Hacked

by Linda Gerber

  Her foot came off the brake, and the SUV started to roll forward.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  She laughed. “Do you really think I’d be foolish enough to tell you?”

  During the exchange, Logan kept inching forward, closer to the car. I had to keep her talking.

  “So it was you this whole time?” I could see how it was possible. She was our computer wiz. Even if she didn’t know the new website passwords and firewall protection, she could probably get around them. “But why?”

  She wasn’t going to fall for it. “Love to stick around and chat,” she called, “but I have to eat some road before you call in the cavalry. Ta-ta!”

  And with that, she gunned it, leaving a cloud of dust in her wake and Logan running after her. Finally, he saw it was futile and let her go.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I tried.”

  I ran up to where he had bent over, resting his hands on his knees as he struggled to catch his breath. “It’s okay,” I said. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

  He shook his head. “No. It’s not,” he puffed. “I let her get away.”

  “Not quite.”

  He straightened up and looked at me, his brows drawn. “What?”

  “Didn’t you notice how weird she was acting?” I asked. “I was already starting to get bad vibes when she turned off of the main road, but that whole thing about sending us down the hill to fetch a cup of water? Too cute. So I tucked my phone into her purse. It’s got that GPS tracker on it. Wherever she goes, we’ll know it.”

  Logan’s face broke into a huge smile. “Well played, Barnett, well played.”

  “You still have your phone with you, right?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said, “but I don’t know if we can get a signal all the way out—”

  “Um,” I cut in, “I also noticed one of those ‘camouflaged’ cell-phone towers back up the road a way. We should get a pretty strong signal from here if you want to call your dad or Bayani to come pick us up.”

  “Excellent!” Logan high-fived me and then pulled out his phone to tell his dad what happened, and to give him directions where to find us.

  We started walking up the hill toward the main road, and Logan reached back for my hand to pull me along, even though I was less than half a step behind him. Maybe it wasn’t to pull me then? Maybe all these times he was holding my hand because he wanted to hold my hand. Again, I wished I could think of how to ask him. How to tell him what I felt. But it was easier just to slip my hand in his and go with it. I smiled to myself. Pura vida.

  “What is it?” Logan asked.

  I blinked at him. “What?”

  “You and your looks and your secret smiles. Is there something I should know?”

  My cheeks felt hotter than the Arenal springs, and I just about pulled my hand away from his, but he held on tight. “Nothing,” I said. “It’s nothing.” Nothing that I could find the words to tell him anyway.

  He stopped in the middle of the road. “And you say I’m annoying! There’s something you’re not telling me. So spill.”

  I should have been able to tell him then, but I was still afraid. What if he didn’t feel the same about me? What if it ruined our friendship?

  “I was thinking about that cute little tree frog,” I said finally. “You know how you have to be still or it might hop away? So even though you want to look closer, you can’t. You just have to let it be.”

  “Yes?” he asked.

  What did he mean? That was it. Didn’t he understand? It had sounded really deep to me when I was thinking about it in the south pasture. I sighed. “Well, you’re the frog.”

  He threw his head back and laughed. “That’s what I like about you, Cass,” he said. “You always say the craziest things.”

  I forced my lips into a smile. “You know it. La chica moda, always good for a laugh.”

  Travel tip: Once you visit Costa Rica, it is hard to leave.…

  So what happened next? Zoe texted.

  Britt gave the investigators a full confession, I wrote.

  Not that Britt had intended on giving one. Turns out I did learn a thing or two from being on a reality show. Before sticking my phone into her purse, I turned on the video recorder. It didn’t get pictures of anything besides the satin lining of her purse, but it did pick up everything she yelled to Logan and me before she left us stranded. Confronted with the evidence, Britt quickly broke down and confessed.

  Why did she do it? Zoe asked.

  You know that show A Foreign Affair? They’re kind of a rival of my mom and dad’s show.

  I have seen that one, Zoe texted. And…?

