Girl Reporter Bytes Back! by Linda Ellerbee

Author:Linda Ellerbee [Ellerbee, Linda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-06-203361-1
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2001-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Wheelies must have been online. Just a few minutes later I received a reply.

I’m there!

I grinned at the screen. I felt good. It takes a big person to know when she needs help, I congratulated myself. I did the right thing, calling in a specialist. A consultant. Besides, it will be fun having an F2F with the person behind the web page.

I knew Gram didn’t want me meeting anyone I met online without her, but I figured I would be safe at school. I would just make sure the whole Real News gang was with me.

I logged off. I wished there was more I could do to work on the story. I needed to catch GoForIt before the Thursday deadline if I wanted to get the story into next week’s issue. I hated waiting around for things to happen. It is so not me.

I jumped up and went to the phone. Maybe GoForIt had responded to Tyler’s bait.

I tucked a strand of straight brown hair behind my ear, and dialed Tyler’s number. I bounced a little on my toes while I listened to the ring. Someone on the other end picked up the receiver. My heart thudded a little harder. A little faster.

“Hello,” a voice said.

Tyler’s dad. I let out the breath I’d been holding. “Hi, Mr. Mackenzie. This is … um … Casey? You know, Smith. Casey Smith?”

What was wrong with me? I sounded as if I didn’t know my own name.

I took in a breath. “IsTylerthere?” I said in a rush.

“No, Casey, I’m sorry. He’s gone with his mom to run errands.”

Dead silence. Oh, right. It was my turn to speak.

“Uh, so, okay,” I mumbled.

“Do you want Tyler to call you when he gets in?”

“He doesn’t have to. That’s okay.” I put down the receiver.

Oops. I basically hung up on Tyler’s dad.

Darn it. I shouldn’t have called. Now Tyler’s dad thought I was calling a boy. Well, I was, but not that way. To make it worse, I had just made a complete fool of myself. What was Mr. McKenzie going to tell Tyler? “Oh, that dorky dodo from Trumbull called. The writer who got me fired. Hard to believe she’s a writer. She barely seems capable of using words.”

My first column for Real News had been about how Riverhead Paper Mill was polluting the Sussex River. The good news was that the mill was shut down, the pollution was stopped. The bad news—Tyler’s dad lost his job at the mill.

I slumped into my desk chair and covered my face with my hands. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Then I sat up straight. Hold on, I told myself. I had a valid excuse—I mean reason—to call Tyler. Catching a criminal was totally legit.

That was my story, and I was sticking to it.

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