2.
Jones and Tyler walked back into the school, which was an action that was foreign to them. Neither boy liked being here. The place was a prison. Although a badly painted and maintained prison. "Whoever chose pink and green as a colour scheme should be shot", thought Jones. He looked at his watch and saw it was 3:49pm. There was plenty of time to pull this little operation of Tyler’s together before his mum got home from work, and he would have to say that he was actually looking forward to this. Frank never really enjoyed the schemes and plans that Tyler came up with, but Jones enjoyed the danger and excitement of doing something that could get you into trouble. He only wished that they didn’t get into trouble quite as often.
Tyler and Jones climbed a flight of stairs leading to the first floor. The two of them got onto the landing and walked through a set of double doors. This led to a hallway with doors on the right and windows on the left.
“So Jones, we’ll see if the typing room is empty,” Tyler whispered.
“The typing computers aren’t equipped for Internet.”
“Don’t be a moop!” Tyler whispered in annoyance. “All the computers in the school are equipped. We just need to hack the system. That’s where you come in.”
“I doubt they just left the room empty and open.”
“Only one way to find out. C’mon!” Tyler said as they passed through closed doors, open doors, doors that led to rooms with students working on projects, teachers sitting at their desks working on paperwork. After a while they passed the first computer room. Three students and a teacher were in there. This teacher was someone that Tyler knew very well. They walked past the room.
“Mr. East!” Tyler said in disgust. Mr. East was a computer teacher that never let Tyler use the computers in these rooms. His catchphrase could be "No" for all the times he had said this to Tyler. With East in the room there would be no access to the computers.
“We could go to the library or the transition department,” Jones suggested. “East isn’t the only one with computers in this place.”
“Or we could go to the administration block,” Tyler said with wide eyes full of excitement. “If you want honey, you go to the hive!”
“You can’t be serious,” Jones said. “That’s like robbing the police station for money.”
“We can do this,” Tyler said as he began to walk again towards the landing at the end of the corridor. “There are offices for the principal, vice, the secretary and the associate downstairs. The associate will be our first target.”
Jones walked after him, not believing that they were actually going to break into one of the heads offices. “This is crazy. If Miss Summers is there…”
“She’s gone for the day.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I feel that.”
“You feel that?”
“Yup.”
Jones had a bad feeling about this. He hoped that Frank and Mick were having better luck with their particular task.
Mick and Frank had travelled quite some distance but were close. They had travelled to Sydenham to see what they could see. Down Waltham Road to begin with, past Mick and Jones’ school, they were on the hunt on their bikes. Mick had wanted to ride the bus, but Frank knew what Mick meant when he said that he wanted to ride the bus. It involved jumping on the back doors whilst the driver was preoccupied with the customers coming on through the front doors. To Frank this seemed a little suspicious. But much that Mick did was not appropriate in the society they lived in.
They hadn’t had any luck yet in their mission. Frank was beginning to think that their luck was running very low today, but Mick was sure that they would find what they were after.
“Maybe we’re in the wrong suburb,” Frank suggested. “Maybe nobody wants to live here.” “Could be worse,” Mick countered. “Could be Linwood.”
Frank couldn’t disagree with that. Linwood was a joke. The problem: nobody was laughing. The other problem was that they were beginning to run out of time. Mick and Frank were supposed to meet Tyler and Jones by Edmonds Park in forty minutes according to Frank's watch. Both boys peddled down to St. Martins, which was a richer place than Sydenham. It was here that Mick and Frank saw what they were after. Just opposite the supermarket on a lawn was the object they were after. Frank couldn’t see any sign of life in the house, no car parked outside.
“Looks like no-one’s home, Mick.”
“Let’s take it and get back to school,” Mick said as he stopped his bike and climbed the small white picket fence. He gripped onto the sign, uprooted it from the soft ground and leapt back over the fence.
“Let’s get the hell outta here!” Frank said and peddled down a side street. Mick followed him with the sign.
Now that they had the sign the question was, had Jones managed to find out where that ass-hat Calson lived? Frank hoped so, because the alternative could make for very unpleasant business indeed.
The school administration block had two entrances. The first was through reception, which was a cubicle with glass windows. The reception had a small alleyway to the left which you had to go through to reach the admin block. Alternatively, you could go through from the other side, which was one of the main visitor entrances. You came through glass doors and there was a lobby just inside the doors. To the left was the admin block, and to the right was the school hall.