  Britt said someone from A Foreign Affair hired her to sabotage When in Rome, I answered. She lost our luggage, ditched supplies, destroyed entire segments of film. And, of course, hacked into my blog to scare off the sponsors and prevent When in Rome from branching out.

  That is not nice, Zoe said, texting the obvious. You are angry about this?

  I thought about that for a moment. Was I angry? In a way, yes. But in the long run, what did it matter?

  Zoe, I typed, have I ever told you about the Costa Rican motto of pura vida?

  Not surprisingly, the production company behind A Foreign Affair denied even knowing Britt, let alone hiring her to go after our show. In fact, they went a step further, actually accusing my mom and dad of manufacturing the entire scenario to try to bring down A Foreign Affair. Ironically, the more the fight played out in the tabloids, the higher the ratings got for each show. The only one left out of the limelight was Britt.

  It would have been a great ending to the trip if the sponsors who had dumped us had rushed to sign back up after we solved our hacking mystery, but unfortunately, that’s not what happened. A couple of them had already moved on to sponsor other projects, and one was still spooked by the idea that something like this could happen again—even though Cavin and Liz had both assured them that it wouldn’t.

  That’s okay, though, because once the tabloids picked up the story (you knew they would), a handful of other sponsors lined up to take their places.

  If only my mom and dad could be so easily charmed by a happy outcome.

  “It was smart thinking at the end,” Mom said, “but you should never have gotten yourself into that situation in the first place.”

  “You could have gotten hurt,” Dad said. “Or worse.”

  And even though it just about killed me not to try to explain or to offer excuses, I told them, “You’re right. I’m very sorry.”

  I think my apology surprised them so much that they forgot to decide on a punishment for me.

  Mama Tica told me later that she was proud of the way I had handled myself and that I will have a happy life if I continue to think pura vida.

  On our last day in Costa Rica, the whole crew went to the airport together, and we saw each flight off one by one until it was time to say good-bye to Victoria.

  “I’m so glad you were able to be cleared for your flight,” Mom told her. “I was worried about your foot.”

  “Ach, she’s fine,” Cavin scoffed. “Just an allergic reaction.”

  “Yes, but it looks quite uncomfortable,” Mom said. I could have told Mom that Victoria never let being uncomfortable stop her.

  Sure enough, Victoria insisted that her foot wasn’t that bad. “Truly. I don’t require this wheelchair.”

  Dad chuckled. “Stay put for one more minute. You can hobble around all you want once we get you to your gate.”

  “I do not hobble,” Victoria muttered.

  Logan hid a laugh, but not quick enough.

  “Enjoy the break,” Victoria told him. “You and Cassidy still owe me completed research papers. I will expect them online within the week.”

  We waved Victoria off, and she walked onto her plane. Now all that were left were Logan and his dad and my mom and dad and me. Our flight was the last one scheduled to leave; theirs was second to last.

 
Logan turned to face me, and suddenly, I was tonguetied. The whole morning I had been listing in my head the things Logan and I should say to each other before we went our different ways, but I couldn’t remember any of it now that he was just moments away from leaving.

  In fact, a very few moments. Cavin checked the monitor, and his eyes sprang open wide. “Orra, look at the time! Our flight’s about to board.”

  “Quickly, then,” Mom urged, and herded us toward the end of the concourse, where Logan and his dad’s gate was.

  I jogged beside Logan, trying to remember all the right things to say for good-bye. Nothing came except small talk. “So you’ll be staying with your mom over the break?” I asked him. We wouldn’t start shooting the next show until after Christmas.

  “Yeah. And you’re at your grandmum’s?”

  “Yep.” We’d already been over our holiday plans about ten times, so this didn’t really count as conversation.

  A woman’s voice came over the loudspeaker, “Now pre-boarding all first-class, business, and medallion passengers on flight twelve ninety-two, bound for Dublin, Ireland.”

  “Are you medallion?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  Shoot, shoot, shoot. I couldn’t think. Cavin was picking up his carry-on and sliding the strap over his shoulder.

  “Cassidy,” Logan began.

