Wait.

  There was something on this one. “This is most curious,” he muttered. He picked up the telephone and punched in an extension. The speaker in the receiver chirped twice and clicked, then a female voice said, “Data entry. This is Anne.”

  “Hello, Anne. Eugene Meltsner here in computer security. Could you please bring in your reports about a student named”—he squinted at the screen—“Kenneth Ellis? I believe his grades were entered on the fifth of the month.”

  “Ellis . . . Kenneth . . . Got it. Okeydokey. I’ll be right in.”

  “Thank you.”

  Eugene placed the receiver in its cradle and stared at the grade sheet again as Nicholas walked up.

  “What’s wrong, Mr.—Eugene?”

  “I was double-checking students’ grades, and I found one that doesn’t match.”

  “Doesn’t match?”

  Eugene pointed to his computer screen. “Look. According to the computer screen, Kenneth Ellis got an A in his chemistry class. But”—he held up the grade-sheet folder—“according to this report here, he got an F. He failed it.”

  There was a soft knock at the door. Eugene rose and quickly crossed the room. “This might help.”

  He opened the door, and Anne, a cute, young data-entry person, poked her head in and shoved a file toward him. “Here’s that report you wanted, Eugene.”

  “Thank you, Anne.” He took it from her, she retreated, and he let the door auto-shut behind him. He riffled through the file’s pages as he made his way back to his desk. He found the sheet he wanted and scanned it quickly.

  There it was again. “Aha! According to this report, the grade was entered as an F.”

  Nicholas swallowed hard. “M-maybe somebody made a mistake.”

  Eugene frowned. “How? After the grade was entered into the computer last month, no one was supposed to touch it. It was input as an F then, and it should be an F now. Yet it isn’t . . . see? The computer now clearly shows that Kenneth Ellis got an A.”

  “Maybe there’s a bug in the system.”

  Eugene scratched his head. “Hmm. I don’t think so. Unless, of course, the teacher had made a mistake and then asked for the grade to be changed.” He thought for a moment, then closed the file, plopped it on his desk, and said, “I’ll be back in a little while, Nicholas. I’m going to find Kenneth Ellis’s chemistry professor.”

  And before Nicholas could respond, Eugene crossed the room in three strides, pushed open the door, and headed down the hallway toward the building entrance.

  Eugene crossed the quad to the science building, where Professor Cyril’s office was located, only to discover that he had left several minutes earlier to teach a class. Eugene then went to the professor’s normal classroom, where a sign on the door said that Cyril’s class had been moved to room 408 in the social sciences building across campus.

  Eugene raced from the building and headed after him, hoping to catch him before he reached his destination. He wasn’t disappointed. The professor—midfifties and balding, with a full, graying beard—wore a herringbone jacket with leather patches on the elbows and black-framed, thick-lensed glasses. He was toting a heavily laden book bag toward the social sciences building as Eugene ran up to him. “Professor Cyril! Professor Cyril!”

  Cyril stopped and turned to Eugene. “Yes? What is it, young man?”

  Eugene grabbed at the stitch in his side and gulped in air. “I’ve been . . . looking for you . . . all over . . . campus.”

  “Mmm,” the professor grunted. “That’s because they scheduled my lectures all over campus. No respect after all these years.”

  “Do you . . . have a minute? I must ask you . . . a couple of . . . questions.”

  “My office hours are posted on my office door. See me then.”

  He turned to go, but Eugene stopped him. “No, sir, you don’t understand . . . I’m not one of your students.” He finally caught his breath. “I work in the computer security division here at the college. I need to ask about one of your students.”

  Cyril’s eyebrows raised. “Oh! You’ll have to come to my office then. All my records are there. Which student?”

  “Kenneth Ellis.”

  The professor sneered. “Ellis! What’s he done now?”

  “You remember him?”

