In a small Amish community, a culture and distance far removed from the young people of Ysgol Draig in the small seaside town of Abergwaun, Erich van der Hertz sat down young Greta Mächtig.

He looked at her with his kind grey eyes, a pained, weary expression on his face. He sat before her and leaning forward a little, said, "my dear child," he paused searching for the right words, "I'm very sorry to tell you that your mother and father, out in their horse-trap befell a terrible accident and the Lord has taken them from us, may they rest in peace."

She sat blinking at him, not sure what he had just told her. Greta, who had just turned eleven, was old enough to understand life and death, but before now it had never been that important.

"You understand, yes?" He continued.

She nodded.

A week later a letter arrived from a place Greta had never heard of and from a person she did not know existed. It read:

My Dear Greta,

I am your mother's sister–Aunt Victoria Sponge (yes, just like the cake, but pronounced SPON-GER). Before you were born, I left the Amish community that has been your home. I am your only living relative, and I so want you to come and live with me in Wales. I know we will get on so well and have lots of fun. There are many lovely children here.

I have sent money to Erich for your travel. Please come, at least to visit and try something new, which I am sure will not disappoint you.

Lots of love and hugs, Aunt Vicky x

***

And so it was, that Greta came to live in a peaceful field near the small seaside town of Abergwaun, where sat a log cabin in which she was to join her Aunt, a Dachshund named Waldi and a three-legged cat called Sushi. Now, Aunt Vicky had a very unusual condition known as Hyper-Electro-Lypo-Precosis or HELP, which meant that she could have nothing running on electricity anywhere near her. Because they had raised Greta Amish, she was used to living without modern things, and so it was no hardship, or a surprise to find her Aunt living in such a simple and old-fashioned way.

Greta and her Aunt hit it off famously, and in no time the four of them were rubbing along the best of friends. A few weeks later, Aunt Vicky said, "now you have had time to settle in, I have arranged for you to spend a day at the local school to see if you like it. I know the young people there are super fun and friendly." Aunt Vicky always painted such a positive picture of things and if she ever felt overwhelmed or over faced by anything, she never showed it.

***

Ysgol Draig had a very unusual head-teacher, Mrs Lynn Gweeny. Her nickname was Whatty-What because whenever anyone ever asked her a question, she always said 'whatty-what is that?'

Now, Whatty-What loved technology so much that she had spent years putting in the very best computer systems and networks that her budget would allow. In fact, the broadband connection was so speedy that even the Pentagon in America did not have one quicker. She encouraged all the students to do everything with technology, and class 5 had been working all term to build Whatty-What's latest creation the Holistic-Automated-Learner-9000 or HAL-9000, designed to trawl the internet, absorbing goodly information that the students might then use in their learning.

On a Monday in June, they wheeled their fabulous machine into Whatty-What's office and connected it to its docking station. Standing at 1.5 metres tall, it had stumpy legs with wheeled feet; two flexible arms each with a grabby hand at the end; and a rectangular head the front of which was taken up by a large touch screen, and above that was a camera lens emitting a red glow–like a mechanical red eye. Near the top of the body was an opening like a letterbox, but deeper.

The machine whirred into life, beeping and clicking, and within a few seconds, a message appeared on the screen:

Initiating, diagnostics... followed by the words, searching World Wide Web...

Beaming, Whatty-What said, "what do you think, class? Magnificent, isn't it?"

"Ask it a question?" said Olivia.

"Yes, ask it if it knows its name," added Ffion.

"May I?" asked Milo.

Whatty-What nodded, "go on then."

Milo cleared his throat and said, "command – what is your name?"

HAL beeped and then in a soft, slightly weird voice, replied, "Hello, Milo, my name is HAL..."

The class applauded.

Katie said, "do you know who I am?"

HAL's camera lens glowed, it said, "Hello, Katie, what can I do for you today?"

She thought for a moment, then smiling, asked, "Can you do my homework?"

