3
 
COMPUTOWITCH.COM
 

I finally got to my computer late that night. My parents had already gone to bed. So except for an occasional tiny splash from Caruso climbing off his rock into his pool, or Hector and Guinevere taking a spin on their respective wheels, the house was silent. Except for the small light over my desk, my room was also dark. There was just me, with Fred perched on my shoulder, where he always is when I’m in my room, sitting there in a small pool of light.

to: spook@home.com

From : broomstick@home.com

subject: a very weird day

Hi! Thanks for your Letter. I’m glad your parents decided not to buy a house after all. Maybe your father thinks he’s going to be sent back here. I told you I’d be looking for a crazy magic toadstool, toadstoolius spookus returnicum, but you and I both know I wouldn’t know one if I found one, or how to use it. I’d have to have Miss Switch here for that. And no, as you could probably guess, she wasn’t at school this morning. But it was a very weird day.

Our teacher was Mrs. Potts. Remember her from the second grade? Billy Swanson did his usual and sent off about twenty spitballs. He got sent to the principal, and so did a bunch of the girls, but they were trying to get sent. Which brings me to the real reason why the day was so weird.

Mrs. Grimble had an accident and broke a leg and an arm, so she’s gone for a while. We now have a substitute principal. It’s a man named Mr. Dorking, and he is the best-looking guy I have ever seen in my life. I’m not kidding you, spook. The girls were all swooning. Even Mrs. Potts swooned.

Anyway, at the end of the day, Mrs. Potts announced she was only there for that day, which was probably a good thing because I didn’t think she could make it through another one. She said she was filling in for our regular teacher, who had been “delayed in flight”—her exact words.

I know you’re thinking the same thing I did: flight! Miss Switch! But there are two problems with concluding anything from this, as I see it.

a. Good as she is at her particular means of air travel, I don’t see how she could be delayed by anything.

b. Nothing scary happened today that would bring her running, or in her case, flying, a principal who has all the girls swooning over him is pretty disgusting, but it isn’t exactly a dangerous situation.

Of course there’s always the possibility that Miss Switch needs help herself, like the first time she came seeking the help of my great scientific brain. I still find it hard to believe that Miss Switch was being ordered around by a crazy contraption that was nothing but a dinky, black, old-fashioned cooking stove. Someone had a lot of nerve giving it that scientific name: computowitch!

And that word turned out to be the last one in my letter. As soon as I had entered it, my computer screen instantly turned a sickly green, as if it were about to—well—throw up. Then it started to shiver. My first thought was that I’d hit the wrong key, although I’d never known of any key on the keyboard that produced these results before.

My second thought was that my computer might be about to crash and take the letter I’d spent all my valuable time writing right along with it! I wasn’t about to let that happen. Swiftly, I somehow managed to grab the mouse and shoot the arrow on the screen up to hit “send.” Gone! I’d saved the letter. It was on its way to Spook.

All except that one word—“computowitch.” It remained on the screen, quivering in the sea of pea-soup green. I practically stopped breathing. So that was it! I hadn’t hit the wrong key. There probably wasn’t even any wrong key to hit. It was the word “computowitch.” I continued to stare at the screen, hypnotized, wondering what was going to happen next. I didn’t have to wait long.

The screen turned a fiery, feverish red. Then it changed to orange, then purple, and then back to red again. Meanwhile, the computer began heaving in and out, looking as if it were ready to explode. It must have scared Fred, because he catapulted from my shoulder and flew over to huddle in his cage.

I suddenly realized my computer was behaving almost the same as that crazy computowitch had just before it died! Is that what my computer was about to do? Almost automatically my hand shot out and pulled the plug from the wall. The screen instantly went dark. But was the computer still working? Hesitantly I shoved the plug back in, and the screen turned the good old familiar cool blue. It was apparently back in business!

But how had all that wacky stuff happened? How could just the single word “computowitch” have caused it? Unless it had some connection with the original computowitch, the one that I, personally, had been responsible for wrecking. The last I knew, it was going back to be used as a plain old stove. There was certainly something very odd about all of it. Maybe even something sinister.

