Futuretrack 5 by Robert Westall Page B

round my neck; trying to balance an absurd chrome-plastic crown on my head. A plastic sceptre was thrust into my hand. I was draped with a gold ribbon marked “London Northeast—Champion of the Day.”
    Then the Bluefish lifted me very expertly onto their shoulders and bore me in wobbly triumph over the heads of the crowd. The jangling music had turned into one huge electronic fanfare, filling the dome. All for me. I felt seasick. The Bluefish thrust me up on a very high rostrum, almost dissolved in an incandescence of spotlights.
    “Smile, man,” shouted the black man. “You’re on the Box.”
    “What’s your name?” shouted a white-coat.
    “Stephen Sellers,” I shouted back, keeping up my disguise. A huge screen lit up on the far side of the dome, spelling out quickly: Stephen sellers 2810 credits, followed by: Walter nevin 2523 credits, and a whole list more. Nobody had scored as many as me.
    “You’re All-London Champ!” screamed the black man, spraying the spit of delight all over me. “Try and look pleased, man. It must be better than down on the farm.” The crowd was roaring its head off.
    “Sellers for Champ, Sellers for Champ.”
    A second giant screen lit up across the dome, divided into six compartments, each containing a guy sitting high on a silly gilt throne, wearing a purple cloak and plastic crown. They all looked stupefied. One must be me. I waved my arm, and one of them waved stupidly back. Then all six were waving, and the crowd was roaring again.
    Up went a new scorecard:
    LARRY MARTIN BIRMINGHAM 2201 CREDITS PETER BRENNAN GLASGOW 2512 CREDITS…
    Again, no one had scored more than me.
    “You’re Champ, man. National Champ of the Day,” shouted the black man, thumping me harder than I’d ever been thumped in the college boxing ring. “You’ll need a manager now—make me your manager!”
    “Yes, please,” I said.
    I never heard his thanks; only saw his grin, as the crowd exploded.
    “Sellers is Champ, Sellers is Champ, Sellers is Champ.”
    A white-coat took the silver-plastic crown off my head and put on an even taller gold-plastic one. I held my head utterly still, but it still began to slide over my left ear. The other five guys vanished from the screen; the whole glowing surface was now filled with a fifty-foot bloated image of me, grinning inanely. Below, the printout message:
    SELLERS IS CHAMP SELLERS IS CHAMP…
    Then the whole dome went black, and there was silence.
    An electronic voice said, “Monday’s game is about to begin.”
    Dim lights went on, all over the dome. The big screens were blank and grey. There were no spotlights shining on me. Two white-coats took away my cloak and crown. My moment of glory was over.
    And all over the dome, the slaves of Futuretrack Three were trooping back to another day’s work.
    “Where d’you live, man?” asked my manager, as we stepped into the drizzling night, the Bluefish closed up round us. He’s finally calmed down enough to tell me his name was George.
    “Nowhere,” I said.
    “On the razzle, eh?”
    “No. Walked out for good. Couldn’t take their crap.”
    Rumbling approval from the listening Bluefish. “Straight through, man!”
    “Come and stay with me an’ my Grannie,” said George. “She’s fifty-five, the oldest woman in our block.”
    “Straight through, man,” I said.
    I was glad of my Bluefish, with the lamplight shining on their greased torsos, their shaved and earless fighting heads. Several times other gangs of Fighters drifted toward us, but when they saw the Bluefish, they drifted away again.
    “When you’re Champ of the Month,” said George, “you’ll need twelve Bluefish.”
    “When he’s Champ of the Year,” said a Bluefish, “he’ll need every Bluefish we got.”
    They saw us to George’s council block; past the shattered lift gates, up the graffitied, pee-soaked stairs.
    “Decent block this,” said George.
    “Bluefish territory,” explained the Bluefish. “The Bluefish give