‘Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you.’
The green spiral was still unwinding. Daniel felt a tremor of anticipation mixed with apprehension; it was as if the green spiral was wrapping itself around his head. It was gentle and soft; it was warm and soothing. It made him feel calm and strong.
‘Who are you?’ Daniel typed. ‘What do you want?’
‘It doesn’t matter who I am. I have been searching for you for a long time.’
‘What for? I mean, what do you want?’
‘You are a very special person.’
‘Aren’t we all?’ Daniel typed sardonically. ‘Look, whoever you are, why don’t you just log off and leave me alone.’
‘I need your help, and if you will help me, I can help you.’
For a moment Daniel was tempted to think that the whole thing was a hoax. If this was a trick it was very elaborate. Daniel was thinking fast. He wanted to stall for time; he needed to think.
‘How do you know me?’ he typed. ‘And how have you invaded my system?’
‘We are all surrounded by information. Just because you can’t see it or feel it, that doesn’t mean that it’s not there. We can read your data. It’s simple for us.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Do you really believe that the humans on earth are the only intelligent beings? There are so many things you don’t understand but now isn’t the time to educate you. Will you help me?’
‘That’s too easy,’ Daniel replied.
‘Think for a moment. What does an ant know about nuclear power?’
‘That’s a stupid question!’
‘It’s only stupid to you because you can understand the difference between yourself and an ant. You have different knowledge from the ant; he knows things that you can’t even imagine or understand. He has his knowledge and you have yours and just as you live a totally different life from the ant, so we live a different life from you.’
‘Of course I know about radio waves and satellites and things. And I know about spy planes. You have to give me something more if you want me to trust you. Who are you?’
‘I can’t tell you that. You must trust me.’
‘That’s still too easy.’ Daniel replied. ‘You’ll have to give me something.’
‘I know more about you than you would believe. Try me. Ask me anything that you think I won’t know.’
Daniel thought for a while. What could he ask that no one knew?
‘What am I holding in my left hand,’ he asked, ‘and what colour socks am I wearing?’
‘That’s too easy. You’ve just put down your note pad and picked up your school history book and you’re not wearing socks although there’s a pair of green socks on your bed. Now ask me something that’s in your head, not something easy!’
Daniel was shocked. His web cam was disconnected so there was no way Scimitar, whoever, or whatever he was, could have seen him or his room.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Who would I like to go out with?’
‘You spend most of your time with Jed but you’d really like to go out with Sophie.’
Daniel was amazed at the speed of Scimitar’s response and he blushed as soon as he realised that Scimitar seemed to know everything he was thinking.
‘Can you read all my thoughts?’ he asked.
‘I know a lot about you but I can’t read your thoughts when you don’t want me to. Don’t worry; you’re perfectly normal for your age. Nearly everyone has those thoughts! But there’s more. You have a hidden potential that nobody else knows about. It has taken me a long time to find you.’
‘And if I just switch off that’s an end to it?’
‘Yes! But I don’t think you will just switch off. You need to know more. You have an enquiring mind.’
‘If you already know so much about me, why didn’t you just go ahead and do what you want?’
‘What kind of civilisation would we have if we behaved like that? Even if we know a lot about you, and even if we can read your thoughts, we respect you as an individual.’
’So where do I come in?’
‘I will tell you what to do when the time comes. There is nothing you can do at the moment. Stay in touch. I will contact you when I need you.’
Daniel felt himself released; as if the spiral was retreating back into his monitor. He sat for a long time, wondering if he was awake or asleep. Was this all some elaborate dream?
Chapter 15
Daniel had work to finish but the Scimitar experience made it impossible for him to concentrate. No matter how hard he tried to get back to his history, his conversation with Scimitar kept coming to the front of his thinking. He looked to see if he could find a record of what he had typed or of Scimitar’s responses but there was none. He knew he’d typed and received messages so where had they gone? Not that it mattered because he could recall every word quite clearly.
I’m taking this too seriously, he thought. I don’t even know if it was real or if it was just a vivid dream. I’ve got nothing to prove that it actually happened. It was the stuff of magic. Perhaps I should be riding on the back of a dragon and slaying monsters, he thought, or crouched over a cauldron waving my wand and casting spells. But that was all fiction, not real, that was just the stuff of little children’s stories. No matter how hard he tried to ignore it, there was something about Daniel’s experience that made it different and it kept ticking over at the back of his thinking. How had Scimitar known so much about him, not just what he was doing but also his private thoughts? That was what made it so alarming, edging it out of fantasy and dreams towards reality.
Could he ignore it? Daniel found himself beginning to take it all more seriously. And what did Scimitar mean? It’s all very well for him to say ‘Stay in touch!’ but just how do I do that?
