Mr Barrington stopped beaming.
“But still, another manager wouldn’t have put me in the team at all. And he’s really nice.”
Everyone clapped. Mr Barrington went back to beaming.
“I’d also like to thank – for helping me in lots of ways, especially techno ones – from Years Two and Three, Scarlet and Stirling!”
Everyone clapped.
“You can call us iBabies!” shouted Scarlet.
“Yes!” shouted Stirling. “We like it. Although I was going to suggest iBabies OX 10.4 as, like, an upgrade!”
Luckily, the applause covered up whatever else Stirling went on to say. Meanwhile, Fred realised his speech was starting to go on a bit – and was also possibly not the speech he thought he was going to make – so he decided to hurry it up.
“And I’d also like to thank my team-mates, and Oakcroft, and even Isla and Morris Fawcett, despite them being the school bullies …”
“Are you?” said Mr Fawcett, looking at them sharply.
“… who have tried to beat me up lots of times, including just now, when I was on my way here …”
“Did you?” said Mr Fawcett, his sharpness becoming even sharper.
“… but if it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t even have got good at football because it was them who knocked the computer over in the first place and – well, it’s a long story, but I think I’m going to tell it. Because it brings me to the person I most want to thank …”
He looked up and found her in the crowd.
“My sister, Ellie,” he said. “And here’s why.”
He was about to launch into it – to tell the whole thing, to everybody – when he saw that she was mouthing: NO.
Why not? he mouthed back. I want to. I want everyone to know that you’re the one. That you’re the genius basically. That I didn’t do it all by myself.
Ellie smiled. Her eyes were moist. No. YOU did. You DID do it all by yourself, she mouthed.
What do you mean?
She held up the Controller. Fred squinted at it.
It’s run out of power, she mouthed. Or rather it RAN out of power. Before I even came back in the ground. Before the start of the second half.
Huh? So why did you hold it up at me? Why did you operate it? I saw your fingers on it, all the time.
I was pretending. I could tell you were looking. So I pretended it was working.
Fred frowned.
Why?
Ellie smiled more. Because I know you. Because you’re my twin. I knew that you were brilliant. I knew you could be an amazing player. You just had to BELIEVE that something was making you brilliant.
Fred shook his head. I did all that – four goals, all those amazing tricks, the backflip penalty! – by myself?
Yes, mouthed Ellie. Because all you really needed to believe in … was yourself.
There was a long pause. And then Mr Bodzharov said: “Are you all right, Fred? You seem to be opening and closing your mouth a lot with no words coming out. Are you having some sort of fit?”
Fred shook himself out of the trance all that mouthing had put him in. “No! I’m fine.” He turned back to the crowd. “That’s it really. Ellie. I’d like to thank Ellie. Just for being such a brilliant sister. Come up here, please!”
Ellie looked like she didn’t really want to. She wasn’t entirely sure about going up there and lifting the trophy with him and sharing the moment. But then Rashid, who was standing next to her, gave her a gentle little push.
Sometimes that’s all we need.
Sven Matthias is on the lookout for new players. So watch out for him if you’re playing, even in the park, or at school!
Derek White and his family have moved to Lapland. And taken all their Christmas lights, despite the fact that there is nowhere to plug them in in an igloo.
Mr Barrington has decided to try contact lenses.
Mr Fawcett came to understand that Isla and Morris were perhaps not the ideal Bracket Wood pupils after all. They haven’t won a certificate for good behaviour for a while. Having said that, they haven’t bullied anyone for a while either. They may have learnt their lesson.
Prajit no longer sometimes smells of fur, cat wee and Whiskas. Because his dad took early retirement.
Stirling and Scarlet are still not quite in Year Five, so still not quite able to deploy their techno-knowledge as they would like to. However, their mum has decided that their stepdad will no longer cut their hair.
Mr Bodzharov is OK with this as, since Fringe Benefits’ sponsorship of the Fringe Benefits Bracket Wood and Surrounding Area Inter-school Winter Trophy, business is booming. He has recently opened a new sister shop to Fringe Benefits called Hair Today, Gone Today Also.
Eric has given up bacon sandwiches. And is on a new diet. It’s called the Full English Breakfast diet. You eat full English breakfasts for every meal. But with NO toast. And sweeteners instead of sugar in your tea.
And Janine no longer watches TV all day. She now records daytime TV and watches it at night.fn1
Margaret Scratcher is exactly the same.
Fred went on to have a trial for Chelsea. In which he played really well. He’s now in the junior squad!
And Ellie, meanwhile, is designing her own computer games. Rashid is helping her …
That’s it, isn’t it? Everybody important.
So anyway – thanks for reading it and—
Sorry, can you hear something …?
Someone saying … sounds like … “Shut me down!
You forgot to shut me down! I’m still on the screen!!!”
Strange. I can still hear it.
“Look, if you shut me down, I’ll get you ANOTHER Controller!
