The Forgetting Machine (5 page)

I wasn't sure about that last bit. I knew Charlotte was a spider who spun words in her web, but I hadn't actually read the book. I wasn't sure about the spelling thing.

Since I'd been meaning to read it anyway, and Mr. Tisk had made it sound so interesting, I pulled up the document on my tab, flopped down on my bed, and dove in. It took all of ten seconds for me to get completely absorbed in the story. I'd read all the way to chapter 11—that's when Charlotte writes her first words—when my mom yelled at me to set the table for dinner.

“Just a minute!” I yelled back, and kept on reading. I was relieved to find that Charlotte the spider could spell just fine. I wouldn't have to change my report.

My mom started yelling again, so I set my tab aside and stomped downstairs.

“I was doing homework,” I said.

“Well
I'm
doing
house
work,” she said. All she was doing was putting a frozen lasagna in the microwave oven, which barely qualifies as work, and certainly isn't as technically challenging as setting the table. But I had the sense not to point that out. Mom was quite proud of her microwaving skills.

I set the table quickly, hoping to get back to my book for another chapter or two before dinner.

It was not to be. As I was setting the table, she rattled off a list of other Important Tasks that required my Immediate Attention.

“You left your shoes on the floor by the front door, the ficus plant needs water, and the cat box needs emptying.”

“Mom, I'm not a bot!”

“Neither am I. Now hurry up; dinner will be ready in thirteen minutes.”

Glumly I set about my assigned tasks. The cat box was the worst. Barney watched me scoop out his old turds, waiting patiently so that he could start the process all over again.

“You are very stinky,” I told him.

“Merp,” he agreed.

  •  •  •  

I wasn't able to get back to
Charlotte's Web
until after dinner, and there was a nasty surprise waiting for me. When I started on chapter 12, I became immediately confused. All the characters had changed:

One evening, a few days after the writing had appeared on the wall, Charlotte called a meeting of all the children in the barn cellar.

“I shall begin by calling the roll. Wilbur?”

“Here!” said the boy.

“George?”

“Here, here, here!” said George.

I stopped reading. Writing on what
wall
? What
children
? Who was
George
? And Wilbur is supposed to be a
pig
, not a
boy
!

It was a completely different book. I flipped back to the previous chapter. Everything had changed. All the animals had been replaced by kids, and instead of a spider writing words in her web, it was a girl named Charlotte writing on a wall. It made no sense at all!

Something—or someone—had hacked into my copy of
Charlotte's Web
and changed all the words.

I took my tablet to ACPOD's director of cyber-security services, who just so happens to be my father.

“This
is
rather odd,” he said, looking at the corrupted text on my tab.

“It's more than odd,” I said. “It's literary terrorism.”

“I wouldn't go quite that far. Have you tried downloading a fresh copy?”

“Yes! It's the same.”

“Let me try.” He picked up his own tablet and logged on to the county library system. A few seconds later
Charlotte's Web
popped up.

“Hmmm,” he said, scrolling through the first few chapters. “Is Charlotte supposed to be a little girl who writes on walls?”

“No!”

“I didn't think so. It seems the library file has been corrupted as well. Let me check out some other titles.”

A few minutes later he had looked over the digital editions of
The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,
and
War and Peace
.

“These all look fine,” he said.

“I know who did this,” I said.

  •  •  •  

Nothing is ever simple.

If I were in charge, I'd have ordered an immediate SWAT raid on the Tisks and hung them up by their thumbs until they agreed to fix
Charlotte's Web.

That's probably why I'm not in charge.

“Ginger, we don't know with any certainty that Mr. and Mrs. Tisk are behind this,” my dad said.

“Who else would replace all the talking animals with talking humans?”

“It could be one of their parishioners, or any number of other people. What we need to do is wait until Monday and contact the administrator at the county library system. They'll be able to restore the damaged texts and trace the invasive bug back to its source.”

“But I need Charlotte
now
,” I whined. I am not above whining. Sometimes it works.

“Then you'll have to borrow a paper copy.”

“From
who
? The library's closed!”

“Maybe one of your friends?”

“You're the only person I know who reads paper books! Can't you just go over to the Tisks and tell them if they don't fix it they'll be in big trouble? Mom would.”

He laughed. I hate it when he laughs while I'm trying to be serious.

“Maybe you should pitch this to her, then.”

“Maybe I will!”

“Good luck.”

  •  •  •  

I have to explain about my mother. My mom is scary. I've mentioned her long, blood-red fingernails and her glittery eyes and her crown of spiky black hair, but I haven't told you she is six feet tall with a tongue that could slice a steel bar into frightened little disks. She would be the perfect weapon to unleash upon the Tisks—if I could get her with the program.

