The Blurred Blogger

by Victor Appleton

  Noah shrugged. “So the blogger has the same poster. So what?”

  Amy leaned in closer as she examined the image. “Not just the same poster. Literally the same poster.”

  Sam cocked her head. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s in the exact same position as in one of your videos,” Amy explained. “The one about your thumbprint key card.”

  Sam had invented a cool access card that read fingerprints the way some phones do. She had showed if off at school and later made a video explaining how it worked.

  “How do you know that?” Noah asked.

  “Dude, photographic memory, remember?” I told him. “Amy’s superpower.”

  She really did have it and it was spooky sometimes, let me tell you.

  Amy typed something on her keyboard. “Let me get my editing software up and running and I’ll show you.”

  Within moments, Amy sent me a video. I assumed she’d sent the same one to Sam and Noah.

  I opened the clip to see Sam explaining her key card. There was no sound, but there didn’t need to be—sure enough, the tree poster was there in the upper right corner, in the same exact place. To prove her point even more, Amy had edited in a few seconds of the blogger’s video. The entire scene changed except for the poster. It was a perfect match.

  Noah’s eyes went wide. “You’re the blurred blogger, Sam?”

  “Of course not,” she replied. “But someone wants people to think I am. Sound familiar, Swift?”

  It did. It was just like what Andrew did at camp.

  “This seems like a stretch,” I told her. “How many people are going to notice that?”

  “You did,” Sam shot back.

  “Yeah, but who else will know it’s your poster?”

  “I did,” Amy replied.

  “Yeah, Amy,” Noah said. “But you’re… Amy.”

  Sam shook her head. “In a school like ours, all it’ll take is a couple of people figuring it out. After that, the rumors will start all over again.”

  I sunk lower in my chair. She was right. The students at the academy lived for stuff like this. Not the spreading-rumors part—that was just a teenager thing. But now that Sam mentioned it, I bet students had been analyzing these videos for days, trying to figure out who was behind the pranks.

  “I can’t believe it,” Sam said. “Andrew Foger is pinning the blame on me again.”

  11 The Impending Impediment

  WHEN I ARRIVED AT SCHOOL the next day, I quickly realized how right Sam was. I hadn’t even made it to my locker before Terry Stephenson asked me if I had known Sam was the prankster. From there, I got similar questions from Barry Jacobs and Collin Webb.

  When I reached algebra, Noah and Amy were already there. Sam’s desk was empty.

  Noah shook his head as I slid into my desk. “Sam totally called it.” His face still had a bit of a blue tint to it, but I was too wrapped up in the rumors to give him grief.

  “It’s crazy,” I said, and then told him about my three encounters.

  “From what I’ve heard so far, the school is split,” Noah explained. “Half think Andrew is the prankster, trying to frame Sam. The other half just think Sam’s doing it all.”

  “There’s another camp,” Amy added. “I heard a theory that Sam was the prankster all along, but it’s part of a big plan to get back at Andrew for what he did at the summer camp.”

  Noah nodded thoughtfully. “That’s a good one.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense,” I said. “The first prank happened before Sam even knew Andrew was here.”

  Amy shrugged. “That’s just what I heard.”

  “Too bad it isn’t true.” Noah grinned. “That would be the perfect payback.”

  I motioned to Sam’s empty desk. “Where is she?”

  Amy shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, man, I hope she didn’t skip,” Noah said. “That totally makes her look guilty.”

  As the rest of the class filed in, Sam still didn’t show up. Even Andrew made it just before the bell rang. He caught me glancing from Sam’s empty desk to his in the back and glared at me. “What?” he mouthed.

  I spun back around as class began. As Mr. Jenkins started explaining the lesson, I thought of what Andrew had said the day before. He’d seemed so convincing when he proclaimed his innocence. This thing with Sam was right out of his playbook, but maybe that’s what someone wanted everyone to think. Most everyone in the school knew about what went down at the camp. And if they didn’t know already, they had to have heard it by now. Could Andrew be getting a taste of his own medicine? Was someone capitalizing on a rumor about him?