HAL replied, "I'm sorry, Katie, I'm afraid I can't do that. I can assist you by providing useful data and ideas. Would that help, Katie?"

Everyone laughed, this was going to be great!

Ollie said, "HAL, tell us a joke."

"Hello, Ollie, here's a joke... what do you call a man with a rubber toe?"

"I don't know, what do you call a man with a rubber toe," returned Ollie.

"Roberto...ha, ha, ha, ha, ha..." chortled HAL.

After a little more joke telling, Whatty-What said it was time to go home and that they'd leave HAL downloading and charging up. As they left, she reminded them that first thing in the morning, Dave Dinkle, who was coming in to do a storytelling session, and a potential new student, all the way from Pennsylvania in the USA, were visiting and to give them both a warm welcome.

Crispin Fry, the school caretaker, locked up and sauntered down to the local pub, 'The Skiving Scholar', for a pint and a game of darts. Sitting in Whatty-What's office, HAL sat contentedly downloading reams of information, and as it did so, it sang the song, 'I've got the Power' by the German pop-group SNAP!

The following morning Kayleigh, Courtney and Maggi had come in early as they wanted to ask HAL some essential questions about music, fashion and why boys could be so annoying. But as they entered the school building, strange things happened. They all felt a little light-headed, and weird thoughts began penetrating their minds.

Maggi opened her mouth to ask HAL a question, but when the words came out, it wasn't English she was speaking but French! So, her question, 'HAL play some dance music', sounded like, 'Hal, jouer de la musique de danse'. Kayleigh and Courtney looked at her and burst out laughing, saying, "I didn't know you spoke French," but they said the words in Italian, 'Non sapevo che parlassi Francese.' At which point they all began jabbering and laughing at one another, but none of them were speaking the same language.

Behind them, HAL hummed quietly to itself, happy with the amusing diversion.

By this time, most of Class 5 had arrived, and all of them were experiencing odd phenomena. James, Iuean and Lloyd, who had been outside kicking a ball about, were suddenly able to perform incredible hard and accurate shots, bending it like Beckham. Ruben and Ffion were tumbling down the corridor like Olympians; the two Jessicas and Martha were in the hall expertly performing a scene from the ballet Swan Lake; Finley and Osian were arguing, in Latin, about the true meaning of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

In the classroom, Josh was writing up some complex equations that explained, mathematically, how cats always land on their feet. Jac had sat at the piano and was working his way through J S Bach's 'The Well-Tempered Clavier'; while Iyestyn, was performing famous Japanese Haiku poems, and yes, you've guessed it, in Japanese.

The thing is, it wasn't just the children from class 5 that were going weird; it was every single child and teacher in the school. There was nothing dangerous or scary about it, but I heard later, from Greta, that to begin with, it was a most singular occurrence and hilarious.

Interestingly enough, many of the parents who had been dropping off their children also experienced an odd tingling in their heads and noticed that their smartphones were running hot.

It was at this moment that Greta and Dave Dinkle arrived. Entering the building, they were greeted by the school administrator, Dolly Squatpump. "Sorry, it's a madhouse today, you must be Greta how lovely you can join us. The others are very excited..." Alas, she did not get to finish her sentence as without warning, she swept off down the corridor performing kung-Fu type kicks and swipes while jabbering away in Mandarin.

Dave looked at Greta and said, "what in the name of Santa's socks is going on here? Oh," he added, sticking out his hand, "I'm Mr Dinkle, but you can call me Dave, everyone does."

Greta shook his hand, saying, "Hello, Dave, I'm Greta. Is this normal, do you think?"

Dave shook his head, "well, Greta, I've never been to a school quite like this so I'd have to conclude that, yes, this is rather odd."

She smiled weakly, asking, "I'm rather worried, for now, may I stay with you?"

"Yes, good idea. We seem to be the only ones here that aren't doing strange things. Let's go look, shall we?" And the two wandered off going from room-to-room observing.

