Hacker

by Malorie Blackman

  ‘So what now, Victoria?’ I asked myself. I sat down on the sofa in the living room and leaned my head back, trying to think. It seemed to me that no matter what I did, Gib would never accept me. I’d never be a part of his family.

  But if I prove Dad didn’t take that money then I’ll belong. Then Dad will want me to stay and maybe Mum too, I thought. I mean, that wouldn’t be my only reason for wanting to prove it, but it could be one of them.

  But now I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to belong. Much as I loved Mum and Dad, they’d never be my real mum and dad.

  Did that matter? Surely it was up to me to decide where I fitted in? If I said the Gibsons were my family, who could contradict me? The opinion of anyone outside the family wasn’t – what was the word? – relevant. And as for the family’s opinion? Well, Mum and Dad had adopted me. No one had forced them to do that.

  So there was just Gib.

  ‘Think of something else, Victoria,’ I told myself.

  What was it Dad always said? Every problem has a logical solution? Well, I couldn’t see the solution to this one to save my life. When one or two things went wrong it was so easy to think that nothing would go right. I’d have to have it out with Gib, once this business at the bank was sorted out. But my luck was nonexistent even as far as that was concerned. I needed a PC with an Internet connection. It was that simple. Only Dad’s PC had been taken away and Chaucy couldn’t get onto the Web. So where could I find what I needed? There were plenty of PCs at school that would allow me to go online, of course. But short of breaking into the school, how could I get to them?

  Short of breaking into the school …

  I sat up abruptly. I couldn’t … could I? I didn’t see that I had much choice. It was that or nothing. I knew Dad said Aunt Beth and Eric and others were helping him at the bank, but what if they couldn’t? They all knew more about computing than I did, but I couldn’t just sit by and watch Dad end up in prison. Not without doing something to help. The way I saw it, I couldn’t hurt anything by trying to prove Dad was innocent.

  But breaking into school?

  ‘Does that mean you’re not going to help Dad any more?’ Gib was standing at the living-room door.

  Wishing he’d leave me alone, I snapped, ‘It doesn’t mean anything of the kind.’

  ‘How are you going to get the information you need from the live system at Universal Bank?’ Gib asked.

  ‘I’ve thought of a way – a possible way,’ I said slowly.

  Silence.

  ‘Aren’t you going to tell me?’ Gib frowned.

  ‘I’m not sure. It’s dangerous. It’d be better if you didn’t know. There’s no point in both of us getting into trouble.’

  ‘I’m part of this too,’ Gib said angrily.

  ‘Shush!’ I said, pointing to the ceiling. I didn’t want to disturb Dad.

  ‘So what’s your plan?’

  I looked at Gib, wondering if I dared tell him.

  ‘We use a school PC,’ I replied.

  Gib stared at me.

  ‘When?’

  ‘No time like the present,’ I said.

  Gib glanced down at his watch and frowned.

  ‘But it’s almost eight o’clock. School’s locked up!’

  ‘Like I said, you don’t have to help me with this.’ I stood up, picked up the storage case with Dad’s CDs and memory keys in it and pushed past Gib into the hall. I put on my jacket.

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ Gib whispered. ‘You don’t think I’d let you do this by yourself, do you?’

  ‘Scribble a quick note to Mum and Dad telling them we’ve gone to see a film or something and let’s go,’ I ordered.

  Gib opened his mouth to argue, then shut it again. It was just as well. I was really in the mood for an argument at that moment!

  It was only when we were actually on the way to our school that I began to believe what we were about to do.

  ‘When there’s no traffic around, I’ll help you climb over the school railings,’ Gib told me as we approached the road where our school was.

  ‘Help me? It’s more likely that I’ll be the one helping you,’ I scoffed. ‘Besides, we might not have to climb over anything.’

  ‘Of course we will. The gates will be locked on a Saturday,’ Gib replied.

  ‘Supposing we’re seen …’ I began.

  ‘We just have to make sure we’re not seen,’ Gib interrupted.

  ‘I was just going to say, we’d better have our story straight,’ I continued impatiently.

