The Door to Mirabila

By Shine LeFlur

In 2041 Martins Landing, a rural community in the East Texas Piney Woods of Nacogdoches County, 13-year-old Tad Holder and his friends celebrate the final week of school before summer vacation. Tad's "best ever" summer when he will become a teenager, "almost a man". Poignant episodes provide lighthearted, often mischievous and comical moments, and set the early pace.

The boy's dreams and plans go well until a meteorite somehow opens a door to an exciting adventure. The door has an underlying dark side, however, and the perfect summer by degrees turns into a nightmare of desperation with Tad struggling against impending doom. In the final stages tension and dread take control in an emotional race against time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shine LeFlur
• Release date: Nov 10, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465842565

Shine LeFlur

Shine LeFlur is primarily a Chronicler of East Texas, Nacogdoches County, and especially the fictional Martins Landing rural life of the 1950's. Dallas, Houston, Shreveport, New Orleans, and Monterey, CA also garnered his attention for the fabulous 50's. Other LeFlur tales are international in flavor, set in Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, and Saudi Arabia, and reflect the 60's, 70's, and 80's periods. Equally notable are Shine's fantasy yarns, mostly futuristic, improbable but realistic.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

"Look to your skies...a warning will

come from your skies" –1957 film

Earth vs. The Flying Saucers.

The meteor descended without design or intention. There were no sonic booms or fires in the sky, no harbingers or repercussions. It descended stealthily, unseen by human, radar, or satellite. A secret Air Force cosmic wave detector in nearby Louisiana recorded a dip in celestial radio wave background activity, but this went unnoticed because the computers were not programmed to watch for that.

Though not large as far as meteors go, this meteor fell slower than its mass should have dictated; in fact, its velocity was constant, pari passu, and trajectory precise, across vast venues of space and time. It arrived on Earth just before dawn in rural East Texas; impacting gently into a wooded hillside draw, it shimmered and abruptly stopped, nestled in humus-rich soil between greening Dogwoods.

The traveler arrived without fanfare or witnesses, save for a few invertebrates, a nest of sleepy squirrels, and a Horned Owl, who blinked and glared her disapproval. Except for a barely perceptible to humans violet glow, the meteorite sat benign and quiescent. Nearby arthropods, however, were stimulated into a herky-jerky frenzy, their attempts to escape rendered futile by an inexplicable tendency to travel in circles until they expired.

A small hazy area appeared above the space visitor, but reflective fractal qualities almost blended it with the background.

It was Sunday, May 25.

The year's at the Spring

And day's at the morn;

Morning's at seven;

The hillside's dew-pearled;

The lark's on the wing;

The snail's on the thorn;

God's in his heaven

All's right with the world.

–Robert Browning

Chapter 1

He stood in a watermelon patch. His watermelon patch. Tad knew this was his watermelon patch, but something about it felt wrong. He looked around and saw them. The melons were blobs: living, moving green blobs; they surrounded and closed in on him with grim determination. Trapped, on legs that would not move, he strained his mouth to cry out, but no sound came forth. The melon blobs grew into swollen, menacing giants with thundering heartbeats–their heartbeats? Boomba, boomba, boomba! Tad was doomed.

And yet, something about the blobs also seemed fragile, pathetic, as if they were trying to tell him–what? Then he heard it, with an inner ear, a faculty unused till now, and Tad's blood turned icy, his heart quivered in fright. For they chanted in shrill unison:

Help, help us! Help, save us! pleading over and over. But Tad, without breath, struggled desperately and faded away.

He woke up wild-eyed, bed sheets in a tangle and pillow askew, shivering with fright. Just a dream, a nightmare. That's all, a silly dream, he told himself. But he could not laugh it off, and it did not go away.

Hind!

Say again?

Tad moistened his parched lips. Time! he croaked.

Time is 12:20 a.m., answered Cybert. Tad immediately cheered up. Today was Sunday, May 25, only one more week of school till summer vacation! He drifted uneasily back to sleep, the nightmare not quite forgotten.

Promptly at 8 a.m. Cybert, Tad's computer, began a wake-up routine, starting with Brahms’s Lullaby interrupted by a rooster crowing outside his window, then a brusque, threatening, gangster-style voice ordered him to Get up or else.

Shut up, fool! retorted the now-awake Tad, who continued to lie there, unmoving.

