Six (5 page)

“What, like you did today?”

“That's different. It took me by surprise. It won't happen again.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I haven't decided yet. Something.”

“You could just pay them to leave you alone.”

“I'm not . . . oh,” said Parker, realizing that Michael was smiling. “Very funny. Seriously though, don't give them any more money.”

Michael shrugged and nodded. “I won't,” he said.

Something occurred to Parker. “Is that why you're here? Are you hiding?”

Michael looked offended. “No. I don't skip classes. I have computer class, and the teacher asked me to help retrieve the data from this.”

For the first time, Parker noticed that Michael was holding a hard drive.

“It failed?”

“Yeah, completely. I've tried everything. I think I'm just going to rebuild it from scratch.”

“Freeze it.”

“Eh?”

“It might not work, but if you've tried everything else, it's worth a go. Stick it in a bag and put it in the freezer, then try it again as soon as you get it out.”

“Cool. How do you know that?” asked Michael.

The next thing Parker knew, he'd spent twenty minutes talking to Michael about computers. Michael, it turned out, was something of a genius when it came to programming but not quite as much of an expert on hardware. It was the exact opposite of Parker who, at the age of seven, had found he had a knack for anything mechanical after pushing his father's computer off his desk whilst climbing over it and managing to piece it all back together. He had done it so quickly and so well that his parents had never suspected a thing. The respect between Parker and Michael, therefore, was mutual. And, despite first impressions, it turned out that—though slightly awkward and somewhat lacking a sense of humor—Michael was actually pretty good company. Best of all, he didn't mention Parker's English accent. Not once.

Michael looked up at the clock on the wall. “I need to go and ask Mr. Nowak if I can take this hard drive home over the weekend. Want to come?”

Parker was quick to say yes. He followed Michael out of the room and, as he switched the light off, he smiled.

Mr. Nowak, the computer teacher, was at his desk when Parker and Michael walked into the computer lab. Unlike his old school, this lab had plenty of computers, each one housed in its own private booth. The class should have been in full swing, but there was clearly no teaching happening today. Instead Mr. Nowak was holding his cell phone with both hands and had his feet up on his desk, the soles of his tatty brown leather shoes on display.

“Hold on,” said Mr. Nowak without looking up. “I've been trying to get past this level for days. Just two more clowns and . . .”

His voice trailed off as the game drew him back in. Parker and Michael stood and watched, slightly perplexed, as Mr. Nowak tapped on his phone furiously with his lips pursed until, after a minute or so, he let out a sudden yelp of joy.

“Yes!” he said, his hand shooting up in the direction of Michael. It took Michael a moment to realize that he was being expected to high-five his teacher and, when he did so, he half missed and the moment of celebration seemed to fizzle out.

“What's up?” asked Mr. Nowak.

Before Michael had finished asking if he could take the hard drive home, Mr. Nowak had nodded his approval. It was possible that he would have objected had Michael told him about his plans to freeze it, but Parker suspected that he was one of those teachers who would say yes to anything, as long as it didn't involve him actually having to do any work—especially on a Friday afternoon.

“I want to show you something,” said Michael, leaving Mr. Nowak to get back to his game. He began to lead Parker over to a vacant booth in the far corner when Parker realized that he was in a room surrounded by people in his grade. He didn't want to make it too obvious that he was looking but, from taking quick glances around him, he wasn't able to find Aaron, Becky, or anybody else directly involved in the cafeteria incident. Even if they were there, Parker told himself, they were unlikely to notice him—everyone he could see had headphones on and was too busy playing games to notice. He assumed that Michael was going to do the same—maybe show him a cheat he'd found on a game or something—but it soon became obvious that Michael had something else he wanted to share with him.

“I finally cracked this yesterday,” said Michael in a hushed voice as he typed furiously on the keyboard.

