David Baddiel - The Person Controller

First published in hardback in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2015

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Text © David Baddiel, 2015

Illustrations © Jim Field 2015

Jacket illustration © Jim Field, 2015

Jacket Design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2014

David Baddiel and Jim Field assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work.

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

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Source ISBN: 9780007554522

Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780007554553

Version: 2018-08-23

To the Grandmas – Sarah, and Dinks, late of this parish.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Part 1: Pause

Chapter 1: Fred and Ellie

Chapter 2: Eric

Chapter 3: Cyberdodo

Chapter 4: The other twins

Chapter 5: Fred’s football trials: just one example

Chapter 6: Wedgie

Chapter 7: Click here

Chapter 8: Say please

Chapter 9: The package

Chapter 10: Pair with Controller

Chapter 11: Prepare yourself

Chapter 12: Wwwwoooaargggh!

Chapter 13: 7.13

Chapter 14: Wheee! and wheheyheey!

Chapter 15: Countdown

Chapter 16: Have we got any bacon?

Chapter 17: Good behaviour

Chapter 18: I’mgonnakillyouuuuuuuu!!

Chapter 19: My turn

Chapter 20: Ellie Premium Edition

Chapter 21: You’re my stylist

Part 2: Upgrade

Chapter 22: Most Improved

Chapter 23: Flashback

Chapter 24: Time to shine

Chapter 25: it’s bananas, Morris

Chapter 26: A kind of looking-down smile

Chapter 27: It’s a deal

Chapter 28: A shaven gorilla

Chapter 29: Thor’s hammer of bacon

Chapter 30: Actually, it’s not Skype

Chapter 31: No More Questions!

Chapter 32: Nerd

Chapter 33: It’s got a flashing light on it

Chapter 34: Two cowboys about to draw

Chapter 35: The Boxspital

Chapter 36: Happy Christmas, Stones …

Chapter 37: Charged to the Max

Chapter 38: Emwmwtaapt Morris

Chapter 39: I am Karabuki!

Chapter 40: Pure Power

Chapter 41: …

Chapter 42: I’ve felt better

Part 3: Highest Level

Chapter 43: A big, flat, cardboard shoe

Chapter 44: The Bracket Wood and Surrounding Area Inter-school Winter Trophy

Chapter 45: The next game

Chapter 46: There’s only really one place

Chapter 47: What happened?

Chapter 48: Never even come near me with a football again

Chapter 49: Like this one?

Chapter 50: Paired

Chapter 51: Gravity Rush

Chapter 52: When it comes to the crunch

Chapter 53: Single bow

Chapter 54: Watch Out!

Chapter 55: 110 per cent

Chapter 56: A gentle little push

Part 4: Bonus

Chapter 57: Bonus Easter egg. On Christmas Day

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Read an extract …

Keep Reading …

Books by David Baddiel

About the Publisher

Fred and Ellie Stone were twins. But they were never sure whether or not they could call themselves identical. They certainly shared exactly the same birthday (20th September, eleven years ago) and they had the same mum and dad (Eric and Janine). But their names were Fred and Ellie. And a boy and a girl are, clearly, not identical. fn1

Yet they felt identical. They sometimes even felt that they knew what one another were thinking. And, even if they were 200 metres apart, they could mouth words at each other and always know what the other one was saying. They did look pretty identical too. They both wore glasses and, most of the time, their school uniforms (even though uniform wasn’t compulsory at their school). And they both, at the point at which this story begins, had braces on their top teeth.

They also both liked the same things. These included: superheroes; Japanese fantasy animation films; comics; maths (yes, they actually liked maths – sometimes they played a game called ‘Who Can Name More Decimal Places of Pi?’); and, most importantly, video games. All video games, but their favourites were FIFA , Street Fighter , Super Mario and Minecraft . The one thing they would save up their not-very-much pocket money to buy was the most up-to-date versions of these games. Ellie, though, was better than Fred at video games. fn2Which Fred didn’t mind. He knew she had quicker fingers and better hand-to-eye coordination. And, even though he sometimes got frustrated at losing, other times he just liked watching her fingers speed across her controller, as if she was playing a classical concerto by heart. And, when I say her controller, I mean her controller. Ellie and Fred always used their own ones. Ellie in particular was always very definite about which one was hers. The feel and the weight of her controller – even if, to the untrained eye/hand, both of them may have looked/felt exactly the same – suited her style perfectly.

Which was why what happened to it was quite so upsetting.

Eric Stone was – there is no nice way of saying this – fat. Well, there are nice ways of saying it – and Eric did often use these ways, describing himself as big-boned , or portly , or suffering from terrible water retention – but the truth was he was fat. Because he ate too much. He didn’t have terrible water retention; he had terrible bacon-sandwich retention.

To be fair to Eric, he did – normally after a bit of prompting from his wife, Janine, and his children, Fred and Ellie – go on a lot of diets.