Boy, Oh Boy!

by Laura Dower

  Sports & Teams

  The Far Hills Journal

  Faculty

  Links

  The I Don’t Like Ivy Daly at All Club

  Sometimes she got a little carried away.

  Faculty and students were logging on to the Web page on different computers all over school. Not just in the tech lab, but in the library media center, the administrative offices, the reading room, and even in the school newspaper headquarters.

  After being up only two days, it was already a huge success. The word was out.

  Madison and her friends felt so proud.

  Thanks to Mrs. Wing, all of this was happening. Madison noticed how Mrs. Wing’s iridescent shell earrings shimmered like magic each time they caught sunlight. They reminded Madison of the moonstone earrings Dad had bought her for seventh grade good luck. Working on computers was working magic on Maddie.

  One of the most important tasks of Mrs. Wing’s election Web site team was to get the online voting tabulation system to work properly. A Far Hills ninth-grade math teacher named Mr. Lynch installed more memory in all computers to make the election program work faster. He stayed around to help supervise the HTML coding, the special Web site-making language. Neither Madison nor the others knew HTML very well. Madison realized that even a smarter-than-smart teacher like Mrs. Wing needed help sometimes. Things really happened when they all worked together.

  They didn’t have a lot of time to do it. Mrs. Wing was pulling out all the stops. Next week was the election assembly and they had to be ready.

  Drew and Egg worked together during their free period to get the student polls in order. The first poll results were already in.

  What school issue is important to you in this year’s election? Please check off your #1 choice.

  1. Homework 51%

  2. Cafeteria food 16%

  3. After-school activities 14%

  4. Sports 10%

  5. Computer science 7%

  6. Other 2%

  One by one, the three of them checked through other grades’ Web pages for the status of all the candidates for the offices of president, vice president, class treasurer, secretary, and class reps. Everything looked fine, especially the seventh grade pages.

  Drew brought up the Montrell Morris candidate page. Montrell had written a poem for his page that ended with the lines: “How do you spell Montrell? W-I-N-N-E-R.”

  Then Drew glanced over the Tommy Kwong page. Tommy just had one banner across the top: “TOTALLY TOMMY.” Both Tommy’s and Montrell’s photos were a little blurry, but the links on their pages all worked.

  Egg opened up to the page marked Ivy Daly. Everything looked in order there, too, especially Ivy’s perfect red hair. He had to comment on that.

  “You can’t tell me this girl is not hot,” Egg said.

  Madison just rolled her eyes. She leaned over Egg’s shoulder and clicked NEXT. It moved along to Aimee’s page.

  “Whoa!” Egg said with a start.

  Madison stopped, blinked, and clicked the refresh button to reload the page.

  “Wait! Hold up!” Egg squirmed around in the chair. “Did you see that?”

  Madison punched at the keys frantically.

  “What is THAT?” Drew added. He was now looking over Drew’s other shoulder as the page reappeared. “Maddie, that is not Aimee.”

  Madison shook her head. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

  The image up on the screen next to “Aimee Gillespie” was most definitely not Aimee. Not at all. On the computer screen, in the spot where Aimee’s photograph had been, was a photograph of an ugly, spiny, old lizard.

  “A heloderma!” Madison shrieked. “How did a helo—”

  “Hello—huh?” Drew wrinkled his nose.

  “A heloderma! A gila monster! A LIZARD!” said Madison.

  “How do you know that?” Egg asked.

  “Is this some kind of joke!” Madison squealed a little louder. “Did one of you guys do this?”

  “Don’t look at me!” Drew was very confused.

  Egg shook his head. “Hey, I know I cause trouble, but this is like way beyond me.”

  “Then who put a gila monster up there? This is AWFUL!”

  “Since when do you know gila monsters, Maddie? What, did you see one when you and your mom were in Brazil or something?” Egg blurted out.

  Madison didn’t like the way he was asking her questions. She pointed at the monitor. “Are you responsible for this, Egg Diaz? Is this how you get back at me?”

  “Get back at you for what?” Egg said. “You know, Drew, I think Aimee and gila actually look a little the same. Whaddya say?”

