by Linda Gerber
“Um, Mom? Dad?” I called. “I need to show you something.”
Cavin and my mom and dad managed to stay calm as everyone gathered around my phone, but Liz just about lost it. She yelled for the boat’s captain to stop where we were so we wouldn’t lose the signal, and then she whipped out her phone to call the network. Never mind that it was the middle of the night in New York.
I tried not to listen, but it was kind of hard since she was talking loud enough to be heard overseas. “I agree,” she said, “if the sponsors believe we aren’t on top of this thing, I’m afraid they will distance themselves.” She paused and shot me a look, then turned her back to me and lowered her voice enough that I couldn’t hear her words anymore. She paced to the other end of the boat, taking her discussion private. Mom and Dad and Cavin followed, but when I fell into step behind them, Dad shook his head.
“Not now, Cassidy,” he said. Angrily. At least that’s how it felt when he clipped his words like that.
When Liz got off the phone, all I could do was watch from a distance as the four of them discussed this latest development. As if I couldn’t be trusted. But hadn’t I told them immediately, just like I said I would? Why was I in trouble for telling the truth?
I stalked to the railing and stared out over the blue water, watching the volcano loom larger as we crossed the lake. I felt small. Helpless. Liz said the sponsors might distance themselves, and I got the feeling she thought it was my fault. What was I supposed to do? If the network’s security couldn’t stop the hacker, how could I? Unless…
Logan was sitting on one of the bench seats alone, playing with his phone. I rushed over to talk to him while no one was listening (after I made sure our lav mics were disconnected).
“I’m sorry,” I blurted.
He tilted his head. “Go on.”
“You were right. I should have trusted you enough to let you in on what was happening.”
“I told you I would always be there for you, Cass,” he said softly.
Heat crept along my cheeks and up the back of my neck as I remembered his saying that for the first time when we were in Spain together. “I know,” I said. “It’s just that it’s been weird sometimes between us, you know?”
“I’m a guy,” he said with a shrug. “We’re annoying sometimes. What can I say?”
My face flushed again, only with embarrassment this time. “You heard that?”
His grin told me he had.
“Listen.” I scooted closer to him and lowered my voice. “I made a mess of things, but now I want to make them right. And I can’t do it by myself. I need my best friend to help me.”
He pretended to consider it for a moment, and then he asked, “Is there really a question? Of course I’ll help you. Uh…to do what, exactly?”
We didn’t get much of a chance to talk once we docked on the other side of the lake and began our hike through the Arenal Conservation Area to get a closer view of the volcano. Even in the midst of a crisis (as Liz called it), the show had to go on. Mom and Dad, Logan and I were wired with our lav mics and the cameras were rolling, making it very hard for us to plan what to do next.
Logan was the one who spotted another one of those cell-phone towers, and he signaled to me to pull out my phone.
What’s your plan? he texted.
I slid a quick peek around to make sure no one was watching and texted back:
We find out exactly where these posts are coming from and figure out who’s sending them.
Logan caught my eye and raised his shoulders, mouthing, How?
Britt, I typed. She’s the resident techie, right? I bet she knows how to dig around online.
“Cassidy,” Liz said sharply, “as pleased as I am for you to show your phones in use, we need you to be engaged in this hike or your viewers won’t be.”
Before I could come up with an appropriate response, something nearby roared, and I lost all rational thought. Okay, so it wasn’t really a roar, but it was a horrible sound that I could only describe as a cross between a dog’s bark and the yowl of a wounded lion.
I wasn’t the only one it startled, either. Liz nearly dropped her tablet. “What was that?” she demanded.
The roar/bark/yowl came again, only longer this time. It raised goose bumps along my arms…but at least I wasn’t freaking out like Britt was. She spun this way and that, trying to get a read on where the sound had come from, and then clung to Marco, burying her head in his shoulder. Smooth.
“Howler monkeys,” Claudia said. “They are harmless.”
