Untitled 2

by David Baddiel

  “So’s the bracelet!” said Fred. Which had finally come off Eric’s wrist as a result of the whole family forming a kind of conga with Ellie at the front (then Fred, then Janine) and pulling at it. When it actually came off, with an enormous pop!, Eric had fallen over on his back and so had the conga, in opposite directions.

  There had then been a small amount of uncertainty about what, overall, just happened. Eric had insisted that he had no idea why he had been whirling about in the sink or doing karate moves around the cat, but Janine had quickly lost interest in her husband’s wittering and turned the TV on; and, soon after that, Eric had lost interest in trying to make her listen and said, “Have we got any snacks in?”

  “Mum and Dad must’ve used up loads of power!” Fred continued.

  “OK,” said Ellie. “Yes.”

  “But it’s the final next Saturday!”

  “Yes. Well. We have to conserve power. No using the Controller again until the match. For anything.”

  A few months before all this happened, Margaret Scratcher had brought in a sparrow. When Eric had finally managed to get it away from the cat’s clutches – which had involved him doing a lot of running around and stopping every so often to breathe extremely heavily, and a certain amount of Margaret looking like: What? I’ve brought you a present. What’s wrong with you people? – the poor terrified bird had sustained a damaged wing and couldn’t fly away. So Fred and Ellie had made it a kind of bed in a shoebox lined with red crêpe paper. Every day they fed the sparrow water, using a pipette. Amazingly, it worked: the sparrow lived to fly another day. Slightly wonkily.

  They called this shoebox the Boxspital. And it was into the Boxspital that the Controller and bracelet went, lights flashing, it seemed, faster than ever. Ellie placed them in solemnly, as if they were sacred relics, or maybe like they were living things, the same as the sparrow.

  For a while, they didn’t know what to do. Since they were in the playroom anyway, Ellie suggested that they play a video game … just to pass the slowly unfolding time. But, try as they might, they couldn’t find their old controllers. Both Fred’s and Ellie’s had been lost somewhere:fn1 lost and forgotten all because of the Controller.

  The following week was torture for Fred and Ellie. They couldn’t play video games, but they still had to keep going into the playroom to check that the Controller hadn’t stopped flashing.

  Fred began measuring the flashing, thinking that would help in some way. He tried to time it using a stopwatch and, at another point, against his own heartbeat, which, he noticed, seemed to beat louder when he looked at the Controller.

  Ellie ended up just staring out of her bedroom window. It was, she noticed, getting darker earlier and earlier, as the year began moving towards its end. That should, she thought, make the days go more quickly. Which, because she and Fred felt stuck at that particular moment, should have been a good thing. But it wasn’t. It just made her feel like time was running out.

  Eventually, after what seemed more like a year than a week, Saturday came.

  “Let me just check again,” said Fred as they arrived through the gates of Bracket Wood.fn1Ellie sighed. She was carrying the Boxspital.

  “This is the last time. What if exposing it to light makes it lose power?”

  “Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  Ellie made a well, it’s always me who has to do the thinking, isn’t it? face. But she opened up the Boxspital anyway. Inside, the lights were flickering fast.

  “Do you think it’ll be OK for the match later?” said Fred.

  “It’ll be fine,” said Ellie, shutting the box. “We’re nearly there now. Just as long as we don’t use it up on anything—”

  “Well, well, well.”

  Ellie and Fred looked up.

  “Really?” said Ellie.

  “Oh yes,” said Isla. Her arms were folded and she had a smirk on her face that Ellie didn’t like one bit. As if she knew something.

  “I don’t think a rematch is worth your while, Isla,” said Ellie. “It was very embarrassing for you and your brother last time.”

  “Oh, was it?” said Isla.

  “Yes, she’s right, it was,” said Morris, whose arms were also folded.

  “Shut up,” said Isla.

  “Just saying,” said Morris. “Specially the juggling part.”

  “I don’t think it’ll be that embarrassing for us this time, though, will it, Morris?”

  Morris slowly shook his head. Fred and Ellie frowned. They weren’t sure if he was doing it that slowly to increase the drama or just because he was generally slow in the head.

  “Why not?” said Fred.

