Computer Clues (5 page)

“There’s piles of stuff about jugglers,” said Rachel. “I could even order tickets on the computer to see a juggler next year at the fair!”

“Molly’s report is about barns,” said Mary Beth. No one said anything. “And mine is about Ferris wheels.”

Everyone wanted to hear about Ferris wheels. Molly didn’t need ESP to tell she had a boring subject for her report. Even Ferris wheels were more exciting than barns.

Roger was pretending to be a fortune-teller. “You will be a race car driver and lose all the races,” he said to Sonny.

“I will not!” shouted Sonny. “I’ll win them all!”

“Will not,” said Roger.

“Will too,” said Sonny. “You don’t know how to tell fortunes. Fortune cookies are better. I had one that said I was going to be really rich.”

“Hey, I have more talent than a fortune cookie!” said Roger. “I had a teacher in my other school who was a mind reader. She called me a troublemaker and she didn’t even know me yet!”

“She probably had ESP,” said Molly to
Mary Beth. “If she could tell that Roger was a troublemaker.”

The Pee Wees changed the subject and began to talk about their own reports. Rat’s knees! Who wanted to listen to stuff about snakes and dairy farming? But even those things sounded more fun than barns. At least Molly would get a badge. That was what counted.

At the next Pee Wee meeting, Mrs. Peters collected the reports that were finished. “Molly, you got my favorite subject—old barns! Did you have a good time doing it?”

Molly nodded. She didn’t tell Mrs. Peters about erasing Dad’s file. And she didn’t tell her how ESP had helped solve the problem. Molly thought it was best to keep some things to herself—at least for now.

“Well, we are on the way to our computer badge!” said their leader with a
smile. “When we are finished, you will all be computer experts!” Tim was frowning. “Well, at least you’ll be on speaking terms with the machine,” she added.

“Now, today we are going to learn all about E-mail. It is just like writing a real letter and mailing it, but it’s much faster. The
E
stands for
electronic
. We mail these letters electronically. If we write a letter on paper, we have to find an envelope and write the address on it. Then we have to seal it and buy a stamp and go to the mailbox and mail it. And we often have to wait several days until it gets to where it’s going. Sometimes it even goes to the wrong address.”

“That can’t happen with E-mail,” said Rachel. “When my dad was in Israel, I wrote him an E-mail, and he got it just like this.” Rachel snapped her fingers. “If I had mailed it snail mail, it would have
taken over a week to get there. He would have been back home before it even reached him!”

The Pee Wees were impressed.

“How could a letter get there just like that?” said Sonny, snapping his fingers the way Rachel had.

Mrs. Peters smiled and turned on the computer. She clicked the mouse on the “Internet” symbol. When a row of small pictures came on, she clicked on a symbol that said “E-mail.”

“This is all you do,” she said, showing the Pee Wees how to use the mouse to place the arrow correctly. “Now we will click on ‘new message.’ ” She did. Something that looked like a piece of stationery appeared on the screen. There was also a little picture of an address book.

“I’ll put the little arrow on ‘address book’ now and click once,” she said.

The Pee Wees watched. A list of names came on the screen. They looked just like the names in Molly’s address book at home.

“Now, you choose who you want to write to and click on that name. It will pop to the top of the sheet and the machine will send your letter to that address automatically.”

She clicked on the name “Mrs. Duff.” Molly’s mother’s name appeared in the address box. “All I do is write a letter.”

“Dear Mrs. Duff,” she wrote. “We are at our Scout meeting and we are learning E-mail. We decided to write to you at your office. Are you working hard? Have a nice day. Love from the Pee Wees.”

“Now,” said Mrs. Peters, “our letter is finished. What do we need to do next?”

Hands waved. “We have to print it out, like our reports,” said Tracy.

“No, we don’t have to print it out,” said their leader. “Then it would be a regular letter needing a stamp. What we do is mail this, right from the machine!”

“Wow!” said the Pee Wees.

“It’s like magic!” said Kenny.

“We just put the little arrow on this picture of an envelope with wings,” she said, “and click once. Then we click on the word ‘send.’ ”

As the Pee Wees watched, she did this. A little picture of an envelope with wings sailed across the screen from one side to the other. They read words that said, “Sending message.”

“And now,” said Mrs. Peters, “Mrs. Duff is reading her letter.”

“Naw,” said Roger. “No way.”

But in a few minutes, as the Pee Wees
watched, a note appeared on the screen. It said, “Receiving one message.” And then, just like magic, there was a new letter. It was a letter from Molly’s mother.

“Dear Pee Wees,” it said. “I just got your letter. I am glad you are learning how to use E-mail. I am working hard, but I wish I was outside. It is a fine, sunny day. Have a good time. Love, Mrs. Duff. P.S. Molly, don’t forget to clean your room when you get home!”

The Pee Wees giggled. Molly’s face turned red.

“Was that ever fast!” said Patty.

“An E-mail letter can go anywhere in the world in just a few minutes,” said Mrs. Peters. “It doesn’t even cost as much as a stamp.”

“I want to write to my uncle!” said Roger.

“I do too,” said Tim.

“You have to be sure they have a computer that’s hooked up to the Internet,” said Jody.

“That’s right,” said Mrs. Peters. “That’s the only catch. You have to write to someone who has a computer. But every day more and more people are getting hooked up to the Internet.” She showed them how easy it was to answer a letter using E-mail.