  “I know,” I said, panicked. “You have to leave, but—”

  “Logan,” Cavin said. “It’s time.”

  I took a deep breath. I was just going to say it. Just tell him, and not worry about the consequences. Pura vida. “Logan,” I said, at the same time that he said, “Cassidy.”

  “Go ahead,” I told him. Disappointed. Relieved.

  “All right, son,” Cavin said, patting Logan on the shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  “Just a sec, Da.”

  “It’s time now.”

  “I’ll talk to you soon, okay?” Logan said. He turned to walk away.

  “Wait!” I called after him. He looked back at me expectantly. Words! Where were the words?

  I ran after him to give him a hug instead. He hugged me back for probably half a second. What did you expect with our parents standing there, looking on?

  “Thanks,” he said, smiling.

  “Uh-huh,” I mumbled.

  Cavin dragged Logan toward the checkin. “Bye, Cass,” Logan called.

  “Bye!” I stepped back and watched him walk away. He turned and waved one last time before disappearing down the Jetway, and then he was gone.

  I should have been disappointed. I mean, I hadn’t worked up the nerve to tell Logan what I felt. But the irony was, after all that worrying about what to say, it wasn’t the words that mattered after all. What mattered was what was real.

  “All righty, then, Cassie-bug,” Dad said. “Are you ready to go home?”

  “Yes,” I told him. “Yes, I am.”

  Gramma brought a mug of hot cocoa out to the screened porch where I sat watching dry leaves skitter across the empty rows in the garden. The soil had been turned over for the winter and wouldn’t see vegetables again until spring.

  “You ready to come in?” Gramma asked, handing me the mug. “Wind’s picking up. It’s fixing to get cold.”

  I wrapped my fingers around the warm ceramic. “Just a little longer,” I told her.

  She clucked like an old mother hen but didn’t say anything more. By now she probably knew it was a lost cause. I’d spent a lot of my days sitting out on the porch reading, working on my home-study homework, but mostly just staring out over the property. I kept seeing another barn, another pasture, another stand of trees.

  Gramma turned to go back inside, but before she closed the door, she paused. “Your mother and daddy will be back from town in just a bit. We’ll eat supper as soon as they get here.”

  I pulled my jacket tighter and nodded. “Thanks for the hot chocolate, Gramma.” Eventually, the door latch clicked shut and I was alone again.

  It had been three weeks since we’d left Costa Rica. Three weeks without a word from Logan. I had tried texting him, calling him, IMing, too, but he still hadn’t answered. I shouldn’t have been surprised; he’d done this once before—going silent for two years before surfacing again in Spain. The difference was, I thought we had a connection in Costa Rica. Saying good-bye to him in the airport, I thought I knew what was “real.” Now I wasn’t so sure anymore.

  That’s why I kept wishing I was back at Mama Tica’s farm. The afternoon Logan and I hiked to the pasture was about as perfect as you could get. Until that whole Britt-kidnapping-us thing, I mean.

  In the past week, three of the mini episodes Logan and I had filmed in Costa Rica had aired on TV, but I couldn’t make myself watch any of them. Was it all pretend, like Logan said? Had I imagined everything I thought I felt in Monteverde? Dad kept telling me that our little shows were very popular, and I should have been happy about that, but it really didn’t matter to me. Not much anyway.

  I mean, as long as people liked the shows, the sponsors were happy. And if the sponsors were happy, our shows would continue. Which meant Logan and I would be working together again. I just couldn’t decide how to feel about that.

  Inside, I heard my parents’ voices. I sipped on my cocoa and counted, waiting for Gramma to call me in for supper. She made it to the door before I got to eleven.

  I trudged in behind her, feeling tragic, until I got to the kitchen table and Dad handed me a small brown package. The return address was Dublin, Ireland. “We picked this up at the post office,” he said. “Who do you suppose it’s from?”

  “Ha-ha.” Cradling the package, I turned my back on him and slipped outside to the porch, where I ripped through the brown paper. Inside was a small box with a shiny red bow. A note fluttered to the ground, and I bent to pick it up.

