Free Sparks by David Quantick

cooling tea out into the hall.
    He had learned nothing about alternate worlds. But he did have an idea.
     
    Sparks’ mum knocked on Sparks’ bedroom door, a habit she had learned the hard way during Sparks’ teenage years.
    “Cup of tea, dear?” she said, a cup of tea already in her hand.
    “Yeah, thanks,” said Sparks’s voice absently through the wood.
    Sparks’ mum opened the door, moved a gonk on the chest of drawers, took a coaster from her pocket, set it down and put the cup of tea on it.
    “We’re going over to the Morgans in a while,” she said. “Will you be all right on your own?”
    Sparks looked round the room at the children’s books, model airplanes, pop star posters and assorted buttons that decorated it. “I’ll be fine,” he said, wondering as he did sometimes if in fact he had died and his mum was keeping his room just the way it used to be. Then he dismissed the thought as uncharitable and smiled at his mum.
    “I’ve got some stuff to get on with,” he said, and Sparks’ mum saw the bed full of bits of old Christmas cards, felt tip pens and tangled ribbons of Sellotape.
    “All right, dear,” she said, “Cup of tea up there,” and left.
    Sparks ignored the tea for now – there was already enough inside him to tan a pig – and went back to his bits of card. His theory and planning were limited, he felt, by his lack of a computer to lay out grids on and review the whole picture. In reality, Sparks knew nothing about computers and could barely cut and paste some text, let alone work out a divergent self-generating probability model, which is what he was trying to do now with the cards.
    After an hour of tearing off pictures of robins, scribbling on the remaining white card, attaching cards to other cards with Sellotape, Sparks had two things. A lot of pictures of robins, and a tree-shaped skeleton of cards, each with different sentences on them, crawling up the wall over the pop star posters.
    At the top, one card said:
    ALISON AND ME SPLIT UP
    Below that were two cards. They said:
    WE GET BACK TOGETHER and WE DON’T
    Below these were two more cards. The ones above WE DON’T said:
    SHE MARRIES A GIT, and SHE DOESN’T
    The ones above WE GET BACK TOGETHER said:
    WE SPLIT UP AGAIN and WE DON’T
    After that, Sparks pretty much ran out of ideas and wall. He had done enough, though; he’d clarified a few things in his mind, he felt a bit better and, most important of all, even if he didn’t actually have a coherent plan or anything that even a monkey might call a strategy, he did at least have a goal. For the first time in ages, Sparks felt excited.
    Sparks’ mum and dad returned from the Morgans just before midnight. They had been at the red wine.
    “Ssh!” said Sparks’ mum as Sparks’ dad fiddled with the front door key. “Don’t set the alarm off.”
    “It’s not on,” said Sparks’ dad. “The boy’s here, remember?”
    Just then the alarm went off, causing Sparks’ mum and dad to fall backwards into a small table.
    “Why’s he set the alarm?” said Sparks’ dad. “Has he gone to the pub with his friends?”
    “He hasn’t got any friends here,” said Sparks’ mum. “They all live in London.”
    She climbed the stairs, with sherry-laced difficulty. “His bag’s gone!” she called back. “And he hasn’t drunk his tea!”
    Sparks’ parents went dizzily to bed.
    “Funny lad,” said Sparks’ dad. “I expect he’ll call us in the morning.”
    He didn’t, though.
    Sparks’ mind ploughed through his new plan, checking it out for errors, and ignoring the fact that both Sparks and his mind were on some horrible train that was not so much racing through the night as walking slightly behind it. Democrats would be pleased to note that the train had no first class section. There was also no buffet, not even in the form of a trolley pulled by two overly arm-muscled people in red waistcoats. And, in case the weary traveller was happy enough without food or