  I tried to put the theory out of my mind and focus on Mr. Jenkins’s lecture. Of course, it wasn’t easy to keep that focus when Sam finally entered the classroom a few minutes later.

  “Good of you to join us, Miss Watson,” Mr. Jenkins said, an eyebrow raised.

  “Sorry,” Sam mumbled as she walked to the front of the classroom and handed him her tardy slip.

  Mr. Jenkins glanced at the paper before tossing it on his desk. “Now, where were we?” He returned to writing out formulas on the electronic board.

  Noah and I both spun around as Sam slid into her desk.

  “I thought you were skipping for sure,” Noah whispered.

  Sam rolled her eyes as she pulled her tablet and notebook from her backpack. “I was in Davenport’s office.”

  Amy covered her mouth. “You’re in trouble already?”

  Sam leaned in, keeping her voice low. “No, I decided to get ahead of this rumor and tell him about it myself.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “That’s brave,” I whispered. “What did he say?”

  “No one had told him about the rumor yet,” she replied. “And he doesn’t think I’m the prankster.… I think?”

  “You think?” Noah demanded.

  Sam shook her head. “I got the feeling that he’s not ruling anyone out.”

  I edged forward. “But you coming to him in the first place—”

  “You getting all this, Mr. Swift?” Mr. Jenkins asked, his arms crossed.

  Noah and I spun back around, and I began madly copying the formulas from the board. “Yes, sir. Sorry.”

  A chuckle rippled through the class. Andrew’s laugh lingered a little longer than everyone else’s, and I shook my head, annoyed at him all over again.

  We didn’t get anything else out of Sam for the rest of class, or right after, for that matter. I guess we’d have to wait for lunch to get all the juicy details about her meeting with the principal.

  The rest of the morning was pretty standard. I refuted occasional rumors whenever someone asked about Sam being the prankster. I found it odd that no one asked me if I thought Andrew was responsible, though. Either the students who believed that rumor didn’t need my confirmation, or they simply assumed I believed the story too.

  I caught myself keeping an eye out for hidden cameras. Maybe I was worrying about nothing. For all I knew, the blurred blogger would take Mr. Davenport’s advice and stop pulling stunts. But then why had they posted the “Happy Birthday” video? Of course, why waste the chance to show it to the world and get a last dig at all the teachers? I wasn’t sure why, but I had a feeling that it wouldn’t be the last prank by a long shot.

  When I got to chemistry I slid onto my stool next to Amy. “Did Sam say anything else about her meeting with Davenport?”

  Amy shook her head. “We didn’t get a chance to talk yet.”

  “All right, gang,” Mr. Osborne said as he closed the door and moved back to his desk, putting his hand on a large silver canister. “We’re going to keep the cool theme going this week with some liquid nitrogen.”

  I leaned forward. Liquid nitrogen was way cool—literally. It’s used in freezing food, cooling superconductors, and cryogenics. Liquid nitrogen was like dry ice on steroids. I didn’t want to tell Mr. Osborne that Mrs. Gaines had already given us a cool demo of the stuff earl
ier this year, flash-freezing roses and then shattering them on a hard surface. I wondered what he was planning.

  I was so interested in the upcoming lesson that it took me a moment to realize someone had been nudging my shoulder. When the nudge became a hard poke, it clicked that Amy was trying to get my attention. Her eyes were wide, scared behind her safety glasses.

  “What is it?” I asked quietly.

  She pointed past me, and then quickly shielded her face with her long hair.

  I turned and scanned the class. I didn’t see anyone doing anything that would justify that reaction. And then I realized that she hadn’t been pointing at our fellow students, but at something beyond them. As soon I spotted it, I felt a bowling ball in my stomach. High on the wall, pointing down at us, was one of the hidden cameras.

  Something big was about to go down.

