The bird-man laughed. “Yes. Usually. You get to ask another question now.”
“Do you have a best friend?”
“Yes. Ask again.”
“Will he come and visit us here?”
The Big Bird fell quiet.
“No. My turn. Have you kept your secret?”
Lena blew a raspberry at him. “Yes, of course I have! I won’t tell anyone about you, promise. Anyway, that was a trick question, you knew I would say yes.” She pouted. “Now you get another go.”
Valkrog nodded. “Those are the rules, Lena. Tell me, did you do your secret treasure hunt?”
“Yes.” Lena nodded, with big eyes. “Next question?”
The bird-man’s eyes gleamed and he licked his beak-like lips. “What did you find?”
Lena stamped her foot. “Not fair! You know you’re only allowed to ask yes or no questions. You miss a go, Mr Silly Big Bird!”
The bird-man rose up over her and opened his wings. “You don’t tell me what to”—he stopped and settled back, and folded his wings by his side—“I’m sorry, Lena. Where I come from, we play this game ... differently. Your turn.”
She looked up at the creature. She hadn’t been the least bit frightened by his move—he was her friend after all—but she was curious about where he came from. So far, she hadn’t been able to guess anything about where he lived. She decided to try a different approach.
“Do you miss your best friend?”
Valkrog stumbled back, and clutched his head.
“Mr Big Bird! Mr Big Bird! Are you alright?” Lena rushed up to help the creature balance.
He released his hands from his head slowly and looked at the girl. His eyes looked sad. “Yes. I miss my ... friend. I would like to find a way to talk to him.”
“You can’t talk to him? Is he dead?”
Valkrog’s head jerked up. “No. Not as far as I know.”
“Then did you have an argument?”
The bird-man’s beak twitched again. “No. But did you forget the rules now? That’s two ‘no’ answers I’ve given you, so I have two questions now.”
“Oops. Sorry.” Lena looked down. She would do her best to help the bird-man. She’d felt the sadness in his eyes reach into her heart. She knew what it was like to lose your best friend. She looked up and smiled. “I’ll give you extra special answers for these guesses. So make them your bestest questions!”
Valkrog dipped his head in acknowledgement. “Question number one. Are you ready?”
Lena nodded.
“Will you help me try to make contact with my best friend?”
“Yes, I will. I will help you look for him, or write letters, or send notes. I can ask Daddy to help if you like?”
The creature shook his head. “We will keep this as our secret project. Then when we find him”—his beak twitched again—“then we can introduce him to your father. I think he might rather enjoy that surprise.”
“Okay, I will. Next question?”
“Question number two—and thank you for your suggestions, they are good ones—as well as helping me look, do you know if your Daddy might have something I can use to communicate with my friend?”
Lena’s lower lip dropped. “No. I’m really sorry, Mr Big Bird, I really wanted to say yes. But I don’t know anything. Anyway, I can’t really ask him, can I. It’s our secret project, isn’t it!”
Valkrog nodded. “Your turn, Lena.”
“Oh yes.” Her face burst into a smile. “You’re going to like this question. Would you like me to look for something at Daddy’s work that will help you?” She leaned forward, looked to each side, then, holding her finger up to her lips for a moment, looked up at the bird-man and whispered. “I can do it secretly.”
Valkrog stared at her. “Yes. Yes, I would like that very much.”
~~~
After he had seen Sarina off and discovering the collider room door wide open, Nathan had frozen for a moment, before coming to his senses and sliding it closed, just as the Professor strode back up the corridor, with Lena in tow. He frowned when he saw Nathan.
“What are you doing?”
Nathan stared at the Professor. “What do you mean, ‘what am I doing?’ I should be asking you the same question.” He flicked his eyes briefly at Lena, hoping the Professor would get the message. He did.
“Ah, Lena,” the Professor said, “would you please go to the snack machine and get us all something to nibble?”
“Sure, Daddy. Be right back.” The girl ran off, leaving the Professor looking at Nathan with raised eyes.