Tyler and Jones were in the lobby. Tyler thought that this was the best way to get to the administration block unnoticed. He knew this was a risk, but he believed this was a risk well worth taking. The admin computers would be easily accessible and the information they needed would be here. If they grabbed the information from the library or from the transition department, the chances that they could be caught would be greater. Jones didn’t realise that but Tyler did.
“C’mon, let’s see if Summers is gone for the day,” Tyler said as he led Jones down towards the offices. There was a door, they walked through it. There was a staircase on their left and a door a little bit further on their right. The door was closed and they could hear voices. Tyler smiled. He recognised the voices of Summers and Mr. Le Pron, the vice principal. If Le Pron was down here chin-wagging with Mrs. Summers then he wasn’t up in his office.
“That’s Le Pron,” Tyler said softly. “We’ll borrow his office.”
“Really?” Jones asked. “Up there? With the principal?”
Tyler started to climb the stairs. “C’mon Jones!”
Jones reluctantly followed. He was really beginning to not like this plan very much at all. If they were caught, the trouble would be off the damn scale! But it was too late to back out now so he followed his friend up the short staircase. The landing had three doors. Each door had a sign stencilled white upon black placard towards the top of the door. The door on the right was stencilled 'PRINCIPAL'. The door next to it was 'PRINCIPAL’S SECRETARY' and the door to the left was stencilled 'VICE PRINCIPAL'. All doors were closed. Well, the vice principal's door was open slightly ajar. Tyler led Jones through it and they closed it behind them. If Le Pron came up now, they would be done for. The office was small. There was a window to the north, the desk was situated slightly in front of the window. There was a filing cabinet to the left of the desk.
“Go - go and get to work man!” Tyler urged Jones, who quickly got behind the desk. The computer was white and pristine, but old Le Pron was a science teacher by trade and kept his office in pristine condition. Not a single paper was out of place. Jones turned on the machine.
“What if there is a password?”
“Then crack it.”
“I think you're overestimating my computer prowess, Tyler.”
“Just do it, Jones!” Tyler said through gritted teeth. “If you don’t then I’m out of here and I’ll make such a racket that’ll wake up the dead, let alone the Manchap!”
'Manchap' was their nickname for Donald Transchap, the principal of Linwood West High. Jones knew that Tyler wasn’t kidding. When he was in 'the zone,' he could be very unpleasant. Frank usually put him in his place when he was like this, but Frank wasn’t here. He needed to concentrate on the task at hand and get the information that they needed. The computer started up.
Tyler looked through the crack in the door. He heard no ascending steps, no approaching voices, but he was worried nonetheless. If Jones couldn’t gain the information that he needed then this plan would become much more complex than he really wanted it to be. There was a backup plan, but it wasn’t a good backup plan. Tyler had thought that Jones would be able to achieve this part of the plan with ease, but maybe he was wrong. He had been wrong before. There was that time he had annoyed the Year 13 girls and they had beaten him up. That was embarrassing. None of the guys had the guts to say anything about that, although Frank had looked like saying something on at least a couple of occasions. Hopefully this time he was right about being wrong.
The computer start-up was completed. No password was needed. He had total access to the desktop. The idea was now to access the appropriate files, wherever they were. The screen had symbols that represented shortcuts to programs down the left hand side of the screen. Jones opened the documents icon and browsed through the documents. There was a good chance that Le Pron’s computer wouldn’t have the files on human resource. But he knew a way to get the files that he needed. He was better at computers than he would ever admit to himself. Remote hacking was fairly new to him, but a good idea nonetheless. The documents contained budgeting reports, teacher reports and a whole host of other reports that Jones expected that the vice principal needed to do his job.
“Hurry up, Jones!”
Jones nodded. Time was indeed very precious and he didn’t want to be here any longer than absolutely necessary.
“I’m doing my best.”
“Your best isn’t good enough. Hurry up!”
“The files aren’t on the computer.”
Tyler threw his hands up in the air. “Oh, that’s just great. That’s just brilliant!”
“I've got an idea, but it’s going to take time.”
“We haven’t got time for that,” Tyler said. “We’ve got to get out of here, and soon!”
Jones ignored him and clicked on the modem icon and activated the server. Tyler looked up and glanced over to Jones with a wild look on his face. He walked over to the file cabinet beside the desk and opened the drawers and flipped through the folders inside. Jones ignored him and checked through the e-mails. He needed an address. A location, and then he might be able to hack into the computers on this admin block if he was good enough.
