Ctrl-Z (10 page)

Mr Howard answered it and found Mr Kowalski standing in the porch, though at first he hardly recognized him. Instead of the
cardigan he usually wore, with the holes in the elbows, he was dressed in a suit. It was clean, freshly pressed and there
was a gold watch chain hanging across the waistcoat. Mr Kowalski looked clean and freshly pressed himself. He had shaved and
he was wearing a hat, which he took off when Mr Howard opened the door.

‘Apologies if I disturb, Mr Howard,’ he said. ‘Is possible I speak to your son?’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Mr Howard, and he called up the stairs. ‘Alex? Down here, please!’ He turned
back to Mr Kowalski. ‘Has he done something to annoy you? Because if he has –’

‘No, no, he is no trouble.’ Mr Kowalski looked slightly embarrassed. ‘He give me cake.’

‘Cake?’ Mr Howard looked puzzled. ‘What… you mean as a joke?’

‘Was not a joke,’ said Mr Kowalski. ‘Was a cake. But I not polite. Very bad manners.’ He looked up as Alex appeared on the
stairs and smiled. ‘So I come now to say thank you.’ Still smiling, he clicked his heels and gave Alex a little bow. ‘And
to say that cake was… much appreciated.’

‘Oh,’ said Alex. ‘Good.’

‘And I bring you these.’ Mr Kowalski produced a bag and, reaching inside, took out a cricket ball, three tennis balls, a frisbee
and a football. ‘I find them in my garden. They are yours, yes?’

‘Yes! That’s great!’ They were all the things that Alex had lost over the fence during the last few months – all, that is,
except the football, which seemed to be new. ‘This one isn’t mine,’ he said, passing it back.

‘No?’ Mr Kowalski gave a little shrug. ‘You keep it anyway, eh? Play football with your friends!’

‘Right,’ said Alex. ‘Thanks very much.’

‘Mr Kowalski!’ Alex’s mother had come out of the kitchen. ‘How nice to see you. Would you like a drink?’

‘Well…’ Mr Kowalski hesitated. ‘I not want to disturb…’

‘Come on!’ Mrs Howard took his arm and led him down the hallway. ‘We haven’t seen you for ages. We don’t often get a chance
to talk.’

Mr Kowalski stayed for a drink, then a second one and then stayed for supper. One way and another it was a surprisingly jolly
evening. The four of them sat round the kitchen table and talked. They talked about Alex’s cake, they talked about jobs and
work, they talked about cars – and then somehow the conversation came round to Callum and his accidents. Mr Kowalski said
that he had had a lot of accidents when he was growing up in Poland and then Mr Howard started talking about things he had
done as a boy that were every bit as disastrous as anything Callum had done and Alex found it all very interesting. Best of
all, while they were talking, nobody argued about anything.

It was after Mr Kowalski had gone and they were doing the dishes that Alex’s mother remarked how strange it all was.

‘How do you mean?’ asked Mr Howard.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘we’ve always thought Mr Kowalski didn’t like people – he never lets anyone into his house, he hardly says
good morning – and then he comes round here and talks like that for nearly three hours. Why?’

‘Perhaps he’s changed,’ said Mr Howard. ‘Like Callum.’

‘And why does he hate animals and children so much?’ Alex’s mother went on. ‘Why’s he so desperate to keep them out of his
garden?’

‘A lot of people don’t like animals and children.’ Mr Howard smiled at Alex. ‘Perfectly understandable.’

‘And what’s with keeping his curtains drawn all the time?’ said Mrs Howard, scrubbing at the last of the saucepans. ‘And all
the windows tightly closed. Can you imagine how hot it must get in there?’

‘Perhaps he’s hiding something,’ said Mr Howard.

‘Hiding something… ?’ Mrs Howard frowned. ‘Like what?’

‘That,’ said her husband, slowly shaking his head, ‘is something we shall probably never know.’

And in that moment it occurred to Alex that something else you could do with Ctrl‐Z, was solve a mystery like Mr Kowalski
in a blink.

W
hat we have to do,’ Alex told Callum as they walked to school the next morning, ‘is wait until he goes out, then I’ll go into his house and take a look around and see what he’s hiding.’

‘How are you going to get in?’ asked Callum. ‘He’ll have locked the door when he goes out, won’t he?’

