NO ORDINARY ROOM

by Bill Williams

  ‘I’ll try and explain Jamie, but you must be prepared for a shock.’

  ‘You mean another one. After what’s happened, especially being chased by sharks I think I can handle it.’

  ‘What you and your family saw were just images of sharks. They were not physically present in the water like you believed. That is why I said that you were not in danger from the sharks, or when you were inside the ‘door’ and you thought it was descending.’

  ‘What you mean the sharks were an illusion. Even if was true how would you know that was the case and why would we all have seen the same thing at the same time?’

  ‘Your image processing was altered and that was why you and your family had those odd experiences.’

  ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ Jamie asked.

  ‘I am, but I’ve probably told you too much already. If you log back on tomorrow I might be able to explain. I need to speak to my granddad before I can reveal more details, but be warned that if I’m allowed to explain what really happened and how it was done you will find it hard to believe and I will not be joking.’

  * * *

  Jamie hadn’t been able to concentrate when he attended school the day after Daniel had suggested the sharks had just been images and matters hadn’t been helped when one of subjects in his general interest lesson had been about sharks. The teacher who had taken the subject was able to relay some personal experience because he had lost a close friend during a shark attack while they were sail boarding in Western Australia. According to the teacher there had been a shark warning by the coastguards earlier in the day and they had gone out shortly after the all clear.

  * * *

  Jamie was still thinking of the picture that he seen of the killer sharks at school earlier that day when he logged on and made contact with Daniel, wondering what Daniel was going to say.

  His friend from Scarborough was in a subdued mood again when he told Jamie that he now had permission to explain something very important and warned him once again that this wasn’t a joke.

  Daniel told Jamie that the human brain was not physically located in the head as people believed, but was on a computer on a distant planet. He explained that the human brain was merely a modem that allowed the remote brain to be accessed, but it did have some additional functionality, including a limited amount of memory.

  Jamie laughed and interrupted, ‘I suppose you’re going to tell me that my brain is in a yucca plant and my sister’s is in a cabbage.’

  ‘No, organic matter is not used for brain functions. I don’t expect you to believe what I have told you, Jamie, but I will prove to you that our brains are located in outer space.’

  A sceptical Jamie challenged, ‘Go on then.’

  ‘Try and keep an open mind, Jamie and remember your knowledge of computers. For that is what our brains are, just computers, although probably not like we imagine a computer to be. I know its mind boggling, but it’s true.’

  ‘Come off it. Remember this is me you’re talking to, street wise Jamie. You want me to believe that instead of a brain we have a glorified modem in our bonces and our actual brains are located on some distant planet.’

  ‘Jamie, I know it’s hard to believe and our physical brains inside our head do have some processing capability and limited memory, but it is essentially a modem and I have told you that I can prove it to you.’

  Jamie let his imagination go into freefall as he considered the idea that the human brain located in the head isn’t really a brain as such, but just a glorified modem that communicates with a computer on a distant planet that contains the actual brain. Why not! It would mean that people like Jason Patmore weren’t really mudders with small brains; they just had a slower connection. Jamie was still sceptical about the brain and modem claims, but he wasn’t about to dismiss a claim made by someone who had turned a yucca plant into a high speed storage device with more capacity than anyone could ever imagine.

  Jamie mused some more. If Daniel was right, then perhaps females had slower modems than males. Now that was feasible or at least it would be to his dad. ‘No, this is stupid,’ cried out Jamie, forgetting that the microphone was alive.

  ‘We just need to conduct a simple experiment, Jamie and perhaps it will stop ‘doing your head in.’

  ‘I’m having trouble taking all this in. If it is true, then how did your granddad find out?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that, Jamie, except to say that it’s linked to what I’ve told you about the computers advances my grandfather and your uncle knew about. There are so many things that I would like to tell you, but I am not allowed to. Surely, when I helped you create the extra computer memory with the Yucca plant you must have realised there are matters that cannot be understood with our limited knowledge of certain things.’

  Jamie expelled air as he gave a heavy sigh. ‘You really are asking me to believe all that stuff about modems in the head and brains in outer space?’

  ‘Yes, I am. Just do the experiment and it will help you understand what I have told is for real.’

  ‘All right then. In for a penny in for a pound as my old dad would say.’

  Jamie gave another heavy sigh and asked Daniel what was involved with the experiment, expecting Daniel to start laughing, but he didn’t.

  When Daniel explained what he would need Jamie figured that he didn’t have much to lose except perhaps some of his pocket money. He had come close to telling Daniel to pull the other one and to get lost, but he would go along with it for now.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Jamie had once again found it difficult to concentrate during his lessons because his thoughts had been on last night’s discussion about the experiment and so he was glad when he was able to head into town after school to buy the components to carry it out. The items would be best described as ingredients rather than components which is why his destination was, Jones the greengrocers, rather than somewhere like Bob’s Electronics in Denby.

  Mr Jones was sorting some apples when Jamie entered the shop. Jamie’s Grandma Dawn would have described Mr Jones’s as having a kind, honest, open face.

  ‘How’s that yucca plant doing, young feller?’

  ‘It’s fine. I’ve been watering it just like you said,’ Jamie replied.

