Hacker Read online

  CAP CENTRAL

  Fighter

  Running Scared

  Hacker

  Copyright © 2014 by Saddleback Educational Publishing

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher. SADDLEBACK EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING and any associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Saddleback Educational Publishing.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-62250-707-8

  ISBN-10: 1-62250-707-X

  eBook: 978-1-61247-958-3

  This digital document has been produced by Nord Compo.

  To the students and staff of Takoma Park

  Middle School.

  CHAPTER 1

  Keshawn

  So how’d I do on my math test?”

  Luther Ransome stopped his black Escalade in the middle of Seventeenth Street. A line of cars began to form behind him. His window was halfway down. He leaned across Chance Ruffin, who was sitting in the passenger seat. Although it was only seven in the morning, the bass booming on his radio was loud enough to rattle the window.

  From where he stood on the sidewalk, Keshawn Connor could see Jair Nobles and Thomas Porter in the back seat. Jair, Thomas, and Chance were all moving in time to the beat of the music.

  “Your real score? Fifty-nine percent,” Keshawn said flatly. “Now recorded as a seventy-five. So your overall average is seventy something. You’ve got a C.”

  “My man!” Luther said, slapping his steering wheel. “I have an English test tomorrow. Make sure I pass it. I don’t have time to study tonight.”

  As if you ever studied, Keshawn thought. And why should he? He knows his grades will stay above passing. Even though he’s never cracked a book.

  “Why are we talkin’ to this loser?” he heard Thomas say from the back seat.

  Keshawn turned back toward school. Luther rolled up the window, but then rolled it back down again. “Oh, and another thing,” he said. “Make sure you take Neecy’s seat in math today. I want her to sit by me.”

  Keshawn didn’t bother to answer. No need. Luther knew Keshawn would do whatever he was told.

  He was locked in a trap, and Luther held the only key.

  CHAPTER 2

  Neecy

  Hey, Ferg! Whaddup?” Carlos Garcia called to his best friend, Lionel “Ferg” Ferguson.

  Ferg turned and waited for Carlos to catch up. Together they walked down Seventeenth Street, turning at the corner of K Street toward the front door of Capital Central High School. The large high school was located in the north-east quadrant of Washington, D.C.

  “Man, I am still feelin’ that practice,” Carlos said, making a face. “Coach seemed extra hard on us last night.”

  “True that,” Ferg said. “He’s still mad about that Cardozo game.”

  “I just want to forget that game!” teammate Charlie Ray said, walking toward them. “Down twenty-four at the half, and I couldn’t hit a three to save my life.” Charlie was tall, with short dark hair and eyes that were almost black.

  “At least you made your free throws,” Ferg said. “I shot like my sister does when we’re playing horse.”

  “Hey, maybe Sierra should join the team.” Carlos laughed. “I’ve played horse with her. She’s not bad. And we may need a point guard.”

  “Isn’t JaQuel the point guard?” Eva Morales asked, joining the guys.

  Ferg threw his arm around Eva’s shoulders and gave her a kiss. Ferg and Eva had been going out for over a year. They made a cute couple.

  Both of them were a little overweight, but it didn’t bother them. They were friendly and well-liked.

  “He is for now,” Charlie said as they opened the door to the school. “But he might not maintain eligibility. He needs a 2.0 GPA to play, but he has Ds in English and math. So Coach Williams gave him until the day report cards come out. If his grades aren’t up by then, he’s off the team.”

  “Man, that’s cold,” Eva said. “But everyone should know the rules. Bad grades should always get you tossed from the team.”

  “Yeah, it’s harsh. Before Mrs. Hess came along, the rule was ignored,” Ferg said. “I guess whenever there’s a new principal, they make sure everyone follows all the rules. Since this is Mrs. Hess’s first year, we’re paying the price.”

  “This is the hardest year ever,” Eva said bleakly. “I feel like all I do is study, and I still can’t keep up.”