Curious, Parker rolled his chair in closer. For a moment it wasn't clear what Michael was doing. Parker didn't recognize the program, and Michael was typing so fast and jumping so quickly from one screen to the next that it was impossible to read anything. Finally, after a couple of minutes, Michael pushed his chair back slightly and pointed. Parker leaned forward and read the words on the screen.

BANKS, PARKER.

It took Parker a moment to work out why he was seeing his name. When he realized, his head snapped around to Michael in surprise.

“You hacked into the school server?”

Michael nodded with an embarrassed smile, and Parker could tell, though he was doing his best to hide it, that Michael was feeling rather pleased with himself.

“What are they?” asked Parker, running his finger over the line of letters next to his name.

“Your grades.” said Michael.

“Cool,” said Parker, reading the marks. They were good—excellent in the cases of science and math—with just one exception. Parker winced.

“Better than my mark,” said Michael on seeing what Parker was looking at.

“How do you get worse than a fail at art?”

“Unmarkable.”

“Oh,” said Parker. Then something occurred to him. “Did you change it?”

“Did I change what?” asked Michael.

“Did you change your grade?”

Michael raised his eyebrows and his mouth dropped open in horror.

“No!”

“You should do it,” said Parker, as the potential of what Michael could do started to dawn on him. “And change mine, too, while you're at it. But don't make it too obvious—maybe just a C.”

Michael eyes widened even farther, and he looked around to make sure that nobody had heard.
“That's cheating!”
he whispered.

Parker was confused. “Why else would you hack into the system if that wasn't what you were going to do?”

Michael shrugged. “I don't know. I just wanted to find out if I could.”

“And that's it?” asked Parker.

“Yeah. Why, is that bad?”

Parker shook his head, slightly confused. “No, it's good, obviously—just seems a bit of a waste.”

Michael considered this for a moment and then sheepishly closed the program.

“I do cheat sometimes,” said Michael defensively. Parker could tell he was embarrassed.

“It's okay—I wasn't saying you should cheat.”

Michael opened up a car game.

“Look, I can get unlimited money.”

“Really?” asked Parker. “I thought they'd made that game cheat-proof.”

“No,” said Michael, getting excited again. “If you just open this, then press
f
, space . . .”

*  *  *  *  *  *

Parker and Michael spent the rest of the afternoon buying every expensive car modification in the game and laughing as they easily outran every other online player. By the time the end-of-school bell rang, Parker felt like maybe he'd just made his first friend since arriving at River Creek. Michael, it seemed, felt the same.

“You want to come play at my house tomorrow?” asked Michael as they walked down the corridor to their lockers.

“Only if you don't say ‘play.'  ”

“What then?” asked Michael.

“Hang out.”

“Okay. Do you want to come to my house and hang out tomorrow? Bring your bike, if you have one.”

Parker was just about to respond when he saw Emma walking down the corridor toward them. She waved, and Parker stopped to wait for her.

“Who's that?” asked Michael, slowing down next to him.

“Emma. My sister.”

“She's pretty.”

Parker recoiled in disgust. “She's ten. And she's my sister.”

Michael shrugged. “She's still pretty.”

Parker looked at Michael like he might be crazy.

Emma waved as she approached. Before Parker could introduce them, Michael stepped out in front of him and offered his hand to Emma.

“Hi, I'm Michael. I'm in your brother's art class.”

Emma smiled, shook his hand, and then turned to Parker.

“He doesn't know?”
she signed to Parker.

Parker shook his head. He turned to Michael. “She's deaf.”

“Oh,” said Michael.

The reaction of people finding out that Emma was deaf was always different. Most of the time people took it well, though they often had a tendency to then just ignore Emma, which annoyed them both. Sometimes—rarely—people would look horrified and make their excuses, and sometimes—as Michael did now—they would start to shout.

“NICE TO MEET YOU!”

“Deaf,” said Parker. “As in she can't hear anything. She can lip-read though.”

“Oh yeah, right. How do I do the sign for ‘nice to meet you'?”

Parker showed him, and Emma, still smiling, waited patiently as Michael got Parker to demonstrate it three times before turning to Emma and repeating it.