Alex had thought of that. He had considered throwing a brick through one of the windows and breaking in, but decided there
was no need.

‘He doesn’t lock the door when he’s just going out to the garden,’ he said, ‘and he’s out there every day. At four o’clock
he has his tea sitting on the bench and usually falls asleep. He’ll be out there for at least half an hour.’

‘

Callum thought the whole thing sounded very risky and said so.

‘Oh, come on!’ said Alex. ‘I’m not asking you to come with me or anything! I just need you to keep watch. If you see him move
back to the house, you press Ctrl‐Z. That’s all you have to do!’

Alex had thought of taking the laptop with him, but then remembered the time he had carried it into Mr Kowalski’s garden and
dropped it. It would be safer to leave it with Callum.

Callum still did not like the idea.
‘If something goes wrong…’ he said.
‘It wouldn’t matter if anything
did
go wrong, would it!’ interrupted Alex. ‘Because if it did, all you’ve got to do is press Ctrl‐Z!’

Callum sighed. Since his accidents had stopped, life had been wonderfully calm and peaceful, and he felt a strong reluctance
to do anything that might threaten that. On the other hand, it was very hard to say no to someone who had, only the day before,
warned him that Lilly was about to abseil out of her window and suggested someone stop her before she fell and hurt herself.

Callum’s sister was feeling a lot better these days and she had always been an adventurous girl. After the warning from Alex,
Callum had gone to her bedroom and found her with one end of a
length of rope tied round the bed and the other round her waist, about to climb out of the window. He had given her a long
lecture on the need to behave sensibly when recovering from an illness.

Alex had known what was going to happen, of course, because it already had, and he had used Ctrl‐Z to go back to before it
happened so that Callum could stop it. When a friend did something like that for you, it was difficult to say no when he wanted
a favour in return.

‘All right,’ he agreed.
‘Great!’ said Alex. ‘We’ll meet up in my room at about quarter to four.’

At exactly four o’clock, Mr Kowalski emerged from his back door with a mug of tea and a newspaper tucked under one arm. He
strolled across his garden and settled himself comfortably on the bench.

Alex and Callum watched him from the window of Alex’s bedroom.

‘Right…’ Alex pointed to the computer screen on his desk. ‘The time’s all set. You remember what you have to do?’

‘I keep my eyes on Mr Kowalski,’ said Callum. ‘If I see him coming back to the house, I press Ctrl‐Z.’

‘And?’

‘And if you haven’t come out after ten minutes, I press the button anyway.’

‘That’s right,’ said Alex. ‘And don’t look so worried. I keep telling you. Nothing can go wrong!’

As he made his way downstairs and out of the front door, Alex could hear his mother working on her beloved Triumph in the
garage and he smiled cheerfully to himself as he jumped over the low wall between his house and Mr Kowalski’s. A moment later
he was at the back door of number 16, quietly pushing it open and stepping inside.

It was dark in Mr Kowalski’s kitchen, but once Alex’s eyes got used to the light that filtered through the curtains and blinds,
he could see the room was surprisingly neat and tidy. It was clean, everything looked normal, and he made his way through
to the hall.

It was even darker here, though he had no trouble finding his way around. All the houses in Oakwood Close were built with
the same floor plan and he looked briefly into the dining room – in his own house, his father used it as an office – before
making his way through to the sitting room.

It was so dark in this room that it was almost impossible to see anything, and there was an odd, musty smell in the air that
Alex couldn’t quite place. He wondered about turning on a light, but decided not to in case Mr Kowalski noticed it
from the garden, and went to the front window to pull back one of the curtains instead. It didn’t move. Feeling with his hands,
he found it had been nailed to the window sill.

He should have brought a torch, he thought. Even as his eyes got used to the dark, he couldn’t see anything beyond the vaguest
shapes, and he was wondering if he should go back to the house and get one, when he froze. He had heard a noise. It was a
faint sort of rustling sound that he thought at first he might have imagined, but no… there it was again.

There was someone else in the room, and they were moving – moving quietly, but definitely towards him.

It was time to leave and Alex took a step towards the door – or tried to, but his legs wouldn’t move. They seemed to be glued
to the floor and try as he might he could not move them so much as an inch. There was something holding them, something wrapped
around the lower half of his legs. Reaching down, Alex could feel something warm and slightly rough to the touch under his
fingers, and he knew immediately what it was.