  “You guys talking about math?” Neecy Bethune, one of Cap Central’s cheerleaders, joined them. She had her long straightened hair pulled back in a ponytail that swung when she walked. Her big brown eyes looked concerned.

  “Yeah, math and English and US history and—” Ferg said, shaking his head.

  “I hear ya,” Charlie said. “All I do is practice and study. My game’s off, and my grades are tanking. And baseball season is just around the corner. I have to make grades so I can play. If I can’t play, I may as well kiss college good-bye. Getting a baseball scholarship is my last hope.”

  “Don’t even talk to me about scholarships,” Neecy said with a shudder. “I’ve kept my grades up every semester since middle school. I can’t believe I might lose it this close to college.”

  “Oh, that’s right! You’re one of those D.C. Stars, aren’t you?” Charlie said. “That seems so long ago.”

  “It was. That happened back in fifth grade,” Neecy said.

  “So what was the deal? Some rich guy offered to put you through college?” Eva asked.

  “You make it sound like it was just me.” Neecy laughed. “It was my whole fifth grade class. I lived over in Southeast at the time, and no one from that neighborhood ever went to college. So some guy said he’d pay for college to any kid in my fifth grade class who maintained a 3.0 GPA, as long as we stayed in D.C. public schools. Maybe he was hoping a lot of us would move out of the area. College costs a lot of money.”

  “So how many of you are left?” Charlie asked.

  “Not many. Most didn’t keep their grades up, and some moved out of D.C. The last time we got together, there were only six of us left. I’m barely hanging on—my GPA last marking period was barely a three. I can’t believe I could lose the scholarship after hanging on for—what? Six years?”

  “Now that’s pressure,” Carlos said, shaking his head. “But back to JaQuel. He is the team. He’s that good. If he’s ineligible, our season is over.”

  “Quel should get some help,” Eva said. “I stayed after school yesterday with Mr. Sullivan to try to get caught up in math. It helped, I guess. I’m still lost, but not as lost.”

  “Right, miss practice for math help,” Ferg said with a laugh. “Coach would have his ass if he tried that one.”

  “Sullivan’s there at lunch too sometimes,” Eva said as they wove through the crowds of kids talking and laughing in the hallway. “If JaQuel doesn’t try to help himself, I don’t feel too sorry for him.”

  “Get ready to feel sorry for the whole Cap Central basketball team if he doesn’t make grades,” Charlie said, looking dejected. “We need a miracle, and we need it soon.”

  “Well, he’s still got a couple of weeks,” Eva said. “So if he gets his grades up like the coach said, maybe you’ll be all right.”

  “He’d better,” Ferg said, shaking his head. “We play Wilson High School right after report cards come out. Those guys go to basketball camp all summer. I hear some of them have personal trainers. You know, helping them keep fit with strength training and stuff. If JaQuel can’t play, we’re screwed. No one else has his moves. And the D.C. tourney is right after that.”

  “Our season could be over almost before it gets started
,” Carlos said. “Man! I wasn’t feeling so bad when I left home this morning, but now I’m totally miserable. Thanks, guys,” he joked. The others laughed. “I’m gonna find Joss to cheer myself up,” he added. “I’ll see you later.” He took off to find his girlfriend, Joss White, who was Eva’s best friend.

  “Ask her to show you her new glasses,” Eva called after him. He waved without turning around.

  “You want to stop at your locker before biology?” Ferg asked Eva.

  “Yeah, I need to get rid of my backpack,” she said. “See you guys later.” She and Ferg walked off down the hall.

  “You ready for Piper’s class?” Charlie asked Neecy. They walked down the hall toward their first period English class.

  Neecy nodded. “I stayed up late to finish The Great Gatsby last night,” she said. “Are you done with it?”

  “I finished it a day or two ago,” Charlie said. “I thought it was pretty good.”