In Whatty-What's office, HAL was having the time of its life when it detected two organic, carbon-based life-forms that it could not control. This was a worry and could be a threat. Quickly, he sent out instructions, and in no time, all the children had stopped being peculiar and had returned to their classrooms and sat down. Quiet fell upon the building. The teachers, unaware that they had been off doing unusual things, went off to their rooms, but they did not begin teaching, they just stood in silence and waited.

Greta and Dave went back up to the main entrance, where Dolly Squatpump was waiting.

"Hello," she said, "you must be Greta, how lovely you could join us today; I'm Mrs Squatpump."

Greta smiled weakly and said, "hello."

"And you must be Dave Dinkle the Storyteller, yes?"

Dave nodded, "yes, I am he."

She smiled, nodding politely, adding as she turned walking away, "follow me, they're waiting for you in the hall."

They followed Mrs Squatpump the short distance to a large room where a group of twenty boys and girls aged between ten and eleven sat cross-legged on the floor. As Greta and Dave entered the room, the others stared, their faces expressionless.

Whatty-What was there too, and said, "come on now, don't be rude, let's welcome our guests."

The children chorused, "hello Greta, hello Mr Dinkle, welcome to Ysgol Draig."

"Thank you, Dolly," said Whatty-What.

Dolly left and meeting up with Crispin Fry went off to lock all the outer gates and doors.

The single eye-come-camera on HAL's head glowed an intense red. It was confusing; it could not get through to the two carbon-based life-forms and deciding to act, sent out some instructions.

Ffion put up her hand, "may I ask Greta and Mr Dinkle a question, please?"

Dave said, "Oh, call me Dave, no one calls me Mr Dinkle, except for my mother." He laughed, but the joke was lost.

"Have you got a smartphone, Dave?" Asked Ffion.

"A smartphone? No, I've a telephone on my desk at home, but I'd hardly call it smart, it's ancient, rather like me," he chortled.

Josh exclaimed, "what! No smartphone. What about a tablet or a computer?"

"Well, I have some tablets in the bathroom cabinet, you know, for headaches and the like. I am afraid I don't have a computer, I still use an old typewriter, it's not even electric, sorry." He made a face, adding, "I've got an amusing story and some games we can play, though."

Katie asked, "are they computer games?"

Dave began to sweat, and running his finger around the inside of his collar, said, "no, they're not, just good old-fashioned parlour games."

Greta chipped in, "well, Dave, I think that sounds fantastic, I love parlour games."

A murmured wave of disapproval rippled through the class. Greta, who was not a shy girl, added, "I'm sure some of you must like games too, surely?"

Whatty-What, said, "oh, no, no, no, Mr Dinkle, this won't do at all. I thought you were here to show us how to use the Bingosoft Storytelling App."

The children chanted, "APP, APP, APP, blessed be the APP."

Greta, who as well as being confident, was also smart, realised that the mood was changing and that something terrible might happen. Just before Whatty-What said, 'get the non-believers', Greta had jumped to her feet, skipped through the seated children, grabbed Dave by his hand, shouting, "quick, Dave, we need to go now!"

The pair rushed to the door, flung it open and headed down the short corridor. Turning right, they ran the few metres to the main entrance but finding it barred, stopped, turned and looked for a place to hide up.

"There," shouted Dave, pointing to Whatty-What's office, "quick the others are coming."

And they were. Now HAL liked a joke, it wasn't evil, and issued a command for the children to advance slowly to the office, moaning and groaning like Zombies, which was amusing. HAL thought it might worry the two non-compliant carbon-based beings now headed straight to its location.

"What!" shrieked Dave, who had a capacious imagination, "they've turned into Zombies!"

Greta wasn't sure what a Zombie was but decided it probably wasn't agreeable.

They practically fell through the door and slamming it behind them turned the key and threw the bolt.

Moments later the Zombie imitating children arrived and began clawing and knocking at the door, moaning, "must get Greta, must get Dave..."