“My, they are noisy,” Victoria observed, her British accent very pronounced. Which is how I knew she was as unnerved by the noise as the rest of us non-ticos. “Where are they?”
Claudia and Marco trained the cameras up to the canopy, trying to catch a glimpse of the monkeys with their zoom lenses. I kept trying to follow the sound, but I couldn’t see anything.
“There,” Marco finally said, and pointed. “A pack of about a dozen or so in those branches.”
I saw them immediately once I knew where to look. They weren’t swinging through the leaves like I expected, but were literally hanging around, several of them draped like old blankets over the thick branches, and some lounging in the crooks of the trees. Little ones clung to their mothers or climbed over them like they were hairy jungle gyms. “Ooh, look,” I said. “They’ve got babies.”
“You see those?” Claudia pointed to a group of adults sitting with their legs folded beneath them. “They are eating guayaba fruits.”
“Guava,” Marco translated. “Don’t worry,” he told Britt gallantly, “the howlers are just warning us not to get too close. They will quiet down soon enough.”
They did, but Britt still clung to Marco for the rest of the hike, as if we were in a savage jungle instead of a national park. Logan and I tried to pull her aside a couple of times, but it was clear she had no intention of leaving Marco for a moment.
“What should we do?” Logan whispered. “We’re never going to get her alone.”
I shrugged. “Wait, I guess. We can’t do anything out here on the trail anyway. We’re staying at that resort tonight. Maybe we can catch her there.”
With our tentative plan in place, I was able to relax a little and enjoy the rest of the hike to the volcano. Even with Liz reminding us every ten minutes, Smile! Look into the camera! Point out those orchids!
At least she quieted down a little when the trail got steeper. And rougher. As we hiked higher up the mountain, trees gave way to black volcanic rock.
“Arenal has been active until recently,” Marco told us, “with lava flows almost daily at times. It is sleeping for now, but even so, we are not allowed to hike beyond the observation point. The volcano is still seismically active, and new magma supplies could erupt again at any time.”
He hiked on ahead of us, moving faster up the hill instead of slowing down. His focus ahead reminded me of Mama Tica’s horses when they knew they were headed for the barn. Marco knew what waited for us up ahead, and he couldn’t wait to get there.
I signaled to Logan. “Come on!”
We caught up to Marco just as the trail began to flatten out. And as we crested the last rise, I knew why Marco had been in such a hurry to get there. In front of us, Arenal swooped upward in a perfect cone, its peak crowned by a halo of clouds. At its base stretched green lowlands for miles and miles. A deep blue lagoon was carved into the valley on one side of the mountain.
“Breathtaking, isn’t it?” Victoria said.
I looked back to where Liz was still laboring up the final stretch of trail, puffing like the little engine who could. I smiled. “Yes, it is.”
Claudia, Estefan, and Bayani all set up cameras to try to capture the view. I didn’t even bother taking out my phone because I knew that no pictures would ever do it justice. I could have stayed up there all afternoon, but the clouds at the top of Arenal were sinking steadily lower, and growing darker. Finally, Marco decided we should make our wa
y back down the mountain before the rain set in.
I took one last look at Arenal and the valley below to save it in my memory, then turned to follow Marco down the trail.
That night, we stayed at a hotel resort with an amazing view of Arenal and natural hot springs on the property. Logan and I planned to corner Britt in the hot springs and to convince her to help us catch my blog intruder. Once we found out where the hacked messages were coming from, I could turn the evidence over to my mom and dad, and maybe then they would stop acting as if I couldn’t be trusted. I changed into my bathing suit and hurried down to the springs to see if Britt was there yet.
When I walked out onto the wooden pathway, the first thing I noticed was the smell. I’ve been to other geothermal hot springs in other places, and a lot of times you get a rotten-egg kind of sulfur stink from the water, but all I smelled from these springs was the rich, earthy smell of dirt and damp.
The next thing I noticed was the steam. It rose in writhing wisps from the springs and then hung in the cool night air like the clouds in Monteverde.
