My Brilliant Idea (And How It Caused My Downfall) by Stuart David

been cut short, but it’s balanced up by the relief of escaping the witch hand, and as I walk I start to feel pretty certain that Elsie must be all right anyway, because of her dad not being in mourning or anything like that. I could probably have called time on the job as soon as I saw him, and saved myself another half hour of sitting on that wall, along with all the mad stuff that followed. But as it turns out, the little witch man has done me a favor, anyway.
    He’s knocked all thoughts of the iPad out of my head, for the first time since I told Harry I’d get it back. And when I finally call it up again, I realize there’s something new waiting for me there. A new thought. Not quite an idea, but the suggestion that I’ve been looking at the thing all wrong, trying to have the wrong idea. I’ve spent hour after hour wondering how to get the iPad back, forgetting that the iPad isn’t really what’s important. The iPad doesn’t really matter. All that matters is getting Harry to tell Bailey he was in that fight. And the iPad is just one way to make him do that. But there must be others. Hundreds of others.
    The thing is, I already had all the best ideas for getting the iPad back pretty soon after I lost it. And none of them worked. I offered Gary a double-or-quits bet, and he told me he didn’t gamble.
    â€œWhat about our bet?” I asked him.
    â€œThat wasn’t gambling,” he said. “That was a certainty.”
    So I came up with all kinds of tricks for getting it back off him at school, but none of them were any good because he doesn’t bring the iPad to school. He only uses it at home. And the only option that left me was breaking into his house, which isn’t really my style.
    No, getting round Harry will be a breeze compared with getting that thing back. So as soon as I start recognizing where I am again, I start walking at different speeds to get the frequency of my brain waves locked into the ideal state, and then I give myself over to finding a new plan.
    Nothing solid comes to me, but I know it will. That’s just how things are. I’m an ideas man. It’s only knowing what idea to have that sometimes muddles me up.
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    Dad’s still out in the garden when I finally get home again. He’s over in the corner, banging at something fragile-looking with a wooden mallet. I try to sneak in through the gate without him noticing me, but it doesn’t work. Before I’m halfway down the path, he turns round and holds the mallet up in the air, waving it about as if it’s some kind of welcoming flag. Then he uses the other hand to call me over to where he is. He looks like a demented traffic cop who’s totally lost the plot.
    â€œI better get in,” I tell him. “I’m feeling pretty tired.”
    â€œTwo minutes,” he says. “I need to check something with you.”
    I sigh and go a bit closer to where he’s standing. There’s all this broken stuff lying on the grass, the stuff he’s been hitting with the mallet. I don’t have a clue what any of it is. It looks a bit like hard cottage cheese.
    â€œCome here,” he says, and he’s not happy until I’m standing right up against him. Then he starts with the whispering again. “Not a word to your mum about earlier,” he says. “She’s back home now. Remember, this is between us.”
    I stare down at the smashed-up cottage cheese stuff.
    â€œI think I have to tell her,” I say. “It’s giving me hypertension thinking up lies. It’s going to spoil my performance in the interview.”
    â€œNonsense,” Dad says. “You’ll be fine. You can tell her when it’s over.”
    I shake my head. He looks at me and I stare at his mallet. “What’s all that stuff you’ve been breaking up?” I ask him.
    â€œJust bits and pieces,” he says. “Just getting things off my