by Tom Mitchell
‘Where’s this hard drive? Why’ve I never seen it? Is it ready? Are you finished?’
‘Upstairs. And pretty much – all the hard work is done finally. It’s taken ages. And I’m super proud of it, actually. I just have a few tweaks to make now. Don’t worry.’
‘Why is all your work on this hard drive anyway? Wouldn’t that be a whole year of effort down the drain if something happened to it?’ said Mum.
‘Because my digital art files are massive, Mum – what I do takes up so much storage. They definitely won’t fit on my ancient laptop. I mean, I did mention this to Dad – it would be great if I could get a new laptop, some cloud storage for back-up …’
‘You’ll be fine,’ said Mum, changing topic as soon as money was introduced into the mix, as she always did. ‘You’re so talented. Everyone says so, don’t they? Don’t you think, Will? Your brother will get a distinction for sure, won’t he? Is that the highest?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He always does.’
‘Say it with meaning,’ said Mum.
Robbie doesn’t draw. It’s CGI. Did I mention that? Initially Dad wasn’t sure about his eldest, best son going off to art school if he wasn’t even studying a proper skill like … woodwork. But Robbie told him that was the point of a foundation year – they teach you all the stuff like that. Dad remained unconvinced until Mum reminded him of CGI in all the movies and video games too.
‘My son, a millionaire!’ said Dad, practically crying with pride.
But, on the sofa, I wasn’t thinking about this. I was thinking about how my phone had now vibrated for a fourth time. It must be an emergency. Someone was desperate to contact me. It might … hold your horses … even be a girl. Liv had smiled at me at the end of history on Wednesday. If you knew Liv, you’d understand the significance of this. She had eyes that made you shiver.
‘Sure, Robbie will get a distinction,’ I said, trying again. ‘And I really need a wee.’
‘Wee!’ said Robbie. ‘What are you? Five?’
‘You’re not going anywhere until you’ve finished your food. A strong bladder is a great thing to have in life. It’s good training to wait. Thank me when you’re forty.’
Then the news started a story about how unseasonably hot it was. Mum was hooked.
This was my opportunity.
One-handed, I slid my phone from my pocket and checked its screen. What did I see?
Four messages from the same number asking whether I’d recently injured myself at work. I felt my soul shrink, years fall away from my life force.
‘Will,’ said Mum.
Hearing my name made me jump, a horror-film jolt, and instead of subtly slipping the phone away, I dropped it. It bounced with a crack against the floorboards.
Like an escaped prisoner with my back flush against the perimeter wall as the searchlight swings past, I gulped.
‘What is that?’ Mum demanded, staring at my phone on the floor.
I made like I hadn’t noticed, like I thought she meant something else. I nodded at the TV.
‘Global warming,’ I said.
‘Hey,’ said Robbie, understanding and backing me up for once, like older brothers are meant to. ‘Can you believe this government?’
‘Your phone, Will. On the floor.’
I peered at it. ‘I don’t even …’ I said, 100 per cent Grade 9 drama. ‘What the …?’
‘It’s meant to be upstairs,’ said Mum.
‘It so is,’ I said. ‘That’s freaky. Maybe I’d forgotten it was in my pocket and it fell out? The burger’s really nice, by the way. I’m so going to finish it.’
Gently Mum placed her dinner plate on the floor. This done, she brought her hands to her face and for a second I thought she might start crying. But when she drew them away, I saw the ice pick instead of tears. This was Dad’s name for the expression she pulled when she was at her angriest. It could shatter ice.
(Also – the mayonnaise had gone.)
‘How long?’ said Mum, face as tight as a barbed-wire fence. ‘How long since I warned you what would happen if you had your phone out when you shouldn’t? Tell me.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Mum,’ said Robbie.
‘How long?’
‘Twenty minutes?’ I offered.
‘Give it,’ she said, holding her hand out. ‘I thought you were better than this.’
My head bowed, my focus on my feet, I did as I was told, retrieving the phone and handing it to Mum. ‘Is the screen okay?’ I asked. ‘It dropped—’
‘Enough,’ said Mum. ‘I hope it’s broken.’ I started to complain but she hadn’t finished. ‘For your sake this rewilding camp better have places. You’re a problem, Will, and we’re going to solve you.’
