Brain Freeze

by Tom Fletcher

  But then I realized something – if Gramps was here, then I would be too. Not Now-Me. I mean Past-Me. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from EVERY time-travel movie EVER made, it’s that no good can come of bumping into –

  ‘Hi, Gramps!’ Past-Me said from a few metres ahead along the corridor. ‘So, this is your new room, is it? Where’s the telly?’

  I jumped for cover behind a hospital trolley parked in the corridor. I peeped over the top and saw myself from a year ago bounce into Gramps’s room carrying a shiny balloon.

  ‘Blue, just like my van!’ Gramps replied.

  This was weird. Super weird! I’d already experienced all this a year ago. Been here, done this! Except that I was over there that time, and now I was over here, watching over there and trying not to let Past-Me there see Now-Me here …

  Time travel makes your mind hurt!

  ‘I’ll go and get your dinner now,’ said the kind voice of Nurse Rita as she left Gramps’s room. I put my head down and stared at the floor as she walked past so she couldn’t see my face.

  Once she was out of sight I crept out from behind the trolley and along to Gramps’s room.

  ‘Izzy, my favourite granddaughter!’ came his gentle, raspy voice. I was suddenly frozen to the spot but filled with so much warmth at the same time. I was worried for a moment that the effect of his voice might actually melt my brain freeze.

  I tiptoed as close as I could and stood just outside the door, listening to the conversation. Our conversation.

  ‘I’m your only granddaughter!’ Past-Me replied as I mouthed along on the other side of the wall.

  ‘Well, that’s true, but I’m sure that even if I had a hundred more, you would still be my favourite,’ Gramps told Past-Me.

  I remembered it all, word for word, as if the lines were permanently frozen in my memory.

  Then, right on cue, I heard the squeaky wheel of the dinner trolley coming up the corridor: Nurse Rita was stopping outside each room, delivering food to the other patients. I couldn’t wait to see the two ice creams again, and the excitement on Gramps’s and Past-Me’s faces. I was about to re-experience one of my favourite moments: my first ice cream with Gramps in the hospital!

  As Nurse Rita approached Gramps’s room, I quickly tucked myself behind a vending machine so that she wouldn’t see me as she walked past. The last thing I wanted was Nurse Rita spotting two versions of me in the same place at the same time. Her eyeballs might explode … or something like that. Or maybe she’d just do a double take and scratch her head like when she saw the two ice creams – I don’t know. Either way, it wasn’t worth the risk.

  went the trolley as she stopped one room away from Gramps and took a tray inside. Gramps and Past-Me were next up! While Nurse Rita was gone, I risked a peek round the side of the vending machine … and saw something terrible.

  On the trolley was Gramps’s tray of roast chicken and broccoli.

  ‘Yuck! Looks like tree poop,’ joked Gramps, spying the tray from his bed and making Past-Me giggle, but that wasn’t the terrible part. The terrible part was the tub of ice cream.

  There was only ONE!

  ‘That can’t be right!’ I said to myself. ‘There has to be two. There WERE two!’

  I remembered it as though it was yesterday. On that very first night Gramps was in the hospital, Nurse Rita had brought in TWO ice creams. TWO! Gramps had given one to me, and we’d sat and shared stories as we enjoyed them.

  My heart started racing. Little drops of ice-cold sweat formed on my forehead. What if we didn’t both get an ice cream? What if we didn’t get to share stories tonight? It was THIS night and those TWO ice creams that had started our tradition.

  We HAD to get another ice cream!

  That’s when my brain butted in with a rather genius idea.

  You know, you have an ice-cream van full of the stuff, Brain said.

  ‘Great idea, Brain!’ I whispered.

  I leapt out from my hiding place and sprinted as fast as I could down the slippery hospital corridor. I had to get to the van, pour a tub of ice cream and get it back on the tray before Nurse Rita took it into Gramps and Past-Me.

  Now, I’m not sure there’s a world record for the fastest ice cream ever poured, but if there was I would totally have made it into the Guinness Book of Records. I launched myself into the van, grabbed a little tub from the shelf with one hand, pulled the lever with the other and swirled out the quickest vanilla ice cream in history before legging it back to Gramps.

