NO ORDINARY ROOM (20 page)

‘Debs we agreed that it’s her decision to make and Fiona isn’t going to push her.  Hang on I think she’s made her mind up.’

There were fresh tears in Debbie’s eyes as she watched Falcon trotting towards them.  It seemed that Leanne may not have just competed in her first and last riding competition. 

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

It was late on Sunday evening when Jamie eventually established contact with Daniel who dispensed with the usual welcome and banter and asked Jamie if everything was all right.  Jamie laughed. ‘Everything’s fine apart from being attacked by sharks, having a cave nearly crush my head in and watch my dad’s car crash onto the spot where we’d just been  sitting on.  Oh, and yesterday I saw a horse take my sister for a ride that she didn’t want to go on.’

‘You’re not joking, are you?’ Daniel asked.

‘No, I’m not joking and I’m not letting my imagination run riot either.  Have you any idea what happened to our link.  I’ve been trying to connect to you for ages.’

‘There have been a few problems and I expect there might be some further trouble.’

Jamie was disappointed that Daniel was predicting further troubles ahead.  Perhaps it wasn’t a man with a digger after all that had been responsible for pulling up some cables.

Jamie was surprised that Daniel wanted him to describe in detail what had happened during the recent incidents.

‘I don’t believe that you were in any danger from the sharks,’ Daniel said after Jamie had finished describing what had happened.

Jamie was annoyed because it seemed that the computer whiz kid from Scarborough was apparently an expert on sharks as well and was offering advice from the safety of a room some hundreds of miles away.

‘I didn’t know you had sharks in Scarborough, Daniel and we were definitely in danger.  My poor Mum and Dad saw us being chased by the monsters and it was a wonder they didn’t have a heart attack with the shock.’

‘I’m sorry I didn’t mean to sound like a ‘know all’.  I have never actually seen a live shark, but I do have very good reason to believe that you were not in danger from those that you think you saw.’

Jamie felt himself getting angry with his friend, ‘There was no ‘thinking’ about it.  I saw the sharks, my sister saw them and my folks saw them.  So, what are you trying to say, Daniel?’

‘I’ll try and explain Jamie, but you must be prepared for a shock.’

‘You mean another one.  After what’s happened, especially being chased by sharks I think I can handle it.’

‘What you and your family saw were just images of sharks.  They were not physically present in the water like you believed.  That is why I said that you were not in danger from the sharks, or when you were inside the ‘door’ and you thought it was descending.’

‘What you mean the sharks were an illusion.  Even if was true how would you know that was the case and why would we all have seen the same thing at the same time?’   

‘Your image processing was altered and that was why you and your family had those odd experiences.’

‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ Jamie asked.

‘I am, but I’ve probably told you too much already.  If you log back on tomorrow I might be able to explain.  I need to speak to my granddad before I can reveal more details, but be warned that if I’m allowed to explain what really happened and how it was done you will find it hard to believe and I will not be joking.’

* * *

Jamie hadn’t been able to concentrate when he attended school the day after Daniel had suggested the sharks had just been images and matters hadn’t been helped when one of subjects in his general interest lesson had been about sharks.  The teacher who had taken the subject was able to relay some personal experience because he had lost a close friend during a shark attack while they were sail boarding in Western Australia.  According to the teacher there had been a shark warning by the coastguards earlier in the day and they had gone out shortly after the all clear.

* * *

Jamie was still thinking of the picture that he seen of the killer sharks at school earlier that day when he logged on and made contact with Daniel, wondering what Daniel was going to say.

His friend from Scarborough was in a subdued mood again when he told Jamie that he now had permission to explain something very important and warned him once again that this wasn’t a joke.

Daniel told Jamie that the human brain was not physically located in the head as people believed, but was on a computer on a distant planet.  He explained that the human brain was merely a modem that allowed the remote brain to be accessed, but it did have some additional functionality, including a limited amount of memory.

Jamie laughed and interrupted, ‘I suppose you’re going to tell me that my brain is in a yucca plant and my sister’s is in a cabbage.’ 

