A wallpad ORANGE

Chapter 1. The Ultimate English Victory

"Sally!" exclaimed Julie, her eyebrows wriggling, her mouth forming a crooked smile.

"Well, I do live next door. I didn't want to message you while you were messaging me, see?" Sally laughed and waved her wallpad slate in Julie's face.

"All right, then," responded Julie waving her own wallpad slate in Sally's face, "off you go! You send a reply now, then I'll be in sync."

"You'll never be in sync, Jules babe."

"Just start tapping and shut up, you idiot. Meanwhile, I'll get my blazer and backpack." Julie disappeared into the depths of her flat.

Less than two minutes later, she returned to join Sally at the front door, and the two of them headed to the lift to start their ten-minute walk to school.

"You took your time?" complained Sally, as the two of them approached the nearby lift.

"What! I was only a minute."

"You were one minute, fifty-two seconds, mate. I started a timer on my slate. How can putting a blazer and a backpack on take that long?"

"I had to brush my teeth, you numpty."

"Oh, all right then, I'll let you off." Sally smiled.

"You're lucky I didn't have to go for a Number Two," added Julie, and they both laughed heartily.

The lift descended from Floor 64 to the Ground Floor in less than 30 seconds, as luckily there were no others calling it. This was not surprising because the skyscraper block was due for demolition in a few months' time, and Julie and Sally's family were among just ten families who were allowed to stay until their children finished their school's summer term in mid-July.

As they spilled out of the lift and onto the pavement, Julie eagerly pressed a button on her slate, to inspect her wallpad ORANGE talk system.

"Oh shite!" cursed Julie, her eyebrows arching over her surprised bulging eyes.

"What's up, Jules babe?"

"Well, I wanted to read the text message you sent me while I was getting my stuff, but half the school's messaged one another, and all their messages have queued up for me."

"So you're WP-following half the school, are you?"

"Something like that."

"Who's a numpty now?" Sally laughed at her wittiness.

Julie ignored Sally's jibe and swiped her finger up, and up, and up, scrolling through an army of messages, the words British English prominent on many of the message headings.

"Ah, got it!" Julie announced victoriously. She opened Sally's latest text message. And this is what her classmate had written while she was getting her blazer and backpack and brushing her teeth:

WP-Saladcream @WP-Julie1313 Oi, Jules babe, hurry up or we'll be late for school! Yes, I heard WP has gone global with English. But do you see what this means?

Julie looked at Sally and was about to speak to her, when Sally said, "Answer me on the slate, or there's no record, babe."

Julie rolled her eyes, raised her slate, and quickly tapped out her reply:

WP-Julie1313 @WP-Saladcream Hi Sal, you prize numpty! I hope you're enjoying your walk to school. Nice day and all that, but wot in particular does WP going global English mean?

Sally looked down at her slate at Julie's reply. In response her fingers danced on her slate like a manic Irish dancer. For some reason, she seemed very excited. She wrote:

WP-Saladcream @WP-Julie1313 It means we lost our Empire, we lost every battle imaginable, we lost America, Canada, India, Australia, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and loads of other countries—BUT WE WON THE BLOODY WAR! Now that wallpad ORANGE is more or less everything and they've gone English, then this means everyone's gone English. And it's not just that wallpad ORANGE has taken onboard English, their end game is to institute British English—even if Britain broke up years ago. Jules babe, we're bloody well Number One.

Julie stopped for a second and looked at Sally. "You serious?"

"You betcha. I'm deadly serious."

Julie slowly shook her head, condescendingly. "You numpty."

"Oh yeah. You think so? Look at your slate now!"

Julie lifted her slate and gasped. She read a single line that contained a number that was increasing at an incredible rate. Seven of the least significant digits were changing so rapidly that they were just a blur. She paused the line so that she could read the number where she had paused it. The line read:

You have 5,812,324,076 unread messages.

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I hope you enjoyed this Chapter. I welcome any votes, comments or constructive criticisms (style, spelling, grammar and punctuation errors).

T. J. P. CAMPBELL.