It was a snake.

It had to be a very large snake. There were two coils of it round the bottom of his legs, each of them almost as thick as
Alex’s waist, and they
were heavy. He could feel the weight of them against his feet, and when he tried to push them away it was like pushing a wall.
Nothing moved, except that the coils tightened slightly, increasing the pressure against his legs. There were three coils
now instead of two and they were moving, winding themselves slowly further up his body.

Well, Alex thought, at least he had solved the mystery. He knew why Mr Kowalski kept the doors locked and curtains drawn now.
If you had a large snake in your house you would want to make sure that it didn’t get out. And you wouldn’t let people inside,
either. He had a feeling there were laws about keeping large and dangerous pets and the snake curled round his legs was certainly
large…

The three coils had become four now and were still moving. As they passed his waist, Alex opened his mouth and began calling
for help. He shouted, shouted as loudly as he could – it didn’t matter now if Mr Kowalski came. In fact, he
wanted
him to appear. But he didn’t. Nobody came. The double glazing fitted to the windows of the houses in the close was highly
effective soundproofing and nobody heard.

The coils were up to his chest now and drawing tighter. It was getting difficult to breathe. Alex tried to think. How long
would it be before Callum realized he had not come out and pressed Ctrl‐Z.

He had told him to wait ten minutes and he had a nasty feeling that by then it would be too late.

Did Ctrl‐Z still work after you’d died, Alex wondered? Could it bring you back to life and take you back to before it had
happened? He had once joked about the possibility with Callum, but this wasn’t a joke at all…

The coils covered his body up to the top of his chest now. His arms were pinned against his sides and breathing was almost
impossible. It was an effort to expand his chest to pull in even the smallest gasp of air and he had given up shouting for
help. Did snakes try to swallow you while you were still alive, he wondered? He didn’t fancy that. Probably better to have
someone hit you on the back of the head with a piece of piping than…

It was getting difficult to think. There were little coloured lights in front of his eyes and then suddenly –

Suddenly there was a bright light and the sound of someone’s voice. ‘
Boze móje!!
’

‘Alex?’ Mr Kowalski’s face had appeared, slightly blurred, swimming in the air in front of him. ‘You don’t move! You hear
me? You keep still!’

A slightly unnecessary instruction, Alex thought. There hadn’t been much chance of moving for some time.

‘Oh, you are bad boy! You are
very
bad boy!’ Mr

Kowalski was saying, and Alex was trying to apologize when he realized the old man was talking to the snake. He had grabbed
one end of it, the tail, and was unwinding the coils as he spoke. A bit later, the pressure on Alex’s chest began to ease.
He could breathe again and he sank to the floor. Slumping on the carpet, his back resting against the wall, he could actually
see the snake for the first time.

It was truly enormous. Well over ten metres in length, its coils seemed to cover most of the floor. Mr Kowalski had a section
of it slung over his shoulder and was hauling it across the room, pushing it into a huge wooden chest that ran along one wall.
As he put one part of the snake in the chest, another would start to slide out and Mr Kowalski would determinedly grab it
and push it back in, talking to it all the time as if it were a naughty child.

Finally, the last section of the snake had been stuffed into the box and Mr Kowalski closed the lid and snapped a bolt to
keep it in place. He came back to Alex, knelt down and stared anxiously into his eyes.

‘How are you, Alex? You all right?’

‘I‐I think so.’

‘I am fool. I am such idiot.’ Mr Kowalski smacked himself sharply on the side of the head. ‘I knew this happen one day. You
wait here. I get you drink.’

Mr Kowalski left, but was back a moment later with a glass of water. Alex sipped it gratefully.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Kowalski,’ he said. ‘I know I shouldn’t have –’

‘No, no!’ Mr Kowalski waved his hands. ‘Is all my fault. You are young boy. You want to know why old man next door lives in
house with curtains drawn and windows locked. You are curious. Of course you are.’ He gave himself another smack on the head.
‘I knew this happen one day.’

Alex was beginning to recover. ‘What… what sort of snake, is it?’ he asked.

‘Is African python,’ said Mr Kowalski. ‘Biggest snake in the world.’ There was a touch of pride in his voice as he spoke.