NO ORDINARY ROOM (8 page)

As the screen flickered during the computer’s start-up routine, Jamie expected to see a ‘gotcha’ message from, Daniel the joker, appear on the screen, but everything seemed normal. 

‘Wow,’ was all that Jamie could say when he clicked on System Proprieties and saw that he had 200 infineonbytes of natureram.   He wondered how many bytes were in an infineon, but guessed there would be mega, mega!

‘You are an absolute genius, Daniel,’ Jamie said, directing his comments at the monitor after he had loaded a file into natureram and confirmed that he was able to use the ram he had just installed.  Just to be absolutely convinced that his computer was actually using the memory supplied by the yucca plant on the window sill he disconnected one of the sensors from the plant.

Jamie shook his head in amazement as the error message flashed onto the screen declaring that there had been a natureram malfunction.

Jamie sent off an email to Daniel explaining the operation had been successful and that he was ready to download the game onto his machine.  Daniel had already explained that although the game required massive amounts of storage he would send it via superzip and it would probably only take 12 timeonseconds to download.  Jamie didn’t bother to ask how long a timeonsecond was because he knew it was probably trillions and trillions faster than the blink of an eye.

By the time Jamie heard his dad’s call to summon him downstairs for his dinner he had enjoyed an ‘out of this world’ experience playing ‘Ultimate
Planet Wars
’.  Daniel hadn't exaggerated when he had described its level of realism that was far beyond the fastest arcade game that he had played.  He had flicked through some of the other games and noted one that caught his attention called ‘
Virtual Movie’
.

Jamie had been thinking about his newly installed natureram and had decided that the only explanation was that Uncle Stanley and Daniel’s granddad must have been working on some secret government project that had developed organic memory.  The idea that plant life could act as computer memory was awesome and it reminded him of something his dad had told him just a few months ago.  His dad believed that there were all kinds of patents that had been taken out on various inventions by the big companies to prevent the products ever been put on sale. His dad had read somewhere that an everlasting match had been invented that would make lighters and matches obsolete if it was ever put on sale.  He also believed that cars could be powered by super efficient batteries, but they wouldn’t be made available until the oil ran out.  Jamie didn’t always agree with his dad’s political views, but on this occasion they made sense.  At the moment computer components, including memory was big business that could be wiped out if someone discovered that it could be provided by plant life.  He reminded himself to make sure that the yucca plant was cared for if ever they went on holiday.  Rufus would be the ideal person and Jamie wondered if Rufus’s giant cucumbers could be used in an organic computing system.

Kevin saw the faraway look on Jamie’s face as they waited for Debbie to serve their dinner.  He didn’t think that his son had discovered girls yet, but something was preoccupying his thoughts lately.  It must have been several days since they had chatted about football and that was serious as far as Kevin was concerned.  He had been over the moon when his son was born and he had hoped that their second child would also have been a boy, but he had been pleased for Debbie when Leanne came along.  Kevin wasn’t looking forward to the day when Leanne brought home a lad who didn’t support Liverpool, or even worse didn’t like football. 

‘Jamie, me thinks you are spending too much time on that computer,’ Debbie said as she placed his dinner in front of him.

‘I keep telling you, Mum, that it’s educational and helps me with my homework, especially being able to get on the Internet.’

Kevin delayed the intended bite on the sausage on the end of his fork and he added his support to what Jamie had said, ‘The lad’s right, Debs, judging by his first school report he’s doing really well.  So, it can’t be doing him any harm and it’s not costing us anything according to the telephone bill that came through yesterday.  How come we’re not being charged for you using the Internet, our Jamie?’

Jamie carried on munching the mouthful of potato while he thought up an excuse.

‘I expect Uncle Stanley must have paid in advance or the telephone people have messed up,’ Jamie suggested, but he still didn’t know how the computer accessed the Internet because he hadn’t discovered a modem or any telephone point in the room.    

‘I suppose that might explain it,’ replied Kevin, ’or maybe Uncle Stanley had a contact with one of his old techie mates who might have fiddled it in some way.’

Debbie frowned as she scolded her husband, ‘Trust you to think of that.  I’m sure he wouldn’t have done any such thing.’

‘Well, the telephone people rip us off with high telephone charges, so where’s the harm!’