  Isla’s smirk grew wider, until it grew into a smile. But not a good smile. She nodded at Morris, as if ordering him to do something.

  Which he did.

  He unfolded his arms to reveal, on his right wrist, a black bracelet.

  “Happy Christmas, Stones …” said Isla.

  Fred and Ellie’s mouths dropped open. Still with their mouths gaping – it was like two goldfish doing a dance routine – they turned their heads to look at Isla. Who unfolded her arms, to reveal, in her hands, the Controller.

  Well. Not the Controller. Not Fred and Ellie’s Controller. But one exactly like it.

  “Where did you get that?!” said Ellie.

  Isla’s not-good smile grew wider still (it was getting quite close to being a mad grin). “I knew something was going on with that controller you kept playing with. So I had a chat with some friends of yours … they are your friends, aren’t they? Those two ultra-nerds in Years Two and Three. What are their names again, Morris?”

  “Um … one of them – the girl – is called a colour. Red? And the boy’s name is something … Welsh, I think. Red and Tom Jones?”

  “We’re sorry, we’re sorry, we’re sorry!!” said Scarlet and Stirling, appearing from round the corner (they may have been listening in).

  “We didn’t want to tell them, honest!” said Scarlet.

  “No, we didn’t! But she said Morris would stamp on our iPods!”

  “You don’t have iPods!” cried Fred.

  “No! But we will in Year Five!”

  “Morris will have left the school by then!” said Ellie.

  There was a short pause.

  “Oh,” said Scarlet. “We didn’t think of that.”

  “No,” said Stirling. “Or the fact that by then, almost definitely, we won’t be using iPods. I imagine we’ll all be using the Zen FlashPlayer or the TDK ScreenCircus – both already in BETA development and? Ow!”

  The “Ow!” was because Morris had flicked him on the eyebrow.

  “And also …” said Scarlet, “you didn’t want us to come with you to school when we offered to on FaceFace the other day.”

  “Yes,” said Stirling. “Sometimes I’m not sure you like us at all!”

  Scarlet, seeing her brother starting to sniff, began to sniff more.

  Ellie and Fred looked at each other.

  “Scarlet, Stirling,” said Ellie. “Of course we like you! Don’t cry – it’s OK – we’ll—”

  “Well, it’s a beautiful scene, I must say, but run along now … what do you call these two again, Stones?”

  “iBabies!” the iBabies said, bursting into tears.

  “Yes. Run along, iBabies!!”

  And they did, as fast as they could go. Fred and Ellie looked on, unhappily. Nothing felt good about this.

  “How sweet,” said Isla, smirking. “Anyway, following the information garnered from your very close friends, we paid a visit to …” Here, she looked over Ellie and Fred’s shoulders, towards something behind them, “… the computer room!!”

  Fred and Ellie turned round. In the distance, in the main school building, they could see a window. On the inside of the room, facing the window, was a small screen. On the small screen, they could see a man waving with both arms.

  “This morning in fact,” said Isla. “And he was on the screen …�
�

  “The Mystery Man!” said Fred.

  “Yes,” said Isla. “Furious with you, he was. Something about shutting the computer down …?”

  Fred and Ellie looked a bit ashamed. Isla made an uh-oh! face. Followed by a sarcastic, sticking-out-her-bottom-lip, what a shame … face.

  “Anyway, we promised him – didn’t we, Morris? – that we would shut the computer down … if he got us a Controller like yours.”

  Fred and Ellie looked at each other. Ellie frowned.

  “This morning? How did it get here so quickly?”

  “I dunno. How long did yours take to arrive?”

  “But didn’t you have to go home to get it?” said Fred.

  “We are home, Dumb-twin,” said Ellie. “Our dad’s the head. We live here.”

  Ellie turned round again. The figure on the screen had stopped waving his arms and just looked sad.

  “But you didn’t shut the computer down …!” she said, turning back.

  Isla made a whatever face and said: “Whatever. Anyway …” And here she raised her Controller up to face the twins. “Let’s get on with it.”

  Ellie took a deep breath. “Listen, Isla … Fred’s desperate to play in this game. And the school is desperate to win. We haven’t won for ten years. And our Controller is running out of power … Can’t we just be friends?”

