Is it just me, or do all computers choose when they want to work and when they don’t?

My dad says that apart from my mother, computers are the most unpredictable things in the world. The other day he was complaining that the computer was freezing. That was in the middle of summer! I don’t understand computers at all. Well, I didn’t, until a couple of nights ago.

We had been having trouble with the computer. Now when I say trouble, I don’t mean it wasn’t working. It was working, just certain things were happening that were quite strange. For example, when you put a disk in the drive, it made a strange squeaking sound. I thought the drive needed oil, but dad said that would wreck the disks.

But I thought that the disks were being wrecked anyway. I know that on a normal disk there are 1.4 Megabytes of information. But some of the disks I was putting in the computer were slowly losing capacity. It was as if somebody was taking bytes out of the disk. I left a disk in the drive overnight one time and in the morning there was nothing left on the disk at all.

But that wasn’t the only thing that was happening. Sometimes you would be using the computer, happily typing away, and the computer would just crash. It wouldn’t matter what you were doing. Without warning the computer would crash. What made this even stranger was that you could do the exact same thing again and the computer wouldn’t crash.

The other night I went to use the computer and it wouldn’t work at all. The computer just wouldn’t boot. It said something about there being no mouse driver. I knew we had to get somebody in to look at the computer. But I was tired, so I went to bed and wrote a note to remind me to tell dad in the morning.

I was lying in bed wondering why the computer wasn’t working, when I started to hear strange noises coming from the computer room. I knew mum and dad were in bed, so it couldn’t have been them. I thought that maybe it was a burglar trying to steal the computer. I thought for a minute I should let him take the computer, it would serve him right. But I hadn’t heard a smash of a window or a door being forced, so I guessed it couldn’t have been a burglar.

My curiosity got the better of me. I pulled back the blankets and got out of bed. I put my dressing gown on and crept to my door. I was on tippy toes and as quiet as a mouse. I slowly opened my door and crept into the hallway. The computer room was at the other end of the hallway to my room. To get to the computer room I had to creep past the bathroom and my parents room.

I had done this before on many occasions. When we got a new game I would wait until mum and dad were asleep and then I would creep into the computer room and start playing again. Mum and dad always made me go to bed just when I was about to win the game. So I would save the game and then go and play it in the middle of the night.

I had also been caught many times. So I tippy toed past the bathroom, sneaked past mum and dad’s room, and set my eyes on the computer room door. I was sure that for a second I saw a flicker of light. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. But I had made up my mind to find out what was going on no matter what.

So step by step I made my way to the door. Just as I reached the door and looked into the room, something brushed past me and knocked me off my feet. Suddenly I was lying on the ground looking up at the ceiling. I was winded and could hardly breathe. I wondered if mum and dad had heard me. I lay there as still as a mouse, blinking my eyes and straining my ears to hear if mum and dad had woken up and were coming to tell me off. But the only movement came from the computer room, and as I slowly moved my eyes to look into the room, I saw what had knocked me over.

At first I thought the knock on the head must have been harder than it felt. Because what I saw before me could not have been real. Underneath the computer desk was something unbelievable, a small man. When I say a small man, I mean a small man. He was just like a normal man, except he was about the same size as my hand.

He had a small moustache and a tiny blue cap on his head. He wore a uniform, although I had never seen a uniform quite like it before. This was all quite strange, but there was more than this which was even stranger. The man was standing on a small wooden sled, and connected to the sled by a harness was, no joke, a small grey mouse.

Now at this stage you think I’m having you on, pulling your leg, taking you for a ride. I understand completely. That’s exactly what I was thinking while I was lying there. But deadly serious, there was a little man on a sled, and he was the only one being taken for a ride.

It appeared that this small man had not noticed my presence. If he had, he didn’t care. He just stood on his sled yelling commands to his mouse. They were weaving in and out of the chair legs, around and over a three ring folder that had been left on the floor, and through a piece of plastic pipe we used to put elastic bands around. It was as if they were in a race, but there were no other little men with mice around.

After watching them for a while I figured out that there was a pattern to what they were doing. They would start between the front two legs of the chair. The man would put his hand up in the air, counting down from five to one. Then they were off. They would run straight towards the wall, but then turn at the last minute and circle the leg of the computer desk. Then they would head straight towards the opposite leg of the desk. From there they would gather speed running across the room until they got to the three ring folder.

I couldn’t believe what happened when they got to the folder (although I was ready to believe anything at this stage). The mouse just put its head down and ran straight up the slope of the folder and over the edge. It was just like a ski jump I had seen in a water-ski show one time. The little man held on really tight and when they hit the ground he yelled out ‘yeeeehaaaa’ like a cowboy. It sounded quite funny coming from this little man in his uniform.