‘No, organic matter is not used for brain functions.  I don’t expect you to believe what I have told you, Jamie, but I will prove to you that our brains are located in outer space.’

A sceptical Jamie challenged, ‘Go on then.’

‘Try and keep an open mind, Jamie and remember your knowledge of computers.  For that is what our brains are, just computers, although probably not like we imagine a computer to be.  I know its mind boggling, but it’s true.’ 

‘Come off it.  Remember this is me you’re talking to, street wise Jamie.  You want me to believe that instead of a brain we have a glorified modem in our bonces and our actual brains are located on some distant planet.’

‘Jamie, I know it’s hard to believe and our physical brains inside our head do have some processing capability and limited memory, but it is essentially a modem and I have told you that I can prove it to you.’

 Jamie let his imagination go into freefall as he considered the idea that the human brain located in the head isn’t really a brain as such, but just a glorified modem that communicates with a computer on a distant planet that contains the actual brain.  Why not!  It would mean that people like Jason Patmore weren’t really mudders with small brains; they just had a slower connection.  Jamie was still sceptical about the brain and modem claims, but he wasn’t about to dismiss a claim made by someone who had turned a yucca plant into a high speed storage device with more capacity than anyone could ever imagine.

Jamie mused some more.  If Daniel was right, then perhaps females had slower modems than males.  Now that was feasible or at least it would be to his dad. ‘No, this is stupid,’ cried out Jamie, forgetting that the microphone was alive.

‘We just need to conduct a simple experiment, Jamie and perhaps it will stop ‘doing your head in.’

‘I’m having trouble taking all this in.  If it is true, then how did your granddad find out?’

‘I can’t tell you that, Jamie, except to say that it’s linked to what I’ve told you about the computers advances my grandfather and your uncle knew about.  There are so many things that I would like to tell you, but I am not allowed to.  Surely, when I helped you create the extra computer memory with the Yucca plant you must have realised there are matters that cannot be understood with our limited knowledge of certain things.’

Jamie expelled air as he gave a heavy sigh.  ‘You really are asking me to believe all that stuff about modems in the head and brains in outer space?’

‘Yes, I am.  Just do the experiment and it will help you understand what I have told is for real.’

‘All right then.  In for a penny in for a pound as my old dad would say.’

Jamie gave another heavy sigh and asked Daniel what was involved with the experiment, expecting Daniel to start laughing, but he didn’t.   

When Daniel explained what he would need Jamie figured that he didn’t have much to lose except perhaps some of his pocket money.  He had come close to telling Daniel to pull the other one and to get lost, but he would go along with it for now.  

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

 Jamie had once again found it difficult to concentrate during his lessons because his thoughts had been on last night’s discussion about the experiment and so he was glad when he was able to head into town after school to buy the components to carry it out.  The items would be best described as ingredients rather than components which is why his destination was, Jones the greengrocers, rather than somewhere like Bob’s Electronics in Denby.

Mr Jones was sorting some apples when Jamie entered the shop.  Jamie’s Grandma Dawn would have described Mr Jones’s as having a kind, honest, open face.

‘How’s that yucca plant doing, young feller?’

‘It’s fine.  I’ve been watering it just like you said,’ Jamie replied.

‘Good, it will last a long time if it’s looked after properly.  Old Mrs Tomkins had one for donkey’s years.  She used to talk to it and reckoned that it could sense when she was feeling a bit down and used to raise its leaves as though to lift her spirits.’

    Mr Jones kept a straight face when he asked Jamie if he talked to his plant.

‘Well I don’t actually talk to it, although I do communicate with it, but I’m sworn to secrecy about the sign language that I use.’ Jamie joked.

Mr Jones got the message that the youngster was too smart to be teased and asked him what he wanted.

‘Three large coconuts please and before you ask me, Mr Jones; I haven’t got a pet monkey.’ 

