Brain Freeze

by Tom Fletcher

  A swirl of delicious, creamy ice cream flowed out, right into my open mouth.

  I ate.

  And ate.

  And ate.

  I paused for a second and took a breath. It was all just too overwhelming. I was so full of my favourite delicious ice cream. I couldn’t possible eat any mo–

  Then it hit me.

  ‘Oh gosh!’ I said.

  What is it? asked my very full tummy.

  ‘It’s … B-Brain …’ I stuttered.

  Brain? What’s up? Tummy gurgled.

  There was no response from Brain – for a very good reason. I had eaten WAY too much ice cream WAY too fast, and we all know what happens when you do that …

  BRAIN FREEZE!

  The feeling was intense. It started slowly, like the cogs in my mind were winding down, then all of a sudden it got faster and faster. I pulled my head out from under the ice-cream pump, stumbled to my feet and tried to prop myself up in the tight space between the ice-cream machine and the ice-lolly fridge. That’s when it really hit me, like a direct snowball strike to the mind. The most unbelievable,

  icy brain freeze I had EVER experienced in my entire life. OK, I know I’m only ten, but, believe me, I’ve eaten a LOT of ice cream, and on the brain-freeze scale of 0 to 10 this one was SUB-ZERO!

  ‘Stay calm,’ I told myself. ‘It’ll be gone in a second.’

  But something about this brain freeze was different. It wasn’t wearing off like normal. I needed to get out of the cold van. I needed air – the warm summer air!

  I clambered out, shivering as I opened the garage doors, and fell on to the grass, waiting for the warm breeze to unfreeze my mind.

  That’s when I first noticed it – the warm summer breeze. It wasn’t there. In fact, the night was suddenly so still it was like there was no air at all.

  The next thing I noticed was the sound. There was none. No insects buzzing, no Dad snoring. Nothing.

  That’s when I knew that something weird was going on – but nothing prepared me for what I saw next.

  I scanned the garden. Everything was there, as it had been a few minutes ago – the sprinkler, the insects, the swing under the tree, the flying bat. But nothing was moving.

  Everything had frozen.

  The bat was hovering mid-flight with its wings spread out wide, just hanging in the air. The spray from the sprinkler fanned overhead, completely motionless, splashing a thousand tiny drops of water, which sparkled in the moonlight like a wave of stars.

  The swing under the tree was completely rigid too, as though an invisible man was holding it up, waiting to jump on.

  I got to my feet and took a few steps through the motionless garden.

  It was like walking into a photograph.

  Everything was still.

  Everything was calm.

  Everything was … FROZEN!

  Suddenly I felt a little wobbly. A little smushy. As though the frozen cogs of my mind were starting to unfreeze. The world around was swirling slightly, blurring a little, almost melting.

  Then, in the flap of a bat’s wing, the world came back to life.

  The starry sky of spray from the sprinkler splashed down on my head, snapping me back to reality. The bat vanished into the night and the invisible man holding the swing must have jumped on, as it began moving back and forth.

  It was my turn to be still for a moment.

  ‘What just happened?’ I whispered.

  You had a brain freeze so big that you got frozen in time, my brain explained.

  ‘Wow!’ I replied.

  Let’s do it again! rumbled Tummy.

  I rushed back to Gramps’s ice-cream van. Had I really been frozen in time? Could a brain freeze really do that? Could it really work twice?

  There was only one way to find out!

  I shoved my head back under the pump and pulled the lever, stuffing my face with scrummy vanilla ice cream and overloading my brain with coldness.

  I paused and took a breath.

  ‘Here … it … comes!’ I said, preparing myself for the chill.

  It hit me a lot quicker this time. Frost seemed to form instantly on the inside of my skull and my thoughts stopped as though they were being squeezed by icy fingers.

  ‘WHOA!’ I called out as I felt the world around me slow down.

  It was actually happening.

  I was becoming frozen in time!

