by Martyn Ford
And so, Tuesday, here he was with his Imagination Box safely stowed away in his backpack and a dim ache in his shoulder from the new weight. He strode fast along the side of the school, then turned toward the long walkway that led to the playground.
Dee was sitting, hunched over, looking down at her phone, on the small brick wall that rounded the edge of the building. As Tim approached, she lifted her head for a smile, but then her attention went straight back to her cell phone.
Since last summer, Tim and Dee had become best friends—even more so now that they’d started middle school together. However, while they were certainly close, she was sometimes a little cold. She didn’t mean to be, and Tim had long since learned it was nothing personal, but she just had a very logical outlook and was sometimes quite direct with her words.
This also meant that she was impervious to negative comments. When a nasty, ratlike boy called Johnny Harrington in ninth grade called her “Dot to Dot,” as she often wore polka-dot clothing, and everyone laughed, Dee had simply ignored it. She said that she considered feeling sad, but decided not to. Sometimes Tim wished he could be more like her, wished he could see the world in such objective terms and choose how he felt about it.
He sat by her side on the wall, and as he glanced through the chain-link fence to the playground, Mr. Muldoon strolled past and met his gaze. “Dee, listen,” Tim said, leaning toward her, becoming genuinely unnerved by these people staring at him, “something unusual is going on. I—”
“Check this out,” she said. On the screen was an animated squirrel riding a snowboard. It was the intro to a popular game, set to a catchy song, to which Dee was humming along.
“Squirrel Boarder,” Tim said. “I’ve seen this.”
“Yeah, sure, but have you seen it on the IcoRama 2020?” Dee said, proudly flipping her phone over. Only then did Tim realize it was brand-new.
“That’s very nice.”
Christmas had been particularly disappointing for Tim this year. What do you get for the boy who can have anything in an instant?
Elisa chose socks.
“Do I see the green eyes of envy?” Dee asked. “It’s an IcoRama…the newest one. Everyone on earth has one, or wants one. It’d be understandable if you wanted one too.”
“Dee, trust me, if I wanted one, I’d have one.”
And this was the crux; this was what Tim had spent the last few months battling against. While, on paper, having anything you want seems great, in practice it gets dull far quicker than you might expect. The paradox of possession, Eisenstone had called it.
It’s just stuff, Tim always found himself thinking.
Sighing, he thought back to the red carpet at the hotel disappearing.
“Are you all right?” Dee asked. “Looking kinda glum there.”
“There’s just…there’s just no lava anymore.”
“Doesn’t really make sense, in the context of this conversation…,” Dee said. “I know, make something new and you’ll feel better.”
“Hmm. I don’t know.”
“Remember on the news, remember all that looting?” Dee said. “People were breaking into shops to steal sneakers, laptops, all sorts. Why? Because new things rock.”
There had been riots in a number of towns across the country a few weeks prior—there were even some disturbances in Glassbridge, usually a quaint, sleepy place.
“What’s your point?”
“That creating something new will cheer you up. Look, why do you think people work? For money—so they can buy nice things. Everyone’s at it. You just get to skip the work bit, hurrah.”
“It’s just—”
“It’s just stuff,” Dee interrupted, in a mocking voice. He’d said this to her more than once over the summer, during which he’d spent hours making things for her—clothes, toys, gadgets. You name it, she’d gotten it: bespoke desires sated instantly with virtually no effort. Tim had watched the technology change her—it had made her notably materialistic, far more so than when they’d first met. This was another reason his love for the machine had lessened. Perhaps if she had one, she would understand.
“You know, Tim, most kids our age would kill for their own Imagination Box. When was the last time you made yourself something you really wanted?” She wiggled her IcoRama.
It was a long time ago, Tim realized. And he’d deliberately avoided making himself a phone. It was as though a modern cell phone, the ultimate possession, according to everyone at school, would be the final creation. Then he really would have everything.
“Would you be satisfied if I made myself a phone?” Tim said. “Fine.”