Then she let each of the Pee Wees write an E-mail letter to Mr. Peters at his office. After they finished, and Mr. Peters had written back, they had cupcakes and sang their Pee Wee song. Before they left for the day, their leader said, “This week I want each of you to write and send an E-mail letter all by yourself.”

“Who should we send it to?” asked Jody.

“You can write to whomever you like. I want you to press the
PRINT
button afterward
so you can bring a copy of your letter to our meeting next Tuesday.”

“Do we bring a copy if we get a letter back from someone?” asked Lisa.

“Yes, I think that would be a good thing. It would help us understand how easy and fast it is to communicate,” Mrs. Peters said. “And it’s fun.”

“Mrs. Peters, I could just print out some of the E-mails I’ve sent before and bring them. I send E-mail all the time,” said Rachel.

Mrs. Peters frowned. She didn’t like shortcuts. “I want you to write and send a new one, Rachel. With the current date on it.”

Rachel nodded.

The Pee Wees’ heads were swimming with E-mail talk. Molly was thinking about who she would write to.

“Do we get extra credit if we send more than one letter?” asked Rachel.

“Send one, or however many you want, but you don’t get extra credit. This isn’t school. You just get your badge,” their leader answered.

No extras was fine with Molly. One badge would be all she’d need. She only hoped she wouldn’t erase any of her parents’ E-mails while she was using the laptop!

O
n the way home, all the Pee Wees could talk about was who to write to.

“Maybe I’ll write to my dad’s friend in Africa,” said Roger.

“Hey, no E-mail goes that far!” said Sonny. “Not to the jungle with all those trees and wild animals. Some animal would jump up and eat it!”

“Animals don’t eat E-mail,” scoffed Kevin.

“I might write to my dad at work,” said Mary Beth. “But that isn’t very exciting.”

“We don’t get extra credit for being exciting,” said Tracy. “We get our badge if we write to Africa or to the woman next door.”

Molly thought she might write to Jody. Kevin would be her second choice. True, her mother had said she was too young to have boyfriends. But when someone was as nice as Jody and Kevin, it was good to plan ahead. People should marry someone they’d known a long time. When her aunt got divorced last year, her dad said it was because she had hardly known the man when she married him. Molly didn’t want to make that mistake. No sirree bob. She would plan ahead. She would send her letter to Jody.

At the corner, the Pee Wees separated
and went to their own houses. Molly remembered her mother’s E-mail about cleaning her room. She did that first. Then she sat down and turned on the laptop. Molly liked the cozy hum it made while it was warming up. A computer wasn’t a book, but Molly was liking it better every day.

Molly clicked on
NEW MESSAGE
. Then she clicked on Jody’s name in the address book. Her dad had put the addresses of all the Pee Wees who had E-mail into the file for her.

Molly wondered what to write. She didn’t want to say something mushy like, “I like you a lot because you’re so nice.” Or something practical like, “I want to ride in your wheelchair more often.” She had to think a long time. Then she wrote a letter. But when she read it, she pressed
DELETE
. It wasn’t what she wanted to say.
The screen was blank again. “Dear Jody,” she wrote for the second time. “How are you? I am fine.”

That felt pretty boring, but it was better than being too friendly. She didn’t want Jody to think she had a crush on him—even if she did. It was best to stick to safe subjects. “I just cleaned my room. Have to go now and set the table for supper. Sincerely, your friend, Molly Duff.”

Setting the table wasn’t very interesting. Jody would think all she did in her free time was housework. She changed that line to “I have to go and eat supper.” But that was a lie. Her mom wasn’t even home yet. Molly sighed. It wasn’t that long until supper. She’d send the message the way it was. Molly pressed
SPELL CHECK
, and any misspelled words jumped into place. Boy, pretty soon kids won’t have to go to school at all, she thought. Who
needs to learn how to spell if the computer does it for you? And who needs math when a little calculator adds and subtracts and multiplies and divides?

Molly clicked on the word “send.” Jody’s message flew across the screen and out into space, and from there it hopped right into his computer. Molly hoped Jody’s dad wasn’t using the computer. Oh well, she hadn’t said anything personal.

After the machine sent the message, some words appeared that said, “Message sent” and “Checking mail.” Sure enough, Molly had mail! A letter came onto the screen. The return address was [email protected]. Why would she be getting mail from a school? Maybe it was for her dad. But it didn’t look that way. It said “Dear Molly” at the top.

Then Molly remembered. The Pee Wee Scouts had a special computer set up in
the high-school computer lab. The
PWS
stood for
Pee Wee Scouts
. Mrs. Peters had told them they could use it anytime. Some Pee Wee Scout was using that computer now.

“Dear Molly,” the message said. “I liked the shirt you had on today. It was really cool. Plaid is my favorite color. You have lots of cool stuff. I have a new pet. It’s a turtle. Its name is Ralph. Do you have a turtle? Well, I have to go now. Love from a secret admirer.”

Who was this? It had to be one of the Pee Wees. But which one? Molly wondered if it was Jody. It didn’t sound like Jody. Unless it was a disguise. Jody had more pets besides turtles. And she was sure his favorite color wasn’t plaid. Maybe he was joking. How would she find out?

As she sat there puzzled, another message popped onto the screen. This one
was
from Jody. The real Jody! “Dear Molly,” it said. “I just got your letter. Thanks for writing to me. Scouts was fun today. But then it always is. It’s a lot of fun to earn new badges. Well, write back when you get time. Sincerely, Jody.”