“Is this really going to work?” said Ellie. She was standing in front of the playroom mirror. Fred was next to her, holding the Controller.
“I don’t know,” said Fred.
“Will it hurt?”
Fred paused a second before answering. “No. I don’t think so. None of that jumping about has hurt me so far.”
“OK. Go for it.”
“Where do you want to start? Who do you want to look like?”
Ellie thought for a moment. “I don’t know. I guess … what do they make girls look like in video games?”
Fred thought. “Same as they do in cartoons and films and stuff. The pretty ones all look the same. Do you want to look like that?”
Ellie shrugged, nervously. “We could see, I suppose. What it was like …”
Fred nodded. He looked down at the Controller. Not sure what to press, he went first for a long press of the amber button.
Ellie’s face went red as a tomato, and her cheeks blew up like a hamster.
“Um … sorry,” said Fred. Quickly, he tried the ruby button, while toggling the control.
Ellie’s face sprouted a long white beard, and her feet became as big as clowns’ feet.
“OK, maybe we should forget this …” she said, her voice quite a lot deeper than usual.
“No, wait a minute. Let me have one more go.” Fred focused on the Controller. He remembered what Ellie had said when she first started to really understand how to work the device, how she had been thinking about Super Mario to make him jump through the air. So this time, while pressing the buttons (diamond and silver, this time, alternately) he concentrated, and tried to call up in his mind all the images in his memory of the main girl characters in video games and cartoons and films.
He thought of Princess Peachfn1 and Amy Rosefn2 and Mistyfn3 and Princess Fionafn4 and Sam the TV reporterfn5 and Joyfn6 and Elsafn7 and Rapunzelfn8 and Mulan and Ariel and Sleeping Beauty, all the way back to Snow White.
And Ellie’s braces and glasses disappeared.
“Oh my God!” she said.
“Can you see OK?” said Fred.
“Yes!” said Ellie. “Keep going …”
Fred pressed the emerald button. Suddenly Ellie’s eyes grew bigger! Much bigger! They seemed to take up loads of her face! But it was OK, because her nose had got smaller, making room for them.
“Do you like it?” said Fred.
Ellie was looking at herself in the mirror.
“I think you might be able to see the effect more if you shut your mouth,” said Fred.
Ellie did so. Then looked at herself again. “Have my lips got bigger?” she said.
“Yes. And redder. And shaped like a heart.”
“OK,” she said. “It’s weird.”
“But do you like it?”
She half-nodded. “I think so …”
Fred took this as meaning he should carry on. So his fingers went back to the Controller’s buttons.
And Ellie changed shape: she grew a few centimetres taller and simultaneously her neck became longer, her waist contracted and her shoulders expanded, so that her top half looked like an upside-down triangle. Sister and brother looked on, amazed.
“What about my …?” said Ellie, pointing to the back of her head.
“On it!” said Fred.
Fred’s fingers continued to work. Ellie’s pigtails vanished, and her hair … it didn’t just grow, it flowed from her scalp in waves!
“Oh! Oh!” said Ellie, as it settled on her shoulders looking glossy and full and shiny and all the other things people said about hair in their mum’s magazines. But, in the mirror, she didn’t even have time to look at that properly, before her school uniform, which had instantly tailored itself to fit her new shape, started changing colour, flashing red! Black! Gold!
“What’s it doing?!” said Ellie.
“Offering up suggestions, I think!” said Fred. “What colours do you want?”
“I dunno!”
Fred went for black and gold, a tiny bit like the colours a posh chocolate might be wrapped in. As he did so, Ellie’s school uniform stopped looking like a school uniform at all, and more like a beautiful party dress.
He stopped pressing the buttons. Ellie looked at her entire new self in the mirror. She shook her head with disbelief.
“What do you think?” said Fred.
“It’s amazing,” said Ellie. “But … do I even look like myself any more?”
Fred turned his head to the mirror, considering. “Yes,” he said, after a while. “You look like Ellie but … upgraded. Ellie 2.0. Ellie Premium Edition.”
Ellie took this in. It certainly sounded good. Although to be honest, Fred often expressed himself in video-game language. “What about when Mum and Dad see me …?” she said. “What am I going to tell them about how I look? And where I got these clothes? And—”
“God! There you are!”
Fred and Ellie turned round. Their mum was standing at the door of the playroom with her arms crossed, staring hard at the two of them.