  12 The Chemistry Confinement

  I COULDN’T BELIEVE IT. HERE I was, thinking I was paranoid looking for cameras all day, then I drop my guard for just a moment and walk right into ground zero. After a quick glance around the room, I counted three cameras in total. Two were mounted on the wall by the door and one was mounted on the opposite side above the windows. The two on my left were trained on the students. The one on my right was aimed straight at Mr. Osborne.

  I quickly slid on my safety glasses as Amy had done. Was the prank going to have something to do with liquid nitrogen? I hoped not. Like dry ice, that stuff could give someone a nasty case of frostbite if it splashed onto their skin.

  I leaned closer to Amy. “Should we tell somebody?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered, keeping her head down, her face curtained off from the cameras.

  I glanced over at Andrew’s worktable. He wasn’t acting suspicious, like he knew something was about to happen. If he truly was the blogger, maybe this prank wouldn’t be so bad. After all, why would he want to harm or humiliate himself? However, if he or someone else in the lab was the prankster, would me saying something actually do anything? They might simply call it off or not go through with it. Either way, it felt silly interrupting Mr. Osborne just because I’d noticed a few cameras. After another moment, I decided to wait and see what would happen.

  I’m sure Mr. Osborne’s demonstration was very interesting, but I have to admit that I wasn’t paying close attention. My eyes kept darting to the three cameras, trying to pinpoint exactly what they’d record. When I wasn’t studying the cameras, I was glancing around the room trying to spot anyone acting strangely. Was a cabinet full of snakes going to fly open or something? Then again, this was the chemistry lab, so I couldn’t rule out that something might blow up. The bowling ball in my stomach now felt like a twisting knot.

  I glanced over at Amy and could tell she was feeling the tension too. Even with her hair curtaining her face, I saw her eyes darting around like mine, and she was panting a little. Whatever was going to happen, I hoped it started soon, or I worried that she’d have a panic attack.

  “At normal pressure, liquid nitrogen boils at minus one hundred and ninety-eight degrees Celsius,” Mr. Osborne explained. “Nitrogen was first liquefied back in 1883 by Polish physicists Karol Olszewski and Zygmunt…” His voice croaked on the second name, and he cleared his throat and tried again. “Zygmunt…” Mr. Osborne’s voice was considerably lower in pitch that time. He cleared his throat again. “I don’t know what’s…” His voice was even lower.

  My fellow students lost it, but instead of sounding like a bunch of twelve- and thirteen-year-olds laughing, the room echoed with the deep rumbles of adult voices.

  I turned to Amy. “Is this the prank?” I asked in a deep baritone.

  Amy’s eyes went wide as her “Wow” came out an octave lower than normal.

  The classroom was soon filled with low-voiced chatter. I even heard a couple renditions of “Luke, I am your father.”

  “Hang on. I think I know what happened,” Mr. Osborne said before disappearing into the supply room.

  The class broke out in deep guffawing again.

  A few seconds later, Mr. Osborne returned holding a large gas tank, twisting the valve shut as he made his way back to the front of the room. “Someone opened the tank of sulfur hexafluoride. I was saving this for next week, but I guess we’re getting a crash course now.” He set the tank down on his desk. “Sulfur hexafluoride is six times heavier than air. You know how breathing helium makes your voice higher? Well, this stuff turns your vocal cords into a subwoofer.”

  Everything he said was fascinating, but it was hard to take him seriously when his voice sounded like that.

  Maggie Ortiz raised her hand. “Is it safe to breathe?” Since her voice was so deep, her question was met with another surge of laughter.

  Mr. Osborne waved her away. “Some people report irritation to their lungs and throat, but it’s nontoxic.” He pointed to the other side of the room. “Let’s get those windows open and air out the place.”

  I leapt off my stool and moved to the nearest window. Two other students followed my lead. But when I flipped the latch and pushed out, the pane didn’t budge. I pushed harder. Still nothing. I saw that the others weren’t having any better luck.

  “They won’t open,” I said in my new strange baritone.

  “What?” Kyle Swan asked, a twinge of panic in his booming voice. Nervous chatter rippled through the room.