  ‘Good, it will last a long time if it’s looked after properly. Old Mrs Tomkins had one for donkey’s years. She used to talk to it and reckoned that it could sense when she was feeling a bit down and used to raise its leaves as though to lift her spirits.’

  Mr Jones kept a straight face when he asked Jamie if he talked to his plant.

  ‘Well I don’t actually talk to it, although I do communicate with it, but I’m sworn to secrecy about the sign language that I use.’ Jamie joked.

  Mr Jones got the message that the youngster was too smart to be teased and asked him what he wanted.

  ‘Three large coconuts please and before you ask me, Mr Jones; I haven’t got a pet monkey.’

  Mr Jones decided against quizzing Jamie about why he needed three coconuts and smiled as the young feller hurried from his shop.

  * * *

  Jamie had managed to squeeze the coconuts into his bag which he smuggled upstairs along with the other item he’d taken from under the stairs as soon as he got home.

  After his dinner and while he was doing his nightly chore of feeding the fish he collected some cabbage leaves from the vegetable patch. Jamie was unaware that he had been seen by Rufus who was more than a little puzzled why Jamie had stuffed cabbage leaves up his jumper. Rufus knew that the youngsters of today got up to all kinds of odd things, but he couldn’t imagine what the boy intended to do with the leaves. Jamie hurried back into the house while Rufus was left bemused by what he’d seen.

  ‘You might hear me banging about a bit upstairs while I’m cleaning the computer room,’ Jamie told his parents, preparing his excuse for the noise that he would soon be making. It would have been better to have done the task that Daniel had set him in the
shed, but he didn’t want to risk being caught. There was no way that he could have made an excuse for what he planned to do with the coconuts and cabbage leaves.

  Jamie split the first coconut without any problem, but hadn’t expected to get a squirt of milk in the eye. The second one wasn’t so easy and the third clout with the hammer caused it to shatter and Jamie groaned at the waste of his pocket money. Daniel had said that he needed four halves of the shell for the demonstration to work and prove his claim.

  Jamie smiled with relief and a sense of achievement when the hammer blow spilt the third coconut into two clean pieces.

  ‘I still don’t believe I’m doing this,’ he muttered to himself, not for the first time in recent weeks, as he set about the task of tying two pieces of shell to the top of the cycle helmet and one either side of it.

  ‘That’s the tricky bit done and now for the cabbage leaves.’

  Jamie stuffed the cabbage leaves inside the helmet and spread them out so that when he put the helmet on the leaves would form a sandwich between his head and the inside of the helmet. It needed a few attempts before he was confident that the leaves were correctly positioned.

  ‘I’ll never call anyone a mudder ever again,’ Jamie promised as he sat in front of the computer screen with the modified helmet on his head and feeling like a King Wally.

  ‘Right, let’s get this over with.’

  Jamie opened the email containing the list of questions that Daniel had sent him and Jamie had kept his promise not to read them until now. Daniel had explained that his head did have some local memory and a small processor that enabled him to perform basic functions like reading, writing and communication; otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to do anything while he had the helmet on his head.

  ‘Here goes. Question one. Who is the Queen of England?’ Jamie asked himself.

  Jamie didn’t even know what the question meant, so he put a big cross on the answer sheet that he’d printed off earlier.

  Question 2 invited him to name the Liverpool football club manager, but when he tried to write the answer he didn’t have a clue. He had a similar experience with the remaining three questions and he was soon looking at the five crosses he’d entered on the sheet.

  Jamie removed the helmet and then read the five questions, all of which he answered easily.

  ‘Wow, Daniel was right. The coconut and cabbage leaves blocked out the transmission to and from my brain and so I couldn’t answer those simple questions.’

  Jamie reminded himself that he must stop talking to himself, something which he had been doing a lot lately. He intended to ask Daniel whether people in some countries where they grew coconuts had any problems. Surely if they were sheltering from the sun under a coconut tree then it would have some effect on their memory. The results had given a whole new meaning to the term ‘coconut head’ and it might also explain why monkeys were not as intelligent as humans.

  * * *

  It was a few days after the experiment with the coconuts when the enormity of it sunk in and Jamie began to wonder if he could keep the secret to himself. The problem was that he couldn’t confide in anyone without them thinking that he had ‘flipped’ and it would mean breaking his promise not to tell anyone. He could just imagine what his dad would say if he started talking about coconut shells and cabbage leaves and explain that his brain was just a modem, like that little box that usually sat on the desk near the computer.

  Jamie had just been flopping around the house as he often did on a Saturday morning and his dad could sense that he was fed up.

  ‘Are you sure that you won’t come with us Jamie. I thought you liked looking around the market?’

  ‘I’ve got a really big project to do by Monday, Dad, and I need to make a start on it’

  ‘We’ll bring you an ice-cream cornet back.’

  ‘Very funny, sis,’ Jamie replied.

  ‘There’s some cheese in the fridge and I’ve put some fresh bread out,’ his mum said and gave him one of those unwelcome hugs. What was it with mum’s who always acted as though you had either just got back from a war or were about to go and join in one. His dad was predictable when he warned him not to sneak in his girlfriend while they were out.