Mum materialised in my bedroom an hour later, tapping my shoulder.
‘Take your earphones out. What are you even listening to?’
Obviously I wasn’t listening to anything. She had my phone. It’s just … and it sounds weird to admit it … having the earbuds in made me feel less anxious. About life, the universe, and everything.
I was at my desk, completely focused upon an empty page of my history exercise book, willing the homework notes to appear. Because miracles do happen. It’s how people become saints. I didn’t particularly want to become a saint (it sounded like a lot of work), but I didn’t particularly want to do my homework either.
If I’d had my phone, I’d have been listening to A Tribe Called Quest. I was led to believe by Netflix teen dramas that liking bands nobody’s heard of made you cool. But, speaking from experience, that’s wack. Whenever I’ve dared mention Tribe to kids in class or whatever, I’ve been met with the same blank faces that appear when I admit that I’m not massively into football. Maybe I would have been better off getting a piercing?
A Tribe Called Quest are a nineties hip-hop group. I first heard them when Dad played their LPs (big black discs that could take someone’s head off if you threw them like massive ninja stars) on his record player. Their MC is Q-Tip. (Nicknamed The Abstract, he is noted for his innovative jazz-influenced style of hip-hop production and his philosophical, esoteric and introspective lyrical themes[1] – Wikipedia).
Don’t get me wrong, Dad’s too old to be genuinely cool, but he does listen to Tribe. He was even planning to take me on a trip to New York in the summer – just us – where I’d get to see an actual Q-Tip concert, so … he could be a lot worse. Like Nathan’s dad, who’s so into medieval re-enactments that he dresses up as an axeman every other Sunday. Still, Dad is mostly just one of those people who thinks vinyl is better-sounding than streaming because the records snap, crackle and pop. Try to figure that one out.
And he’d always quote John Peel: ‘Somebody was trying to tell me that CDs are better than vinyl because they don’t have any surface noise. I said, “Listen, mate, life has surface noise.”’
(Don’t worry, I didn’t know who John Peel was either.)
Anyway, in my bedroom, Mum had an announcement to make.
‘The camp does have places,’ she said. My heart was sinking so far it was practically in Australia by the time she added, ‘It’s for the best, Will.’
(Whenever people say ‘it’s for the best’, you can guarantee that you’re in the worst situation.)
The Lonesome Pine Rewild Your Child four-night camp helped eleven- to sixteen-year-olds with tech addiction, and had a very flash website. Too flash, you might say. Mum showed it to me on her iPad, no trace of irony.
Its centrepiece was a video from the American camp leader, Lieutenant Marvin Faulkner. Wearing a strange uniform that was halfway between Scout leader and desert soldier, he stood in front of a shed and spoke about the dangers of screens. He was a middle-aged man and looked how you’d imagine an ex-soldier who ran anti-tech camps for kids to look. He had a strangely pink face.
‘Look at him, Mum. Are you really going to place your youngest child in his care?’
But nothing I could say would change
her mind. It was like she thought I was ill and needed treatment. Like for real. She acted as if I had a broken leg but was begging not to go to hospital. Within minutes it was all booked; I was going to spend Monday night to Friday lunchtime of May half-term learning how to cope without technology. And to say I was unhappy would be an understatement.
The camp was fairly close, set in the pine forest that loomed over the side of town like a huge Pac-Man ready to devour us dots. The forest was the sort of place parents suggested going for a walk. Mum, Dad, Robbie and I used to go there for picnics and that sometimes, when we were younger, but I couldn’t recall the last time I’d been. Google Maps (on Mum’s iPad) showed a big dollop of green split by a blue thread – the river. I hoped there were no water activities at the camp, swimming or anything like that. Like my phone, I can literally think of nothing worse than getting wet. Apart from jogging.
‘Will I be allowed to listen to music?’ I asked, trembling already at the inevitable answer. ‘What about my mental well-being, Mum?’
