My cubmaster taught me not to be afraid of the unknown. I've been grateful to him ever since, even though he did it primarily so I wouldn't ask him what was in the rissoles at camp.
Thanks to him, I survived a major childhood trauma. In Year 4, 1 banged my head on my lunchbox, developed a splitting headache and suddenly the teacher seemed to be writing unintelligible hieroglyphics on the board. I remembered my cubmaster's words and didn't panic. Which was just as well because it was only algebra.
My cubmaster's precious legacy has served me well in adult life, too. Thanks to him, I can reach fearlessly down the back of the fridge for a lost school note, even though I haven't got a clue whether the blue furry thing down there is an old Smurf or an even older rissole.
Thanks to my cubmaster, l've been able to embrace the unknown at every stage of my life. Until a few days ago. Since then it hasn't been quite so easy. I've had to remind myself of his teachings quite frequently. About every three minutes. I'm still doing it now. "Dib dib dib," 1 chant. "Dob dob dob. I am kin to the fearless wolf and the very brave wombat and none of us is afraid of our new computer.".
 I didn't want a new computer. I was perfectly happy with the previous one. It was six years old but it did everything I needed a notebook computer to do. (Almost. It wasn't that good at soaking up lemon cordial.) It was blindingly fast compared to what I was using before. (A blunt pencil.).
Okay, journalists would snigger when I told them I wrote my books on a 286. Kids would look blank and I'd hear their parents explaining to them about quill pens and illuminated manuscripts and 286s. I got begging letters from museums..
But we worked well together, me and the old 286. Until last week, when I was using it on a bus and I heard a pensioner mutter "old fogey". I closed it up indignantly and there was an ominous cracking sound. I hoped it was the pensioner eating peanut brittle, but, alas, it wasn't..
.
The plastic casing of my faithful old friend had finally succumbed to age and cordial corrosion.
"Farewell," I said when l got it home. "You've earned a long and peaceful retirement." I put it on the shelf next to my cub cap and the blunt pencil..
"Hooray," said the kids. "Dad's going to upgrade his computer at last.".
I shook my head. "No, I'm not," I said. "I'm going to get one exactly the same as the last one except for the Bay City Rollers sticker on the case."
In the notebook computer shop, all the staff seemed to have been replaced since I was last there. A young salesman approached me eagerly. "It's okay," I said, "I know exactly what I want. One 286 and don't bother wrapping it.".
The salesam gave me a very strange look.
"Sorry sir", he said, "they don't make 286s any more." He grinned and gave me a nudge. "Oh, and before you ask, we don't sell quill pens, either."
I sighed. It looked like I was going to be forced to keep up with the times.
"Okay," I said, resiggned, "I'll take a 287."
The salesman gave me an even stranger look. "No such thing," he said. I was stunned. Why on earth not? All i could think was that fundamentalist groups had prevented it from being manufactured after discovering the numerals 287 had satanic significance. Perhaps it was Stephen King's street number.
"Okay," I said, 'I'll take a 288, as long as it doesn't have any more memory than my old one. ft makes me nervous when a computer has a better memory than me.".
The salesman swapped glances with his colleagues, who were obviously impressed by my ability to take huge technological changes in my stride. I told them my last computer had a 20-megabyte hard disk and one megabyte of RAM. "I'd like the same on the 288, please," I said firmly..
For some reason, the salesman and his colleagues all developed breathing problems at the same time. Heavy smokers, probably. "Actually, sir," said the salesman when he'd recovered the power of speech, "our current model notebook is a Pentium 133."
"That's ridiculous,~ I said. "I don't want to downgrade. Well, not that much. I might settle for a 233. But only if the operating speed can keep up with my old one. That was
12 megaherz, you know.".
"Sir," said the salesman after another long bout of choking,
"would you like to sit down?".
I sat down. He then told me that the Pentium 133 operated at 133 megaherz with 16 megabytes of RAM and a range of hard disk sizes starting at 840 megabytes and going up to 3,600 megabytes. I fainted.
I'm writing this with the blunt pencil. My new computer's sitting up the other end of the desk. After singing lots of cub songs, I got brave enough to switch it on. The screen exploded into colour, music played and dozens of little pictures appeared. The computer has obviously decided that pictures are all I'm capable of comprehending. Just as well, I guess. With that much memory, it probably knows some really long words.
One of the pictures is of a small insect. I think that's Pentium pictorial language for New Owner. I haven't been game to switch off my new computer because I think it's watching me..
My new computer can store 200 million names and addresses. That's good. In here somewhere will be my old cubmaster's address. Now I can drop him a note. "Help."
Maurice Gleitzmann was writing for Good Weekend, July 19, 1997.
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