When Kevin was little, he was very proud of his tummy button. It was a big sticking-out tummy button on a big tummy. He would pull up his shirt and show it to visitors. His big sister Julia said that that was disgusting, Julia was older by seven years, and Dad used to pretend that it was like the stopper on the air bed and always warned Kevin to be careful that he didn’t let the air out.
Now that Kevin was nearly six and grown up, he had long ago given up showing it off but he still had the idea that his tummy button was special in some way.
Then, one afternoon, when he was sitting in the games room watching the cartoons on T.V., Julia came in. She grabbed the remote from Kevin’s hand with a bossy ‘givisit’ and changed the channel. What Kevin wanted didn’t matter. She wanted to watch Top-of the-Pops and she was bigger.
“Hey! I was here first. Put it back on three,” he demanded, knowing that she wouldn’t. The set switched to channel three.
“Stupid set!” Julia used the remote to try to return to her program on channel four but the television seemed to be stuck on three.
“It’s all your fault. Now you’ve broken the control. I’’m going to tell Mum,” Julia shouted as she stormed out. Everything was always Kevin’s fault.
It was not until after she was gone that Kevin realised that he had been pushing his tummy button. He still was.
“Two,” he said and the set changed to channel two.
“Back to three…switch off…on again…brighter…louder…softer.” While Kevin was pushing his tummy button, the set did everything he asked of it. Even if he whispered. Even if he just thought it. His tummy button was magic. His own remote control. So what else could it do?
The garage door opener! That had a remote. Kevin went out and stood in front of the door.
“Open,” he thought, pushing his tummy button. The electric motor began running and the door began to rise.
“Down,” he thought quickly. Someone might see whar was happening. The door closed.
Over the next few days when no-one else was around, he was able to confirm that his tummy button could work the video recorder and his father’s sound system, even the family car.
The car was new and expensive. Everything was controlled by the on-board computer. It had a robot voice that reminded you to do up your seat belt or close the door, things like that.
Children should never be left alone in cars but Kevin’s mother was always leaving him in the car.
“I won’t be a sec,” she would say and dash into a shop. And she told the truth. She never was a second. More like half an hour usually. Now, for the first time, Kevin was not bored with waiting. He was able to try everything out. Apart, that is, for the car alarm and the horn, which would attract to much attention, and starting the engine which he thought might be dangerous. Everything obeyed. He could even tell the computer voice what to say. From then on, the car shouted, “Whacko! Lets go,” every time the driver’s door was opened. When Kevin’s mother took the car to the local agents and tried to demonstrate this, it wouldn’t do it. The motor people were polite but obviously disbelieving. They had their ‘stupid female’ look.
The weeks passed and Kevin knew that to keep his secret safe, he must use it sparingly.
Then one day, it was another of his mother’s ‘won’t-be-a-secs.’ She was going to leave the car double parked outside the bank. Kevin, who was in the back seat, pointed out that the car that she was blocking had its engine running.
“That’s alright,” she said airily, “If they come back just tell them that I’ll only be a sec,” and left her own engine running. Kevin didn’t argue. He had learnt long ago that you can’t reason with an adult.
Some minutes had passed, when suddenly, two men ran out of the bank carrying bags. They held guns and had stockings over their faces. They were bank robbers. Kevin crouched down hoping that they hadn’t seen him. They hadn’t. The blocked-in car was their get-away car. They hesistated then realised that another get-away car, just as good, was ready and waiting. They took it.
Kevin, scared, kept quiet as they moved off. But then a sneeze began to build up. An impossible- to-stop sneeze. It came out like an explosion. The robber in the passenger seat swung round with a startled “what-tha” and pointed his gun at Kevin.
“And where did you come from kid?” he snarled. Kevin could not speak.
“Well just do what ya told and ya won’t get hurt.”
Both robbers had removed their stocking masks and looked like ordinary people. They had put on their seat-belts. They were driving at the speed of the other traffic so that they would draw less attention. Because they had this young boy sitting on his booster seat, things looked even more normal.
When it became clear that they didn’t mean to hurt him, Kevin began to feel a little less scared. He was expecting to hear police sirens at any moment anyway. They would be sending the car’s description out to patrol cars like they did on T.V. But the minutes passed and there was no sign of the police. He began to worry. Knowing his mother, maybe she still hadn’t come out to find the car missing. It began to look as though there was not going to be any police. It was up to Kevin himself to stop these men and he realised that he could do it.
He pushed his tummy button and sent out thought commands. The doors locked. The engine stopped. The car alarm hooted. The lights flashed. And the car’s computer voice spoke.
“Stick-em-up—No!–What I mean is—You’re under arrest.” The robbers gaped at each other, dumbfounded.
They were still in the town and had immediately drawn attention. A crowd gathered. Several people took out their cell-phones.
The robbers tried frantically to restart the engine and silence the alarm. “You’re wasting your time,” said the car.”I’m not taking any notice. So there!”
The robbers came to this conclusion too. They would have to bail out. The waved their guns at the crowd.
“Move back,” they shouted. But they couldn’t get the doors unlocked. The windows! They pushed the buttons and the windows began to wind down. Kevin had forgotten the windows.
“Keep your windows closed,” he thought to the car and the window motors reversed and took the windows up again. After that, nothing worked because Kevin kept his finger on the button.
“You can’t get out. You’re my prisoners,” said the voice of the car’s computer. The robbers were the frightened ones now. The car was haunted. Kevin was enjoying himself.
“I can hear sirens,” the car announced a minute later and the robbers really began to panic then.
“Let us go or we’ll smash you,” they shouted at the car.
“Nyeh, nyeh, see if I care,” was the car’s reply.
The robbers began kicking at the doors with all their might. They wouldn’t budge. But when they kicked at the windscreen, it popped out. But by then it was too late. The police had arrived and they surrounded the car with their guns drawn. Kevin was taken back to his mother in a police car. The robbers had a ride in a police car too. The police had been after them for a long time.
The robbers’ capture was front-page news. Pictures of Kevin and his mother appeared in the newspapers and on television. Most people agreed that the robbers’ account of events was impossible but, because Kevin’s young age, no-one thought to ask him what really happened.
Some people, though, believe that thinking machines are due to appear any day now and a group of scientists bought the car. They took it to pieces trying to find what made it different. They spent hundreds of hours doing tests. Some of them even sneaked back at night, hoping to be the first to have a conversation with a machine. No such luck. The car spoke nothing but its recorded warnings. Just like a parrot.
Their money ran out with no sign of success. They were disappointed: sure that the car was just pretending not to know anything. Why wouldn’t it talk to them? They decided that their group leader should use the car as his personal transport and thus keep it under observation. Maybe it would make a slip one day and give itself away.
A few months later, this plan seemed to bear fruit. A momentary lack of attention had the scientist come close to running down a woman and a young boy on a crossing.
“Hey! Watch it!” said the car. “Did ya get ya licence from a Weet-Bix packet?”
The scientist pulled over quickly and parked.
“See! You CAN talk,” he said triumphantly. “We knew you could.” But the car made no reply and never would.
By then, the woman and the young boy, both of whom the scientist should have recognised, had turned a corner and were out of sight. And the boy had a big grin.