it had been knocked diagonal by whatever G-force it sustained while between Eric’s bottom cheeks. But it worked, kind of. If you ignored the fact that when it shuddered – like controllers do when you hit the bar in FIFA, or there’s an explosion in Call of Duty – it felt, to Ellie, like it was shuddering for another reason.
That reason being that it had been lost, for a short while, in a very bad place.
Basically, Ellie just didn’t really want to touch her beloved controller any more. Which everyone in the family, including Eric, understood. In fact, Eric, who was a nice person and a good dad – even if he loved bacon sandwiches almost as much as his children – went so far as to tell Ellie that he was perfectly willing to pay for a new controller. As long as she didn’t tell anyone what had happened to the old one.
The day after Eric made that promise, Fred and Ellie were in their school computer room. Well, it wasn’t really a computer room. Bracket Wood Comprehensive was a good school – more or less – but it didn’t have any money. And so what it called a computer room was in fact a cleaning cupboard with all the cleaning materials taken out and an eight-year-old laptop on the shelf where there used to be five half-full bottles of Toilet Duck.
However, Fred and Ellie didn’t mind. Because right then they were enjoying going through all their favourite gaming sites and reading reviews of all the latest controllers. Ellie, in particular, was really enjoying herself.
“People who aren’t gamers don’t know this, do they?” she was saying. “They think that controllers just come in black plastic with some buttons, bundled with a console. But they’re so wrong! Look!”
Fred, who tended just to listen when Ellie got very excited about anything to do with gaming, nodded. She was right. Clicking quickly through many different web pages – her skill at video games showing in how expert she also was with a mouse – she pulled up on the screen loads of different types of controller.
Black ones, grey ones, silver ones, rainbow ones, camouflage ones, football team colours ones; ones with big toggles, small toggles, toggles that were gear sticks and steering wheels; controllers with blue lights and white lights and red lights and yellow lights; with ribbed handles and smooth handles and leather-clad handles and handles shaped like hands; with headphones and microphones and speakers attached; and ones you could personalise yourself – you could even have one made in the shape of your own name!
“The two Ls in Ellie could be the handles!” she said excitedly.
“Yes!” said Fred, wondering how that would work with ‘Fred’. Maybe if he went for Frederick the k and the d could be the handles … but, then again, Frederick was probably a bit long for a video-game controller. He’d have to hold his hands really wide apart.
“What browser are you using?” said their sort-of friend Stirling, one of the few other pupils at Bracket Wood who could often be found in the computer room. He was standing behind Ellie, peering at the screen.
“Browser?” said Ellie, not turning round. “I dunno. Safari?”
Stirling looked at his younger sister, Scarlet. They burst out laughing.
“Safari! Oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear!” they said together.
Ellie raised her eyes at Fred, who raised his own back. Stirling and Scarlet were very technologically aware and very proud of it. This was one reason why, as far as Fred and Ellie were concerned, they were sort-of friends, rather than friends.fn1
“Is that wrong?” said Ellie.
“Well, it’s not wrong, but if you want to be truly up to speed …” said Stirling.
“… both design-wise and speed-wise,” said Scarlet. “As in download speed,” she added helpfully.
“Then I think we would suggest, wouldn’t we, Scarlet …?”
Scarlet nodded eagerly. “… Allegro?” she said. “Quicksmart? Protickle? Internet Wing-Ding? Paloma’s World? Browzzzer?”
“All great,” said Stirling. “But for me, top of the browser tree has to be, at this moment in time, Cyberdodo!”
“Oh, of course, Cyberdodo!”
“Never heard of it,” said Ellie.
“Where does it say that? Twitter?” said Fred.
“Twitter? Oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear!” they went.
“What are you, a pensioner?” added Stirling. “No, Cyberdodo is what everyone recommends on …”
“… Instantgone?” said Scarlet. “Wizzstream? Quack? FaceTunnel? Pinterestingenough? Derkanpooderleck?”
Stirling shook his head. “… ChatWhiskers!”
“ChatWhiskers! Of course!”
Ellie, who had continued to stare at the screen while all this was going on, turned round at last. “Stirling. Scarlet. Can I ask you a question? Are you even on social media?”
They looked at each other. Then shook their heads.
“Are you in fact even allowed to use a computer without your parents’ supervision?”
Scarlet and Stirling looked at each other again. Then shook their heads.
“Our mum says we can when we’re in Year Five,” said Scarlet quietly.
This was the other reason that Stirling and Scarlet were only sort-of friends: they were in Years Three and Two. They were eight and seven.
“OK, iBabies …” said Ellie, turning back round to the computer. “Then perhaps some of your recommendations can wait. At least until …”
“Well, well, well.”
This wasn’t said by Stirling or Scarlet. In fact, when Ellie and Fred turned round, Stirling and Scarlet had vanished.
Standing there instead were the other twins in the school: Isla and Morris Fawcett.
“Oh no,” said Fred.
Like Fred and Ellie, Isla and Morris were twins; but also like them, a boy and a girl and therefore, also, non-identical twins. But, unlike Fred and Ellie, they were really obviously non-identical. Isla was very, very pretty, tall for her age and slim, with blue eyes and a tiny nose and long hair that she would sometimes sweep back across her face as if she was in a shampoo advert.
Morris looked like a badly shaven gorilla.
New pupils at the school, therefore, tended to be frightened of Morris. Which they were right to be. But the person they really needed to be frightened of was Isla.
Because Morris and Isla Fawcett were the Bracket Wood school bullies. They prided themselves on it. They spent a lot of time working on their bullying style. They had even been heard to talk about their bullying brand. And within that brand, although Morris did more of the actual physical work – he covered Chinese burns, dead legs and wedgies – it was Isla who was the mastermind.fn1
“Go away,” said Ellie.
“I don’t think so,” said Isla, reaching over and turning the laptop screen towards her and her brother.
“OoooOOOOooooo!!” they said, both going up sarcastically on the middle OOOO.
Ellie