Albert's Secret

The twenty-fourth of August was Albert Jackson’s 12th birthday. It was a warm, sunny day and his mother, Christine, had placed a table on the patio and covered it with scrumptious food. Actually it wasn’t that scrumptious, but it was what Albert liked. He enjoyed simple food, so Christine had prepared a selection of his favourite sandwiches: watercress, tuna, egg mayonnaise and cheddar cheese, all made with wholemeal bread. His mother was responsible for Albert’s food preferences, because she had conditioned him to eat ‘healthy food’ since he was a toddler. She was a bit of a food fanatic and had been a vegetarian for many years; therefore burgers, sausages and processed foods were never seen in the Jackson house. There were just four of them sat around the table; Albert, his mother Christine, his father, John and Sarah, a pretty girl who lived next door.

Albert was an only child and apart from Sarah, he had no friends, neither did he desire any. He had lots of classmates, but in his opinion, they were mostly stupid and had nothing to say that interested him. He was glad to have finished primary school, because he was bored and he couldn’t wait to begin his secondary education. He had passed his 11 plus exam with flying colours and he would be starting at the local grammar school at the beginning of September. He had once overheard his parents talking to one of his teachers who had described him as a child prodigy. He objected to being referred to as a child, but he was uncertain of the meaning of the word prodigy, so he looked it up in the dictionary.

PRODIGY:

1 - A young person with extraordinary talents.

2 - An omen (archaic).

3 - From the Latin prödigium - an unnatural happening.

4 - Abnormal, monstrous.

He liked the first definition, because that described him to a T, but he was puzzled by the other three. Eight years from now the latter three definitions would have more significance to him than the first. But he didn’t know that yet.

Sarah sat next to Albert at the table, with his parents facing them. Once they had had their fill of sandwiches, Christine went to the kitchen to get the birthday cake from the fridge. She had made the cake herself. Rather than buy a ready-made birthday cake from the bakery, which would have contained unhealthy white flour and an excess of sugar, her cake contained only the best organic ingredients. It was a carrot cake, made from sweet baby carrots which she had personally dug from her own vegetable plot. It contained wholemeal flour, free range eggs, soya-milk and sesame seeds. The white icing on the cake was made from stevia, a natural, calorie-free sweetener obtained from a plant. White sugar was banned.

She brought the cake outside and placed it on the table in front of Albert. It was rectangular and she had inserted twelve candles into the icing, in three rows of four. His father lit the candles and they sang, ‘Happy Birthday to you.’ Albert felt uncomfortable, because he didn’t like being the centre of attention. Sarah smiled at him and kissed him on the cheek, which made him blush. When they had finished singing Sarah said, “Now you must blow out the candles and make a wish.” Albert looked at his father and rolled his eyes. He felt like saying, ‘Why do I have to suffer this? Birthday cakes and candles are for kids, I’m twelve years old for God’s sake.’ But he didn’t want to hurt his mother’s feelings, so he bit his tongue. He took a deep breath and blew hard. The candles spluttered and went out; all except one, which revived itself and continued to burn. John said, “Oh look, there is one candle still alight, I guess that means you must only be eleven.” Albert didn’t laugh at his father’s quip, but Sarah did. She said, “If you are eleven today, that means you are only one week older than me, because I shall be eleven on September the second.” Albert responded with, “I can’t wait to see how many candles you blow out. I bet you will only manage seven.” She giggled and punched him on the arm. He retaliated by pinching her on the thigh, which made her shriek. Christine frowned and said, “Come on you two stop fighting. Blow out the last candle Albert, so that we can remove them all and cut the cake.”

