Untitled 2

by David Baddiel

“What’s happened to the Controller?”

  The Mystery Man leant forward, peering at them.

  “Hmm. Flashing.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s running out of power,” he said matter-of-factly.

  Fred and Ellie looked at each other.

  “OK. We thought it might be that. Where do we get a new battery?”

  The Mystery Man leant back from the screen.

  “Now that … is a second question.”

  Fred and Ellie looked at each other.

  “Well,” said Fred, “I’d say that, technically, it’s a subsidiary second section of the first question.”

  The Mystery Man looked at him. “A blubidury necond dection of the shmirst zecktion,” he said, waving his arms about and doing a high, nasal, silly voice. Then: “Nerd,” in his normal voice.

  “I thought you were all about celebrating nerds?” said Ellie.

  “That’s another question.”

  “It was a rhetorical question.”

  “Nerd.”

  “LOOK!” Ellie shouted, suddenly standing up. Her chair screeched. “JUST TELL US WHERE TO GET A NEW BATTERY! AND, AS YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED, I HAVEN’T PHRASED THAT AS A QUESTION!!!”

  The Mystery Man – and indeed Fred – looked a bit frightened. Ellie seemed to have grown more than just the seven centimetres added by the new look Fred had given her.

  “OK, OK. Keep your – new – hair on.”

  Ellie sat down.

  “So. Here’s the thing. You can’t get a new battery.”

  Ellie frowned. Fred frowned.

  “What do you mean?” said Fred.

  “It doesn’t run on batteries.”

  “OK …” said Ellie. “How do we recharge it?”

  “You don’t.”

  Ellie frowned again. Fred frowned again.

  “Sorry,” said Ellie, “that sounded like you said … you don’t?”

  “Oh, sorry,” said the Mystery Man. “Let me do that again.” He moved his mic closer to his mouth. “YOU DON’T,” he said again, so loudly now it distorted on the school computer’s tiny speakers.

  “So …” said Ellie, “that’s it? It just runs out?”

  “In my experience,” said the Mystery Man, leaning back in his chair, “the Controller lasts just as long as it’s needed.”

  Ellie frowned the hardest she’d frowned so far. Fred did as well, although his frowning ability wasn’t quite as big as hers.

  “What does that mean?” said Ellie.

  The Mystery Man sighed.

  “Now that really is a question I’m not going to answer …”

  Ellie looked at Fred. Fred shrugged his shoulders. Ellie shook her head.

  “All I will say is …” said the Mystery Man mysteriously,fn1 “many a mickle makes a muckle; a rolling stone gathers no moss; and … there are two sides to every story.”

  He left a long pause after this, a half-smile playing on his lips. Ellie and Fred both narrowed their eyes.

  “I think you’re just saying anything that comes into your head,” said Ellie, “to sound mysterious.”

  “Am I?” said the Mystery Man, raising an eyebrow to go with his half-smile.

  “Yes,” said Fred. They got up and turned away. The Mystery Man’s face fell.

  “OK, I might be. However …”

  They turned back to the screen.

  “Yes?”

  “That new look you’ve got is very fetching, Ellie, but it’ll be draining the power as we speak.”

  Ellie stared at him. Then she looked down at herself, at her different-from-usual clothes and different-from-usual body.

  “Really?”

  “Longer you keep that up, quicker it’ll go down.”

  Ellie stared at him. Then she turned to Fred, handing him the Controller.

  “Let’s get home! Soon as poss!!”

  Fred nodded and they both turned and ran out of the computer room.

  “Hm,” said the Mystery Man, smugly crossing his arms. “I see that got through to them at least.”

  Then, the smug expression on his face faded. “Um … Fred?” he said. And then: “Ellie?” a bit louder. “You’ve … forgotten to shut the computer down again. Hello? Can you come back …? PLEASE? Oh no, the screensaver’s up now. HELP!! HELP!! I’M BEHIND MR FAWCETT!! WELL, ACTUALLY, THE KOREAN KID HOLDING THE VIOLIN!! HELP!!!!”

  “OK. So. Change me back to normal,” said Ellie, looking at herself in the mirror in the playroom. The bracelet, on her right wrist, was flashing.

  Fred poised his fingers on the Controller. “Right … do you want to say goodbye to it?”

