Yo-less didn't do sport because of intellectual incom-patibility. Wobbler didn't do sport because the sportsmaster had asked him not to. Johnny didn't do sportbecause he had a permanent note, and no-one caredmuch anyway, so he went home early and spent theafternoon reading the manual.

He didn't touch the computer before tea.

There was an extended News, which meant thatCobbers was postponed. There were the same picturesof missiles streaking across a city that he'd seen thenight before, except that now there were more jour-nalists in sand-coloured shirts with lots of pocketstalking excitedly about them.

He heard his mother downstairs complain aboutCobbers, and by the sound of the raised voices thatstarted Trying Times again.

There was some History homework aboutChristopher Columbus. He looked him up in theencyclopedia and copied out four hundred words,which usually worked. He drew a picture of Columbusas well, and coloured it in.

After a while he realized that he was putting off swit-ching the computer on. It came to something, hethought, when you did school work rather than playgames.

It wouldn't hurt to at least have a game of Pac-Manor something. Trouble was, the ghosts would probablystay in the middle of the screen and refuse to come outand be eaten. He didn't think he could cope with that.He'd got enough to worry about as it was.

On top of it all, his father came upstairs to befatherly. This happened about once a fortnight. Theredidn't seem to be any way of stopping it. You had toput up with twenty minutes of being asked about howyou were getting on at school, and had you reallythought about what you wanted to be when you grewup.

The thing to do was not encourage things but aspolitely as possible.

His father sat on the edge of the bed and looked