The Mystery of the Cyber Bully

by Marty Chan

  “It’ll take just a few minutes to get the IP address.”

  Flashing across the screen were a series of alphanumeric strings that made absolutely no sense.

  “And you can zero in on the cyber bully’s exact location with this program?” I asked.

  She continued typing. “No. This gives me the IP address. I have to load another program to get the coordinates of the computer.”

  “Cool,” I said. “Then we’ll know for sure who the cyber bully is.” I nodded at Trina.

  She scrunched her freckled face but said nothing.

  “It’s not that easy,” Mikayla explained. “We’ll get a roundabout location of the computer. Not an address, but GPS coordinates.”

  “GP what?” I asked.

  “Hel-lo, global positioning system,” Trina said. “You get the latitude and longitude coordinates so you can pinpoint a location. So you can find people.”

  I filed away the definition in my memory, remembering that a position could be anywhere on the globe. What a cool system. Except, there was a problem. “How do translate the coordinates into a street address?”

  “I’ll need a map of Bouvier and a compass. It’ll take some time to work out the math and match them up to the grid, but I think I’ll be able to figure it out.”

  “Or, we could just use the GPS in my parents’ car,” Mikayla suggested.

  Trina’s face turned bright pink. “If you wanted to do it the easy way,” she mumbled.

  “What are we waiting for?” I said. “Let’s go.”

  Mikayla climbed out of the butt groove and beckoned us to follow. I sauntered after her. No need to rush. I expected we’d just walk across the street and down the block to Nathan’s house. She grabbed a key from the kitchen wall hook, pushed open the back door for us, and led us to the small stucco garage at the back of the house. We had to navigate a landmine of kids’ toys from turned-over strollers to various stuffed animals. This looked like a toddler’s playground, not the backyard of a grade six student. Trina raised her eyebrow at me. Mikayla caught the look.

  “My auntie was visiting with her kids,” she explained. “They’re not my toys.”

  She opened the side door and headed inside the garage. I peeked through the doorway at a blue minivan and a carpenter’s dream garage. Saws, hammers and workbenches surrounded the vehicle, leaving barely enough room for her to open the driver’s door. She reached inside and snapped off a tiny, grey handheld GPS unit that was mounted on the inside of the windshield. Trina and I stepped back as she punched in the coordinates.

  “You sure you have the right coordinates?” Trina asked.

  Mikayla nodded. “As long as the program gave us the right coordinates, the GPS will lead us straight to the cyber bully.”

  “Let’s move,” I said.

  Our trio headed into the alley. The small screen revealed a cartoon map of streets and an icon of a car following a green arrow. I knew the cartoon car would end up in front of Nathan’s house, but the device barked out “Turn right” in a woman’s gruff Australian accent.

  “What was that?” Trina asked.

  “Voice navigation,” Mikayla said, as she ran her finger across the screen. “I’ll turn it off. Gets annoying after a while.”

  More annoying was the fact that we were going in the opposite direction of Nathan’s house. Maybe the GPS unit was going to find an alternate route to the house. Instead, the unit led us further away. We were headed toward Main Street.

  “Are you sure this thing is working properly?” I asked.

  “My parents use it all the time. We never got lost. Well, almost never. One time my dad punched in the wrong address and we ended up in Canmore when we were supposed to go to Calgary.”

  “Did you enter the right coordinates?”

  “I sure hope so,” Trina said.

  We reached Main Street and turned left. The arrow pointed ahead, leading us along the block and still further from Nathan’s house. My heart sank, but little icy ants crawled up and down my legs as we got closer to our target. Even though I was wrong about Nathan, I couldn’t help but get excited about the prospect of closing the case. I felt like I was playing a game of chess and I was only one move away from checkmate. All I had to do was wait for my opponent to move his rook so I could capture his king. The win couldn’t come soon enough. Halfway down the block, Mikayla came to a stop. The arrow was gone.

  “We’re here,” she announced.

