Digital Disaster! (8 page)

We still hadn't heard anything definitive about who might have done
it, but I knew the article wasn't about cracking the case; it was about reporting
the events that had happened and the effects it was having on our community. I was also
anxious to get the meeting over with, finish the article, and have the same amount of
fun my nails seemed to be having. Lots of people had been coming up to me asking me what
kind the polish was so they could try it too. I smiled thinking that Allie was a pretty
cool trendsetter. And I have to admit, just talking about nail polish made me feel like
the kind of girl who wasn't always bogged down by her responsibilities and has,
well, fun. Why couldn't I be both?

“Cool color, Paste,” Michael said, pointing to my nails with
his pencil. Wow. Now even a boy was noticing. This stuff was magic. “Maybe I
should call you Nailsy,” he said, and nudged me with his shoulder.

“Now, that's just weird.” I gave him my best flirty
smile and nudged him back. I was wearing a green blousy shirt that looked great with my
nails and my lucky little silver hoops. Once again, just because I was here for an
article didn't mean I shouldn't look my best.

“Yeah, guess you're right,” Michael said. “Pasty
fits you better.”

“You're hilarious,” I responded, still grinning. This
meeting was turning out to be much more fun than I had thought.
Writing Partners Flirt Through Entire Meeting. Miss Everything.
I had better
get into pay-attention mode or else.

I looked around. The place was packed and more people were piling in. Then
Mr. Pfeiffer came up to the podium. He tapped on the mike for a few seconds and cleared
his throat. A hush fell over the room. Michael and I had our pencils at the ready, all
set to take note-taking.

“Good evening, parents and students of Cherry Valley Middle School.
An unfortunate incident has led us here, but hopefully we can come together as a
community to strengthen our communication. As you know, the administration and the
faculty have decided to reschedule the third-quarter math assessments for next
Tuesday,” he said. Some students booed in the back. He paused for a second and
continued a little louder. “Many parents and students are upset and confused about
why the current test results can't be used. We're here to explain this to
you. This is an open forum where voices are meant to be heard, but remember one
thing.” Mr. Pfeiffer took off his glasses. He cleaned them on the corner of his
jacket and then started speaking again. “Look. We all want the same
thing—the best educational environment for our children. Let's not attack
one another, folks.” With that, he stepped away from the podium and sat down in
one of the seats reserved for administrators.

Then the head of the math department—my math teacher, Mrs.
Birnbaum—took the mike. She explained exactly what had happened: The day before
the test, no one could get into the math department files and all the test information,
the exams, and the answers were deleted. They did have backup files, but after several
IT professionals looked at the system, it was determined that it had been hacked into by
an unknown user, the password changed, and the files printed before they were deleted.
The person who did this was still unknown, but the investigation had some promising
leads.

“At this time we have no way of knowing whose test results are the
product of obtaining the answers ahead of time. The answers were printed out and may
have been distributed. We know the retest is inconvenient, but in order to ensure that
everyone has the same opportunities, we think this is the best option,” she said
in a firm tone. Then she opened the meeting up for questions.

Michael's father stood up. I looked at Michael, but he had his eyes
glued to his dad.

“My son is an excellent student,” he said. I glanced at
Michael and saw the color rise to his cheeks. I didn't want to embarrass him
further, so I kept my eyes straight ahead. Mr. Lawrence went on. “He's also
very committed to several sports and his work on the school paper. I understand that
though the results aren't valid, there are other options. We can omit all test
grades from the record. I just don't see why my son, who I'm certain has not
played a part in this and studied very hard for that test, has to add more to his busy
schedule because of someone else's mistakes. Has this option been seriously
considered?”

I turned around and scanned the audience. I saw many people nodding in
agreement. A few parents and students started cheering. Then all the way in the back, I
saw Will Hutchins standing against the wall, his gray hoodie pulled over his head. His
face looked serious, with barely any expression at all.

Suddenly lots of parents and students stood up, one after the other taking
each side. Then everyone began talking over one another and Mr. Pfeiffer had to step
in.

“We've heard everyone's opinions,” Mr. Pfeiffer
said, “and Mrs. Birnbaum explained why we have made the decision we made. The
reason we can't throw out the grades is that unfortunately many more students will
be negatively affected when their grades for the year are averaged. The final tests are
weighted to equal more of your child's grade. In order to be as fair as possible,
as Mrs. Birnbaum said, we need to retest to ensure that no one had prior access to any
answers. We hope the students who studied hard for the exam the first time are well
prepared already and need only a refresher study session for this test. While we
appreciate all your opinions, this is what we've decided, and we need to now move
on. Thanks for your time.”

I would have spoken, but so many people had already said many times over
what I felt. There was nothing left for me to say. I nudged Michael again. I wanted him
to take a look at Will standing so ominously in the back, but when I turned around
again, he was gone.

“What?” Michael asked.

“Uh, nothing,” I said. I needed to talk to that kid again.

“I think we got some great stuff as far as students and parents are
concerned. Let's get some more teacher opinions while we're here,”
Michael said. “Then we'll really have all we need.”

I nodded, and we both went over to interview the teachers. They were
excited to talk to us and seemed anxious to allow their voices to be heard, since the
parents and students were really the dominating voices at the meeting. Many teachers
reiterated what Mr. Pfeiffer had said. Then we went up to Mr. Evans, a math teacher and
the head of the IT club.