He reached into his bag, pulled out his reader—his black woolen beanie, the letters TIB printed small on the front—and put it on his head.
“Nice hat,” Johnny Harrington said, weaving past on a small silver scooter.
“Thank you.” Tim ignored the sarcasm.
“Tim?” Dee leaned away, then checked over her shoulder. “You brought it to school?” she whispered.
“Yes, I can do my work with it.”
“That’s cheating, that’s…. Oh. I knew it. One hundred percent on your science, you wily scamp.”
“Scamp?”
“Hey, hang on. Can you do my work?”
“Now, that definitely is cheating,” Tim said.
He closed his eyes for a second, then reached back into his school bag and removed a brand-new, shiny, top-of-the-line IcoRama 2020 cell phone. Hundreds of dollars’ worth of groundbreaking, touch-screen brilliance. The back was engraved TIM’S PHONE.
“Is your life better now?” Dee asked. “It is, isn’t it? Granddad needs to get his act together. It’s about time I had me one of these Imagination Boxes.”
Tim slid it into his pocket, then took the reader off. He shimmied closer to her. “Anyway, something weird is going on,” he said. “People…people keep… staring at me.”
“What kind of people?”
“People, Mr. Muldoon, a random guy in the street….It’s happened a few times.”
“You’re a handsome young man, you should be flattered.”
“Somehow, I don’t think that’s the reason,” Tim said.
—
It was Wednesday morning and Phil was lying with his hand behind his head and his feet crossed in the middle of Tim’s pillow, flicking through the TV channels. The remote, perched on his knees, was more than twice his size.
The television blurted out nonsensical sounds as he clicked from one station to the next.
“Hang on,” Tim said. “Go back. That was Glassbridge.”
“The news?” Phil went back two channels.
“Yeah, what were they talking about?”
A reporter was standing in a supermarket, near the vegetables. “It is truly a bemusing situation,” the woman said, holding her microphone at her chest. “Here, in a large superstore in Glassbridge, it is clear that something is missing—and what is it? Carrots. That’s right, up and down the country people have been panic-buying carrots—a bizarre fad which has seen stores boost prices as carrots have become, almost overnight, the most sought-after vegetable.”
“Hmm,” Tim said.
“It is thought to be an Internet prank that went viral. However, that is yet to be confirmed,” the reporter added. “All we can be sure of is that the shoppers of Great Britain will do almost anything to get their hands on this humble vegetable.” She lifted a carrot in view of the camera, and took a bite. “I’m Samantha Locke, for GBW News, live from Glassbridge. Back to you in the studio.”
“Well, my word,” Phil said, stroking his furry chin. “How very strange.”
For the next few weeks, Tim took his Imagination Box to school every day. He would do odd bits of work himself, but the vast majority of the time, he would take the easy road. He even varied the quality so no one would suspect a thing.
The final bell rang through Glassbridge Academy on a chilly Friday—the last day before half-term—and Tim strod
e toward the gates with a familiar empty feeling. Outside, the new snow had all but melted. The piles of thickly packed ice at the edge of roads and paths had become dirty and brown. The best of winter was gone.
Tim headed out of the school grounds to see the bus driver standing in front of his double-decker, scratching his head and talking on his cell phone. Steam was spurting, hissing out of the grille. Clearly, the bus had broken down.
Luckily, the Dawn Star wasn’t too far to walk, so Tim wandered off toward the main road. It was market day, and the town center was packed. The high street had been transformed into a loud, vibrant place. Florists shouted deals about tulips, and one stallholder yelled something in what sounded like another language before adding, “Pound o’ bananas!” The smell of smoky fried food—sizzling burgers, sausages, sweet onions—drifted from a nearby van. To his right a band was setting up—one member was polishing his trumpet, and another was unraveling a wire.
“He’s real,” a crazed voice announced to his left. “The Mind Surfer is real!” Tim saw a scruffy preacher handing out leaflets in front of a drugstore. He looked homeless.