The computer remained silent a few minutes–Tad knew it watched him–and then a mesmeric, seductive voice from a nonexistent beauty lying beside him cooed in his ear, Get up, Tad, I have something for you....

WOW! Way cool! Even though he'd heard it a number of times, Tad still got goose bumps from this illusion. The Ventro software technology produced sound appearing to come from any desired spot within its range. Hopelessly outmoded, Cybert only had Twin Ten processors, but it did okay with simple stuff like sound and flat video.

Tad had hinted and chatted up Mo Mo, his grandmother, in hopes of getting a new computer for his upcoming birthday, ideally a Model 5. Of course he'd name it Cybert, too. Cybert 2? Maybe Cybert 5! Yeah, then he could run the latest VR games and novels, check out the neat new explorations.

Tad whistled a little mindless ditty. Only one more week of school: tests tomorrow and Tuesday, the class play Thursday, and the school trip Friday and Saturday. Maybe they'd go to New York or Mexico City! Maybe he could sit next to Alice Fay Smith on the bus! Why not? Summertime, and the living is easy….

Better get ready for Sunday School, Cybert announced authoritatively, interrupting his reverie.

Shaddup, Cy-fart fool! groused Tad. Sunday School! Jeez, like he was a little kid or something! Well, next month when he turned 13 he'd put a stop to this nonsense. A teenager couldn't be treated like a baby. He'd already told his mom and she hadn't disagreed; just kinda sighed and reminded Tad how much his grandparents enjoyed him going to Sunday School with them.

Maybe they did, but Tad figured more likely it had just become a habit for them. It wasn't so bad when he'd been a little kid. He could understand a little kid needing to know the Lord's Prayer, and the stories about Noah, Jonah, and the bread and fishes were okay for a kid, but he just didn't get into stuff now the way his grandparents did.

Several Sundays ago, his grandfather and old man Bud Adams got into it, arguing whether faith alone could save a body or if it required good works.

Adams fired the first shot, Now Brother Sam surely knows that in Matthew 5, verse 16, the good Lord hisself said ‘Let your light shine that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven’.

Gramps stood erect, his worn Bible open in his left hand, while his right beat the drum of perdition against Brother Bud.

John 3:16 ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life’. We're talking about being saved here, he added with a flourish, not about glory and showing off!

Now Brother Bud jumped up snorting like a bull on the warpath, thumped his Bible, and with sarcasm dripping heavy as molasses syrup, he thundered, John 9:4 ‘I must work the works of him who sent me’. How much plainer can it be, Brother Samuel?

Gramps jittered and skittered across the aisle, brandishing his Bible at Brother Bud like a broadsword.

You want to see what the Lord Hisself said about works? John 6, verses 28 and 29 ‘They said what shall we do, that we may work the works of God?’ They're asking Jesus, you understand? Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you BELIEVE in him whom he sent’. Now, Gramps continued, any old fool should be able to understand that!

Old man Bud hefted his Hickory cane.

Who you calling an old fool? he yelped. Then cooler heads intervened, noticed the time, and brought the session to a close. Since then, the two old men had studiously avoided speaking to each other, but Tad knew it'd blow over before long. It wasn't their first encounter of the Biblical kind.

Tad sighed, almost 9, he'd better get busy. They'd be by to pick him up at 9:30 sharp, 30 minutes early as usual. He groaned and dispiritedly slouched over to his closet for Sunday clothes, threw them on the bed, and made for the bathroom.

Sunday School over, it approached 11 o'clock and time for the church devotional to begin. Tad sat in a back pew of the small church, practicing one of his favorite games he used to pass time in church: trying to find animal likenesses in the appearance of church members. Anyone was fair game, he didn't discriminate.

His grandmother Mo Mo, for example, with her beehive hair and glasses pushed up on her forehead, resembled a queen bee, and old man Adams a walrus, what with his walrus moustache and what little hair he had left sleeked back on his glistening scalp. The choir director, Anne Marie Edwards-Jones (or was it Jones-Edwards?), now actually the song director since the choir disbanded due to Sister Myrtle Hardaway's piercing off-key bellowing, with her close-cropped soft hair, little pointed ears, and long slim twitching nose, Anne Marie was clearly a rodent, a mouse.

