“Wouldn’t Bruce Paxton take you?" Isadora suggested, her eyes amused.
“I wouldn’t go to class with Bruce Paxton if the school didn’t require it, let alone Ditch Day. That ganzer! Eeeeuw.”
“And if you could do something about it, who would you want to go with?”
“Nate Evers,” said Lucy promptly, as if the answer were obvious.
“Is that likely to happen?" Isadora asked.
“I don’t think so. He’s going with Catherine Brown,” said Lucy. “That’s already settled. This is just what-iffing. It’s not like it could really happen." She hated making that admission, but she had to admit the spell hadn’t worked.
“If someone else asked you, would you go?" Isadora sounded genuinely interested.
“Maybe,” she allowed.
“Then wouldn’t looking around for another boy to go with be more reasonable than setting yourself up for disappointment?”
Lucy shrugged, trying to conceal her gnawing sense of failure, and the fear that her mother was now more lost to her than ever.
* * *
After dinner, while Lucy sat in her room dawdling over her homework, she thought back over everything Isadora had said that afternoon, counseling her to set reasonable goals for herself and not dwell on the impossible. “Reasonable." Lucy said it aloud as if the sound of the word would give her a handle on the whole notion of wizardry, and whether it made sense or not.
Her musing was interrupted by a summons from her computer announcing the arrival of a text. Lucy got up from the end of her bed and went to her desk, sitting down as she touched the keyboard. To her surprise, there was a note from Alison: Hey, Lucy, you’ll never guess what happened — Jas Masters asked me to Ditch Day. He even apologized for putting it off so long. I mean, Jas Masters!
Lucy knew Jas from her Environmental Science class, a bright, good-looking guy who swaggered when he walked, whose family ran three businesses — a landscape gardening and supply nursery, a specialty grocery store, and a marina in Redwood City — and whose mother sat on the City Council here.
Lucy typed back, That’s great.
Alison responded almost at once. I’m so happy I’m dizzed.
I hope you have a good time, Lucy typed, because it was what Alison expected and wanted.
I just wish Catherine hadn’t got hurt at practice, but if she hadn’t, Jas might not have asked me, so I guess everything evens out. But we — I mean the Cheerleading Squad — won’t be doing a performance at Ditch Day.
Lucy stared at the screen. What had happened to Catherine? She made herself ask.
She was doing a cartwheel and came down wrong on her leg. It broke her ankle.
Lucy was shocked. When did this happen?
About three-thirty this afternoon. I thought everybody heard about it.
That was before she had begun her session with Isadora. A sense of guilt that was gathering around her dissipated a little. That’s too bad.
It’s bad for her, and for the Squad. We’ve got a competition coming up in May, and we won’t be able to practice for it, not without Catherine. We’ll probably have to find a replacement.
Lucy typed something sympathetic and signed off, using the excuse that she hadn’t done all her homework yet. She was filled with conflicting emotions: distress for Catherine, worry that she had done something to cause Catherine’s injury, “It can’t be because of the spell,” she said aloud, even as she thought about the accident. A hundred things might have caused it, and Catherine breaking her ankle certainly didn’t guarantee that Nate Evers would ask her — or anyone else — to Ditch Day.
* * *
Like most Fridays, the next day was both a drag and a fizz as the school week came to an end and the students made their weekend plans.
Lucy went to her classes feeling dazed; whenever she heard any mention of Catherine Brown, she winced inwardly, trying to convince herself that the accident that had broken Catherine’s ankle was not her fault. By the end of the day, she felt tired and edgy, wanting to get away from the constant reminders of Catherine’s injury.
“Hey, Lucy." The voice behind her halted her on her way to the school bus. It was Nate Evers.
For a hideous moment Lucy thought he knew what she had done and would tell everyone in Cosmo Bender about it. “Sorry to hear about Catherine. I hope she’s better soon.”
“Yeah." He stood next to her, as golden as a god, as handsome as a movie star. “So, you got a date for Ditch Day?”
