Chapter 4. Remote Control
‘Thank goodness Dad made such a harmless wish,’ said Tracey, as she and Ryan companionably ate peanut butter sandwiches in the kitchen after school. ‘My teachers would have been really suspicious if I’d been super polite all day. As it was, the politeness took a while to wear off.’
‘Don’t remind me,’ shuddered Ryan. ‘It was bad enough in Maths, first up. Andy and I stood back and let all the girls go into the classroom before us and Andy told all of them in turn to ‘have a nice day.’ They all thought we were mad. We had to pretend it was some sort of joke.’
Tracey giggled. ‘Could have been worse, I suppose. Although the mansion by the lake would have been really neat.’ She sighed regretfully.
‘So have you got the right spoon now?’
‘Yep.’
‘What are you going to do with it?’ Ryan persisted.
‘That’s my business,’ said Tracey haughtily.
‘You can’t use it,’ said Ryan. ‘Why don’t you let me have a turn.’
‘Not yet,’ said Tracey in annoyance. ‘Amber and I are going to use it first. Mind you’, she said thoughtfully, ‘we may have to rethink a bit if the wishes only last until someone makes the next one.’
‘Yeah,’ agreed Ryan. ‘There’d be no point in wishing to be rich if you didn’t get a chance to spend the money.’
‘You can have lots of time to think up something really good for yourself,’ said Tracey firmly. ‘I’ll let you have a turn another day.’
Despite Ryan’s nagging, she wouldn’t budge from this. Ryan mumbled ‘hello’ to Amber as she arrived and hung around in the hallway outside Tracey’s bedroom door. Much to his disappointment, all he heard was some low muttering and a few subdued giggles. He asked Yecart if she knew what Tracey and Amber were up to but she shook her head vigorously and dangled a ball of string for her kitten to pat and pounce on. Ryan gave up in disgust and mooched off to watch television. From the couch in the living room he could keep an eye on Tracey’s bedroom door and see if anyone or anything went in or out. Two cartoons later, Tracey and Amber came into the living room giggling together. Tracey put a new cassette into the video player and after a short struggle managed to get the remote off Ryan.
‘What are you doing?’ he demanded.
‘Be quiet, I’m concentrating.’
If you’re trying to work the video, you only have to ask me nicely’ said Ryan annoyingly, knowing that he was the only person in the house who could effortlessly program the video recorder. Tracey ignored him and pushed buttons furiously, finally giving an exasperated groan. ‘You have to push the top button twice,’ Ryan said helpfully. His sister glared at him and spent another fruitless minute trying unsuccessfully to set the recorder. ‘Don’t forget to push the channel select,’ Ryan murmured, as he saw Tracey jabbing desperately at the buttons. Finally she snorted in disgust and handed the remote back to her brother.
‘I need you to video Teen Talent Scout for tonight,’ she snapped.
‘Say please.’
‘Please,’ said Tracey grudgingly.
‘Say it as if you mean it.’
‘Do you want a slap? Honestly! Brothers!’ Tracey and Amber exchanged knowing looks. Ryan scowled and pushed the sequence of buttons. ‘There. All set. Why are you recording it anyway? Can’t you watch it instead?’
‘We’re going to be busy tonight,’ said Tracey mysteriously. Ryan’s ears pricked up at this but he knew that Tracey wouldn’t tell him anymore.
‘It’s a stupid programme, anyway,’ he muttered as the girls left the room.
Teen Talent Scout was on every Monday night. The host was Gary Garland, who was always immaculately dressed in a grey suit with a pink or purple tie. He had blond streaked brown hair that looked as if it was sprayed into place and an even tan that never varied even in winter. He was inclined to beam constantly at the camera with a mouth full of large, extremely white teeth, and made witty little jokes to the studio audience, most of whom were elderly ladies with grey hair. Each week a selection of teenagers displayed their talents; singing, dancing or putting on comedy routines. A panel of guest judges, who as far as Ryan could tell were usually old people who used to be famous, selected the best performer who then went on to compete in the last show of the series in the hope of winning twenty thousand dollars and a silver trophy. All Tracey’s friends watched it avidly and dreamed of being good enough to appear in it. It seemed as if everyone knew someone whose brother or cousin or neighbour had nearly been chosen but who hadn’t passed the auditions. Ryan had watched it a few times; usually when he was so bored he had nothing better to do. He couldn’t see what all the fuss was about.