  Around us was the liquor store, a convenience outlet, a hair salon and gas station. This was more like a stalemate than a win. There was no way a cyber bully would be sending notes from any of these stores.

  Then I noticed it. Across the street, a sign above a shop’s picture window caught my eye. It read: Black’s Dojo.

  I beamed at Trina and Mikayla. “I was right.”

  Behind the plate-glass window, kids practised karate moves under the instruction of Nathan’s father. They threw kicks in the air at invisible opponents and tried to maintain their balance with one foot in the air. They reminded me of my old plastic soldiers that I had to prop against each other because they could never stand upright on their own. Among the wobbly students was Stalker Stan, who was currently trying to work out a charley horse on the sidelines. I imagined Nathan was in the office sending nasty messages on his dad’s office computer. I also imagined his reign of terror coming to an abrupt end. I was going to expose him.

  But before I could take a step toward the dojo, Mikayla stopped me. “Not like this. We don’t want to give him any chance to get away.”

  Trina nodded. “She’s right. If Nathan’s at the computer right now and he sees us go in the dojo, he’ll know something is up and wipe out the evidence.”

  “But he’s there right now,” I said.

  “We have to wait until he’s out of the office and then we can swoop in like the FBI. Catch him off guard,” explained Trina. “So he can’t erase anything.”

  As much as I hated to admit, the girls were right. “Okay, we’ll stake out the dojo and wait for him to come out of the back.”

  “We should get Samantha and Ida,” Trina said. “They can help with the stakeout. Plus, they’ll want to hear the good news.”

  “But what if Nathan does something while we’re gone?”

  Mikayla nodded. “Marty and I can stay here. Together.” She moved closer to me. Too close. Way too close.

  “You know what?” I said. “Maybe it’s better if we get them. Let’s go. He’s probably going to be here for a while.”

  Samantha was glad to be relieved of her duties. The town librarian was giving her a dirty look for lurking around the computer stations. Samantha practically skipped out of the building when we came to get her and she broke into a huge smile when I told her what we had discovered. We rushed down the street to tell Ida the good news.

  She wasn’t so pleased when we found her. She was planted at one of the internet stations at the back of the café, sipping coffee and staring intently at the monitor. The only other users in the café were two old men in plaid shirts who seemed less interested in the computers and more interested in the coffee and conversation with the blonde waitress.

  “Good news!” I shouted across the dimly lit café. “We got him.”

  The waitress shushed us and went back to gabbing with the two men. Our gang navigated the internet tables to get to Ida at the back of the room.

  “It’s Nathan Black. He’s the cyber bully. I was right,” I said.

  She scowled at me.

  “Mikayla traced his message all the way to his dad’s dojo,” I continued.

  Ida shook her head. “It’s not Nathan.”

  “What?” I said.

  “Why not?” Trina asked.

  Samantha and Mikayla looked at each other, confused.

  “Better if you see it with your own eyes,” Ida said, waving for us to sit down with her. “This showed up in my email a few minutes ago.”

  We leaned toward the computer monit
or. The still video image of Nathan Black was on the screen. Ida moved the mouse pointer to play the video clip. He looked completely oblivious to the camera as he posed in his karate top and baby-blue pyjama bottoms. He threw punches and kicks at invisible opponents in the middle of what looked like the backyard of his house.

  “I see the ninjas of the Green Hand have come to challenge me in my home. In my own home. You will all regret your decision to trespass. Hi-ya!”

  Nathan danced around the yard, swinging at saplings and kicking at the air. At one point, he delivered a deadly blow to a little red wagon parked on the lawn. He hopped away, clutching his hand. I had to stifle a giggle, as I watched him dancing around in his teddy bear pyjamas.

  “There are too many of you to take with just my bare hands. But I am prepared for you.”

