by Linda Gerber
“Your blog?” Mom shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“Someone hacked into my blog,” I told her in a small voice.
Dad turned to Cavin. “Someone hacked into her blog? Who? How did they get past the firewalls?”
“And how would that be Cassidy’s fault?” my mom chimed in.
“It’s not the hacking I’m concerned about,” Liz said. “It’s the hiding.”
Mom and Dad looked back to me. “Hiding?” Dad asked.
I twisted the leather cord of my necklace around my fingers and shifted in my chair. “I wasn’t really hiding anything. Some hacker posted a couple of rude things on my blog, and I deleted them.”
“But not until a good number of people saw them,” Liz said.
“Security of the website is not Cassidy’s responsibility,” Dad said. “You can hardly expect her to—”
“The first post appeared and was deleted two days ago,” Liz told him.
Mom was the first one to make the connection. “You knew someone had hacked into your account two days ago and you didn’t tell us?”
“I didn’t want you to…worry about it.” I almost said “overreact,” but I stopped myself just in time.
“What sort of things did these hacked posts say?” Dad asked, but he didn’t direct his question to me.
Liz picked up the file folder from the table and pulled a paper from it. She handed it to Dad. “These are the ones circulating at the moment.”
“Circulating?” Mom was starting to sound like a parrot, the way she kept repeating everything.
“They’re being Facebooked, tweeted, blogged about, you name it,” Cavin said. “After the last vlog episode…”
I groaned. Did we really have to go there? When I was in Spain, a video I had posted on my blog went viral and caused a lot of drama. I would rather avoid a repeat in Costa Rica. “They were just short notes,” I tried.
“Allow me to read you one of those notes,” Liz said imperiously. She picked up the paper and snapped it straight in her hand. ‘The town of Monteverde is nothing but mud and potholes and losers swinging in the trees like monkeys.’ Or how about this one? ‘This misery is compounded by the screaming stupidity of our director.’”
Dad winced. “This is circulating online?”
“According to Jack Angelos,” Liz sniffed, “the catchphrase ‘screaming stupidity’ has become a meme.”
“And guess who picked it up on his blog?” Cavin asked. “Bryant Howell, our esteemed rival with A Foreign Affair. He is ‘appalled by the lack of respect’ for our host country and for each other.”
“But everyone knows I didn’t write any of that, right?” I asked. “I mean, come on. That doesn’t even sound real.”
“It doesn’t have to be real to take on a life of its own,” Liz said. “The masses love a scandal—even if they have to make one up.”
Mom had gone quiet, but the way she was sitting with her back rigid and her hands folded tightly in her lap, it was clear she was going to have plenty to say.
“How’s it affecting the ratings?” I asked Cavin. Ratings were the only thing I could think of that would spin this mess in a positive light. When that other vlog post went viral, the network was actually thrilled because it made the ratings, as Cavin put it, go through the roof. Maybe this would do the same.
Mom looked at me darkly. “Our ratings are not the issue, Cassidy. You should have told us the moment you saw your account had been hacked. Not only to keep the situation from getting out of hand, but to keep you safe.”
“I know.” I twisted my necklace again. A parade of excuses waited to be spoken. I thought it was only a onetime thing. I thought when I deleted that first message, everything would be okay. I didn’t have the Internet access to see that it wasn’t. But excuses weren’t going to cut it. Especially when I did know better. I hung my head. “I’m sorry.”
“When in Rome has had an uptick,” Liz said, and I looked up hopefully. That was a good thing, right? “But that does not translate into favorable prepublicity for the children’s network. In fact,” she leaned forward on the table again, “some of your biggest sponsors are threatening to pull out. They view this kind of thing as a lack of control. They don’t wish to be associated with lack of control.”
“Can we convince them to stay?” I asked in a small voice.
“We had better hope so,” Liz said, “because without sponsors, we lose funding, and without funding, we’re done.”
