Hey, Data–how ya doing?”

Data swivelled around in his chair. “Oh, hi, Travis. Nish all cleaned off yet?”

“It’ll take him all summer–and even then he’ll still smell like Nish.”

Data laughed. He’d missed the explosion but had made it out in time to see Mr. Dillinger go to work with the hose. Data had been looking up Star Wars and Star Trek stuff on the Internet. The camp management had let him spend as much time on the camp computer as he wanted.

“What’s up?” Data asked.

“I want you to find out something for me,” Travis said.

“Shoot.”

“I want to know more about Joe Hall.”

“Get a grip, Travis–there’s going to be about a million Joe Halls on the Web.”

“But there’s something different about this one. He used to play hockey. There’s hundreds of hockey Web pages.”

“And probably hundreds of Joe Halls who play or played hockey.”

Travis was disappointed. The World Wide Web wasn’t suddenly going to reveal all about Joe Hall. “I guess so,” said Travis. “Thanks anyway.”

Travis turned to go, but Data called him back.

“Don’t give up so easily, Trav. What else do you know about him?”

“Nothing–that’s the point. I wanted to see if there was anything I could find out.”

“What do you suspect?”

“I don’t know. Nothing, I guess.”

“There must be something.”

“I don’t know, honestly. It’s just that there’s something not quite right about Joe Hall.”

Data took a piece of paper and began scribbling. “‘Joe Hall,’” he said. “Anything else?”

“I think he played at a high level, but I don’t know when.”

“What about a nickname?” Data asked.

“Yeah! ‘Bad’ Joe Hall. He told us.”

“‘Bad Joe Hall, hockey player,’” Data said. “I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks,” Travis said. “Thanks for trying.”