After their exciting jump they would run through the pipe, back around one of the desk legs, back through the pipe, and then to where I gathered the finish line was, back at the chair legs where they started. When they got there the man would pull a small gold watch out of his pocket and look at it shaking his head. Then he would give the mouse, who would be panting like a dog, a piece of cheese.

He would then talk to his mouse while the cheese disappeared. It was hard to hear what he was saying. He was only a little man and only had a little voice. But I managed to hear a few words that kept repeating over and over again. Words like ‘faster’ and ‘win’. Phrases like ‘we can do better’ and ‘I know we can’. Then there was the one which made me laugh. He looked at his companion and said ‘come on, what are you, a man or a mouse?’.

When I laughed this time, both the little man and the mouse definitely heard me. The man stared straight at me for no more than a second and then jumped onto the sled. Mouse and man came belting towards me and I didn’t know what they were going to do. But they rushed straight past me and down the hallway. A second later there was a grey blur coming at me from that direction. The blur went straight towards the folder and then flew off the folder towards the computer. The mouse and the sled went straight into the disk drive. They just went through the hole and disappeared.

But the little man hit his head and just lay there on the computer desk. I thought maybe he was dead, but I could see his little chest moving up and down. I didn’t know what to do. One thing was for certain, I couldn’t give him mouth to mouth. It would be more like mouth to entire body. But while I was panicking, the little man opened his eyes. He just lay there staring straight up at me. I don’t know what it would have been like for him. Imagine waking up and staring at a giant.

I liked the idea of me being a giant though. I had always been one of the smallest kids at school. Heaps of children picked on me because they were bigger than me. Now there was a full grown man who was no bigger than my hand. But I didn’t want to pick on him. I didn’t have time to anyway. The little man jumped to his feet and yelled at me. ‘What do you think you’re doing? Where is my mouse? What have you done with my mouse?’

I tried to speak, but like a typical adult, he asked questions and then didn’t let me answer. ‘If you’ve done something to my mouse I’ll report you. I hope you know you’re interrupting some very important training. Hey, I know you, don’t I?’ I didn’t know how this funny little man would have known me, but anything seemed possible by this time. So I just stood there saying nothing. ‘Yes, I know you. You’re the noisy one. Well, you’re not too noisy now are you? What’s the problem, cat got your tongue? You’re the one who always sits in the chair jumping around making noises when you pound on the keys.’

I figured out what he was talking about. ‘Yes, I’m the one who plays games on the computer. But I do my homework too...sometimes. Anyway, who are you?’ The little man dusted himself off and straightened his uniform. He grabbed his hat which had fallen off earlier and placed it on his head. Then with a bow as you might see at the opera, he proclaimed ‘I, young man, am the mouse driver.’

‘The mouse driver?’ I questioned, trying not to sound too confused.

‘Yes, the mouse driver. Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of me.’

‘Well, as a matter of fact...’

‘Typical! The publicity around here is terrible. I suppose it’s because I’m stuck in there most of the time,’ he said, gesturing towards the computer. As I glanced at the computer I saw two beady little eyes glimmering in the disk drive. ‘Come out Rudolph, there’s nothing to fear,’ said the man to his mouse. Suddenly they were reunited, man, sled and mouse.

‘This is all too much for me,’ I said, and it wasn’t too far from the truth. So far tonight I couldn’t play my favourite game on the computer because it wouldn’t work. I had gone to bed early, only to sneak into the computer room to find a little man with his mouse and sled living inside my computer.

That’s when it dawned on me. ‘You’re the mouse driver!’

‘Yes, that’s what I said before,’ he restated, looking at me as if my brain had a delayed reaction.

‘No, I mean you’re the mouse driver from the computer.’

‘Yes, it’s a bit cramped in there, but I like to call it home.’

‘Now everything makes sense,’ I said, not believing what I was saying. ‘You’re the mouse driver that makes the mouse work on the computer. The computer wouldn’t work tonight because you weren’t there. Now everything is coming together. It explains everything else too. The squeaking sound when you put a disk in. The bytes disappearing from the disks. You’ve been living in the computer and your mouse has been feasting on kilobytes.’

The little man hung his head in shame. At least I think that’s what he was doing. When you’re that small, hanging your head doesn’t make much difference.

‘It’s very cramped in there you see. It’s not poor Rudolph’s fault. Sometimes he gets a fright when you put disks in the drive. He also gets unbelievably hungry. I mean, you imagine running around inside a computer all day. It’s really not our fault. It’s all because of the race.’

‘The race?’ I asked.

