Untitled 2

by David Baddiel

  He then dropped the attack stance and just ran at Fred, with both his arms above his head, going “I’MGONNAKILLYOUUUUUUUU!!”

  Fred dodged out of the way. Morris ran past him into the school wall.

  “Oof!” he said and fell down again.

  He stayed down for a little while this time and Fred was wondering whether perhaps it was all over when suddenly he felt a sharp pain on his arm. He looked down to see Isla’s hands twisting his skin in opposite directions to create the classic Chinese burn.

  An audible gasp could be heard from the watching crowd because Isla hardly ever got involved in any actual fighting. She was the thinker, the evil genius, the psychotic but brilliant villain, and it was Morris, the henchman, who did her dirty work. But Morris was lying on the ground, just behind the hopscotch squares, going, “Urggghh …” so clearly this was a special case.

  Isla was good at Chinese burns actually and, if she very occasionally did get involved in a fight, they were always what she liked to do. She saw it as the Thinking Bully’s Move, slow and deliberate, a type of torture that was almost a piece of art. Her hands would grip tightly, closely, twisting the arm of her victim in a precise way to create the maximum amount of pain.

  However, gripping this particular arm tightly turned out to be not such a good idea. Because, when Ellie saw what had happened, she pressed down the emerald button and rotated the control stick quickly in a circle, making Fred’s arm rise in the air and then move round and round at top speed like the blade of a helicopter.

  It was an amazing sight: Isla Fawcett circling in the air around Fred’s head like a swingball. She screamed very loudly and clung on to his arm very, very tightly, which was probably the right thing to do because, if she’d let go, she would have ended up on the school roof.

  The crowd of kids, excited now by the thought that Fred might actually win this fight, cheered, almost as if that’s exactly what they wanted to happen.

  What actually happened, though, was that Morris got up from the ground and, slightly dazed, turned back to try and carry on fighting Fred; at which point he was hit in the face by his own sister’s flailing legs.

  “Oof!” he said once more, as this time the back of his head hit the ground. Luckily, there was very little brain in there to be damaged.

  Ellie pressed some more buttons. Fred’s arm stopped circling and dropped Isla, who stood up for about half a second, before twirling to the ground with dizziness. Bang! She landed next to Morris.

  The crowd cheered again.

  Isla and Morris struggled up, holding on to each other. They were clearly frightened, but Isla said: “Listen, Morris. There are two of us. And one of him.”

  “Yes,” said Morris, rubbing the back of his head. “So … that means we outnumber him by at least three.”

  “Oh God,” said Isla. “The point is there’s safety in numbers. Or rather …” And here she turned to face Fred, who’d gone back to his attack stance, “there’s victory in numbers!!”

  Morris understood that at least. Together, with their faces set to full Bully Mode – eyes narrow, forehead low, teeth gritted – they charged at Fred.

  Ellie waited until they were both near him, on either side, with their fists flying. Then her fingers darted across the Controller …

  … and Fred crouched again. He stuck both hands out and placed a palm on each bully’s stomach, stopping them in their tracks. Then he lifted them up in the air, until they were both horizontal. Weirdly, their fists kept moving, so it looked a bit like they were in a swimming race. Except without any water. And in a playground. With their clothes on.

  “What’s going on, Isla?!” screamed Morris.

  “I don’t know, Morris!” shrieked Isla.

  Which was the last thing either of them said before Fred started juggling with them.

  “Wow!”

  “Wow!”

  “Wow wow wow wow wow!!!!”

  Fred and Ellie were back in the playroom, discussing the events of the day.

  “Wowwwwwwwwwwww!!!!” Fred was saying.

  “Thank God you put them down just before Mr Fawcett came out!”

  “Yes! I saw him coming through the door – in between Isla’s face and Morris’s face as they went past – so that’s when I decided to catch them.”