Appropriate in a funny way, Tad thought. On more than one occasion she had mentioned that mice and spiders terrified her. He laughed out loud, then caught himself and assumed a more pious expression as old lady Hughes in the pew ahead gave him a look that would wither Johnson grass. Miz Hughes the Bulldog!

Everyone stand and sing number 47, Sister Anne instructed. Tad stood and thumbed through the hymnal. Rock of Ages. He mouthed the words, but no sound escaped his lips. Rock of Ages, cleft for me. Cleft? Now what did that mean, cleft? And what good would it do to talk to a rock in the first place, no matter how old–and most rocks would be pretty old, no doubt about that. Would any meteorite rocks be older than Earth rocks? Three or four billion years, was that right? Oh well....

Sister Anne turned in profile, and Tad almost tittered aloud. A perfect mouse! What would she do if a real mouse hopped out and danced around her feet? Hmm...or if a Daddy Long-legs came out and sat down beside her?

No, spiders were too slow, a mouse definitely much better. Or, more than one: here a mouse, there a mouse, everywhere a mouse-mouse. Multimouses. A gaggle of mouses. A dozen meese, the 12 Disciples? Tad giggled but turned it into a cough when he caught a glare from the Bulldog, self-appointed scourge of juvenile miscreants.

The last amen and closing hymn carried, as usual, well past noon. Pastor Truegood's sermons never exceeded one hour in design and rehearsal, but in practice he always blew another 15 or 20 minutes explaining the various points which seemed to draw blank stares from his congregation. Those souls still awake, that is.

The Pastor’s low-pitched monotone delivery could hypnotize and render the most fervent believer unconscious inside 30 minutes flat. A few Sundays back, in the middle of his sermon, Reverend Truegood, to emphasize a point, banged on his pulpit and shouted, REPENT, O YE SINNER!

AMEN! cried out Brother Adams, suddenly awake, and blinking, he rose from his seat to go home.

Tad rode on down for lunch to his grandparents' house, a few miles south of Martins Landing, itself nothing more than the crossroads of State Highway 72 East and Farm Road 495. Mo Mo had sweet potato pie for dessert–his favorite–and Tad took along an ad for the Model 5 computer, which he intended to introduce cleverly into the after-lunch conversation.

Gramps had spent the last dozen or so years developing his new breed of cattle he called Brangulo, an intergeneric cross of Angus, Bison, and Brahman. These new animals were large, lean, and grew fast; they had excellent disease and pest resistance and adaptation to xeric habitats, yet under intensive forcing exhibited good feed-to-meat conversion ratios. Gramps had also recently applied for EPA low-flatulence certification.

Perhaps most interesting: an unexpected and valuable propensity for long life, half again as much as the average bovine. Practically, this meant that 20 year-old brood cows still produced calves. Gramps suspected, and a farm genetic service finally confirmed, that one of the original animals had been a sport, a mutant, with one or more allele genes. The allele battled to prominence in the final chromosome lineup.

An act of God, proclaimed Gramps.

Simple evolution, thought Tad dourly, but he wisely kept his opinion to himself. One didn't challenge Gramps’ pronouncements about the Almighty, or much else, for that matter! Gramps also remained a contractor for Global Beef's Nature's Organic division, producing ordinary beef calves for other of the company's grow-out operations.

After lunch, Tad found an opportunity to show Mo Mo the Model 5 computer brochures. She expressed great interest and listened enthusiastically as Tad explained the features and improvements of the new machines. Nonchalantly, almost as an afterthought as he finished, he said surely having one of these new helpers would greatly improve his school grades. When Mo Mo asked to keep the brochures a while, he knew he was in like Flynn. Whoever Flynn was–he found it in some old book.

Tad acted happy as a lark when his dad came later in the afternoon to take him home.

Church apparently agreed with you today, son, Gerald remarked. Tad scowled momentarily, then shrugged and smiled again. No use to try to explain, so he just didn't reply at all, and acted as if something out the car window was powerfully interesting.

Don't forget, you need to weed your melon patch before the melon vines get too long, reminded Gerald.

Tad sighed. I will, dad, this last week of school is tough, all the finals and all, but I'll do it Monday week if I can't get it before then. I promise. Gerald smiled, nodded, Better late than never, I guess.

Chapter 2

Tad hopped up alertly when Cybert woke him Monday morning for school. Joy to the world, he lisped happily. Glad I'm not a girl, he added laughingly as a poetic anti-PC afterthought. The sun had come up brightly, this was the last week of school, and Tad was giddy with anticipation.

