Computer Clues (4 page)

But what if they had been important words? Her dad’s words? If her dad had saved the words, as Molly did with her journal, everything should be all right. But where had the words gone?

Molly frowned. She would have to think about that later. There was no use asking for trouble ahead of time. Maybe her dad would never miss those words. He had a lot of other words. He might not even notice. Meanwhile, she had a report
to write. A report on barns. Barns in St. Paul. Barns at the fairgrounds.

This time Molly looked at all the little pictures on the screen before she clicked the mouse. She found the Internet picture and clicked on it. When the box showed up on the screen, she carefully typed the word “Minnesota” in it. Then she put the little flashing arrow on “search” and clicked the mouse. The machine whirred and whizzed and hummed and clicked and flashed red letters that said, “Searching.” After a while words came onto the screen. But not as many as with “birds.” She clicked the mouse on “local landmarks.” There were statues and courthouses and old houses. There were pictures of the Mississippi River and the Ford plant. But no barns. Definitely no barns. What was Mrs. Peters thinking, asking a poor little Pee Wee to find something
like a barn on the computer? The machine was filled with millions of birds and rivers and who knew what else?

Molly decided to click on the word “encyclopedia” instead. The cover of an encyclopedia showed up on the screen. It had a big picture of a globe on its cover. Underneath the picture was the word “subject,” with a box beside it. Instead of turning actual pages, thought Molly, she was supposed to type in what she wanted to read about. Molly typed in “barns.” And there in front of her was a picture of a big red barn! But it was a barn in Idaho!

Molly moved the arrow to “next page” and then clicked the mouse. That was even worse. It showed the plans for building a barn. Molly didn’t want to build a barn. At least Mrs. Peters hadn’t asked the Pee Wees to do anything that hard.

There were lots of pages about barns,
but nothing about barns near the fairgrounds. She would have to ask her dad for help.

Just at that moment, she heard steps on the stairs. There was a knock at her door. It was her dad.

I think I do have ESP, said Molly to herself. I wanted my dad to help me, and here he is, just like that! There was definitely something to this ESP thing.

“Hi,” said her dad. “I didn’t want to bother you, but it’s dinnertime. Time to wash up.”

“I was just thinking about you coming up here, and you did!” said Molly.

“Well, there are only two other people here besides you, so chances were pretty good it would be me,” said her dad, smiling.

Molly shook her head. “It’s ESP,” she said. “Like mind reading.”

Her dad looked skeptical. “I don’t think so,” he said. “It’s not ESP. It’s dinner!”

“I need help with my report,” said Molly.

“After we eat,” said Mr. Duff. “Right now you need a break and some food.”

As Molly washed her hands, she thought, ESP is easy! If it was this easy, she could be in magic shows. She could read her teacher’s mind and get A’s on all her tests.

“I knew you were coming,” said Molly to her dad when they got to the table.

Mr. Duff ruffled Molly’s hair. “That’s because you have an alarm clock in your stomach and you were hungry,” he laughed.

But Molly wasn’t that hungry. She was psychic—she knew what other people were thinking or doing before they told her. She knew that for sure.

“For supper I made one of my—” But Molly stopped her dad in midsentence. She closed her eyes and concentrated. “You made homemade pizza!” she cried.

Her dad nodded. “I’ll bet you smelled it,” he said.

Molly shook her head. “I have ESP,” she said mysteriously. “I didn’t smell it or see it.”

Molly was learning a lot more in Pee Wee Scouts than how to use a computer. She was learning to read minds.

“I think you smelled it baking,” said Mr. Duff.

“I did not!” said Molly.

Molly and her mom and dad ate almost all the big pepperoni pizza. Molly found she was hungrier than she had thought. Using the computer, and thinking so hard, took a lot of energy.

A
t dinner Molly told her parents about her topic. “Barns,” she said.

“I love old barns,” said Mrs. Duff. “They remind me of staying at my grandparents’ farm in Norwood. Sometimes we’d sleep overnight in the hayloft.”

“I need to find out about barns around here,” said Molly. “And all I can find are barns in Idaho.”

“I can help with that,” said her dad. “Right after the dishes.”

“Good,” said Molly.

When they finished eating, Molly said to her mom, “I’ll bet you’re going to ask me to clear the table.”

“Why, yes!” her mom said. “I was going to ask you to do that so we can have some ice cream.”

“With chocolate sauce,” Molly continued.

“Yes,” said her mother. “You’re way ahead of me tonight!”

“Molly is psychic,” said her dad. “She has ESP.”

“Did you learn about that in school?” asked Mrs. Duff.

“In Scouts,” said Molly. “We knew what our new badge would be even before Mrs. Peters told us.”

Molly cleared the table and got the ice cream from the freezer. She was eager to get back upstairs to finish her report. She
ate her dessert quickly. Then her mom said, “Why don’t I do the dishes while you two work on your report?”

Molly and her dad went up to Molly’s room.

“Now, I think we have to look under ‘Minnesota.’ Then ‘barns,’ ” said Mr. Duff. He was almost right. They had to try several words before they found any information they could use.

“You can’t give up when you’re looking for something,” said Mr. Duff. “If it isn’t under one thing, you have to try another. It takes a while sometimes.”