‘The race. Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of that either. Don’t you know anything? The annual mouse drivers’ race. It happens every year, but I guess that’s why it’s annual. Mouse drivers from all over the country train for months to have a chance to be named mouse driver of the year. I’ve never actually won before, but I’ve come close. This year the trophy is mine. At least, it will be if I can get more training done.’

‘But that’s unfair,’ I said. ‘It’s all very well that you should train, but you’re wrecking our computer in the process. How are we meant to use our computer if you’re off galavanting with your mouse?’

The little man looked very sad. He started to cry. Now you don’t know what it’s like to see a full grown little man cry. I really felt sorry for him. ‘When’s the race?’ I asked.

‘Tomorrow night. But it doesn’t matter, I don’t have a chance. It was a stupid idea. I’m sorry I’ve been wrecking your computer. I guess I’ll just go back to work.’

‘No, wait!’ I said. ‘I think you have a really good chance. The speed you ran down the hallway before was unbelievable. You were just a blur. I think you could win.’ Then I got my idea. ‘I could even help you, be like your pit crew or something. That’s if you want me to.’

‘Really? You would do that for me?’ He said, not really believing me.

‘Yeah, of course. So long as you don’t tell mum and dad.’

‘Oh thankyou, thankyou, thankyou.’ I put out my little finger and he grabbed it with both hands and we shook on the deal. We continued training for the rest of the night. When the sun began to rise I realised I would have to go to bed before mum and dad woke up to find me in the computer room. So we made a deal to meet at midnight. That was an hour before the start of the race. I crept back past my parents’ room and got into bed. I hadn’t realised how tired I was until then. I closed my eyes and fell asleep almost straight away.

But it seemed like only a couple of minutes later that my mum was in my room opening the curtains and telling me to get up and ready for school. I thought about pretending to be sick, but knew that would make it harder for me to sneak into the computer room at night. So I slowly got out of bed, jumped into a cold shower and then trudged off to school. The school day seemed to go extremely slow. I fell asleep at recess and lunchtime, and in a couple of my classes.

I fell asleep in Miss Field’s English class and got into trouble for it. But I often fell asleep in her classes anyway. Have you ever noticed that the clock at the front of the classroom seems to go slower when you watch it? Also that it can put you into a trance if you watch it too much?

When school finished I got an extra burst of energy. I ran home from school and into the computer room. Everything seemed normal and I wondered if the night before had been a dream. I walked into my room and dropped my school bag on the ground. Then I laid on top of my bed and fell asleep. Mum woke me up for dinner. ‘Have a hard day at school did you?’ she asked.

‘Yeah,’ I said, not thinking of anything else to say. Dad was late to the dinner table. He had been in the computer room and came to the table with a red face. He looked like he could have been doing a mouse race himself.

‘That computer’s more trouble than it’s worth,’ he said. Dad had decided in life that a lot of things were more trouble than they were worth. The car, the government, sometimes me. ‘I think I’ll pull the computer to pieces after tea and take it to the shop tomorrow.’

‘No!’ I said, too quickly. It was as if he had suggested something completely devastating.

‘Why not?’ he asked, bemused.

‘Because I can fix it.’ That was one of those things I said then wondered why on earth I had said it afterwards. I had no idea about computers and dad knew it. He had lost faith in my computer abilities when I wiped the hard drive because it said there wasn’t any disk space left to save one of my games.

‘You?’ he said, almost laughing.

‘Yes, me. I can fix it.’ I had become defensive. I knew I couldn’t fix the computer, but I didn’t want dad thinking that I couldn’t. Then dad made an offer I was determined to make him regret.

‘If you can fix the computer, if you can fix the computer I’ll give you a hundred dollars.’

He was pretty sure I couldn’t fix the computer, otherwise he would never had said a hundred dollars. Usually when he was pretty certain I couldn’t or wouldn’t do something he would offer ten dollars. But a hundred dollars was more than I had ever had before at one time.

I thought of all I could do with a hundred dollars. I put out my hand and felt his firm grasp as we shook on the deal. As I was finishing dinner I yawned. Mum told me I had to go to bed straight after dinner and the computer would have to wait until the next day. I was secretly happy about this. It would give me some time to think.

I went to bed and didn’t have much time to think. I went straight to sleep again. At midnight I felt a tickling feeling on my nose. If I had known what it was I would not have jumped so high. It was Rudolph, who got a large fright as I jumped backwards, hitting my head. It was the mouse driver’s turn to laugh.

‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ he said.

‘Sorry, I fell asleep. Just give me a minute or two.’

