The Cornerstone (2 page)

‘Um… okay. I suppose it could waste half an hour.’

‘Exactly! It’s a new experience and we should be all for them!’

‘Alright… but I’m killing you with six hours of Halo when we get home.’

‘Deal!’

With a decision made, Max heaved a leaden sigh and walked in, hoping against hope that something inside might keep him occupied for a while.

A tall middle-aged woman, wearing a dark green power suit and her hair in a tight grey bun, was sat behind the main desk reading a paperback.

She looked at Max with a suspicion born of many years dealing with teenagers who ran rampant throughout the otherwise hushed aisles of the library, breaking the tranquil atmosphere and being far too enthusiastic about themselves.

‘Do you belong?’ she said as he walked past.

‘What?’ Max hadn’t expected to be challenged like this.

‘Do you belong? To the library?’

‘Er… no,’ he replied, worried she was about to suggest some kind of painful initiation ceremony

‘You’ll have to give me your details for the computer, then,’ she told him, touching the keyboard beside her.

The ancient cream coloured PC wheezed into life and they both waited for an uncomfortable few moments while the tiny processor inside tried its best to clear the screensaver.

Everything was going relatively well until the librarian tried to use the mouse. The second she touched it, the blue screen of death appeared, along with that dissonant
gank
noise Windows makes when it decides the stress of existence has become too much and commits electronic suicide.

‘Blast!’

‘Happens to my laptop all the time,’ Max pointed out.

‘You’ll have to fill out your details on a card. I’ll upload them later, once this thing is working again.’

The librarian rifled in a desk drawer, produced a piece of card and a pen, and handed it to Max with a look of slight impatience.

Max quickly scribbled down his name and address and handed both back with an ingratiating smile. ‘There you go.’

She examined the card and popped it in a nearby rolodex. ‘Thank you, young man. Once I’ve logged your details into the computer, I’ll print up a membership card and have it posted to you.’

‘Ok.’

‘In the meantime, you’re free to browse the shelves. I can check books out for you, should you find any to your liking.’ The librarian looked down her nose at him. ‘Please do not speak loudly, and try not to disturb other library patrons during your visit.’

Her task complete, the librarian returned to the Danielle Steele she’d lifted from the romance section earlier that day.

Max took this as his cue to leave and ambled off towards general fiction feeling like he’d done something wrong – though not entirely sure what.

Unfortunately, the movie section was between Max and the books, so his attention was immediately diverted by DVD covers featuring explosions and big guns.

The books didn’t stand a chance.

The British library is a fine old institution, offering the plebs a chance to broaden their horizons with a vast selection of fact and fiction to suit all tastes. An ocean of knowledge is waiting to be set sail upon by the lucky reader.

…at least that’s the utopian idea of what a library should be. It’s a view that hasn’t trickled down to Farefield Borough Council just yet.

In this library, you’ll find books by Stephen King, Danielle Steele and Tom Clancy. It just won’t be any of the
good ones.

You’ll also find parts two, four and seven of any fantasy or science fiction series of your choice. You’ve got no chance of finding part one however, rendering the whole thing pointless unless you like guesswork.

There’s a cyber café, where access to the internet is available. On
dial-up
.

Décor wise, you’ll be unsurprised to learn the library walls are painted beige and the carpet is that thin, green corduroy stuff that only comes in squares.

The tall librarian with the stern gaze and abrupt customer service manner is Imelda Warrington.

Imelda has been head librarian here for twenty years and is passionate about the place, even if nobody at the council and few people in the community share that passion.

She’s in a constant battle with the bean counters, and is always trying to improve the selection of books on offer - on more than on one occasion dipping into her own pocket. She recently bought Catcher in the Rye on Amazon for a fiver.

To Max she’d seemed like a right evil old bat, but you should never judge a book by its cover, or a librarian by her hair bun.

Max put down the Rambo DVD, having seen it would cost £2 to hire, which he didn’t have.

With reluctance, he scuffed his way over to the first section of books, the ones in big print. Moving past these with the confidence of one born with 20-20 vision, he arrived at the main stacks, the A section greeting him with open arms.

The task of searching a library’s shelves can be daunting. There are so many books it’s easy to lose focus unless you know what you’re after.

The title of the specific volume is ideal.

Knowing the name of an author is also excellent.

Having an idea of genre is a serviceable method of reducing your choices.

…it’s certainly not a good idea to hunt for a book if you have absolutely
no idea
what you’re looking for.

Enter Max Bloom then, a boy of little literary experience and even less patience.

He made it to B section before giving up – which all things considered, wasn’t a bad effort on his part.

One of two things could have happened at this point.

It’s one of those important crossroads in life, where the simplest of actions can lead to vastly different results. Choices are made and reality splits, creating two completely different futures.

Star Trek fans understand this concept perfectly.

In one reality, this happened:

Max stared at the bookshelf a while longer before he gave the whole thing up as a bad idea and ambled back to the exit. He left the library under Imelda Warrington’s suspicious gaze and sloped back through the shopping centre to the railings outside WH Smith where his bike was locked up.

One miserable cycle home in the drizzle later, he ignored his mother’s greeting from the kitchen and stamped upstairs to his bedroom.

Nothing remarkable happened for the rest of that day, week or month.       

Tempus fugit – as someone with a degree once said – and the following summer Max passed two A levels and went off to university.

Three years later he walked away with a degree in biology and went on to have a satisfying career as an education officer for the local council, marrying twice.

He had two children: a boy and a girl called James and Emily.

Never being much of a reader or writer, Max surprised himself when at 49, he wrote a children’s novel about a magical polar bear, dedicating to his children. He was delighted to find this became a best seller.

