by Patrick Ness
‘They’ve been busy,’ said Ram. And then stopped. Neil’s mum stared at him. Her lips went very thin again and she let go of his hand.
‘Busy?’ she hissed.
‘Sorry,’ said Ram. ‘Wrong word. I don’t know. I just don’t know.’
‘You don’t have to make excuses for them,’ she snapped, twisting a ring round a finger. ‘Ram, don’t make excuses for other people. Lessens you.’
They sat in some more silence then. The moment came around for Ram to say something. It passed. Another moment came around. He let it go. On the third pass:
‘I said he should do something different.’
‘Did you?’ she said politely.
‘Other than the ice bucket challenge. Everyone’s done the ice bucket challenge. I told him to do something different. Just that. I didn’t mean for him to do what he did. I swear. I am so sorry. I really am—’
Neil’s mum gripped his arm. For a moment it was too hard and then she let go and patted his sweatshirt, folding it between her fingertips. Ram stopped talking and lowered his eyes.
‘Suppose,’ she said, ‘he’d sat in a paddling pool full of ice instead. Would we be here?’
‘No,’ said Ram.
‘Or tipped cold baked beans on his head?’
‘No.’
‘Only my Neil would lack the plain common sense to do what he did. He’s sharp, but he’s not bright.’ Neil’s mum leaned back in the grey plastic chair and she smiled again, a sad fondness lighting up her face. ‘Bless him.’ She wiped her eyes. ‘No. I wish you hadn’t told him to try something different, but he came up with the stupid idea. Not you. Am I right?’ She jabbed Ram in the ribs, and her eyes shone.
‘Yeah,’ Ram mumbled and for a moment he thought he was going to cry.
‘Then there we are. My son, my lovely son, is an idiot for thinking he could pour boiling water on his head. But you know who I really blame?’ Her eyes narrowed, squeezing tears out. ‘The kid who boiled the kettle.’ She pointed to the seat next to her. ‘I’d like to see him sat right there. Not you. I’d like him to see what he did. I can believe my son was daft. I can’t believe the people on that team were so daft. Yeah. That’s the boy I’d like to see.’
This time the silence was a bit more natural.
Then she stood up. ‘Shall we go and see Neil? Maybe he’ll be awake.’
‘Yes.’ Ram stood up. ‘I’d like that.’
As they walked off, Neil’s mum nudged him. ‘Your limp,’ she said.
‘What?’ He blushed.
‘It’s gone.’
Ram blinked.
SEVEN
IS IT MAGIC? WE NEED YOUR HELP TO SOLVE THIS MYSTERY
There had been a boy at the bus stop. That’s what everyone could agree on.
Some of the kids from Coal Hill said they knew him, but only in the way that, if something happened to someone, people always said that they knew them and had definitely met them. You know, at a party, or a club, or they sort of went out with your sister. Even though he didn’t go to Coal Hill, lots of people said they knew him.
Anyway, the boy. At the bus stop. He had definitely been there.
That much CCTV could tell you with certainty.
He’d been waiting for the late bus home. He’d actually had a pretty great day—no reason to go missing. The police and his parents checked the footage. He was standing there, waiting for the bus. He was, if you squinted, smiling. He was playing with his phone (‘He was always playing with that thing’ said his dad), and occasionally, if someone he vaguely knew walked past, he’d flash the phone screen at them, showing off about something.
He did not, experts admitted, look like someone planning on running away. He looked like a boy, any boy, waiting for a bus.
The bus pulls up in front of the stop, and, for a moment, the boy is blocked from the view of the CCTV.
But that shouldn’t matter, because there are cameras on board the bus. They should show him if he gets on. But he does not get on.
The bus pulls away. And the boy is no longer there.
What’s happened to him?
EIGHT
FIFTEEN CATS THAT LOOK SHOCKINGLY LIKE MISS QUILL
The school forgot about Neil and his hot soup. So much kept happening.
One of the last things the headmaster of Coal Hill School did in life was interview a trainee teacher. The trainee was a bright, hopeful young woman called Victoria Prim, who would later on in life earn a lot of money in accountancy and marry her neighbour who had waited forty years for her to ask. But today she was a young, slightly too-eager trainee who dreamed of teaching poetry and one day mounting a school production of Godspell.