  ‘All right then,’ Gib said. ‘You’ve left something in your locker and we want it, need it before Monday.’

  ‘Like what?’ I asked.

  ‘I dunno. A present for Mum.’

  ‘Why have I got her a present? It’s not her birthday.’

  ‘You’re not helping much, Vicky,’ Gib complained, his arms folded.

  ‘All right! All right! We’ll say that then,’ I conceded. ‘But Mum’s present is in your locker, not mine. I’ve got quite enough on my plate at the moment, what with Miss Hiff’s letter about the “Hacker Supreme”.’

  ‘Oh yeah … I’d forgotten about that,’ Gib replied.

  ‘I hadn’t.’

  We walked in silence around the corner of the road. Boroughvale was at the other end of the street.

  ‘I reckon the best place to get over the railings is behind the goal posts. There’s practically no hedge left there. It’s been battered too much by us getting the balls back that missed the goal.’

  A privet hedge stood between the school fields and buildings and the railings which ran at least two-thirds of the way around the school boundary.

  ‘Will you be able to lift me?’ I asked Gib doubtfully.

  ‘Of course I can.’ Gib sounded insulted. ‘And once we’re in, I’ve got my torch and some string and some sweets if we should get stuck there overnight …

  ‘What’s the string for?’ I asked.

  ‘I thought we could tie it to a railing and use it to find our way out of school.’

  ‘But that’s what the torch is for,’ I said, getting confused. ‘And besides, we could both find our way out of school with blindfolds on. We come here every day – remember?’

  ‘But we might need the string. Anything might happen. I might drop the torch and break it,’ Gib said.

  I burst out laughing. ‘Don’t get carried away, Gib. We’re not going to get stuck until morning and you’re not going to drop your torch.’

  ‘OK!’ Gib pouted, the tops of his ears a brilliant red. ‘That still leaves one problem though.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ I said gloomily.

  Neither of us had to say it. We both knew. Mr Guy, the caretaker, and his killer dog, Jaws.

  Not that any of us had actually seen Jaws. Mr Guy was always telling us that Jaws had to be kept chained up inside the caretaker’s house during the day for our own protection. Well, if the dog was half as bad as Mr Guy, it would be a right snarling misery. A Rottweiler or at the very least a great hulking brute of an Alsatian. Would Jaws be roaming around the school, ready to bite our legs off when he got the first sniff of us?

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve come up with a master plan for dealing with the dog?’ I asked.

  ‘Ah, that’s where you’re wrong. Yes, I have,’ Gib replied smugly.

  ‘I’m all ears,’ I prompted.

  ‘If we see Jaws or hear him or even just suspect he’s near by we do one simple thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Run!’

  I looked at Gib and we both cracked up laughing.

  ‘You must have racked your brains all the way here to come up with that one!’ I said.

  At last we reached our school. What an anticlimax! The gate was wide open and it seemed as if every light in the place was on.

  ‘So much for my torch,’ Gib said, disappointed.

  ‘And so much for climbing the railings,’ I said, not disappointed.

  The smile on my face was so
broad it almost hurt. ‘I forgot about the adult education classes that go on here.’

  ‘Hmm!’ Gib snorted. He was really annoyed. Pin-head!

  We both strolled into the school. We passed the canteen first. It was full of people who completely ignored us. Next, up the steps and along the quad and past the assembly hall. Just then, a small cocker spaniel came trotting up to us.

  ‘Hello, boy,’ I smiled, bending to fuss behind its ears. ‘Who do you belong to then?’

  ‘Jaws! JAWS! Here, boy!’ Mr Guy came trotting up behind his dog. This was Jaws! I couldn’t believe my eyes – or my ears.

  Mr Guy glared over his glasses at me and Gib. He had on dark slacks and a light-blue polo shirt. His bald head gleamed like a snooker ball. And Jaws, who barely came up past my ankle, was sniffing and yapping at my feet. We couldn’t help it. Gib and I laughed so hard, he was holding his side and I had tears in my eyes.

  ‘ ’Ere! I know you two,’ Mr Guy said, not amused. ‘You two come to school here during the day, don’t you? I’m sure I’ve seen you knocking about. So what are you doing here now then?’

