In Case You Missed It

by Sarah Darer Littman

  “I know what you mean,” I say. “It would get lonely pretty quickly, I think.”

  Noah is regarding me with an oddly concerned expression. “Are you … doing okay?”

  It’s obvious he’s not talking about the book anymore. The feeling of unease that I’ve been getting since I got to school blossoms into full-fledged panic.

  “I would be if I knew why everyone keeps asking me that and looking at me funny.”

  Noah looks confused, and a slow flush rises from his neck up to his cheeks. “I … well … I mean …” Clearly unable to articulate, he pulls out his cell and points to the screen.

  It takes my eyes a second or two to focus, but then I see the headlines on a news site: “New Territories Bank Corp Shares Plummet After Hacked Document Dump Reveals Sexism, Unequal Salaries, and Racism.”

  My lungs have forgotten how to work. Breathe, Sammy, breathe.

  Everyone has something to hide, Sammy, Mom said.

  But sexism? Unequal salaries? Racism?

  “Sammy? Are you all right?”

  The warmth of Noah’s hand on my elbow brings me back to the media center. I take a deep, shuddering breath.

  “I don’t know,” I whisper as I exhale, shakily. “I knew that my dad’s company was hacked and the hackers said they were going to publish some of the documents today, but …”

  Words collide in my head, but none of them are big enough to describe how I feel.

  “Not that it was going to be this sensational?”

  I slump into the nearest chair and let my backpack fall to the floor so I can cover my face with my hands and shut the world out. Sensational might describe the situation if your parent weren’t involved. For me, though, it’s like having the floor beneath my feet suddenly shatter into a million tiny fragments and disappear.

  “I should probably read the story,” I tell Noah. “Since it seems like everyone else has. And here I thought I was just being paranoid, but apparently not. It turns out everyone really is out to get me.”

  “Sammy, there’s some stuff that’s going to be hard to read,” Noah warns. “Maybe you should wait till you get home.”

  “It’ll be even worse if I read it at home,” I tell him. “Besides, I need time to think about this before I see my parents.”

  “I get that,” he says, but still looks worried. “I’ll be over there if you need me.”

  I get onto the school computer and search for “New Territories Bank Corporation.”

  There are thousands of current hits.

  The Wall Street Journal article focuses mainly on the drop in stock price, and whether that plus the security breach will cause Dad to lose his job. The New York Times article discusses the potential link between the mayor’s decision to go in forcefully with riot police to clear the protesters and the timing of the data dump. The Washington Post says that a hack this size could only be the work of a foreign government and quotes the president as saying that such heinous cyber warfare cannot be allowed to go unpunished.

  Wait, the president of the country is involved? Mom called this the Mother of All Monster Hacks, but it sounds like it’s even bigger than that.

  The New York Post headline is a sensational “Bank Corp Hacker Shocker!” Meanwhile, ZDNet, some business tech website, quotes an unnamed consultant who worked with New Territories Bank Corp, saying that the IT staff there were “clueless” and “comatose in the face of danger.”

  I live with one of the key players in this story and even I don’t know the truth. In fact, I’m even more clueless than these reporters.

  It’s a very strange feeling to realize that you know so little about the life of a person you see every single day.

  In the middle of all this, I get a text from Mom.

  Maria is here. Did you borrow my metallic sweater without asking me? : /

  Uh-oh. Now what do I do? I decide the safest course is to play dumb.

  what sweater? why?

  I just went to get another sweater and it fell out of the pile. It’s two sizes smaller. I can’t even wear it. It cost a fortune, too. AND a snagged thread in the back : /

  it wasn’t me!

  It must have been Maria. She should know it was dry-clean only.

  i guess it was her, then.

  She swears on her son’s life it WASN’T her.

  I’m doing exactly the same thing Margo did, I realize, and I feel guilty about it, but not enough to tell my mom the truth and accept the consequences.

  Like Mom said, everybody’s got secrets they don’t want the world to know.

  i don’t know, mom. GTG.

  I wait, nervous to see if Mom responds, but she doesn’t. I’m an awful person, but right now, relief outweighs remorse as I turn back to the news stories.

  Jezebel has a front-page post with the headline “Bro Culture at New Territories Bank Corp.”

  It’s about something two high-level executives at the bank called a female coworker in an email, while agreeing to offer her less than they would to a man in the same position. My dad is on the email. He doesn’t call them out for the awful things they said, and even worse, he agrees to paying her less.

  So wrong.

  How can this be my dad, the one who tells me to work hard because if I do, “the sky’s the limit”?

  I don’t even realize that I’ve put my head down until Noah asks, “Can I do anything?”

  I lift my head. “I don’t think so. I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.”

  “Maybe you should go home. I’m sure they’d understand—”

  “No!” I insist. “Home is the last place I want to be right now.”

  “We’ve only got three more minutes left of open,” Noah points out after a quick glance at the wall clock. “Do you want to skip out?”

  I’ve never ditched class in my life. But the thought of going to science and seeing everyone stare at me now that I know why they’re doing it is more than I can face.

