Chapter Five
Help with Homework

Johnny returned from the game just before supper. Sarah was in the dining room at the family computer. She was concentrating very hard as she hit the different letters on the keyboard. Johnny walked closer. This is what he saw on the first line:

LOPUI. #%?< L EA.UR. JL.
LJKOIUIUO.@34xi== WHTO. DHELD

In fact, that’s all that was on the computer screen.
“Hey, Sarah,” Johnny said. “What are you doing?”
“I am working on a report,” she said. “For homework.”
“Really,” Johnny said. “What’s it about?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t read.”

Johnny thought that was funny. It put him in a better mood after what Dale had done to him on the ice. Johnny laughed.

“Do you want me to show you how to save your report?” Johnny asked. “It’s very important when you work on a computer to save your changes.”

“Sure,” Sarah said. “How?”

Johnny showed her on the keyboard how to save it. Then he saved the changes for her. It was funny, saving a report that looked like this:

LOPUI. #%?< L EA.UR. JL.
LJKOIUIUO.@34xi== WHTO. DHELD

Johnny could hardly wait to tell Stu and Tom about this. He was also hungry. He could hardly wait for supper. Johnny smelled something cooking in the kitchen. Pizza. He loved pizza. He turned toward the kitchen and left Sarah at the computer. Then he thought of something.

“Sarah,” he said, “there was a report on the computer. My report.”

“I know,” she said. “I heard you talking with your mom yesterday. You said you needed to finish it for Monday morning.”

Johnny walked up to the computer. He had almost finished his report the night before. He had saved his changes before going to bed. Then he put the computer in sleep mode.

All it took to wake the computer was to move the mouse.

“Sarah,” Johnny said. He had a bad feeling. “Where is my report?”

“Right here,” she said. “I was helping you. Do you like it?” She pointed at the computer screen. The first line looked like this:

LOPUI. #%?< L EA.UR. JL.
LJKOIUIUO.@34xi== WHTO. DHELD

Johnny looked closer. The title of the document on the screen was the same title of his report. Sarah had deleted his report. All that remained was:

LOPUI. #%?< L EA.UR. JL.
LJKOIUIUO.@34xi== WHTO. DHELD

“It’s a good thing you saved my changes, isn’t it?” Sarah said. “I am glad to help.”

Johnny ran screaming to the kitchen. He knew he sounded like a little girl. But he had worked on his report for five hours. And now it was gone.