Digital Disaster! (10 page)

Hailey slept over Friday night and then I went over to her house on
Saturday. We spent the day at the mall picking out lip gloss, an awesome new shade of
nail polish called Watermelon Slushy, and flip-flops in anticipation of the warmer
weather. On Sunday it was so nice outside, after her soccer game Hailey called and asked
if I wanted to go on a ride along the bike trail. I was thrilled at the thought of doing
something outdoors.

“Sure!” I replied. I couldn't remember the last time I
just “played” all weekend long. It felt really good.

“Don't you have a deadline for the paper?” Mom said when
I told her I was going on a bike ride. I could tell she was surprised that I suddenly
had some free time.

“It's online now, so I have a couple extra days,” I
said. “We're basically finished.”

“If you say so,” said Mom, but I could tell she was a little
concerned, probably because she was used to me stressing out all the time about the
paper. “Your bike helmet's in the garage.”

I wasn't lying. We were basically finished with the article, but I
still had to get going on another draft of the Know-It-All letter and e-mail it to Mr.
Trigg on Sunday night. Still, I definitely had time for a little fun.

Sunday night arrived and I had to come back to earth. The first thing I
did was check my e-mail. I hadn't looked at it all weekend, a first for me, at
least since I got my own e-mail account. Michael had sent me a message on Saturday and
then another one this afternoon.

Are you sure we'll have enough time on Monday to put in the changes
we want? Maybe we should meet Sunday afternoon?

And then the next one said,

Where are you, Sam? Did you get my e-mail?? I guess
we'll have to take our chances with the
article. . . .

I felt bad that I hadn't gotten back to him, but I didn't
regret taking my little staycation with Hailey.
Missing Reporter
Finally Found Having Good Time!

I decided to message him:

Sorry, Mikey. I was just having too much fun this
weekend and my e-mail got away from me. Don't worry. The article will be
fine.

After a minute, he replied.
I thought you left the
country!!!

Nope, just my computer
I typed back to him.
I smiled, wondering if he'd missed me. I stretched out my arms and fanned out my
fingers. Okay, now it was focus time. My head did feel a little clearer after taking a
break. I thought about Rock Star and remembered what Mr. Trigg had said. I needed to
pretend that Rock Star was eighth-grader Allie, overwhelmed with her work and not sure
what to do.

Dear Rock Star,

It sounds like writing papers is not your favorite thing. I get that. I
really do. There are plenty of times I'm not excited about doing a paper or
studying for a test, and I have definitely been overwhelmed by schoolwork. I think a lot
is expected of students at our school. Still, what if your friend gets in trouble on
your behalf? Or what if she or he makes you look like a better student than you are and
then even more is expected of you? The pressure will only increase and the cheating will
catch up with you. It always does. Maybe you can get help with your next paper from a
tutor, or your parents, or even a friend (who helps you do your work, not does it for
you). You don't have to be in it alone. I wish you luck on your road to being a
rock star. Good writing skills may or may not play into it, but a clear conscience can
only help you be the best at whatever you want to do.

When I finished the last word, I jumped up and threw my hands in the air.
“Yes!” I yelled out. I knew I had struck the right note this time.

“What's up with you?” Allie said, suddenly standing in
my room. She leaned in a bit in order to get a better look at my computer screen.

I froze. I had the presence of mind to quickly close out my Know-It-All
document before I whipped around.

“What did you just close out of?” Allie asked suspiciously,
waving a finger at the computer, not missing a trick.

“Nothing,” I said, still gathering my thoughts. “I
didn't close out of anything.”

“Liar, liar, pants on fire,” Allie said, taunting me.
“Writing a secret letter to your boyfriend?”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Seriously, why don't you
ever knock?” Not only had Allie ruined my moment of victory; now I was being
forced to lie when I just wrote about clearing your conscience.

“Ah-ha! So it is a letter to your boyfriend.” She turned and
walked out of the room.

“I don't have a boyfriend,” I yelled after her. Then I
stopped. I needed to let her believe whatever she was going to believe. Better that than
her insisting she look at my computer. And it wasn't a total lie. I'd just
IM'd Michael, who wasn't my boyfriend, and an IM isn't exactly a
letter. But that's my story and I'm sticking with it! I quickly got back on
my computer and sent my DKIA letter to Mr. Trigg and then closed out the file
immediately.
Nosy Sister Almost Discovers Secret Identity.
Maybe I should be a CIA agent instead of a journalist when I grow up!

At school the next day when I was walking with Hailey, I saw Mr. Trigg in
the hallway. He smiled and gave me a thumbs-up. “Nice work on that piece,”
he said, obviously trying to be ambiguous about it, and then hurried off in his usual
speed-walking way before I even got a chance to respond.

“What is he talking about?” Hailey asked.

Oh brother! Here we go again. “I just sent him a part of the test
scandal article I was having trouble on,” I said without blinking an eye. It was a
little scary how good I was getting at this.

“Oh cool,” she said not thinking much of it. “I'm
so psyched for Spring Fling!” she said.

“Me too, but I'm not psyched for the math test
tomorrow.” My stomach did a little flip thinking about everything that was going
to happen in the next three days. We were going to finish up the newspaper this
afternoon, and the dreaded math retest was scheduled for tomorrow. Then we were rewarded
with Spring Fling on Wednesday. I should have made a spreadsheet to keep track of it
all.

“Well, technically we've already studied for it. It's
just reviewing stuff,” she said nonchalantly.

I was surprised Hailey was being so relaxed about school. Maybe taking
tests a second time really did work for her.