And then I thought of the letter I had just sent off to Spook. The word “computowitch” had apparently never gone off with the rest of it. But what if Spook used the word when she replied? Hadn’t I better warn her about it?

To: spook@home.com

From: broomstick@home.com

Subject: ps to earlier message-IMPORTANT!

This has to do with the letter I just sent you. I mentioned a certain item at the end, but if you write back about it, please don’t use the “c” word for it. Maybe you’d better not mention it at all. something strange is happening. I don’t know what it is, but until I find out, ye have to play it safe. so please remember, spook, no “c” word!

Broomstick

I sent the letter off at once but went right on sitting there staring at the blank screen. “I don’t know what it is, but until I find out …” I had written. Find out what? But more to the point, how? Where did it all begin? I didn’t really think science was going to come to my rescue. I mean, what could I do with a test tube, beaker, or a Bunsen burner in a case like this?

The only thing I could think of to do was too dangerous. After all, I’d warned Spook about it. And yet, even as I was thinking this, I knew I was going to do it. I took a deep breath, clenched my jaw, and entered the word “computowitch.” I knew I was taking a terrible risk, but only hoped that if I blew up my room, and possibly myself along with it, my parents would understand.

Holding my breath, I watched the exact same thing happen as before! The screen turned pea-soup green and started to shiver. It then turned the same fierce red again. In the meantime, the computer was repeating its act of heaving ferociously in and out. I was scared, and getting more scared every second. At last I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I gave myself a command decision to reach for the plug. But before my fingers had arrived at their destination, my computer gave one final shuddering heave and stopped cold.

I wasn’t convinced it was finished, however, so I kept my hand near the plug just in case. After all, the screen was still shivering. But then the colors instantly began to reverse themselves. The red turned back to purple, then orange, then red again, and finally back to pea soup green. Then the screen stopped shivering, and all that remained of this whole act was the word “computowitch” sitting there.

I have to admit, this was a big letdown. It was not that I liked the idea of my parents having to come in and gather up some pieces of me and my room if something disastrous had happened. But I had let myself get scared out of my wits, and practically stopped a kind of experiment where I might have been on the brink of making some huge discovery. And now it had all ended up with just me just sitting and staring at the screen with the word “computowitch” on it doing absolutely nothing.

Somehow, I couldn’t tear myself away. I just sat there. Then something curious happened. I felt a strange tingling feeling in my fingers. Then they began to twitch. A moment later, I watched them float up off my lap and settle on the keyboard. It was as if I were watching someone else put their fingers on the keys. Then, right next to “computowitch,” these fingers typed in “.com.” Instantly, on the lower left side of the screen appeared a box that read, “Enter password.” I’d bumped right into a very interesting Web site—computowitch.com! My heart began to race.

Still, what use was a Web site if I didn’t know the password? But then my great scientific reasoning powers went to work. What one word could I connect with the old computowitch that would make a good password? How about the name of a person who had suggested the grand idea of having a piece of junk issuing orders to everyone in the first place? I might be wrong. I might even be dangerously wrong typing it in. But I’d come this far, and I wasn’t going to back off now. “Here goes!” I told myself, and looking around my familiar room for maybe the last time, I typed “SATURNA.”

Wham!

Bang!

I’d got it! And I was still sitting there all in one piece as the message appeared on the screen. Around the border of the page was a mysterious design of curled and pointed lines laced with stars and moons. But what I immediately zeroed in on was the message in the middle of the screen:

“Oh, burning sun
It has begun,
Oh, icy moon
It’s none too soon,
We must not fail
To end their tale.”

What has begun? I felt prickles running down my back. This was ominous. I was now convinced that something very scary was going on. I waited for something else to appear on the screen. At last I realized that nothing more was going to be revealed, so I shut down the computer and dragged myself off to bed, my mind still spinning.

Could all this possibly have anything to do with Miss Switch? Could it be that I’d walk into the sixth-grade classroom in the morning and find her sitting there at the teacher’s desk?

Of course, if Miss Switch were back, it would have to be because she was in terrible trouble. Or someone else was. And I had the unpleasant feeling that it was I, Rupert E Brown III, who had been selected for that privilege!