At the end of the predictably exhausting interview, Mr Armitage crawled towards the final question. ‘Ms Prim, have you any questions you’d like to ask me?’
Ms Prim had leaned forward earnestly across the desk. ‘Tell me, Headmaster,’ she’d demanded, ‘what’s a typical day at Coal Hill School like?’
Mr Armitage had tried not to groan. ‘Well, now,’ he’d replied, reaching for the cliché used to sell awful jobs through the ages, ‘there really is no typical day . . .’
That afternoon, his skin was torn off by an interdimensional dragon.
Time passed. And, as time passed, Cup-a-Soup Neil was seen as one of the lucky ones.
More and more videos started to appear. Just one look at the ‘Most Watched’ videos on truthordare.com told you all you needed to know:
This Charity Ice Skater Will Astound You—It’s Summer
She’d Never Windsurfed Before Today. Who Knew There’d Be a Hurricane?
27 Insane Charity Challenges. You’ll Lose It at #16
His Nana Lent Him Her Mobility Scooter. She Did Not Predict a Motorway
They Told Her She Could Never Fly. They Might Have Been Right
She Set Out to Eat Ten Insects. Guess Which One Is Poisonous?
The Unexpected Truth About Skydiving Blindfolded
The School Said No to This Netball Team’s Naked Calendar. They Did It Anyway
He’d Never Eaten Fire Before. He Never Will Again
Twelve Tips for Being Buried Alive. #5 Will Destroy You
They Said He’d Never Eat Penguin. He Wished They Were Wrong
Read Me or I’ll Kill Myself
Eleven Reasons Why You Might Die in the Next Hour. #7 Is Standing Right Behind You
No one at truthordare.com took Neil’s video down. It was labelled under Epic Fails. It didn’t even make the top ten. His act of immense stupidity and personal tragedy became tiny under the tide of other efforts, of people outcompeting one another for charity.
Neil’s mum tried seeing if anyone was interested in raising funds to help get Neil some more plastic surgery. A lot of people really meant to do something, and the football team really talked about it, but they were kind of busy working out whether or not to do a charity calendar for truthordare.com. Enthusiasm petered out.
‘I would like you to explain the internet to me,’ Miss Quill said. She’d asked Tanya to stay behind after class.
Tanya stared at her teacher with worried amazement.
As usual, Miss Quill’s expression was as unreadable as an ancient curse.
‘You want me to explain the internet?’ Tanya measured out her words. Then gave up. ‘Seriously?’
Miss Quill nodded. ‘We had similar, superior systems on Rhodia, of course.’ She waved any other possibility aside. ‘But technology evolves to fit the races it serves. I am not sure if I entirely understand how this system serves you.’
‘Serves?’ Tanya considered the phrase.
Miss Quill nodded. ‘On Rhodia, everything serves something. That is how it all fits together.’ She scowled then rapped a finger on Tanya’s laptop. ‘You seem to understand these systems. To an extent. Perhaps you could explain truthordare.com to me.’
‘The site?’
‘Well, I’d hardly ask you to explain the name,’ Miss Quill snapped. ‘I
t’s ridiculous.’
EMAIL NEWSLETTER FROM TRUTHORDARE.COM
A YOUNG GUY NEEDS YOUR HELP AND MORE
Hi [firstname]!
How are you doing? We just thought we’d like to let you know that people are still suffering from Skandis and you should know that we could all be working harder to fight Skandis once and for all.
We constantly worry about it at truthordare.com HQ, and here are just a few of the remarkable stories that keep us going through the night:
Keith Is Blades
What about Keith, who is doing a twenty-four-hour blade-a-thon round Regent’s Park? He’s only just fought off cancer and now he’s determined to battle Skandis too? With just a click you can send him a fiver.
Truth for Sami
Sami found out her fiancé had been cheating on her with her best friend. So she followed them then put on a slideshow of it at her wedding before selling off the gifts and giving them to Skandis. Amazing!
