Computer Clues (3 page)

That night Molly stayed up late in front of the laptop. She usually wrote what she had done that day, and what she thought about, and any problems or worries she had (she always had some of those), in the little diary in her desk.

“Maybe I could have a diary on the computer,” she said to her mom.

“Of course,” said her mom. “It’s called a journal.”

“But if I turn off the computer, will it all
go away and not come back?” asked Molly.

Her mom shook her head. “You press this
SAVE
button,” she said, showing her where it was. “Now what you wrote will come back when you turn on the machine. All you have to do is press the name of the file. We’ll call this file ‘Molly’s Journal.’ ”

Cyberspace was getting more exciting by the moment. At last her dad said, “That’s enough for one day.” Molly got ready for bed. All night she dreamed about hard drives and superhighways and Internets and disks and files. In the morning she rushed down to see if her journal was still there. Sure enough, when she turned on the machine, put the arrow on “Molly’s Journal,” and clicked the mouse, the whole thing popped up on the screen!

But what would the subject of her report
be? What if it was something she didn’t like at all, like Minnesota snakes? And would the Internet be as easy to use as her journal had been?

Next Tuesday she’d find out!

A
ll week the Pee Wees practiced using their computers. Some worked on their computers at home. Some worked on Mrs. Peters’s computer. And some used Kevin’s and Jody’s. By Tuesday they were all eager to start their reports.

When they got to the meeting, one of Mr. Peters’s baseball caps was lying on the table. The hat was filled with little white slips of paper. They were folded in half so no one could see what was written on them.

“I want to read what’s on those, and then choose the one I like the best!” shouted Sonny.

But Mrs. Peters held the hat high over her head. “No sirree bob!” she said.

“My name isn’t Bob!” cried Sonny.

“That’s just an expression,” said Rachel, rolling her eyes.

“I think choosing the topics for our reports should be the first order of business,” said their leader. “Then we’ll learn how to find information on the Internet. Line up,” she said, “and each of you draw one slip of paper.”

The Pee Wees let Jody go first. When he unfolded his paper, he said, “Oh, great!”

“Jody would say ‘great’ no matter what topic he picked,” said Mary Beth. “He never complains about stuff.”

“My report is going to be about carousels. And I love them!”

“Who wants to find out about selling carrots?” grumbled Tim.

The Pee Wees stared at Tim. Sometimes it took a while to figure out how his mind worked. Sometimes he was very deep.

Mrs. Peters smiled. “Not carrots, Tim. Carousels are merry-go-rounds. All of your reports will be on things we can find at our fairgrounds here in St. Paul.”

One by one the Pee Wees drew the slips of paper.

Rachel’s subject was jugglers. She frowned. “There’s no juggler at the fairgrounds,” she said.

“Not right now,” said their leader. “But when the carnival comes to town, there are always jugglers.”

“I should have picked that,” said Tracy. “I can juggle four oranges at once.”

Tim drew a slip that had the word
clowns
. Sonny’s subject was Minnesota reptiles. “I love snakes!” he said.

“All the good stuff will be gone before we get to draw,” grumbled Roger.

“That’s dumb,” said Kenny. “No one knows what’s written on the papers. How could they choose the best ones?”

“They will,” said Roger stubbornly.

“Roger always makes everything into trouble,” said Tracy. “My mom says some people are like that. They gripe about everything, even if it’s good.”

Molly closed her eyes and reached into the hat. She crossed the fingers on her left hand for luck. She wanted a good subject to write about.

“Hurry up,” said Roger, giving Molly a push. Molly didn’t want to hurry.

“What’s the difference what subject you choose, anyway?” whispered Mary Beth.
“It’s easy to find information about anything on the Internet.”

That might be true. But some things would be more fun than others, thought Molly. Finally she took a paper. She didn’t open it, though. She put it into her pocket. She decided to wait until she got home to read what was on it.

Mary Beth drew a slip that said
Ferris wheels
. Molly was very, very glad she hadn’t drawn that! She didn’t like machines. Especially machines that went high in the air. But Mary Beth seemed happy.

Roger’s subject was cotton candy. Patty drew dairy products. “Ice cream!” she said.

“Does everyone have a slip of paper?” asked Mrs. Peters. She looked around. Everyone did. Roger picked up the empty hat and put it on his head.

“Now I’ll show you how to do your report,” Mrs. Peters said.

“I already know how,” said Rachel.

“Jody knows too, but he isn’t bragging about it,” whispered Mary Beth to Molly.

“That’s the way Rachel is,” said Molly.

Mrs. Peters turned on the machine. Using the mouse, she clicked on the word “start.” Then she clicked on the symbol for “Internet.” Some bright, colorful words flashed onto the screen. “I am your search engine,” it said. “Tell me what you want to learn.”