“Nice to meet you, too,”
signed Emma.

Michael paused for a moment in thought and then turned to face Emma. He slowly pointed to her, then to himself, and then made a triangular shape with his arms above his head. Parker watched—half confused, half amused—as Michael then proceeded to do an elaborate mime that looked like he was pulling something as he ran furiously on the spot with his arms out.

Emma turned to Parker and shrugged.

“What are you trying to say?” asked Parker.

“It's a bike. I'm riding a bike. Wasn't it obvious?”

Both Parker and Emma shook their heads, and Michael sighed.

He turned to Emma and mouthed his words slowly. “Do you want to come to my house tomorrow and ride bikes?”

Emma hesitated and Parker stepped in. “Emma doesn't have a bike. She got a goat instead.”

“What?” asked Michael.

“Yeah, my dad offered to get us a bike each when we got here, but Emma said she'd rather use the money to buy a goat in Africa. My sister's a bit strange.”

Emma signed to Parker.

“She says one goat can provide enough income to feed a family of four.”

“That's really nice,” said Michael slowly to Emma. “I have enough bikes—you can use one of mine.”

“How many bikes do you have?” asked Parker.

Michael shrugged. “A few. Anyway, do you want to come or not?”

Parker looked at Emma and she nodded. “Sure,” said Parker. “I think my dad can drop us off, but I have to check with him first.”

Michael grinned. He swung his backpack to the floor and unzipped it, then scrambled around until he found a pen and a scrap piece of paper on which he wrote his name, address, and phone number.

“Here,” said Michael, handing Parker the piece of paper. “You can get your mom to call if you want.”

“Not my mum, my dad.”

“Your dad then. Come at eleven? Or whatever time you want. You can stay all day if you want to.”

“Okay,” said Parker. “I'll call you later and let you know.”

“Call you later about what?” said a voice behind them.

Parker turned and found Aaron standing behind him with his arms crossed. He was alone.

“None of your business,” said Parker.

Aaron repeated Parker's words in a terrible English accent, and Parker narrowed his eyes at him.

“That's not even a good impression.”

“That's not even a good impression,” repeated Aaron in the same voice.

Parker stared at Aaron. “What's wrong with you?”

“What's wrong with
you
?” responded Aaron in his normal voice.

Michael pulled on Parker's sleeve. “Just leave it,” said Michael quietly.

“Yeah, listen to four-eyes,” said Aaron.

“Leave him alone,” said Parker.

“Or what?” asked Aaron. He lifted his chin and pulled his shoulders back. Aaron, it was obvious, was looking for a fight. Maybe it was the humiliation of earlier, or maybe it was that his sister and new friend, not to mention the other students in the corridor, were watching, but whichever it was, Parker was not ready to back down.

“Or you'll regret it,” said Parker, taking a step forward. His heart began to thump loudly, but he clenched his jaw and narrowed his eyes, determined not to let Aaron see any fear.

“The only person who's going to regret this is you,” said Aaron. He reached out with both hands and gave Parker a small push.

Parker took a step back. He clenched his fists and went to take a step forward when the sound of running footsteps behind him made him turn. Parker watched, shock quickly turning to horror, as his little sister ran in front of him and then, taking Aaron by complete surprise, karate-chopped him in the face.

“Ah!” shouted Aaron, clutching his nose as he doubled over.

Parker stepped forward to grab Emma, but he was too late; she ran behind Aaron and jumped on his back.

Parker and Michael watched, frozen, as Emma wrapped one hand around Aaron's neck and, with the other, began to pull on Aaron's hair.

Aaron shouted out in pain and tried to slap his hands behind him, but Emma refused to let go.

“Get off him!” shouted Parker. But Emma wasn't looking at him to be able to lip-read what he was saying, and she was definitely not going to be turning Effie on. Parker ran around, grabbed Emma's waist, and pulled her off Aaron's back. He turned her around to face him.