‘No technology. That’s the point. And it’ll do your mental well-being good to take a break from all that noise. Don’t think I don’t know about the language in those songs.’
I put my dead earbuds back in, defeated. She left. I wondered whether Q-Tip had ever been sent to camp by his mother.
Either way, it didn’t matter. Because it was happening. I was being exiled to Camp Boring.
Robbie picked me up in Mum’s car after my hour-long after-school detention the next day. As you might imagine, I was keen to get out of there ASAP and recover some of my already ruined weekend. But, before I could even make my way to the passenger door, the head teacher, Mr Rodgers, actually waved Robbie out of the driver’s seat. I had to loiter, wishing I could melt into the tarmac. Floating above the school buildings was a single grey cloud.
‘How’s it going, Robbie?’ asked Mr Rodgers, shaking my brother’s hand vigorously, smiling wildly. ‘It’s so great to see you.’
Robbie explained that he was finishing off his foundation course, how all he had left to do was hand in his major project next week. ‘It’s been so much work, but I’m hoping it will pay off and land me a distinction.’
‘Well, all I can say is good luck and make sure you don’t miss that deadline!’ Mr Rodgers turned to me. ‘A very impressive young man, your brother,’ he said. ‘One of our best students in recent years. And not only that but thoroughly pleasant too. You could learn a lot from him … young man.’
That pause, before he said ‘young man’? Yep. Mr Rodgers didn’t know my name. I gritted my teeth, forced a smile and nodded.
On the journey home Robbie had the radio playing the news. There were riots in Brazil, floods in Japan. After five minutes or so of listening to it, he spoke.
‘Ignore what Rodgers said. We’re all different.’
I didn’t immediately reply. I didn’t even know where to begin. My cheeks were still burning, partly from the heat and the car’s ineffective air-con and partly from the humiliation. It was all well and good for Robbie to say that, driving about, sailing through college, off to uni, apple of Mum’s eye. Not everyone can be Robbie. Not everyone can glide through life, propelled by good looks and better grades. Not everyone gets their hand shaken by head teachers, achievements fawned over at every opportunity by mothers.
‘Can we put some music on?’ I asked eventually. ‘The news is depressing.’
Monday, like always, came too soon. It didn’t even matter that it was half-term, which was as tragic a thought as any. I’d been allowed my phone over the weekend, which was less tragic. And because it would soon be taken from me, its screen hadn’t cracked after Thursday’s fall. That’s how my luck turns: if it had been a normal half-term holiday, the phone would have been broken forever, I swear.
I’d spent most of Saturday messaging Dev, Nathan and Hudson about how unfair it was that I was not only having my phone taken away but was also being sent off to the most boring camp that has ever existed in the history of camps. They’d mostly sent mocking memes. But I think they felt sorry for me because they hadn’t bragged about spending half-term on their Xboxes. Sunday morning, I’d made the mistake of checking social media and noticing that nobody else from school was preparing to go to a rewilding camp, not even Joanna Swanley who, word had it, lived in a yurt, which is a kind of posh tent.
Mum definitely felt sorry for me. I’d overheard her tell Robbie. She was talking to him like he was an adult, which, if she’d ever seen the apps on his phone, she’d understand he’s not. Anyway, Robbie had said she should give me a break. Her reply was that she’d give me a break when my grades improved.
It was around half five and I stood in my bedroom with a heavy holdall at my feet, waiting for Mum to say she’d been pranking me all along and this was actually my last chance.
Instead she rushed in and asked, ‘Have you heard from your nightmare of a father? He was meant to be here ten minutes ago. You’re going to be late.’
And then she paused. If she wasn’t going to reveal that all this was a prank, maybe we’d have a proper chat, a declaration of love, her telling me, rather than Robbie, how she felt.
‘Have you had a wee?’ she asked, eyebrows sinking. ‘You’d better have a wee. It takes longer than you’d think to get to the camp. The road loops around.’
None of this seemed real. I mean, the way things were going, it looked like I really was being sent off to an anti-tech camp. Four nights and three and a half days without music. How did I feel? I felt how soldiers must feel before being posted overseas. The only thing that stopped me from total despair was the plan. The plan I hadn’t even told my friends about. The foolproof, devious plan.
