Hi there. Itâs good to see you again. Youâre actually the first one here, but thatâs cool. Rosie has just rung to say that sheâll be along as soon as her mum gets home. Kennyâs running late, playing football I expect, and Lyndz is probably still at the stables with her precious horses. Fliss is coming straight from her dadâs and she finds it really hard tearing herself away from his baby, Posie. But hey, I can understand that. Iâm going to be like that myself in seven monthsâ time. I canât wait until Mum has her baby. Iâd pestered her to have a baby for ages. She used to roll her eyes and say, âOh no Frankie, not again!â So hearing that she was pregnant was the best news ever.
Anyway, come on in. We can go up to my room while we wait for the others. They shouldnât be too long. And itâll give me a chance to fill you in on the latest news. And you can have a go on the Internet in peace. You wonât get a look in when the others get here, believe me!
I donât know how much you know about the Internet, but itâs totally cool. When I heard Mum and Dad talking about it at first though, it all sounded a bit weird.
âIsnât it a bit nerdy?â I asked Dad doubtfully.
âNerdy?â asked Dad, pretending to sound shocked. âThis is communication for the future, young lady, and youâd better get used to it!â
I still wasnât convinced. I mean, computers are boring, arenât they? Iâd heard a couple of kids at school going on about the Internet, but it never really sank in, to be honest. It was only when Mum became pregnant that it became an issue at home. You see, sheâs kind of old to be having a second baby and Dad wanted her to take things a bit easier, so sheâs started working from home a couple of days a week. Sheâs a lawyer and needs to keep up with other cases. And how can you do that? Youâve guessed it â on the Internet!
So, one minute we had a perfectly ordinary computer, and the next we were hooked up to the Net. Dad spent ages fiddling about on it, so I went to see what he was doing. He tapped in a kind of code, and he seemed to be able to get any information that he wanted.
âI donât understand,â I told him after a while. âHow come our computer knows so much stuff all of a sudden?â
âBecause our little computer is now hooked up to a huge network of lots of other computers,â he explained. âFrom computers in someoneâs home to vast computers owned by some of the worldâs biggest organisations. So when you go on to the Internet, you really do have the world at your fingertips! Why donât you have a go?â
Dad showed me which keys to press, and it was totally amazing. I mean, you really can find out everything â from the colour of Ronan Keatingâs underpants to the temperature at the top of Mount Everest!
âYouâre a real surfer now,â Dad laughed.
âWhat do you mean?â I asked, all confused. When had we started talking about the sea?
âWhen you move around web sites searching for information, itâs called âsurfing the Netâ!â Dad explained.
âCool!â Iâd always liked the sound of surfing, and this way I didnât even have to get wet!
âAnd I know how much you like spidersâ¦!â said Dad, walking his fingers up my arm like some massive creepy-crawly.
âGet off!â I screamed. âI hate spiders. What have they got to do with the Internet?â
âAbsolutely nothing!â grinned Dad. âBut you often hear the word âwebâ associated with the Internet. People talk about the âWorld Wide Webâ. I know it sounds more like something created by a tarantula the size of Godzillaâ¦â
âEeeuuuurgh!â I screeched, and pretended to faint really dramatically.
âIt may be a weird name,â laughed Dad, âbut itâs just a way of storing and getting into all the information on the Internet.â
âOh right. But why couldnât we have the Internet before?â I asked.
âBecause to access it, our computer needed a special modem,â Dad explained. âAnd it all works through the telephone system, which is pretty amazing really.â
I think Dad could sense that my eyes were glazing over a bit at that point, because then he said hurriedly, âThatâs all you really need to know. Why donât you just play around with it for a while?â
And I did â for hours and hours. He virtually had to drag me off in the end. Thereâs so much information on the Internet. And the great thing is that when you get bored looking at one thing, then itâs easy to look up something else! Itâs just so great!
I hadnât mentioned it to my friends before, because, as I said, I wasnât that excited till Dad explained it. But once Iâd got the hang of it, well that was a different story. I was dying to tell everyone about it.
In the playground the next day, I leapt on Fliss as soon as she came through the gates.