Forbidden Book Club Issue One: The Machine <ei>

Book ONE The Machine The children went up the old, rotting stairs. Ada was at the front. She looked to the side. There was the bed of roses. Well, a bed of stems now. The roses had all lost their heads. She didn't know why their little prank had seemed so funny at the time. Now they had to come by in the afternoons to help the old lady with odd jobs around the house until their debt was paid. Ada was in a foul mood. She didn't think that they should have to receive such a harsh punishment. Her parents had said that they were the old lady's prize roses, but nothing seemed prized about this place. The lawn was all patchy and full of weeds. You couldn't take a step without your foot landing on some sort of trash or old graffiti. Ada tapped on the door and paint chips flaked off, spinning as they fell. Darren, Lachlan and his little sister Skink stood behind her looking squeamish.

The old lady opened the door. She wasn't like any other old lady that the kids had ever seen. Old ladies were clean and had neat hair and wore everything just so. This woman had a wide smile that almost let her false teeth escape from their prison. There was a huge mole on her cheek with hairs that sprang out like the weeds in her garden. On one eye she wore a monocle, with that part of her face looking zoomed-in by comparison. And all over her crazy hair and itchy-looking skin the kids could see dust and grime and little bugs jumping off like they were leaving a sinking ship. 'Hello, dears,' she said. 'I am Mrs. Quigley.' Then she walked in and the four of them followed.

'I have tea and rock cakes all ready,' Mrs. Quigley said. The kids hadn't expected that. They had gotten such a scolding from their parents and were sure that they would be walking into more of the same. The four of them walked over and sat on the lumpy couch. There was stuff all over the place. There were notes and pictures scattered about. Ada thought it was gross. Darren was just glad he wasn't getting yelled at. Skink was looking forward to rock cakes and tea. But when Lachlan looked around at the walls and ceiling, he felt sorry for the old lady.

The tea was lukewarm and the rock cakes too hard, but the children suffered them with a smile. At least she wasn't cranky, Ada thought. Maybe she was just lonely and wanted some company and a bit of help around the house. That wouldn't be so bad. 'Well, now that you are settled in, we must get to the matter of your punishment,' Mrs. Quigley said with a grin. Ada felt the others squirming on the couch beside her and heard a distinctive plop as Skink lost her rock cake in her tea. 'Tell me, do you like reading?' Mrs. Quigley asked. Ada was so taken aback by the question that she didnt know quite how to respond.

Darren spoke up instead. 'We don't like it much. Books are always so boring. None of us read any more than we have to for school.' 'Yeah,' chimed in Skink. 'Why can't there be any books that are just for fun?' Mrs. Quigley gave a bit of an impish smile. 'Well, it wasn't always like that.' The older three grew uncomfortable. They had heard about other books. Books that got destroyed long ago. Books that weren't good for people to read, particularly children. But that had been generations ago. Could Mrs. Quigley have read one at some point in her life? Now when they looked at her she didn't just seem like she was a poor, old lady. Now she seemed full of deceit. 'And you're in luck. I happen to still have a few old books that you might find a little more interesting than the ones that you have at school. I would love for you to read them to me. I'm too old now to get through them myself. Lachlan frowned. 'What are they about?' 'They're works of fiction,' Mrs. Quigley explained.

'Weren't all of them destroyed before you were even born?' Darren asked. 'Most of them,' Mrs Quigley replied. 'But my husband managed to find me a few through his life. He said that my mind worked in different ways to other people, and that he wanted to help me to grow those thoughts. He even made me a machine so that I could read the books properly. 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 a whole set of different skills. Skills that haven't been taught to children for so long that teachers wouldn't even know how.' 'Can we talk about it first?' Ada asked. 'Of course,' Mrs. Quigley said. Then she left the room. 'I don't know about this,' Darren said. 'Those books were destroyed for a reason. It changed the way that people thought. I mean I'm curious, but I just don't know.' Ada considered this. Darren was good at perceiving things from all sides. 'What do you think, Lachlan?' she asked. 'It's not like we have ever stopped doing something because we weren't meant to before?' he said with a smirk. Ada and Lachlan had a knack for getting the four of them in trouble. 'Skink?' Ada asked. They all stayed quiet while Skink thought. 'It could be fun... And they are just books. How bad could they be?' Ada nodded. 'Ok then. We'll give it a go. And if it is too crazy, we can just leave at the end of today and not come back.'

The children walked down into the basement. It smelled old and musty like a tomb. There were boxes of old receipts and newspapers everywhere. Mrs. Quigley took them over to a chest. It was old and shabby like everything else in the house, but something felt different. There were subtle carvings of different animals all over it, running around the chest. Mrs. Quigley held it close to her for a moment, then placed it on a table in front of the kids. She produced a chunky, rusted key from her pocket and held it out. Ada took it. She put the key in the lock and began to turn it. It clicked, then she opened the lid of the chest. There were ten books inside. Aside from the fact that they were old, they didn't look any more dangerous than their maths or science books. Each one had a little symbol on the side. 'Pick any one you like,' Mrs. Quigley said. Ada reached out for one with a bird symbol on the spine.

'Before we begin, you will need to think of a character for yourself.' Ada, Darren, and Lachlan tried, but they couldn’t think of anybody else to be. It seemed conceited to think that they could be somebody better or more interesting than what they were. They chose themselves. Skink, however, decided about ten different animals that she wanted to be before Mrs. Quigley put forward the idea of her being a shapeshifter. That way, she could be whatever she wanted when the time came. 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. There were all kinds of switches and wires. This wasn't the kind of machine that they had imagined at all. Mrs. Quigley took the book that Ada had chosen and placed it in the tank. The book began to come to pieces and float down the tubes, into their caps. And then everything went black.