  ‘Well, enjoy your dinner and I’ll be back to collect the tray later,’ I heard Nurse Rita say as I skidded round the corner. She was backing out of the room next to Gramps’s. I still had time.

  I ran, dropped down on my knees and slid the last few metres past the trolley, popping the extra tub of ice cream on to the tray.

  YES! Brain said, giving me a mental high-five.

  I dashed behind the vending machine again, peeped out and waited.

  ‘Good evening, Clifford,’ Nurse Rita said cheerily as she carried the tray into Gramps’s room.

  ‘Evening, young lady,’ Gramps said with a twinkle in his eye, making Nurse Rita blush.

  ‘Well, this must be Izzy, your favourite granddaughter! Your granddad has told me all about you.’ Nurse Rita smiled at Past-Me, who was beaming from ear to ear at the thought of Gramps telling other people about her.

  ‘Oh!’ Nurse Rita said.

  This was it. This was the moment!

  ‘What is it, my dear?’ Gramps asked, trying to see what Nurse Rita was looking at.

  ‘There are two ice creams here!’ she said, scratching her head. ‘That can’t be right. I don’t know how that’s happened. Everyone gets just one.’ She began checking a long list of names and menus and meal times.

  ‘Well, you know, there are two of us,’ Gramps said with a little half-smile in Nurse Rita’s direction.

  She glanced over at Past-Me, who was staring hopefully at the two tubs of vanilla ice cream on the tray.

  ‘Our little secret?’ Gramps added with a wink.

  Nurse Rita tried to resist, but Gramps always had a way of getting what he wanted. It was those twinkly blue eyes that did it!

  ‘Oh, go on then. But don’t tell next door about any extra ice cream or there’ll be a riot!’ she said.

  ‘What extra ice cream?’ Past-Me said with a grin.

  ‘She’s certainly your granddaughter, Clifford!’ Nurse Rita winked and, with that, she turned and left.

  ‘Cheers to the mysterious extra ice cream!’ said Gramps.

  ‘Cheers!’ Past-Me replied, raising her tub to meet his.

  ‘Cheers,’ I whispered from outside the door.

  I sat listening to Gramps and Past-Me chatting away. I listened to him tell her the story about the time he got shot at by cowboys in the wild west, and the time he was driving through the forest when a gang of men in tights with bows and arrows stole all his ice lollies and gave them to the poor.

  As much as I loved sitting there with Past-Me and Gramps, it was getting late and I knew that Past-Me would be leaving soon.

  I stood up and carefully took a little peek round the door frame. There we were. Two happy people with heads full of stories and tummies full of ice cream.

  I let out a long sigh and turned away. I didn’t want to leave, but it was comforting to think that Past-Me would be back there the next night, doing the exact same thing –

  I froze on the spot.

  What if the exact same thing happened tomorrow? What if Nurse Rita forgot to put two ice creams on the tray again?

  I couldn’t let that happen.

  I broke into a run once more and didn’t stop until I was back inside the ice-cream van with my head jammed under the ice-cream machine.

  ‘Must … get … brain … FREEEEEEZE!’ I winced as the icy frost took hold of my mind. I tumbled forward into the driver’s seat, pulled the alarm clock out of the glove compartment and set the alarm for the next day. I turne
d the key and jammed the gear stick into first with a deafening crunch!

  The van lurched forward in time for a second – when the alarm started ringing and I slammed on the brake.

  I was in the next day.

  I flipped a tub down off the shelf, filled it to the brim with ice cream and ran all the way back into the hospital and up to Gramps’s room. Nurse Rita was outside with her trolley.

  ‘Knock, knock!’ she said as she peeped inside Gramps’s room. ‘Are you ready for dinner, Clifford?’

  She leaned over slightly, giving me a clear view of the ONE ice cream on the tray!

  There was no time, which is ironic for a time traveller. I ran forward, straight past Gramps’s room, popping the extra tub on the tray as I zoomed by.