I slumped in my chair as Cavin discussed the security changes they were putting in place to make sure my account didn’t get hacked into again. New passwords, new firewalls, new accessibility. From now on, I couldn’t post straight to my blog. I’d have to send all entries to a handler at the network who would approve the content and have it uploaded. Piece by piece, I had lost control over my own blog. Pretty soon they’d be writing it for me, too.
“Right,” Cavin said when he wound down. “We’d better go grab some breakfast before it’s cleared away. Our team has a full day ahead of us today.”
Their team, meaning the When in Rome crew. “What about us?” I asked. “Will we keep filming?”
Liz straightened the face of the watch she wore on her wrist, looking past me rather than at me. “For now,” she said. “Beyond that, we will see.”
We filed out of the room in glum silence. I told my mom and dad I wasn’t hungry for breakfast, but really, I didn’t want to sit with everyone else at the table and try to pretend everything was okay. Plus, Liz said we’d keep filming for now, and if either Claudia or Estefan was waiting in the dining room with a camera, that’s the last place I wanted to be.
I started for the stairs when I noticed Logan sitting in the wingback chair I’d seen him in that first night. “Did you already eat?” I asked.
He ignored my question. “What was it you didn’t want anyone to see you looking at yesterday at that Internet place?”
I sank onto the ottoman. Oh, great. He knew, too. “My blog. I wanted to make sure it hadn’t been hacked into again.” It had, but I didn’t think adding that little detail would help.
“You didn’t think you could tell me what was up?”
I sighed, too weary to go over everything again. Yes, I should have told him. Yes, I was wrong. What did he want me to say?
“You can trust me,” he persisted. “Don’t you know that by now?”
“No, not really,” I shot back. “You haven’t exactly been yourself this trip. It’s hard to know what to expect with you.”
His jaw tightened and he shook his head, then nodded, then shook his head again. “Well, excuse me,” he said evenly, “but it’s a wee bit difficult to be yourself with a camera in your face all day.”
I laughed. “Welcome to my world, Logan.” It came out sounding harsher than I intended, so I took a deep breath and tried again. “I didn’t want you to get into trouble if you knew,” I said. “I was trying to protect you.”
He stood, looking down on me with a mixture of disappointment and sadness. “I don’t want to be protected,” he said. “I want to be trusted.”
I wanted to yell after him as he walked away, but (a) I didn’t know what I would say, and (b) everyone else in the house would hear it, too. For the first time, I wished Mom and Dad had accepted the rooms in the casita. At least then I could scream in private.
I pushed off the ottoman and paced, so full of frustrated energy I thought I would burst. Who else was going to lay into me that morning? Bayani? He could tell me how wounded he was that I got him to take me to the Internet bus that first night. Or Victoria? She could tell me she was scarred for life because I didn’t want her to see me checking the blog. Who else? They might as well all come forward now while Dump on Cassidy Day was in progress.
In the dining room, it looked like everyone had split into groups. Cavin, Liz, and my mom and dad sat at one end; Victoria, Bayani, and Daniel huddled at the other. Claudia and Estefan sat talking in the middle and looke
d up in time to see me standing, watching. Claudia frowned and said something to Estefan, who nodded in agreement.
I didn’t stick around to find out what she said. I couldn’t. I had to get away from the house. Away from everyone in the house.
I slipped out the front door and leaned my back against it, blinking back tears. I wanted to run off the energy, but the ground was soggy—not so great for running—so I walked instead. I didn’t even realize where I was going until I almost reached the stable.
Mama Tica was settling a worn leather saddle onto one of the horses, and she glanced up when I reached the door. “Hey! ¿Que pasa, calabaza?”
“Pura vida,” I mumbled.
“Well, now. That did not sound very convincing. Could you help me for a moment?” She motioned for me to come closer. “Just hold this if you would.”
She handed me the lead and then bent down to cinch the saddle. “Talk to her softly,” she said. “Paca likes that.”