“Mr. Evans,” I said in my best authoritative reporter voice.
“What's your opinion on all this? You must have a specific viewpoint since
you've been helping with the investigation.”

He looked at us and rubbed his beard for a second. “I guess I
do,” he said, “but my opinion is pretty much in line with what many of the
faculty believe. You simply can't steal the answers to something and think
that's the solution to your problem. It may seem like a quick solution. But
you're actually starting to stack a row of dominoes against yourself—you
didn't study for this test, but you did well. Then your stolen test score
qualifies you for an advanced placement class next semester. You had difficulty doing
the work in a regular class, and now you're in AP! You fall way behind and are
anxious and miserable all the time. Your self-esteem plummets because you think
you're stupid. You're not stupid, but you were lazy and made a stupid
decision and now may be paying for it for a long time to come.”

“Wow,” said Michael. “Well put. Thanks for your
time.”

“Glad to be of service,” he said, then smiled and walked
away.

“This is awesome. We have an amazing story here. Too bad they
don't hand out Pulitzer Prizes for school newspaper articles,” Michael said.
“You're a great writing partner, Nailsy.” He held up his hand for a
high five.

“Thanks,” I said, smacking his hand. Now it was my turn to
blush. “I think we should meet tomorrow and get all of this down into one coherent
piece. Want to come over after school?”

After the words came tumbling out of my mouth, I realized I had just
invited Michael Lawrence over without thinking/stressing about it for days, getting
advice from Hailey, getting advice from Allie, and then stressing about it some
more.

“Sure, and then after we post this, we can celebrate at Spring
Fling!” Michael said excitedly.

Right! Spring Fling, where our whole class gets to go to an amusement park
for the entire day. No work, no paper, just pure fun. I had totally forgotten about it
because I was so stressed out about the story and about Dear Know-It-All. And it was the
most fun day of the year. I was really out of balance.

“I almost forgot, with all this going on,” I said, sweeping my
hand over the auditorium full of concerned and somewhat frustrated parents, students,
and teachers. Maybe Will Hutchins had a point—there was a lesson to be learned
here. “So we'll write the rest tomorrow and put it online Monday or Tuesday,
and it will be ready for the world to see on Wednesday!”

“Do you think we need more time than that?” Michael asked.

“We have a lot of it in place already. It's really just
combining what we both wrote and uploading it to the paper template, which seems a lot
easier than it was before. We can actually see the layout and tweak it right before we
publish it. Mr. Trigg showed me, or actually I showed him,” I said.

“If you say so,” Michael said.

“Heelooo, superreporters. Get some good stuff?” Hailey asked
as she walked up to us. She had borrowed the Aqua Fantasy, and her turquoise nail
fabulousness flashed at me. The color looked even better on her with her tan skin.

“Heelooo!” I said, feeling a little giddy from all the energy
in the room. I realized I had been talking very loudly in order to be heard over the sea
of voices. “What did you think of the meeting?” I asked Hailey.

“Well, I thought maybe the verdict would change. I know a lot of
people were hoping it would. But still the test is happening,” Hailey said.

“Yeah. I think the meeting was just a chance for the teachers to
explain why they made the decision they did. I have to admit it makes sense to
me.” I wondered how Michael felt since his dad was obviously upset about the
retest.

“Well, at first I agreed with my dad, but now I get that a lot of
people rely on the test to raise their average since the test makes up almost half our
grade. It has to be fair. But the teachers said they didn't know how many people
had the answers. I don't know anyone or even heard of anyone who got the test
answers, so I'm not sure it was as widespread as they think. Whoever did this was
pretty private about it,” Michael said.

I'll say. But who wouldn't be? I wondered what would happen to
the person if they actually found out who did it. Would they be expelled? I scanned the
floor to try and find Will again, but no such luck. He had left.

I went home anxious to write up all the notes I had, so I didn't
forget how I wanted to use all the quotes I had gotten. I logged on to my computer and
saw that I had an e-mail from Mr. Trigg. I opened it, biting my lip, hoping for the
best.

Ms. Martone, better, but could still be friendlier.
Still a lot of judgment in the tone of the letter. Sorry. Third time's the
charm!

Arghhh! How many times did I have to write this letter? What if I just
decided to give up?
Paper Missing Popular Column. Readers
Revolt
. I couldn't let Rock Star win, though. I decided to put my notes
aside and give it another crack. I took some calming breaths, wrote it fast without
thinking about it too much, and hit the send button before I read it over a thousand
times. Then I worked a bit on the article. But after the meeting and writing another
Dear Know-It-All draft, I was ready for sleep.

Chapter 9

Newspaper Advisor Offers Up Tea and Bad News

“Ms. Martone?” Mr. Trigg came up to me in the hallway after
my Spanish class. “Could I talk to you for just a sec?”

“Uh, sure,” I said, a little startled. Mr. Trigg never came up
to me in the hallway. Sometimes I wondered if he ever left his office.

“Great. Follow me.” I followed him, which wasn't easy to
do since Trigger walks faster than any teacher I know. When we got to his office I was
actually out of breath. He closed the door. I wondered if he was going to tell me he
knew who the hacker was. I held my breath.

“Tea?” he said as he turned on his electric pot.

I wanted to scream, “NO TEA, JUST GET TO THE POINT!” Instead I
murmured a polite, “No, thank you.”

“I read your letter,” he began.

Oh, I thought. This is just about the darn Know-It-All letter.