Chapter 4

Saturday 11th July 1998

Yeah. I spoke too soon last time.

The monsters have been coming thick and fast. We’ve had four more encounters over the past week, each more out-there than the last. Ever fought a door before? We went out for McDonald’s on Thursday and Dakota’s door was huge and alive when we returned. Man, she was really cautious about letting us in after we beat it…

Today, though, it was pouring down with rain and the wind was blowing all over the place. My journey to Dakota’s had left me drenched, even with a big waterproof on. By the time I reached my destination, I was wondering if a monster was behind this somehow.

Knocking at the (thankfully normal) door, I was greeted by Kendal dressed not unlike E.T., a huge towel wrapped around her with only her face and one hand visible. Her hair was visibly squashed up under the towel, forming a lumpy outline to her head.

“Get in, quick!” she insisted, ushering me inside and shutting the door before any rain blew in.

“There are warm towels in the living room,” I was informed. Kendal adjusted her own a little as if for emphasis.

“Thanks,” I smiled in response while taking off my jacket and shoes. I placed my sword case down on the floor – as I did, the contents moved about. After a few not-so-stellar battles, I’d visited the local library and checked out a book on sword-fighting. It was going to live inside the case while I was in possession of it.

“How’re you? Where’s Dakota?” I asked cheerily.

Rather than answering either question, Kendal tittered and grinned widely.

“How much will you pay me to tell you where she is?” she asked devilishly.

“Wait, why are you charging me?” I responded, taken aback by this. Was this some new money-making scheme? Or was this a service she was providing me that I had to pay for?

“If you’re gonna be like this, I might as well try to make some money out of it!” Kendal teased, wiggling her eyebrows.

“Huh?” I asked (if you can call it that), but before I could say any more-

“Ah, Alex, you’re here!” Dakota called out as she entered from the living room. I caught Kendal drooping in disappointment as I turned to the new arrival.

“Dakota, you ruined it!” she groaned. She may have said more, but now my focus was on Dakota, approaching with her hands behind her back.

“Hi!” I beamed at her. Every single time I saw her, she blew me away…

She proceeded to swing a towel around from behind herself and draped it over me – it happened so fast that I actually jumped and had attempted to recoil a little. Kendal laughed at me.

“Hey,” Dakota responded with her usual smile. “Exciting news: Bao’s finally brought his consoles.”

It had taken him over a week to finally remember to bring them over. He’d managed to read half a novel, draw some of the monsters we’d fought, and survey an ant colony in that time. His drawings were actually really good…

“Sweet!” I cheered, heading past Dakota and into the living room. There, I found a ghost floating about next to the TV, plugging cables into the back of it. The cables lead to a Nintendo 64, with four controllers piled up next to it. A PlayStation, a Sega Saturn, a Game Boy and a large box full of games of all types littered almost all available floor space. One remaining towel was strewn across one of the armchairs.

“Okay, you really weren’t kidding when you said you had all the major consoles…” I commented to the ghost, who turned around to reveal Bao’s face under its ectoplasmic coating(/towel).

“I was gonna bring my SNES and Genesis too but I thought this would do for now,” he explained, before returning briefly to his place to finish connecting the console to the TV.

“For now? I think it’d keep us busy for at least a month!” I noted eagerly, before heading over to investigate the selection of games.

Dakota and Kendal had joined us at this point; Kendal’s towel was pulled away from her head, freeing her hair once more. The rain had decidedly un-poofed it… it was droopy even if it wasn’t completely soaked anymore.

“What’re we playing first?” she asked, plopping onto the sofa eagerly.

“I figured Mario Kart 64,” Bao replied. He pushed the TV back into place and switched it on. “That way at least four of us can play.”

“Something gives me the impression Zahid won’t be too bothered about missing out on this one,” Dakota chuckled, joining Kendal. I took to the armchair by the window this time. Bao turned the console on, before turning to the tangled pile of controllers.

“I’ve not really played video games before… only a little, when Pete and Anna brought some over when they visited Mam and I once,” Dakota continued all the while. “I hope this isn’t gonna be too hard.”

