Reuben and the Amazing Mind Machine Read online

  Copyright © 2021 Jonathan M Hughes

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

  Matador

  9 Priory Business Park,

  Wistow Road, Kibworth Beauchamp,

  Leicestershire. LE8 0RX

  Tel: 0116 279 2299

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.troubador.co.uk/matador

  Twitter: @matadorbooks

  ISBN 9781800468436

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

  To my late father-in-law Cyril F. Graysmark MSc

  and his grandson Reuben,

  who were the inspiration for this book.

  Contents

  Grandpa’s Brilliant invention

  Will it Work?

  Back at School

  A Trip to London

  The Concert

  Another Horrid Day at School

  Reuben visits Bert Blundergutts

  Reuben’s Plan of Attack

  Practice Makes Perfect

  The Great Attack

  Mr. Pride’s Big Day

  Chapter One

  Grandpa’s Brilliant invention

  “Hey Simon, I’ve got something brilliant to tell you,” said Reuben, his mobile phone pressed up against his ear as he walked up his grandfather’s garden path.

  Reuben knocked hard on the rotten front door. “My Grandfather has been developing a mind-changing machine,” he continued. “And he’s going to try it out today.”

  As he listened to Simon’s reply, he looked around at the garden. Self-seeded holly hocks far too close to the house, bowed down to him in the breeze. A tomato plant growing up between two paving slabs seemed to be surviving with bright red tomatoes hanging down. The lawn was now a meadow and a butler sink half hidden under a hedge was filled almost to the top with water and brown leaves. He felt guilty that he had never offered to help his Grandfather tidy the garden, but then he’d never been asked.

  The door creaked open. “Hello Reuben, come in!” said his Grandfather, a retired Professor of neuroscience. “You’re a bit early, but come in my boy and we’ll soon have my machine up and running.”

  “I’ve got to go Simon. I’ll ring you later to let you know what happens and if it works, bye.”

  “Oi! I told you not to tell anyone about the Mind Machine!” scolded Gramps.

  Gramps was very tall and slim with chiselled features. His white bushy hair seemed to have a life of its own, always sticking up like three wayward horns. “To be honest,” continued Gramps, “you miss school too much to be any good at anything. I know your Aunt writes you a sick note anytime you want, but it’s a bad habit to get into. Anyway, you know that’s what I think.”

  “I’m not bothered about school qualifications, I want to be a rock star.”

  “Have you joined a rock band yet?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “Have you started learning the guitar?”

  “Well no, but I did have a couple of lessons last year.”

  “Dreaming is a curse to you youngsters today,” said Gramps. “You have to make things happen. Anyway, I think you should work hard at school and be in a rock band. You shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket. At fourteen, you probably only have two more years at school, you should make the most of it.”

  “Yeah, I suppose so,” said Reuben, pleased that Gramps hadn’t totally dismissed his rock star ambitions. He then followed Gramps into the musty-smelling hall. A sagging net curtain hung down over a small window. The dark red carpet looked even more threadbare than he remembered from only a few days ago. Reuben squinted his eyes to be able to see his reflection in the large dusty mirror. He ran his fingers through his long blonde fringe. While still staring at himself in the mirror, he opened his mouth slightly and bit his teeth together, in a wide overdone grin.

  “Not staring at yourself again!” moaned Gramps. “The trouble with you youngsters, is that you think far too much about your appearance.”

  The cellar door creaked open and they walked down the rickety steps to the cellar, where Gramps had his workshop.

  A cobweb-covered strip-light flickered into life, lighting up the workbench which was crammed with so much stuff; test tubes, coils of wire, circuit boards among many other items. Crooked shelves lined the walls and were crammed with even more clutter and old boxes with thick handwriting scrawled all over them. Gramps had spent the last fifteen years, since retiring, designing and building the electronic thought-changing machine as a project to keep himself busy.

  “Actually the battery needs a bit of a charge. Come back this afternoon and it should be oven ready to go!”

  “Not another delay!” moaned Reuben.

  Back at home

  Reuben sat on the sagging sofa and stared at the TV while eating a slice of his Aunt’s home-made quiche. A pair of hands were potting up some plants, making Reuben yawn with boredom. He looked round at the large fish tank to see Reddy and Goldy both staring at him, opening and closing their mouths, waiting for some fish flakes.

  Orange curtains and the nineteen-seventies furniture made Reuben feel he was living in a scruffy museum.

  “What are you going to do this afternoon?” asked his Aunt Audrey, pulling a brush through her frizzy, dyed blonde hair, then staring at the clogged bristles and yanking out some hair.

  “I’m going to Gramps’. He’s going to try out an electronic mind-controlling machine he’s been working on.”

  “Oh not the thing he’s been working on for over fifteen years…what a waste of time, money and effort, and of course it won’t work. You’d think he would have known better. Anyway what about school today?” she said, throwing a bunch of dried hair on to the carpet.

  “You wrote me another sick note, remember?”

  “What illness was it this time?”

