As side A of Sade’s Diamond Life ended, I was still trapped in the Elvenking’s wine cellar, inside an empty barrel, hiding from the pale bulbous eyes that were after me. Just as I was about to move, a vicious warg hit a well-placed blow and cleaved my skull in two. Progress: 12.5%.
The house was eerily quiet. I could hear the ticking of the kitchen clock all the way from my room.
When I got downstairs, Dad was asleep in his chair, the remote in his hand. An enthusiastic salesman was pitching car wax on the shopping channel, but the TV was on mute. I took the remote and switched off the television.
That woke him up.
“Oh, hi, you’re home. How’s the foot?” he said, too cheerily.
“It’ll be fine. What have you been up to?”
“Nothing much, nothing much.”
“Have you just been sitting here the whole day?”
“I got the mail.”
“From the doormat? It’s a beautiful day! Maybe you should get outside a little?”
“I will, when I go pick up Mom.”
“By the way, here are the car keys,” I said. As I pulled them out of my pocket, a piece of paper flew out and landed on the floor. It was my to-do list.
I picked it up quickly so that Dad wouldn’t see it. He saw the note fall but didn’t seem overly interested.
“Keep the keys. Maybe you’ll need the car later today or tomorrow. I have the Volvo,” he said.
“Okay. When are you going to pick up Mom?”
“She’ll be late today.”
“Maybe we can surprise her and make dinner? Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“Hmm. I don’t think she’d like that. Sit down, the news will be on in ten minutes.”
So I sat down. I told Dad about bumping into Sara, and, being very brave and grown up, I told him there was a little dent in the chrome of the Beetle’s bumper. I apologized. He waved it away, said he knew someone who could take a look. Then I told him about the doctor, but as soon as I began he unmuted the TV at the start of the news jingle, so I got up and said I had things to do in my room.
I did have things to do. And so far I had done none of them.
1. Get Atlas.
2. Fix Atlas.
3. Open with a sneak preview of Back to the Future.
4. Invite Jennifer.
Kim Wilde was singing in the background, but I couldn’t focus on music.
All I could think was “Get Atlas! Get Atlas! Get Atlas!” It was going around and around my head like an enthusiastic crowd chanting at a hockey game.
“Hey, Dad! Daa-aad!”
No reply.
My ankle was hurting again, and I wanted to avoid walking as much as possible, but when Dad didn’t answer my fourth shout, I had no choice but to grit my teeth and get downstairs. I had a genius idea: I held on to the handrails on both sides and slid down. This worked brilliantly—and looked great—but halfway down I realized my mistake as my hands began to get friction burns, and then—even worse—the impact of landing in the hallway at speed hurt my ankle far more than fifteen smaller bumps would have done. Sometimes I worry about myself.
“Hey, Dad,” I said. Not only was I limping, I was also waving my hands to cool them off.
“Hey, Peter,” said a voice from the kitchen.
Dad was sitting at the kitchen table in the gloomy darkness.
I turned the lights on.
“Didn’t you hear me yell?”
“Oh, sorry. I was just deep in thought, I suppose. What was it?”
“Are you okay? Has something happened?”
“No, no, just waiting for your mother to call. What did you want?”
“Just checking if you know who the developer is, the one that bought the movie theatre?”
“Oh. I think it was the friend of the brother of a girl who went to university with me. That was before your mother’s time, of course. She was pretty. I don’t think your mother liked her, though.”
“But I thought you said her brother had sold the movie theatre. I want to know who owns it now.”
“As I said, the friend of the brother of the girl. Yes. BBB.”
“What?”
“That’s the name of the company—BBB. That’s what it says on the sign on the roof, I think. You’d have to check. I’m sure it’ll be on the internet somewhere.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling like I knew less than I had two minutes before. “Would you like me to pick up Mom? Maybe you’re tired.”
“No, no, I always pick her up.”