“You’ll figure it out easy!” Bao assured her, while wrestling with the cables. He was beginning to look like Steve Irwin now…

There was a knock at the door. Kendal zoomed off of the sofa before Dakota could even budge. The Irish girl turned to me with a baffled look.

“She keeps doing that…” I was informed.

By now, the Mario Kart 64 title screen was up on the TV, with a still image quickly replaced by footage of Mario and co. racing around a track.

“Err, Bao, did you press something?” Dakota asked, voice laced with concern.

“That’s just the title screen,” I assured her. “Some games play a demo if you don’t press start immediately.”

“Ah. Sorry, I’m being thick, aren’t I?” she remarked with dismay.

“No! It’s okay, you’re new to this!” I pointed out. I didn’t want her to put herself down. The reassured smile she responded with suggested that I had been successful.

Zahid strolled in, soaked through and visibly disgruntled.

“Your maid needs a better uniform, Miss Radley,” he quipped, grabbing the towel and rubbing his hair with it.

“I’ll see to it,” she responded with a chuckle. “I take it it’s still bucketing down out there?”

“It’s super-wet,” Kendal replied as she followed Zahid in with a rain-soaked face. “And windy. Someone might wanna mop up the hallway…”

Glancing at the TV screen, Zahid sighed.

“Think I’ll do that. I like my games with guns and monsters,” he remarked.

“This one has monsters! Turtle-y monsters!” Bao argued, before finally winning his battle with the controller cables. “Aha! Yet again, victory is mine!”

Kendal returned to the sofa as quickly as she had left it and Zahid slumped into the armchair, wrapping the towel over his shoulders as he did. Humming along with the title screen music, Bao handed a controller each to Kendal, Dakota and myself. Taking to the remaining spot on the sofa, he raised his arm up high with index finger poised to press start.

“We all ready?” he asked with an excited grin. The three of us responded with a mix of affirmative nods and ‘yep’s.

“Theeeeen…!” our friend and games-master began, hand lowering down like a crane game and prodding the button.

As the game loaded up, Bao sped through selecting Versus mode for us. Now, character selection.

“Dibs on Bowser! I’m always Bowser,” Bao exclaimed, selecting the turtle-y monster.

“Bao-ser?” I suggested, while navigating to Mario. Hooray for the safe choice!

“Ah! Yes! Genius!” he grinned in response (Bao, not Mario).

“Guess I’ll go for the girl in pink, just because… y’know, girl in pink,” Kendal informed us thoroughly, selecting Peach on the menu. One player left now.

“Uhm…” Dakota shifted about, feeling the pressure on herself now. “I’ll… go with the cute green frog thing…” With that, she selected Yoshi.

“He’s a dinosaur, actually,” Bao commented, before quickly selecting Luigi Raceway on the Mushroom Cup.

And away we went!

… two minutes later, and Bao was cheering over his victory while Dakota stared at her fourth-place ranking. Dead last.

“It’s okay, it’s your first time…” Kendal (a close second ahead of me) assured Dakota, patting her back.

“Again,” the other girl muttered. I hadn’t seen her like this before: she seemed to be really quite ruffled by her defeat.

“Duh, we’re gonna play more!” Bao grinned, clearly not noticing Dakota’s shift in mood. He selected another track, and another race began. Zahid got to his feet and headed off to the hallway as the rest of us played.

Dakota finished last again.

“Do you want me to go over the controls with you…?” I offered to her. Her grimace rippled into a scowl.

“I’ll figure it out,” she growled. Holy crap…

It went on like this for an hour or so, with Dakota only barely scraping third place a few times. Bao was oblivious to her ever-fouler mood, somehow able to blot out the dark cloud brewing right next to him while gaming with zeal.

Zahid had finished cleaning up the hallway, and was now watching the gameplay, steadily getting more invested.

By about 2pm – getting close to two hours of gaming – Dakota was decidedly getting to grips with how to play the game and was finishing in third place more than fourth. Bao was almost unilaterally the winner, while myself and Kendal were less consistent.

“One more race and we’ll play something else, yeah?” Bao proposed. Before Kendal or I could respond-

“No,” Dakota snapped. “Not until I beat you.”