  Madison almost laughed—but she didn’t.

  “Put a lid on it, Egg,” Drew said. He pinched Egg’s arm.

  Egg winced in pain. “Owwwch. What did you do that for?”

  “Quick!” Madison tapped at the keyboard. “You guys, how many hits has the page received today?”

  Egg read the number off the screen. “Two-hundred and ninety-one. Jeez, that’s a lot of gila monster lovers.”

  “EGG! I’M SERIOUS!”

  Mrs. Wing dashed back into the classroom at that exact moment and rushed over to help. She knew exactly how to fix the screen with all joking aside.

  In only a few minutes the four of them were able to remove gila and get back Aimee.

  Madison just kept shaking her head. “I don’t understand. Yesterday we were here. We were here and everything seemed fine. … Aimee looked like Aimee, not like some—”

  “Lizard?” Egg interjected. Madison shot him a look.

  “Well, when was the last time you checked the site?” Mrs. Wing asked Madison. “This is a breach of the site. We need to look into it.”

  “Breach?” Madison let out a huge sigh. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she kept apologizing. She was crushed by the thought that somehow she’d failed. “This is all my fault. I must have done something—I’m sorry!”

  “Madison, calm down. Now, we’ve deleted the photo of the—”

  “Lizard,” Egg piped up again. Madison shot him another look.

  Drew gave him a noogie on the side of his arm.

  “Stop!” Egg said.

  “Would you two please relax?” Mrs. Wing said.

  She made it clear that she would file a memo to administration, but that it was probably an “isolated incident,” so no, they didn’t have to cause a big fuss.

  “However,” Mrs. Wing added, “I think you three need to keep a closer watch on these pages just to make sure that we don’t have any more funny stuff, okay? People like to play jokes, especially around election time. Be sure to let me know if anything else comes up, will you?”

  Madison nodded emphatically, relieved that no more would be said about the lizard. She never wanted to see its spiny little body again, and she hoped that Aimee hadn’t seen it—ever.

  Unfortunately, by the end of the day, most of the teachers and students, and even Principal Bernard had seen it. Everyone including Aimee.

  A wisecracking eighth grader had found the messed-up page and printed out a hard copy that got stuck up on the elevator bulletin board. Another kid posted a copy in the girl’s bathroom with a note written in pencil: “LIZ” GILLESPIE FOR CLASS PREZ.

  It was a disaster.

  “Maddie, how could this have happened? I thought you were in charge of the election Web site! I thought you were helping with my campaign! I thought you were MY FRIEND!” Aimee shrieked as she confronted Maddie in a deserted stairwell. Her voice ricocheted off the walls and windows.

  “Aimee, pleasepleaseplease let me explain,” Madison pleaded. “I am so so so so so sorry that it ever happened. But we fixed it. I mean we didn’t do it on purpose. …”

  “I don’t think you understand how embarrassing this is,” Aimee said, shaking a little. Usually she looked graceful, but now she was sputtering. “Look, you’re responsible for the Web site, right?”

  “I know, I kn
ow. I feel awful.” At this point, Madison was tempted to get down on her knees. She didn’t want Aimee to be mad or sad.

  “Maddie, who would do this? Are you gonna find out who? Oh-em-gee I am so embarrassed. I AM MORTIFIED.”

  Aimee didn’t want anything to get in the way of her race to whup Ivy Daly in the school election. Madison knew a thing or two about awful embarrassing moments. She was often on the run from embarrassment.

  “Can we please stop yelling?” Madison said softly. She saw imaginary steam steaming out of Aimee’s ears, she looked that mad.

  Suddenly, a fire door opened one flight up. Aimee and Madison clammed up. They waited to hear a second door creak open and slam shut.

  “Wait!” Aimee shouted when the door slammed.

  “What?” Madison was surprised.

  “It wasn’t you!” Aimee cried out, coming to a sudden realization. “Maddie, wait! I know who did this. This isn’t your fault!”

  “That’s what I’ve been saying.” Madison’s eyes glazed over.

  “And if it isn’t your fault and it isn’t Egg’s fault and it isn’t Drew’s fault …”

  “Then who?” Madison wondered aloud.