  He reached behind his back and pulled out a pair of nunchuks. I had seen Bruce Lee use them in old martial-arts movies. The ones in the movies were two black sticks of wood held together with a length of chain, while Nathan’s weapons were a couple of rolled-up comic books attached with kite string. He swung his weapon over his head like a propeller, and then brought it down in front of him as if he were striking an invisible opponent. He stepped back and flipped the nunchuks behind his back and under his arm.

  Samantha laughed. “He looks like a total loser in those pyjama bottoms.”

  I shushed her as I watched the video. Nathan went into another series of moves, spinning his homemade nunchuks faster and faster. Behind his back. Under his arms. Around his neck.

  Nathan announced, “Now, feel my wrath!”

  He flipped the nunchuks off his shoulder and swung them between his legs. He misjudged the distance and the rolled up comic book smacked where the string should have landed. Nathan crumpled to the ground like a frightened armadillo. He yelped in pain and rolled on the grass, his pyjama bottoms slipping down to show off his underwear.

  The girls laughed, but Ida shook her head. “Guys, you’re not going to like this,” she said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “The video was sent to everyone in our class.”

  “So?” Trina said.

  Ida looked at me. “Marty sent the video.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Ida replayed the video. Samantha and Mikayla chuckled and pointed at Nathan’s bottoms. I felt sick. I was so sure that Nathan was the cyber bully, and now I was staring at proof that he was another one of the cyber bully’s many victims. Worse, I was being framed for the video, and I was sure that Nathan was going to want some kind of revenge, and it would involve either my head in a toilet, or the mother of all wedgies. Most likely, a combination of the two along with some purple nurples and snake bites.

  Trina patted me on the back, “Okay, it’s not Nathan, but we know it has to be someone in the dojo right now. The IM was sent from there so the cyber bully has to be one of the students there.”

  “Not exactly,” Mikayla corrected.

  “What do you mean not exactly?” I asked.

  “You said the GPS coordinates would give us the exact location,” Trina said.

  Mikayla shook her head. “Yes, but the IP search program I used might have been off.”

  “You mean there’s a chance that the cyber bully might not be in the dojo?” I said.

  Samantha shook her head. “No. It has to be the dojo. The bully is there.”

  Ida shut down the computer. “Only one way to be sure.”

  No need to tell me twice. I spun on my heels and led the charge out of the café, down the street. Unfortunately, by the time we got to the dojo, it was empty.

  “Maybe we can get a list of the students,” Trina suggested.

  “Why would Nathan’s dad give us that?” Ida said.

  “I could talk to Remi,” Trina said. “He might help us. I could ask him.”

  I was pretty sure Remi had made his alliances clear. “No,” I said. “Even if he did agree to help, we couldn’t get a list of the students before the morning, and by that time Nathan will have heard about the video or seen it.”

  Samantha patted me on the back. “You can always pretend to be sick.”

  “Hel-lo, Marty won’t be able to stay away from school forever. Sooner or later, Nathan’s going to get him.” Trina turned to me. “What do we do?”

  “Let’s fan out. Knock on the door of the houses in the area,” I said. “Mikayla’s search program might have been off by a block or so.”

  Samantha scratched at her wristband. “It’s getting close to dinnertime.”

  “Lame-oh excuse. I’ll help,” Mikayla said.

  Trina nodded. “Let’s go.”

  Samantha sighed and agreed to go along with the search. We spread out in different directions. I headed behind the dojo and started to knock on doors, but no one answered at the first three houses. Across the street, Mikayla had similar luck.

  I pounded on the fourth door and a man in a black jacket answered. The crown and buffalo crest on the jacket meant one thing. I was talking to a cop.

  “Excuse me, but I’m wondering if you have a computer in your house,” I asked.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Um . . . school project . . . we’re doing a survey.”

  He stroked his bushy brown moustache and unclipped his shirt pocket, pulling out a notepad.

  “Really? Who’s your teacher? And does she know you’re casing houses.”

  “What?”

  “Casing, as in figuring out which ones to rob.”