When he died at 78, Max left a million pounds to the RSPCA, because he always had a soft spot for dogs.

In the other reality – the one that concerns us – this happened:

Max stared at the bookshelf a while longer, before he gave the whole thing up as a bad idea… and flopped down in the nearest chair in melodramatic fashion, sending up a cloud of dust.

The black leatherette armchair, not used to this kind of treatment, buckled under one leg and the back rest hit the shelf behind, causing one book to fall out and drop onto Max’s head.

Rubbing the spot where it’d hit him, Max bent down and picked the book up:

‘The Heart’s Own Beat by Susan Belcher’.

The cover was pink and featured an illustration of a man and woman locked in an unconvincing embrace, both of them decked out in billowing white clothes.

The intent of this picture was no doubt to capture the concept of a love as old as time itself. Sadly, the drawing quality wasn’t good enough and they just looked like two people who’d been out in the sun too long and didn’t have adequate access to a dry cleaning service.

Max wrinkled his nose, checked to make sure nobody had seen him holding this embarrassing little novel and stood to put it back in the shelf.

In doing so, he caught sight of some of the other books on this particular rack. Most of them looked deathly dull, but there was one that did attract his attention.

It had a plain white cover, and the title on the spine in a basic black font was:

‘Read Me If You’re Bored by Clive Bonnet’.

It sounded
perfect
.

Max took it out and looked at the cover. It featured the cartoon of a man in a shirt and tie sat at a desk, head propped up with one arm. The expression on his face was one of utter misery.

Below the picture it said:

‘A collection of short stories for the hard of thinking!’

Aah… this is a comedy book.

Max was well aware this type of thing existed, but he could never get his head round the idea that something full of just words could ever be considered
funny
.

He was of the absolute belief that anything worth a laugh involved people getting hurt in a variety of interesting and unexpected ways. Hours spent on You Tube had only confirmed this.

Other patrons of the library seemed to agree. When he looked inside the front cover, he saw that the book had only ever been taken out once – six years ago.

Another communication with his brain took place:

‘Come on brain, this is silly. I know we’re bored, but we must be able to find something better to do than read this stupid thing.’

‘I know it doesn’t look like the best book in the world, but if it isn’t a heavy read and the words aren’t too long, let’s give it a pop for ten minutes, eh?’

‘Oh, alright… I’ll give it a go. But the first time I read anything
remotely
romantic or even
slightly
historic, it goes back on the shelf and you’re getting Halo-ed good and proper.’

Max flicked through the first few pages.

There was a lot of white space, the print looked quite large and no horrific long words were in evidence, so he sat in the dusty chair and started reading.

Clive Bonnet favoured short, punchy titles for his stories like ‘Cat Pause’, ‘Potty Problems’ and ‘Juggling Hot Coals’.

All of which sounded terrible.

In fact, there was only one story that looked worth a punt called ‘I, Zombie’.

Max
loved
zombies.

He loved killing them in video games, watching them in movies and dressing up as them at Halloween. There was a half finished costume hanging in his wardrobe back home for just such a purpose. It was the third iteration of the same get-up he’d been wearing for five years now. The smell alone was terrifying.

You couldn’t go wrong with zombies, as far as Max Bloom was concerned.

With a mild glint of hope in his eye, he started to read.

It was pretty standard fare. Written in the first person, it told the tale of a deceased teacher who wakes up in the morgue as a zombie with his mind still intact – which was an original spin on the idea, if nothing else.

The story was quite graphic and Max enjoyed the descriptions of the bodily functions the title character still experienced despite being dead. Bonnet went into these at some length. This suited Max down to the ground, as there’s nothing funnier than a farting zombie when you get right down to it.

Things took a turn for the worse about halfway in though, when the zombie storyteller started to talk about his wife; moaning on about how she wouldn’t love him anymore because he was a monster, and he’d never be able to hold her in his arms again.

Blergh
.

Max feared there was a sappy moral of some kind homing into view and didn’t like the prospect one bit.

However, it was zombies, so he persevered.

He reached the end of the first chapter – the rapidly rotting teacher lurching up the driveway to his house, deathly afraid his wife has been eaten by the undead.

Max felt the story would benefit from the discovery of her mangled corpse and turned the page, eager to see if Bonnet felt the same way.

- 3 -

Between the next two pages was a piece of paper, folded in half. Max picked it up.

The paper was stained brown with age and felt odd between his fingers. The texture was almost silky to the touch.

He’d once been on a hideously dull school trip to Westminster Abbey to see the Magna Carta. It had been sealed in a glass case and the teacher had impressed upon his pupils how delicate it was.

The pages of that old book had looked a lot like this.

With great care, Max unfolded the paper to see if anything was written on it.

He fully expected to find lots of ancient words, written in complicated serif handwriting. The kind that’s so old they use the letter F instead of S - like thif.

There was indeed writing on the scrap of paper, but it was in a plain, modern hand:

Hello.

I need your help. 

They’re coming… and I’m terrified, but I know you can stop them.

Books can be doorways. Find The Cornerstone book. You’ll know it by its sound. It’s there somewhere.

I’ll wait for as long as I can.

Please help me. Please help us.

I’m so scared.

M.

A shiver ran down Max’s spine. All thoughts of zombies were forgotten.

He read and re-read the odd message, trying to figure out its meaning.

It could be some kind of weird prank… but it’d be a pretty terrible joke, wouldn’t it?

You’d have to wait for someone to open this one book in particular, which could take months, or even years. Max had a cursory look around, half expecting to see some cobweb covered pensioner pointing at him, a look of crazed glee on his face.

That was just silly. 

Still, it didn’t make much sense, did it?