  Isla shook her head.

  “OK, thought not. Well … can’t we just not do this? Or do it next week? After the game?”

  Isla’s grin went through the roof. For a second, she looked like the Joker from Batman. If the Joker from Batman had been a somewhat precocious and annoying eleven-year-old girl.

  “Sorry, I didn’t hear most of what you said. The only words I heard in fact were ‘our Controller is running out of power’. Which is interesting, from our point of view because, as you know, ours has just arrived. And is …” – she turned it round and Morris held up his bracelet: the blue light on both was pulsing slowly, perfectly in time, bright and clear – “… charged to the MAX!!!!”

  Fred and Ellie exchanged glances. There was clearly no point in trying to reason with her.

  “OK,” said Ellie, opening the Boxspital with a heavy heart.

  A minute later, they lined up: Morris and Fred faced each other, with Isla behind Morris and Ellie behind Fred, Controllers at the ready.

  “OK,” said Ellie. “Press your buttons on the count of three. One … two …”

  “Oh, poo to that!” said Isla, pressing the silver and gold buttons on her Controller together and flicking her control stick sharply forward.

  Morris immediately jumped up. Fred expected him to arc towards him with either feet or arms flying. But instead Morris swirled in the air, round and round; and as he swirled his body took on armour: a face mask with a metal grille, a bronze chest shield and what appeared to be a long black skirt.

  The long black skirt made Fred laugh for a moment, but when Morris landed in front of him – and acquired, as the last bit of his outfit, a body-length bamboo stick – it didn’t look funny any more … It looked …

  “KENDO!!” Fred shouted to Ellie behind him. “She’s made him a kendo warrior!”

  “I know!”

  “Can you kendo me up?!”

  Ellie was frantically pressing the buttons on their Controller. “No! It hasn’t got enough power. And I don’t know how to do that. You’ll have to—”

  There wasn’t time to tell him what to do as Morris was circling towards Fred with his bamboo stickfn1 whirling. Ellie instinctively put her fingers on the Controller and Fred immediately began dodging.Every time Morris brought the shinai down, Fred would leap out of the way just in time. WHACK! WHOOSH! WHACK! WHOOSH! went the air around them.

  Isla frowned and twisted her control stick angrily. Morris turned to face Fred, raising his shinai high above his head. Ellie’s thumbs moved fast. Fred ducked and kicked his leg out, bringing his opponent crashing down. Fred then jumped up with a big “HIYAAAAAA!!!”, intending to land hard on Morris’s head, but Isla’s fingers were quick too – and Fred’s flight downwards was stopped, nastily, by Morris’s black-gloved fist coming up and batting him away to the side.

  THWACK!

  Fred flew across the playground.

  “OOF!” said Fred as he bounced off the school climbing frame.

  Getting up, gingerly, Fred couldn’t see Kendo Warrior Morris any more. Perhaps they’ve given up, he thought optimistically. Or perhaps, he thought – less optimistically – the reason I can’t see Kendo Warrior Morris is that coming at me instead is Enormous Muscly Wrestler-Man With Tattoos and a Ponytail Morris.

  “What’s going on?!?!” he shouted back at Ellie, who was running towards him, waving the Controller.

  “She’s activated a different character!” shouted Ellie. “Can she do that? Don’t we have to start a new match?”

  “Shut up and fight!!!”

  Ellie saw the speed at which Enormous Muscly Wrestler-Man With Tattoos and a Ponytail Morrisfn2 was approaching, both fists forward. “Or maybe …” She pressed the amber button and jerked the control stick. Just in time, Fred leapt up – and EMWMWTAAPTfn3 Morris powered past underneath him.

  Now. One thing about being controlled by the Controller was that although it meant you could do all sorts of things that you couldn’t do normally, in terms of jumping and fighting and even looking amazing, you were, at some level, still you. Which meant that Morris was, even as Kendo Warrior Morris or EMWMWTAAPT Morris, still Morris. And therefore quite stupid.

  Which might be why he carried on running without realising what had happened for ten seconds after Fred had jumped up, and why he ended up crashing both fists forward into the climbing frame.