I found the phone book in its usual place in a cupboard under the downstairs phone. I carefully turned the pages so I wouldn’t tear the very thin paper, and when I got to B, I ran my finger down the column as quickly as possible to find the correct number. I dialled it right away, hoping there would still be someone there.
After four rings, a cheerful voice answered.
“Hello, BBB?”
“Hello, BBB. I’m interested in the movie theatre.”
“Um. How can I direct your call?”
“I’m interested in the movie theatre. In Kumpunotko.”
“Ah. Okay. Hold a moment, please.”
After a few minutes of listening to a looped instrumental version of Limahl’s “Neverending Story,” the music stopped and a man spoke.
“Hello, this is Tomi Taimi. I understand you’re asking about the movie theatre. Would you like to buy an apartment?”
“No, sir. I’d be interested in running a movie theatre in it.”
“Hmm. There must be some misunderstanding. We’re about to demolish the building.”
“Yes, I heard that. But you can’t. How would I show movies there if you’d bulldozed it?”
“Excuse me?”
I realized that—as seemed to be happening quite a lot lately—I was failing to make myself clear. I took a breath and recalibrated.
“Okay, listen. The movie theatre is very important to me, and I’d like to have the chance to save it from demolition.”
“But we’ve been given permission to acquire the land, so we’ve acquired it.”
“Perhaps I could acquire it from you?”
“Perhaps. Do you have six hundred thousand euros? That’s what we paid.”
I suddenly felt very small, and very helpless, and very silly.
“Listen, the building currently stands on land that belongs to BBB,” Taimi continued. “All we need is final planning consent. I think there’s an objection of some sort, but that’s with the lawyers at the moment. I don’t imagine it will be too long before we’ve overcome that . . . hurdle. And anyway, Kumpunotko has another movie theatre. Why don’t you use that one?”
“It has to be the Atlas. I have a plan!”
“What kind of plan?” asked the man, the patience in his voice dwindling. “A business plan?”
“Exactly!” I semi-lied. “A business plan. I’ve come up with a great business plan. It’s a win-win situation. You win, I win, the town wins.”
The line was silent. I heard Tomi Taimi cough.
“Listen, at the moment, while things are up in the air, we are still technically open to suggestions. We have plans for apartments, but nothing’s set in stone just yet. If you have a better suggestion, we would be willing to listen. Would you like to come down and present a feasible plan to me in person?”
“Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Ten?”
“Ten.”
“Great. See you then.”
I wiped the sweat off the receiver before I put it back in the cradle. I jumped for joy, and kicked my leg up like David Lee Roth would have done on stage at the start of “Jump.” Well, in my head it was a DLR-worthy kick. In reality, I barely got my foot above my waist, and I landed on the sprained ankle, like Daniel LaRusso when he tries the crane kick in The Karate Kid. I howled with pain and hobbled upstairs to try to think up a business plan.
Chapter 20
(Just Like) Starting Over
&nbs
p; EVERY PROJECT STARTS with a blank piece of paper, so I got one of those from my desk, along with a pen. In large letters, I wrote:
The Altas Movie House: Regeneration Project
Underneath that I wrote my name: Peter Eksell, CEO, Webscoe.
I drew a square on the page, and then added some circles of different sizes here and there. I coloured some of them black; others got horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines.
Mike + the Mechanics’ “All I Need Is a Miracle” was quietly playing in my ears, my walkman once again being in complete sync with the universe.
The sun had faded and the sky was fully dark, so I drew my curtains. I looked at my alarm clock. It was 10 p.m. I’d been working on my business plan for three hours and all I had was a bit of nicely shaded geometry. I’d also managed to spell Atlas wrong.
I rummaged in my desk drawer for a fresh sheet of paper, and in doing so found my old modem under a pile of ancient cords, hairbrushes, toy cars, and sweatbands.
“Hello, old friend!”