Nathan lowered his voice. “Didn’t you say the machine might be dangerous, and that’s why it’s locked down in this protective cage?”
The Professor nodded and folded his arms across his chest.
“Then why did you leave the door open?”
“I did?” The Professor looked dazed and unfolded his arms. He rubbed his temples. “I must have been distracted. Probably by Lena. That girl is brimming with questions. As any good scientist should be.” He sighed and looked back at Nathan. “Leaving the door open is unforgivable, and believe me, I do apologise most sincerely for appearing to accuse you of poking around, but it’s not quite as disastrous as I may have made out. While the machine is held in a power-stasis-loop the way it is now, there really shouldn’t be any effect.”
“Shouldn’t? Or is that just a guess?”
The Professor grimaced. “Fair enough, Nathan. No, in truth, I don’t know. I only know that the statistical probability is extraordinarily low that it would affect anyone. We can discuss it tomorrow when we delve into the project, then I suspect you’ll piece it together. Now”—he took Nathan by the elbow and steered him towards the café—“let’s grab that snack and then you can help me find my headshield. Clearly when I left the door open, I left my head unscrewed as well,” and he laughed.
That had been yesterday. Now they were hard at work inside the fake cold-room. He started to think he’d better find another name for it, before his brain got any more confused, when he caught himself. Better that no slip of the tongue gave anything away. ‘Cold-room’ wouldn’t mean anything sinister to anyone. He adjusted the headshield, turned away from the papers the Professor had given him to read, and tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, Prof. Can I see if I’ve understood this rem thing properly?”
Professor Harrison swivelled around on the chair. “Yes, Nathan. Fire away.”
Nathan had just opened his mouth when they heard an insistent banging at the door, along with muffled shouts.
They jumped up as one, and ran to the door.
The Professor slammed the button and the door slid back to reveal Jimmy, who at age ten, was one of the older Dreamer Kids. He stood there, red-faced and puffing. “Mr Harrison sir, it’s Em. She’s fainted and we can’t bring her round. Can you help? She was using a new Yellow Hat!”
“Lead the way, Jimmy.” The three of them raced down the corridor, leaving the door wide open for the second time in two days.
~~~
Lena walked around the corner and past the open cold-room door, her head buried in a pile of pictures she had drawn for Sarina. Something caught her attention and she stopped, seeing the door and the dim room beyond. That’s not right, she thought. Daddy’s special door is supposed to be closed at all times. She’d heard shouts from down the corridor, so she imagined one of the older kids had fainted again. Daddy must have been in a hurry to help and accidentally left the door open. He did seem to be more and more forgetful these days.
She walked over to close it, then, curious as to what was inside, walked in. After all, one day she’d be in here helping Daddy. It wouldn’t hurt to have a little peek. Perhaps she might see something that would help Mr Big Bird.
She stared at all the computer screens, with their lines of scrolling data and constantly refreshing graphs. A small machine on the side had a roll of paper in it. It looked like a supermarket checkout receipt machine, but the paper had no
numbers on it. Only several coloured needles, tracing lines as the paper automatically fed through. One of them, the red one, was quite excited, and steadily overtaking all the others. The pattern it was drawing was pretty and she watched in fascination for a while, until a beep behind her jogged her to attention and she turned around.
In the middle, she saw a cube-shaped machine, with one orange light on a keypad at the top, blinking slowly.
Daddy’s machine. He’d told her never to touch any of the buttons, so she just peered at it.
She was entranced by the flashing light, and the bundles of cables that plugged into the base, and stood motionless for some time, before realising that she was supposed to be closing the door. She had just turned to leave when she heard another beep, and stopped to look back at the cube.
The device whirred and clunked. It was the last thing she heard before her head hit the floor.
~~~
Sarina’s mother had decided to break the train journey up, so they had spent the night in Marlborough.
The next morning was bright and sunny, and the two of them wandered along the colourful, old-fashioned high street, occasionally stopping to admire the local crafts and creative displays in the shop windows.
Sarina stopped in front of a bookshop, her gaze caught by a small pile of books about charcoal-sketching techniques, when her mother called out from the next shop.
