Pancakes Are Ready

• Louis Miller, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2015

“What the hell is wrong with my computer!?” I said in a stern voice, “I don’t know!” Mum yelled from the kitchen,
“Do you want breakfast?”
“Sure, what is it?”
I waited for the reply as I sat on the bed. Nothing came. I laid back on the pillow.
“What is wrong with my computer?” I thought to myself.
I felt drowsy. I had been up since dawn trying to find out why these big fat red letters kept coming up on the screen saying “ERROR”
My bedroom door edged open. It was Greg, my besty from around the corner. There is nothing he doesn’t know about technology. He once built a radio out of an old bike and a Nokia.
“Hey, I’m pleased to see you.” I exclaimed “There has been this strange thing happening with my computer, do you mind checking it out?”
“OK,” Greg replied. He picked it up “Click, Click, Click”.
He looked back at me as though he had just unwrapped something rotten “Your problem is deep buddy. That’s as far as I can go.
“So what is it?” I asked anxiously?
“We have got to take it out of here. Let’s go!” He grabbed the computer pulling the cord out of the socket.
“Where?” I asked, putting on my jacket “Follow me!” He replied, half out of the door.
We both got on the number 212 bus. Greg didn’t say a word on the journey. He just swayed from side-to-side in a really strange way, looking straight ahead. “We get off here!”
?
We were at Doncaster shopping centre. Greg took huge strides across the vast busy car park, like he was walking into traffic. I had to run to keep up. We found our way along a maze of department stores and eventually made it to a spotless chrome lift in a marble foyer. We got in. There was music playing. It sounded like that really boring stuff you hear when you are on hold.
We could see ourselves in the mirrors. I didn’t recognise myself. Greg looked glum and a bit mad.
He pressed the button marked “B”. It went red. We started to descend. We were in the lift for what seemed to be days, each of us saying nothing - just Greg with this crazy look in his eye, tightly clutching my sick computer.
Finally, the lift door flung open. There was a very long and dimly lit corridor in front of us.
There seemed to be a faint smell of sweet dough.
I could make out someone seated at the end of the corridor. We made our way slowly towards the dark motionless figure. I could feel my heart racing. Greg was meters in front. As we got closer, I could see this was someone in a black hoodie. The word “ERROR” was written in big fat red letters on his chest. His face concealed by the hood.
Slowly he raised his head... “Pancakes are ready!” yelled Mum.