  Then suddenly that icy grip released my mind and I found I could relax. I made my way to the front of the van and peered over the seat. In the centre of the dashboard was a little clock. Its hands were completely motionless. I was stuck in this moment.

  It had worked.

  ‘YES!’ I cheered, and leapt into the air in celebration, but as I landed I slipped, bashing into the handbrake.

  The whole ice-cream van jolted – and, before I could even think, we were on the move!

  We rolled backwards, through the open garage doors, leaving an ice-cream-van-shaped cloud of dust behind us where the little grey particles remained frozen in the air like a ghost van.

  I started to grab the handbrake, but we shot through the garden, along the driveway and past my house, and I felt the wheels jolt down off the curb and bump on to the quiet, empty road. I was thrown into the back of the van, completely off balance, my brain still slow from the freeze. There was nothing I could do. Whether I liked it or not, we were rolling backwards down the hill!

  I just managed to pull myself up behind the driver’s seat as the van zoomed in reverse past our neighbours’ houses.

  I looked at the round speed dial on the dashboard and saw its little arrow racing up through the thirties, then forties, then …

  The door to the glove compartment swung open. Something heavy dropped on to the floor and came sliding to a stop at my slippers.

  ‘An alarm clock?’ I croaked.

  At my feet was an old mechanical alarm clock, the kind with two large bells on top that looked like they would scare you halfway to crikey if it went off. Its large face looked up at me, and behind its hands I saw smaller dials for the day, month and year. It must have been broken though, as the hands weren’t moving and the date was wrong.

  Izzy! THE VAN! Brain reminded me.

  ‘Oh, yeah!’ I cried, snapping my focus back to the out-of-control vehicle I was in!

  Through the windscreen, I saw houses, street lamps and the old crooked post box all swooshing into the distance, but then I suddenly noticed that they weren’t just swooshing past – they were changing.

  Transforming.

  REVERSING!

  The Robinson family’s front door was repainting itself and the cracked paint now looked shiny and new. The crooked post box un-crooked itself and was as straight as the day it was put in the ground.

  Izzy! You’re not just travelling backwards down the hill, Brain shouted. You’re travelling back through TIME!

  I gawped outside and saw the days go by, no … weeks … wait, months, YEARS!

  ‘My goodness, Brain – you’re right!’ I yelled.

  I had to stop the van. I forced myself forward and leapt into the driver’s seat, but at that precise moment the van went BUMP over the speed bump at the bottom of the hill. Now, I know speed bumps are supposed to slow you down, but it turns out that when you’re reversing through time speed bumps work in reverse, and we were whooshed along at a chillingly frightening speed. I caught glimpses of blurred houses, which now looked like old-fashioned cottages with thatched roofs. Then they became little wooden shacks, and then they shrank to nothing at all, just empty grassy fields.

  The ice-cream van was lurching this way, then that. It bobbed up and down like a boat on water, as though time outside the van was melting, letting us glide through it like a spoon through a tub of soft-scoop raspberry ripple.

  It was all so overwhelming. Mesmerizing.

  An ear-piercing ringing suddenly scared me halfway to crikey! The old alarm clock on the floor had sprung to life and was jiggling
about like a startled hamster.

  Snapping back to reality, I reached down and pulled as hard as I could on the handbrake. The van screeched and hissed until it finally came to a stop. I scooped up the screaming alarm clock and switched it off before shoving it back in the glove compartment.

  There was a sudden eerie silence.

  I tried looking through the windscreen, but to my surprise it was completely frosted over. It reminded me of those wintry mornings when I had to wait for Mum and Dad to scrape the ice off the car windows, with the heater on full blast, before we could drive to school.

  I went to the door and pulled on the handle.

  Nothing.

  I tried again, but it was as though the door was completely frozen shut!

  I sucked in a deep breath, pulled the handle again and barged with all my strength.

  The door burst open, sending shards of ice flying as I stumbled out into the hot sand.

  ‘Sand?’ I gasped.