Logan and his dad were in the closest pool, lounging against a rocky ledge, but beyond that, I couldn’t see anyone. All the other pools were veiled by the steam.
I draped my towel on the handrail at the side of Logan’s pool and stepped down into the water. Then immediately back out again. “It’s hot!”
“Yeah,” Logan said in his duh tone. “That’s why they call it a hot spring.”
“No, I mean it’s really hot. How are you not boiling in there?”
Logan pushed away from the ledge and waded toward me in the waist-deep water. “Don’t be such a baby. It’s not that hot. Come in.”
He reached a hand out to help me into the water. It was an innocent gesture, and I knew he probably didn’t mean anything by it, but it made my heart melt just the same. I took his hand and stepped into the scalding water.
Okay, so it wasn’t really scalding. It was hot, but after I took the first couple of steps, it didn’t seem that bad. Probably not much hotter than a Jacuzzi. Actually, it was a pretty good bet I was hotter inside than the water outside because Logan was holding my hand! He could have let it go as soon as I made it down the steps without falling, but he didn’t.
I tried to be as casual about it as he was. Looking at him, you wouldn’t guess holding hands was anything out of the ordinary. Meanwhile, I was quietly hyperventilating. And so, of course, I started to babble like I always do when I’m excited or nervous.
“Can you see the volcano from here? Have you seen my mom and dad? What about Britt? Where is everyone?”
He led me over to the side where he had been sitting with his dad before letting go of my hand. “Haven’t seen anything. Da says the clouds are too low tonight because it’s going to rain again, but I can’t really see if it’s cloudy in the dark sky.”
I gazed upward. “Well, I don’t see any stars, so it’s a pretty good guess there are clouds in the way.”
“Could be the steam from the hot springs,” he reasoned.
“Which cooled and condensed and became clouds,” I said.
“Clever.”
“Plus,” I added, “can steam do this?” I put my hand out to catch a raindrop. It was cool against my skin.
The rain started slowly at first, just a few drips here and there, but then it was falling faster and faster until the drops were coming down in a steady beat. Logan threw his head back and opened his mouth, his tongue sticking out.
“Ew.” I wrinkled my nose. “What if that water fell through miles of pollution?”
“It didn’t,” Logan said. “And even if it did, I don’t care. I love the rain.” He threw his arms open and turned in a slow circle. This time I followed his lead. Soon we were both laughing and dancing in the hot water, our arms outspread to catch the cool rain.
I thought to myself what a simple thing it was, appreciating rain. Yet here we were, happy just to feel the water on our faces. And content. And, for the moment, completely worry-free.
Until the rain stopped again.
Then everything came flooding back to me and I remembered why I had rushed down to the hot springs in the first place. “Come on,” I told Logan, “we have to find Britt.”
We climbed out of the pool we were in to cross to another spring-fed pool. Instantly, I shivered as the air chilled my skin. I practically jumped into the next pool just to be warm again. We looked through four pools before we saw Britt flirting with Marco near a natural waterfall. Of course.
Logan and I waded toward them. We were both making plenty of noise, but neither Britt nor Marco seemed to hear us. In fact, Britt jumped when we got close enough to call her name.
She glared at us—clearly we had interrupted something—and asked sharply, “What is it?”
I hesitated. We needed her on our side if we were going to rely on her help. Starting off the conversation on her bad side was not part of the game plan. Neither was including Marco in our confidence.
“Uh…could we talk to you for a minute?” I asked.
She gave me a look that could boil the water we were standing in. “Excuse me,” she snapped. “Busy.”
“But we just wanted to ask you—” Logan began.
I took his arm to pull him away. “It’s no use,” I told him in a low voice. “She’s not a team player.”
We left Britt with Marco. “You have a plan B?” Logan asked.
I didn’t. I’d been counting on Britt because she seemed like the logical person to turn to, but now…
“Hey, guys,” Bayani called. “Hot enough for you?”