What about You?
What are you doing to prevent the spread of Skandis? Send us your stories or stay tuned to the site for one of Seraphin’s celebrity vlogs. This week he’s been shopping for kettles with May June. Find out how it went tomorrow. You won’t stop laughing.
That’s all for now!
The light from the laptop screen made Miss Quill’s severe face look just that little more severe. She was frowning, which, to be fair, was like saying that other people were breathing.
‘I don’t get this site,’ she muttered. ‘It is full of lies.’
‘Oh, that’s just the internet,’ Tanya said. As she said the words, she wondered if she’d made a mistake. Miss Quill was sometimes very literal. But it did feel peculiar. Sharing a desk in a classroom with a woman who wasn’t just an alien, or an assassin, but also her teacher. It was so easy to put a foot wrong.
‘Really?’ Miss Quill didn’t look up from the screen. She let her voice project the right level of curiosity and withering disdain.
‘Oh yes, nothing on the internet is . . . you know . . .’ Tanya wondered where her words had gone and worried they were leaving her to it. She shrugged.
‘I understand,’ Miss Quill said. ‘On Rhodia we would spread misinformation about troop numbers and food stocks and where our armies would be based. You use the internet for the same thing? That is what all those pictures of eggs and beaches are for?’
‘Well, um, yes.’ Tanya noticed a small twitch at the edges of Miss Quill’s mouth. Was she teasing her? Surely not. ‘You tell everyone you’re having an amazing time, you upload pictures of your amazing time, and maybe that convinces you that you’re having an amazing time. When really, well, you’re probably not, ’cos you’ll have a headache, or argued with Mum in the car on the way there, or your phone’s running low on charge, you know.’
‘All the really important things. I understand.’ Miss Quill’s definitely-not-a-smile broadened. ‘When the Quill won a battle against the Rhodia we would broadcast videos of the slaughter. We would leave out the bodies of our fallen comrades but we would make sure we missed none of the dead Rhodia. It looked better, and their families may have been watching. This is the same thing?’
Tanya didn’t speak for a moment. ‘More or less.’
‘Only’—Miss Quill tapped the screen with a sharp finger—‘this site is deceitful. It promises so much but it does not deliver. Look at this: “Watch Her Slay This Politician”. The video does nothing of the sort. It simply shows a young woman being vaguely rude to an older man in front of an audience of bored people. Honestly, no one even gives her a knife.’ She scrolled through the pages. ‘See—it’s all Tear Him Apart, Destroy That, Shred Him, Ruin Her . . . The language is all so violent, but there’s nothing behind it. This is the talk of a coward urging others on to fight.’
Tanya realised that, just for once, Miss Quill had got it completely right.
‘I am trying to work out the problem with this site,’ Miss Quill continued. ‘It is making people upload videos of themselves, is it not?’
Tanya nodded. ‘I think, at some level, it’s the root of the problem.’
The screen read:
TODAY ON TRUTHORDARE: MAKE US GASP!
MAKE YOUR FRIENDS SCREAM! DO SOMETHING DARING!
BE UNSPEAKABLE! BREAK THINGS!
YOU’VE RAISED $14 MILLION FOR SKANDIS THIS DRIVE. YOU’RE AMAZING. TOGETHER WE’LL BEAT SKANDIS.
And then underneath it was a gif of a clown clapping while a cake burned.
‘What feudal obligation do people have to follow these challenges?’ Quill asked. She occasionally tried to understand human customs, in case it explained something of them to her. It often didn’t. She presumed that the challenges on the site were like ritual combat challenges. Once seen, they had to be answered. In blood.
Tanya shook her head. ‘None. Not really. Just, you know, because it’s for charity.’
‘For charity?’ Quill stared.
‘Don’t you have charity in space?’
‘Of course not. We have a quick and merciful death for the afflicted.’
‘But what about medical research?’
‘Oh, we research diseases. And, if we find them, we unleash them on our enemies.’
Tanya counted her fingers slowly. After a couple of goes, she was still getting ten, so she breathed out.