“Purge yourself of this evil,” he sang. “Free yourself from the grip of control, free your miiiind.”
Lots of weirdos in Glassbridge, Tim thought as he meandered along.
On that subject, he remembered the previous year’s investigation, finding and rescuing Eisenstone, the nightmare that still gave him shivers, Clarice’s twisted psyche finding its way into the real world and destroying Crowfield House. That monster she had accidentally created in her huge Imagination Box—the demon that had passed through Tim’s mind. An image he didn’t think he would ever forget.
Tim slowed, almost to a standstill.
Through the uprights of the striped market canopies, the plastic sheets bulging in the wind like sails, and winter-dressed figures crisscrossing past each other, Tim saw another person staring at him. Just like the leather-jacketed man at the hotel, just like Mr. Muldoon. Even when someone blocked his line of sight, the man remained in place, peering through the available gaps. He didn’t move. He didn’t blink.
He just watched.
Unnerved by the stranger, Tim changed course and turned to his right, to head down an alleyway. He was worried enough by this unusual, and yet increasingly familiar, sight to think it a good idea to steer well clear. As he rounded the corner, past some bins, he had a quick glance over his shoulder, back toward the high street. At any rate, whatever was going on, the man hadn’t followed him, which was something to be grateful—
Tim stopped dead.
Another man was right in front of him now, blocking the path. He was dressed in a gray blazer, a red silk tie, and a bowler hat and was leaning on his closed umbrella as though it were a walking stick.
Neither of them said anything. Tim listened to the sounds of the market behind, muffled now by the distance, near silent in fact. And then the man, who had no emotion on his face—nothing in his cold, empty eyes—held out his hand and spoke four crystal-clear words.
“Give me the box.”
In the narrow alleyway, Tim very carefully curled his arm behind him, lifting the remaining strap onto his shoulder so that he was wearing his school backpack properly, the Imagination Box tucked safely inside. The suited man didn’t move. He just waited with his hand open between them. After a few seconds, Tim found the courage to respond.
“Excuse me?” Tim said. A pause. “What box?”
“Give me the box,” the man said again.
Letting out a slow, jittery breath, Tim pulled on his bag’s straps, tightening them. Handing over the Imagination Box just simply wasn’t an option.
“I think,” Tim said, frowning, “I’m going to go with…no?”
He took a step away, and as if a switch had been hit, the man lurched forward, the bowler hat flipping off his head. With that, Tim spun round and ran.
He headed back toward the high street, his feet hitting the pavement hard and fast. He turned down the road, bolting through the packed market. Scared, confused, he felt that running away was a very reasonable short-term solution to this situation.
“Hey, watch it,” a passerby huffed as he weaved through the shoppers.
Glancing quickly behind, Tim saw the man was gaining on him. With a hard skid and a breathy “Sorry,” Tim shouldered into the corner of a stall, changing course. The whole thing swayed; cell phone cases and accessories swung, some falling from their display.
“Hey!” the owner yelled, but Tim was already making good speed along the path behind the stalls. Again, though, the pursuer was gaining.
Another sharp corner, and Tim was leaping through the band. He knocked into the singer, who yelped into the microphone. The trumpet player, wide-eyed, blew out a weird, surprised note.
“Whoops, excuse me,” Tim called, still at full speed.
The chaos drifted out of focus as he continued, leaving the market behind. He swung his legs over a pedestrian railing, into the road, spinning, holding his palms out to traffic that screeched to a stop all around him—one car thumped hard into the back of another. Motorists were yelling, gesturing wildly with their hands.
“I’m really sorry,” Tim said, still running.
This commotion put some good distance between them and, a little farther down the next street, Tim saw an opportunity to lose his pursuer entirely. The city’s wide river was directly up ahead, with a large tourist boat approaching the drawbridge. The lights were all on, and the familiar bell was dinging. A section of road split in the middle, the two halves lifting away from each other. His plan was simple. He would jump the gap.