  “Er, well I don’t know, you wrote it down, I think it was a bit of an aching neck and a headache” said Reuben, rather irritated at her questioning.

  “I’m only thinking about your well-being!” she said. “If your parents were still alive they would be horrified.”

  “Anyway, I’m off to Gramps’ now, Auntie,” he said, rising to his feet and walking over and pecking her on the cheek like he always had since a small boy. Deep down he was grateful to his aunt Audrey for giving him a home. Even though only aged five, he could still remember the horror of a policewomen trying to explain to him that his parents were dead.

  Chapter Two

  Will it Work?

  “Blast!” muttered Reuben as a large stinging nettle stung the back of his hand as he walked up the garden path towards Gramps’ front door. He used the large door-knocker again as the bell hadn’t worked for years. A large spider was weaving a web around a poor unsuspecting fly. Being petrified of big hairy spiders, Reuben moved back a step. He waited for what seemed like ages, then lifted the door-knoc
ker and banged it down again. He felt pleased when the struggling fly escaped from the spider’s web, then a Cabbage White butterfly flew straight into the web. Reuben just managed to put his terror of spiders to one side and offered his hand up and coaxed the struggling butterfly out of harm’s way and it fluttered off to live another day.

  Gramps had always been there for him, taking him out for trips and always finding time to listen. Granny was only a distant memory. She had died instantly while crossing Ardingly High Street, apparently hit by a yob on a moped, showing off to his mates.

  “Oh, hullo again Reuben,” said Gramps. “I hope you haven’t been waiting here long?”

  “Only about five minutes.”

  Gramps wheezed as he lifted the machine from the cluttered kitchen table. It was about the size of a shoe box. A keyboard from an old fashioned typewriter sat sideways along the top. This was used to type in messages which could be sent, via customized microwaves, into people’s minds. At the side of the machine were two small remote control levers used for controlling people’s limb movements. Many switches were randomly positioned along the top and sides. Also on top sat an old riflescope to enable accurate aiming.

  “Bring the tube as well,” he said to Reuben.

  “What tube? er which one?”

  “That one over there.”

  Reuben suddenly felt panicky, his mind going blank, just like he sometimes felt at school when he was worried about not being able to find something, or know what to do. But he knew Gramps wouldn’t get angry, unlike his teacher, Mr. Horns. He soon found the quarter meter long metal tube lying by the kettle. He walked along the hall and up the creaking stairs behind Gramps.

  “This is the huge moment I’ve been waiting for,” said Gramps, screwing the tube into the front of the machine. “Higgins doesn’t realise that he will be the first ‘guinea pig’ trial for my new Mind-Changing Machine! Ha, ha, ha.”

  They both stared down from the upstairs window at Gramps’ neighbour, Mr. Higgins, sitting there very relaxed in his garden chair. Clouds of smoke billowed up in the early afternoon sun light, as he puffed away on his pipe while staring at a Daily Telegraph.

  “I doubt if it will really work,” said Reuben.

  “What?” gasped Gramps, turning round and giving Reuben a disapproving stare. “What do I keep telling you about positive and optimistic thinking? That’s half your problem. You think nothing will work! You don’t know or take an opportunity when it arises.” He then turned back round again. “Stone the crows, he’s gone in,” he muttered.

  “It’s alright, he’s walking back over to his chair,” said Reuben, feeling unexpectedly excited.

  Gramps’ moth-eaten jacket sleeves rested on the rotting window sill as he held the machine as steadily as possible. He squinted as he peered through the sight, carefully lining up the cross-hairs with Mr. Higgins’ head. He was now puffing so steadily on his pipe, clouds of smoke billowed up like a puffing steam train.

  “If your machine works, it’ll be fantastic!” said Reuben.

  “Stop saying if it works!” scolded Gramps, turning round again. “AAAAGH!” he then shouted, trying to grab the machine, which suddenly started slipping out of the window. It did a complete flip through the air and crashed into an overgrown elder bush. A protesting blackbird flew for its life.

  “Now it won’t work!” Gramps blasted. “Fifteen years of working and thousands of hours all gone…ruined. I’ve just gone back to day one of fifteen years ago!”

  “Benson seems to have thrown something out of the window,” remarked Mrs. Higgins, staring up from their garden next door, at Gramp’s open window.

  “He might as well. His garden’s a tip, an utter disgrace,” said Mr. Higgins, briefly looking up from his Daily Telegraph.

  Reuben followed his grandfather down the stairs and out into the weed-ridden garden, and watched in trepidation, as Gramps slowly grabbed the upright tube and pulled the machine from inside the elder bush. “It looks alright. Let’s hope the bush cushioned its fall,” Gramps muttered. He started frantically tapping some buttons. “Phew, it’s come on and seems to be working, but please, just stop distracting me and let me get on with it!”

  They walked back up the stairs.