  And that question wiped the smile right off our faces.

  Chapter Seven

  ‘THIS IS VICKY and I’m Gib,’ Gib said quickly.

  I could have kicked him. What on earth was he doing giving Mr Guy our names? Trying to get us both expelled?

  ‘So what are you doing here then?’ asked Mr Guy again, picking up his killer dog.

  ‘Our mum is doing an evening class here and we said we’d meet her,’ Gib replied.

  I held my breath as I watched Mr Guy. I was going to keep well out of this one. The caretaker frowned and glanced down at his watch, almost tipping Jaws out of his arms.

  ‘But evening classes don’t finish for another hour and a bit yet,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, we know,’ Gib smiled. ‘Maybe you could tell us where we can find her. What classroom is the computing course going on in?’

  ‘Science block. Room Twenty-four,’ Mr Guy said.

  ‘Can you come with us?’ Gib asked.

  I gasped, then quickly tried to conceal it with a weak smile. Have you lost your mind? I thought, forcing myself not to glare at Gib. I looked up at Mr Guy, trying to keep the panic off my face.

  ‘You must be bloomin’ joking. Do I look like I’ve got nothing better to do than traipse around the school after you two?’ frowned Mr Guy. ‘You know where the science block is as well as I do. Now shift.’

  Gib grabbed me and pulled me along to the science block.

  ‘What on earth did you do that for?’ I hissed. ‘Are you crazy? Suppose he’d decided to come with us?’

  ‘I knew he wouldn’t.’ Gib shrugged calmly. ‘The only reason he’d come with us was if he thought we didn’t want him to.’

  I shook my head at Gib, impressed and yet horrified at his nerve.

  ‘One of these days that mouth of yours isn’t going to be quite so quick and it’s going to get you into a lot of trouble,’ I said.

  ‘Or it’s going to be too quick and it’ll be the same result,’ Gib said dryly.

  ‘The way you can lie without batting an eyelid! How do you do it? Practice?’

  ‘You’re being snotty again!’ Gib sniffed. ‘Besides I don’t usually tell lies unless it’s for a good reason. And this is the best.’

  ‘And what happens if Mr Guy tells one of our teachers that we were here tonight?’ I asked.

  ‘You worry too much.’ Gib shrugged. ‘We’ll just say we were here to meet our mum like we told Mr Guy. No big deal.’

  ‘Hmm!’ I still wasn’t convinced.

  We entered the science block and walked up to the second floor to get to Room 24. We peered though the glass panel in the door. A tall, skinny black woman wearing a dark-blue trouser-suit was the only one in the room. She was bustling around from table to table.

  ‘Here goes.’ Gib said what I was thinking.

  I knocked on the door and Gib and I walked into the classroom. The woman straightened up when she saw us.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  ‘Hi,’ Gib replied.

  I just smiled.

  Silence.

  ‘I’m Rosa, the tutor,’ she said when it was obvious we weren’t about to carry on. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘We come to this school during the day,’ I said, for want of something better to say.

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘I … that is … we …’ I stammered.

  ‘Can we ask you for a favour?’ Gib said. He managed to sound both keen and desperate at the same time.

  ‘What’s that then?’ Rosa smiled encouragingly.

  ‘Well … we’re doing a computing project together.’ Gib cast a thumb in my direction, not taking his eyes off the tutor. ‘And it has to be in by Monday and … we haven’t finished it yet. And this is our last chance. If we don’t finish it today then we’ll lose thirty marks from our final assessment for the year.’

  I stared at Gib, absolutely amazed. I shouldn’t have been at all surprised, I know. I’d seen him in action often enough. He didn’t fib all the time but when he was in trouble he was very, very good at it.

  ‘So we were hoping that you’d let us use a PC at the back of the class maybe – if no one else is using it,’ Gib finished.

  ‘But I’m teaching a class.’ Rosa frowned.

  ‘Oh, we won’t make a sound. Will we, Vicky?’

  ‘Not a sound,’ I agreed.

