Miss Fortune

by Brandi Dougherty

  She opened her e-mail, and her stomach jerked when she saw Noah’s name in her in-box. She did a little dance in her chair and clicked open the e-mail. Maybe this wasn’t the worse day of her life after all. But when she started reading, she realized it definitely was.

  zoe:

  if you didn’t want to hang out with me you could have just said so at the carnival last nite. you didn’t have to send me an e-mail listing all the things you DON’T like about me! i’m not really sure what your problem is. don’t worry — i won’t call you or bother you again.

  noah

  Zoe’s jaw dropped. She stared at the computer, rereading Noah’s e-mail over and over again. Finally, she scrolled down and realized what he was reacting to: an e-mail from her. A now-familiar sick feeling crept over her as she read the words on the screen:

  Noah,

  I can’t believe I gave you my number last night. I really don’t want to hang out with you. I think you’re boring and ugly and I would be embarrassed if my friends saw us together again. I don’t know what I was thinking. Please don’t call me. Ever.

  Signed,

  Zoe Margaret Coulter

  Zoe put her head in her hands and groaned. Who would have played such a cruel joke on her? And who had access to her e-mail, anyway? She remembered an issue at school earlier in the spring when someone hacked into the computer system and sent fake e-mails from several of the teachers’ accounts. Was there a chance this could be related? But the person would have to know what happened at the carnival just the night before! Not to mention that they knew Zoe’s middle name. Only four people in the world knew that: her parents, her brother, and Mia. Ugh, and now Noah, Zoe thought, covering her face again. There was no way Mia would do something like this to her. Zoe thought about Conner. She jumped up from her desk and stormed down the hall to his room. She flung open his bedroom door without knocking.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” Conner looked up from his computer, surprised.

  “I can’t believe you would do something like that to me, Conner!” Zoe shouted.

  “What are you talking about? Conner demanded. He looked completely perplexed.

  “You hacked into my computer and sent a prank e-mail to Noah!”

  “What?” Conner asked. “Who’s Noah?”

  “Don’t play dumb.” Zoe’s voice rose and faltered. “I know it was you!” Another tear slid down her cheek.

  “Zoe, relax,” Conner said. Zoe could tell he was trying hard to be nice. “What are you talking about?”

  Zoe took a shaky breath and stared at her brother. He was leaning away from her in his chair, like he was afraid she might attack him. Zoe didn’t know what she had been thinking. Conner had been so busy with basketball camp that summer he had probably forgotten he even had a sister — until now. And there was no reason he would have played such a mean prank on her. They hadn’t had a fight in months, and he didn’t even know about Noah and the carnival the previous night.

  “Sorry,” Zoe said quietly. “I just freaked out for a second.”

  “Uh, yeah, ya did.” Conner laughed a little nervously.

  “Never mind,” Zoe mumbled, stepping back into the hall. She closed the door quietly behind her.

  Zoe ran back to her room and logged into IM. Luckily, Mia was online. She was desperate to tell her what was happening.

  Zoe503: Mia?

  DancingFeet: Hey! What’s going on?

  Zoe503: U R NOT going to believe my day.

  DancingFeet: WHAT?

  Zoe503: after i left ur house i fell off my bike and into a ditch

  DancingFeet: really!?

  Zoe503: then a hammer fell off the shelf in the garage and onto my toe

  DancingFeet: OMG! Ouch.

  Zoe503: THEN i was supposed to put the lasagna in the oven at 5

  DancingFeet: yum. I luv ur d’s lasagna

  Zoe503: i went in the house at 5 and it was already in the oven … ON FIRE!

  DancingFeet: huh???!!??

  Zoe503: the entire inside of the oven was on fire but the oven wasn’t even on. seriously M. i don’t know what’s going on.

  DancingFeet: OMG x 100! i don’t get it

  Zoe503: THEN (see i’m not even done yet)

  DancingFeet: UGH!

  Zoe503: i got an e-mail from Noah. wait i’ll fwd it to u …

  DancingFeet: Oooo! Exciting.

  Zoe503: no. not exciting. bad. v. bad.

  Zoe503: u get it yet?

  DancingFeet: just …

  DancingFeet: Zoe!!! Why did u write that to him?????

