Far, far away in another universe not unlike our own at all, there was a small kingdom called the Land of Intel. Intel was a glorious place full of intriguing inventions and great gadgets that blew everyone away. Each and every week the Proxy Productions would pop out another creation to better the lives of Intel’s citizens. And who ran this fine establishment, might you ask? Why, no other than Mr. Dell.

Mr. Wendell Dell was a tall, lanky man with long arms that swayed in the wind as he walked. His fingers were covered with calluses from his incessant typing, and his vision was long gone. However, he had invented a pair of wire-thin glasses to restore it to near perfection… although he hadn’t quite mastered the contact-version yet.

Mr. Wendell Dell had a neat little family in his neat little home. He had a wife, Edna Dell, and a daughter, Betty Dell. Edna was the head of marketing for Proxy Productions, and did a “superb job,” according to Wendell. But of course he would be proud of his wife; she was after all, his wife. Edna was short but seemed to loom over everyone. She dressed in the most fabulous business suits, equipped with little enhancements, such as glasses that could project her emails right into her eyes, a small walkie-talkie necklace to contact her employees more efficiently, and a fashionable chunky belt that could double as a very miniature fax machine.

Betty Dell was not like the other teenage girls in the land of Intel. Instead of socializing with the boys down at the Zap Bar, or taking virtual vacations with her best friend Mackenzie, whom everyone called Mac, she tap-tap-tapped away on her laptop all day. What was Betty doing? Well, she wasn’t exactly anti-social. She would update her blogs, and video chat with her friends, but she didn’t really hang out in person.

One would think that in the society that Mr. Dell had helped create, everyone would be just like Betty. But no, the civilians of Intel knew how to balance their technology. As opposed to being locked away in their rooms like some adolescent girls, they joined together to fully utilize every possible opportunity the gizmos had to offer.

So our story begins during the last week of summer vacation for the students. You see, although school had been completely electronic-ified, there was still a structure standing for every person aged five through eighteen to attend dutifully for ten months out of the year, not unlike our own school year. The students would file in for their morning session, slip on their teaching glasses, and absorb the knowledge into their impressionable minds. After a quick lunch break, afternoon classes would resume. And finally, much to the delight of everyone, they would be dismissed. The children would use their bats with precision hitting each ball, which had its own guarantee to hit its target every time. The girls would use their gravity defying jump ropes so they could all get a turn at hopping, so two unlucky ladies wouldn’t be stuck rotating the rope. As for the older kids, they’d hit the mall and use the enormous tablets to select what they’d like to purchase, and slip into it via hologram behind a sheet. It was much easier than searching through sale racks and exhaustingly trying every article of clothing on. But enough of this, let’s get back to summer.

Betty hadn’t left her house since returning from math camp. She was no match for mathematics; a genius at geometry, amazing at algebra, terrific at trig, and completely crazy for calculus. Although she had enjoyed using her mind so much for six weeks, she hadn’t budged from her computer upon arriving home. She slept until three in the afternoon, but that was only because she didn’t fall into bed until seven in the morning. She would watch movies online all night, listen to the latest tunes, and chat with her camp chums until they had had enough of the late-night communication, and would sign off with a reluctant yawn. But not Betty. Her fingers were glued to the keyboard, and her eyes couldn’t be taken off the screen.

Only one thing could make her get off her comfortable swivel chair during the remaining weeks before classes resumed: Lars. He was the boy of Betty’s dreams: smart, funny, charming, and very, very cute. Our heroine had been admiring him since the third grade, but he had only begun to notice her this year. They would video chat with their best friends all night, and this evening was no exception. Betty and Lars had both decided to stay up and talk although everyone else had left, much to her satisfaction.

“I hope we have some classes together,” Betty gushed, biting her lip. She glanced up at Lars behind her huge glasses and smiled.

“Same, that’d be cool,” he agreed, yawning.

“Oh, are you tired?” she asked, glumly. “You can go if you want.”

“Nah,” he shook his head. “No way. I’d much rather stay up and talk to you.”

“Really?” she beamed, her voice cracking. She swallowed a lump of embarrassment in her throat.

“Yeah,” Lars laughed, his dark brown eyes sparkling. “I like you. I mean, I like talking to you,” he chuckled nervously.

“I like talking to you too,” she murmured, sighing.

“Hey Betty?” Lars began, sitting up straighter.

“Yes, Lars?”

“I was wondering if you’d like to go to the TechBeat Club tomorrow night, well, tonight, considering that it’s already three in the morning.”

“With you?” she stupidly spluttered, her eyes wide open despite the late hour.

“Uh, yeah,” he sheepishly shrugged. “Like a date, maybe?”

Before Betty could reply, “I’d love to,” it happened. The unthinkable.

Her internet went out.

“What?” she screeched, her heart racing and her breathing growing rapid. “No, no, no! This can’t be happening!”

After running many diagnostic tests and doing all she knew how, she slumped into the chair and realized nothing could be done until the morning. She couldn’t wake up her parents- they worked so hard and were always so tired when they came home. It wouldn’t be right. None of her friends were answering their phones- even Lars, who must have thought Betty didn’t care for him at all. Great. Even her phone didn’t have any connection.

