Technology Friend Or Foe

• Sean Danger Bermingham, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2007

I can feel the vibration in my pocket then the crazy frog song starts blasting. Oh no my mobile. Why does my mobile have to ring in class why, and who’s ringing it, I’ll kill em if I ever find out who it is. The teacher walks over to me. “SEAN” she screamed, “I’M SICK AND TIRED OF YOUR PHONE CONSTANTLY RINGING IN MY CLASS, GO TO THE OFFICE!” So powerless and weak as I am at school, I trudge off to the office.
I start walking to the office when I feel the vibration in my pocket again. I shout with anger and answer the phone, “Who is it?” I say less angry. No one answered. I ask again, “WHO IS IT?” and again no one answers. With anger and revenge in my mind I reverse the call to shout at the person ringing me when my phone rung once more. With confusion I reverse it again and once more it rung.
I entered the office when the principal started howling at me, “SEAN DANGER BERMINGHAM.” “Yes” I say with a complete giving up motion. “Give me your phone now.” “Of course” I say. The principal studies the phone for a while then at the most perfect moment of my life my mobile rang. This time my principal shouts with anger and answers the phone. She answers the phone with an astonishing mood swing and says, “Yes Sean’s principal speaking who might this be?” Yet again no one answers. With anger building up in her body she reverses the call like I did. The phone rings and she cancels the call and the phone stops. She starts saying “Sean your phone obviously isn’t working so I’ll let you off. But the next time your phone rings I’m going to permanently put you on the detentions list.
I walked back into the class when Miss started talking about the science fair next Monday. She said that this year cause we’re all in year 6 that it is compulsory to enter the science fair. This year’s science fair topic will be technology and the categories are; technology, the history technology in life and technology, friend of foe…
The following week and weekend was spent mostly on preparation for the science fair. And when the day finally came the tension set in. All the younger years had been judged except year six. The principal came walking around when all our projects when hay wire. The lights were flickering and exploding, the computers were shutting down and the mobiles were blasting out there polyphonic ring tones. Then all of a sudden a deafening voice came through. We all looked up and the fear ran through me like a superworm. My mobile was talking. “Puny humans we have come from a far away planet and we crave new homes. Your homes are perfect. If you resist our wrath we shall attack.”
Moments later they attacked, the lights blinding us with their lights. The computer’s confusing us with they’re maths problems and the mobiles are deafening us with their ring tones. With all the confusion I throw myself to the floor. Just when the smartest teacher was going to give up, a blast from the side of the wall blew up and a marvellous scene popped up, the Simpson’s on TV. The TV started blasting colours and sound at the technology monsters. They started squealing and exploding. The TV was beating them.
Once the last of all the monsters were dead, the TV turned to us. It started talking when my mobile jumped on its screen ands tarted blasting music and its own colour. The TV fell and twitched and then lay still. It had killed the TV. I had to do something so I ran over and grabbed the mobile. It started blasting music and colours on me. I said “That’s enough!” and shut it down. I took the battery from the back of it and threw it to the ground. A sigh of relief shot over the crowd. Like a wise man once said “Keep your friends close and your mobile even closer.”