  Zoe503: I DIDN’T!!!

  DancingFeet: what do u mean?

  Zoe503: at first i thot it was Conner. i just screamed at him 4 it but it wasn’t him. i don’t know if someone hacked my e-mail or what, but i didn’t write it!

  DancingFeet: Z this is crazy!!

  DancingFeet: what r u going to do?

  Zoe503: crawl in a hole and nvr come out? i don’t know!

  Zoe503: what shud i do? i am rlly freaked OUT!

  DancingFeet: come over 2mrw. we’ll figure it out.

  DancingFeet: u ok?

  Zoe503: not really, but … i’ll b fine

  DancingFeet: txt me 2mrw and u can come ovr. xoxo

  Zoe503: k xxoo

  Zoe clicked back over to read the e-mail one more time. She considered responding to Noah, but then she decided to wait and talk to Mia more first. Just as she was about to log off for the night another chat window popped up on her screen.

  Zoe …

  Zoe503: Mia?

  Not Mia.

  Zoe stared at the screen. Whoever was typing didn’t even have a screen name.

  Zoe503: who is this?

  A warning.

  Zoe503: Conner is that u?

  Not Conner.

  Zoe503: this isn’t funny

  You are right, Zoe. It is not funny.

  Zoe’s heart leaped into her throat.

  Your luck has run out, Zoe!

  Zoe’s hand was shaking so hard it took her three tries to close the chat window. But she couldn’t stand to see it on her screen any longer. She slammed her laptop closed without even shutting it down and flew up from her desk, her chair crashing to the floor.

  “Zoe?” her dad called from the hallway. “Everything okay?”

  “Fine, Dad,” Zoe said, her voice trembling. “My chair just fell. I’m going to bed now.”

  “I was coming up to see if you wanted your fortune cookie,” Zoe’s dad said through the door. “You left it on the table.”

  “Um … sure, okay.”

  Zoe opened the door and her dad handed her the cookie.

  “Dad?” Zoe’s voice was still shaking. “Do you believe in fortunes?”

  “Only the good ones,” he said as he kissed her forehead. “Sleep well, honey.”

  “G’night.” Zoe closed the door and cracked open the cookie. She slowly unfolded the tiny slip of paper and then sank down on her bed. The message read: TROUBLE IS BREWING. IT MIGHT BE BEST TO STAY IN BED.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The next morning, Zoe woke up late. It had taken her hours to fall asleep after all of the crazy things that had happened. Sometime around three A.M. she finally dozed off, so it was almost eleven when she poked her head out of the covers.

  The first thing that greeted her was the necklace that she was still wearing. She hadn’t really thought about it since yesterday morning, but she still hadn’t taken it off. She reached up and touched the stone for a second before she swiftly pulled it over her head and set it on the bedside table. Right away her body felt lighter, but strange, too. She realized uneasily that she didn’t like not having the weight of the necklace against her chest.

  Zoe ignored her feelings about the necklace and went to take a shower. After her shower, she brushed her teeth and pulled her damp, thick brown hair into a quick braid. Then she went back to her room to get dressed.

  Zoe pulled a pair of black shorts and a faded green T-shirt
that readKISS ME, I’M IRISH in white letters out of her closet. As she was getting dressed, she felt numb and not at all like herself. Something weird nagged at the back of her mind. She glanced over at the necklace sitting on her bedside table, and with a jolt she suddenly knew she had to put it back on. She couldn’t explain it at all, but that was the first thing that popped into her head when she saw the necklace. Somehow, Zoe got the feeling that if she didn’t put the necklace back on, something terrible was going to happen. She picked it up from the table and quickly slipped it back around her neck, trying not to think about it too much. It’s just a stupid necklace, she told herself.

  She went downstairs to find the house empty. There was another note from her dad:

  Morning, honey. I thought I’d let you sleep since you were so tired yesterday. Conner’s at b-ball camp until six and I’ll be out at that job in Beaverton all day. I’ll check in later. Call if you need anything. Love you!

  Zoe poured herself a bowl of cereal and sat down at the kitchen table. She pulled her cell phone from her shorts pocket and texted Mia: hey m wht time shud i come ovr?