Logan and I exchanged a quick look. Bayani. Of course! If we had to rely on an adult (or in Bayani’s case, a semiadult) he was the perfect choice. He was connected enough to help, but just rebellious enough not to tell on us.
“Yans,” Logan said in a low voice, “can we talk?”
We explained the situation to Bayani, and he listened with a serious expression on his face. Given that he likes to tease me so much, I was afraid he’d give us a hard time, but he just nodded and grunted once in a while until we were done.
“Okay, listen,” he said. “I got a friend who can maybe help out with this. Total computer geek. If there’s a way of tracking down who posted those entries, he can find it. But Cassidy? It’s not going to change anything. You got that, right?”
No, I didn’t get it. I mean, if we solved the problem, why wouldn’t that change everything? “What are you talking about?”
“The sponsors are spooked.” He looked out over the steamy water for a moment and then back at us with the most serious look on his face I had seen since…forever. “You’ve seen how people make up their own stories out of what they think they see, right? Even though half the viewers know in their brains that they’re being manipulated by reality shows, some part of them wants to believe the juicy stuff. So even if you flash the truth in front of them in neon greens and pinks, they’re going to believe what they want to believe, whatever’s the most entertaining.”
Logan laughed. “Greens and pinks?”
“I’m making a point here,” Bayani said with a sniff. But he grinned just the same.
“I don’t see what’s so funny,” I said. “You’re telling me that no matter what I do, people are going to think the worst of me because it’s more entertaining?”
“Pretty much, yeah,” Bayani said.
“But it’s obvious I didn’t write that stuff!” I protested.
“Right. Everybody knows that,” he said.
“Then I don’t get what you’re saying.” Really. He wasn’t making any sense.
“The gossip they’re running with isn’t that you wrote those nasty things, but that you’re out of control.” I was about to protest, but he raised his hand to stop me. “Not you, you. The show. Like, if we can’t even control content, how can we control two teenagers?”
“Two?” Logan laughed and punched Bayani in the arm. “You mean I’m included in this scand
al or whatever? Craic.”
I slapped a handful of water at Logan. “I don’t know what you’re so happy about. This isn’t funny.”
“I don’t know,” Bayani said. “In a way it is. They’re casting Logan as the bad boy in this opera.”
Logan laughed again, and I glared at him. “How do they even know who Logan is?” I asked Bayani. “The shows haven’t started yet.”
“But the prepub has,” he said, and then corrected himself. “Well, it had. Before this all hit the fan. Now I think the sponsors are trying to lie low until they see where public opinion goes. So far it’s been focused on your unsupervised lifestyles.”
I snorted (which, I admit, was not very attractive). “Unsupervised? Ha!”
“Again, reality doesn’t matter,” Bayani said. “It’s cooler to believe you two are running amok.”
“Amok,” Logan chuckled. “I love it.”
“Listen.” I turned my back on Logan and tried to reason with Bayani. “If we can find out who was posting those messages and turn the story around, we can win the sponsors back, right?”
“Well, sure,” he said. “They want to be on the winning team. So you convince your public that you’re a hero, and the sponsors will fight to be a part of that.”
“So that’s what we need to do.” I linked arms with Bayani and Logan. “We have to become heroes.”
Now I just had to figure out how we were going to do that.
I slept better that night than I had all week. After the hike to the volcano and our soak in the hot springs, I was so tired I was out almost before I hit the pillow. But it was more than just being physically exhausted. My brain was drained as well. All that worrying and wondering and secretly plotting took more out of me than I expected. That part I was able to turn off, though, now that I knew Bayani would help us. It’s like we passed the weight of it to him for a while, so I could finally relax.
I woke to my phone buzzing and nearly fell out of bed reaching to grab for it. Zoe’s face flashed on the screen, and my breath caught for an instant. The last thing I needed was another bad blog report. I rubbed my eyes to focus on the message and sighed with relief. Nothing about the blog. This was an update about Nikos.