  “To what?”

  “To … that look. That version of you.”

  Ellie turned to him. “Well. For now.”

  Fred’s fingers remained poised. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, obviously, I might want to look like this again … at some point.”

  “What point?” said Fred.

  “I don’t know. Whenever.”

  “Ellie. We can’t keep using the Controller like this. The Mystery Man was clear. If we carry on using it and using it the power will run out.”

  Ellie narrowed her eyes at her brother. “So … what are we saving it for then?”

  Fred looked shocked. “Me!”

  Ellie laughed out loud. “You?”

  “Yes! When I play in the final of the Bracket Wood and Surrounding Area Inter-school Winter Trophy! That the scout from Chelsea is coming to watch me play in!”

  “When we got this, who decided that what you want is more important? It’s my Controller!”

  “In what way is it your Controller?”

  “I’m the one who’s better at video games! I’m the one who wanted a new controller! I’m the one who does all the controlling!”

  Fred held up the Controller. “Apart from now. And any other time you need me to make you look like Cinderellie!”

  Ellie stared at him. She took a deep breath. “Look. It’s both of ours. Of course! But just change me back to normal for now – because we have to, because we know it’s using up the power – and we’ll work it all out later! OK?”

  Fred thought about it. He wasn’t sure. He felt they hadn’t really talked about it properly. But he agreed that, as long as Ellie looked like Cinderellie, energy was draining out of the Controller. So he nodded, then very quickly ran his fingers over the buttons, and Ellie’s hair, lips, height, skin colour, teeth and clothes all returned to normal.

  She looked at herself in the mirror. “Great,” she said, although to Fred she didn’t sound like she actually thought it was.

  “Now what?” he said.

  “Let’s leave it here and make sure we don’t use it until the day of the game.” She took the bracelet off and put it on the floor of the playroom.

  “OK,” said Fred. “Good idea.” He laid the Controller down next to it.

  There was a pause as they looked at the Controller and the bracelet flashing together in time.

  “What shall we do now?” said Fred.

  Ellie thought for a moment. “Maths homework?”

  Fred looked at her, in her glasses, and V-neck, and braces, and smiled. “Yes!” he said. And they both ran out of the playroom.

  A few minutes later, Eric came into the playroom.

  “Fred? Ellie?” he said. He looked around. Kids, he thought. When you don’t want to see them – like when you’re watching Jamie Oliver tell you a fantastic bacon sandwich recipe on YouTube – they turn up (and steal the computer!). When you do want to see them – like now, when you’re feeling a little lonely and dinner’s over and the wife’s stuck in front of the TV as usual – they’re nowhere to be seen.

  Eric was feeling a tiny bit depressed. He had started to wonder recently if perhaps – what with Janine spending all day watching Cash in the Attic and Fred and Ellie spending all day playing video games if – well – if they weren’t really a proper family any more. Because a family – well – they sh
ould do stuff together sometimes. Shouldn’t they?

  It’s not as if there’s anything I’m obsessed with that takes my focus away from the family, Eric thought. Then he thought about going back into the kitchen to see if there was any kind of special treat in the fridge, as he often did when he was a bit depressed. Perhaps the bar of bacon-flavoured chocolate that Janine had bought him for his birthday. Could there be any of that left? On no, he’d eaten it in one bite. Still, worth looking anyway – and then he saw, in the corner of his eye, something flashing on the playroom carpet.

  With some grunting, he crouched down on the floor, picked up the bracelet and stared at it. Quite a nice-looking one, he thought. He held up his hand and put the bracelet on top of it. It sat there, like a headband for his fingers. It troubled Eric a little that it didn’t slide easily down his hand. It suggested to him that, maybe, his fingers, and his hand in general, might be a little podgy. Using his other hand, he began pushing the bracelet down. It wasn’t easy. He had to force it over his fingers. He squeezed them tightly together to get it to move downwards.

  There was more grunting, and more forcing, but eventually he managed to get the bracelet past his hand and on to his wrist. Once there, however, Eric wasn’t sure why he’d done this. It hurt quite a lot. His wrist skin – that wasn’t something he’d ever really thought about having before, wrist skin – bulged around it. He put his other hand on the bracelet again, with a view to taking it off.