At once, Bao’s grin shattered and unveiled an almost fearful expression. The storm had hit him at last.

“Hey, come on, it’s just a game-”

“And I’m gonna win it,” she interrupted, bouncing a knee impatiently. “I’ll beat you.”

This was… not what I expected of her, at all.

“You could switch to two-player, Bao,” Kendal pointed out, stretching her fingers and thumbs. “I could do with a rest anyway.”

“No, you’re all staying in,” our Irish friend commanded, turning to Kendal. “We’re doing this right and I’m gonna win if it kills me.”

She then turned to me, glaring with such frustration and force that I shrunk back into the armchair.

“Got it?”

“Yeah, I mean, I hadn’t said anything but sure, I can keep playing…” I blurted, forcing a comforting smile on my face. Dakota simply huffed through her nostrils and turned back to the game.

What followed, ladies and gentlemen, was some four hours of intense, practically non-stop Mario Kart playing (Mario Karting?). My endurance wasn’t up to scratch, and I soon fell into fairly-consistent fourth place (“you better not be losing on purpose,” I was warned); Kendal followed shortly after, generally staying in third place but occasionally trading places with me. Her hair was now drying out, and had transitioned into a frizzy mess.

On Dakota’s part… well, she seemed to be adept at self-evaluating and improving her performance. It was only one game, relying on the same skills and tricks throughout it, so I can’t say she’d become a master Tomb Raider player or something… but she’d gone from total amateur to notable contender in only…

Six hours… ugh…

Somewhere along the way, Zahid had begun actively trying to assist us all, throwing out advice and generally being a back-seat driver to all four of us at once. Dakota had actually snapped back at him a couple of times… she’d even taken to shouting at the game itself. At one point, she’d honestly yelled “Yoshi, you clueless feckin’ eejit!” Apparently her accent got stronger alongside her temper.

The weather, by contrast, seemed to be calming down outside. That was a relief.

“We can call it quits here, if you want,” Bao remarked after yet another victory.

“Why, are you knackered?” Dakota smirked back at him fiercely. “Need a rest?”

“Nah, I’m just getting kinda bored of winning,” he teased, making her fume.

“Can we take a break for an hour?” I put forward – delicately, in case Dakota snapped at me. “Get some food, unwind, recharge… like a pit stop.”

“There aren’t any pit stops in Mario Kart and I just realised you were using a simile,” Bao caught himself mid-sentence.

Dakota, meanwhile, took a moment to mull over the suggestion.

“Fine,” she decided, placing her controller on the coffee table.

His coaching role on-hold, Zahid stood up and stretched a little.

“I’ll call for pizzas. It’s easier,” he remarked, heading off to the phone in the hallway.

“You’re just too lazy to cook for us!” Kendal laughed after him; he stuck two fingers up at her as he left the room.

While we waited for the food to arrive, Bao showed off his sizable collection of games. He prided himself on having over 50 and was even more pleased to confirm that he had managed to complete every single one of them. For someone as scatter-brained as him, that really did seem like an incredible achievement.

He decided to show us some amusing gameplay on one obscure PlayStation game. Dakota ardently refused to let him unplug the N64, so we wound up going upstairs to use the small TV in the master bedroom. (Bao asked Zahid to keep an eye on Dakota all the while. Dakota roared “you calling me a cheat?!”. Bao was rightly terrified.)

The food arrived before long, and Bao’s PlayStation demonstration was cut short. With the atmosphere still dark, there was little chatter and we wolfed the food down. Dakota in particular almost seemed to be taking her frustration out on the pizza with the way she took her bites, tearing mouthfuls off by pulling her head away like an animal. I’m sure she even growled at one point…

Come 7:30pm or so, we were back in position and with our controllers at the ready. From here on out, I knew this would basically be an endurance test for me. My digits already felt arthritic after several hours of gaming. As we began, Dakota had a renewed confidence, with a challenging smirk spread across her lips. After all this, I believed in her: she could win it in no time.