‘So, this charity. It is like a guilt that you all feel for your superior position in the world?’ Quill bit thoughtfully at one of her fingernails. ‘Interesting. This is not . . .’
‘A Quill Thing?’ Tanya finished. ‘Do you just gloat over the dead bodies of the conquered?’
Quill nodded. ‘You have learned something, finally. Tell me—I can almost understand why people would follow this challenge. But why would you feel obliged to upload the video—is it another social duty?’
‘No,’ Tanya said. ‘It’s like people feel they have to. I don’t really get it.’
‘Even if you look silly, or are in pain?’ Quill stood, scraping back her chair as she strode over to the whiteboard.
‘There are so many, many terrible odds you have overcome in order to exist—the simple odds of there being life on your planet, the amazing odds of your progenitors meeting, the odds of your being chosen in the womb, of successfully hatching, of growing up . . . Why waste it all on jumping off a brick wall? After all, you could use that wonderful, rare life to achieve something really amazing in battle.’
‘Well, that’s one way of looking at it.’ Tanya was beginning to think that Miss Quill could turn an IKEA catalogue into a list of reasons for going to war.
Miss Quill leaned back over Tanya’s laptop. ‘A moment,’ she said, scrolling through her search history. ‘I have a query—I have not spent much time on your internet.’
‘Actually, please,’ said Tanya. ‘No one really calls it that anymore. We call it the Information Superhighway.’
‘Ah, thank you,’ said Miss Quill, not noticing Tanya’s slight smirk. ‘I will use that. It is a primitive system of knowledge sharing. But your Information Superhighway has one remarkable thing about it . . .’ She tapped at another tab. ‘What are these?’
Tanya squinted. ‘You’re kidding.’
‘No, no, I am not. Quill do not have a sense of humour.’
‘Now you’re kidding.’
‘Perhaps.’ Again that non-smile twitched. ‘But why are there pictures of these animals all over your Information Superhighway?’
‘They’re just cats,’ said Tanya.
‘Cats?’ Miss Quill sat down and stared at the screen. ‘But why?’
‘I don’t know. I really don’t.’
Miss Quill was now staring at a whole screen full of cats. ‘There is nothing special about them. They are a waste of the pathetically tiny bandwidth that is available to you. And yet . . .’
Her fingers paused over a picture of a ginger cat peeping out of a cardboard box. The little twitch at the edge of her mouth was back. ‘There is something about them. Is there not?�
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NINE
TRAIN DRIVERS SLAM BRAKES ON TRUTH OR DARE
First it was broken limbs and broken hearts—now health and safety experts are warning that truthordare.com may cost you more. Gemma Harris investigates.
The site truthordare.com has been contacted over ‘safety concerns’ regarding site users venturing onto live train tracks as part of ‘dares’ encouraged by the site.
We understand players have been walking into the paths of trains at Birmingham New Street as part of a challenge they’re calling ‘Chicken’. Network Rail has warned that trains can reach high speeds and that ‘darers’ may not realise this when playing.
The site’s development team has not yet responded to questions from us, but their ‘vlogging host’, Seraphin, has previously said: ‘Our rules are that there are no rules—but that doesn’t mean that you should be stupid. Only the brave, not the dumb, are needed to beat Skandis. Dare safely.’
Network Rail, which has put up warnings on electronic signs at New Street, controls 2,500 stations as well as tracks, tunnels, and level crossings, and says trains can reach speeds of 100mph (160kmh).
Maude Silvera, chief health and safety officer at the station, said: ‘While we’re delighted to see so many people working hard to beat this terrible disease, we do have safety concerns around dares taking place close to the working railway.
‘We are concerned that by staging a dare on or very close to our infrastructure, young people are likely to be distracted and even less aware than usual of the risks around them.
‘The last thing we want to do is ruin everyone’s “fun,” but we are hoping that we can work together with “darers” to make the site safer.’
The concerns of train operators join those of anxious parents as the appeal of truthordare.com spreads. Hospital emergency departments are reporting a rise in admissions resulting from the site. In addition, the charity helpline Talk Out Teens has claimed an increase in call volume as a result of personal details shared on the site. There are also several unconfirmed reports of players going missing.