“Not yet." The admission brought color to her cheeks, but she couldn’t look at him.
“So would you let me take you?" He smiled blindingly, radiating good looks and charm, making a covert signal to his gang of friends who lingered by the school buses, watching him; other students were slowing the rush to leave to take in this unexpected development.
Lucy suppressed a shudder and did her best to smile back. “You want me to go to Ditch Day with you?”
His smile slipped a little; his eyes crackled. “Yeah." It was obvious that he expected her to accept.
She took a deep breath. “Yes, please." Shouldn’t she ask about Catherine? She wondered. Everyone knew that the only reason he was asking her was that Catherine wasn’t going. She made herself look Nate squarely in the face, aware that they were being watched by what felt like half the school; she had to do the right thing or be laughed at. “I’m sorry Catherine broke her ankle, but I’m glad you asked me." There. That should put things on a better footing.
“Okay, then,” he said, taking a step back from her. “I’ll see you here on Ditch Day.”
Lucy watched him, aware of a sinking sensation just below her ribs. She reminded herself this was what she had wanted — what she had done the spell to achieve — but now that she had it, she felt as if she had fallen down a well. Walking slowly toward her bus, she could feel the weight of many eyes on her, and she wanted to run away, as far as she could. She was glad there wasn’t any band practice this afternoon, and that she had nothing to do but go home and study. She wanted to be alone so she could think.
7
There was a note on the refrigerator in Melinda’s handwriting; Lucy slipped the magnet holding it away and read:
Dear Lucy, Jacob, and Jason,
There’s chicken goulash in the fridge, and salad makings. Your father and I have an appointment with the District Attorney about the accident I witnessed and we’ve been told it could take a couple hours.
If we aren’t going to be home before 7:30, we’ll call you.
Love,
Melinda
Lucy was both annoyed and pleased with this news; she’d wanted to let Melinda and her dad know about Ditch Day, without admitting the questions Nate’s invitation had raised in her. She was contented to have time to herself, which she could get now, but at the same time, she couldn’t help but be worried about Dad and Melinda having to talk to the District Attorney. That sounded really serious. And while she didn’t mind being left to fend for herself — she’d done that often since her mother died — having both her father and Melinda gone was a little worrisome. Scowling from anxiety, she put the note back, sliding the magnet back into position, and checked the fridge — a large glass bowl with a blue-plastic cover held the goulash and the greens’ bin had lettuce and onions and cucumbers. There were three open bottles of dressing in the slots on the back of the refrigerator door. She decided to wait a while before doing anything about fixing dinner.
Still, Lucy realized, as she poured herself a glass of orange juice while her thoughts chased around and around in her head, she really wanted to tell her dad at least that she had been invited to Ditch Day. She wanted someone in the family to be happy for her, and dad was the one most likely to be. Her mother would have been happy for her, Lucy knew beyond all doubt, but she wanted the rest of the family — even Melinda — to be pleased for her. There was nothing wrong with that, she told herself for the fifth time. Yet she needed to think about how that invitation had come a
bout, so maybe a couple hours to decide how to tell the family wasn’t a bad idea.
She wandered into the family room, looking for her brothers, and was mildly surprised to find they weren’t there. She went to the back door and looked out on the yard. Empty. She closed the door. “Jase? Jake?" she called tentatively, and was met with silence. She went upstairs, dropping her books in her room before looking into the room the twins shared. Nobody. “Where could they have got to?” she asked the air.
The sudden sound of the phone startled her, and she rushed to answer the shrill summons. “Wisdome residence,” she said.
“Hey, Lucy,” said Tom Foster. “Remember that breach I told you about a few weeks ago? The irrational one?”
“Yeah,” said Lucy. That had been the last time she’d gone to the Gothic Geeks, and that was a while ago.
“Well, it’s back. I thought you might want a look at it,” said Tom. “Tell us what you think.”
“Okay,” said Lucy abruptly, making up her mind. “I’ll be over in half an hour.”
“Good." With that, he hung up.
