Doctor Who and the Planet of the Spiders

attempt to give it to Sarah had been a childish effort to transfer
the burden of guilt. He couldn’t even return it to Lupton, since
Lupton had gone away too.
Tommy spent the rest of the day crouched in his tiny
cupboard, studying the blue crystal and wondering what to do
with it. The little glowing fires in the crystal seemed to soothe
him. Then they seemed almost to talk to him, telling him that
there were things he had to do. But what things?
He rummaged in his box of treasures and produced a tatty
child’s primer – a relic of the days before people had given up
trying to teach him anything. He’d hung on to it in the vain
hope that one clay the mysterious black squiggles called letters
would unlock their secrets. Now, with the blue crystal shining
beside him, he tried again. Slowly at first, then quicker and
quicker, he began to read. ‘We go to school, we read our books,
we play with our toys.’ He raced through the little book in
minutes, then buried his head in his hands, overcome by the
wonder of it. He could read!
That night Tommy had sneaked down to the library and
tried to read the books on the shelves. He stood enraptured by
the poetry of William Blake.
Tyger, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night...
It was pretty. No, it was beautiful. Then, frightened by the
arrival of Yates, he had fled. Perhaps he had been wrong to run.
Yates was his friend. Yates had always been kind to him. Maybe
he should go and look for him.
Yates, by now, was busy on his investigation. Pre-tending to
sleep in the library, he’d seen Barnes chatting to Moss and
Keaver, two of Lupton’s old cronies. He could have sworn he
heard the word ‘meeting’. Still pretending to doze, he’d seen