Mentally he again went over the week's activities: final tests today and tomorrow, Play practice Wednesday, their performance Thursday, and the End of School trip Friday and Saturday. And then–and then–FREEDOM! Summer vacation! And this would the best ever, he'd soon be a teenager, practically an adult. Yep, it'd be a summer to remember for the rest of his life.

The first test, Language, began in Miss Pritchet's room promptly at 8:30, and the old lady watched like a sentinel of doom as the students arrived and sat at their computers. Tad entered his fingerprint and stared at the video scanner as it verified his identity.

Good morning, Tad, are you ready for the first language test? the computer intoned in a neutral voice.

Ready as I'll ever be, 0 Wise One, he quipped. The computer ignored him and began Test One instructions. Test One covered symbolic and written language: archaic, English, and foreign, although all answers were verbal. About the only use for keyboards or pointing devices involved certain math and graphics disciplines.

Before he finished the first test, Tad began to feel uncomfortable. Stop the test, he implored, I gotta go to the rest room!

Gotta is not a correct word or phrase, Tad, griped the computer, Test is suspended, you may approach the Monitor.

Teachers, and Miss Pritchet was especially outspoken about this, complained bitterly about being called Monitors, and their union threatened to strike over the matter, so the Education Commission finally agreed to a compromise wherein the word Monitor would change to Instructional Liaison Official in the next software release.

While true that human teachers had been unnecessary for several years except as minders or disciplinarians, it was equally true that their union had one of the most powerful political lobbies. The current iteration of instructional programming acted so humanized and responsive to individual student aptitudes and needs that the machines themselves had become almost invisible; they rarely needed attention, never complained, took sick, or went on strike, and student assessment scores climbed higher than ever before. Time and tide obey no human master; unions were an anachronism and a new generation of automatons brought their inevitable demise ever closer.

Tad completed the first test, and plunged on into the next. By the time the first day of tests ended, he was mentally drained but felt good about his day's performance. He finished almost an hour early, so he went to the Media Center to wait. Mary Sue Ebbers, Sal Montoya, and Elbert Russell were already there, and Alice Fay Smith came close behind on Tad's heels. His heart skipped a beat, and he swallowed hard as she entered. Alice Fay radiated a fresh, enchanting presence.

Tad was clearly under her spell, yet she appeared altogether unaware of her effect on him. Oh, she was polite and witty with everyone, but Tad alone hung on her every word and gesture, feeling that they were especially meant for him.

Well, looks like you two finished together. Maybe you were ‘collaborating’ on the tests, quipped Sal, voluble and somewhat of a wit.

Oh, Sal, added Mary Sue, do you think Robin and Miriam are already rehearsing their parts? Referring to the upcoming play in which Tad and Alice Fay played Robin Hood and Lady Miriam.

Alice Fay simply smiled and laughed, but Tad felt his face growing beet red from the roots of his brown hair all the way down his neck, and his throat threatened to choke him. He focused on a floor spot and tried to will his errant body back in control. Elbert didn't say anything; he rarely did, but simply smiled in his enigmatic, knowing way. Terrance Whitesell came in and, surprised to see the others already there, arrogantly pushed his way next to Alice Fay. Tad felt anger, or was it jealousy, slowly replace his embarrassment.

Finally recovered, he tried to change the subject, Since you're so smart, Sal, want to bet who finishes first, Billy or Butch? Billy meaning Billy Fears, a grossly overweight but harmless bumbledum, and Butch was Butch Bowers, an older sadistic bully two grades behind already. To say Butch was academically challenged would be charitable.

Sal did not intend to be so easily put off. My money's on your girl Quindola, he laughed, referring to Quindola Day, a student with a long-standing crush on Tad that had survived all his attempts to dislodge. QD, sweet though dumber than dirt, sported a long nose, big protruding ears, and a pockmarked face submerged in a sea of stringy yellow hair once reputed to house cooties and possibly mice.

How or why she picked Tad as her object de affection he didn't have a clue, but it may have been that, in the lower grades, he felt sorry for her and didn't join in the chants and taunts of the other kids. Back then Quindola had run away from school almost every day.

