The History Mystery (3 page)

‘You know something? This sounds like a virus – and possibly one I've come across before.'

Sonia was doubly happy when she heard Pedro say that. She had just told him she'd been getting these weird messages through her computer that seemed to be coming from someone claiming to be from another era. She had been half afraid her friend would laugh at her and not take it seriously. So it was a relief to hear that someone else had come up against something like this before. And it was really good that Pedro had some experience of a virus like this. That might help.

Before she even had time to invite him to her house to see the computer, he was already offering.

‘Can I come over and take a look?'

‘Of course you can. Any time you like!'

‘I'm really curious,' Pedro said. ‘Maybe I can get a better grasp of it this time. Last time, I didn't get anywhere with it.'

‘Oh, what happened?'

‘Luckily, the problem disappeared out of the blue,
just as randomly as it had appeared. I didn't even get a chance to show it to the school's IT support guys.'

‘But why would you want to show it to the school?' asked Sonia, mystified.

‘Because it was on one of the PCs in the computer lab at school that I came across it. Didn't I say that already?'

No, he had not. And there were other things that Pedro had not explained either, that came out bit by bit as they talked.

He explained that the problem had happened at Garibaldi High School, on one of the shared computers in the lab. Those PCs never rested. Dozens of kids took turns on them for schoolwork.

‘But what exactly happened?' she asked.

He countered with another question: ‘Do you know Robbie?'

‘Of course, Pedro, who doesn't know Robbie?'

Robbie was not a student at their school, but everyone there knew him. One of the things about Garibaldi High that the school was especially proud of were the after-hours community classes taught by the students themselves to underprivileged kids. The school made the classrooms available and students volunteered to teach classes in the subjects they were good at (such as the piano or French or maths – Sonia taught history on Wednesdays), while the school's regular teachers gave them support.

The idea was for the students to do voluntary work in an extracurricular activity that would look good on their CVs later on, while helping out young people who lived in a neighbourhood where the schools were not so well funded by the government. Robbie worked part-time in the school cafeteria and was one of Sonia's students in her Wednesday history class – a good student, it had to be said. In addition to that, he was an excellent football player and was often seen playing with the students in the Garibaldi High gymnasium. Every now and then, when they played a match against another school, the PE teachers would sneak Robbie in to play for the school's team. Then they would all head out together to celebrate the victory or forget the defeat. So Robbie was practically a celebrity in the school, although he wasn't technically a Garibaldi student.

‘Well, the problem with the school computer actually happened with Robbie,' Pedro was saying. ‘He had a new song and wanted to print a few copies of the lyrics for the rest of the band.'

That made sense, because not only was he a good football player, Robbie was also a songwriter and he hosted a council-supported internet radio show – he had been writing some wicked rap songs lately.

‘So he asked me to take the lyrics home with me,' Pedro continued, ‘type them up and print out a few copies for him. But I thought we could just use the
computer lab in the school. That would be quicker and more practical, so I asked Joe and he said that was OK.

‘Robbie is not exactly a computer whizz, though. He doesn't own a computer and he gets some of the commands muddled up sometimes, so I thought it would be good to stay with him while he was doing it.'

Sonia nodded. She wished he would get to the point, but at the same time, she liked listening to his voice.

‘So, we had been in the lab for about half an hour, the two of us on different computers, when he called me over, saying something weird was happening.

‘He had typed in the lyrics, all with short lines – you know, poetry-style – but when he was sending it to print, he must have hit the wrong key and something else appeared, a load of long lines that filled the screen right out to the edge.

‘I thought it was just a layout problem, so I sat down next to him to take a look. But it really was a completely different piece of writing. In fact,
two
different things appeared.'

‘Oh?'

‘Yes. First, there was a story about an old man who lived high up in the mountains and had a couple of assassins working for him, to help keep control of his “merchandise” …'

‘Oh, Pedro, that's rough,' said Sonia. She had
jumped to the conclusion that the word ‘merchandise' referred to the drug-dealing that everyone knew went on around the area where Robbie lived.

‘Yeah, well, that's what I thought too when I read it. It was kind of scary, actually. I thought some of these gangsters had somehow broken into the school network.'

Sonia shook her head.

‘I actually thought it was some kind of threat,' Pedro was saying. ‘I thought it was a response to Robbie's lyrics about living in peace, without violence: “Ya wanna live in peace and ya say ya don't know how, Well bro, let me tell ya, I'm gonna tell ya now”. That's how it starts. But maybe these guys didn't like that idea, wanted to warn him off or something? I don't know.'

‘But that wasn't it?'

‘I really don't know, Sonia. This thing that came up on the screen used some weird words. I mean, it talked about delivering the merchandise by
caravan
. Bits of it did seem to be about drug-dealing and gang stuff, but then other parts seemed to be from another planet.'

‘How do you mean?'

‘Hold on, I'm getting there. So when that page was finished, I scrolled down, and the next bit was a letter.'

‘Like, an email?'

‘No. A letter or a message, only it didn't say who it
was for, and it didn't have a signature. But the person explained that, when he was a boy, about our age, he went travelling around the world with his dad and his uncle. He lived for many years in distant countries, he said, and he had crossed deserts and mountains, seas and forests, and reached a different ocean.'

‘Hmm,' said Sonia. ‘I see what you mean about being from a different planet. Doesn't have anything to do with life around Robbie's area, anyway.'

