A helping hand

Alfie came home from school looking unbearably pleased with himself.

Not normal pleased.

Not “I got an extra biscuit at lunch” pleased.

Not even “I beat Oliver in times tables” pleased.

This was a special kind of pleased. The sort that made his eyebrows sit slightly higher than usual and caused him to walk through the front door as though he had personally invented schools.

Barry spotted it immediately.

Barry noticed everything.

Usually five seconds before it became a problem.

“Why’s your face like that?” asked Barry.

“My face is normal.”

“It’s not.”

“It is.”

“It isn’t.”

“It is.”

“It looks smug.”

Alfie turned to discover Mrs Brand standing in the kitchen doorway holding a cup of tea.

“Smug is exactly the word,” said Mrs Brand. “What’s happened?”

Alfie put down his school bag.

“Well…”

He paused.

Barry hated pauses.

Pauses delayed information.

Information was knowledge.

Knowledge was power. 

Particularly when the information might be exciting.

“Well?” demanded Barry.

“Our school has got a new app on all our iPads.” (Each student in Year 3 and above had an iPad and was set certain work on it for various subjects.)

Mrs Brand nodded politely.

Barry gasped dramatically.

Apps didn’t usually excite four-year-olds.

But Barry loved buttons.

Especially buttons he wasn’t supposed to press.

“It’s a little hand,” said Alfie. “In the corner of the screen.”

“What does it do?” asked Mrs Brand.

“If something bad happens, you press it.”

Barry’s eyes widened.

“ANYTHING bad?”

“No.”

“What about if somebody steals your biscuit?”

“Maybe.”

“What about if somebody says your drawing looks like a potato?”

“Barry…”

“What about if somebody actually is a potato?”

“Barry.”

Barry stopped.

For three whole seconds.

Which was excellent progress.

Alfie sat down.

“Today somebody was horrible to me.”

Mrs Brand’s smile disappeared.

“What happened?”

Alfie took a breath.

“At lunchtime a boy followed me into the toilets. He was angry because I beat him in sports day practice.”

Barry frowned.

That seemed a silly thing to be angry about.

If somebody beat Barry at running, Barry generally forgot about it before he reached the finish line.

Sometimes before he reached the start line.

“He threw wet toilet paper over the cubicle door while I was inside.”

“Ew,” said Barry.

“Exactly.”

“It sounds very unhygienic.”

Mrs Brand blinked.

That was not a sentence she expected from Barry.

“It was horrible,” said Alfie. “I ran back to class.”

“I saw him,” said Barry proudly.

“You did.”

“He looked sad.”

“I was sad.”

“And covered in toilet paper.”

“Yes.”

“You looked a bit like a soggy mummy.”

Alfie sighed.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Mrs Brand hid a smile.

“What happened then?” she asked.

Alfie sat up straighter.

“That’s the clever part.”

Apparently this was where the smugness lived.

“I pressed the little hand.”

Barry leaned forward.

“What happened?”

“A senior teacher came straight into the classroom, to me.”

“Like magic?”

“Sort of.”

“I like magic.”

“They asked if I was ok and what had happened. They spoke to witnesses.”

“Witnesses?” asked Barry.

“People who saw it happen.”

“I was a witness.”

“Yes, you were.”

Barry puffed out his chest.

Being a witness sounded important.

Like being a firefighter.

Or Batman.

“The teachers spoke to everyone involved,” Alfie continued. “The boy got into trouble and his parents had to come into school.”

Barry sat silently.

This was unusual.

Mrs Brand looked concerned.

Whenever Barry sat silently, it generally meant his brain was building something dangerous.

Like a squirrel constructing a catapult.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

Barry looked thoughtful.

“One little button did all that?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm.”

The squirrel continued building.

Mrs Brand should have recognised the warning signs.

Unfortunately she had just remembered she needed to answer three emails.

And Barry, as history repeatedly demonstrated, could achieve remarkable levels of mischief in the time it took an adult to glance at a screen.

The following morning Barry met Marmaduke at the park.

Marmaduke was Barry’s best friend.

He was also Barry’s most enthusiastic assistant.

If Barry announced he was going to build a rocket from wheelie bins, Marmaduke would immediately ask whether they needed snacks for the journey.

Barry told him about the button.

Marmaduke was amazed.

“A button that summons grown-ups?”

“Yes.”

“Instantly?”