I blew the dust off it. This little box of delights—barely bigger than a standard VHS player—had been my first passport to digital connectivity. All you had to do was wait until your big sister was off the phone and then plug it in, dial up, and join the Micronet, where thousands of other young gaming enthusiasts would post messages and share jokes and cheats for games. Many of my friends from school had computers too—and we all knew who had what; I was in the Spectrum camp, Mikke with Commodore—and we would often meet up and chat on BBS forums about computer games, films, music, and, well, computer games.
I plugged the modem into the phone extension, and then into the Spectrum. I made a wish.
At first, nothing happened. Then there was a beep. A scratchy warble. And then, as if it had been there just yesterday, the BBS welcome screen began to load up on my TV. It was like in Star Wars when, despite being unused for decades, Luke’s lightsaber immediately spits out a perfect line of blue light.
Crackling with glee, my fingers began to run over the keyboard.
First stop, as always, “Dragon’s Lair.”
While the modem beeped away, doing its elaborate digital handshake with the host, I picked up a baseball hat from the drawer, flipped it on backwards, and did a little chair dance. I loved the nighttime, when everybody else was asleep. Everything moved slower, everything was calm, and as long as I stayed in my own world—hopefully in “Dragon’s Lair”—everything was all right.
But “Dragon’s Lair” was closed. I tried “Shack Attack”—out of business. “MAD World”—gone.
After ten handshakes and ten digital “too slows,” I was ready to give up, but then one more BBS caught my eye: “I Wanna Rock!”
While the computer did its thing, I rummaged through my box of cassettes and found the perfect one, covered with devil horns and anarchy symbols. I slotted it into my walkman and pressed Play. Big mistake. I’d forgotten to turn the volume down, and almost blasted myself across the room, clutching at my ears like George McFly when Marty dresses up as a spaceman and blasts him with mean Van Halen guitar licks.
My ears ringing, I turned it down a little, then snarled my teeth and banged my head along to Mötley Crüe’s “Shout at the Devil.”
Several lines of text appeared on the main page, and I saw the system operator’s message, dated just six weeks prior. The sysop was called Twisted Sister. Obviously. In her message, Twisted Sister said she’d been hosting the BBS for ages, but there was no traffic anymore. She said she’d pull the plug on the board by the end of September if there wasn’t any pick-up.
There were only four items on the menu: (1) private chat, (2) file download, (3) a public board, and (4) jokes.
Calling myself Pinhead, after Marty McFly’s high-school band, I chose the public board and typed my reply, in English, just like the original messages: Hi, Twisted Sister. I Wanna Rock too! Please keep this humming.
There weren’t any interesting messages on the public board, so I read a couple of the jokes, but was interrupted by sounds from the hallway. Dad was heading to bed. Quite late. Must have fallen asleep in front of the TV. Even with my headphones on, I could hear him cough and sigh and then slowly click the bedroom door closed.
I was exhausted, and I still didn’t have a business plan. I trusted myself to think it over as I dozed in bed, and then wake up early and write it all down ahead of my meeting with BBB.
I WAS WALKING toward the market square, feeling very pleased with myself. I hadn’t expected the meeting with BBB to go quite so well, but there I was, holding the deed to the Atlas in one hand, the keys in the other. I had on my high-cut Guess blue jeans, a lavender T-shirt with a white-checkered short-sleeve shirt over the top, and my hair (getting slightly long at the back now) was combed back in a smart wave.
As I rounded the corner onto the market square I must have been daydreaming, because I walked straight into a woman heading the other way. I knocked her purse out of her hand, spilling its contents all over the sidewalk.
“Oh God, I’m so sorry, I’m such a klutz,” she said as we both bent down to retrieve her stuff. And as we did so, of course our heads banged together.
“Oh God, I’m so sorry!” I offered. We both laughed and clutched our foreheads. Only when she gingerly took her hands away from her face did I realize who it was.
“Peter?”
“Jennifer?”
My heart started thumping.
She had barely changed at all. Same simple smile, blonde hair, button nose. If anything, age had been generous, and she was even more beautiful now.