At any rate, this he could handle. Ah, you're just jealous, Sal my gal, he retorted. Cyril Duggan, Tad's best friend, came in just then, followed closely by Bonito Alveraz, Sissy Coleman, Jamail Johnson, and Elbert Russell. Quindola Day came smiling and loping down the hall a half-hour later.

Seconds before dismissal, Billy Fears rolled his way ponderously down the hall toward them.

Yea, Billy! Several cheered his apparent victory, but just then Butch Bowers shoved his way around Billy and burst through the door, apparently unwilling to be the last student to finish. The first day of the last school week was over, with only four days more to go!

Tuesday morning went much like Monday. The final test before noon was Ethics and Logic; Pete Hawkins, also the Physical Fitness and Diet teacher, monitored this class. Soon Tad drifted in a sea of confusing, if not downright tricky, questions: Ethics are often matters of perspective, culture, or tradition; it is ethical to employ unethical means to achieve an ethical result; ethics must be able to be explained logically; dialectic logic is a useful method to expose fallacies in a logical explanation; human logic can always be translated into computer logic; inferences within logical arguments are always the weakest links; ethics may be said to be subjective, logic objective; chaos implies: 1) illogic 2) logic beyond human comprehension 3) divine cause 4) the paranormal; emergent properties are logically predictable in theory; and on and on until poor Tad's head swam.

He became lost in threads of thought and met himself on the other side repeatedly; he felt confused and drained when he finally finished and escaped to the Media Center.

Incredibly, he found himself arriving with Afay again, she slightly in front of him this time, and they joined Mary Sue and Sal. A somber little group, even Sal apparently at a loss for his usual witticisms.

What is this, a wake? remarked Alice Fay. Cheer up, you guys, that was the last test!

Soon lunchtime rolled around and everyone trooped to the cafeteria. Tad waited his turn, inserted his card into the Foodmat, and then walked to the other end to retrieve the tray, with his name on it, which popped out. He maneuvered his way toward Alice Fay, sat down at her table, and took a look at his food.

The Foodmat was admittedly pretty neat, giving each student exactly the foods and portions they needed for their best health, and, quite often even giving them what they preferred. Tad also knew that nationally, student obesity was down and general health improved thanks to the robotic Foodmats, but he kinda missed old Miss Birdy, the cafeteria worker who used to fill their trays. She had worked for the school forever.

Here you go, Tad sweetie, she always said, be sure you eat your beets, now! She knew he hated beets. It wasn't the Foodmats fault Miss Birdie, well past retirement, had been let go. One just couldn't stand in the way of progress, of technology.

The first year the Foodmats appeared, there were a few rough edges. Foodie might calculate a need for a lot of a particular vitamin or mineral and put nothing but broccoli or carrots on your tray. Several times fat Billy Fears received an empty tray, Foodie apparently deciding that Billy needed to lose weight quickly. Tad grinned, remembering how Billy squealed like a starving pig. Billy was still as fat as Dallas, but it wasn't Foodie's fault.

A scowling Butch Bowers interrupted Tad's reverie. So, pretty boy, I hear you're making bets on me, calling me a dummy like that idiot Fears, Butch barked. Tad sat immobile, frozen in terror, unable to move or speak. That bigmouth Terrance! Butch laughed, twisting his face into an evil sneer, Cat got your tongue, sonny? He reached down and in one quick move dumped Tad's tray into his lap. Next time I'll take your head off, he threatened.

Alice Fay jumped up. Go pick on someone your own size, Jumbo Dumbo! she yelled.

Butch lumbered off a few steps, then turned to hurl a final retort, I'll get you, pretty boy, and you won't be able to hide your coward ass behind a girl! Tad's face burned, his gorge rose, and the room seemed to swim and swirl in colors and currents. Alice Fay bent down and started cleaning up the mess.

Tad suddenly went from rigidity to uncontrollable trembling. Everyone stared at him. He was ruined, a coward. But even with his grief, in this, his darkest moment, Tad's subconscious began to plot revenge. Hot tears of rage filled his eyes; he jumped up and fled, leaving a confused and upset Alice Fay in his wake. She started to follow him, then stoically went back to finish cleaning.

Tad retreated to his computer. Students were permitted, even encouraged, to use their school computers during free time. This included internet access as long as not used for proscribed activities. For years now, so-called adult sites resided in restricted dedicated domains which, along with several other domain suffixes, could not be accessed by school computers.