  But now it really wouldn’t budge. It just hurt, and it hurt more to try and move it. So Eric did what he always did when he couldn’t think of what to do.

  “JANINE!!” he shouted. “JA-NINE!!”

  “WHAT?” she shouted back.

  “COME AND HELP ME!”

  “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”

  “I GOT STUCK!”

  “STUCK WHERE?”

  “NO, MY HAND GOT STUCK! ON A BRACELET!”

  There was a short pause. Eric could hear, just, the sound of someone on the TV saying: “… so, if we just scrape the dust off her bottom, you can see – yes – it’s actually a nineteenth-century piece of china …”

  Then the door to the playroom opened. Janine stood there, arms folded.

  “Right, so what you mean, Eric, is that a bracelet has got stuck on your hand. Which is not something that would stop you from coming into the living room.”

  “Sorry, Janine,” said Eric.

  “Let me have a look.” She came over and held up his hand. “Hmm. It’s quite pretty.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yes. Might be worth a bit. Shall I call—”

  “We didn’t find it in the attic, Janine. We don’t have an attic. We live in a ground-floor flat.”

  “I know!” she said, with more than a hint of anguish. “Do you have to keep reminding me?!”

  “And I don’t think it’s an antique. It’s got a flashing light on it.”

  Janine sniffed. “Doesn’t have to be an actual attic. Or an antique. The other week, in someone’s shed, they found a digital watch that was worth—”

  “Janine. It’s hurting.”

  She tutted. “All right. Go and soap up your wrist in the sink and I’ll see if I can pull it off.”

  Eric nodded and left. Janine watched him go. Then, in the corner of her eye, she noticed something else flashing.

  She bent down and picked up the Controller.

  “ERIC!” she shouted. “SHOULDN’T WE BE ABLE TO GET TV IN HERE? USING THE KIDS’ VIDEO-GAME STUFF?”

  “WHAT?”

  “YOU KNOW. ALL THEIR VIDEO-GAME STUFF. THE Z-BOX. THE PLAY CENTRE. THE NINTENDO B. CAN’T YOU GET TV ON THEM AS WELL?”

  She heard the tap go on. “I DUNNO!” he said.

  Janine looked at the Controller. “Of course you don’t,” she muttered. She pointed the Controller at the TV screen. And pressed the emerald button. While jiggling the control stick.

  In the kitchen, Eric Stone found himself no longer washing his hands, but crouched on top of the sink. Eh? he thought. But not for very long because the next thing he knew something even stranger was happening.

  Moments later, Eric was whirling round and round in the sink, with the tap water coming off him on all sides. It was like a beautiful fountain. If a beautiful fountain had had, at its centre, not a dolphin or a Greek god, but a whirling fat man.

  “JANIIIIIIINEEEE!” he shouted, as he went round.

  “OH NO!” she shouted back. “I’M NOT COMING TO YOU AGAIN! I’M FED UP WITH YOU SHOUTING AT ME TO RESCUE YOU EVERY TIME YOU GET INTO THE TINIEST SITUATION! BESIDES, I’M TRYING TO MAKE THE TV WORK IN HERE!”

  “BUT I’M NOT IN CONTROL OF MY OWN BODY!!” shouted Eric.

  “Tell me about it …!” muttered Janine. Then, more loudly: “That’s why I bought you the FATANX! Not that you ever wear it!”

  And she pressed some more buttons. At which point, Eric spun out of the sink and across the room.

  “WOOOOAAAAHHHH! HEEEEEELP!!” he screamed. But not loud enough to wake up Margaret Scratcher, who was sleeping on the floor next to the window. Where he was heading.

  Splat! Eric’s tummy landed with all its considerable wobbliness on top of Margaret Scratcher, who at that point looked more like Margaret Squished-er.

  But she was OK. Eric knew this because, after the initial moment of squishing, he heard:

  “MEEEEEOOOOOWWWWW!!!”

  “WHAT’S WRONG WITH MARGARET?” shouted Janine.

  “NOTHING, DARLING!” shouted Eric back, deciding, in this case, that it might be better to stay on top of the cat.

  “MEEOWOWWFgllllhdt,” said Margaret.

  Everything for a moment was quiet. Eric breathed a sigh of relief. But then his stomach started moving. Without him doing anything.

