Digital Disaster! (5 page)

“Sounds good to me,” I said, now freely scarfing down the
rest. “Okay, Mr. Talented. Let's get down to business.”

“I wouldn't call mixing up some banana bread batter and
throwing it in the oven a talent,” he said, ever modest. Another item for the
Michael Lawrence great personality checklist.

“I would, since I can't bake to save my life,” I said,
thinking of a few months ago when Allie and I tried to bake our mother a birthday cake
from a mix. It came out as dry as sawdust and as flat as a pancake because we'd
used the wrong amount of butter and had forgotten to get eggs. Mom seemed happy anyway.
She even ate some. I could sit here all night and just talk to Michael Lawrence. But Mom
was coming at nine and we had an article to write. “Okay, let's figure out
our approach,” I said, trying to get into serious work mode. “I'm
seeing a few angles here.” I looked over my notebook. “There's the
‘this is so unfair' kind of comment. Then there were some people who actually feel
some sympathy for the hacker, like maybe it was about pressure.”

“And there're also people who don't seem to care that
much at all.” Michael leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head, which
showed off the muscles in his arms.

Stay focused, Sam,
I thought. “Um, or some
people who feel like they're getting another chance to do better at the
test,” I said quickly, trying to distract myself.

“Yeah,” he said excitedly. “So which group do you put
yourself in?”

“Me?” I asked, surprised. I had been spending so much time
trying to be objective, I had blocked out, or almost blocked out my anger toward the
hacker. “I have to admit I'm in the ‘this is so unfair'
group.”

“Yeah, at first I totally felt that way. But now, listening to all
these other opinions, I find myself wondering about the kid who did it. We are under a
lot of pressure and my parents are really understanding about that. But what if they
weren't? What if they just wanted me to get straight A's all the time
because I needed a full scholarship to college or had to go to an Ivy League college
just to get their approval. How would I feel then?”

Michael was definitely better at looking at all the sides than I was.
“Yeah, I don't know. I don't think you would do that even if you felt
more pressure. I mean, how could the person not think about all the people they might
affect? I think it's a really selfish way to handle your problems,” I said.
Honestly, no matter what Michael said, I couldn't feel any sympathy for someone
who would make choices that hurt others.

“I just want to make sure we cover the whole story and show every
opinion,” he said, and made his worried face where he squished his eyebrows
together and got this little crinkle in his forehead. “I think student pressure is
an important issue.”

“It is, but I don't want to lean so far to the other side
where now we're showing sympathy to the hacker. It's still wrong,” I
said. “I studied hard for that test and it wasn't fun.”

“I mean, I'm angry, too, but it's like I'm two
people.” He took a swig of milk before he continued. “The me that's
mad about having to take the test over and the reporter me who's trying to put
together a fair story.”

Why was it so hard for me to do that? Maybe I needed to back off a bit.
Michael was right. “Yeah, of course. I feel that way too,” I said. In
theory.
Reporter Fakes Sympathy Toward Hacker to Save Writing
Relationship.

“Good,” he said, and leaned back in his chair, seeming
relieved. “More banana bread before we start to outline?”

“I thought you'd never ask.” I batted my eyes. At least
Michael could be a bit more levelheaded than I was sometimes. Maybe that's why we
worked so well together. It was certainly never boring. And, I thought, biting into my
second piece, it was delicious to be working together, too.

Chapter 5

Two Middle School Reporters Crack the Case

“How was your date last night?” Hailey asked me first thing
the next morning at my locker. She looked the way she always looked in the
morning—much more awake than I felt. Her hair was wet and shiny from her shower,
and her blue eyes shone brightly at me. I really needed to start exercising more, and
then maybe I'd feel a little more like Hailey in the morning.

“It was okay and it wasn't a date,” I murmured, and
piled up my books in my locker. I surveyed the pile—six textbooks one on top of
the other stacked a foot high. Maybe Cherry Valley Middle School students were under
more pressure than I allowed myself to think.

“Just okay?” Hailey said, jumping in between me and my locker
to get me to look at her. “Did you have your orange juice this morning?” she
asked me, her hands on her hips, head leaning to one side.

“Yeah, why?” I said, still in my own thoughts.

“You seem a bit blah.”

“I don't know what I was expecting from last night,” I
said. “I guess I just hoped it was going to feel more special than just working on
the paper. He did make banana bread, though,” I said, now putting my language arts
anthology and a science textbook in my backpack.

“Well, I have never, ever had a boy make me banana bread,” she
said, grabbing some of her books and stuffing them into her backpack. “So
that's something.”

“It was really yummy,” I said, and smiled. “And I think
he did make it just for me. He knows how grumpy I get without good snacks
around.”

“Sam!” said an urgent voice behind us. I looked around. It was
Michael, sneaking up on me again. I wondered if he'd heard anything.

“Why are you calling me my actual name?” I asked.

“Where's the fire, Lawrence?” Hailey asked.

“What?” Michael said to Hailey, with a confused look in his
eye. He turned back to me and said in a low tone, “Sam, can I talk to you for a
sec? In private?”

“Just my stupid attempt at a joke,” Hailey said.

“Oh right, fire. That's funny,” Michael said, turning to
Hailey, mustering a distracted smile. “Sorry, Hailey. It's about the story
we're working on.”

“Uh, sure,” I said, raising my eyebrows at Hailey. She
shrugged back and motioned for me to go with him. “Everything okay?” I asked
Michael. I couldn't imagine what was making him act so weird.