Swooping under the barrier, Tim ignored the shouts of a concerned passerby. He made his way along the pavement, which was lifting more and more, turning into an ever steeper hill. The water below was dark gray, and the packed boat full of passengers, some beginning to take notice, fingers pointing, was passing under the raised bridge.
Tim scrambled the last few meters to the top, and jumped. Kicking through the empty air between the two ramps, he only just passed the gap, landing awkwardly on his side on the opposite slope. He slid, rolling, scraping, toward the barriers below.
Looking back, he knew there was no way the man could follow him now. The space was far too wide. He caught his breath, ignoring the shocked onlookers, some of whom were filming him on their phones. Tim had to blink and do a double take when he spotted the man across the water. Still with his eyes fixed on Tim, he was clambering over the railing. He stood for a short moment at the river’s edge.
Tim gasped, covering his mouth in horror, as the man stepped off the wall, falling into the dark, freezing water below. Light blue bubbles flowered on the surface where he’d gone in, and then he burst up, taking a desperate gulp of air.
“Ah!” the man screamed, seeming confused. “Where am I? Cold!”
He turned and swam back to the safety ladder and clambered out, shivering. He didn’t seem to care about Tim anymore. It was as if the shock of the water had snapped him out of a trance. People rushed to the man’s aid, and one helper removed his jacket to wrap around his shuddering shoulders. After a few seconds, Tim stepped away from the river. His mind was racing, his eyes darting as he tried to work out what on earth was going on.
He ran round the corner, onto a path that led to Glassbridge Park, checking behind again. But when he turned back around, a woman was blocking his path.
“Give me the box,” she said. She was wearing a fluorescent traffic jacket, and Tim quickly realized that she was a crossing guard.
“What? Again?” he said, his chest still aching from the chase. “Are you joking?”
“Give me the box,” she repeated in a monotone. Tim noticed that, like the last man, she had a completely vacant, dead-eyed expression.
Now more exhausted than confused, he sighed and shrugged. “No,” he said.
The woman grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, but he shook her off and, again, was running. Having
warmed up, he found he was able to sprint at an extreme speed. He burst through the bushes at the edge of the park, crossed a street, and swept into Glassbridge Mall, a vast, brightly lit shopping center.
His breathing, pounding heart, and sore muscles were throbbing in unison as he ran. No matter what happened, he needed to keep hold of the box. Up ahead was the exit. This was the home stretch. Once he was outside the mall, he would easily be able to dart down one of the many alleyways and lose his second pursuer of the day. He just had to pass through the wide-open glass doors. He leaned forward, gritting his teeth and pushing his legs harder and faster than he’d—
Thwack.
Well, it would appear that the doors were, in fact, closed.
He was now stumbling backward as the huge pane of reinforced glass, which had been cleaned too well, in his opinion, wobbled from the impact. His eyes dipped and fell shut as the ground seemed to tilt toward him. He was aware of the cold floor on his cheek as the crossing guard’s boots came closer, her hands reached inside his backpack, and she removed the Imagination Box. Helpless and dizzy, he drifted away from consciousness, peacefully appreciating how nice it felt to fall asleep.
“They say you might get a little confused,” Elisa said, patting his hair. Tim was in bed, back at home, with no recollection of how he’d gotten there.
Distant memories, like forgotten dreams, were at the edge of his mind. There had been people standing over him in a circle, looking down, concerned. Beyond them, Tim had seen the shopping center’s ceiling, which had looked a mile away.
“You bumped your head yesterday afternoon,” Elisa added. “It’s not serious, but you do need to rest. The doctor said you have a mild concussion.”
“What happened?” Tim vaguely remembered some strange music, and for some reason he was angry with a window cleaner. “Do you know any window cleaners?”
“We’ve discussed this, a few times. You ran into some very clean glass. Just rest, Tim. You’ll feel better soon.” Elisa’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She stood and answered it. “Hello, yes…How much? For little single packets of jam?” Pacing, she sighed at whoever was on the other end. “It’s too expensive. It’s madness.”