  He started tapping a few buttons again, then stared at a small dial. “It seems ready. I’m pretty sure it’s alright, but there’s now a scratch down one side, it took me ages to spray and polish it.” He then carefully lifted it back on to the window sill and bent his head down and squinted his left eye while staring with his wide open right eye, through the sight.

  Reuben continued staring down from the upstairs window at Mr. Higgins. His pale legs looked like chicken legs sticking out of a pair of brown baggy shorts. His blue short-sleeved shirt was very neatly pressed. Beautifully manicured flower beds and a super-short very green lawn looked so incongruous next door to the wilderness of Gramps’ garden.

  “Oi! where are my tea and buns?” Mr. Higgins shouted to his wife, without even bothering to look up at her.

  “They’re coming dearest!” she called out from the open kitchen window.

  “Why does she call him dearest when he’s so horrible?” asked Reuben.

  “Well, it’s a habit of a lifetime. She probably doesn’t realise how ghastly he’s become over the years. I bet he didn’t treat her like that on their first date, many years ago.”

  “Hurry up then!” shouted Mr. Higgins. “Oh, I suppose I might as well go to the toilet first,” he growled, slowly pushing himself up from the garden chair.

  “I think this is a good time to take a break,” said Gramps. “He’s moving about too much now, let’s have breakfast.”

  “Oh, what?” said Reuben. “You’ve taken fifteen years to build this potentially amazing Mind Machine and now you want to have breakfast first! Surely you can zap slow moving targets! Are you sure that it isn’t because you just can’t face the fact that it’s not going to work?”

  “NO…I’m hungry! I haven’t eaten yet, that’s why!” said Gramps angrily. “Why are you suddenly so moody, Reuben? It’s not like you. Sometimes you forget how old I am.”

  “How could I forget? Sorry, it’s just that, although it’s Friday, I’m already dreading school on Monday. I’ll see if Aunt Audrey will write me another sick note.”

  “You know, as I keep telling you, you shouldn’t keep missing school unless you are genuinely ill,” said Gramps. “In my day, we had it so hard compared to you youngsters.”

  “I’ve got so far behind at school now, it’s almost impossible for me to catch up,” groaned Reuben.

  “It’s a good job your dad isn’t alive – he’d really have something to say about it,” said Gramps.

  Reuben followed Gramps into the musty-smelling kitchen. He felt his shoe soles sticking to the black and white lino floor. Biscuit tins that had been empty for years were strewn around the shelves. The cooker looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned for decades. A washing machine stood at one end, its small circular door open, with old shirts, tired looking underpants and socks hanging out. Gramps tugged on a battered looking kitchen drawer, and it squeaked and groaned as it slid out. It was packed with old dull cutlery. He pulled out a stained slightly bent spoon.

  “I’ve already tried out this electronic machine to send the brain waves to wood lice and change their behaviour,” said Gramps “If I slowly move the joy stick to the left, impulses make them turn left. The same thing happens when I move the joystick to the right. All my hard work is coming to fruition! Earlier this morning, a dog came into the garden and I sent thought waves telling it to turn round and leave the garden, and it did! With an animal it must send an instinctive feeling.”

  “It must have been some sort of a coincidence,” scoffed Reuben, pulling out an old pine chair and sitting down. “Maybe the dog could hear the owner calling it, or it suddenly felt hungry. Their hearing is
way superior to ours.” He then pulled out his mobile and started flicking through for messages.

  “Will you put that ghastly mobile telephone away!” snapped Gramps. “You know how much I hate them.”

  “Sorry,” said Reuben, pushing it back into his pocket. “Do you realise, if your machine is a success you’ll be a billionaire overnight? Think what it could be used for!”

  “Is money all you think about?” snapped Gramps. “You are so selfish sometimes Reuben. Anyway, why do I need the money? I’m old and I can’t take it with me.”

  “I have a great idea ,” said Reuben. “Why don’t I try the machine on you?”

  “What? I don’t want those thought waves entering MY brain!” said Gramps.

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” said Reuben, glancing at himself in a grubby mirror on the table and re-adjusting his hair with his fingers. Reuben felt that Gramps was more of a mate than a Grandfather, despite his age of eighty, but he just wished he would stop moaning.

  Gramps slowly lifted the tea pot and the over-stewed tea sloshed out of the spout into the cups.

  They quickly ate some slices of toast and marmalade.

  “Right, shall we make a start then?” said Gramps, looking at the ceiling while gulping back his last inch of tea.

  “I’m still confused by how it will work,” moaned a doubting Reuben.

  “You can borrow volumes three and four of ‘The Elementary Electrical Impulses of Brain Matter Connections’ by Professor William Bore, if you like. That might make things a bit clearer.”

  “No thanks,” murmured Reuben. “I’m reading a story about a rescued mouse at the moment. Thanks anyway.”

  They walked upstairs to the open landing window and peered down at Mr. Higgins, who fortunately was still sitting on his garden chair. “Oi!” he suddenly shouted, looking up from his Daily Telegraph. “Where are my cakes?”

  “Who’s he shouting at now?” asked Reuben.