  This wasn’t anything to do with the Controller, though, which Janine was shaking at this point to see if it contained any batteries. This was to do with Margaret. You know when a cat gets a mouse or a bird and they lie on their back and drum the mouse or bird frantically with their back legs? As a form of play-torture?

  This was what Margaret decided to do to Eric’s tummy.

  At first – from Eric’s point of view – it was kind of pleasant. It was like having a massage. Eric felt the waves of flesh vibrate and wondered, for a moment, if he should lie face down on the cat more often, as a way of perhaps reducing his waistline.

  Then Margaret extended her claws.

  “OW! OW! OW! OW!” said Eric, frantically jumping up, with Margaret attached to him.

  “OH, WHAT IS GOING ON IN THERE? AND HOW DO YOU MAKE THE TV WORK WITH THIS THING?!” cried Janine, flicking the control stick on the Controller backwards and forwards. Eric – with Margaret stuck to his tummy like a very furry brooch – jumped up and down six or seven times in very quick succession. He jumped very high: in fact, he hit the ceiling every time, making quite a big dent in it. Margaret looked on, a bit confused as to the exact point of all this.

  She leapt off Eric, landing and turning round to look at him quizzically. Janine, in the playroom, just shook her head and randomly pressed as many buttons as she could.

  Eric, his hair covered in plaster, adopted a martial arts pose, one knee bent forward and both hands out, karate-style. Margaret Scratcher, sensing trouble, arched her back and ruffled up her fur. It was like two cowboys poised to draw. Or two old aristocrats about to have a duel. Or a fat man and a cat facing each other, uncertain about how they ended up like this.

  In the playroom, Janine pressed the gold button.

  “HAAAAY-YAAAA!” said Eric, leaping up and kicking out and doing a hand-shuffle at the same time.

  Margaret Scratcher said: “Mew,” and started licking herself.

  “YA! YA! YA!” said Eric, karate-chopping and high-kicking in a circle around the cat.

  “Why are you making so much noise?” said Janine, finally coming through from the playroom, but with her head down and still fiddling with the Controller.

  “HIYA! OMI … YA!” said E
ric, whirling round towards her. “I DON’T KNOW! I DON’T KNOW WHY I’M SAYING THESE THINGS!”

  “Oh, don’t be stupid,” she replied, but still without looking at him, and moving the control stick round in a circle and pressing repeatedly on the gold button.

  “HARRRRRRRR …”

  Eric sprang up into a horizontal flying position, fist forward, like Superman in flight. He actually hung there in the air like that for a couple of moments, the way cartoon figures do when they run off a cliff. And then, with a big “… YAAAA!!!”, he flew forward towards her, karate-chopping the Controller out of her hands and sending it whirling across the room.

  “ERIC!” said Janine, looking up at long last.

  “SORRY!” said Eric, collapsing in a heap by her feet.

  “DAD!” said Ellie, who had come back into the kitchen.

  “MUM!” said Fred, who had also come back into the kitchen.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” they said together. They didn’t actually wait for an answer, though. Their eyes just followed the Controller as it wheeled in the air towards the window. Outside, they could see Derek White reversing out of his drive.

  In a second, it became clear what was going to happen: the Controller was going to fly through the window, breaking its glass. But that wasn’t, at the speed it was moving, going to be enough to stop it crashing down the Stones’ front drive and ending up in the road at just the moment that Derek was going to pull out of his front drive, crushing it beneath the wheels of his large people carrier.

  Everyone could see this was going to happen. In fact, Ellie even said, really fast: “Fred! It’s going to fly through the window, and then crash down our front drive, and end up in the road at just the moment that Derek is going to pull out of his front drive, crushing it beneath the wheels of his large people carrier!!!!”

  “I know, Ellie! What are we going to do? What are we going to—”

  “Oh, it’s hit the wall and dropped on the floor.”

  “Oh,” said Fred. “Right.”

  “Oh no!” said Ellie, once she and Fred had moved the Controller to the safety of the playroom again. (Fred had stuck a Post-it note on the back, with the words MUM/DAD! DO NOT TOUCH! underlined on it. While agreeing this was a good idea, Ellie pointed out that it never worked when they did that, as they often did, with special food meant only for them in the fridge.) “It’s flashing faster now!”