  “You’d better believe it!” Cyril nodded. “Nothing but a troublemaker. There were two of them—Ken Ellis, and what was his name? . . . Pearce! Yes, Donald Pearce. That’s it. Ken Ellis and Donald Pearce. Two of a kind. Barely came to the lectures, and when they did, they made a mess of everything. Cracking jokes, spoiling experiments, lighting afire strands of their hair, releasing hydrogen sulfide in the lab. Those two are hard to forget.”

  Eugene wrinkled his nose at the thought of the rotten smell of hydrogen sulfide. “Do you remember what Ellis’s final grade was?”

  The professor snorted. “Ha! That’s easy. An F. What else could I give him? Gave Pearce an F too.”

  “So you distinctly remember giving Kenneth Ellis a failing grade?” Eugene said insistently.

  “I just said so, didn’t I?” Cyril snapped. “Look, you’ll have to excuse me. My next class is in that building over there, and up four flights of stairs.” He moved off, muttering, “This’ll be a lot easier when I get tenure.”

  Eugene called after him. “Thank you, Professor! You’ve been a big—” But Cyril was gone. “Uh . . . help.” Eugene frowned, then turned and headed back to the information technology building, deep in thought. Well, now, this is turning into quite a mystery.

  Eugene slid his keycard into the slot outside the computer security room, then punched in the code. The door buzzed, he turned the knob, pushed the door open, and entered. It auto-shut behind him. Nicholas was at his workstation but stopped working when Eugene entered. The boy watched as Eugene made a beeline to his own desk and computer. Eugene sat and began typing rapidly on the keyboard.

  Nicholas said, “Did you find out anything about Kenneth Ellis?”

  “Yes.” He kept typing and muttered, “Donald Pearce . . . Donald Pearce . . . Donald—There it is. Donald Pearce.”

  Nicholas slipped off his stool and approached Eugene. “Donald Pearce?”

  Eugene nodded. “Professor Cyril, the chemistry teacher, said he definitely gave Kenneth Ellis a failing grade, but it’s here on the computer as an A. The professor also happened to mention that he gave Donald Pearce a failing grade too. Pearce and Ellis were both in the same class. Real troublemakers, apparently. And I want to double-check to see if—” He stopped typing suddenly. “Yes. There it is! Just as I suspected. It says here that Donald Pearce got an A in that chemistry class as well. There’s definitely something going on here.”

  Nicholas shrugged. “Another mistake?”

  Eugene shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He turned to the boy and said animatedly, “Nicholas, do you see what this means? Somehow someone got into this computer system and changed Ken Ellis’s and Donald Pearce’s grades!”

  Nicholas swallowed hard. “A hacker? Do you think someone’s tapping in from the outside?”

  “Possibly. But I don’t know how.” Eugene leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “This system is supposed to be foolproof against anyone but authorized personnel getting into it.” His hand went up to his chin, and he scratched it gently.

  Had Eugene been looking at Nicholas, he would have noticed the boy’s complexion had paled. “Maybe it’s an odd coincidence, Mr. Meltsner. Maybe it’s no big deal. I-I wouldn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it.”

  Eugene kept staring at the screen and stroking his chin. “I don’t agree. If someone knows how to change two grades, then what’s to stop them from changing four . . . or twenty . . . or hundreds? I’ve read of students charging a lot of money to change failing grades to passing ones.”

  Nicholas laughed nervously, “Heh-heh . . . at Campbell College? Be careful, sir, not to let your imagination run away with you.”

  Eugene stopped scratching his chin, looked at Nicholas, and nodded. “Yes . . . you’re right.” He leaned forward in his chair. “I have to think clearly about this. There must be a way to find out who is doing it—and why.” His eyes narrowed. “And that is precisely what I’m going to do.” He started typing furiously again.

  Nicholas’s eyes were as wide as saucers. He licked his lips, backed away slowly, and returned to his workstation.

  Chapter Ten

  Dear Mom,

  I had to send Lucy home from camp today.

  Dear, sweet, gentle, kind, considerate, obedient Lucy Cunningham-Schultz blatantly defied the rules again—even more seriously this time than before. I can’t believe it. I also can’t believe I had the courage to follow through with such a severe punishment.