“Bingo!” Tyler said in exuberance. “I got it!”
“What?” Jones asked as he was typing his way through the e-mails.
“I got it. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“What?” Jones said looking up. “What do you mean that you got it?”
Tyler waved a file in front of his face. “I got the flaming address! Let’s go! Now!”
Tyler and Jones climbed a flight of stairs leading to the first floor. The two of them got onto the landing and walked through a set of double doors. This led to a hallway with doors on the right and windows on the left.
“So Jones, we’ll see if the typing room is empty,” Tyler whispered.
“The typing computers aren’t equipped for Internet.”
“Don’t be a moop!” Tyler whispered in annoyance. “All the computers in the school are equipped. We just need to hack the system. That’s where you come in.”
“I doubt they just left the room empty and open.”
“Only one way to find out. C’mon!” Tyler said as they passed through closed doors, open doors, doors that led to rooms with students working on projects, teachers sitting at their desks working on paperwork. After a while they passed the first computer room. Three students and a teacher were in there. This teacher was someone that Tyler knew very well. They walked past the room.
“Mr. East!” Tyler said in disgust. Mr. East was a computer teacher that never let Tyler use the computers in these rooms. His catchphrase could be "No" for all the times he had said this to Tyler. With East in the room there would be no access to the computers.
“We could go to the library or the transition department,” Jones suggested. “East isn’t the only one with computers in this place.”
“Or we could go to the administration block,” Tyler said with wide eyes full of excitement. “If you want honey, you go to the hive!”
“You can’t be serious,” Jones said. “That’s like robbing the police station for money.”
“We can do this,” Tyler said as he began to walk again towards the landing at the end of the corridor. “There are offices for the principal, vice, the secretary and the associate downstairs. The associate will be our first target.”
Jones walked after him, not believing that they were actually going to break into one of the heads offices. “This is crazy. If Miss Summers is there…”
“She’s gone for the day.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I feel that.”
“You feel that?”
“Yup.”
Jones had a bad feeling about this. He hoped that Frank and Mick were having better luck with their particular task.
Mick and Frank had travelled quite some distance but were close. They had travelled to Sydenham to see what they could see. Down Waltham Road to begin with, past Mick and Jones’ school, they were on the hunt on their bikes. Mick had wanted to ride the bus, but Frank knew what Mick meant when he said that he wanted to ride the bus. It involved jumping on the back doors whilst the driver was preoccupied with the customers coming on through the front doors. To Frank this seemed a little suspicious. But much that Mick did was not appropriate in the society they lived in.
They hadn’t had any luck yet in their mission. Frank was beginning to think that their luck was running very low today, but Mick was sure that they would find what they were after.
“Maybe we’re in the wrong suburb,” Frank suggested. “Maybe nobody wants to live here.” “Could be worse,” Mick countered. “Could be Linwood.”
Frank couldn’t disagree with that. Linwood was a joke. The problem: nobody was laughing. The other problem was that they were beginning to run out of time. Mick and Frank were supposed to meet Tyler and Jones by Edmonds Park in forty minutes according to Frank's watch. Both boys peddled down to St. Martins, which was a richer place than Sydenham. It was here that Mick and Frank saw what they were after. Just opposite the supermarket on a lawn was the object they were after. Frank couldn’t see any sign of life in the house, no car parked outside.
“Looks like no-one’s home, Mick.”
“Let’s take it and get back to school,” Mick said as he stopped his bike and climbed the small white picket fence. He gripped onto the sign, uprooted it from the soft ground and leapt back over the fence.
“Let’s get the hell outta here!” Frank said and peddled down a side street. Mick followed him with the sign.
Now that they had the sign the question was, had Jones managed to find out where that ass-hat Calson lived? Frank hoped so, because the alternative could make for very unpleasant business indeed.
The school administration block had two entrances. The first was through reception, which was a cubicle with glass windows. The reception had a small alleyway to the left which you had to go through to reach the admin block. Alternatively, you could go through from the other side, which was one of the main visitor entrances. You came through glass doors and there was a lobby just inside the doors. To the left was the admin block, and to the right was the school hall.
Tyler and Jones were in the lobby. Tyler thought that this was the best way to get to the administration block unnoticed. He knew this was a risk, but he believed this was a risk well worth taking. The admin computers would be easily accessible and the information they needed would be here. If they grabbed the information from the library or from the transition department, the chances that they could be caught would be greater. Jones didn’t realise that but Tyler did.