His brain was going round in circles and he made a determined effort to finish his history. He forced his mind to focus on his work and suddenly it all seemed so much clearer; he could see what was wrong and it only took him a few minutes to put it right. He checked it through once more and then closed his books. He felt tired. He needed a break, a change of air, so he went downstairs, found his bike and went for a ride.
Outside, with the cool air on his face, he felt free and as he cycled along he began to relax. Away from his room and his computer the whole business of Scimitar seemed laughable, like the sort of joke that Jed might have played on him. But it couldn’t be that; Jed didn’t know that he fancied Sophie. He’d never told that to anyone.
How could Scimitar, whoever he was, know about Sophie? He felt his cheeks begin to burn, with embarrassment as much as with frustration. Why had this suddenly happened to him and what was it all about? More to the point, what could he do about it?
He couldn’t go to his parents. He played the scene. He’d tell his mother he was asleep when something woke him up and he saw a code written on his window! She’d laugh and ask him what he’d eaten for supper.
‘Too many pickled onions or too much cheese,’ she’d say and then she’d tell him not to be so stupid.
Telling Jed wouldn’t work either because then Daniel would have to let on about his feelings for Sophie and that would make him a laughing stock. Somehow, the idea of being teased about Sophie didn’t seem right. He really cared about her. He always had done, ever since they were at junior school together. She arrived a year after he began school and was very shy. He’d always been too bashful to talk to her and even now she still didn’t seem to notice him; if it got round to her that he fancied her — well, that was unthinkable.
Best to forget about it, he decided as he turned back towards home. After all, it just might have been something he’d dreamt and not something that had happened at all. There was no proof, there were no messages, no evidence that Scimitar really existed or had contacted him, just a mass of scribbling on his pad. Perhaps he’d try the whole thing again, just to check it out and see if it really happened.
If he typed in the message it would be reaso
nable to expect one of two things to happen; either Scimitar would reply or nothing would happen at all. He wasn’t quite sure which of the two options he wanted to see and as he sat in front of his computer he dithered for a moment or two longer.
The thing is, he told himself, whatever has happened it’s made me think about Sophie. He quite liked the idea. His Mum was always going on at him and telling him that he should have a girlfriend and to stop messing about with Jed.
‘You’re too old for all that little boy nonsense,’ she told him, ‘joking about all the time. You’ve got to settle down and do your work properly.’
‘I aways get A’s and you can’t get better than that,’ he told her.
‘But you spend far too much time at that computer.’
‘It’s just like reading a book. I use it for my work.’
‘In my day we didn’t have computers, we did things properly. We didn’t just crib them off the internet.’
‘I don’t just crib things off the net. I bet I’ve read more articles than you did. I don’t just look in one book, I look at all sorts of data. It’s like going to a super-library.’
Perhaps he should make an effort to get over his reluctance to talk to Sophie; she might even like him.
This is stupid, he muttered. Resolutely he typed in the message HELLO D2S, pressed
S2D HELLO. TALK TO HER.
The message on the screen faded and slowly returned to normal. Daniel felt faint and the screen swam before his eyes. Sweat prickled on his forehead, his hands were damp and his heart began to race. This wasn’t what he wanted. This shouldn’t have happened. He was trying to prove that this was all a dream, not really happening. He rolled his chair back, trying to distance himself from the screen, from everything. Why me, he asked himself? Am I going mad? Is Mum right when she says I spend too much time here?
The screen remained obstinately normal and his heart began to slow. He wiped his hands on his jeans and moved his chair back to the desk. So, Scimitar really does exist, he thought, and he knows me better than I do. How could such a thing be possible? This is the twenty-first century and the world is a changing place but how does this fit in? Daniel stood up, crossed to his bed and flung himself down. It was time to think.
Chapter 16
Daniel and the rest of his class joined the throng piling into the assembly hall, a mass of energetic, chattering and shrieking humanity. The staff, sitting along the edges of the hall, looked apprehensively at each other. Mr Fraite sat with his arms folded, grimly staring in front of him, while some of the other teachers chatted with each other. Then the bell rang and silence crept over the hall as the Head walked on to the stage.
He’d made a lot of changes since his appointment last term and not only the staff but also the pupils were still not sure what to make of him. He said he wanted a happy school; one where the students could learn and where the teachers could enjoy teaching and he’d scrapped lots of the old school rules. Much to Mr Fraite’s surprise the school hadn’t descended into utter chaos and there seemed to be a better relationship between the students and teachers. But he remained sceptical, it would take more than a few gimmicks to convince him that the new régime was successful.
The Head took his time, sorting through the papers he was holding before putting them on the lectern. He looked round the hall, at the students and then more carefully at the staff. Finally he cleared his throat and started the assembly.
‘We’re all here, in this together,’ he began, ‘and, together, we can work towards a common purpose or we can make each other’s lives a pain. You know, and I know, that we’re stuck with each other until you are old enough to leave or until I give up and move on. I’ll let you into a secret. You may think that I hold all the cards, after all, I am the Head Teacher and I’m supposed to be in charge; but the reality is that we are all responsible for each other. That’s how democracy works. You might like to think that a school is a dictatorship but it isn’t like that.’