I didn’t need to do much, because I had gone to bed with my clothes on. I slipped my dressing gown over the top of my clothes and put my slippers on my feet. Then I followed my small companion to the computer room. I thought that after the previous night I was ready to believe anything. But the sight that greeted me in the computer room was beyond belief. The computer had turned into a television and there were two little men with headphones on, like the commentators on television, sitting there talking into microphones.

All around the floor of the computer room were flags and markers and at least a hundred little men with their sleds and mice. There was a big digital clock on the chair and it was counting down. I figured it must have been thirty minutes until race time.

‘I didn’t realise the race was here,’ I said, although I didn’t know where else I thought it would be.

‘Oh, the race isn’t just here. It is all over. But there are lots of different starting points and courses. You’re not just racing against people in your direct area. You’re racing against everyone.’

‘But you get to race here?’

‘Yes, of course, I’m the host,’ he said rather proudly.

‘Is the course the same one you were doing last night?’

‘Oh no,’ he said with a laugh.

‘Where’s the course then?’

He spent the next five minutes telling me the course. There was just one part of the course that caught my attention, however. He said that they had to go out into the backyard and then around a fair bit of the course. They then had to come back in the front door of the house. The problem with this was that to get in the front door they would have to go up the stairs, which would take a fair bit of time.

I knew that there was an easier way to get to the front door. When I played with my cars I used to make them go into the bottom of the drain pipe. There was a hole just above the level of the porch that I could uncover to let the cars roll out just in front of the front door. I had seen him use the pipe and the folder the night before. I was sure he could make it if he tried.

We spent the next half an hour talking about tactics. Before we knew it, the race was about to start. My mouse driver friend shook my hand again and took his position on the starting grid. There was a count down and then a starting gun went off. Bang, and they were off. A blur of grey rushed past me and I spun around in a circle. Suddenly the room was empty again.

I had my part to do in the race. I went back to my room. I had to climb out my window to get to the front door. If I had have tried to open the front door mum and dad would have woken up. I was surprised the gunshot didn’t wake them. I jumped into the garden and then ran to the drain pipe. I removed the little piece of metal and put it in my dressing gown pocket. Then I climbed back through my window.

Most of the race was happening in the backyard, so I went to the kitchen and looked out through the window. I couldn’t see much in the dark, and to tell the truth, a hundred little men riding around on sleds pulled by mice all look very much the same. But I could see the blue cap of my mouse driver in about fourth place.

They were weaving in and out, over and under. Then the leaders started heading towards the side gate. I knew they were going for the final stage of the race, through the front door.

I rushed to the computer room and watched them run down the driveway. My guy was still in fourth place. As they got to the steps they slowed down. The leader, who was a fair way in front, got a rope out of his pack and started climbing. I was surprised how well the mouse climbed, pulling the sled along as well. He was making his way up the stairs pretty quickly for a small man.

There were three of them with their mice. Then my guy came down the drive. He rushed straight past the stairs and to the front of the driveway. Then he turned around and gave a wave. Rudolph the mouse put his head down and belted towards the drain pipe. When he reached it he jumped and they disappeared.

The next thing I knew, they flew out the small hole and landed on the doormat. Then they went under the door and made their way to the computer room. They cruised through the door and broke through a ribbon across the legs of the desk.

After the race there was much congratulations. There was a protest against the use of the drain pipe. But it was over-ruled, because it didn’t say anywhere in the rules that you had to go up the stairs. Most people congratulated him on his inventive race. It must have been about five in the morning before the course was packed up and all the other men and mice had left.

They did a pretty good job of cleaning up. You couldn’t tell that there had been a race only hours earlier.

‘I want to thank you for your help,’ said my friend. ‘If there’s anything I can do to repay you, just let me know.’

‘Well, actually...’ I said. It didn’t take long for us to fix the computer. Most of the problem was the junk that the mouse driver had stored up for the race. He cleaned out everything and we moved it all into my room. I promised him he could come and visit anytime. Rudolph had already decided to go and visit his cousin in Darwin and show his trophy, so there wasn’t going to be any more bytes out of disks or squeaking. The only thing he took with him back into the computer was his trophy. He said it wasn’t anywhere that would hurt the computer.

If anything, the computer was running faster than ever. He was just shaking my hand goodbye when we heard a noise in the hall. He jumped into the disk drive and I turned around to see my dad standing there.

‘It’s seven o’clock in the morning. What are you doing in here?’

‘Fixing the computer,’ I said, completely truthfully.

Sure enough, when dad turned the computer on it started as fast as could be, without a problem. Dad tried everything to find a problem. Turned it on and off heaps of time. But everything ran perfectly. The computer would start each time and everything was back to normal.

Well, everything except for two things. Every time you start the computer now there is a picture of a trophy that comes on the screen. That’s the first thing. The second? I’m a hundred dollars richer.