Kevin winked at Jamie and then decided not to upset Debbie any further, ‘But I expect you are right, Sweetheart.  I wasn’t being serious.  Anyway, how is the computer doing, son?

‘It’s not bad for an old machine,’ Jamie replied, thinking if only he could explain what it was really like, which was super, super turbo.

Jamie had promised to send Daniel a photograph because neither of the boys had a camera connected to their computers, but couldn’t find one, so decided to ask his mum who knew exactly where everything was.

‘Mum, where are those photographs of me that were taken just before we left Liverpool.  You know the ones with me and Geoff?’

‘You’ll find them in one of the shoe boxes in our wardrobe.  I haven’t got around to putting them in an album.’

‘Are you planning to send your mug shot to a young lady?’ teased Kevin and asked him if he’d met her on one of those ‘chat line thingies’.

‘Do me a favour, Dad.  Chat lines are for lonely people or old timers, like you.’

‘Cheeky,’ Kevin jokingly admonishing Jamie, ‘Mind you, your mum used to have a pen pal.  What was his name, Debs?’

Debbie pulled tongues at her husband and answered that his name was Gordon.

‘Ah, yes, Gordon from Sheffield.  I bet he’s still playing with his train set.’

‘Was he your boyfriend, Mum?’ asked Leanne with a rare question.

‘Not really, but he was a nice lad.  Your dad didn’t like him just because he didn’t play football.’

‘He didn’t play anything,’ Kevin said and started laughing.

‘Ask your mum where Gordon took her on their first date?’            

‘I don’t remember,’ Debbie said.

‘Your mum’s a big fibber.  He took her train spotting and if I hadn’t teased your mum so much she would probably be living near Crewe station in a railway house now.’

‘Did you have a girlfriend at school, Daddy?’ Leanne asked with her second question of the day.

‘I was too busy enjoying myself playing football, Princess.’

‘Now who’s fibbing,’ Debbie challenged him. ‘What about Megan Davies?’

Kevin was wishing that he hadn’t started this bit of fun.  He still recalled the day that Gareth and Dai Davies had held him over the railway bridge, threatening to drop him if he didn’t promise to take their sister to the school dance.

‘You know why I took Megan out,’ he reminded Debbie.

‘Of course I do.  I’m hardly likely to forget the hunky Davies brothers.’

Kevin decided that it was time to change the subject. 

‘So, Jamie, when are we going to see your computer in action?  I was telling your mum that I’m thinking of enrolling on one of those government computer courses.  I’ll soon be coming out with all those buzz words like megapits and geigerhurters.’

‘Dad!’ Jamie groaned and then corrected him, ‘Its megabytes and gigahertz and you are best to finish your course before I show you my computer, because it’s a bit more complicated than a shop bought computer.’

‘Giga Hertz,’ Kevin mused over the name and then told Jamie that he used to play for Bayern Munich.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Jamie was still troubled about having to keep the power of Uncle Stanley’s computer a secret, but was given some light relief when the family were having dinner and his dad told them that his search for a job was over.  Debbie was surprised because it was the first that she had heard of it and she had been with Kevin all afternoon.

‘You kept that quiet,’ Debbie said, trying to hide her annoyance that he had waited until now to deliver the important news.

‘Come on, Dad; don’t keep us in suspense, ‘Jamie said.  ‘I bet it’s something to do with cars.’

Kevin reached for the salt as he replied, ‘No, it’s nothing to do with cars.’

‘Is it something to do with flowers and things, or vegetables?’ Leanne asked. 

Jamie laughed. ‘You’re going to become a fruit and veg man on the market, Dad.  I can just hear you doing your sales pitch and calling out, ‘ripe bananas’.

‘No, but our Leanne is getting warmer because it’s connected with farming.  Well sort of.  You haven’t had a guess yet, Debs, so what do you think it is?’ Kevin asked.

‘Spud picking would be my guess if it’s part time.’

‘It’s full time and more to do with animals than crops.’

‘I hope it is horses, Daddy, because I want to go horse riding,’ Leanne said, clearly excited by the prospect.

‘Sorry, Princess, but it’s nothing to do with horses.’

‘Then it must be cows because we haven’t seen any sheep around here,’ Debbie suggested.

Kevin shook his head, but before he could bring the guessing game to an end Jamie beat him to it.

