Flirting with Disaster (11 page)

A forward about the garden club from my mom.

An e-mail from Natalie. Interesting. I clicked that one open and scanned the CC field. She’d sent it to everyone on the newspaper staff, talking about her plans for the next year. Should she win, that is.

And right before my eyes, a new e-mail arrived from . . .
“Your friend Ashley Gorm Strauss”?

I clicked on that one too. It was an e-card. How nice! And it even had a benefit. It was from World Rice Bowl and promised to donate £1 toward world hunger for each person who opened the card. The sender would be notified about how much her
friends
had raised for her, as well as all the friends her friends forwarded it on to.

I looked out to the shop floor. Becky was still chatting. I looked at the e-mail again. Surely it hadn’t escaped
my friend Ashley Gorm Strauss
that I hadn’t responded to her last forward about the true love of my life. Might as well open the card.

I clicked on the card icon, and as I did, I noticed by the bar on the bottom of the screen that it was downloading.

Wait a minute.
I’d only meant to open the card. Not to download it onto Becky’s computer.

I pounded the Escape button hard. Nothing. I hit Control-Alt-Delete. Nothing.

Becky was now ringing up the sale. It wasn’t like I could shout for her.

All of a sudden the computer flashed twice, on and off, on and off. Then I noticed that my address book from my still-open e-mail account appeared on the screen, and the names and e-mail addresses began to scroll through. I tried to close out of the e-mail program, but it wouldn’t shut down.

Desperate, I turned off the computer. My face was flaming hot. I could barely breathe. I was about to have my very first asthma attack; I was sure of it. Or heart attack, maybe.

The customer left the store, and Becky came back. She took one look at my face and said quietly, “Savvy, what’s wrong?”

Chapter 21

“Becky, I’m afraid I made a very big mistake.”

Becky cocked her head but said nothing, nodding for me to continue but looking at the black computer.

“I sent everything out like you asked me to. And I got the site uploaded. But . . . well, when I was waiting here for you, I started reading my e-mail. Then I clicked on an e-card, and all of a sudden something started downloading.” I told her the rest of the scenario, and as I did, her face went milky.

“Malware,” she said.

Worst. Day. Ever.

Chapter 22

I offered to stay and help, but Becky said no, she’d better close the shop and figure out what happened. For all she knew, the malware had been sent to all the people on the donor list, and as soon as they opened the message from her, right after the e-mail announcing the auction, they would infect their own computers.

I gathered up my bag and the rest of my things. She said she’d contact me later but she’d really better get to figuring this out. My eyes felt like fireballs, and I barely made it out of the shop without crying. I lost it as soon as I heard her lock the door behind me . . . an hour early.

Lord,
I prayed, holding loud, clamoring sobs inside through sheer willpower,
please, please, please don’t let that e-mail have gone out to the donors. Please let this be a simple fix for Becky’s computer. I’m so sorry that I made this mistake, Jesus. Just don’t let a lot of those other people be harmed. Please, please, please.

I stopped pleading as I felt my phone vibrate, indicating an incoming text. It was from Penny.

Savvy. Don’t open any e-mails from Ashley. Will explain more later.

Too late.

I walked a bit slower, hoping the cool air would calm down the red I knew must be splotching across my face. I pulled myself together, turned down Cinnamon Street, and headed to Kew Cottage. I could handle this. I could be calm.

I opened the door, and Growl came running toward me, but somehow he must have sensed something was wrong. He skidded to a stop, surfing on the small rug in the hallway.

Louanne came after him. “Sav . . .”

Before she could even finish my name, I raced upstairs into my room, slammed the door behind me, and let the sobs loose.

A minute later my mother knocked on the door. I didn’t answer, but I didn’t tell her to go away, either. She turned the knob and came in. For a few minutes she just sat and rubbed my back. In spite of myself, I was soothed. She said nothing, but I finally did.

“I ruined Becky’s computer,” I said. “With malware, whatever that is.” Then I sat straight up in bed, remembering Becky’s computer scrolling through my e-mail address book before I shut it down. “Mom! Did you get a message from me?”

“Well, I don’t know, honey,” she said in her quiet, calm tone, which indicated she seriously did not get the panic required by this situation.

“Mom, this is important.” I bolted out of bed and ran downstairs. Dad was hunched over the computer, as he often was at night. “Dad, please log on to your e-mail right now and see if you got something from me.”

He looked up at me and opened his mouth as if to say he was busy, but noticing my streaky face and watery eyes, he closed out of his program and logged on to his e-mail. “Nothing. Did you send it today?”

I took my first little breath of relief. “Can you log on to Mom’s?”

He did. “Nothing.”

He let me check my own e-mail. I quickly clicked on my sent mail. Nothing had been sent that day. I deleted the message from Ashley, then permanently deleted it, and then I slumped on the couch and texted Penny.

Did you get an e-mail from me?

No. Did you open Ashley’s card?

Yes.

A minute went by.

I’m so sorry, Savvy. Is your computer ruined? Two of Ashley’s friends’ computers are totally gone. Smoke. And they forwarded it to other people before it was too late.

I opened it at Be@titude.

I’m so, so sorry, Sav.

I didn’t text back. Instead I quietly asked my dad, “What is malware?”

“
Malware
means ‘
mal
icious soft
ware
,’” he said. “Programs designed to cause a lot of damage. Why?”

I started crying again, and he came and sat next to me on the couch. I had to fight two desires at once. One, to let him hug me like he had when I was a little girl, and the other, to push him away and try to deal with this on my own. I bridged the difference and just drew a little closer and explained what had happened at Be@titude.

“Probably a computer virus, which is kind of like a Trojan horse. It looks like you didn’t send it on after all because Mom and I didn’t get an e-mail, and neither did Penny. Chances are good that if it would have gone to anyone on your list, it would have gone to everyone on your list.”

“I didn’t have time to pass on the forward,” I said. Mom came down the stairs then, but to her credit, she said nothing about how she’d already told me that forwards were bad news. I stood up. “I’m going to bed now, I think,” I said.

“At six o’clock?” Mom asked.

“I’m not hungry.” All I could think about was that maybe Becky’s address book had still been open after I entered the new e-mail addresses, and maybe the malware or Trojan horse or whatever it was had gone galloping into their computers too.

Once upstairs, I sat on my floor. I pulled out my laptop, but I didn’t have the energy to do any work. Instead, I logged on to a Web site that would help me figure out what a Trojan horse was.