“C’mon, let’s see if Summers is gone for the day,” Tyler said as he led Jones down towards the offices. There was a door, they walked through it. There was a staircase on their left and a door a little bit further on their right. The door was closed and they could hear voices. Tyler smiled. He recognised the voices of Summers and Mr. Le Pron, the vice principal. If Le Pron was down here chin-wagging with Mrs. Summers then he wasn’t up in his office.
“That’s Le Pron,” Tyler said softly. “We’ll borrow his office.”
“Really?” Jones asked. “Up there? With the principal?”
Tyler started to climb the stairs. “C’mon Jones!”
Jones reluctantly followed. He was really beginning to not like this plan very much at all. If they were caught, the trouble would be off the damn scale! But it was too late to back out now so he followed his friend up the short staircase. The landing had three doors. Each door had a sign stencilled white upon black placard towards the top of the door. The door on the right was stencilled 'PRINCIPAL'. The door next to it was 'PRINCIPAL’S SECRETARY' and the door to the left was stencilled 'VICE PRINCIPAL'. All doors were closed. Well, the vice principal's door was open slightly ajar. Tyler led Jones through it and they closed it behind them. If Le Pron came up now, they would be done for. The office was small. There was a window to the north, the desk was situated slightly in front of the window. There was a filing cabinet to the left of the desk.
“Go - go and get to work man!” Tyler urged Jones, who quickly got behind the desk. The computer was white and pristine, but old Le Pron was a science teacher by trade and kept his office in pristine condition. Not a single paper was out of place. Jones turned on the machine.
“What if there is a password?”
“Then crack it.”
“I think you're overestimating my computer prowess, Tyler.”
“Just do it, Jones!” Tyler said through gritted teeth. “If you don’t then I’m out of here and I’ll make such a racket that’ll wake up the dead, let alone the Manchap!”
'Manchap' was their nickname for Donald Transchap, the principal of Linwood West High. Jones knew that Tyler wasn’t kidding. When he was in 'the zone,' he could be very unpleasant. Frank usually put him in his place when he was like this, but Frank wasn’t here. He needed to concentrate on the task at hand and get the information that they needed. The computer started up.
Tyler looked through the crack in the door. He heard no ascending steps, no approaching voices, but he was worried nonetheless. If Jones couldn’t gain the information that he needed then this plan would become much more complex than he really wanted it to be. There was a backup plan, but it wasn’t a good backup plan. Tyler had thought that Jones would be able to achieve this part of the plan with ease, but maybe he was wrong. He had been wrong before. There was that time he had annoyed the Year 13 girls and they had beaten him up. That was embarrassing. None of the guys had the guts to say anything about that, although Frank had looked like saying something on at least a couple of occasions. Hopefully this time he was right about being wrong.
The computer start-up was completed. No password was needed. He had total access to the desktop. The idea was now to access the appropriate files, wherever they were. The screen had symbols that represented shortcuts to programs down the left hand side of the screen. Jones opened the documents icon and browsed through the documents. There was a good chance that Le Pron’s computer wouldn’t have the files on human resource. But he knew a way to get the files that he needed. He was better at computers than he would ever admit to himself. Remote hacking was fairly new to him, but a good idea nonetheless. The documents contained budgeting reports, teacher reports and a whole host of other reports that Jones expected that the vice principal needed to do his job.
“Hurry up, Jones!”
Jones nodded. Time was indeed very precious and he didn’t want to be here any longer than absolutely necessary.
“I’m doing my best.”
“Your best isn’t good enough. Hurry up!”
“The files aren’t on the computer.”
Tyler threw his hands up in the air. “Oh, that’s just great. That’s just brilliant!”
“I've got an idea, but it’s going to take time.”
“We haven’t got time for that,” Tyler said. “We’ve got to get out of here, and soon!”
Jones ignored him and clicked on the modem icon and activated the server. Tyler looked up and glanced over to Jones with a wild look on his face. He walked over to the file cabinet beside the desk and opened the drawers and flipped through the folders inside. Jones ignored him and checked through the e-mails. He needed an address. A location, and then he might be able to hack into the computers on this admin block if he was good enough.
“Bingo!” Tyler said in exuberance. “I got it!”
“What?” Jones asked as he was typing his way through the e-mails.
“I got it. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“What?” Jones said looking up. “What do you mean that you got it?”
Tyler waved a file in front of his face. “I got the flaming address! Let’s go! Now!”