  “Me too,” Neecy said. “And Piper is a relief compared to math. It helps that I had him in ninth grade before they switched him to teaching junior English. You know, it’s too bad about Quel,” she added as they stood outside their classroom. “It’s gonna mess everyone up if he can’t play.”

  “I think he knows that,” Charlie said. “At least he tries to do his work. Some of those others, like Chance Ruffin, don’t even care.”

  “Is he in danger of being ineligible too?” Neecy asked.

  “I think lots of guys are,” Charlie said. “Chance and Luther Ransome and—”

  “Please. Do not even mention his name,” Neecy said with a shiver. “I hate that guy.”

  “Really?” Charlie said curiously. “Why?” “Lots of reasons,” Neecy answered. “Among others, he’s a cheater. Back in ninth grade, I saw him looking at my test in math. He wasn’t even trying to hide it. All I do is study, and he tries to steal my answers. I don’t think so.”

  The first bell rang, and they walked into Mr. Piper’s classroom.

  “You want to go to the library at lunch to work on math?” Charlie asked. “I can help if you want me to,” he offered.

  “Sure,” Neecy said. “I’ll see you there.”

  She looked up at the tall athlete and smiled. He grinned back at her and took his seat.

  CHAPTER 3

  Keshawn

  Keshawn divided his life into before and after.

  Before was back when he didn’t have a computer. When he heard other kids talking about games like Halo and World of Warcraft, and had no idea what they were talking about. Before he talked his mother into buying him a computer so he would do better on his school-work. Back when no one at Cap Central High School paid him any attention.

  After could be traced to the day he helped his mother and grandmother install a computer program on that new computer. A program they’d heard about that would enable parents to monitor their children’s Internet usage. A program that could be installed on any computer to capture passwords and access data.

  Including the computers at school.

  Later, when he remembered how it all started, he thought it was actually kind of funny. His mother and grandmother, two of the most technologically clueless women in D.C., got him started in his life of hacking.

  The three of them lived together in his grandmother’s house on Mount Olivet Road. The house was a wreck. There was no money to keep it up. His mother made next to nothing waiting tables at a lunch place in downtown D.C., and his grandmother was too sick to work. Keshawn often came home from school to find a note from the power company on the door saying that the service had been cut off. He wanted to help, but how could he? He didn’t have a job.

  The house was a short walk from All Souls Spiritual House of Love Eternal. Keshawn’s mom and grandmother loved that place. They forced Keshawn to spend all day with them there on Sundays, surrounded by old ladies in big hats. The ladies who attended All Souls sprinkled quotes from the scriptures—or what they thought was scripture—throughout their conversations.

  Keshawn knew his mother and grand-mother hoped that dragging him to church for several hours a week would keep him out of trouble. “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it,” they warned whenever he tried to stay home.

  It had the opposite effect. Sitting there for hours on Sunday afternoons gave him lots of time to think.

  And to figure out ways to make some cash.

  The plan wasn’t yet on his mind when he first begged his mother to buy them a computer. He finally wore her down. She bought a basic model, signing a note to pay for it over a two-year period. Right after they got the computer, Deacon Sharpe at All Souls held a meeting where he invited a speaker to warn the congregation about the evils of the Internet. Keshawn’s mother and grandmother came home and accused him of all sorts of things: looking at porn, chatting with strangers, gambling. Really? He was just playing games.

  The speaker at the meeting conveniently had some spying software for sale. He convinced parents the software could be easily installed and used to capture their children’s passwords and website visits. Which would have been helpful had anyone in the house besides Keshawn known how to use the software. His mom used a computer at work for placing orders and printing out her customers’ checks, but she didn’t even have e-mail.

  And his grandmother? She sometimes tried to answer the phone by picking up the TV remote. Keshawn tried to teach her computer basics, but it was hopeless. So his mother and grandmother asked Keshawn to set it up for them. They quickly got lost trying to follow what he was doing. So they never saw that he chose the password that made the whole program work. The irony was that the only person in the family who could use the software designed to spy on Keshawn was Keshawn himself.