“I just hope I don't do worse the second time around. But I
guess I'll never know if I do,” I said. The math department had decided not
to let us see our grades because some of them could have been invalid and also so people
wouldn't be upset if they did do worse the second time.

“The chances of that are pretty low,” Hailey said.
“You'll be much more familiar with the concepts now, even if the questions
are different.”

I laughed because it sounded like something Mom would say. “I hope
you're right,” I said, picking up the pace. The five-minute bell rang and I
didn't want to be late for math class today of all days when we'd review for
the test.

“And anyway,” Hailey said brightly, “before you know it,
we'll be screaming on a roller coaster and stuffing our faces with cotton
candy.”

I was starting to catch her enthusiasm. “Maybe I'll even get
to ride the Ferris wheel with you know who,” I said dreamily. The Ferris wheel was
the most romantic ride I could think of.

“Yeah. And if you get scared at the top, you can grab on to his arm.
Better yet, he could grab on to yours!” She was laughing now. “Oh, Sam, my
love,” she said in a deep voice, between laughs. “Protect me from this
frightening Ferris wheel!”

I doubled over and started cracking up so hard I couldn't speak.
Hailey makes me laugh harder than anyone on earth. In my opinion, this is a
superimportant quality for any bestie.

“Oh no,” I said, suddenly straightening up. “We're
going to be late!” With that we took off to our separate math classes.

After school I headed to the
Voice
office as
soon as I could. I had a few changes I wanted to make to the article and I was sure
Michael did, too. Now it was time to get serious and finish our article.

“Well, if it isn't Ms. Leisure,” Michael said, coming in
right after me. Nobody else was there yet.

“Hilarious. Can't I take a little break?” I asked,
putting my stuff over at one of the computers and pulling out a chair. I sat down and
pulled up the
Voice
template.

“I'm just kidding with you, Paste,” he said, his eyes
twinkling. “I'm just used to you bugging me about the story. It was a little
spooky the other way around.” Michael put his backpack down and pulled a chair
over to mine. When he sat down, he was so close, we bumped knees. It felt like an
electric current ran through me when his knee touched mine. I stared at it.

“Oh sorry,” he said, sounding a little nervous, probably
because my eyes were fixed on his knee.

“It's okay,” I said, and the image of Michael grabbing
my arm on the Ferris wheel just kind of popped in my head. A smile started to spread
over my face.

“What's so funny?” he asked.

Like I could even explain. “Nothing. Just excited to put the
finishing touches on the story.” We took turns adding a couple of things, fiddling
with this sentence and that and making sure both of our sections flowed together. Then
we read it over for the millionth time.

“Nice work, Sam,” Michael said when he finished.

“Couldn't have done it without you,” I said, smiling.
When Michael called me Sam, I knew he meant it.

After a little bit, the rest of the
Voice
staff
started to come in and poke around at their stories. Then Mr. Trigg came in and gave
everything a last look before he officially previewed the entire paper.

“Okay, guys, we want it perfect,” he said, standing in the
middle of the room. “Just because we can launch the paper in the blink of an eye,
instead of waiting two days for it to be printed and delivered, doesn't mean we
can be any less professional about it. Once it's out there, it's out there.
We can't have any trigger fingers.”

Just as he finished speaking, an ominous crack of thunder shook the room
as a rainstorm started rolling in. Everybody jumped a little bit at the sound.

“Okay, so let's get ready to preview this thing and see how it
looks! I will hit publish at six a.m. sharp tomorrow morning, so we've got to put
this to bed today. I don't want people e-mailing me changes at midnight.” He
clicked the preview button. A murmur of admiration ran through the room as we saw the
paper on the screen the way everyone at school would see it. It looked fantastic.

“A smashing success,” Mr. Trigg said. “Superb work
everyone!” Another blast of thunder shook the room. The lights flickered for a
second and then we heard a pop. Suddenly we were standing in darkness. There were a few
shrieks, giggles, and screams. At first I didn't understand what happened. One
moment we were all cheering the paper; the next we were jostling each other in the dark.
A warm hand touched my arm.

“Don't worry, Pasty,” Michael whispered in my ear.
“Everything will be just fine.”

Now I wanted to scream. Wait until Hailey got a load of this—me
standing with Michael Lawrence in the dark while he whispered in my ear—even
better than being at the top of the Ferris wheel.

“Stay calm, everyone,” Mr. Trigg said. “I'll call
the front office if—”

But the lights flickering once more interrupted him. Then they went back
on and stayed on. Everyone clapped and cheered.

“Okay,” Mr. Trigg said. “Now, where were we?” The
computers had shut off in the power outage. He turned on the one we were all looking at
again.

“Here we are,” he said, opening the file for the
Voice
layout again. The masthead came up, but nothing else did.
All the text boxes were blank.

“Did I click on the wrong file?” Mr. Trigg asked,
bewildered,

“Here. Let me see,” Susannah, the editor in chief, said. She
closed it down and clicked on a few things. The template came up, but with no text
again. “Ummm,” she said in a flat tone. “It looks like
everything's gone.”

Gone? How could that be? Things didn't just disappear like that, or
did they?

Mr. Trigg sighed. “An unfortunate accident, but one obviously beyond
our control,” he said. “I'm sorry. We'll have to stay here just
a bit longer than planned. Okay, everyone, let's retrieve our backups and load
them in again.”

A tingle of fear rippled through my body. Michael and I looked at each
other.
Backup
? I mouthed to him. He shrugged. Gulp.