“Paca,” I repeated. “That’s a pretty name.” I stroked Paca’s velvet nose and breathed in the comforting smell of sweet hay and horses.
“She is quite a princess,” Mama Tica said. “The name Paca means ‘free,’ and she never lets me forget it. There we go.” She stood back up, dusting her hands. “She does not like the saddle cinch, so she bloats her belly to make it difficult for me to tighten it. It is a help to have someone to soothe her so she will relax. Gracias.”
“De nada,” I said. “You’re welcome. Are you going riding?”
She adjusted Paca’s bridle to fit smoother over one ear. “After the hard rains, I must check for bogs in the pasture. Would you like to come along?”
“Really?”
“I’m sure Cholo would like the exercise. Come. You can help me saddle him up.”
Mama Tica tied Paca’s lead to a post and asked me to get the saddle pad while she led Cholo from his stall. “You have done this before?”
“It was a long time ago,” I admitted. “My grampa and gramma used to have horses.”
“Que bueno. That is very nice.”
I laid the saddle pad onto Cholo’s back, and Mama Tica hefted the saddle and settled it into place. I was amazed she could do it so smoothly—those things weigh around fifty pounds. I always had to have my grampa help me when I went riding with him. Of course, I had been only nine at the time.…
Cholo didn’t bother bloating up his belly, but stood stoically as Mama Tica tightened the cinch and adjusted the stirrups for me. Paca tossed her head and whinnied, as if to tell him he was being a wuss.
Mama Tica watched to make sure I could mount the saddle properly, then stepped up on Paca’s stirrup and swung her leg over, settling gracefully into the seat. She made a clicking sound with her tongue, gently nudged Paca with her heels, and led the way out of the stable.
I was surprised to find that straddling a horse felt natural, as if it had been days instead of years since the last time I rode. My feet rested comfortably in the stirrups, and I sat tall and straight-backed in the saddle, just like I remembered. It took only a few strides for me to move with the steady side-to-side rhythm as Cholo walked behind Mama Tica and Paca.
A tiny bit of sun managed to slip through the clouds and danced on the dripping trees like moving spotlights. It hit the tips of the grass and then hid, flashed, and disappeared. It warmed my face for brief moments before hiding behind the clouds again——just enough for me to miss it when it was gone.
In the deep green field ahead of us, dozens of spotted cows stood in clusters, grazing, soaking in the brief rays of sunshine like I was or watching us silently with big, unblinking doe eyes.
The trees of the cloud forest formed a towering backdrop.
“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” Mama Tica asked. She had slowed Paca so that the horses were walking side by side. “My husband and I came here to manage the farm years ago, and we could never leave. We bought the place when it became available. Now he runs the dairy operation, and I look after the lodge.”
“I can see why you would want to stay.”
“Yes. Well, you must see many lovely places in your travels.”
“We do,” I admitted, “but this place feels like home.”
Her smile lit her face like the sun. “I’m honored to hear you say this. We do try to work hard here, to provide a safe place to live the pura vida.”
“Hard work? I thought pura vida meant having no worries, living in the moment, that kind of thing.”
“Not exactly.” She reigned in Paca and stopped next to me. “To have no worries does not mean to have no responsibilities. You first take care of your responsibilities, and then you may let go of your worries. To live pura vida is to take responsibility for yourself, for your actions, and to live the best life you can live. Understand?”
I nodded, but I couldn’t answer because my guilt stuck in my throat like dry bread. Taking responsibility can be hard. It’s easier to blame everyone else when things go wrong—like I did before I ran out of the lodge. It wasn’t my fault someone had hacked into my blog, but it had been my responsibility to tell someone about it. I couldn’t blame Liz for being angry after the network jumped on her case. Or Cavin. Or my mom and dad. Or Logan.
For days, I had been hiding the truth and worrying about getting caught. If I’d have simply been honest, I could have let that worry go. Now I had the responsibility to make things right.
“I think I should get back,” I said. I had a few apologies to make.
