Forbidden Book Club Issue One: The Machine (Compound Words)

Book One The Machine The staircase creaked as the children walked up to the door. Their prank did not seem so great now. They had snipped the heads off a few roses in a flowerbed. Now their parents had all said that they had to go around to the old lady's house in the afternoons. They would have to do chores to make up for it.

The lady that opened the door was not like other ladies that they knew. She had a nose that went to the side. Bits of dust and bugs hung around her like a cloud. 'Hello, dears,' she said. 'My name is Mrs. Quigley.'

'I have tea and rock cakes set out for you,' Mrs. Quigley said. The kids were confused. They did not think she could be giving them tea and snacks. They sat on the couch. The house was a mess. They felt a bit sorry for her, and really bad about cutting her roses.

The tea was lukewarm and the rock cakes too hard, but the children ate them. At least she wasn't mad, Ada thought. 'And now to your task,' Mrs. Quigley said with a grin. Ada heard a plop as Skink lost her rock cake in her tea. 'Tell me, do you like reading?' Mrs. Quigley asked.

'We don't like it much,' Darren said. 'Books are boring. None of us read outside of what we have to for school.' 'Yeah,' Skink said. 'Why can't there be books that are for fun?' 'Well, it wasn't always like that,' said Mrs. Quigley. The older three started to feel ill. They had heard about other books. Books that had been burnt long ago. Had Mrs. Quigley read one of the books that she was not meant to? 'I have a few old books that I want you to read to me. I'm too old now to get through them myself. Lachlan frowned. 'What are they about?' 'They are fiction,' Mrs. Quigley said.

I thought that all of those books were long gone? Darren asked. Most of them, Mrs Quigley said. But my husband found me a few through his life. He made me a machine to help me read them. That is what you will use when you read for me. We can read, Ada said. I'm sure that you can read non-fiction very well. But reading fiction needs different skills,' said Mrs. Quigley. 'I will give you some time to talk about it.' Mrs. Quigley left the room. 'I don't know about this,' Darren said. 'Those books changed the way that people thought.' 'What do you think, Lachlan?' Ada asked. 'We always do stuff that we are not meant to. This is no different,' he said with a smirk. 'Skink?' Ada asked. 'They are just books. How bad could they be?' SKink said. Ada nodded. 'Ok. We will give it a try.'

The children walked down into the basement. Mrs. Quigley took them over to a chest. There were pictures of different animals all over it. Mrs. Quigley gave Ada an old key. Ada put the key in the lock and turned it. The chest clicked open. There were ten books inside. Each one had a picture on the spine. 'Pick any one you like,' Mrs. Quigley said. Ada reached out for one with a bird on it.

'First you need to think of a character for yourself.' Ada, Darren, and Lachlan tried, but they couldn’t think of anybody else to be. They chose themselves. Skink wanted to be a lot of different animals and creatures. Mrs. Quigley said that she should be a shapeshifter so that she could change on the spot. Skink thought that was perfect. Then Mrs. Quigley took them over to the machine. They stood still as Mrs. Quigley put strange caps on their heads with tubes that lead to a tank. Mrs. Quigley put the book into the tank and it came to bits. Then, everything went black.