  “Yes. Please. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Come on,” he says. “We can go out the back of B wing. It’s closest to where my car’s parked.”

  You’re supposed to sign out if you leave school. You need to have a note from the doctor or the dentist or provide the death certificate (seriously!) so they know that you and your parents aren’t making stuff up. They don’t even trust parents to tell the truth.

  Now that I realize Dad’s the CEO of Liar Inc., I can understand why.

  A strong breeze whips around the corner of the building, and the door slams shut behind us, as if putting an exclamation point on my decision to cut class.

  “I’ve never done this before, ever,” I confess to Noah as we walk briskly to his car.

  “Me neither,” he admits.

  “Seriously? Why would you suggest it, then?”

  He unlocks his car and gestures for me to get in. It’s like sliding into a warm greenhouse after the wind outside.

  “Because you looked like a caged animal on shelter death row that needed to be set free,” Noah says, giving me a sidelong look as he starts the car.

  I start laughing, even though tears are welling in my eyes. Because it’s the weirdest, sweetest thing that anyone has ever said to me.

  Noah backs the car out of the space, then stops the car before pulling off. “Okay, that didn’t come out right. In fact, it came out sounding all kinds of wrong.”

  “No, it was sweet,” I tell him. “I was feeling kind of like a trapped shelter puppy.”

  “Phew!” he says, guiding the car out of the high school lot.

  “Where do you want to go?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Where do truants usually hang out?”

  “Can we google that?” Noah asks. “Or maybe Siri knows.”

  We look at each other and crack up.

  “We’re so lame,” Noah says. “We must be the lamest truants in the history of truancy.”

  “Pretty much,” I agree. “That’s what we get for
being good little hamsters.”

  “Hamsters?”

  “You know, running on our hamster wheels. Getting good grades and doing what we’re supposed to do.”

  Noah laughs. “Yup, I’m a good hamster. But today, we’re out of our cages. So where to, Hamster Girl?”

  “Don’t you mean Death Row Puppy?”

  “Whatever. Just tell me where you want to go. Your wish is my command.”

  I think about and discard several options as too public. I don’t want to go anywhere there’s a risk of being seen and ratted out to my parents.

  “What about the arboretum?” I say.

  “Good thinking, Batman,” Noah says, making a turn in that direction. “Not many people and plenty of camouflage.”

  “If I’m Batman, does that make you the Boy Wonder?” I ask.

  Noah laughs. “I’ve always rather fancied myself as Alfred,” he says in a pretty decent English accent. “The guy goes from hand-to-hand combat to computer programming to performing minor medical procedures to tending roses. Oh, and then he whips up a soufflé when he’s done. That’s hardcore.”

  “I’m down with having a butler,” I say. “Having you as a chauffeur isn’t bad, either.”

  “I just wish I were driving the Batmobile,” Noah moans.

  “At least you have your license,” I point out. “And a car!”

  “True,” he agrees.

  There are only two cars parked in the arboretum lot, and Noah and I don’t recognize either of them. The trees provide shelter from the stiff breeze that’s reminding us spring hasn’t entirely sprung.

  “Are you warm enough?” Noah asks. “Do you want my hoodie?”

  “I’m okay, thanks.”

  We walk side by side along the trail in companionable silence. The pussy willow branches have sprouted their soft gray catkins. I stop to stroke them.

  “I love pussy willows. They’re so soft.”

  A woodpecker starts drumming suddenly in a nearby tree and it startles me.

  “Little jumpy there, are we?” Noah says, putting a reassuring hand on my shoulder.

  “Having the bottom drop out of your world will do that to you.” I sigh, about to take another step down the trail, when he stops me and points up at a tree.

  “Look,” he whispers. “It’s a robin.”

  The robin’s burst of orange stands out against the leafless branch, making it easy to spot. It chirps, tilting its head, surveying us with one black eye.

  “I’ve loved robins ever since reading The Secret Garden,” I confess.

  “Can’t say I’ve read that one,” Noah says.

  “It’s an oldie but goodie,” I tell him. “Spoiler alert: A robin helps her find the key to the garden.”

  “Cool,” Noah says.

  We continue down the path, listening to the creaking of branches in the wind and different birdcalls. When we get to the stream, Noah stops to skip stones. He’s pretty good at it. When I try, I can only get my stone to skip twice or three times, max, but he gets one to go six.

  “How do you do that?” I ask, sitting down on a nearby log to watch his superior skill.

  “Physics,” he says. “This French physicist, Lydéric Bocquet, came up with the formula. It has to do with the stone’s diameter, its velocity, mass, tilt, angle of attack, and the density of the water.”

  “Angle of attack, huh? That sounds fierce.”

  “It is! In World War II, the British designed a skipping bomb.”

  “What? You mean a bomb like a skipping stone? No way!”

  “Way. I watched this old movie called The Dam Busters with my grandpa. It was sick. They used the skipping bombs to destroy dams in Germany’s industrial area.”

  “Was that one of your movie bonding things?”

  He smiles. “You remembered.” Picking up another rock, he slings it. Only four skips this time.

  My phone buzzes. It’s a text from Rosa: where are u?