“Peter,” she gasped excitedly. “Is it really you? What are you doing in Kumpunotko? I thought you were off in the big city, running some kind of web company?”
“Ah, well. I was missing home, so I came back.”
“Wow! It’s so great to see you. You haven’t changed at all.”
“That’s what I was just thinking about you. If anything, you’re even more beautiful.”
She looked bashful. “Me? You’re just saying that.”
“No, really. Listen—there’s something I have to tell you. About when we were kids.” Her head tipped slightly, a keen, inquisitive look on her face. “You see, I didn’t have the guts to admit it back then, but—”
“Peter.”
“Yes?”
“Peter!” Her voice had changed, dipping down a little. “Peter, wake up,” said Dad. “Your alarm’s been going off for an hour.”
Cursing my cruel imagination, I bounced out of bed—howling in pain at my sore ankle—and saw that I had barely half an hour to get up, get dressed, and get to the BBB office to present my plan. I hit Play on the stereo, but “I Just Called to Say I Love You” wasn’t quite right. I flicked through my tapes, found the right one, put it in, pressed Play, rewound it a bit, pressed Play again. I let the Pointer Sisters’ “Neutron Dance” blare as I scrambled to get myself ready.
I pulled on a Hawaiian shirt and climbed into my white linen suit, rolling up the sleeves. I checked myself in the mirror—I definitely needed a haircut, but I didn’t have time for that. I grabbed my business plan, hoping BBB wouldn’t notice the minor spelling mistake, and padded it with a sheaf of blank paper. I shoved the whole thing into a folder. I grabbed the breakfast Mom had left for me in the fridge and hobbled outside, hoping the Beetle would once again start on the first try.
Chapter 21
Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want
THE BBB OFFICE WAS in the old bank building, so it was easy to find. Tomi Taimi was waiting for me in reception when I walked in. He was tall and gaunt, with a widow’s peak and frameless glasses. His handshake was too strong, like he was trying to prove something. He guided me to a small conference room where another man was waiting. I was already sweating from the anxiety of the rush, and hoped none of it was showing through my linen suit.
The other man had tufty white hair and a heavy white beard. He wore thick glasses and a rich-blue shirt that h
ad two top buttons open, revealing a chunky gold necklace and more chest hair than I wanted to see. I thought he looked like Santa Claus on a day off.
“Peter, this is Kari, our managing director.”
We shook hands and sat down. He gave me a patient smile.
“So, I understand you have a proposal,” said Kari, and gestured toward the coffee pot. Tomi Taimi took the hint and slid the tray toward himself.
I cleared my throat.
“Yes. As I explained to Tomi over the phone, I would like to rent the movie theatre in town,” I said. I wanted to keep things vague while I could.
“Hmm. Why?”
“To show movies! Why else?”
“Why else indeed. The trouble is, that theatre hadn’t been profitable in years. I think the old owners only kept it going as a passion project. But when you run out of money, passion isn’t going to pay the bills. That’s why it closed. And given that it’s right in town, it’s a waste of good land for it to be sitting there gathering dust. So, the council gave us permission to acquire it.”
Tomi Taimi—BBB’s deputy director, according to the business card he’d handed me in the lobby—waited for his boss to finish before asking if I wanted coffee.
“No, thanks. Look, I understand all that. And I was thinking about it. And it’s like you say—a passion project.”
Kari tilted his head, suggesting I should elaborate.
I decided to lay my cards on the table. Kari was clearly a decent man, and the fact that he looked like Santa Claus had already put me in an enormously trusting frame of mind.
“Okay. I grew up in this town. When I was a boy, I worked at the Video 2000 store. Remember that place?”
Kari stared blankly at me, but Tomi Taimi nodded. “I used to rent Sega games there.”
“But it was always my dream to run the Atlas.” This was an exaggeration, but I seemed to be on the right track, so I pressed on. “I understand that you guys have to knock it down, because you want to build apartments there or whatever. Who am I to stand in the way of progress?”
Someday Jennifer Page 13