  “No, I’m not doing that,” I explained.

  “Your parents own the Super A Foods, don’t they?”

  Things were going from bad to worse. “Yeah.”

  “Tell you what. I’ve had a long shift, so I’m in no mood for extra paperwork. Go home.” He looked across the street at Mikayla. “Tell your friend that I have your name and if anything goes missing from any house on this block tonight or this week, I know where to start looking. Got it?”

  I nodded.

  “Go.”

  I hurried off the guy’s lawn and grabbed Mikayla. “The search is a bust. Get the other girls and tell them to go home.”

  “What are you going to do, Marty?”

  I shrugged. “I’ll figure out something.”

  This was going to be a long night.

  Some people could sense if they were going to have a good day or a bad day just by how they looked when they woke up. If a person jumped out of bed and saw himself in the mirror with perfect hair, he knew things were going to go his way. If the same person crawled out of bed and discovered a giant zit on the end of his nose, he knew his day was doomed. When I woke up the next day, I didn’t need to get of bed to know that I looked like dog barf, which Remi often called wet woof. I hadn’t slept a wink all night. If I were a slice of pizza, I’d be the one that fell behind the stove and wasn’t found for a couple of weeks. I curled up under my blanket and wished I could travel back in time.

  “Get up. You be late for school,” Mom said.

  I peeked from under my blanket. Mom was chewing what looked like a sandwich, but smelled like a pickle jar.

  “I’m not feeling good, Mom.”

  She placed the back of her hand on my forehead. She smelled of pickles and sardines. I suddenly wanted to throw up.

  “You not have fever.”

  “It’s my stomach,” I lied. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

  “Maybe you stay home today.”

  “Yeah, that would be a good idea.”

  She nodded. “Then you can rub my feet.”

  “I think I’m starting to feel better.”

  “I have something stuck in between my toes. You can clean it for me.”

  I threw my covers off and jumped up. “Must have been a twenty-four-hour flu. I’m good now.”

  “I think my feet smell bad. You want to check?”

  I sprinted out of the room.

  In the schoolyard, news of the video had spread. One look at the
gawking grade six kids told me all I needed to know. Their gazes followed me as I walked toward the building. I felt like I was in one of those ancient western movies that ran on the oldies movie channel. The kids lined up against the wall and watched me shamble to the shootout. At the far end of the building, Kennedy was showing off something around his waist to Eric and Ben.

  “You don’t want to mess with me now,” Kennedy said.

  “Why is it green?” Ben asked.

  Eric quipped, “It’s because he wiped his snot on it.”

  “Never disrespect the belt,” Kennedy said. “That’s the first thing you learn in karate.”

  There was no sign of Nathan, but I knew he was around. Just like a western movie, the villain gunslinger was always lurking in the shadows. I could stand out in the open and wait for him to pick me off, or I could take cover. I couldn’t stand the stares any longer and bolted for the school shed, the only place where I would be safe. My sanctuary from whatever problem I had created for myself. But it was no haven today. Nathan leaned against the wooden doors, waiting for me. He held the black and silver walkie-talkie that once belonged to me.

  “I owe you a toonie, over,” Nathan said into the walkie-talkie. He clicked it off and lowered the antenna. “Boudreau told me you’d be here.”

  My friend, my former friend, had betrayed me, but I had no time to think about why he would get payback through Nathan. I had to deal with the bully in front of me. “What do you want?”

  “I wanted some alone time with the guy who tried to humiliate me,” Nathan said. “Anderson showed me the video. Nice camera work. I don’t know when you shot it, but you must have had a good laugh.”

  “I didn’t shoot the video,” I said.

  “Oh? Who was it?” he asked. “Maybe your girlfriend, Brewster.”

  “Leave her out of this.”

  He smiled. “Principal Henday doesn’t like cyber bullies in this school. He doesn’t like any kind of bully.

  If you want to get off the hook, maybe you should rat out another one of your friends.”