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It was the login page for Furry Football, the online game that Ben and his friends loved to play. It
was like Club Penguin, or Moshi Monsters, a child-friendly online forum where you could play
games and interact with other people’s avatars. The difference was that it was football themed and if
you won points you could buy players for a Furry Football team. Ben loved it. All his friends did.
I clicked on it. The page refreshed and invited me to log in. Ben was the manager of two separate
virtual teams and I had a choice of which one to log in as: ‘Owl Goal’ or ‘Turtle Rangers’. I chose
‘Owl Goal’ and I typed in Ben’s password. A message appeared: ‘YOU ARE ALREADY LOGGED
IN’.
I tried again. Same message.
I leaned back in my chair, confused. Somebody was logged in as Ben. I remembered him saying
that he couldn’t log in if he’d already done so on another machine, but his iPad was at his dad’s
house, and I had no other computer.
I clicked on ‘Turtle Rangers’ instead, entered his password again, and this time it worked. I was in.
I was Turtle0751, the captain of the Turtle Rangers, and my avatar appeared on screen: a plump turtle
in football boots holding a clipboard.
‘WHICH SERVER WOULD YOU LIKE TO JOIN?’ the computer asked me, and then my stomach
roiled as an idea took hold. What if Ben was logged in somewhere else, playing the game as his owl
avatar?
I selected the server that I knew Ben always chose to play on: ‘Savannah League’.
A cartoon-like scene popped up – the African savannah. A meerkat invited me to choose a game I’d
like to play. I selected ‘Baobab Bonus’, Ben’s favourite game.
On screen a glade of cartoon baobab trees appeared. About twenty avatars cruised amongst them,
little speech bubbles coming from their heads now and then. It didn’t take me long to see Ben’s other
team captain: Owlie689.
‘It’s you,’ I said. ‘It’s you.’
My fingers gripped the mouse so hard that its edges dug into them and I stared at the screen as
Owlie689 moved around it.
I navigated my avatar so that it stood by Ben’s. I was clumsy with the mouse. I wanted to talk to
him. It was hard to work out how to make a speech bubble. I wasn’t practised at this like Ben; I’d
never paid attention to the detail of the game.
After numerous failed attempts, I finally clicked on the right tab. A list of possible phrases
appeared, but it was safe chat. Of course it was. I hadn’t allowed Ben to do anything other than
communicate with phrases that were provided by the game. For his safety.
I scrolled down the list of phrases available, desperate to say something meaningful, but they were
entirely bland, designed to stop children upsetting or offending each other.
I clicked on ‘Hello’. After a few seconds Ben’s avatar said ‘Hello.’
‘How was your day?’ my avatar asked.
Owlie689 displayed an emoticon. It was a frowning face. I scrolled down the list of phrases I
could use.
‘Sorry,’ my avatar said.
Owlie689 began to move. I followed. It stopped underneath a baobab tree.
‘Want to visit my team?’ it said to me.
‘Yes,’ my avatar replied and the screen dissolved and reformed and we found ourselves in a
training area. The positions of players were laid out around the edges of the screen and above four of
them were animals that Ben had earned enough points to buy.