Ctrl-Z by Andrew Norriss

had done with the wallpaper
paste. Instead, she simply stood there, and then her face crumpled and she began to cry.
    That was when the idea didn’t seem quite so funny.
    A moment later, a woman in a wheelchair appeared beside Sophie. Oddly, she was the only one of the people passing by who seemed
     to take any notice of what had happened and she held Sophie’s hand and looked rather upset.
    ‘Sophie?’ she said anxiously. ‘Sophie, darling, are you all right? What’s happened?’ She turned in her wheelchair towards
     Alex and her voice was more puzzled than anything else. ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Why did you do that?’
    That was when the idea didn’t seem funny at all, and the two seconds before Callum remembered to stop staring and press Ctrl‐Z,
     felt like a lifetime.
    ‘You should aim the nozzle at her,’ said Callum. ‘It’d be much funnier than just splashing the stuff on the floor.’
    ‘No,’ said Alex slowly, ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
    ‘Why not?’ Callum insisted. ‘We don’t like her! She’s always showing off in class and –’ He stopped. Sophie was standing directly
     in front of them.
    ‘Hi,’ she said.

    ‘Hi,’ said Alex.
     ‘Look… um…’ Sophie was blushing slightly. ‘I need some help. With my mum.’ She pointed over her shoulder to a woman in a
     wheelchair approaching them. ‘We’ve got a problem with the wheelchair.’
    ‘What sort of problem?’ asked Alex.
     ‘We can’t get it up the ramp,’ said Sophie. ‘With all the shopping, it’s too heavy. I’m not strong enough.’
    ‘Yes, of course,’ said Alex. He was already moving towards Sophie’s mother. ‘We’re experts at moving wheelchairs. Callum’s
     sister is in one at the moment.’
    ‘Is she?’ Sophie looked at Callum in surprise. ‘I didn’t know that. Why?’
    On their way to the ramps that led up to the car park, Callum explained about his sister and her osteomyelitis, and Sophie’s
     mother explained about the accident that had left her unable to move below the waist. Apparently it meant that Sophie had
     to do a lot of the housework and Mrs Reynolds said she wished sometimes that her daughter didn’t have to work so hard and
     could spend more of her time playing and enjoying herself, like other children.
    When they got to the car park, the boys helped unload the shopping into the car and then watched
as a rather clever lift arrangement hoisted Sophie’s mother, still in her wheelchair, into the driver’s seat.
    ‘You were right,’ Callum said as they made their way back to the cafe.
    ‘About what?’
    ‘When you said it wouldn’t be a good idea to spray Sophie with the fire extinguisher.’ Callum gave an embarrassed grin.
    ‘Ah,’ said Alex.
     ‘Because if you
had
done it, and then we’d realized she was coming to ask us to help with her mum and… well, we’d have felt terrible, wouldn’t
     we? That would have been a
real
mistake!’
    ‘Yes,’ Alex agreed. ‘Yes, it would.’
    It was always much harder for Callum to get his head round the idea of Ctrl‐Z than for Alex. The problem for Callum was that,
     although Alex had explained to him several times how the laptop could take you back in time to before you had done anything
     bad, Callum had no memory of any occasion when this had actually happened. He had never actually
seen
Alex drive his mother’s car out of the garage or upset a thousand cans of beans at the supermarket – or at least he had no
     memory of seeing these things.
    Alex had been using Ctrl‐Z every day since the
parcel from Godfather John first arrived, and could remember everything – but Callum did not. When Alex carried the china
     out to the garden and began throwing it at the rockery, Callum couldn’t
know –
in the way that Alex did – that it was going to be all right. He had to trust each time that Ctrl‐Z really did exist and that
     his friend had not gone quietly mad.
    But although it was difficult, Callum
did
believe