At least, that’s what I thought at the time.
The doorbell sounded. Mum sighed and rubbed at her hair manically as she went to answer it. Had Dad lost his key? Or had she taken it from him?
I went to the bathroom and did what needed to be done. Outside Robbie’s room, I hesitated. Decision made, I nudged open his door with my fingertips. He wasn’t there. He was probably out for a jog. He takes his body very seriously.
There were inspirational quotations pinned to the wall, alongside all kinds of amazing certificates. On his desk (neat – what teenager actually tidies their room?), next to about a hundred trophies, was … his portable charger. This was key to my plan. I’d get caught charging my phone in any old socket, so I needed alternative energy. Robbie’s portable charger was ultra neat – about the size of a pack of cards. It held enough juice to replenish your phone ten times over. That’s what he was like: always prepared.
Rushing back to my bedroom, I heard the downstairs hum of Dad’s apologies.
‘Work was a nightmare, I’m sorry. And I know you don’t want to hear this but the car’s making a funny noise.’ Mum said that he was right; she didn’t want to hear this. ‘Maybe if I lived with you, I wouldn’t be late for family things?’
‘The last ten years give the lie to that, Greg. Should I just drive him myself?’
Dad wasn’t having it.
‘It’s important I take Will. We need a father–son conversation. I’ll set him right, don’t you worry. I need to talk to him about his sugar intake, for one thing.’
‘Sugar’s not the problem, Greg.’
‘Most problems begin with sugar,’ said Dad. ‘I read about it on the internet.’
With Robbie’s portable charger buried in the bottom of my bag, this problem kid (me) slumped his way downstairs.
Dad came in for a hug. ‘Oh, Will,’ he said with a sigh and started one of his monologues. ‘When I was your age, there wasn’t such a thing as social media, and I can tell you something for free – I’m pleased that was the case. In actual fact—’
Mum interrupted. ‘I almost forgot,’ she said, addressing me. ‘Have you got your phone? You need it for the induction.’
The website had made a big show of Lieutenant Faulkner seizing everyone’s tech at the start of
the week and placing it all in a huge bank-robbery safe in something like a church ceremony. (Ceremonies have always made me feel uncomfortable. Name a ceremony and I’ll break out in a cold sweat. Honestly.) Yes, I had the phone. But I also had my plan, meaning that, if it all worked out, handing over my tech might not be as big a problem as you’d expect.
‘Induction?’ said Dad. ‘That sounds scary. Potentially painful.’ Mum kicked him in the shin. ‘And productive and educative.’
Lonesome Pine Rewild Your Child camp car park. Or, at least, a forest clearing. Ours may have been the only car but there was a wooden sign that said PARKING.
Turning off the engine, Dad spoke heavy words.
‘We’ve been talking, your mother and me, and –’ he took a dramatic sigh to show me that what he was going to say was important – ‘we’ve decided that if you get into any more trouble, we’ll have to cancel the trip to New York.’
‘What?’ I said.
And it was pretty much all I could say. It hadn’t occurred to me that having to attend some idiot rewilding camp because I’d been caught, like, once (maybe twice) listening to music at school, would ever affect the New York City trip of a lifetime. Me and Dad. No Robbie. No Mum. Empire State Building, Times Square, Statue of Liberty, American breakfasts (according to Dad) and, all that aside, Q-Tip was appearing at this outdoor concert in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, exactly when we were planning to be there.
Dad smiled. But it was a sad smile, almost like he was the one being sent to camp.
‘Because we love you. Naturally. But … it’s a lot of money, Will. We need to be able to trust you.’
‘But,’ I said, staring out of the passenger window at the trees, the endless, useless trees. And all I could think to say was: ‘I thought you’d bought the plane tickets.’
Dad sighed. ‘We could pay to change the names on the flights. Robbie could take his girlfriend, maybe.’
I snapped round to meet his eye. He couldn’t be serious. Could he?
‘We haven’t spoken to him about this,’ he said quickly. ‘We don’t want that to happen. I’ve been looking forward to it.’