He paused.
‘A successful school is one where we look after each other. If any one of us goes too far then the system breaks down. That’s when it becomes a dictatorship because the Governors will appoint a Head whom they think will restore the balance by coming down hard on all these new fangled ideas.
If you want your school to be a good place to spend seven years of your life then it’s up to you to help us, the teachers, make it so. We can’t do it without your help and neither can you do it without our co-operation. We’re all finding this difficult and I know that some of your teachers are finding it more difficult than others.
Of course there are rebels amongst us, those who want our experiment to fail and who want to go back to the old style of open warfare between pupils and teachers. Well, we must make room for them in our community. They must have their voice.
To this end I am setting up a new council where teachers and students can each have their say. Each class must elect two representatives, one boy and one girl, who will serve for one term. Your teachers will also elect two representatives and we will meet each week to discuss anything that any of you wish to raise. You will have no power to make decisions — that’s my job — but I will listen to, and consider, your points of view.’
The Head then turned to the more routine matters of any assembly, important notices, match results and other announcements. Then he conducted the obligatory religious observation. It was his innovation to put this last in his assemblies and it quietened the pupils, focussing their thoughts for a brief moment before they were released into the week’s work.
When the assembly finished a buzz broke out as they left for their first lesson. If nothing else, the new Head was making them think about their school in a different way. The most common discussion was about school uniform. Most of the pupils hated it and thought that it was hideous and old fashioned.
They were still talking about it at lunch break. Groups formed excitedly, trying to work out how they could bring it up at the first council meeting. Daniel ignored them. After all, if he wasn’t wearing school uniform he would be wearing something nearly the same. His father wore a suit and tie to work so why should it be different for him? He made his way to one of the seating areas looking for a place to sit and eat his sandwiches. The seats were full today and the only empty space was by Sophie.
For a moment he wondered if he should walk on and look for somewhere else. He felt shy. Since the conversations with Scimitar, whoever he was, real or imaginary, he had tried to avoid her. What the hell, he thought, Scimitar said he should talk to her and what harm could come to him if he sat there? After all, they were surrounded by the others.
‘Hey,’ he said.
‘Hey yourself,’ she replied.
That’s not exactly the most original way to start a serious conversation, he thought, particularly one that will make us friends for ever.
I wonder what he wants, she thought.
What can I say next? At least she spoke to me and didn’t turn away. Heck, I don’t know how to talk to girls. I can hardly ask her if she wants to kick a football around. I could ask her if she knows anyone called Scimitar — perhaps he’s her uncle.
He looks embarrassed, as if he didn’t mean to talk to me and it just happened. How can I let him know that I like him without it seeming too obvious? If he was a girl I’d have no problem but he’s a boy and I don’t do the boyfriend thing.
If this is meant to be, he decided, then it won’t make any difference what I say, we’ll just get along fine. She probably thinks I’m a geek so I suppose I could say something geeky just to start the ball rolling. He was about to speak when the strangest feeling flowed over him, as if he suddenly knew her well, and he realised that she really liked him. He paused, trying
to understand what was happening to him.
He’s dying of embarrassment, she thought. I’ll have to help him or he’ll shrivel up.
‘Do you want to go to the canteen for a drink?’ she asked.
‘Okay,’ he muttered, relieved that she had taken the initiative, ‘but it’ll probably be full of little kids having lunch.’
‘We could just walk about a bit,’ she suggested. She was beginning to feel strangely at ease with him, as if they were friends.
‘That’d be better.’
They walked round the buildings before going into the canteen near the end of the lunch break and, although they only sat at a table and talked over a drink, by then they had overcome the initial shyness that held them apart.
Later that evening Daniel tried to remember what they’d talked about but beyond the usual inconsequential things, and of course the buzz about school uniform, the only thing that he remembered was that they’d arranged to meet up at the weekend. It was not a very auspicious beginning to a relationship, Daniel thought, but at least it was a definite start. You had to begin somewhere; mighty oaks from little acorns grow, his father was always saying.
Sophie told him that she would be outside the village hall at three o’clock on Saturday afternoon if he wanted to meet her. He said he’d be there, and that was that; the bell went and they were off to their next lesson. Well, there was a bit more; when they’d met in the corridor later that afternoon and she’d smiled at him. Jed noticed.
‘If you play your cards right,’ he said, ‘you could be in with a chance there. Mind you, she’s a bit stuck up. Doesn’t go out with anyone.’
Daniel tried to forget that he was going to meet Sophie at the weekend. Normally it would have been of no consequence; he often arranged to meet Jed like that, but this time it was different. He couldn’t forget that Scimitar had arrived in his life even though he still wasn’t sure what to make of it all.
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