  Where on earth was I?

  Or not where, but WHEN?

  The sun was blindingly bright.

  I blinked until my pupils adjusted.

  Then I had to blink some more until my brain had adjusted to the impossible sight in front of me – a humongous, towering pyramid pointing high into the sky!

  ‘Egypt?!’ I gasped.

  Not just Egypt … said Brain.

  I looked at the pyramid again but had to squint as the sun reflecting off its brilliant white stones made it hard to see.

  ‘What a second – I’ve only seen white pyramids in my school book about … ANCIENT EGYPT!’ I gasped (again!).

  Bingo! said Brain proudly.

  I suddenly remembered learning how the pyramids were originally covered in white casing stones that shone so brightly in the sunlight that they could be seen on the moon!

  A commotion behind me brought me back to the present, which was actually in the past. I turned round to see a familiar sight. The Great Sphinx of Giza! The enormous statue with the body of a lion and the head of a human, which had fascinated me in history class. We’d learned all about it and the unsolved riddle of how the huge stone head had lost its nose.

  I was snapped out of my daze by angry voices, and I saw a crowd of men waving their arms at me. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but they were pointing at something behind Gramps’s ice-cream van.

  I quickly ran round to see what it was.

  ‘Oh my …’ I cried, clasping my hands over my mouth in shock.

  Lying on the ground, a little way behind Gramps’s ice-cream van, was a giant stone nose!

  I looked up at the enormous sphinx as a few little pieces of rubble crumbled off it.

  ‘I am SO sorry!’ I said.

  Suddenly the robed men stopped what they were doing and dropped to their knees, and I heard another voice behind me.

  This time it wasn’t a man but a boy, who was wearing a very grand-looking robe and had a fake beard dangling from his chin. He looked about the same age as me, but the surrounding men seemed to tremble in his presence.

  The boy shook his head and pulled out a scroll of papyrus.

  ‘Wow! I remember learning about that in history too!’ I said. Papyrus was the first type of paper, made of smushed-up plants. The Egyptians invented it. Super clever!

  The boy waved his hand as though he was calling me over.

  ‘Erm … hello …’ I said. ‘Sorry about your sphinx’s nose!’ I pointed to my own nose and mimed breaking it off.

  The boy frowned, and something about his expression was suddenly familiar to me. I’d seen his face before …

  ‘Oh!’ I gasped, suddenly realizing who this boy was. ‘You’re King Tut … I mean, Tutankhamun … You’re the Pharaoh of Egypt!’

  I should have guessed straight away by the fake beard. All pharaohs wore them. Not a clue why though – it looked hot and itchy to me now that I was seeing it in real life.

  The young pharaoh, who didn’t have the foggiest idea what I was on about, just pointed at the papyrus. I followed his gaze and saw row upon row of amazingly beautiful hieroglyphics – ancient Egyptian writing.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘but I can’t read – Hang on a sec!’

  I had to do a double take. There were lots of beautiful symbols like birds, plants and shapes, but one stood out a mile. It looked like a little blue ice-cream van!

  The boy pointed to the van on the papyrus, then at Gramps’s van before making a sign with his hands that is universally understood no matter what time you’re in.

  He was pretending to eat an ice cream!

  ‘Right!’ I said, knowing exactly what the young pharaoh wanted.

  I quickly jumped into the van, grabbed a cone and served the most famous pharaoh of ancient Egypt a 99 Flake!

  He snatched it out of my hands and began gobbling it up.

  ‘Be careful! If you eat it too fast, you might get a … brain freeze!’ I warned. Just as those words came out of my mouth I was suddenly very aware that my own brain freeze had completely defrosted in the desert heat. If I was to get back to my own time, I needed to fill my head with ice cream again.

  Hooray! Tummy cheered.

  ‘I’ve got to go! Sorry again about the whole nose thing!’ I yelled. I wasted no time and gulped down as much ice cream as I could, as quickly as I could. It was so refreshing after standing in the ancient Egyptian heat, but it went from refreshing to mind-numbingly cold quicker than you can say, Freezing pharaoh frosticles!