  “This is Ivy Daly’s fault! Of course! It has to be Poison Ivy! Think about it, Maddie. She probably did it because she was annoyed at me because my profile was better and she just knew I would win. So she logged on to the site, went online, and ruined my photo.”

  Madison thought for a minute.

  “Doesn’t that sound just like her?” Aimee said accusingly.

  “Well …” Madison took a deep breath. “I dunno.”

  “Maddie!” Aimee insisted. “It has to be her! Who else would do this?”

  Madison sighed again. She wanted Ivy to lose the school election as much as Aimee did, but she didn’t want to accuse her of something like this—did she?

  “Aimee, do you really think she would think of something like this? It seems a little shady, even for her.”

  “Absolutely. And now the joke is gonna be on Ivy. I’m gonna tell everyone at school tomorrow about what she did.”

  “Wait. I think we should find out for sure if she did it first,” Madison said.

  “Wait? Geesh, Maddie, whose side are you on?”

  Madison was never on someone’s “side.” She was in the middle, as usual. “After all,” she wanted to scream to Aimee, “accusing Ivy doesn’t even make sense.”

  As the night wore on Aimee became more and more convinced that Ivy was the culprit. Madison silently grew more and more convinced that Ivy wasn’t responsible. First, Ivy was so good at computers. Second, Ivy was the kind of meanie who said stuff to your face—not behind your back. Some other hacker had to have done it.

  But who?

  It was an election Web site mystery.

  Chapter 8

  ROGER

  SOMETIMES I WISH I had an older brother like Roger Gillespie. Does Aimee know how great it is to have someone listen and really listen, not the kind of listening moms and dads do because they want to protect you and play it safe? Roger listens like he wants to really help.

  This morning Aimee had to leave for her dance practice at like 6:30 and I was talking to Roger at breakfast about the problems we had with the election Web site. I asked him what I should do since Aimee was saying Ivy had put the lizard on the Web site but I didn’t think so. I don’t think Ivy even knows what a gila monster is.

  Roger says don’t put myself in the middle.

  He says maybe being in the middle is why I feel crushed by different things, like being the meat in a sandwich or something.

  Rude Awakening: I’m sandwich meat?

  No wonder boys don’t like me.

  After adding to some pages in her files, Madison ducked into ShnaZZy’s, her favorite online shopping site. It was a place where you could buy clothes and books and candles and other cool objects. She wrote down the online code and inventory numbers for a few things she desperately wanted. She knew when Mom came back home, the items would probably never get ordered, but she still liked to think about having them.

  SWTTLK09214Q

  Zipper Sweater with Flower Appliqué

  SWTTLK09203Q

  Cargo Pantskirt Camouflage Pattern

  SWTTLK09239Q

  Fuzzy Scrapbook

  SWTTLK09218Q

  Baby Tee (Orange Neon)

  By the time Madison got into school that morning, her head was overflowing with over-thoughts about boys and clothes, and, of course, the election. She headed straight for Mrs. Wing’s classroom.

  “Madison!” Mrs. Wing cried out as soon as Madison walked into the room.

  Egg was in the room, too. Drew wasn’t in school yet.

  “Madison, we have a problem,” Egg said in an announcer’s voice.

  Madison’s stomach flopped. She imagined Aimee’s Web page again: Attack of the Gila Monster, Part Two. She was afraid to look.

  “See?” Egg pointed to the computer screen. “Problem.”

  Madison’s heart sank.

  “What is this?” Mrs. Wing asked, pointing at Ivy’s page.

  There, under the flashing name IVY DALY was not a photo of a seventh grader with picture-perfect long red hair, but a photo of a skunk.

  “A skunk?” Madison said with disbelief. She covered her face with her hands.

  Egg chuckled. “Really smells, doesn’t it?”

  Madison frowned. “Not the time to be funny.”

  “Now I think we need to take this seriously, you two. I think I have to let Principal Bernard know what is happening now.”

  “Mrs. Wing, I swear we triple-checked all the pages, the scans, the HTML code you and Mr. Lynch showed us how to input. I swear.”