“Sarina? Come in here—it’s a beautiful art shop and the artist is painting out the back. Perhaps you would like to watch?”
Sarina smiled and nodded. “Yes, Mum. Sounds like fun.”
Fun. Actually the morning had been fun. The bright sunshine and the cheery atmosphere was having an effect. Her mother was right. Some time away from all the recent troubles; time to focus and lose herself in what she loved most—to paint—would be the best thing for her. She scanned the street, drinking in the old-style buildings with their colourful roofs, cottage-style windows. It would be nice to come back here one day. Maybe set up her easel over there in the pergola and paint a street market scene. She started to imagine how smears of oil-colour would show the swish of medieval skirts as dancers entertained the crowd. Yes—maybe an historical setting. She hadn’t tried one of those yet. Now, where would she put the stall-holders? She held her hands up and made various frames with her fingers, storing mental pictures, and hearing the buzz and noise of an olde-worlde marketplace; the smells of fresh-baked breads; fruit stalls ... and smiles. Always smiling and laughing. She loved happy paintings the most. Maybe it would become her ‘style’? For now. She smiled to herself. If she could, when she was old enough, she would travel the world and develop many many styles. But first, the competition; then getting that invitation to art school. She gazed again at the street. Now where—
“Sarina! I’ve been standing here calling you!” Her mother stood in the doorway of the arts and craft store, laughing. “Come on, Miss Dreamer. I’ve been talking to the artist here, and she’d be happy to stop and chat.”
Sarina caught herself, and smiled at her mother. She was often like this. She’d figured out years ago that when she was at her most creative, she entered a kind of state-of-mind where she was lost in the sights, sounds and action of the picture she was making in her mind. It was dreamy—yet not. She shivered at the memory of those other ‘dreams’. It really was good to be away from the lab and put the memory of the entire Orange Witch episode behind her. She still hadn’t been brave enough to tell her mother all the details. She’d been worried she would react badly, or even be scared that the adventure into the unknown world of dream-portals would affect her mental state. Yet, she missed Nathan and the Professor already. At least they understood her, and she could talk to them about almost anything. Well, almost anything. Her anxiety came flooding back. One thing she would not share with anyone until she was sure she’d be accepted into art school, was her fear that her mother might have been right all along.
That she was going mad.
The blackouts hadn’t happened again since that time in the lab foyer, but she was frightened by the thought they could come again. She looked back out at the street and breathed deeply. The one thing that could push all of this away was her love for the visual arts. She resolved not to think about madness, nor blackouts and turned back to her mother who was holding the door open, and was peering at her with a growing frown.
“Sarina? Everything okay? I swear about a dozen different expressions must have passed over your face.”
“Yes, Mum. Just thinking that’s all. The street scene had me captivated and I had an idea for a painting.” She gave her mother an encouraging smile and stepped into the shop.
Inside, the shop was bright, but crowded with supplies of every kind.
Sarina looked around. “Wow. This is amazing.” She walked over to a wide shelf lined with pastels. They looked ... rougher than normal. She picked up a dark crimson and turned it around in her hand. The surface was uneven and imprinted with faint lines. She rubbed her thumb across it gently, taking in the organic texture.
“They’re handmade.” A woman wheeled herself up to Sarina and held out her hand. “Hello, you must be Sarina, the artist. Your mother was extolling your virtues.”
Sarina shook the woman’s hand. “She does that. All the time actually.” She held up the pastel. “These look amazing. I’ve never seen a handmade pastel before. Where do you get them from?”
The woman smiled. Her eyes were lined with little wrinkles, as if she’d been smiling all her life. Sarina’s gaze dropped to her wheelchair and she noticed the woman had no lower legs. She quickly looked back up. The woman was studying her carefully, still smiling. “It’s an old craft. But like many handmade things nowadays, less and less folk make them. But they still give me great pleasure,” and she reached over and picked up a light-grey pastel and peered at it, brushed away some microscopic dust, then placed it very deliberately back in exactly the same way she found it.