Lucy looked around for some paper to leave a note as her stepmother had done. As she often did, she fretted at her lack of a cell-phone — almost all her friends had one - and it was aggravating not to have one of her own. Her dad wouldn’t use one, and he wouldn’t get them for his family; he was worried about radiation or something. After a brief search, she pulled a sheet from the notebook where Melinda made her shopping list, and scribbled
I’m over at Tom Foster’s place. I’ll be back in a while. Lucy
P.S. I haven’t seen Jason and Jake.
Satisfied that she had done what she had to, she grabbed her coat and hurried out the back door, locking it behind her.
* * *
Only Niki Martinu was missing from the Gothic Geeks when Lucy arrived. Most of them were gathered around the largest screen in the room, their gaze fixed on what they saw there. The door was open, so Lucy hadn’t bothered to knock, though she paused on the threshold. She said “Hi,” in a slightly raised voice and saw three of them look in her direction.
“Hey, Lucy,” said the disgusting Bruce Paxton in his most ganzer voice as she came up to the group. He moved a little to get nearer to her.
“Um,” said Lucy, glancing at Gweneth Cavanaugh and exchanging a brief rolling of eyes.
Gweneth was wearing a black-lace frock coat over her usual black tank and black jeans. She said, “Mice and elephants,” to no one in particular.
“So what’s happened?" Lucy asked, staring at the screen that had a long stream of numbers pouring across its expanse.
“This is what happened before,” Spencer said in disgust. “About the only way to stop it is to turn the whole thing off and reboot.”
“That sounds pretty bad,” said Lucy. “I guess you’ve tried everything else?”
Spencer went to the small refrigerator and pulled it open, reaching for a bottle of ginger ale. “Nothing less seems enough to make it go away.”
“What were you doing before it happened?" Lucy asked.
“Working on a new unlocking program,” said Tom bluntly.
“Maybe you tripped some kind of security thing,” Lucy suggested.
“If that’s what it is, it isn’t like anything we’ve ever seen before,” Tom declared, shaking his head for emphasis.
“We’ve tried a lot of things to make it stop,” said Curtis Ng. “No luck so far." He sounded embarrassed as he admitted this.
Aaron Jarvis was sitting in one of the old chairs, his notebook in his hands, reading the new issues of Tech! “We’ve been trying to come up with something new for the last hour.”
Lucy shook her head in surprise. “Is this what happened before? The trouble you mentioned last month?”
“Then it was letters,” said Tom. He clicked some of the keys, but nothing happened to disrupt the steady flow of numbers.
“What were you trying to unlock?’ Lucy asked, worried that they might have triggered something dangerous.
“A really ozwonked site. P. G. Y. Bachmann Group,” said Curtis distantly, his eyes fixed on the flood of numbers.
“Why do you want to unlock the site?" Lucy asked.
“Because it’s so secret." With a frustrated sigh, Tom pushed back from the long worktable and shoved himself to his feet. “This is all ozwonked. There’s nothing I can get a handle on.”
“You could reboot and try again,” Gweneth suggested. “Like before.”
“Reet,” said Bruce, an expression Lucy found childish and irritating.
Curtis sat down in Tom’s chair and gave his full attention to the screen. “I don’t get it.”
“I told you — it’s completely unexplainable,” said Tom, going to pour himself a cup of coffee.
“Or you haven’t found what’s it’s using; there’s more than one possibility,” said Bruce with a smug grin.
“And what kind of possibility would that be?" Spencer asked Bruce, his face darkening.
“One we don’t know,” said Curtis, his attention still fixed on the screen.
“Where would you start looking?” Gweneth asked, her curiosity obvious.
“Somewhere different,” said Tom.
“Got any idea what different is?" Bruce asked. “We’re supposed to know everything about computers.”
“And we do,” said Curtis sharply. “But what if this isn’t about computers? What if it’s ... electric or something?”
“Why’d you think I asked Lucy to come over?" Tom countered. “And Ben.”