“Yes.”

“That’s incredible.”

“I know.”

They sat on a climbing frame.

A pigeon watched them suspiciously.

The pigeon had good instincts.

“I think,” said Barry, “we need one.”

Marmaduke nodded.

“Definitely.”

Neither boy knew what they needed one for.

That had never stopped them before.

By lunchtime they had a plan.

It was not a good plan.

Good plans generally contain at least one sensible person.

This plan contained Barry and Marmaduke.

Their first attempt involved drawing a giant red button on cardboard.

Unfortunately pressing cardboard did nothing.

Their second attempt involved sticking the cardboard to a garden chair.

This also did nothing.

Their third attempt involved attaching a bicycle bell.

This achieved a result.

Unfortunately the result was Mrs Jenkins from next door shouting over the fence.

“If you ring that one more time,” she called, “I’ll come over there myself!”

Barry considered this carefully.

“Marmaduke?”

“Yes?”

“We might be getting closer.”

Then the breakthrough happened.

Barry discovered an old wireless doorbell in a cleaning cupboard drawer.

Most children would not have been in the cleaning cupboard. Those who did end up strolling in would have shown it to an adult.

Barry viewed adults as people who accidentally interrupted important experiments.

He and Marmaduke carried it to the preschool garden.

“Right,” said Barry.

“This is our emergency button.”

“What sort of emergencies?” asked Marmaduke.

Barry considered.

“A cat wearing trousers.”

“Serious.”

“Very.”

“A duck driving a bus.”

“Extremely serious.”

They nodded.

The system seemed robust.

Barry pressed the button.

From the cupboard on the corridor, came a sorrowful ding-dong. 

Barry and Marmaduke stared.

“It worked.”

“What worked?”

“Our emergency button.”

Miss Patel eyed them suspiciously and folded her arms.

“What was the emergency?”

Barry looked at Marmaduke.

Marmaduke looked at Barry.

Finally Barry pointed at a worm.

Miss Patel looked at the worm.

The worm looked at nobody.

It had other priorities.

“That’s not an emergency.”

“It might be.”

“No.”

Barry smiled.

“It works.”

For the next hour they tested it repeatedly.

A leaf emergency.

A cloud emergency.

An unusually shaped stick emergency.

Miss Patel appeared each time.

Increasingly irritated.

Eventually she confiscated the doorbell.

This should have ended the matter.

Instead it inspired Barry.

The best inventions, he decided, shouldn’t require adults to cooperate.

The boys decided to create their own reporting system.

They made badges.

They wrote a red cross on each, which meant INCIDENT RESPONSE TEAM on pieces of paper.

Barry couldn’t spell INCIDENT RESPONSE TEAM.

Nobody noticed.

They patrolled the preschool garden searching for wrongdoing.

Unfortunately four-year-olds are terrible detectives.

Every event appeared suspicious.

A squirrel sitting in a tree “looking guilty.”

Then Barry spotted something.

A teenage boy had dropped an empty crisp packet on the other side of the fence.

Barry gasped.

“Littering.”

Marmaduke gasped too.

He wasn’t entirely sure why.

But it seemed appropriate.

“We need to report him.”

“To who?”

Barry froze.

That was an excellent question.

Alfie’s button had summoned teachers.

The King?

The police?

Park rangers?

Batman?

Barry wasn’t certain.

So he did what Barry always did when uncertain.

He improvised.

Which is another way of saying he guessed.

Loudly.

“STOP!”

The teenager jumped.

Half the park on the other side of the preschool garden turned around.

“You dropped litter!”

Barry announced.

The teenager looked confused.

Then embarrassed.

Then slightly amused.

“Oh.”

He picked up the packet.

“Sorry.”

Barry blinked.

That wasn’t how this was supposed to work.

The culprit had admitted wrongdoing immediately.

No investigations.

No interviews.

No dramatic speeches.

The teenager put the rubbish in a bin.

“There you go.”

Then he walked away.

Barry watched him disappear.

Marmaduke looked disappointed.

“That ended quickly.”

“Yes.”

They sat on a bench.

Barry kicked his feet thoughtfully.

Then, for perhaps the first time all week, he understood something.

Alfie’s button hadn’t been magic.

The important part wasn’t the button.

The important part was that somebody listened.

Somebody noticed.

Somebody helped.

The button just made asking for help easier.

Which was actually much cleverer than magic.