Tad immersed himself in music, his favorite form of indoor escapism, and found several new cuts which he downloaded and redirected to Cybert. An activity not permitted, but it only took a moment, and anyway, who'd know, what did it hurt? Angry at Butch, angry at himself, he felt like lashing out at anyone or anything.

Tad spent the rest of the school day reading classics. One of his current favorites was Candide, said to have been written in only three days by the 18th century philosopher-troublemaker Voltaire. Candide is an honest but naive boy who endures many hardships and mishaps, each explained as all to the good by his erstwhile mentor, Professor Pangloss, who, of course, never suffers personally.

Tad also enjoyed Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, mostly the many pranks Tom played on Aunt Polly, and Huck's Sunday School experience, where he got all astir about Moses and the Bulrushes until he found out Moses had been dead for hundreds of years. Then he lost interest, saying he didn't put too much stock in dead people. Man, kids could really live and have cool adventures in the olden days. And that Becky Thatcher; Tad closed his eyes, trying to picture her. He saw Alice Fay!

First thing Wednesday at school, students held a Purple Martin Student Council meeting to discuss their end of term school trip. Purple Martin being the school mascot, of course. A few of the cheerleaders were less than enthusiastic about jumping around wearing the purple wings, but the old folks in the community–and scads of them lived here–would never agree for this to be changed.

Chances were, even if the mascot were changed to the Avengers or the Invincibles, the small school probably still couldn't win any games. Their only record, a state record, in fact, was for the longest string of losing baseball games.

This Council meeting will come to order. First we'll have the school pledge, ordered Mary Sue Ebbers, Council President. This brought an audible series of groans, but Mary Sue pressed ahead, waved for silence, and then began:

We're the Purple Martins

We fly fast and high

Over all opponents

Soaring through the sky

Fight! Fight! Fight!

Yeah, Purple Martins

Go, Flock, go!

Several recitations sounded slightly altered.

Now we'll have the Secretary-Treasurer's report of our school trip finances, said Mary Sue. Sal Montoya stood and waved a small notebook.

First I have a little quiz for you: why do Mexicans hate to barbeque? asked Sal, with his trademark grin. Sal, an inveterate joker who poked fun at everything, took great delight in making himself the butt of his jokes.

There was a moment of silence, and then Jamail Johnson, quite a wit himself, piped up, Err–they can't catch the cats?

Beep, wrong! said Sal. It's because the beans keep falling through the grill! After the laughter subsided, he glanced at the notebook and continued, I regret to report that, as of this moment (here he dramatically checked his watch), 8:49 a.m., we have a balance of $684.22. Enough, according to my information, to get us our choice of a deluxe trip to either the southern island resort of Galveston, or that great Rose Capital of the world, Tyler.

Another chorus of groans erupted, louder than before. The Principal says we can leave at noon Friday, spend the night, and return late Saturday afternoon, added Sal helpfully.

Oh, WOW! said Cyril.

Far out! added Sissy.

Uh, what's a Rose Capital? asked Billy Fears.

Shut up, Billy, piped up Quindola, uncharacteristically.

Vote, vote! urged Alice Fay. Then she leaned into Tad and whispered,

Let's go to the beach, okay? He nodded. He'd follow her anywhere, he'd fight dragons–die for her!

Liar, said his alter ego, you're a weenie, a coward. The vote was unanimous for Galveston.

Rehearsals for the play began in Miss Lucy Petty's Drama and Speech classroom; as Tad entered, Ms. Petty handed him a note to go see the Principal, Ms. Dunston, right away. He walked down to her office, wondering why she wanted to see him. Maybe about the run-in with Butch. Surely nothing had happened to his parents or grandparents.

Ms. Dunston ushered him into her office, her expression indicating nothing. You're pretty good with our computers, huh, Tad? she asked with a neutral smile. He wasn't sure how to answer; where was she going with this?

Ah, I do like computers, they–I've learned a lot from them, he replied carefully.

The principal stared at him, and then dropped her eyes to something on her desk. Yes, and your grades are good. But what I want to know is why you downloaded some music from the Internet yesterday afternoon? Which, I might add, is strictly against the rules, young man?

Uh oh, somebody saw me and ratted, thought Tad, racking his mind quickly. That's true, he confessed glibly. "I downloaded a song my mother likes called ‘How Great