But sure enough, historical barns turned up under “Minnesota’s historical buildings.” There was one very old cattle barn at the fairgrounds that had been built in 1900 and was still in use. It was made of concrete, and it was gray, not red.

Molly also found a building at the fairgrounds
that used to be a barn, back when there was a private farm on the land. Now it was used as a pavilion and snack bar during carnivals and fairs and some ball games in the summer. It didn’t look much like a barn anymore, but Molly knew that was what it used to be.

Molly thanked her dad for helping her. She decided to write her report, now that she had found the right place on the Internet.

Molly took a lot of notes and wrote down lots of barn facts. She learned that there were a poultry barn and a horse barn and a sheep barn. There was even a barn that used to house the animals and their owners when people brought their prize pets to the fair from out of town. Then she opened a blank page on the computer. She began her report by writing down the most important information.

When she finished writing, she had several pages. She pressed the
SAVE
key and the
PRINT
key. There was her report, all ready to be turned in on Tuesday. She stretched her arms and yawned. Then she turned off the laptop.

There was a rap on her door.

“Molly, I have to use the laptop for a little while tonight to check the stock market,” said her mom.

“Okay,” Molly said. “My report is finished.”

“You work fast!” said her mom. She picked up the laptop and carried it downstairs. Molly took a warm bath and crawled into bed, with thoughts of barns and ESP all jumbled together in her head. Just as she was nodding off for the night, her mom stuck her head in the door to say good night.

“By the way,” Mrs. Duff said. “One of
our documents is missing from the computer. Dad and I can’t seem to find it. I don’t imagine you know anything about that, do you?” When Molly didn’t answer, her mother headed back downstairs.

Molly had completely forgotten about all those words that had disappeared from the screen. She was wide awake now. How in the world could she get those words back onto the laptop? Should she march downstairs and confess what had happened? Should she admit she had been careless? Or should she try to put the whole thing out of her mind and go to sleep? But how could she sleep when she was so worried?

What if those words were very important, and they were gone forever? Would her family lose money on the stock market? Would the tax people come and arrest them and put them all in jail? Where in
the world did those words go? Molly couldn’t think of any place she could start looking. They could be in the basement or in the attic, or even floating in the air over the house. They could be hiding in some cloud over the ocean. Even
in
the ocean itself.

If Molly really had ESP, she would be able to concentrate and get the words back, no matter where they had gone. It was worth a try. Molly buried her head in her pillow and closed her eyes very tight. She could see some of the words in her mind’s eye, marching along the screen. She thought and thought about them but nothing happened. Tears came to Molly’s eyes. Her parents would never trust her with the computer again. She would have to go back to using books and a pencil and paper and snail mail—the old-fashioned way of writing to people.

Molly pictured all the Pee Wees reading and writing in cyberspace, while she was sharpening a yellow pencil in Mrs. Peters’s basement.

She decided to give her search one more try. “Come back, come back, come back!” she yelled. It seemed as if it must be midnight, but Molly’s little alarm clock showed it was only nine. When she was just about to give up on her ESP, her dad called to her.

“Molly, are you asleep? Can you come down here a minute?”

They must know what she had done. Maybe it was her
dad
who had ESP, not Molly. Maybe he knew she had erased those words.

Molly went downstairs.

“Molly, one of our files is missing, and we can’t seem to get it back. We have it saved on a backup disk, so it’s not really
lost. But I thought we should talk about being careful not to press the
DELETE
key in the wrong place when you are using the computer.”

Then they did know! They did have ESP! But if the words were on this little disk, why were they so worried?

“I did it!” cried Molly. “I wanted to get all those words off the screen and I pushed the
DELETE
button by mistake.”

Her dad frowned. “I’ll show you what to do when that happens,” he said. He turned the laptop on and showed Molly how to press the
ESCAPE
button and clear the screen without losing any important words.

“It wasn’t your fault,” said Mrs. Duff. “You can’t learn everything about computers in a few hours.”

Molly sighed. “I guess not,” she said.

“We just wanted you to know that we
have the words saved on this disk,” Mr. Duff said. “We know what a worrier you are, and we were afraid you wouldn’t be able to sleep if you thought you had done something wrong.”

“I’ll be really careful next time,” said Molly, giving her parents a hug and going back to bed.

As she crawled into bed, she remembered something. Just at the moment she was concentrating the hardest on those lost words, her dad had called her downstairs to tell her about the disk that the words were on. Her concentration had paid off. She did have ESP after all!

The next morning on the way to school, Mary Beth asked Molly what her report was on.

“Barns,” said Molly. “And I’m all done with my report.”

Mary Beth didn’t seem interested in
barns. And she didn’t have any questions to ask Molly about them. She probably thinks they’re boring, thought Molly.

“Ferris wheels were fun to look up,” said Mary Beth. “Lots of people get sick on them. Especially when they stop at the top.”

Once they got to school, the girls forgot about computers. School didn’t mix with Pee Wee Scouts. And it wasn’t half as much fun.

A
fter school the Pee Wees talked about their computer reports again. Some of the Scouts had not started their projects yet, but some of them were finished.