  Here’s what happened: I spoke to the camp director, and he agreed that the girls should get the chance to compete with the boys at recreational and sports activities. So my girls competed against the boys in cabin 7 in a contest involving archery, canoeing, and a relay race. Those two cabins contained the kids from Whit’s End: Jack, Jimmy, and Oscar against Donna, Robyn, and Alison. Lucy was the substitute for my cabin, and they made me the announcer for the whole competition.

  Now I didn’t know that Robyn and Donna had gotten so fed up with Alison’s obsession over TV, and Alison had gotten so fed up with Robyn’s and Donna’s obsessions with clothes, hair, and makeup, that they made a deal. Robyn and Donna would stop talking about how they looked if Alison would stop talking about TV.

  It seemed to work—for a while. The boys won the archery contest because Jimmy distracted Robyn right as she was about to shoot, and my girls won the canoeing competition because the boys forgot to untie their canoe from the dock. They were all even going into the relay race. In this relay, each runner had to wear a hat upside down. Inside the first runner’s hat was an egg. The first runner had to go halfway around the track to the second runner, then move the egg from the first hat to the second hat without touching anything or breaking the egg. The second runner then had to do the same with the third runner. Whichever team got to the starting line first without breaking its egg would win the whole competition.

  It was a close race right up to the last handoff. But Alison had trouble getting the egg into Robyn’s hat—mainly because Robyn was concerned that the egg would drop and break on her new jogging shoes. Unfortunately, she said this out loud to Alison, who was so happy to have won the no-talking-about-clothes-and-TV agreement that she actually did drop the egg—which broke on Robyn’s new jogging shoes! It looked like the boys would win everything. But Oscar dumped their egg into Jack’s hat so hard, it also broke and ran down the side of Jack’s face.

  So no one won the competition. Coach Zachary and the camp director decided that because the boys weren’t exactly good sports throughout the competition, they needed to spend a little quality time scrubbing floors and washing windows. Meanwhile, back in my cabin, there were plenty of feelings to sort out: Robyn and Donna were mad at Alison, who was elated that she hadn’t caved first, and so she could now yammer to her heart’s content about TV again. I reminded everybody that first and foremost, we should treat each other with love. They all admitted they had forgotten that point.

  I also reminded Alison about the Bible verse in Philippians, where it says, “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” I told her that a good way to stop being so obsessed with television was to fill her head with good things like Bible verses instead of silly things like the latest TV shows. She agreed to try.

  The only one I didn’t have a problem with was Lucy. Or at least that’s what I thought.

  See, while everyone was focused on the crazy competition, Jill and Lucy made plans to meet up after lights out again. Everyone was pretty tired after the events of the day, so Lucy had no trouble sneaking out of the cabin. The odd thing was that once outside, she and Jill didn’t really go anywhere. If they had, they might not have been caught. Instead, they stood between the cabins and talked, and that’s where Mrs. Neidlebark nailed them. She blew her whistle, which jolted me out of a sound sleep. I rushed outside . . . and there they all were.

  Mrs. Neidlebark left the girls—and their fates—in my hands. I took them to the great hall and talked with the camp director privately about what they did. He told me he would back whatever decision I made.

  I went back out to the girls and asked what they had to say for themselves. Lucy said nothing, but Jill piped right up. “Look, Connie, she went out because of me. If you’re gonna punish anybody, it oughta be me.”

  I told Jill that was very noble of her, but that’s not the way it worked. She retorted with probably the worst thing she could have said right then: “So what’re you gonna do? You’re not gonna send us home for something so dumb, are you?”

  That pretty much made the decision for me. “Yes,” I said, “I have to send you both home from camp. I told you on the first day what the rules were, and you broke them. I’m going to tell the camp director to call your parents. They’ll pick you up as soon as they can get here.”

  Jill didn’t take that very well. First she thought I was kidding, and when I told her I wasn’t and that she should go pack, she blew her stack—and surprisingly, not just at me.