  Mia texted back instantly: i’ll b home frm dance @ 2. come ovr then.

  Zoe finished her cereal and went back up to her room. She took out her fancy digital video camera (another gift from her mom) so she could work on her movie for a little bit. Professor Meyer at the Art Institute camp had loved Zoe’s film and wanted her to keep working on it through the summer. Zoe was usually super-excited to work on her film, but this morning she felt so distracted she could barely concentrate.

  She sat on her bed with her video camera propped on a pillow in front of her and her film notebook beside her. She decided to just flip through all the video she had so far and write down some ideas for what to film next.

  As soon as Zoe started watching her video, it didn’t take long for her to realize that something was seriously wrong. She was only a few minutes into the footage when giant blank spaces began to appear. Huge chunks of scenes that she’d spent days at camp planning and filming had been totally erased! Zoe let out a horrified noise — it was a sob and a scream all in one. She reversed back to the beginning and played the video again just to make sure. The dead, black screen that appeared for minutes at a time confirmed her suspicion. Zoe felt sick for the hundredth time — like a giant hole was expanding in her stomach.

  The chat window from Zoe’s computer screen flashed across her mind. Your luck has run out, Zoe. She couldn’t believe this was happening. She had hoped that all the crazy things that happened the day before were just some weird fluke and that today everything would be fine. But everything was not fine.

  Suddenly, a small ray of hope burst into her mind. Professor Meyer had a copy on disk! Zoe had given her a copy of the movie with the latest edits just last week, and Zoe hadn’t worked on the film since. Zoe jumped up and fished around her desk drawer for her film camp folder. She found the phone number for Professor Meyer’s office and pulled out her cell phone. She had to make sure her professor still had a copy of the movie.

  Zoe paced in a tight nervous circle while she waited for Professor Meyer to answer the phone.

  “This is Professor Meyer.”

  “Oh, Professor Meyer, I’m so glad you answered,” Zoe said breathlessly. “This is Zoe Coulter from film camp.”

  “Hi, Zoe,” Professor Meyer answered warmly. “How are you?”

  “A little freaked out, actually,” Zoe explained. “I was just going to work on my film, and I realized a bunch of it has somehow been erased!”

  Professor Meyer gasped. “Zoe, that’s terrible!”

  “So, I was hoping that you still had that copy I gave you last week and that it’s okay,” Zoe said. “That there’s nothing wrong with it.”

  “Yes, of course. I have it right here. Let me just pop it in my laptop and make sure it looks all right.”

  Zoe allowed herself to breathe for a second. Then she held her breath again while she waited for a report from the professor.

  “Yep, everything looks fine, Zoe. I don’t see any problems at all. I’ll burn another copy and leave one with my assistant for you. You can stop by anytime.”

  “Thank you so much.” Zoe sighed with relief.

  Professor Meyer laughed. “Glad I could help. Just let me know when you’re ready to discuss your new edits. I’m looking forward to it.”

  “Okay, thank you again. Bye.”

  Zoe fell onto her bed and stayed there. She didn’t want to move for fear that something else might happen. Before long, she dozed off into a fitful nap.

  Zoe woke up to a blast of sunlight on her face. She sat up and squinted at the oversize clock on the wall next to her desk. It was 1:52. She scrambled up and looked around her room. She was supposed to be at Mia’s at two. How had she fallen asleep again when she’d just woken up at eleven? Zoe shook her head and grabbed her backpack from her closet. Then she unhooked her laptop from its charger and shoved it in her backpack. She wanted to bring it to Mia’s to see if Mia could help her figure out who’d sent the super-creepy instant message and the e-mail to Noah. Mia was a total whiz with computers, and Zoe knew if anyone could figure it out, it was her best friend.

  Zoe thought about bringing her video camera, too, to show Mia the film disaster, but she was still too upset to even think about that part. Zoe quickly called her dad’s cell phone and left him a message that she was going to Mia’s for the afternoon.