‘It’s mainly singing and dancing’ he said to Andy when he phoned. ‘They don’t even have anything decent like Hip-Hop. It’s all ballet dancers in those frilly outfits and people singing things like Over the Rainbow.’
‘They had a neat magician on one night,’ said Andy. ‘Not that I watch it,’ he added hastily, ‘it was just sort of on while I was doing my homework.’
‘Yeah, right.’
‘Has Tracey let you make a wish yet?’
‘Nah. She’s got Amber here and they won’t tell me what they’re going to do.’
‘Keep watching them and tell me tomorrow if it’s something cool.’
‘Okay.’
‘Where are Tracey and Amber?’ Ryan’s mother asked. ‘It’s time for tea but I can’t find them anywhere. And don’t you have any homework? Surely you must have something better to do than to watch TV?’
‘I’ll check Tracey’s bedroom,’ yelled Ryan, leaping to his feet. He raced down the hallway and flung the door wide. The room was empty.
‘She’s not there. Nor is Amber,’ he shouted.
‘I knew that, Ryan. Now check outside for me will you? My casserole will dry out if I keep it in the oven much longer.’
Ryan looked around Tracey’s room once more to see if he could spot the spoon, but there was no sign of it. While he was there he quickly looked in the drawers and under the edges of Tracey’s mattress for Tracey’s diary, but there was no sign of that, either.
‘She’s probably ripped up a floorboard and hidden it under that,’ he thought resentfully. ‘They must have made a wish and gone off somewhere without me. Talk about mean.’ He went for a token walk outside then reported to his mother that the girls were not there. ‘They must have gone off without telling anyone,’ he told his mother virtuously.
‘That’s not like Tracey. She’s usually very reliable. Never mind we’ll have our dinner anyway. I’ll keep some aside for them.’
Ryan didn’t enjoy the meal. With no Tracey to chatter, his father had decided to use the time to have a deep and meaningful conversation with him. Mr Hughes had bumped into Andy’s father that day at a business lunch, and he had been raving over how mature Andy was getting.
‘He tells me that he and Andy discussed the stockmarket yesterday and debated the best shares to invest in. Can you believe that?’ Ryan could believe it only too well.
‘It’s that good manners, wish,’ he thought bitterly. ‘That really sucked.’
After hearing from Andy’s father that Andy was confident, witty and articulate, it became apparent to Mr Hughes that Andy was everything that Ryan was not. He thought that having a conversation with his son would be a good start, but unfortunately for Ryan this took the form of an inquisition. Mr Hughes fired questions at him then expounded his own views at length, while Ryan’s only contribution was to shrug helplessly or mumble something unintelligible. After the sixteenth question that Ryan answered with a grudging ‘dunno,’ his father pushed his chair away from the table in frustration.
‘I would have thought by your age you’d have been able to run to a vocabulary of at least a dozen words. All you seem to be able to do is grunt.’
Ryan stared at him balefully. ‘It’s not my fault,’ he pointed out. ‘I’m the second kid. Tracey’s the one who does all th
e talking. There’s never any time left for me to talk so I don’t bother.’ Grabbing an apple he marched out of the room in an offended silence.
‘See. He can speak perfectly well if he wants to,’ said Mr Hughes accusingly to his wife. ‘It’s your fault. You should speak to him more often.’ With this unfair statement he also left the dining room and retreated behind his newspaper in his easy chair in the living room, pointedly ignoring Ryan who was scowling from the couch and channel hopping with the remote.
After a rapid succession of channels, each with louder music than the last, Mr Hughes lost his temper completely.
‘Stop!’ he roared. ‘Leave that remote alone. Don’t change channels any more. I’m trying to read the paper.’
‘I can mute it,’ offered Ryan helpfully.
‘No. Leave it on that channel, only turn it down. If you don’t want to watch that you can go to your room.’
Ryan sat there resentfully. Just his luck. It was that awful Teen Talent Scout starting and it was even being videoed so he couldn’t record another channel. What a waste!