  “I don’t believe this! I’ve never been sent home from camp! See, Lucy? This is what happens when you do it your way. Neidlebark never would’ve found us in the shelter. Nice going!”

  She stormed off. I asked Lucy what Jill meant by “the shelter.” She told me it was an old air-raid shelter by the lake that was built in the 1950s. “That’s the reason I was outside,” she said. “To tell Jill that I wasn’t going with her to see the shelter. And that I liked being crazy and having fun sometimes, but I had to do what’s right.” She paused, and I think she expected me to say it was okay and she could stay. Instead, I said, “But you didn’t do what’s right. You disobeyed the rules.”

  I could see that surprised her. Her mouth opened, then she said, “B-but I . . . I was keeping us from—”

  “You disobeyed the rules, Lucy. Campers aren’t allowed outside the cabins after lights out. I’m sorry. I really am. But I’m responsible for you, and I have no choice. You better go pack too.”

  Her mouth closed tight, and she glared at me and said in a cold voice, “Yes, ma’am.” She started to go, then stopped and added, “And I’m sorry for hurting you.” Her voice was still cold, and I got the impression she wasn’t really sorry at all.

  “It really does hurt, you know,” I said.

  “Yeah,” she said, “I know.”

  I nodded and said, “See you back in Odyssey.”

  She left without another word.

  It was the toughest thing I’ve ever had to do, Mom. And I was completely serious about how much it hurt. Just like you always said when you had to spank me: “This hurts me a lot more than it’ll hurt you.” Remember? Now I know how that feels. And I understand how much it must’ve hurt Whit when he had to fire me. And maybe I even understand a little better how God must feel when He has to discipline all of us.

  Anyway, that’s what I learned at Camp What-A-Nut this week. Not bad, huh? Hope your week was better than mine. I need to go now. See you soon.

  Love,

  Connie

  P.S. If you see Whit, tell him I said hello.

  Chapter Eleven

  The following day, Eugene raced to the office, fumbled with his keycard, botched the code twice, finally got it right, then burst through the door. Nicholas was already at his workstation.

  “Is everything all right, sir?”

  Eugene smiled. “Nicholas! I’m glad you’re here. I’ve had a breakthrough!” He crossed the room to his desk and plopped down in his chair.

  “Breakthrough, sir? About what?”

  Eugene began typing. “About the grades discrepancy. I feel so foolish that I didn’t think of it sooner!”

  Nicholas slid off his stool and slowly approached Eugene. “I . . . I need to talk to you, Mr. Meltsner.”

  Eugene continued typing but glanced at the boy with slight frustration. “Eugene. The name is Eugene.” He returned his gaze to the computer screen. “I was thinking about it last night before I went to sleep. Suddenly it dawned on me: the computer can tell me when the grade changes were made! Right down to the exact day and time. It keeps a thorough record of everything that happens when it’s on. I’m running the program now. This will tell me all I need to know, and then maybe we can track down the culprits.”

  Nicholas took a step closer. “That’s what I have to talk to you about, Mr. Meltsner. You see—”

  Eugene ploughed ahead, barely listening. “I must remember to tell Mr. Burglemeister what a wonderful job he did when he designed this system. It was ingenious of him to—” The computer dinged.

  Eugene’s eyes widened. “There it is, Nicholas! Right there!” He pointed at the screen. “Anne originally entered the grades for Kenneth Ellis and Donald Pearce on the fifth. And then . . . on the tenth at two thirty in the afternoon and again at two thirty-four, they were changed right here in this room. Someone did it here. Who was working that day, Nicholas? Do you remember? Check the log.”

  Nicholas paled. “I don’t need to check the log, sir. I know who it was.”

  “You do? Who was it?”

  Nicholas looked as though he was about to be sick. He swallowed slowly, took a deep breath, and said, “Me.”

  Eugene frowned. “You were here?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You mean you were actually here in this room when someone changed the grades?”

  Nicholas shook his head. “No. I was here alone.”

  “Then—”

  “Don’t you understand?” the boy blurted out. “I changed the grades! Me! That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I changed the grades.”

 

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