  Zoe put on her backpack and her flip-flops and headed out to the garage. She faced her bike. After all the awful things that had happened, she had forgotten it had all started with her bike. She stared at the bike and hesitated for a minute before opening the garage door. She grabbed the handlebars roughly and jerked the bike toward the driveway. “Let’s be nice, okay?” she told it. Zoe adjusted her helmet and climbed onto her bike. She kicked off and started cautiously down the driveway. Everything was fine. She turned onto the sidewalk and carefully set off down Alder Street toward Mia’s house. Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me, Zoe thought. In her gut though, she knew it wasn’t true. Something weird and unnatural had happened to her bike the previous day — there was no denying it.

  Ten minutes later, she pulled her bike into Mia’s driveway. She had been tense and on edge the whole ride over, just waiting for something bad to happen, but nothing had. Still, Zoe couldn’t seem to calm the panic that was rising in her chest. Zoe parked her bike in Mia’s spotless garage and rang the doorbell.

  “Zoooeeee!” Mia’s three-year-old sister Annabel screeched through the screen door. She jumped up and down and twirled in a circle, her thin black pigtails flopping excitedly.

  “Hey, Anna B.,” Zoe laughed. “Is Mia here?”

  “Wanna see my new dolly?” Annabel asked, pressing her face flat against the screen.

  Mia appeared behind her, opening the door for Zoe. “We have very important things to do, Anna, so we’re going to my room now,” Mia said officially as she grabbed Zoe by the arm.

  “Bye-bye, Anna B.” Zoe patted her on the head.

  “Bye-bye, Zoe.” Annabel pouted, letting her dolly slip to the floor.

  Mia closed the door behind her and leaned on it like she wanted to be extra sure it was closed. “Phew, she’s exhausting sometimes.”

  “Cute, but exhausting,” Zoe agreed.

  Zoe kicked off her flip-flops and jumped onto Mia’s bed.

  “Zoe!” Mia cried. “Look at your toe.”

  “I know.” Zoe nodded as she opened her backpack and pulled out her laptop. “It looks like something out of a horror movie.”

  Zoe set the laptop in front of her on Mia’s bed and hit thePOWER button. “Maybe you’ll be able to figure out how my computer got hacked, M. You’re so much better with computer stuff than me.” Zoe was trying hard to ignore the growing sickness she felt. It was like the hole in her stomach kept expanding out from the center of her body like a giant ball of dread. She just wanted to get to the bottom of the creepy IM and the
bad e-mail. She wanted to be able to find a reasonable explanation for at least one of the horrible things that had happened to her in the past forty-eight hours.

  Mia joined Zoe on the bed. “I still can’t believe all the weird stuff that happened to you yesterday. I mean, it’s crazy!”

  “Tell me about it. I think I’m losing my mind or something. I hope you had a better day than I did.” Zoe tried to make her voice sound normal, but she could hear the shaky edge to every word she spoke.

  “Well, I had my modern dance class this morning,” Mia said quickly. Her eyes were bright and it was impossible for her to hide her excitement. “My teacher asked me to join her ‘elite group’ of dancers!”

  “Wow, Mia, that’s great,” Zoe said. She tried really hard to sound excited for her friend, but she was so scared and anxious that tears welled up in her eyes instead. For some reason, Mia’s happy news made Zoe feel even worse about everything that had happened the previous day.

  “Zoe?” Mia asked softly. “You okay?”

  Zoe wiped her eyes quickly. “Yeah, sorry. That’s really awesome about your dance class,” she said. “I’m sorry I’m being so weird. I just totally don’t feel like myself. I’m so freaked out. I just want to figure out what’s going on with my computer … and with my life!”

  Mia squeezed Zoe’s shoulder. “I don’t blame you,” she said sympathetically. “So, you think someone hacked into your e-mail?”

  “Well, that’s not all,” Zoe explained as she typed in her computer password. “This morning I was watching my movie from film camp, and parts of it had been completely erased!”

  Mia gasped. “Zoe! Oh no!”

  Zoe swallowed back more tears. “But I haven’t even gotten to the worst part yet. After we stopped chatting last night, another IM window popped up on my screen. Whoever it was didn’t have a screen name or anything. The message just said, ‘Your luck has run out, Zoe’!”

  “Are you serious?” Mia’s brown eyes widened in shock.

  “It was so scary, Mia.” Zoe’s voice was really shaky now. “I was wondering if there was any way to tell where the chat was coming from. Here — let me log in and you can look.”