  The family had just driven off when Jamie raided the biscuit tin and grabbed himself a fizzy drink and then headed upstairs. As he waited for the PC to come to life he was thinking of the dramatic experiment the last time that they’d communicated, but his thoughts were interrupted when Daniel’s greeting came out of the twin speakers on the desk and then he told Jamie to standby while he sent a photograph of himself. They had been in voice communication for quite some time, but Jamie was curious to put a face to the voice. Daniel had an accent which was a bit like a kid’s that they’d met on holiday once. He’d come from Barnsley and been a bit of a mudder, but funny with it.

  When the photo of a smiling, faired boy, appeared on the screen it matched Jamie’s idea of a typical public schoolboy, but he still rated Daniel as A OK. Jamie didn’t actually know any public schoolboys, but Daniel looked familiar.

  ‘I thought you might like a look at our modest family home as well.’

  The photo of the boy disappeared and was replaced by one of a building.

  Jamie gave his familiar cry of, ‘Wow,’ but quickly followed it with. ‘You’re having me on, Daniel. That’s Buckingham Palace and the other photo was of a young Prince William and your accent was different.’

  ‘Sorry about that, Jamie, but I’ve been waiting to play that little joke for ages. Anyway, here’s my photo coming up.’

  The screen flickered and then the face of a smiling boy appeared. ‘Hello, dummer. You really fell for all that Planet Titantula and Soppypotty rubbish. Wait till you get to school and they all start chanting ‘Titantula, Titantula. Jamie is a thicko.’

  Jamie had no trouble remembering the face or the familiar voice of Jason Patmore, alias Porky and Blobby. How could he have fallen for it all? So much for street wise Jamie, but he was relieved that he didn’t have to live with the secret anymore because it really was all make believe. Perhaps Isobel would leave him alone when she found out that he was a king sized mudder, but she would probably feel sorry for him and that would make things worse.

  ‘Sorry, Jamie, for playing that real gotcha.’ It was the familiar voice of Daniel.

  Jamie was totally confused now, uncertain about what to believe, but he scolded himself for thinking that Jason could have pulled off such an elaborate hoax.

  ‘To be honest, Daniel that experiment we did with the coconuts knocked me for six and it really is doing my head in and now this latest stuff.’

  ‘It’s a lot to take in, Jamie?’

  ‘You can say that again. It seems so farfetched that at times I think I must be imagining it all. Perhaps if we can meet up during the school holidays and go through some of these things then I can accept them. At least you have your granddad to share things with. If only Uncle Stanley was still around it would be different.’

  ‘I know how difficult it is for you to accept what I have told you because I had the same trouble when my Granddad first explained it to me.’

  ‘How could you create that image of Porky and impersonate his voice like that when you don’t even know him?’

  ‘That’s easy, but I don’t think you are ready for that just yet. Anyway, here’s boring Daniel from Scarborough,’

  Jamie closed his eyes just after the screen went blank, waited a few seconds before taking a peep at the screen which now displayed a photo of a boy about Jamie’s age, dressed in Leeds Unites top and he had, dark, curly hair.

  ‘And that’s really you?’ Jamie asked.

  ‘That’s me,’ Daniel replied. ‘I enlisted the help of my Granddad with obtaining Jason’s voice, but I’m not allowed to tell you how. Unless I forget, my Granddad wanted to know if you’ve had any other unusual experiences like those that got you into trouble at school?’

  ‘No I haven’t, but I was going
to talk to you about those things. You told me that your granddad believed that the incidents I had at school had been caused by cosmic interference or something like that, but it doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well the experiment we did with the coconuts proved that my information store was affected and that would have accounted for my poor showing during the first exams, but when I said those things to the headmaster it because of some change in my character and behaviour. Now that’s different.’

  Daniel reminded Jamie that what makes a person in terms of their intelligence, personality, character and everything else is determined by their memory, experience and other items that were all part of the brain. Jamie said he couldn’t argue with that, but it didn’t really help him take it all in.

  ‘But now you know that your brain is located somewhere else and everything you do and the way you react is because the bits that you need are downloaded you must see that if the download is interrupted or worse still, corrupted, then it can have dramatic effects like it did in your case.’

  Jamie was beginning to see the logic, but there was still one thing that bugged him and he raised the question. ‘If my problems happened because of atmospheric disturbance, then why did it only affect me and not my classmates as well?’

  Daniel replied that it might have affected others in different and more subtle ways. It was best to think of it in terms of a glitch that happened very rarely.

  ‘Does that mean that people, who are being treated for medical conditions, like I was, actually have nothing wrong with them?’

  ‘There’s bound to be some cases like yours, but most will probably be due to what you would call a faulty modem in their bonce. Remember the ‘modem’ in your head is a vital part of the transference process and it’s vulnerable just like any other part of our bodies. Anyway, I think we’d better leave this for now Jamie and hope you can come to terms with what you now know.’

  ‘I’m not sure I ever will, but I do have another question. Is the interference thing that happened to me like lightning? Does it mean that I will never ever be affected again because it doesn’t strike in the same place twice?’