  ‘I don’t know about this …’

  ‘Oh, please,’ Gib pleaded. ‘We won’t make any noise. Honest. ’Cause otherwise we’ll both fail computing this year.’

  Rosa scrutinized us both so carefully that my face began to grow hot. Could you tell someone was lying just by looking at their face? I began to think you could.

  ‘If you’re both sure you’ll not make any noise …’ Rosa began.

  ‘We won’t,’ Gib and I said eagerly.

  ‘And you’ve got to leave when the class is over …’

  ‘We will.’

  ‘All right then,’ Rosa said reluctantly. ‘But mind – no noise now.’ We shook our heads. ‘You can use the table at the back with the two PCs on it.’ Rosa pointed to the table.

  Just then a man in a blue pinstripe suit and a woman in a white dress came into the room. They directed curious glances at us before they sat down.

  Who wears a suit on a Saturday? I thought curiously.

  ‘Come on then, Vicky,’ Gib whispered. We sat down at the indicated table.

  ‘Get cracking before we’re found out,’ Gib hissed in my ear.

  ‘Help then,’ I hissed back. ‘Find out the name of the file that contains the dictionary for the spelling checker. That’s important. Then make sure you can type it out.’

  ‘Why do I have to do that?’

  ‘I’ll tell you in a minute.’

  ‘You’ll have to tell me what to do,’ Gib replied.

  Impatiently, I rummaged through my pockets to find something to write on. I found a piece of clean (I think!) but crumpled tissue and scribbled down the necessary commands. Gib gingerly picked up the tissue and laid it out flat before he started typing.

  ‘I hope you haven’t blown your nose on this!’ he said with disdain.

  I didn’t bother to answer. I watched him type. Talk about ponderous! I started typing myself. Connecting up to the live system was no problem. That was just a question of typing in the right data to Dad’s connect program which was on the memory stick that I’d rescued from being taken by Eric. No, the problem would be logging on to an account on the live system when I didn’t have a password.

  Still, I had an idea about how to do that, but I needed to write a command file to do it for me. It wouldn’t work with me typing directly from the PC. The bank’s network system would suspect something strange was going on and disconnect itself from my PC if I tried to do it all manually rather than via a command file.

  As we typed, two more men entered the room. Curious,
they smiled at us. I smiled back. I carried on typing, peering intently at the screen as I did so. I wanted to make sure I got my command file absolutely right.

  ‘I’m ready,’ Gib said quietly after a few minutes.

  I looked at his screen. He’d searched through the hard disc on the server which was set up for use by all the PCs in the school, just as I’d written down. There were a number of error messages until he found the right file. On the rest of his screen I saw:

  > show helpdir: dictlarge

  a

  aardvark

  aardvarks

  aardwolf

  aardwolves

  aba

  abaci

  aback

  abacus

  ‘Why did you want me to check the dictionary?’ Gib whispered.

  ‘I can’t log on again using the TEST account ’cause that’s only on the development system. And as the bank disabled Dad’s account on the live system, I’m going to have to use another account.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Eric, the Systems Manager’s user account. It’s the only account I can use where I know the privileges have been set up to do what I need to do on the bank’s computer.’

  ‘But you don’t know the password,’ Gib pointed out.

  ‘This is the good bit,’ I said softly. ‘I’ve written a command file to make sure we log on to the live machine at Universal. It enters SYSTEM as the user name and then pulls out a word from the dictionary you found, to try as the password. If it doesn’t work, the live computer will give out an error code which my file will read and then it will try the whole thing again with the next word down in the dictionary. And if my command file works as it should, the bank’s computer shouldn’t lock me out after three false tries.’

  Gib gave a low whistle. ‘That’s good! Will it work?’

  ‘In theory. But I’ve never tried anything like this before,’ I replied. ‘And if Eric is anything like Dad and puts numbers in his passwords then it won’t work. But according to Dad, no one follows the bank’s rules and makes up unguessable passwords, because they all reckon they’ll never be able to remember them. Dad’s always trying to get all the bank staff to use passwords that aren’t real words but very few people at the bank, if any, ever do.’