  Mr Fawcett, it has to be said, had been a bit confused. He made a point, generally, of not over-acknowledging Isla and Morris in the playground. Sometimes, he would sneak in a wave and once he’d been seen secretly trying to blow Morris a kiss, but mainly he liked to pretend that they were just like any other pupils at Bracket Wood. So he didn’t quite know what to do when, on emerging from inside the school, he saw both of his children running away as fast as they could from a crowd of other cheering children around Fred Stone.fn1

  He chose, in the end, just to nod to himself three times and then go back inside the school, as if nothing was wrong. Because otherwise he would have had to go over to Isla and Morris and ask them what was wrong; and if something was wrong then he might have had to hug them to make them feel better; and then he might have ended up bursting into tears himself and all that wouldn’t really work with the “I-treat-my-children-just-like-any-other-pupils” thing.

  “This is amazing!” said Fred, holding his arm up and pointing at his bracelet. “I want to do other stuff!”

  “Yes. But—”

  “Like football!”

  “Yes. But—”

  “Because if you can control me like Super Mario and Street Fighter then you can control me like someone off FIFA!”

  “Yes. But—”

  “And then I can get into the school team! And hey! Never mind the school team, I could—”

  “FRED!!!” shouted Ellie.

  Fred stopped talking. She had also put her hand up to his face.

  “What?” he said.

  “What about me?” said Ellie.

  Fred frowned. “What about you?”

  “When is it my turn?”

  “Your turn to what?”

  Ellie looked at him like he was mad, like it was obvious. “To get to be controlled! To get to be the one who becomes …”

  She struggled for the word for a little while. Then, as if it was a slightly embarrassing word, slightly babyish, but did sum up best how she felt, said, “… magic.”

  “Oh …” said Fred. “But …”

  “What?”

  “Well … you’re the one who’s better at video games. You’re the one who’s great with the Controller.”

  Ellie opened her mouth to speak, but then shut it again: she knew this was true.

  “But I don’t mind,” said Fred. “I can try. What game do you want to be?”

  Ellie paused. What game did she want to be?

  There was a knock on the door and in came Eric. Well, actually, he didn’t come in since the door to the playroom tended to stick on the carpet without opening fully, which meant that while there was easily enough room for Fred and Ellie to come and go, Eric had to squeeze through. On this particular occasion, he started to do that and got stuck.

  “OH GOD,” he said. “JANINE! JANINE?! CAN YOU PUSH ME?”

  “WHAT?”

  “PUSH ME! I’VE GOT STUCK IN THE DOOR!”

  “PUSH YOURSELF!”

  “PUSH YOURSELF? WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?”

  “Dad …” said Fred, “what is it?”

  Eric sighed and managed, with some discomfort, to force his right arm in between the side of his torso and the door frame. He was holding an envelope. His hand waggled with the effort.

  “This got dropped through the door. For you.”

  Fred took it from his dad.

  “By the way, you two,” said Eric, “have you done a Christmas list yet?”

  “Don’t worry, Dad, we will,” said Ellie, not really looking at him: that envelope had piqued her interest.

  “Well, OK, but better get on with it,” he replied. “Next-door’s lights keep on reminding me at least!�
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  Getting no response to this, Eric, with some more effort, and a loud pop!, reversed back out of the door.

  Fred, meanwhile, had opened the envelope.

  “What is it?” said Ellie.

  “It’s an invitation. To Rashid’s birthday party. In two weeks.”

  “Oh, OK …” said Ellie, looking down. “Are you going to go?”

  “Yeah! I didn’t think he liked me very much! He’s cool!”

  “Yes,” said Ellie, still looking down.

  “Oh, look, he’s written something in it … Hey, Fred, that was amazing in the playground today. Hope you can come.”

  “Oh …” said Ellie, still looking down.

  “And bring Ellie.”

  Ellie looked up.

  “Really?”

  Fred turned the invite round to show her. Ellie went red. But smiled. “Um. That’s … nice.”

  “Yes!”

  Ellie carried on looking at the invitation. Then her face clouded over. “Still. He’s probably just being polite …” she said.

  Fred thought about this. Rashid was definitely a very polite boy. But surely that was a good thing?

  “I don’t think I want to go, really,” Ellie continued.