  ‘Oh, look – there’s an extra ice cream again!’ Past-Me cheered at seeing the two tubs on the tray.

  ‘Well I never …’ Nurse Rita scratched her head. ‘How on earth did that get there?’

  I didn’t stop running. If this mysterious second ice cream didn’t show up two nights in a row, then what was stopping it from not appearing again?

  I’d always believed that Nurse Rita was giving us the extra ice cream, and was just pretending not to know where it had come from. But now I wasn’t so sure. What if it had been me all along? I hadn’t always been Now-Me. I had once been sitting in that room. I had once been Past-Me. So, what if it had been Now-Me – or should I say Future-Me – delivering the ice creams each and every night?

  I ran back to the magical blue van sitting in the hospital car park. I had a mission. I had a purpose.

  ‘Izzy,’ I said to myself as I climbed in. ‘You are the Ice-cream Girl!’

  I re-froze time with my brain freeze and drove forward again and again, night after night, time after time, pouring and delivering that extra tub of ice cream for Past-Me on each of the wonderful nights I shared with Gramps in the hospital.

  Each time I caught snippets of his amazing stories, his wondrous adventures, now knowing that they were true, all of them. That he really had escaped from dinosaurs and crashed into pyramids and done all the things he said he’d done.

  I climbed into the van and was about to jam my face under the ice-cream pump when something caught my eye.

  A little blinking light on the ice-cream machine.

  ‘Orange?’ I whispered.

  I knew that red meant empty and green meant full, so I guessed that orange meant it was running low.

  I quickly climbed on to the ice-lolly fridge, peered into the top of the ice-cream machine and gasped.

  It was nearly empty. Enough ice cream for …

  ‘One more trip,’ I said, sighing heavily.

  I gulped down half of what was left, saving just enough to fill the last tub, and waited for the wobbly feeling to ease off. Then …

  WHAM! It hit me.

  The final brain freeze.

  I drove the van forward in time once again until the alarm screamed for me to stop, and I parked it as the sun was starting to set behind the hospital. I filled the last little tub with the last of the swirly vanilla ice cream and jumped out.

  As I ran along the corridor towards Gramps’s room, I saw Nurse Rita already stepping inside with the dinner tray in her hands.

  ‘Here you go, Clifford. How are you feeling?’

  ‘I’m not … too hungry tonight,’ he replied. His voice sounded more croaky than his usual warm tones, and weaker.

  ‘Where’s young Izzy tonight?’ Nurse Rita asked.

  My heart sank. Where was Past-Me?

  ‘School concert,’ Gramps said with a sigh.

  My mouth dropped open. So tonight was THAT night. The one night I hadn’t come to the hospital.

  The night when Gramps had …

  ‘Well, that’s probably for the best as there’s only one ice cream tonight.’ Nurse Rita smiled, putting the tray down.

  ‘No there’s not!’ I said, stepping into the room and revealing the last tub from the van.

  ‘Izzy!’ Gramps beamed, propping himself up in his bed. ‘You made it!’

  ‘The concert finished early,’ I lied. Now, I know it’s never right to lie, ESPECIALLY to old people, but that night wasn’t any ordinary night.

  Gramps smiled at me and patted his hospital bed with his frail hands for me to come and sit next to him. He looked tired, but he still managed to eat his ice cream.

  ‘Any more adventures to tell me about?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, I think I’ve had all my adventures, Izzy.’ He smiled. ‘What about you? Do you have any stories to tell me?’

  I made myself comfortable and began telling him all about how I’d accidentally broken the nose off the sphinx. He laughed. We both did.

  All of a sudden I felt a little drip of ice cream on my hand.

  Gramps smiled down at me. ‘You’d better eat that before it all melts.’

  ‘Oh no,’ I whispered.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Gramps said to me. ‘It’s time.’

  He gave me a little wink and pulled me in for one last hug, like he understood that it was time for me to leave, and I hugged him back, knowing it was time for him too.

  I gulped down the ice cream and stayed for just a frozen moment, wishing it would stay frozen forever. But that’s the thing about brain freezes – they soon wear off.