‘Pigs, its pigs,’ Jamie said, sounding confident that he had guessed right and Kevin nodded in agreement.  Leanne groaned, Debbie gave a faint smile and Jamie was in hysterics.

‘It’s not that funny, son.  Anyway, I’ve done a bit of reading about pigs and they definitely get a bad press.  They’re one the cleanest animals, almost as clean as we are in fact and they’re friendly.  Mr Rosser who owns the farm says that I’m a natural with them and that should make the job easier.’

‘So, what does the job involve exactly?’   Debbie asked.

‘Well mostly making sure that the stock are in good health and preparing them for market.  It’s quite a responsible job according to Mr Rosser.

‘And what about cleaning out the sty?’ Jamie asked.

‘Well, yeah, I’ll have to do a bit of cleaning, but as I said, pigs are really clean animals.’

‘So, when mum says that my bedroom is like a pigsty then everything is okay,’ Jamie said with a big grin.

‘No, it’s not,’ Debbie said, ‘Anyway, I think we should all be proud of your dad and wish him well.’

‘Yes, well done, Pops, but I hope this doesn’t mean that bacon and sausages are off the menu.’

‘No way,’ replied Kevin. ‘And I don’t want any wisecracks about me being smelly because I’ll be wearing special work clothes and I’ll be having a shower at the farm before I come home.’  

‘Will you be giving them special names, Daddy?’ Leanne asked.

‘I’m not sure about that, Princess, but I did see one that reminded me of Auntie Helen,’ replied Kevin as he swerved away from the playful nudge that was about to be delivered by Debbie.

‘Mum, are you going to tell Auntie Helen about dad’s new job?  You know what a snob she is and she’s bound to say something that isn’t very nice,’ Jamie said.

‘Of course I’m going to tell her.  There’s nothing to be ashamed of.  As I said, I’m proud of your dad.’

‘I hope you’re still saying that when I disturb you tomorrow morning when I get out of bed at half past six, but I’ll be finished at three and I’ve got Saturdays off so I can go to the ‘footy?'.

‘Half past six!’ said a shocked Jamie, ‘that’s the middle of the night.  I can’t see why pigs would want to be up so early.’ 

 ‘I forgot to mention that I’ll be required to attend shows, apparently one of the pigs is a champion and has won a stack of cups.’

Jamie started having another bout of laughing and when he finally controlled himself he asked a question.

 ‘Does that mean you’ll be leading porky around an arena like they do with dogs at Crufts?’

‘That’s the idea and I get paid a bonus if any of the pigs wins a prize.’

‘Can I come and see you at one of the shows, Dad?’ Jamie asked. ‘I promise I won’t laugh.  Well, I will, but I won’t let you hear me.’

‘Of course you can come.  You might even get to like it and who knows you might want to consider it as a career when you finish school.  I could pass on all my experience.’

‘I hope you’re joking, Dad, but I know a lad at school who would be well suited to it.  The only problem is that the judges at the shows might pin the rosette on Jason Patmore instead of the pig.’

‘Jamie,’ Debbie said in her best reprimanding voice, ‘You shouldn’t say things like that about your school mates.  Should he Kevin?’

‘No, he shouldn’t, but if he’s the boy I saw at the school gate once I know what he means.’

Debbie sighed and shook her head. ‘Trust you, to say something like that instead of just telling him off.’

* * *

Jamie was disappointed when he began experiencing problems trying to contact Daniel.  The error message on the screen reported ‘Cyber Service Not Operational’ and Jamie wondered if the problem was connected with the system upgrade that Daniel’s granddad had been planning to do.  Jamie contented himself with playing some of the games that Daniel had downloaded for him, including a replay of Liverpool's win over Manchester United with ‘Jamie’ replacing Steven Gerrard.  Jamie intended to let his  dad ‘star’ in a Virtual Football game involving a Liverpool v Everton match, perhaps on his dad's birthday and it would be the best present his dad ever had, because it would be the game that Liverpool hammered their local rivals.  Jamie was thinking that perhaps he would arrange for his Uncle Steven to make an appearance as the Everton goalkeeper.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Jamie groaned as he approached his house and saw the large silver BMW which meant that Auntie Helen and drippy Uncle Alistair had arrived.  Jamie turned the key in the front door lock as quietly as he could, hoping to creep up to his computer room.  He would have succeeded, despite the creaky stairs, if big mouth Leanne hadn’t announced his arrival.