  “Confused is where I am,” I mutter as I turn off my phone. I don’t want to deal with the outside world right now.

  Noah is crouched by the stream, looking for another perfect stone, but he looks up at me. The boy must have bat ears.

  “That’s understandable,” he says.

  “How can my dad have … He’s not like that!” I say. “He’s my dad. He’s a good person.”

  I sound just like my mom. Ugh.

  “You’re his daughter, so he must have done something right,” Noah says.

  “I’m serious, Noah. My dad’s not like that. The papers make him sound … awful. He’s not.”

  Noah turns his gaze away to look at water bubbling over the rocks in the stream, and I wonder if he thinks I’m just a typical kid in denial about her dad.

  Then he turns back and gestures for me to join him. I get up off the log and brush the bark off my butt, then go stand next to him.

  “Okay, see that rock in the middle of the stream?” he asks, pointing.

  “The green mossy one?”

  He nods. Then, taking my hand and tugging, he leads me down the bank about ten paces.

  “Okay, now look at it again from here.”

  It’s so weird. From just a little way down the bank, the same rock looks different. It’s gray brown rather than green, because the moss doesn’t grow as much on this side.

  “You wouldn’t know it was the same rock from this angle,” I say to Noah. “Are you doing this to distract me from my dad problems?”

  He laughs. “No. I’m trying to help you find some perspective with your dad problems,” he says. “Is it working?”

  Then it dawns on me.

  “Oh … So you’re saying my dad can be a jerk and a good person at the same time?”

  “Not a jerk, just—”

  “But it’s like two totally different people. How can you be two different people at the same time?”

  “I don’t know … maybe he’s like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?”

  His wry delivery makes me laugh. It strikes me that Jamie probably wouldn’t have made that joke. I feel like I’m cheating on my crush.

  I wonder if Jamie would have offered to ditch with me. I doubt it. He wouldn’t do anything to risk getting kicked off the lacrosse team.

  A wood duck flies down from a nearby tree and lands in the river, making squealing noises, which are answered by a stuttering coo from up in the tree. It submerges its bright green head, searching for underwater edibles.

  “I’m not exactly a big camping fan. In fact I hate it. But right now I’d rather stay here listening to the running water and the birds than go home to face a dad who suddenly feels like a stranger.”

  Noah tosses the stone he’d been holding in his other palm. It skips three times and then sinks to the bottom.

  “Don’t you think … maybe you should hear your dad out?” he says. “You know, give him a chance to explain?”

  I don’t really want to deal with this at all. I just wish this whole hacking thing would go away.

  “I guess,” I admit.

  What I don’t tell Noah is that even if my dad does explain, I’m not sure I believe him.

  April 8

  Noah dropped me back home at the usual time I’d get back from the bus.

  “Here you go. Safely back at stately Wayne Manor,” he said.

  “Thanks, Alfred,” I told him. “And not just for chauffeuring me.”

  “It was my pleasure,” he said in his English accent, and the devilish smile made it seem like he really meant it.

  Luckily, no one was home yet. The first thing I did was get online to read more about the hacked documents.

  I thought it would help me understand, but it’s just made me more upset and confused.

  Which one is the real dad? The one I see and talk to at home or the one in the emails? It feels like they can’t be the same person, even though they are both Dick Wallach, CEO of New Territories Bank Corporation. Noah’s right. It is like freaking Jekyll and Hyde. I just hope that Jek
yll Dad’s still in there.

  I asked my mom if there was anything in the hacked emails that might send Dad to prison. Besides being pissed that I’d even ask such a question, she said, “Your father is a good man.” She’s been saying that a lot lately. I wonder if she’s trying to convince me or herself.

  I’ve never thought of Dad as anything other than a good person. But as I read more emails, I start asking myself: What makes a person good?

  There’s one where the president of another company makes a joke about his Puerto Rican secretary “who lives in Spanish Harlem in an apartment with the illegal relatives she’s brought over.” Instead of telling him that’s a horrible thing to say, Dad responds by making a snide comment about our cleaning lady, Maria, and her family.

  I can’t believe it. Maria is from Ukraine and she’s worked really hard for our family for years. Sometimes she goes to another job at night after cleaning our house all day.

  Then again, I was willing to sacrifice Maria to cover up my own lies. I guess maybe I inherited some of Dad’s less awesome genes.

  Just like Margo threw Rosa under the bus, letting her mom believe Rosa had been drinking at the concert because her mom thinks Rosa’s a bad influence because of her skin color. And Rosa’s our friend. My best friend.

  Dad’s stupid comment doesn’t even make sense, because Maria is legal. One of the reasons she works so hard is because her son, Vasily, got straight As in community college and then transferred to the university. Now he’s a senior and applying to law school.

  To top it all off, it’s so hypocritical, because we were immigrants, too. Not Mom or Dad or RJ or me. Not even my grandparents. But my great-grandparents were all the first generation to be born here, and their parents were just like Maria. So why is Dad making jokes about Maria when our family started out in this country in the same way?

  The poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty says, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Where does it say anything about closing the door behind you so no other tired, poor, huddled masses can pass through it after you?