Case file: 49

Reporter: Emma Wildflower

A Reporter’s Note: Before we start this article, I just want to give a shoutout to all the readers I got for my last article! A total of 13!! Wow!! And, I want to give an extra shoutout to my mother, who finally agreed to read my last article after I pestered her for months on end. Her review? ‘Get another job!’.

Anyway, thank you everyone! Now, without further ado, let’s start.

Have you ever heard the excuse, ‘The dog ate my homework’? You have? Well, I’ll assure you, you’ve never heard this excuse…

Today I’m at a local public school, which certainly has a lot of interesting stories to share. I was assigned this mission by my boss, who thought it would be good for me to go to a public school. (He also said that if I wanted to quit this job and go back to middle school, he wouldn’t object).

A particular story, however, caught my eye today. As I wandered into a math classroom, I stumbled into an argument with a teacher and a student. The student, it seemed, had claimed a very interesting account of what happened to his homework.

“I swear, Miss. Kathrine!” The student protested. “I did my homework! I did it!”

“Then where is it, Peter?” Miss. Kathrine put her hands on her hips.

“Well, that’s the thing…” Peter lowered his voice. “It was eaten!”

Miss. Kathrine nodded knowingly. “Ah, I see. By your dog, right?”

Peter grinned deviously. “No, Miss. Kathrine. Not by my dog. I don’t even have a dog. Nope, it was eaten by…the wifi-router!”

My ears instantly perked up as I heard the news. This was definitely a creative excuse that even I’ve never heard of, and I’ve heard (and used) all the excuses.

Miss. Kathrine blinked at him as if he’d just announced the moon was really cheese after all.

“The…wifi-router,” she repeated, doing that thing teachers do where they stretch a word out so long your mind begins flashing back at every wrong thing you’ve done. “The wifi-router ate your homework.”

Peter nodded solemnly. “Yes. Consumed. Devoured. Digitally digested.”

At this point I had already slid halfway across the floor, notebook raised like a microphone, ready to pounce on the story of the century. Or, at least the story of the day… Okay, fine, make me an honest person. The story of the 20 minutes since the lunch bell.

I know that look. Stop judging me, readers.

“Explain,” Miss. Kathrine said.

Peter took a deep breath. “Well, Miss. Kathrine, I typed up my entire assignment. All three pages. PLUS the bonus question. You know, the one literally nobody else did? Well I did it. The hardest 11 minutes of my life, you oughta know. Anyway, I had the file saved on my laptop. But then, OH THEN, the wifi-router started blinking red.”

The class collectively gasped, because apparently blinking red is the universal sign that technology is hungry.

“It started humming,” Peter continued dramatically. “Like…like a stomach gurgling”

One student in the corner nodded fervently, as though he’d witnessed a Chromebook attempt a light snack before.

“And then,” Peter said, pausing for effect. “The file disappeared. Boom. All gone. My laptop even made this weird slurping sound.”

Miss. Kathrine did not look convinced. She looked like someone who had, at some point, trusted that teaching would be peaceful.

That poor woman.

“So,” she said slowly, “you’re telling me your homework was…digitally consumed…by the school’s wireless router.”

Peter nodded again. The devotion in his eyes was admirable, honestly. I wish I believed in anything the way this kid believed in his own lie.

Well…nevermind.

And because I am a professional (Definitely! Oh, right, I said I would be honest. Well, kind of anyway), I approached the suspect in question: the school wifi-router itself.

It stood, rather, sat, on a dusty shelf at the top of the room where nobody’s clammy hands would grab it. Lights were blinking.

Hm. Innocent. Too innocent.

I introduced myself politely. “Hello, Router. Emma Wildflower, reporter. I’d like to ask you a few questions regarding the disappearance of Peter’s math homework.”

The router did not respond verbally, which is pretty typical for routers, but one green light flickered at me.

The nerve of that router!

I inspected the area thoroughly. No crumbs. No suspicious USB ports clogged with paper remnants. However…I did detect a faint aura of guilt. And also dust. Mostly dust (which is technically dead skin flakes, just so you know). But there was guilt too.

Uh. Probably.

Returning to Miss. Kathrine, I prepared to report my findings.

“So,” I said, flipping my notebook open dramatically (and dropping it, which ruined the drama), “After a detailed investigation, I can confirm the router has done something indeterminate.”

Miss. Kathrine stared at me. Peter stared at me. The whole class stared at me.

“Meaning?” Miss. Kathrine asked.

“Meaning,” I said proudly, “this case is officially unsolved.”

Peter pumped his fist in triumph. “YES!”

Miss. Kathrine sighed so hard a poster on the wall fluttered. “Peter, do you remember the answer to the bonus question?”

“Uh…” Peter bit his lip. “No. I have a very short term memory.”

I smiled. That made perfect sense! Short-term memory is something I struggle with as well. Or do I? I can’t seem to remember.

Before leaving, I asked Peter if he had any final comments for the record. He looked me dead in the eyes and said, “If you print this, can you make me sound cool?”

So here you go, Peter. You sound very…Peter like.

A Reporter’s Final Note: Thank you again to my 13 readers, including my mother, who has not yet read this. But I will absolutely bother her again until she does. Journalism is all about persistence. And occasionally interrogating routers.

Stay tuned for Case File 50: The Mysterious Disappearance of All the Good Snacks in the Teacher’s Lounge. (Spoiler: I have a suspect. It’s me.)