  This confused Fred even more. “Why not?”

  Ellie sighed. “I just think it won’t be a party for … girls with glasses and braces and pigtails, who dress like they’re still in Year One.”

  Fred frowned. “Why are you saying the stuff Isla always says about you when she’s being horrible?”

  “I don’t know,” said Ellie. Then, for a moment, she looked very sad, before adding: “Maybe because she’s right.”

  Fred didn’t completely understand what it was that was making his sister so upset. He also didn’t understand why she would say she didn’t want to go to Rashid’s party, when he knew that she definitely did want to. But he knew it was all to do with how Isla had made Ellie feel about what she looked like. Which gave him an idea.

  “Ellie,” he said. “Put the bracelet on.”

  “Is this really going to work?” said Ellie. She was standing in front of the playroom mirror. Fred was next to her, holding the Controller.

  “I don’t know,” said Fred.

  “Will it hurt?”

  Fred paused a second before answering. “No. I don’t think so. None of that jumping about has hurt me so far.”

  “OK. Go for it.”

  “Where do you want to start? Who do you want to look like?”

  Ellie thought for a moment. “I don’t know. I guess … what do they make girls look like in video games?”

  Fred thought. “Same as they do in cartoons and films and stuff. The pretty ones all look the same. Do you want to look like that?”

  Ellie shrugged, nervously. “We could see, I suppose. What it was like …”

  Fred nodded. He looked down at the Controller. Not sure what to press, he went first for a long press of the amber button.

  Ellie’s face went red as a tomato, and her cheeks blew up like a hamster.

  “Um … sorry,” said Fred. Quickly, he tried the ruby button, while toggling the control.

  Ellie’s face sprouted a long white beard, and her feet became as big as clowns’ feet.

  “OK, maybe we should forget this …” she said, her voice quite a lot deeper than usual.

  “No, wait a minute. Let me have one more go.” Fred focused on the Controller. He remembered what Ellie had said when she first started to really understand how to work the device, how she had been thinking about Super Mario to make him jump through the air. So this time, while pressing the buttons (diamond and silver, this time, alternately) he concentrated, and tried to call up in his mind all the images in his memory of the main girl characters in video games and cartoons and films.

  He thought of Princess Peachfn1 and Amy Rosefn2 and Mistyfn3 and Princess Fionafn4 and Sam the TV reporterfn5 and Joyfn6 and Elsafn7 and Rapunzelfn8 and Mulan and Ariel and Sleeping Beauty, all the way back to Snow White.

  And Ellie’s braces and glasses disappeared.

  “Oh my God!” she said.

  “Can you see OK?” said Fred.

  “Yes!” said Ellie. “Keep going …”

  Fred pressed the emerald button. Suddenly Ellie’s eyes grew bigger! Much bigger! They seemed to take up loads of her face! But it was OK, because her nose had got smaller, making room for them.

  “Do you like it?” said Fred.

  Ellie was looking at herself in the mirror.

  “I think you might be able to see the effect more if you shut your mouth,” said Fred.

  Ellie did so. Then looked at herself again. “Have my lips got bigger?” she said.

  “Yes. And redder. And shaped like a heart.”

  “OK,” she said. “It’s weird.”

  “But do you like it?”

  She half-nodded. “I think so …”

  Fred took this as meaning he should carry on. So his fingers went back to the Controller’s buttons.

  And Ellie changed shape: she grew a few centimetres taller and simultaneously her neck became longer, her waist contracted and her shoulders expanded, so that her top half looked like an upside-down triangle. Sister and brother looked on, amazed.

  “What about my …?” said Ellie, pointing to the back of her head.

  “On it!” said Fred.

  Fred’s fingers continued to work. Ellie’s pigtails vanished, and her hair … it didn’t just grow, it flowed from her scalp in waves!

  “Oh! Oh!” said Ellie, as it settled on her shoulders looking glossy and full and shiny and all the other things people said about hair in their mum’s magazines. But, in the mirror, she didn’t even have time to look at that properly, before her school uniform, which had instantly tailored itself to fit her new shape, started changing colour, flashing red! Black! Gold!