The cake was delicious and Christine said it contained a layer of real vanilla flavoured vegetarian cream. Albert wondered what vegetarian cream was. His logical mind reasoned that: if cows are herbivorous, then they must be vegetarian; hence cream made from cows’ milk must also be vegetarian. Of course, Christine should have described it as vegan cream, because it was probably made from soya-milk, or grass, or sarsaparilla sap. As long as its ingredients had not involved the exploitation of some poor ruminant ungulate, she didn’t really mind. Before Albert had chance to get into an analytical discussion about vegetarian cream, Sarah smiled at Albert and said, “What did you wish for?” Albert said, “Aren’t wishes supposed to be a secret? Anyway I don’t believe in wishes, how can you get what you wish for if you don’t tell anybody? That’s just stupid.” Sarah looked hurt and Christine said, “That’s enough Albert, you are upsetting Sarah.” Albert looked at Sarah and said, “I’m sorry Sarah, but I’m not a kid anymore. If you want to believe in wishes, that’s fine by me.” He placed his hand lightly on her arm and she smiled weakly as a tear rolled down her cheek. She snorted loudly, wiped the tear away with the back of her hand and said, “I have a birthday present for you Albert.” She reached down and withdrew a parcel from a plastic bag which was placed at her feet, under the table. It had a small label taped to it, which he read before removing the wrapping. It said;

Happy birthday Albert. Thank you for being my friend xx.

He felt bad for having upset her, so he leaned forward and kissed her gently on the cheek. For a moment he thought she was going to cry, but she blinked and swallowed hard to regain her composure. She looked at Albert and said, “Well aren’t you going to open it?” Albert fumbled with the wrapping. He couldn’t get his nail under the sticky tape, so he ended up tearing the paper off. Inside the wrapping-paper was a wooden box which measured about eight inches square, it was hinged at the side. He flipped open the clasp and carefully raised the lid. When he saw what it contained he said “Wow!” The box was lined with a blue velvety material and nestling in a recess was a gold and black fountain pen and six ink cartridges. Albert was speechless for a moment, but Sarah was excited. She said, “Take it out of the box. It has a 23 Karat gold nib and it already has an ink cartridge inside. Why don’t you try it out?” Albert carefully extracted the pen from its nest and unscrewed the cap. Sarah removed the name-tag from the discarded paper wrapping and said, “Here. You can write on the back of this.” He took the label from her hand without saying a word and placed it flat on the table. He didn’t turn the label over, but wrote something underneath her message. It said, “Thank you Sarah. This is the best present I have ever had. You are also my best friend.” Underneath he wrote two crosses. He handed her the label and waited for her reaction. She shrieked again and hugged him around the neck. From that moment he knew they would be friends for life.

Albert’s parents had given him a laptop computer, which would be an important aid for his studies when he moved to Greenford Grammar School. He already had a basic understanding of information technology, because they had started computer studies in his last year at primary school. After Albert had replaced his new fountain pen in the wooden case, his father handed him another parcel. It was heavy, so Albert guessed it must contain a book. When he removed the wrapping, he discovered three books. He looked at the titles of each book and shouted, “Three science fiction books. Thanks Dad.” Albert loved science fiction, he was always reading illustrated science fiction comics about aliens and space travel. He picked up one of the books which had a striking cover illustration of what looked like some kind of giant robots. They were firing at people on the ground who were running to take cover. The book was entitled: War of the Worlds, by H. G. Wells. The other two books were also by H. G. Wells; The Time Machine and The Invisible Man. He flicked through the pages of each book and looked a little disappointed when he discovered there were no illustrations of monsters or alien landscapes inside. John said, “It’s time you moved on to real science fiction. H. G. Wells is known as the Father of English science fiction and he wrote those three books in the last decade of the nineteenth century, that’s over a hundred years ago. You don’t need illustrations. A good author like H. G. Wells creates descriptive images for your imagination which have a much greater impact than the drawings in a science fiction comic. Not only that, how could anyone draw the Invisible Man?” John laughed at his own joke, but Albert wasn’t amused. What Albert didn’t know, was that an idea from one of the three books was to sow a seed in his mind which would later develop into something that would change his world.