And then I thought of the letter I had just sent off to Spook. The word “computowitch” had apparently never gone off with the rest of it. But what if Spook used the word when she replied? Hadn’t I better warn her about it?
To: spook@home.com
From: broomstick@home.com
Subject: ps to earlier message-IMPORTANT!
This has to do with the letter I just sent you. I mentioned a certain item at the end, but if you write back about it, please don’t use the “c” word for it. Maybe you’d better not mention it at all. something strange is happening. I don’t know what it is, but until I find out, ye have to play it safe. so please remember, spook, no “c” word!
Broomstick
I sent the letter off at once but went right on sitting there staring at the blank screen. “I don’t know what it is, but until I find out …” I had written. Find out what? But more to the point, how? Where did it all begin? I didn’t really think science was going to come to my rescue. I mean, what could I do with a test tube, beaker, or a Bunsen burner in a case like this?
The only thing I could think of to do was too dangerous. After all, I’d warned Spook about it. And yet, even as I was thinking this, I knew I was going to do it. I took a deep breath, clenched my jaw, and entered the word “computowitch.” I knew I was taking a terrible risk, but only hoped that if I blew up my room, and possibly myself along with it, my parents would understand.
Holding my breath, I watched the exact same thing happen as before! The screen turned pea-soup green and started to shiver. It then turned the same fierce red again. In the meantime, the computer was repeating its act of heaving ferociously in and out. I was scared, and getting more scared every second. At last I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I gave myself a command decision to reach for the plug. But before my fingers had arrived at their destination, my computer gave one final shuddering heave and stopped cold.
I wasn’t convinced it was finished, however, so I kept my hand near the plug just in case. After all, the screen was still shivering. But then the colors instantly began to reverse themselves. The red turned back to purple, then orange, then red again, and finally back to pea soup green. Then the screen stopped shivering, and all that remained of this whole act was the word “computowitch” sitting there.
I have to admit, this was a big letdown. It was not that I liked the idea of my parents having to come in and gather up some pieces of me and my room if something disastrous had happened. But I had let myself get scared out of my wits, and practically stopped a kind of experiment where I might have been on the brink of making some huge discovery. And now it had all ended up with just me just sitting and staring at the screen with the word “computowitch” on it doing absolutely nothing.
Somehow, I couldn’t tear myself away. I just sat there. Then something curious happened. I felt a strange tingling feeling in my fingers. Then they began to twitch. A moment later, I watched them float up off my lap and settle on the keyboard. It was as if I were watching someone else put their fingers on the keys. Then, right next to “computowitch,” these fingers typed in “.com.” Instantly, on the lower left side of the screen appeared a box that read, “Enter password.” I’d bumped right into a very interesting Web site—computowitch.com! My heart began to race.
Still, what use was a Web site if I didn’t know the password? But then my great scientific reasoning powers went to work. What one word could I connect with the old computowitch that would make a good password? How about the name of a person who had suggested the grand idea of having a piece of junk issuing orders to everyone in the first place? I might be wrong. I might even be dangerously wrong typing it in. But I’d come this far, and I wasn’t going to back off now. “Here goes!” I told myself, and looking around my familiar room for maybe the last time, I typed “SATURNA.”
Wham!
Bang!
I’d got it! And I was still sitting there all in one piece as the message appeared on the screen. Around the border of the page was a mysterious design of curled and pointed lines laced with stars and moons. But what I immediately zeroed in on was the message in the middle of the screen:
“Oh, burning sun
It has begun,
Oh, icy moon
It’s none too soon,
We must not fail
To end their tale.”
What has begun? I felt prickles running down my back. This was ominous. I was now convinced that something very scary was going on. I waited for something else to appear on the screen. At last I realized that nothing more was going to be revealed, so I shut down the computer and dragged myself off to bed, my mind still spinning.
Could all this possibly have anything to do with Miss Switch? Could it be that I’d walk into the sixth-grade classroom in the morning and find her sitting there at the teacher’s desk?
Of course, if Miss Switch were back, it would have to be because she was in terrible trouble. Or someone else was. And I had the unpleasant feeling that it was I, Rupert E Brown III, who had been selected for that privilege!
4