“You make them.” Sarina’s eyes were wide.
“Well I’ve still got hands you know. Not many pastel-makers used their feet anyway.”
The woman smiled more. Did she ever stop smiling?
Sarina felt the blood rising in her cheeks. “Oh! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay, Sarina. I’m kidding. I like to have fun. Overly serious people don’t live long you know,” and she assumed a mock-expression of extreme gravity. “I’m very serious you know. Ever since I lost my legs I can’t tell jokes any more. Did you know scientists have finally discovered that all the humour is carried below the knee?”
Sarina burst out laughing. “You are seriously funny. Oops. Pardon the pun.”
The woman maintained her fake deep and serious voice. “You see. You laugh. You joke. You have legs. Quod Erat Demonstrandum.”
Sarina smiled at her and held up the pastel. “I’m sorry I sounded so surprised. These are just so beautiful and I didn’t think—”
“That some little old disabled lady in a touristy little town could be so talented?”
“You’re not old!”
“Oh, I see. I just look old do I?” The woman’s eyes teased her.
Sarina kicked herself. Could she stop putting her foot in it every time she opened her mouth? She started to apologise but the woman waved her to stop.
“It’s okay, Sarina, a bit of banter keeps me sane. Now. Would you like to try some of these pastels and give us a demonstration of your artistic abilities?”
Sarina lit up. “Oh yes please, I’d love to. But shouldn’t I buy them first?”
“No need. Come to the studio at the back. I’ve got some well-used ones you can have a play with.” She wheeled herself around and off to the back of the shop.
Sarina looked over at her mother, who nodded her assent. “Go on. I think she’s taken a shine to you.”
Sarina followed the woman past more shelves stacked high with rainbow displays of paints and dyes, a huge range of brushes of all lengths and s
izes, from the very softest sable to the hardest bristle. The place was like a fairy-grotto, full of supplies—from charcoals, to pencils, to crayons; easels and canvases; silks—enough to keep any artist in rapture for hours and hours. She walked down a slight ramp and into a conservatory where wall-to-wall windows looked out and over the neighbouring rooftops and across to the sunlit hills.
Sarina stopped next to an easel where the woman was busy rummaging through an old box. “Ah. Here we are. Try these—over behind you, there’s another easel already loaded with paper.” She held out a slim metal box filled with some well-used pastels.
Sarina hesitated.
“Go, on. I rarely invite people to work in here with me, so I suggest you take the opportunity. I usually take some time to work out if people have any creative spark at all, but you”—she tapped her finger to her mouth, thinking—“you have something special about you.” She smiled again, and bunched her long hair back into a pony-tail. “Let me show you a few techniques. I’ve been using these a while now”—she finished with her hair and swept her hand around—“so I can save you some time. Hand-made pastels need a little more cajoling to come out just-so.”
Sarina looked around the room and gasped. She hadn’t even noticed the beautiful drawings hung all around. She edged closer to a depiction of two girls, skipping around a fountain. The detail was breathtaking. In the bottom-right corner was a simple signature: Rona. She looked back at the woman. “They’re beautiful, Mrs? Er, I’m sorry, I didn’t even ask your name.”
“Just call me Rona. Now watch.”
She turned sideways to the easel next to her, which Sarina now saw was lowered to meet the height of the wheelchair, and started to sketch with one of the blue pastels. Sarina watched her hand carefully. The pastel was only lightly caressing the surface. An observer without a trained eye might not think it touched at all, but slowly the shape began to build.
Rona spoke quietly. “They respond to a delicate touch, or they crumble. But when you do ...” She paused and concentrated on the curved area of the outline for a moment, “the glow they bring is absolutely gorgeous.” She twisted around to smile at Sarina. “If I do say so myself. But you try now—try a soft touch and you’ll surprise yourself.”
The Dreamer Chronicles Trilogy Boxed Set Vol I - III: A Sci-Fi Parallel Universe Adventure (The Dreamer Chronicles - Science Fiction For Kids And Adults) Page 29