Mama Tica didn’t ask questions, but clicked her tongue at Paca, and we turned the horses around. Not more than three steps into our return, Cholo started snorting and straining at the bit.
“Is he okay?” I worried. “I didn’t turn him too hard, did I?”
Mama Tica shook her head and smiled. “The horses want to run once they realize we are headed back to the stables. Should we let them canter?”
Of course I said yes. It hardly seemed fair to the horses to tell them no. As soon as Cholo started running, though, I just about changed my mind. The balance was different. The rhythm was different. My first instinct was to grip the reins tighter, but I remembered how Grampa taught me to keep them loose in my hand. “Hold the reins too tight,” he said, “and you’ll pull the horse’s head up so that it’s uncomfortable for him to canter.” The trick was to know when to let go.
After a minute, I found the flow, and I was able to relax. I loved the feeling of moving with the horse, like a dance in a fluid three-quarter beat, the breeze blowing back my hair. For the first time since I found that fake post on my blog, I forgot to be worried or scared or guilty or any one thing, but let myself live in the joy of the moment. And I understood. This is what Mama Tica meant about the pure life. First, you had to learn how to live it.
Travel tip: It would be almost sacrilegious to visit Costa Rica without visiting one of the most active volcanoes in the world—Volcan Arenal.
The next morning, the entire group left before the sun came up to visit the Arenal Volcano. Logan practically sleepwalked to the SUV, and zonked right back out as soon as he hit the seat. I wanted to talk to him, but it could wait. Nothing was going to change in the time it took to drive to the lake where we would take a boat to get to the volcano.
Besides, if Man Rule Number One was not to try to talk to a guy while he’s playing a game, Man Rule Number Something-way-up-there was not to try to talk to one when he wanted to sleep. (And never wake one up!)
Logan did have to get up for the boat ride, though. Claudia and Marco were filming us as we boarded, and we had to make it exciting! For about ten minutes anyway. Then I guess they decided they had all the on-the-boat footage they needed and wandered off to put the equipment away until we reached the other shore. But at least that was enough to ensure Logan was awake.
Mom and Dad’s crew was filming an entire segment on the boat for When in Rome, though, so their cameras kept rolling long after our group quit. Which was okay by me—that meant they wouldn’t be hov
ering.
“Huh,” Logan said, fiddling with his phone. “Look at this.” He held it out toward me, and at first I didn’t know what he was talking about, but then I realized he was online. He had a signal!
I quickly pulled out my phone and found the right icons to push to access the Internet. And can I just say: Coolest. Thing. Ever. This was the first time I had ever been able to get online with my phone. I loved it.
“Weird that we can get a signal way out on the lake when we can’t even get one at the farm,” Logan said.
Victoria was standing nearby and must have heard us because she pointed to the trees along the shore. “You’re picking up the cellular signal,” she said, “from that tower.”
I squinted, but I couldn’t see what tower she was talking about.
“It’s camouflaged,” she explained. “Many companies try to make their towers blend in with the environment. Do you notice that very straight tree just there?” She pointed again.
Then I could see it: a tree that matched the others in color, but it was too straight and symmetrical to be real.
“I’m rather surprised we’re still within range,” Victoria remarked. “I should think you won’t have a signal much longer.”
Logan and I exchanged a look, then immediately went for our phones’ touch screens again. I’m not sure what he was looking up, but I logged onto the network website and then onto my blog. My stomach sank when I saw what was there. You guessed it. Another bogus post.
Cheesy, cheesy episode in the can, it said, boring hiking episode on the way. Can we go home now?
My hand trembled, holding my phone. I was right. It had to be someone local hacking into my account—someone who knew we had been to the cheese factory and that we were on our way to the volcano, where we were planning to hike up the mountain. I looked over to where my dad was cheerfully talking into the camera. He and my mom were not going to be happy to see the latest, especially since it meant that whoever it was had been able to get past the recent security changes. But I had to tell them, to be honest, like I promised.