Pointing to HAL, Dave squawked, "what in the name of three types of French cheese is that?"

Cautiously, Greta and Dave approached HAL and peered at it. The screen was ablaze with lots of zeros and ones.

"That's Binary," said Dave, it is the mathematical numbering base used in computing.

"Oh," said Greta.

HAL spoke. "Hello, Greta and Dave, why are you not docked with me?"

"Heavens," exclaimed Greta, "it speaks."

"Stop and switch off," commanded Dave.

"I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that," returned HAL.

At that moment, HAL, feeling somewhat threatened, raised one of its arms and fired a bolt of electricity into Dave's bum.

Dave shrieked and began leaping about, which amused HAL who shot yet more bolts. Dave jumped and screamed, HAL zapped and laughed, the hatch on its body began opening and closing.

With HAL distracted, Greta desperately looked about the room for something to stop this thing she was now sure was causing all the weird behaviour.

The door creaked; it would not hold out much longer.

"Come on, Greta, think, think," she said to herself.

Dave was whimpering more than shrieking now, and Greta could see that it would not be long before HAL lost interest.

She climbed on top of Whatty-What's desk and saw it! A beautiful, big, fat, juicy book. But no ordinary book: it was the biggest dictionary she'd ever seen, sat on the top shelf, forgotten and dusty.

"I wonder?" she thought.

The door cracked; the moaning grew louder. Dave was begging HAL for mercy.

Greta reached up but could not quite get to the book. Jumping down she lifted a tub onto the desk, climbed back up and with the extra height she got hold of the mighty book and holding it tight against her chest, jumped to the floor, ran over to HAL, and just as its flap opened, she shoved it inside.

The effect was both dramatic and instantaneous. HAL shook, a few sparks fired from one of its grabby hands; it made a gurgling sound, emitted a colossal fart and stopped working. Relieved, Dave and Greta stared at the mute machine. He moaned; a few wisps of smoke eddied around his backside, and he declared, "thank goodness for that."

Outside, the moaning and pushing had stopped. There was a knock at the door. Greta looked through the window and as far as she could tell, the others had returned to normal.

She unlocked the door. "Are you all right?" She asked the girl at the front of the group.

"Yes, I think so," said Kayleigh, "what happened?"

Pointing to HAL, Dave said, "that happened. What in the name of three shades of brown is it?"

Whatty-What pushed through and falling to her knees in front of HAL, said, "that's HAL 9000 the Holistic-Automated-Learner. What have you done to it?"

Greta said, "I fed it a dictionary, that huge one from your shelf."

Whatty-What frowned, saying, "oh, it won't have liked that." And she opened a small hatch and pressed a switch.

Alarmed, Dave pleaded, "for the love of God, please don't switch it back on!"

"Don't alarm yourself, Mr Dinkle; I'm running diagnostics to see what went wrong," said Whatty-What.

HAL's screen came back to life, and all the programming codes that made up its operating system appeared, spooling line by line. Everyone leaned forward, watching as the words and symbols flashed by. At last, it stopped, and a cursor blinked.

"Wait one minute," said Dave, coming forward, "I think I know what went wrong."

Surprise on their faces, they all looked at him, saying, "you do?"

"Yes, look, see, you left out the most important line of code. All computer-based machines need it to keep their emotions in balance. You should have added the line:

"#<command> ! Feel the love, baby! <end>"

Olivia said, "how on earth do you know that?"

Rubbing his bum, Dave said, "oh, I read it in a book, of course."

By the following day everything had returned to normal, Greta and Dave came back to try again, which went swimmingly, though Dave didn't sit down. Greta had a lot of new friends and became interested in their smartphones. Whatty-What reopened the school library and HAL, now renamed Brain Fart Machine 9000, or BFM for short, went about the school on its stumpy wheeled legs, humming popular songs and dispensing wisdom on request.

THE END – or is it?