“Ben?" Gweneth sounded puzzled and not entirely pleased. “Ben Davidson? Why him?”
“He might have some ideas,” said Tom.
“You mean, you think this is a game?” Spencer demanded.
“I don’t know,” said Tom. “But if it is, Ben will know, and he’ll know what to do to stop it.”
“Once we know what we’re dealing with, then we can work out how to handle it." He frowned. “It’s changing again.”
“You mean the numbers are gone and we’re back to letters?" Tom asked, bending over Curtis’ shoulder.
“Look." Curtis gestured at the screen — the numbers were still flowing by, but now they were in irregular clusters.
“Ozwonked,” Gweneth marveled. “Totally ozwonked.”
“Can we make a record of these?" Bruce asked. “So we can look for a pattern.”
“On the back-up,” said Tom. “It’s going too fast to catch them all here." He made a motion with his hand, as if trying to do away with the numbers the way a magician might make a cane vanish. “If there’s a pattern, Ben will figure it out faster than any of us.”
As if in answer to an announcement, there was a tap on the door even though it was open, and shy, bookish Ben Davidson said, “Should I come in?" His smile was tentative, as if he were uncertain of his welcome; he had a courier bag slung over his shoulder.
Lucy looked around in consternation but the rest of the Geeks didn’t.
“Yeah,” Tom told him. “Come in. Help yourself to coffee. The mugs are on the shelf over there, at least the clean ones are.”
“Okay,” said Ben, and stepped inside the garage, looking more out of place than Lucy did. He was in ordinary jeans and a toast-colored sweatshirt; his straight, dark-brown hair fell across his brow, and there was a cluster of acne scars along his jaw. “What’s the trouble?" He dropped the courier bag on the smaller sofa.
“Have a look for yourself. If you can figure out what’s causing the numbers to stream like that, we’ll make you a member right now." Tom slapped the counter with the flat of his hand. “Some Techwhizards we are!”
Lucy stared at Ben; she’d known him since second grade, but was still a little surprised that the Geeks had asked him over. Then it struck her: Ben was the best game-player in the school. From Go to Mars to Doing Pythagoras Ben could work out games more rapidly than anyone. When he was ten he had done a Rubic’s Cube in six minutes. His calculations were so swi
ft and so accurate that it was said no one would play poker with him, or chess, because he always won. He was a different kind of geek than the Gothic Geeks. A couple of the Geeks were good at games, but more as designers and developers, not as players. Ben was a seasoned player, and knew more than the Geeks did about game theory. Satisfied that she had the full answer, she stepped back to give Ben a chance to see the screen.
“What’s wrong?" Ben asked, studying the screen.
“Look,” said Tom, pointing.
“It won’t stop." Curtis swore to punctuate his dissatisfaction.
Gweneth laughed without amusement. “It started a while ago. Nothing’s stopped it so far. We’ve all tried.”
“It’s a black hole,” said Bruce, who had been skulking in the background, smiling as if he’d said something witty.
“Is there any sequence to the numbers you’ve noticed?" Ben asked, adding, “I suppose you’ve already checked about that.”
“We haven’t found any repeats that we could spot,” Curtis said. “And nothing that looks like it ought to make sense.”
“No sequence any of us recognize,” Tom concurred, coming back to the worktable, a cup of fresh, steaming coffee in his hand.
“Not logarithms, not algorithms, not sets of any kind? Not even in reverse?" Ben asked, squinting at the ongoing run of numbers.
“Have a look for yourself,” Spencer recommended. He flung himself down on the old sofa, disgust making his face look older and angrier than usual. “I can’t spot anything.”
Ben nodded. “Tell me how it got started.”
Tom recounted the intrusion of letters and now numbers without mentioning their attempts at hacking. He pointed to one of the smaller screens. “We’ve slowed it all down from the back-up and we’re looking for patterns. No luck so far.”
Ben nodded. “Let me see what you’ve got,” he said, moving to the second computer. “This is a great set-up here.”
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