‘He “saw many wonders”, he said, and he had been an ambassador for a great oriental king. He was bragging about lots of stuff. I can't even remember it all any more.'

‘Weird,' said Sonia.

‘Yeah, and according to himself, he invented pasta, or something like that.'

‘Pasta?'

‘And another thing I remember, because he kept repeating it every five lines or so: he was very proud of knowing how to write and he kept boasting about it and trying to show off about it to us. He said he'd written this great book that was a big success, all about his travels.'

‘That's a bit like my Brainy Joker,' added Sonia.

‘Exactly. That struck me too, when you told me about those messages you got. That's what made me remember.'

Sonia was puzzled.

‘Anyway, listen,' Pedro went on, ‘it's coming back to me. This guy also said that many years later, when he was old and came back from his travels, he was arrested. He said that he wrote this book of his while he was in prison. He didn't actually write it down himself though. He dictated it to a cell companion who was a professional scribe.'

‘Hey,' said Sonia, ‘I wish I had read that message. You didn't print it out, did you?'

‘It never even crossed my mind,' said Pedro. ‘At that moment, I just wanted to get rid of the message and get back to the page with Robbie's lyrics. I did read the pages, but then I closed them. I didn't think to save the message, so it must have disappeared.'

Sonia was disappointed. She had been getting excited about the idea of comparing her own two messages with this new one.

‘What about the IT support guys?' she suggested.

‘Well, I didn't go into too much detail with them. I was afraid of getting Robbie into trouble. If they thought he'd brought a virus in, they probably wouldn't let him use the school computers any more or something. So I just kind of mentioned it to Joe – I was pretty vague about it, and he told me not to worry, he'd take a look.'

‘And he didn't find anything?' Sonia asked, more hopeful now. Joe was an absolute expert on computers: that was his job. He would definitely find anything that was to be found.

‘Well,' said Pedro, ‘the next day he just said that he hadn't found anything wrong. He thought it was probably just some other student's project, someone who'd used the computer before us and whose essay we ended up erasing. Whoever it was, they were probably going to be furious about it. So we waited for another student to complain.'

Pedro talked so slowly. Sonia was impatient. She tried to speed him up.

‘And then?'

‘And then nothing. That was it. Until today, when you told me the secret about our wonderful team project about ancient Egypt. And this story about your sister and the letter from the woman who wrote shopping lists.'

Sonia looked at him. She wasn't convinced that that was all he had to say.

‘Come on, Pedro, I trusted you. I told you something that I have not told anyone else. But I know you – we've been friends for ever – and I could bet money that you're holding something back.'

Pedro stared at the ground for a little while. Then he looked into Sonia's eyes, gave one of those smiles that could melt ice, and confessed.

‘Yeah, you're right, I do have an idea, but I'm not sure about it. It's not that I don't trust you, Sonia, because I do. You're my friend and you're a really special girl. But the thing is, I may be wrong and
I might end up being unfair to someone, and that's why I didn't want to say anything more.'

Wrong? How?
thought Sonia.
You just said I'm a really special girl, and there's nothing wrong with that. Things have never felt so right in all my life
.

‘See, in my opinion, it's not a virus, Sonia. I think we're dealing with a hacker. You know what that is, right? Those guys who can break into other people's computer networks.'

‘Of course I know that. I've heard of hacking.'

‘But the thing is, hacking is illegal. That's why I didn't want to say anything about it until I was pretty sure.'

‘I see, yeah. It's not nice, is it? Though it's probably just a joke, don't you think?'

‘It's a
crime
, Sonia. I mean, suppose this person is part of one of these criminal organisations that steal money from banks or sabotage companies and stuff like that?'

‘You mean, it could be
dangerous
?'

‘Well, in theory, yeah, it could be. But in this case, I don't really think so. I think you're right that this person is really just messing around, playing some stupid joke. Still, I can't resist wanting to find out more, can you? And now that we have a few different messages to go on, I think we're starting to piece a few things together about this Brainy Joker of yours.'

Sonia was just about to say something when Pedro
gave a start. ‘Oh! I've just remembered something else. In that message Robbie and I got, the guy said he was from Venice.'

‘Do you think it's an Italian, then? Could that be why his use of language is strange? He could be lying about that, though, to cover up …'

There were so many ideas tumbling around in Sonia's head all at once, she could hardly get them all out.

‘Hey, listen, Sonia. I've just worked something out! Think about it. We know who this fellow from Venice is, because we happen to have learned about him and his voyages.'

‘Do we? Did we? Who?'

‘Remember?' said Pedro. ‘In one of the books that we read in history last year …'

Sonia thought about it but nothing came to mind, though it did ring a vague bell. Pedro kept trying to ring that bell a little louder.

‘Come on, Sonia. Who was the great traveller who left Venice as a kid, journeyed all through the East, was an ambassador for the emperor Kublai Khan and on his way home was arrested and, in prison, wrote the
Book of the Marvels of the World
?'

‘Marco Polo!' she cried. ‘How come I didn't think of that before?'

‘But listen,
we
know that, right, because we did it at school. But a lot of people wouldn't know it.'

‘So that makes us smart, is that it?'

‘No, that's not the point. The thing is, it wouldn't make any sense to use this story to play a joke on people who don't know anything about Marco Polo or who haven't been thinking about him quite recently. It only works on people in our actual class – people who have the right information to understand what the message is about.'