I will! Made of SOLID GOLD!! THAT CAN
MAKE THE PERSON YOU’RE CONTROLLING …
INVISIBLE! AND FLY! AND RUN AT 20,000
MILES PER HOUR! And this one … this one will last
FOREVER!”
Hmmm. Might just be the wind.
Oh, OK. Just one more bit.
Janine and Eric and Margaret Scratcher watched as Fred and Ellie tore open their main present. Their excited faces were lit gold, green and red by the fairy lights hanging off their little tree. In the background, on the radio, Slade were singing about Grandmas coming to stay and room to spare inside.
“Oh! It’s a new video game!” said Fred, holding up a box.
“Four video games,” said Eric. “It’s sort of a box set. All your favourites: FIFA, Street Fighter, Super Mario and Minecraft.”
“The newest, most up-to-date versions of those games. Of course!” said Janine.
“And look, Fred!” said Ellie. “A new controller to go with it!”
“Yes …” said Eric. “I still feel bad about sitting on that one you liked. And then the new one you had for a while – I don’t know where that went. I hope this one’s all right.”
Ellie held it up. It was a normal controller, black with green, red and blue buttons. “It’s lovely,” she said. “Thanks, Dad.”
“So I suppose …” said Eric, “you want to go straight into the playroom and try it out. Don’t worry. You can if you like.”
“It’s Christmas Day, isn’t it?” said Janine. “You can do whatever you like.”
Fred nodded and smiled. But then said: “Dad … I really like the video-game present. But look outside! It’s snowing!”
Eric turned his gaze to the window. He felt goose pimples rise on his flesh at the sight of it, at the idea that it could, after all, still snow on Christmas Day.
“Oh yes!”
“Can we go out and play in the snow, Dad?” said Ellie. “We’ll do the video game later!”
“But you’re in your pyjamas.”
“It’ll be more fun like that!” said Fred.
Eric and Janine exchanged glances.
“Of course!” they said together. “Go on!”
Fred and Ellie got up and began to run out of the door of the living room. Meanwhile, Eri
c and Janine exchanged one more glance.
“Fred. Ellie,” said Eric, stopping them as they reached the door. “Is it all right … if we come and play?”
Fred frowned. Ellie frowned. Then they exchanged glances.
“But you’ve got your pyjamas on too …?” said Fred.
Janine got up, putting out her hand to help Eric heave himself off the sofa.
“Like you said, it’ll be more fun like that …” she said.
And out of the door the whole family flew, cheering and shouting as they went.
If you’d been in the Stones’ living room that Christmas Day, you’d have seen them through the window, building snowmen, making snow angels and throwing snowballs at each other for ages and ages. And, if you’d stayed long enough, you’d have seen one particular snowball hit the window quite hard. As it did so, a light, a blue light, on the controller that Ellie had left lying on the couch, pulsed. On and off.
But it had stopped by the time they came back inside; and the snowball on the window had turned to water.
Footnotes
Chapter 1: Fred and Ellie
fn1 A boy and girl can only be fraternal twins, never identical. But don’t ask me to explain the difference. It’s a bit yucky.
fn2 Fred was better than her at one thing, however: customising the avatars. He could customise any avatar on any game so the character on screen looked great – hairstyle, eye colour, skin colour, clothes, teeth, every shape and size. Fred sometimes wondered if he didn’t like doing that even more than playing the games.
Chapter 2: Eric
fn1 It didn’t help that Eric worked for a supermarket as a retail manager, whatever that is (I should know, I know, but I don’t – I’ve never known what jobs called things like that actually involve). This meant the Stones got large discounts on all their food, especially bacon, and Eric brought home so much of it that he got a discount on his discount.
fn2 I’m aware that there are two uses of the word ‘happened’ very close together here. Don’t let it worry you.
Chapter 3: Cyberdodo
fn1 Another reason was their challenging hair. Stirling and Scarlet’s mum had recently married a new husband, who was a hairdresser. His name was Mr Bodzharov and his proud motto was: “I cut hair” [including his stepchildren’s] “like they used to in the Old Country!” I’ll leave you to imagine what this means.
Chapter 4: The other twins
fn1 It has to be said that they were pretty successful bullies. At most schools these days, bullies are very quickly clamped down on by the teachers. But at Bracket Wood, although it was a good school – more or less – no one had really clamped down on Morris and Isla Fawcett. Perhaps you might understand why this was when I tell you that the headmaster’s name was Stephen Fawcett.
Chapter 5: Fred’s football trials: just one example
fn1 They had, to be fair, at the time when both their children needed to be thinking about tying their own shoelaces, bought a big, flat, cardboard training shoe. Like this one:
This had worked for Ellie. But Fred was never able to transfer big, flat training shoelace-tying to real, 3D shoelace-tying.
Chapter 10: Pair with Controller
fn1 Which she never did since Janine always made sure the cat slept on her and Eric’s bed. And was always upset that, in the morning, Margaret Scratcher would not be snuggled in with her, but on top of Eric’s head. “It’s the smell of bacon,” she would tell herself.