Betty groaned and put her head in her hands. What was she to do for the next five hours? Her TV hadn’t been working right, and she couldn’t leave her room because she would disturb her precious robotic-Yorkie, Mouse. If Mouse began to yelp, her parents surely would hear. She was confined to her room.

After spending fifteen minutes snuggled under the covers with her eyes shut tight, she realized she truly couldn’t sleep. Shuffling out of bed, she looked around her room. It was neat and tidy as always, aside from a few stray tissues that had missed the waste basket and some empty water bottles that she planned to recycle the next time she stepped out. Then Betty spied something she hadn’t glanced at in a long time.

“My GamePad!” she cried, rushing toward the last bit of technology she could see. She hurriedly pressed the ON button, and grinned as the screen lit up. Almost as quickly as she had found it, it shut off. After glancing at the batteries, she realized it was dead. And so was her salvation.

It seemed like she had been staring into space for hours, and immediately checked the clock. Only ten minutes had passed. The time was four in the morning, and she had four more hours to herself. Betty began to stroll around her room. It wasn’t very fancy, just a simple green room with a bed, a television, a desk which held her computer and school tablet, a closet full of clothes, and a mirror. There were three windows that showed the same thing: a pitch black sky. Not a single star was in sight. She glanced at her desk, and looked up at the ceiling. As her eyes travelled up, she noticed her bookshelf.

Her mother used to read to her all the time before her dad had invented all the technology. Betty fondly remembered evenings propped up on Edna’s knee, begging to look at the pictures and whimpering because she couldn’t yet understand the funny little black shapes that held the magnificent stories. Her Aunt Tilly had dropped off dozens of books once she learned to read, promising that she would enjoy the ones plump with more pages when she was older.

Hesitantly, she ran her finger along each of the spines. It had been so long since she picked up any of them. Everything was paperless now. Slowly, she pulled out one of the hardcover ones. “A Girl’s Guide to Surviving the World,” she read aloud, interestedly. After finding a comfortable spot on her bed, she curled up with the text and immersed herself with the words. After finishing with that book, she grabbed another. And another. And a fourth.

Three hours later her mother rapped on her bedroom door. “Betty!” she called. “Get up! I will have no more of this insomniac behavior of yours.”

“I’m up, Mother!” Betty replied, placing a hair tie between the pages she was on as a make-shift book mark. Mrs. Dell let herself into her daughter’s room and took in the scene. The computer screen was black; Betty was hunched over some sort of rectangle… could it be?

“Is that a book, dear?” she questioned, not sure of what she was seeing.

“Yes, it is!” Betty jovially answered. “My internet went out in the early hours, and because I couldn’t sleep, I decided to do some reading. I can’t imagine why these went out of style; they’re so much more interactive than Dad’s electronic ones. I like the feeling of holding the crisp pages between my fingers as I flip and closing it as I finish it with a sense of accomplishment. You can’t do that on a computer or a tablet.”

“Well, no, dear I imagine you can’t,” Edna couldn’t hide her shock or her smirk. Betty was revolutionary, or was she retro? “You’re enjoying these, I presume?”


“Oh, very much,” she nodded happily. “This one’s about a boy fighting a war. A war! I had only heard about them in school, but never this vividly. This person who wrote the thing is awfully talented- I can picture every little detail in my head!”

“I have some more books in the attic, you know. We can take a look at them. And there’s a store in the next town over that actually sells books. I’ll take you some time.”

“That sounds great!”

Edna kept her word, and took Betty to the store that afternoon. Betty had put on her best clothes, even swiped a little make up on and packed a purse. “Mom, can I take the monorail to Lars’?”

“Sure, sweetheart,” Edna smiled and gave her daughter a hug. “Enjoy the books!”

After identifying herself with the interactive doorbell, Lars came to the front of the house. “Betty?”

“Lars, I am so sorry for last night,” she began, clutching the bag of books tightly in her clenched fist.

“I thought you were rejecting me,” he interrupted, surprised to see her.

“I wasn’t! My internet died or something!”

“That sucks! So you still want to go out?”

She furiously nodded. “But instead of going to the club just yet, can we do something else?”


“Sure, what?”

Betty stepped inside and made her way to the living room. It didn’t take much persuading to get Lars to agree to read with her on the cozy couch. The two teens both scanned the pages and discussed, skimming and speaking, and sipped sodas as they formed their own little book club.

Eventually, Betty’s dad found a way to make books electronic the way she liked them- with paper-like fibers and synthetic leather-bound covers that didn’t use up any nonrenewable resources or trees, and were still biodegradable if someone ever should dare to dispose of them. Books came back in style, and pretty soon book clubs became the norm for after-school activities.

Betty became a scholastic savior- a true literary legend. She had single handedly (well, maybe with the help of her parents and new boyfriend) revived reading, and took a step back from the computer. She realized there was so much more out there than the internet provided. She grew up to be a math teacher, with her own collection of books published, a series of fantasy stories that enthralled young girls across the land of Intel.