“Now, do you see this box?” asked their leader. “You place the little flashing arrow in the box. Then you type in the subject you want information on. Suppose I want to find out about Minnesota birds. I type the word ‘birds’ in the box.” Mrs. Peters typed it in.

“Now I will put the flashing arrow on
‘search’ and click it once with the mouse.” She did.
Click
went the mouse. And very quickly, a long list of words rolled out on the screen. They all had to do with birds.

“I can’t read all those words,” said Patty. “Some of them are too long.”

“If the words are too hard,” said Mrs. Peters, “you can skip them and go on to words you know. The Internet has more information than you need. You should use only what you can understand. And you can also ask your parents, or me, to help you with difficult words.”

The Pee Wees looked at all the information about birds. “These are categories,” said Mrs. Peters.

“The insides of cats?” asked Tim. “The gory stuff like blood?”

The Pee Wees began to say “Yuck” and “Ick.” Their leader explained, “A
category
is a division. Like the different places
birds live. In a nest, or a birdhouse, or a barn loft. Then there is the food birds eat, and the names of the different birds themselves. You have to decide what you want to know. You put the cursor on that line and click the mouse. Let’s try ‘kind of bird.’ ”

Mrs. Peters put the arrow on “kind” and clicked. A new list appeared. Up and down the screen were names of birds in alphabetical order. All kinds of birds, from orioles to wrens to grackles. Names of birds flew by.

“There are way too many birds!” cried Sonny.

“That’s all right,” said Mrs. Peters. “You simply click on the kind of bird you want to write about, and a picture of that bird will appear. And there’ll also be a lot of information about the bird—what it eats and where it lives and what kind of
song it sings. So in your report, you could write, ‘The robin has an orange breast. It lives in Minnesota in the summer and flies south for the winter. Robins eat worms.’ ”

“Can’t we write more than that, Mrs. Peters?” asked Rachel, frowning. “I think a report should have more information than that.”

“You can make your report as long or as short as you like,” said their leader. “And if you can’t find the information you want, you can click on ‘dictionary’ or ‘encyclopedia.’ You will find even more information there.”

“I can’t wait to type in ‘snakes’!” said Sonny.

Molly felt the paper in her pocket. She hoped the computer would have piles of stuff about—well, whatever it was that was on her little slip of paper!

W
hen she got home, Molly went up to her room and shut the door. Then she took the little paper from her pocket and opened it. There was just one word written on it. Was it French? How did Mrs. Peters expect her to read French? Molly began to panic.

Then Molly noticed she was holding the paper upside down. It was just like Molly to think the worst right away! Her mother and teachers always shook their heads and said, “That wild imagination is going
to get Molly in trouble someday.” But sometimes her imagination was a good thing. Like when she wrote a story or drew a picture. Then everyone said, “What a wonderful imagination!”

When the paper was right side up, she could read what it said.
Barns
. What in the world could she say about barns, except that they were big and red and filled with animals and hay and smelled bad? This was not the exciting subject she had wanted.

Molly sighed. Roger might have been right. The other kids got the best subjects for their reports.
Barns
wasn’t as bad as
snakes
, but it was close.

The laptop was on Molly’s desk. She turned it on. She tried to remember what her dad and Mrs. Peters had said to do next. She moved the arrow along the little
row of pictures at the top of the screen. Where was the Internet picture? A lot of the pictures looked alike. Molly’s nose began to itch because she was nervous. She reached up to scratch it. As she did, her hand that was holding the mouse jerked, and she clicked the button by mistake.

All of a sudden the screen filled up with lots of pictures and charts and graphs. Then they went away and lots and lots of words appeared. They were big words. Words like
data
and
license
and
finance
and
real estate
and
taxes
. None of these words had barns in them. Molly wanted all of these strange words on the screen to disappear. How could she get rid of them? She pushed buttons on the keyboard. Then she clicked the mouse. More things popped up on the screen, but nothing went away. And there was no sign of barns or Minnesota or fairgrounds. Or
even the Internet! Molly was definitely in some strange land in cyberspace. A land where she was not at home. And she wanted to get out.

Suddenly she remembered Mrs. Peters showing them the
DELETE
button.
Delete
meant erase. Molly pressed the button. Only one letter disappeared—the letter the little flashing line was on. When she moved the arrow to another letter with the mouse, she could erase that too. But it would take her a zillion years to erase every letter, one by one.

Molly sighed and decided to begin. Slowly the letters began to disappear. But then she hit another button and the letters she had just erased all came back! She felt like crying. How in the world could she get rid of all these awful words?

She decided she would just have to try pressing more buttons and clicking on
more pictures.
Tap tap. Click click
. Pictures flashed on the screen. Sometimes a question appeared, like “Do you want to delete this document?” Well, if
delete
meant erase, and
document
meant all these words, the correct answer to this question was yes, of course! She pressed “yes.” The screen was clear. The words were gone. She would never have to see them again!