  Mrs. Wing nodded. “I’m sure you did.”

  Drew walked in on the mess. He couldn’t believe his eyes. “Oh no. Look! Ivy’s a skunk, Maddie.”

  “No kidding, smart guy!” Egg said.

  “Oh, Mrs. Wing I know that I double-checked the scans yesterday, too. We all did. I just don’t—”

  “Madison, I don’t blame you. I don’t blame any of you. But now this is a problem I have to handle from here.” Mrs. Wing took over.

  Madison stared at the monitor. Seeing the skunk on the page meant that her ideas about Ivy being the true hacker were all wrong.

  So who was it?

  The mystery plot thickened.

  “Mrs. Wing, I want to figure out who did this.” Madison decided on the spot that she had to be the person to find the source of the problem—even if she didn’t know where to begin.

  “Well, I am still filing a report with the principal. But I’ll let you look into this immediately. Tomorrow we’ll meet again to talk about it.”

  The three of them spent the next half-hour eliminating Miss Skunk and putting Ivy’s real photo back online.

  The remainder of the day passed by in a kind of haze. At every corridor turn, at the door to each class, Madison kept expecting some kind of showdown with Ivy, just as she’d had a showdown with Aimee. No matter what Mrs. Wing said, Madison felt responsible.

  Madison didn’t see Ivy in science class. Did her absence mean she hadn’t seen it yet and she was just late to class? Had the skunk been safely removed in time? Or had she seen it and run screaming from the building?

  A little after three o’clock, after the second bell, Madison got her answer. And the only screaming Ivy was ready to do was in Madison’s direction.

  “Hey, Finnster,” a sarcastic voice howled from behind Madison as she went through her locker.

  She twisted around.

  “Madison Finn, I want an apology and I want it RIGHT NOW!” Ivy was standing there with hands on her hips, lips drawn into a mean pout.

  “Apology for what?”

  “For messing with my campaign. For messing with ME!” Ivy tossed her red hair back and a little fell into her eyes. She poked Madison in the breastbone with her pointy finger. “YOU can’t get away with this.”r />
  “Don’t touch me,” Madison pushed the finger away. “Ivy, I’m trying to figure it out, I swear.”

  “I heard that you put a certain picture of a certain animal up on my page of the school site. I heard that you’re trying to trash me and my chances to win class president. I heard—”

  “Well, you heard WRONG,” Madison asserted. “Who tells you this stuff?”

  “None of your business!” Ivy snorted. “You don’t play fair.”

  “I play fair, Ivy, even with you.”

  “What’s up with that?” Ivy pressed her palm up against the locker so Madison couldn’t get in to get her last book. “I wonder what Principal Bernard will say about all this. I wonder what he heard,” she added in a mocking tone of voice.

  “Quit it, Ivy. I won’t let you scare me.”

  “You are the scary one, Madison Finn.”

  “When did you get so mean, Ivy? You used to be so nice.”

  “What are you, Queen of Nice?”

  The two enemies were practically spitting on each other. A few lockers away, a small crowd was gathering.

  “Madison Finn, you don’t know what nice is.”

  “Ivy Daly, you don’t know what friendship is.”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  “You’re stupid.”

  “No, you are.”

  “Liar,” Madison said without thinking.

  “You are the liar,” Ivy yelled.

  “Takes one to know one.”

  “You’re the one who backstabs and runs away from friends.”

  “Shut up!” Madison felt her skin get all clammy. This had become so personal all of a sudden. It wasn’t really about the skunk anymore and they both knew it. Suddenly Madison felt like she was back in third grade with her scratchy knee socks and braids.

  Ivy yelled a little louder. “So why should I believe anything you ever say?”

  “Believe whatever you want,” Madison shot back. “I didn’t put the picture up there. Go ahead and tell the principal. I don’t care.”

  “I think I WILL tell.”

  “You know what. Ivy? You’re no skunk. You’re a RAT!”

  “Well, you’re a—” For a split second it seemed that Ivy didn’t have a response. She gave Madison an evil stare and took a deep breath. “You’re a COW.”