ports and re-connecting the keyboard and mouse.
‘It wasn’t Vojek, and it wasn’t me.’ Cy pretended to look puzzled. ‘I suppose it must have been someone else.’
The librarian gave him a blank look. ‘It was working when I set it up and there are only the two of you here at the moment.’
‘Perhaps earlier?’ suggested Cy. ‘When I arrived, weren’t there a couple of people walking through here?’
The librarian snapped her fingers. ‘There were those two youngsters who were capering about yesterday. They came in immediately before you and went to the Reference section. Do you know their names?’
Cy felt a bit queasy. He hesitated. It was the most awful thing to do – to tell on someone. Then he saw Vojek’s small anxious face watching him. ‘Eddie and Chloe,’ said. Cy. ‘They stopped at Vojek’s desk and were fiddling about while you were busy logging on my terminal.’
‘I’ll just go and have a word with them,’ said the librarian. ‘I’m not prepared to allow someone to vandalize equipment and let another person take the blame.’ She had a very determined look in her eye.
Cy stood in front of her. ‘It was fortunat
e that you happened to be passing and saw Eddie and Chloe change the serial ports,’ he said firmly.
‘I didn’t, Cy, it was you,’ said the librarian.
‘No,’ said Cy emphatically. ‘It was you.’
The librarian gave him a puzzled look. ‘It was you. You just told me about it not two minutes ago.’
Cy did not take his eyes from her face. ‘It – was – you,’ he said with finality.
As the librarian began to open her mouth, Vojek plucked at her sleeve. ‘Cy no tell-tale,’ he whispered.
‘Whaaat?’ The librarian looked at the younger boy and then at Cy. ‘Oh . . . oh I see. Yes, of course.’ She spoke slowly. ‘Let me get this right. I looked over at this computer terminal to see how Vojek was getting on and I noticed Eddie and Chloe tampering with the back of the machine. This was when they stopped here before going into the Reference section . . . which I saw them doing.’ She smiled at Cy and Vojek. ‘Would that be what happened?’
Cy nodded.
‘Good,’ said the librarian. ‘I think I’ll go now and have a word with those two.’ She set off briskly towards the Reference section.
Cy went to collect his material from the printer. He deliberately turned his back so that he would not see any rude signs or gestures that Eddie and Chloe might make at him as they left the library. Cy knew that the Mean Machines were not finished with him or Vojek or any number of other people. They would go on and on, picking on those who were vulnerable. Some people were like that. They seemed to take pleasure in annoying other people or making them unhappy. If it wasn’t Eddie and Chloe doing it, it could easily be someone else. There would always be another bully to take their place. Cy had to find his own way of coping with them, him and Vojek . . .
Cy glanced over to where the small figure of Vojek had sat earlier, crouched low over his mouse-mat. Except that Vojek’s shoulders weren’t hunched any more. He was sitting up straight and flicking happily through his literacy learning program. He saw Cy looking at him and smiled.
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