  I couldn’t see through the tears as I hurried back along the corridor to the ice-cream van. I clambered into the driver’s seat, started the engine for the last time and drove forward as the frozen world outside seemed to melt around me. The street lamps began flopping over like wilting flowers, and the road ebbed and flowed like a river as I slammed my foot down on the accelerator. Everything started spinning and swirling around the van.

  ‘There it is!’ I cried, spotting the inside of our garage through the whirls of time.

  We came to a sudden stop – back in the exact same spot in our garage at the end of the garden. Outside, the village clock was chiming midnight and I let out a sigh of relief.

  I’d made it. I switched off the ignition and pulled out the keys. It was over.

  I opened the door and was about to step out – when suddenly the garage light came on!

  I froze, not in time but in fear.

  Was it Dad? Mum? Had they seen the open door?

  ‘Hello?’ I called out. But it wasn’t Now-Me … it was Past-Me, from earlier that night! I recalled how the village clock had struck midnight just as I arrived in the garden, and realized that I must have got back a few minutes before I left. I turned round and saw that the ice-cream van itself looked different. It was exactly as I’d found it earlier that night. The tubs were re-stocked on the shelf and the little green light on the ice-cream machine was blinking – FULL!

  I searched my brain for what had happened next and remembered that any second now Past-Me would be yanking the driver’s door open and peering inside.

  I silently slid over the seat and was about to slip out of the passenger door when I remembered what I had in my hand – THE KEYS!

  Earlier that night I’d found them dangling in the ignition, ready to go! I quickly stretched across and popped them back in the little keyhole beneath the steering wheel, then dashed out of the passenger door, leaving the keys swinging gently.

  As I carefully clicked the door shut, I heard the driver’s door swoosh open. Past-Me was inside, and I crept back through the garden, into the kitchen and upstairs to bed.

  I collapsed in a heap. I was the most exhausted I had ever been in my life, but before I drifted off to sleep my brain whispered:

  That was awesome.

  Let’s do it again tomorrow, rumbled Tummy.

  The school bell screeched, making me almost jump out of my skin. The combo of spending the night travelling through time and the warm sunshine flowing through the classroom windows had me on the edge of sleep all afternoon.

  I zombied home in a daydream. Had that all actually happened? Had I really seen Gramps last night?

  Jus
t then my thoughts were interrupted by one of my favourite sounds. The chimes of an ice-cream van.

  ‘Oooh, just what I need,’ I said to myself as I headed in the direction of the music. As I turned the corner, I was greeted by the sight of a long queue of children waiting for ice creams outside the shiniest blue ice-cream van I’d ever seen. It looked brand new. Gramps would have loved it. I sighed, and was about to walk away when something caught my eye.

  Through a gap in the crowd I saw a very happy young man spinning three ice-cream cones on his fingers while filling them up with wonderful, refreshing ice cream. The crowd cheered as he completed his performance by making three chocolate Flakes appear out of his old-fashioned flat cap, juggling them in the air before catching them, one after the other, in the three separate ice creams.

  The children cheered and clapped. I stared. There was only one man I knew who could make ice creams like that – Gramps! But this man could only have been in his twenties.

  ‘What’ll it be?’ sang a melodic, husky voice.

  I looked around and saw that while I’d been daydreaming the queue had vanished and I was now the only one waiting.

  ‘Oh! Er … I …’

  ‘Do I know you?’ the ice-cream man said, leaning over the counter to get a closer look at me. ‘You look very familiar. Have we met in the past?’

  As he studied my face, the unmistakable blue of his eyes twinkled magically in the summer sun, making all my doubts melt away.

  ‘No, but I think you might see me again in the future,’ I replied with a smile.

  THE MIDDLE

  Read on for a taste of another magical story …

  When Ivy and Seb’s grandma is rushed to hospital just before Christmas, neither of them can imagine things getting any worse. But when they return home, they’re shocked to discover the house turned upside down, a sinister message scratched on their kitchen wall – and a strange, crooked sixpence, which appears out of thin air. What is it, and who could have done this? But before either of them can wonder, they hear the rumble of voices …