  “All right, settle down,” Mr. Osborne ordered. “Let’s go out into the hall.”

  Kyle got to the door first and swung it open, moving to step across the threshold, but halted abruptly. More accurately, he was stopped by the thick plastic film stretched across the entryway. He came up short so suddenly that other students slammed into his back, piling up behind him. The clear film stretched from the load, but didn’t break.

  Now everyone really was panicking. Even Andrew seemed worried, his eyes darting around, looking for the next attack.

  “Hang on,” Mr. Osborne said as he pulled some scissors from his desk drawer. He peeled students away from the pileup, pushing his way to the door, before poking through the plastic and cutting a long slit down the center. Once he’d yanked, creating a wide enough gap, we began climbing through. In no time at all, the entire chemistry class was milling around in the hallway. Now that everyone was away from the gas, our voices quickly went back to normal.

  “Nice going,” Kyle said, glaring at Andrew. Other students joined in the furious grumbling.

  Andrew raised both hands. “Don’t look at me! I don’t even know what sulfur flexa-whatever is.”

  I studied Andrew’s face. He seemed sincere and a little embarrassed by all the negative attention. I didn’t know what to think.

  Amy nudged me and pointed to the wall opposite the chemistry lab door. I knew what she’d seen before I even looked up.

  Sure enough, a fourth camera was mounted there, perfectly positioned to capture our escape from the lab.

  13 The Appropriation Operation

  “NO WAY,” NOAH SAID BETWEEN bites of his sandwich. “I saw a demo of that stuff online. How did it feel, talking like that?”

  “Really weird,” I replied. “But the worst part was thinking we were trapped in the lab.”

  Sam stabbed at her salad. “I bet Andrew was gloating the entire time.”

  I shook my head. “He seemed kind of freaked out too.”

  “All part of the act,” she said before taking a bite.

  “It seems weird that he would prank himself, doesn’t it?” I asked.

  “Dude, it’s the perfect thing to do,” Noah countered. “Take some of the suspicion off.”

  “I guess so.” I poked at my lunch with my spork. If only my friends had seen the fear in Andrew’s eyes. I still didn’t think he was that good an actor.

  Amy shook her head. “The worst part was noticing the cameras, waiting for something to happen.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t have a panic attack,” Sam told her.

  “I almost did,” Amy confessed.
“It was very stressful.”

  “Did either of you tell Mr. Osborne about the cameras?” Sam asked. “Those things probably have memory cards that store the video. If he were to confiscate them, then neither of you would end up in the latest addition to the Not-So-Swift blog.”

  “I didn’t even think about the memory cards,” I admitted.

  “Wait a minute.” Noah slammed down his spork and grinned. “I just had a brilliant idea.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Quick, did any of those cameras have an antenna of some kind?”

  “Uh, I didn’t really—”

  Noah waved me off. “Not you. Amy, what do you think?”

  She looked up and to the left. We all knew that was her way of accessing her photographic memory. She looks up and to the right when she’s looking at her near-perfect internal clock. The girl really had some spooky superpowers.

  “No, there weren’t any,” she reported.

  Noah clapped his hands and grinned. After a moment, he blurted out, “Don’t you get it?”

  We exchanged glances. I don’t think any of us had a clue what he was talking about.

  “You’ll have to give us more than that,” Sam finally said.

  Noah leaned back in his chair. “Oh, man. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner.”

  “What?” I demanded.

  He leaned forward and pushed his tray aside. “Okay, if the cameras had antennae, then they probably transmitted the video somewhere else. There would be no reason to have a memory card.”

  “Yeah? And?” Sam asked.

  “So no antennae means that they do have memory cards,” Noah said proudly.

  Sam threw up her hands. “That’s what I said two minutes ago.”

  Noah pointed a finger at her. “Yeah, but no antennae also means they can’t be remotely triggered.”

  “Okay… so…” I still didn’t see why he was so excited.

  “So?” Noah’s eyes gleamed. “So that means the cameras have to be switched on manually. Don’t you get it?”