… two hours later…

“Come on, you dumb dinosaur! Move your arse!” Dakota screamed at the TV, stood up with the controller held so tightly that I was convinced she was about to snap it. Bao was laughing giddily as Bowser sped effortlessly towards and across the finish line. Mario and Peach were battling for last place as per usual.

“You can’t beat me!” Bao announced, before giving an attempt at a dashing hair flick. The little stray tuft at the back of his head bounced a tad as he did.

“Bao, you’re rubbing it in too much…” Kendal warned him, even as Dakota’s predatory eyes locked onto him.

“You will not leave this house until I win a game,” she sneered at him, breathing audibly.

I wanted to ask her “why is it so important that you win?”, or “can’t we just leave it for tomorrow now?”, but I figured I would find myself at the pointy end of a Lokon weapon. Besides… I imagine she’s just super-competitive. That Bao’s winning streak has set her a seemingly-insurmountable challenge to overcome-

Aaand the next race had already begun, so I shook the thoughts from my head and focused on trying to not wind up in last place.

“Go left!” Zahid shouted as the race kicked into gear.

“WHO!?” Dakota roared back.

“You!” he clarified; Dakota flung herself to the left as though her own momentum would accelerate the graphics on the screen. I switched focus to Dakota’s split-screen, and by the time I had returned it to mine, I had driven into a wall.

“Awh crap-”

“SHH!” Dakota hissed, face twisted up in fury as she poured all of her energy into the game. Okay, that hurt this time… rather than apologising, I just reversed back and corrected my course. This stopped being fun hours ago…

To no surprise, Yoshi was hot on Bowser’s tail in the final stretch. Bao had informed us that Yoshi had faster acceleration and a higher top speed than Bowser… but I assumed Dakota was already at top speed and only had a narrow window in which to overtake Bao.

Item Boxes lay ahead. Bao went through one – a banana.

A second later, Dakota went through another – and received three mushrooms.

“Holy meerkats!” Kendal yelped out as she noticed.

It was like poetry. Dakota accelerated once… accelerated twice…

Bao moved to be directly in front of Dakota and dropped the banana.

Even as he did, she drove off to the other side of the track… and accelerated a final time.

In true photo finish fashion, she brushed over the finish line a fraction before he did.

Catharsis pulsed across the room. Bao looked absolutely crushed. Kendal laughed in delight. Zahid smiled. I let out a huge sigh of relief.

But Dakota… she didn’t leap up and celebrate, she didn’t shout her victory to the skies. She simply sat there, smirking in unbridled triumph.

“My… my streak…” Bao whimpered.

Putting her controller on the coffee table, Dakota got to her feet and stretched.

“Well then,” she began. “Now that’s done… I guess you should all be heading home.”

I got back at just past 10pm, and got an earful from my parents about “band practice” lasting until so late and that I could’ve phoned ahead because that’s why they bought me a mobile phone in the first place. Lucy inspected my scalp in case I’d been skinned and inhabited by an alien. Still not right, Lucy.

As I got to bed a little while later, my mobile rang. To my surprise, it was Dakota (we’d all swapped numbers before, save for Kendal whose phone got damaged beyond repair while she was skateboarding once). I took the device in my hand and answered quickly, in case my parents heard.

“Hi…?” I spoke quietly into the phone.

“Hi Alex,” Dakota responded, at normal volume – of course, since she had no one to disturb at hers.

“Err… I’m just getting to bed right now…” I informed her.

“Me too, actually,” she responded. The thought of her in pyjamas suddenly flashed into my head. Oh man…

“Right! So, uhm… is everything okay?”

She took a moment to respond.

“It’s just… I wanted to apologise for earlier. I got way too into it,” she told me as though I hadn’t noticed. “I really needed to win, y’know?”

“It’s okay,” I assured her. “You did great. I was really happy for you when you won.”

“Good,” she said. I could hear her smile in the way she spoke.

“Now,” I continued, “can we not play any more video games for, like, two weeks? Please?”

She laughed. Oh god, that laugh.

“I promise. I’ll give you all a break.”

“Okay,” I smiled back. “Night Dakota. Sleep well.”

“You too,” she sung, before hanging up the call.

… I never did find out if she’d called the others…