  My head fizzed as though my brain had licked a sour sweet, and I began buckling myself into the driver’s seat.

  I had no idea how to drive. I’d seen Mum and Dad do it every day, but this wasn’t driving through the village to the supermarket. I was trying to drive through time!

  There was no time to worry about that though – my brain freeze was kicking in BIG STYLE. I turned the key, and the engine chugged into life.

  ‘If reversing took us backwards in time,’ I said to myself as I crunched the gear stick until it jammed into first gear, ‘then driving forward should take us forward in time.’

  Smart! said Brain.

  I smiled. ‘Thanks.’

  I peered out of the window through watery eyes as my brain freeze hit sub-zero again and I saw the young pharaoh waving goodbye, licking his lips happily before coming to a sudden stop. Little crumbs of sphinx nose hung in mid-air as time froze.

  I slammed my foot on the pedal and the ice-cream-van time machine roared into action as I raced forward in time.

  I put my foot down and sped towards home-time, thinking about the adventure I’d just had. I couldn’t believe it. How had Tutankhamun known about Gramps’s blue ice-cream van? It was almost as though he’d seen it before!

  I suddenly remembered the silly stories Gramps used to tell me. The ones about escaping from dinosaurs and crashing into pyramids. All of a sudden they didn’t seem so silly.

  Had Gramps used his ice-cream van to travel through time himself?

  That’s when the idea hit me.

  I could travel through time. I could go to places that used to be, see things that happened long ago, or even visit people who aren’t here any more …

  I suddenly knew exactly where I wanted to go.

  I was going to visit Gramps!

  But how could I get there? I rubbed the frosted window of the ice-cream van with the fluffy sleeve of my cardigan and saw blobby swirls of time and space float past us. How would I know when to stop the van?

  The glove-compartment door swung open, sending the old mechanical alarm clock crashing to the floor again.

  ‘THAT’S IT!’ I cheered. ‘I’ll set an alarm!’

  I grabbed the clock and balanced it on the steering wheel for a closer look, while keeping one eye on the melty-time-wormhole thingy through the frosty windscreen. On the side was a small silver key. It had some teeny-weeny writing engraved on the handle. I squinted and read:

  I gave it a twist, and the hands on the smaller dial
on its face rotated.

  Where are we going? asked Brain.

  ‘The question isn’t Where? – it’s When?’ I explained. ‘We’re going back to see Gramps.’

  Will there be more ice cream? wondered Tummy.

  ‘Definitely!’ I smiled as I set the date.

  I knew exactly which date I wanted to go to – the first night I visited Gramps in hospital.

  How do you know when that was? Tummy asked.

  Don’t you remember anything? tutted Brain. It was the day after Valentine’s Day.

  ‘That’s right, Brain! I remember all the roses and cards in the hospital.’

  And chocolates! added Tummy.

  I ignored Tummy and twisted the dial and put my foot down on the accelerator.

  The hands on the alarm clock suddenly sprang to life, whizzing round and round.

  ‘It’s working!’ I cried as the van cruised forward through the warm, melted time outside.

  After a few minutes the alarm suddenly exploded with excited ringing.

  I slammed both feet on the brake, bringing the van to an abrupt stop.

  I switched the alarm off and took a moment to let my head stop spinning before cracking open the door.

  Had it worked? Was I really there? The afternoon air ruffled my hair as I stepped out into the familiar car park. I was at the hospital! It was the right place, but was it the right time?

  I walked briskly through the hospital towards Gramps’s room. Peering into the wards, I saw vases of roses and cards with red hearts on from the day before.

  Told you, Brain whispered.

  ‘Shhhhh,’ I replied.

  I knew the route like the back of my hand.

  As I got closer, my heart started pounding in my chest. If this had worked, I was about to see Gramps again.