  One day at church he was chuckling to himself about how funny it all was. Sometime between the second and third hour, as he started to doze off, he had a brainstorm. Wouldn’t it be cool, he thought, if I could read teachers’ e-mails? Look at other kids’ grades? Snoop around?

  Not to actually do anything—just look.

  So he tried it. He copied the program onto a flash drive and brought it to school. He sat in the library for a few days and saw which teachers used which computers most often, like at lunch time. One very busy day, when the librarians were too busy to notice, he stuck his flash drive into one of the computers and installed the program. Then he logged off and sat at another computer. Soon Mr. Sullivan, his math teacher, came in and logged in. He did whatever teachers do, logged off, and left.

  Keshawn moved to that computer and logged in. He opened the spy program, and there it was, Mr. Sullivan’s user name and password plus all the sites he visited. Keshawn had access to it all, including the teacher’s school e-mail and grade book for each of his classes.

  Keshawn looked at his grades and those of others in the class. Charlie Ray, 84 percent. Rainie Burkette, 91 percent. The majority were in the 70-percent range. And then there were a few that were far, far lower. Including Cap Cent athletic superstar Luther Ransome. Quarterback, basket-ball player—name the sport, Luther played it, and played it better than almost anyone else.

  But apparently his abilities stopped at the locker room door.

  His average in math was 59 percent.

  He had started the year okay but had flunked the last three tests. He also had lots of missed work. Keshawn looked around further and found a way to see overall grade point averages. Luther had the 2.0 GPA needed to be eligible to play sports—but just barely. That 59 percent, if it stuck, was going to pull his GPA down. Football season was just about over, and basketball season was about to begin. Report cards would be out in a couple of weeks. If his grades slipped, he wouldn’t be able to play.

  Unless he had some help.

  Keshawn increased Luther’s score on the last test to a seventy-five, added a few percentage points to quizzes, entered homework he hadn’t turned in—did all sorts of illegal stuff to his record.

&nbs
p; By the time he was done, Luther had an 86 percent. B-plus.

  And a total, laughable lie.

  Later, Keshawn couldn’t even remember why he had done it. More than helping Luther Ransome, it was just the thrill of being able to do it. He didn’t even like Luther Ransome or his friends, and he couldn’t pretend to care about Cap Cent sports.

  Keshawn quickly tried to undo what he’d done. He lowered those that he remembered having changed. But of course he hadn’t kept records and couldn’t remember them all. Luckily, Mr. Sullivan returned all tests and other work after he entered the scores into the system. So there wouldn’t be any record of Luther’s grade except what was in the computer.

  For some reason—pride maybe—Keshawn kept the score on that math test at seventy-five. He knew Luther wouldn’t ever tell anyone if his grades miraculously got better. By the time he was done, Luther had a low C. Not his original grade, but high enough that he could play sports. Keshawn logged off and swore he’d never do it again.

  And that should have been the end of it.

  Except that it wasn’t.

  About a week later, Keshawn overheard Luther talking to Chance Ruffin, a friend of his. For some reason, Luther always let Chance hang around. Maybe because they were teammates. Chance also played both football and basketball. But where Luther had street smarts, Chance was a thug. Stupid, big, and mean. Likely to be in jail or dead by the time he was nineteen.

  Anyway, Keshawn heard Luther tell Chance that he was worried he wasn’t going to be able to play basketball because his grades were so bad. He said something to the effect of, “I’d pay anything to get my grades up.”

  That got Keshawn thinking.

  Luther had the money and the bad grades. Keshawn had the computer access and needed the cash.

  As the church ladies would say, a match made in heaven.

  Keshawn waited until a day when lots of Cap Cent kids were hanging out on the hill behind the school. On a clear day, you could look out over Washington, D.C., and see the Washington Monument way off in the distance.