“Yeah. I . . . just a sec,” he said, and
grabbed my arm, pulling me away from Hailey and down the hallway around the corner. We
stood in a quiet space near the boys' bathroom.

“You're kind of freaking me out, Michael,” I said, now
getting a little annoyed. “This had better be good.” Then again, he'd
grabbed my arm, which was still kind of tingling.

“I got a quote from Will Hutchins,” he said. “Here.
Look.” He thrust out a piece of paper. “I didn't want anyone to see it
yet.”

I looked down at his narrow, almost illegible handwriting. Michael
wasn't perfect in every way. He had some of the messiest handwriting I'd
ever seen.
Question:
it said. I read
out loud what I could make out underneath. “
What do you think
about the bath rest security beach?
”

“No, no,” Michael said. “Math test security
breach!”

“Right, of course. Sorry,” I said, looking back down. Boy, I
needed some orange juice.

“Oh, let me just read it to you,” he said, and grabbed the
paper out of my hands. “So I asked Will what he thought about
the—”

“Bath rest security beach?” I said, grinning.

“Very funny. This is what he said, though: ‘I think in some ways the
hacker opened up two important issues. Our school has to think about why some kids might
be so stressed out, and it also shouldn't be so easy to hack into the exams on the
school server,'” he read to me from the paper.

“It almost sounds like he knows who did it,” Michael said.
“And seems to put the entire blame on the school.”

Whoa.
Two Middle School Reporters Crack the Case.
Were we reading too much into this, or could we actually be on to something?
“Should we tell someone?” I said in a hushed tone. “It does sound like
he's really close to the issue, like he has something personally invested in it.
Could he have been the hacker?” I said, now feeling the excitement and urgency
Michael was feeling.

“I do think we should tell someone, but who? I don't want to
get the guy in trouble if he's just speaking his mind.”

“Let's start with Mr. Trigg and see what he thinks,” I
said as the class bell rang.

“Good idea. I'll meet you in his office after school,”
Michael said to me as we started down the hallway toward our classes. “And keep it
quiet. I wouldn't even tell Hailey. Rumors can spread like wildfire.”

“Okay. I promise,” I said, not quite sure if that would be
possible. Technically I had already told Hailey that I thought Will was weird. Uh-oh.
But I wouldn't tell her that we had a quote from him. Hailey might feel the same
temptation to tell just one other person and so on and so on until the whole school
would suddenly start thinking Will Hutchins was the hacker. But was he?

Hailey came bounding down the hallway obviously looking for us.

“Well, if it isn't Clark Kent and Lois Lane. What's the
big emergency?” she asked, looking back and forth from me to Michael.

“It's nothing,” said Michael. “I've got to
go.” With that he rushed off to class.

“What's with him? Can you tell me what's going
on?” Hailey said.

I really, really wanted to. It was hard enough keeping my Know-It-All
drama from her, and now this. I took in a deep breath and counted in my head as I let it
out. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. “This is all I can tell you. We got a suspicious
quote from someone for the article and we need to talk to Trigger about it.”

“From who?” she asked, and leaned toward me. “From Will
Hutchins?” she whispered, her eyes aglow with the possibility of scandal.

“That's exactly why I can't tell you, whether it was
from him or not. It's too big a deal to start rumors. We could really mess with
someone here.” As I was saying it, I realized how big a deal this really was.
“I hope you can understand, Hails,” I said.

Hailey looked down at the floor. I didn't want to hurt her feelings.
Then she glanced up.

“I won't tell a soul. Don't you trust me?”

I bit my lip and thought about it. If I told just Hailey, what harm would
it do? But then what if she had the same thought about another friend and they thought
that about someone else? . . .

“I promised Michael I wouldn't while we were working on the
story. It's not that I don't trust you, but I want Michael to trust
me.”

“Fine. I get it. I guess Michael and the paper are more
important.” She walked off in a huff, leaving me standing there, my arms dangling
by my sides. Was I putting Michael and the paper first? I wasn't sure. I walked to
class alone. Why did Hailey have to be so sensitive about things? Sometimes when stuff
with the paper heated up and I had to work with Michael a lot, she got upset about
something. Maybe she was jealous about the time I spent with Michael, but it was always
the worst time for me to have to deal with friend stuff when I was dealing with
Voice
stuff.

At the end of the day, Michael and I met outside Mr. Trigg's office
and knocked on the door.

“Come in,” he said. We shuffled into the office. His feet were
up on his desk and he was enjoying one of his classic cups of tea. “Well, Ms.
Martone and Mr. Lawrence! What brings you here on this glorious day?”

It was actually kind of cold and rainy. “Glorious” would not
be the word I'd use.

“Reminds me of London weather,” he said, as if reading my
mind. “I love those gray days that make you want to curl up with some biscuits and
tea and a good newspaper.” He took his legs off the table and sat up.
“I'm glad you're here. I wanted to ask you how the new online system
is going. I have a feeling it's going to make things a lot easier.”

“I'm excited to use it, but we haven't finished the
article yet,” I said. “It's shaping up nicely, though.”

“Um, yeah, except that,” Michael said, getting right into it,
“we got a quote today that seemed . . .” He looked at me,
suddenly at a loss for words.

“Troubling,” I said.

“I see. What kind of troubling?”

Michael handed him his notes. Mr. Trigg put on his reading glasses and
squinted at the paper.

He stumbled through Michael's handwriting. “What do you think
about the bath . . . rest . . . Sorry, chap. I can't
quite make this out.”