  “Happy Christmas, Cass. I noticed you never got a chance to get a charm for your necklace in Costa Rica. This reminded me of you. I figured you’d know what it meant.”

  I tore off the bright paper and flipped open the lid.

  And stopped.

  Inside, nestled on a square of cotton, was a round wooden charm inlaid with a tiny gold tree frog.

  Fingers trembling, I undid my necklace and tied the charm onto the leather cord. Hooking the clasp behind my neck again, I smoothed the charms down, my fingers running over the smooth shape of the frog.

  Once I had compared Logan to a tree frog, afraid to look at his friendship too closely for fear it might go away. Now he had given me a symbol of a tree frog to keep with me forever.

  Funny how a few seconds can change your perspective. Suddenly, I didn’t care about the weeks of silence since I left Logan in Costa Rica. All I could think about now was the remaining weeks ahead before I would see him again.

  When? Zoe asked when I texted her that evening.

  Just after the first of the year, I typed. I can’t wait.

  Where did you say you were going again?

  I smiled, already seeing in my mind’s eye Logan and me hand in hand among the kangaroos and koalas.

  Australia, I texted. Next time I see Logan, it will be in Australia.

  TURN THE PAGE FOR A PEEK AT

  EPISODE ONE:

  Celebrity

  I like a challenge.

  My grampa used to say my determination was something that could get me far in life. What he didn’t say was that it could also get me in trouble.

  I found out just how much trouble the night I snuck out of our apartment in Spain.

  The tabloids have printed at least a hundred different versions of what happened next. Some of the stories are true. Most of them, not so much. I still have to laugh that the papers ran them at all.

  I mean, since when am I news? First of all, I’m only twelve (almost thirteen). Second, before Spain, hardly anyone even knew who I was. No, I take that back. They might have seen my picture on one of those celebrity shows or in a magazine, but never just as me. I was always an accessory, an ext
ension of my parents—Cassidy Barnett, daughter of reality TV stars Julia and Davidson Barnett.

  See, my mom and dad host a travel show called When in Rome. Not only that, but my mom has written about ten international cookbooks and my dad has his own line of travel accessories. Until Spain, my only job was to jet around the world with them, watching from the sideline. Hardly anyone ever noticed me.

  But then everything changed.

  What happened that first morning wasn’t my fault. Well, okay, it sort of was, but none of it would have happened if the airline hadn’t lost my suitcase, so at least partial blame belongs to them.

  The way I see it, I wouldn’t have had to sneak out if I could have set up my room properly. I’m not talking about full-on decor or anything, just a few things I bring with me when we travel. We move around with the show so much that I could easily end up sleeping in a strange bed in a strange room every few weeks. Having my stuff set up helps make each room feel like mine.

  I have a brass incense burner I bought in India, a string of star-shaped twinkling lights from France, a fuzzy Japanese Hello Kitty pillow, and—most importantly—a framed picture of my grampa and me that was taken at his farm in Ohio.

  That picture was the last one we ever had taken together. We’re sitting on the creaky old porch swing in front of his house, and Grampa’s smiling straight into the camera like he knows he’s going to be looking out at me from the other side. I can almost hear him telling me, “Wherever you go, Cassie, I’ll be there with you.”

  But he wasn’t there that first morning in Valencia, all because of the stupid airline.

  It was still dark outside when I woke up. At first, everything was fine. I lay in bed and listened to the pipes knocking in the walls, imagining all the places we were going to visit for the show that day.

  Then I remembered. I had no suitcase. The cute new sundress I’d bought to wear for my first day in Spain was lost in some airport somewhere. Worse, without my things, my room felt empty. Empty. EMPTY.

  I switched on the lamp to chase away the shadows, but—even with its authentic Mediterranean touches—the room looked even bleaker in the light…like a really well-furnished cell. The air smelled stale. The closeness of the walls made my skin itch. I couldn’t stand it. I had to get out. Out of the room, out of the apartment, out of the building so I could breathe again.