Mr Jones decided against quizzing Jamie about why he needed three coconuts and smiled as the young feller hurried from his shop.

* * *

 Jamie had managed to squeeze the coconuts into his bag which he smuggled upstairs along with the other item he’d taken from under the stairs as soon as he got home.

  After his dinner and while he was doing his nightly chore of feeding the fish he collected some cabbage leaves from the vegetable patch.  Jamie was unaware that he had been seen by Rufus who was more than a little puzzled why Jamie had stuffed cabbage leaves up his jumper.  Rufus knew that the youngsters of today got up to all kinds of odd things, but he couldn’t imagine what the boy intended to do with the leaves.  Jamie hurried back into the house while Rufus was left bemused by what he’d seen. 

‘You might hear me banging about a bit upstairs while I’m cleaning the computer room,’ Jamie told his parents, preparing his excuse for the noise that he would soon be making.  It would have been better to have done the task that Daniel had set him in the shed, but he didn’t want to risk being caught.  There was no way that he could have made an excuse for what he planned to do with the coconuts and cabbage leaves.

Jamie split the first coconut without any problem, but hadn’t expected to get a squirt of milk in the eye.  The second one wasn’t so easy and the third clout with the hammer caused it to shatter and Jamie groaned at the waste of his pocket money.  Daniel had said that he needed four halves of the shell for the demonstration to work and prove his claim.

Jamie smiled with relief and a sense of achievement when the hammer blow spilt the third coconut into two clean pieces.

‘I still don’t believe I’m doing this,’ he muttered to himself, not for the first time in recent weeks, as he set about the task of tying two  pieces of shell to the top of the cycle helmet and one either side of it.

‘That’s the tricky bit done and now for the cabbage leaves.’

Jamie stuffed the cabbage leaves inside the helmet and spread them out so that when he put the helmet on the leaves would form a sandwich between his head and the inside of the helmet.  It needed a few attempts before he was confident that the leaves were correctly positioned.

‘I’ll never call anyone a mudder ever again,’ Jamie promised as he sat in front of the computer screen with the modified helmet on his head and feeling like a King Wally.

‘Right, let’s get this over with.’

Jamie opened the email containing the list of questions that Daniel had sent him and Jamie had kept his promise not to read them until now.  Daniel had explained that his head did have some local memory and a small processor that enabled him to perform basic functions like reading, writing and communication; otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to do anything while he had the helmet on his head.

‘Here goes.  Question one.  Who is the Queen of England?’ Jamie asked himself.

Jamie didn’t even know what the question meant, so he put a big cross on the answer sheet that he’d printed off earlier.

Question 2 invited him to name the Liverpool football club manager, but when he tried to write the answer he didn’t have a clue.  He had a similar experience with the remaining three questions and he was soon looking at the five crosses he’d entered on the sheet. 

Jamie removed the helmet and then read the five questions, all of which he answered easily.

‘Wow, Daniel was right.  The coconut and cabbage leaves blocked out the transmission to and from my brain and so I couldn’t answer those simple questions.’

Jamie reminded himself that he must stop talking to himself, something which he had been doing a lot lately. He intended to ask Daniel whether people in some countries where they grew coconuts had any problems.  Surely if they were sheltering from the sun under a coconut tree then it would have some effect on their memory.  The results had given a whole new meaning to the term ‘coconut head’ and it might also explain why monkeys were not as intelligent as humans.                                                                               

* * *

It was a few days after the experiment with the coconuts when the enormity of it sunk in and Jamie began to wonder if he could keep the secret to himself.  The problem was that he couldn’t confide in anyone without them thinking that he had ‘flipped’ and it would mean breaking his promise not to tell anyone.  He could just imagine what his dad would say if he started talking about coconut shells and cabbage leaves and explain that his brain was just a modem, like that little box that usually sat on the desk near the computer.   

Jamie had just been flopping around the house as he often did on a Saturday morning and his dad could sense that he was fed up.

‘Are you sure that you won’t come with us Jamie.  I thought you liked looking around the market?’