Chapter 19: My turn
fn1 Well. As fast as they could after being juggled: which wasn’t that fast as it involved them falling over dizzily, then getting up again, then running a bit more, then falling over again, then getting up again, etc. etc. This made it all the more confusing for Mr Fawcett.
Chapter 20: Ellie Premium Edition
fn1 From Super Mario.
fn2 From Sonic The Hedgehog.
fn3 From Pokemon.
fn4 From Shrek. When she’s not green.
fn5 From Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. Bit of a curve ball that one.
fn6 From Inside Out.
fn7 From Frozen. But you knew that.
fn8 OK I’m gonna stop now.
Chapter 23: Flashback
fn1 Although only along the bottom section of their front wall as, when he tried to put some lights higher up, the ladder broke.
Chapter 28: A shaven gorilla
fn1 Still not green.
Chapter 30: Actually, it’s not Skype
fn1 Which they were very excited by, although Stirling still thought they could have got a better one at Getmethatgadget.
Chapter 32: Nerd
fn1 I mean obviously mysteriously – he spoke mysteriously all the time – but he was adding extra mystery at this point. Like a special, added, extra shot of mystery.
Chapter 35: The Boxspital
fn1 Not, I should stress, anywhere near Eric’s bottom – he had become much more careful about checking behind him before he sat down after that incident.
Chapter 36: Happy christmas, stones …
fn1 The school was open, even though it was a Saturday, because that’s where the team was meeting to go to the final of the Bracket Wood and Surrounding Area Inter-school Winter Trophy.
Chapter 38: Emwmwtaapt Morris
fn1 It’s actually called a shinai.
fn2 This is going to get complicated. I’ll call him EMWMWTAAPT Morris from now on.
fn3 See?
Chapter 44: The Bracket Wood and Surrounding Area Inter-school Winter Trophy
fn1 Even more annoyingly, its full name this year was actually the Fringe Benefits Bracket Wood and Surrounding Area Inter-school Winter Trophy. Because this year it was sponsored by a local hairdresser. You’ll see who this is in a few pages.
fn2 And one boy called Gerald, who really was a weirdo.
Chapter 47: What happened?
fn1 Some of you may have heard of this boy before in a book called The Parent Agency. He was in a coma for a while, and some weird stuff happened to him, but he’s fine now and back at school. I don’t think it was mentioned in the book he was in before, but anyway the school he went to was Bracket Wood. As it turns out.
Chapter 49: Like this one?
fn1 The one at the beginning of this chapter. In case you’d forgotten.
Chapter 53: Single bow
fn1 Barry’s friends also went to Bracket Wood.
Chapter 54: Watch Out!
fn1 I know this is technically not quite right, as at this point the score is four-all. But the referee, who is not a big character in this story so I have decided not to give him a name, had decided in that moment that refusing to take a penalty because you were too nervous was such a big failure that it was basically equivalent to losing a goal. At least that was his thinking. He told me afterwards.
Chapter 55: 110 per cent
fn1 Yes, the very same. Told you you’d find out in a few pages.
Part 4: Bonus
fn1 In bed. She has to turn up the volume quite loud to hear it over Eric’s snoring.
Many thanks, for all their help in lots of different ways to do with the creation of this book, must go to everyone at HarperCollins Children’s Books – particularly Nick Lake, Samantha Swinnerton, Kate Clarke, Elorine Grant, Manda Scott, Geraldine Stroud, Nicola Carthy and Ann-Janine Murtagh. Thanks must also go to: my illustrator, Jim Field, for co-creating these worlds; my children, Ezra and Dolly, who provided, as ever, very useful advice about being children, and also, in this case, about video games; my agent Georgia Garrett, who offered some late, but not too late, passionate suggestions; and Morwenna Banks, who calmly put up with the stuff she always has to put up with when I’m writing a book, even one this fun.
“I wish I had better parents!” Barry said, a third time. And then suddenly the entire room started to shake …
Barry Bennett hates being called Barry. In fact it’s number 2 on the list of things he blames his parents for, along with 1) ‘being boring’ and 3)
‘always being tired’.
But there is a world, not far from this one, where parents don’t just have children. That’s far too random for something so big and important. In this world, children are allowed to choose their parents.
For Barry Bennett, this world seems like a dream come true. Only things turn out to be not quite that simple …
Read an extract …
SUNDAY
CHAPTER ONE
Barry Bennett was always very upset at being called Barry. It was a stupid name for a modern nine (nearly ten) year old boy. All his friends were called things like Jake and Lukas and Taj.
In fact, they weren’t called things like that, they were called exactly that. Jake was his best friend, Lukas was his second best and Taj was his third. Although sometimes that order was reversed and Taj was first. But, either way, none of them were called anything like Barry. Barry didn’t even know anyone called anything like Barry. He didn’t know, for example, anyone called Brian. Or Colin. Or Derek. Or any other name that no boy had been called since 1953.
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