And now that's ruined for me, along with everything else.
Again the cursor prompted me for a reply, another dummy prompt. I didn’t type anything this time, just hit RETURN.
So now I just need to forget. That's what all the grown-ups keep telling me. "Don't waste another minute thinking about that jerk." And I know they're right. I just don't know how I could have been so wrong.
Lucky for me, there aren't many reminders of you in the showroom. Just some notes and backup disks that I've already trashed. This is the last backup copy of the game we made together. I just wish all mistakes were this easy to erase.
As I read, the motor in the disk drive started spinning, a familiar sound which usually meant the computer was loading more data. But then the drive made a loud knocking noise—the sound of a disk being reformatted and wiped clean. I popped out the disk and the game was interrupted by a DOS error. I thought that I’d been fast enough, but when I checked the directory, it came up empty, zero files in memory.
The Impossible Fortress was gone.
2700 REM *** DRAW NEW HERO ***
2710 FOR X=0 TO 62
2720 READ A
2730 POKE 12544+X,A
2740 NEXT A
2750 POKE 2044,196
2760 POKE V+21,16
2770 POKE V+43,1
2780 POKE V+8,HX:POKE V+9,HY
2790 RETURN
THAT AFTERNOON, I WENT to my classes determined to make a fresh start. With no computer programming in my future I was free to concentrate on my grades. I decided I would end the year on a high note. I would ace my finals and give my mother a report card worthy of posting on the refrigerator. I arrived at Rocks and Streams and took a seat in the front row. I opened my notebook and put the date at the top of the page. I listened attentively as Ms. Seidel patiently drilled us on the five kinds of igneous rocks: granite, diorite, gabbro, peridotite, and pegmatite. After a minute or so I turned to a new page and started writing a letter to Mary.
The guilt kept sneaking up on me and derailing my concentration. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d done—or what Mary thought I’d done. I needed her to know the truth. The Impossible Fortress wasn’t an excuse. Radical Planet wasn’t a trick. Everything was real, it was all real.
I spent the afternoon sitting in classes and putting these thoughts on paper, drafting a letter to send to Mary. I didn’t think anything could be harder than writing machine language, but I was wrong. Again and again, I crumpled my paper into a ball and gave up. But after a few moments my thoughts would return to Mary, and I’d start writing again.
The end-of-day bell rang at two forty-five, and I still wasn’t happy with my letter, but it would have to be good enough. I hurried out of wood shop and bolted down the hall, darting around students as they emerged from classrooms, pushing and jostling each other, ready to go home. Everybody had spring fever, but there were still three more weeks of school. I could feel a sort of expanding energy in the hallways, a growing pressure, as if the school couldn’t contain us much longer.
I found Ashley Applewhite standing in front of her locker. Ashley Applewhite, ninth-grade class representative, treasurer of the Key Club, deputy editor of the student newspaper, daughter of the school superintendent, and next-door neighbor of Mary Zelinsky. She was gabbing with three of her girlfriends but they all saw me coming and stopped talking.
“What do you want?” said Ashley.
I held up the Impossible Fortress disk. “I got your message.”
“It’s some kind of game,” she explained. “You’re supposed to put that inside a computer.” Then she turned back to her entourage, forcing me to interrupt their conversation.
“I know what it is,” I said. “I need to send a message back.”
I held out my letter, a single sheet of paper that I’d folded and taped shut. Ashley sprang back like it was radioactive.
“No way,” she said. “Mary wants nothing to do with you.”
Again she turned to her entourage, and again I interrupted them. “Please,” I said. “It’s important.”
The other girls huffed and sighed. They were the closest thing to royalty in our ninth grade, and I was testing their patience. Ashley snatched the letter from my fingers, then ripped it into halves, quarters, eighths, and sixteenths. She threw the pieces back in my face, a quick poof of confetti that clung to my head and shoulders. Suddenly we had the attention of everyone in the hallway.
“Stay away from her,” she said. “Mary doesn’t want to hear from you, ever. And if you try to give me another note, I’ll take it straight to the police.”
2800 REM *** START BONUS LEVEL ***
2810 PRINT "{CLR}{12 CSR DWN}"
2820 PRINT "{5 SPACES}YOU HAVE ENTERED"
2830 PRINT "{6 SPACES}THE BONUS ROUND."
2840 PRINT "{5 SPACES}FATE HAS GIVEN YOU"
2850 PRINT "{7 SPACES}ONE LAST CHANCE."
2860 PRINT "{2 CSR DWN}"
2870 PRINT "{5 SPACES}DON′T SCREW IT UP!"
2880 FOR DELAY = 1 TO 1000:NEXT DELAY
2890 RETURN
THAT NIGHT, I REASSEMBLED the scraps and copied the letter onto a clean sheet of paper. Then I carried it with me for days, trying to think of ways to get it to Mary.
“What’s the letter say?” Alf kept asking.
“None of your business,” I told him.
This was maybe a week after our arrest, and any notoriety we’d earned among our classmates was almost gone. Now everyone was buzzing about the tenth grader caught masturbating in the library to Volume K of the World Book Encyclopedia. (“Why Volume K?” Alf kept wondering aloud. “Where’s the good stuff in Volume K?”) Me and Alf and Clark were sitting at our little table in the back of the cafeteria, finishing our sloppy joes and french fries. No one else was sitting within twenty feet of us, as if our pervert-loser genes were contagious. I was staring at the envelope and turning it around in my hand, trying to brainstorm solutions to my dilemma.
“Can’t you CompuServe it to her?” Clark asked. “Do that electronic mail thing?”
“My mom sold the computer,” I reminded him.
“Then regular-mail it,” he said. “Leave off the return address and send it to the store.”
“Her dad will intercept it,” I said. “I need to make sure Mary gets it.”
“Why? What’s the letter say?” Alf asked again.
“None of your business,” I repeated.
A few moments later, I made the mistake of looking around the cafeteria, searching the tables for someone, anyone, who might be able to help me. While I had my back turned, Alf reached across my lunch tray and snatched the envelope. I nearly dove across the table to get it back. The only thing keeping me in check was the stern presence of Mr. Hibble, standing at the entrance of the cafeteria, proudly overseeing his domain.
“Give it back,” I warned Alf.
“Take it easy. I won’t open it, I promise. I’ll just use my psychic powers, all right?”