That night, as contractually obligated, all three Renegade Reporters planned to share the Van Ness Media story with their permission-granting adults. Brielle still had the rough version of the episode that she’d downloaded before getting locked out of her account, so she emailed that file to the other two, and Ash emailed the video of their encounter with Maria Van Ness in the park.
Ash was anxious to show her parents as soon as possible, but Abba was working late and Dad was busy with the little ones, so the anchor had to wait, jittery with nerves and anticipation, until long past her bedtime.
Finally, with Beckett asleep and Sadie having eventually given up on listening from the stairs, Abba came home, and Dad warmed his dinner, and Ash pressed play, first on the rough edit, then on the new footage. She stood behind them while they watched it, her foot tapping nervously.
When the video ended, Abba gave a low whistle. “This is serious, Ash.”
“I know.”
“Very thorough reporting,” Dad said. “Research, a test case, explanations from experts . . . The hard work shows.”
“Thanks. We have to incorporate the footage from the park, and we should probably add something about Van Ness Dream Journal now too, but I’m not sure how we can because we’re all locked out of our Van Ness Media accounts.” She told him about the error messages and the meeting with the principal and the claim that they’d violated the terms of service. “He wouldn’t even listen to us,” Ash said. “But maybe he will once our episode goes live, especially now that we have this interview with Maria Van Ness.”
“Oh, I’m sure he’ll be hearing from a lot of people once word gets out,” Abba said. “You kids have to use this software at school, and parents have no idea what’s going on.”
“How did you figure out what’s going on?” Dad asked. “I knew you were doing something about Van Ness Media, but I figured it was more . . . neutral.”
“Yeah, that was our original plan. But that day we went there, Maya and I . . . um . . .” Ash took a deep breath. “We sort of walked in on a meeting about this stuff. By accident.”
Abba widened his eyes and leaned toward her. Dad closed his eyes and shook his head.
“We didn’t mean to,” Ash went on. “Honest. But they were looking at a map of Federal Hill with little dots on it, and talking about user profiles and tracking locations, and they clearly didn’t want us to know what they were doing. I guess we sort of invaded their privacy.” Ash gave an awkward smile. “But then we started investigating and found out they’ve been invading ours.”
“I’ll say.” Dad’s face took on a look that Ash couldn’t quite read.
Now Abba had the same inscrutable expression as Dad. “Ashley,” he said seriously, and Ash felt sure she was in trouble. Again. At least this day had prepared her for it. But to her surprise, Abba’s face broke into a smile. “We’re very proud of you.”
Ash’s body was still tense, braced for a punishment. “You are?”
“Yes. It takes real courage to do this sort of work. And it will take real courage for you and your friends to put it on the air.”
“But you’ll let us?” Ash asked, crossing her fingers on both hands.
Dad glanced at Abba, who nodded. “Absolutely. It’s important that you tell people what’s going on.”
Ash loved her dads so much, she wanted to eat them. She threw herself into their arms for a big hug. “Thank you,” she said. This had been a long, emotional day, and it was catching up to her. She felt like she could fall asleep this very moment, now that she knew she had her dads’ support. “You’re not mad that we barged in on that meeting?” she confirmed, stifling a yawn.
“Some of the biggest discoveries start with pure luck,” Abba said.
“But, Ashley,” Dad said pointedly, looking his daughter in the eye. “You really need to learn how to knock.”