  “What’s it doing?!” said Ellie.

  “Offering up suggestions, I think!” said Fred. “What colours do you want?”

  “I dunno!”

  Fred went for black and gold, a tiny bit like the colours a posh chocolate might be wrapped in. As he did so, Ellie’s school uniform stopped looking like a school uniform at all, and more like a beautiful party dress.

  He stopped pressing the buttons. Ellie looked at her entire new self in the mirror. She shook her head with disbelief.

  “What do you think?” said Fred.

  “It’s amazing,” said Ellie. “But … do I even look like myself any more?”

  Fred turned his head to the mirror, considering. “Yes,” he said, after a while. “You look like Ellie but … upgraded. Ellie 2.0. Ellie Premium Edition.”

  Ellie took this in. It certainly sounded good. Although to be honest, Fred often expressed himself in video-game language. “What about when Mum and Dad see me …?” she said. “What am I going to tell them about how I look? And where I got these clothes? And—”

  “God! There you are!”

  Fred and Ellie turned round. Their mum was standing at the door of the playroom with her arms crossed, staring hard at the two of them.

  “What have you two been doing in here?” said Janine from the doorway. “Oh, don’t tell me …” She looked at the Controller in Fred’s hands. “Video games. I knew it. You’re addicted! Completely addicted! I’ve had to miss nearly four minutes of Cash in the Attic searching for you.”

  Fred and Ellie looked at each other, with deadpan expressions on their faces. They were much younger than their mother, obviously, but the irony of what she had just said was lost only on Janine Stone.

  “And it’s the Christmas celebrity edition! With Cheryl Baker! Isn’t it, Eric?”

  “It is, Janine,” said Eric, appearing at his wife’s shoulder.

  “Anyway,” said Janine, “tea’s ready.”

  “Is it bacon sandwiches?” asked Eric.

  “No, of course it isn’t. That’s a breakfast option. And besides it’s not your tea, it’s their tea.”

/>   “Oh, OK.”

  Both adults turned to leave. Fred looked to Ellie. Ellie looked to Fred. Together they shook their heads, amazed.

  “Hang on a minute,” said Janine, suddenly coming back through the door with a suspicious look on her face. “Ellie!”

  “Er … yes, Mum?”

  “Look at me,” said Janine. Ellie gazed at her mum through her newly widened eyes. She tried not to look down at her new premium self.

  “Ellie Stone, tell me the truth.”

  “Yes, Mum.”

  “Have you … fed Margaret Scratcher?”

  Ellie frowned. Fred frowned.

  “Er … no?” she said.

  “I knew it!” said Janine. “You promised to feed her this afternoon and you’ve just been too lazy to do it! But I could tell you felt guilty about it. I could see it in your eyes!”

  “Can’t hide anything from you, Janine!” came Eric’s voice from outside.

  “Tell me about it, Eric!” said Janine, triumphantly turning round and leaving the room.

  Ellie and Fred exchanged glances. Then they both shrugged.

  “Ellie,” said Fred. “I think – even though Mum and Dad didn’t notice that you’d … changed – I should probably change you back. To normal. For now. And then I can make you look like this again for the party!”

  “OK,” said Ellie. “Good thinking. But … hold on.”

  “What?” said Fred.

  “You never did shoes.”

  “I did.”

  “I don’t mean the clowns’ shoes. I mean some proper shoes. To go with …” she gestured to herself, “all this.”

  “OK. What sort?”

  “High heels?”

  “Really? Have you ever worn high heels?”

  “No. Well, I tried on a pair of Mum’s once.”

  “Oh yes. And you fell over.”

  “Hmm. OK. I’ll leave it to you. You’re my stylist.”

  Fred smiled, pleased with this idea. He pressed the silver button three times and thought of shoes: fairy-tale shoes. Ellie looked down. Her normal, ordinary trainers had vanished. On her feet, perfectly fitting, were two silver slippers glittering with light. She turned to her brother gratefully.