  And getting his enormous arms stuck between four square rungs.

  “Aaaarrgggghhhh!!” said Morris in a low, growly voice like you might expect an enormous muscly wrestler-man with tattoos and a ponytail to have. He tried to move his arms – you could see the veins bulging in his biceps – and said “Aaaarrgggghhhh!!” a few more times, but it was no good.

  Enormous Muscly Wrestler-Man With Tattoos and a Ponytail Morris was stuck, in a primary-school playground climbing frame.

  Ellie came over to Fred, who was crouching nearby, having landed safely from his big leap.

  “Well done!” she said.

  “Well done yourself!” he said. “Is there any power left in the Controller?”

  Ellie looked at the light. “A small amount, I think. Come on – let’s get to the game!”

  “Hold on just one tiny minute,” said a voice behind them: Isla’s, of course. “Unlike you two … the boy in our twinship – although the more stupid one obviously – isn’t worse at video games. In fact, he may even be as good at them as his sister.”

  “Thanks, Isla,” growled Morris, his back still turned away from them in his stuck-in-the-climbing-frame position.

  “No problem, Morris,” said Isla. She leant through the rungs of the climbing frame and took the bracelet off Morris’s wrist, while handing him her Controller. His hands, although his arms were stuck, could still move. He put his fingers on the buttons. Isla turned back to Ellie and Fred and slowly – really making a lot of the moment – slid the bracelet down her wrist.

  “Oh, Isla … no …” said Ellie.

  Isla looked at her coolly. “You’re not the only one who enjoys changing how she looks, Ellie,” she said. “Morris!”

  Morris’s hands moved, pressing the buttons. And Isla … changed.

  In front of Ellie’s and Fred’s eyes, Isla morphed: she grew taller and her muscles expanded; her clothes changed. Suddenly she was wearing white combat boots that went up to her knees, a tight blue leotard and a sleeveless top covered in martial arts symbols; her hair became shorter, curled into buns and plaits; and her hands, bunched into fists and covered in long black gloves – WITH METAL STUDS ON THE KNUCKLES!!! – had become three times their normal size.

  Fred stared at her, terrif
ied. Then he looked to Ellie.

  “Isla …” said Ellie again pleadingly. “Don’t do this.”

  “I am not Isla any more,” said Isla. “I am … KARABUKI!”

  Ellie sighed. “OK, Karabuki. Don’t do this.”

  In answer to this, Morris pressed their Controller’s buttons and Karabuki whirled around, doing a series of lightning kicks so fast they propelled her like a high-speed helicopter towards Fred’s terrified face.

  “ELLIE! SHE’S NOT LISTENING!” shouted Fred.

  “I KNOW!” said Ellie, whose hands had gone to her Controller – and only just in time. She made Fred, although still terrified, block Karabuki’s kicks with a series of hyper-fast defensive counter-punches.

  THWACK! BLOCK! THWACK! BLOCK! THWACK! BLOCK!

  Karabuki’s feet and Fred’s hands together formed a blur.

  After twenty seconds of this blur, they separated and faced each other about three metres apart.

  “AAAAAAAAHHHHHHAAAAA!!” shouted Karabuki, jumping and curving in a circle towards Fred.

  “HAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!” shouted Fred, jumping and curving in a circle towards her.

  They met high in the air in the middle of the circle. Well, met isn’t really the word. The better word would be … smashed. Or maybe collided-like-asteroids. Asteroids that had arms and legs moving like high-speed weapons. Like the spikes Ancient Romans used to put on chariot wheels.

  The noise of them colliding is almost impossible to describe in words. Maybe:

  might kind of cover it. With a tiny under-noise, quite difficult to hear, of Morris’s and Ellie’s fingers tapping super fast on their respective Controllers.

  For some time, the two fighters cancelled each other out. But Fred was more tired; and Ellie was more tired; and the Controller – their Controller – was more tired.

  Eventually, a loose uppercut from Karabuki caught Fred under the chin and knocked him out of the air. He landed on his back on the asphalt: a particularly hard bit as well, a section of the playground which Bracket Wood hadn’t had enough money to convert to the nice new soft type.