That was the problem. Mom is big on self-reliance, as in,
Ginger, do not ask me to solve your Flinkwater problem for you
.

In other words, she is not the nurturing type.

I found her in the backyard enjoying herself in a quiet sort of way by pinching beetles off her rosebush.

“Mom, did you ever read
Charlotte's Web
?”

“The book about the pig and the spider?” she said. “I could use a spider right now. Look at what these creatures are doing to my flowers.”

“Yeah, I could use a spider too. But I have a Tisk problem.”

“Tisk problem?”

“Yes. Mr. and Mrs. Tisk have hacked my tab.” I explained what had happened and how I was sure the Tisks were involved. Several rose beetles met their doom as I spoke.

“Your father is the cyber-security expert. Did you talk to him?”

“He says he'll contact the county library on Monday, but I was hoping maybe you could talk to the Tisks before that.”

“And why is this so urgent?”

“I need to finish reading about Charlotte.”

“Don't you have other things you could be doing? Have you finished that report you were working on?”

“
Charlotte's Web
is part of my research.”

“How is a book about talking animals pertinent to a paper about the history of Flinkwater?”

“It's complicated,” I said.

“I'm sure it is,” she said as she pinched the head off another beetle.

  •  •  •  

It was no great surprise that my mother the beetle pincher had refused my desperate call for help. As I said before, she was not the nurturing type. Clearly, I would have to take matters into my own hands.

The life-size Jesus statue in the Tisks' front yard made an excellent guardian. His blue eyes seemed to follow me as I walked past him, silently reminding me of all ten commandments and how I'd broken at least four of them. I didn't think I was breaking any at the moment, but he still made me kind of nervous. I rang the doorbell. A few seconds later the door opened and Mrs. Tisk was staring out at me. Or maybe she was looking
through
me—it was hard to tell. She reminded me of the statue, only less alive. She didn't say anything; she just stood there with her crown of pale blond hair and colorless eyes.

“Hi, Mrs. Tisk,” I said. “I'm Ginger Crump.”

“I know who you are.” Her voice sounded like oatmeal. “You are the girl from the library. What is it you want?”

I held up my tab and showed her a page from the corrupted version of
Charlotte's Web
.

“Charlotte isn't supposed to be a girl. She's a spider. I want you to fix it, because if you don't, you're going to be in big trouble.” When I had practiced saying that on the way over, it had sounded much more fearsome. Mrs. Tisk's dead-fish eyes bored into me. “My dad will have you arrested for literary terrorism,” I added.

Mrs. Tisk laughed, a creaky, rusty sound like you might hear if you forced open a cellar door that hadn't been opened in decades.

“You can't just go around changing books,” I said.

“Your blasphemous reading habits are not my concern, young lady. Clearly you are not only rude and presumptuous, you are beyond saving. I have no idea what you're talking about, and even if I did, I wouldn't care. However, I will pray for you.”

She slammed the door in my face.

But not before her cat, Mr. Peebles, slipped out unseen.

“How do you stand it?” I asked him.

“Grup,” he said.

  •  •  •  

I did not mean to become a kidnapper. Or, more accurately, a
cat
napper. Mr. Peebles followed me home of his own free will. And when we got there, I did not force him to stay, but I did feed him another half a can of tuna. I gave the other half to Barney, making him promise not to say anything. Grudgingly Barney agreed. He ate his tuna and went to his living room perch to sulk. I politely invited Mr. Peebles to spend the night in my bedroom, and he politely accepted my invitation.

Why did I do that? I suppose I was angry that the Tisks had taken Charlotte away from me, and thousands of other readers, and taking their cat was . . . I don't know. I was mad, okay? Anyway, I figured I could return Mr. Peebles later and no harm done. And they couldn't really blame me, because Mr. Peebles had come on his own.

I considered sending a ransom note. I spent a few minutes writing one out. I found a ransom note font to make it look like a real ransom note. I thought it looked pretty good:

I showed it to Mr. Peebles. He stared at it for a moment, then swiped his paw across the screen, trying to turn the page.

“Wait here,” I said. “I'll get you a book.”

I ran downstairs to my dad's study and looked over his bookshelf. What would Mr. Peebles like? Something with pictures, maybe. I found one of my old picture books on the bottom shelf.
The Cat in the Hat
. Perfect!

Back in my room, I propped the book on my pillow and set Mr. Peebles in front of it. He sniffed the edges of the book, then rubbed the spine with his chin and licked it.