Catfishing on CatNet Naomi Kritzer (reading strategies book txt) 📖

LittleBrownBat: Are we seriously having this conversation? Instead of talking about the website?

Marvin: Do you think your mother really kidnapped you?

LittleBrownBat: No! But I mean, how would I even know?

Hermione: What did your mom tell you about your father?

LittleBrownBat: That he burned down our house and killed the cat and almost us but they weren’t able to pin the arson on him so they convicted him of stalking.

And we went on the run while he was in prison.

Mom showed me a laminated newspaper article, only it says his name is Michael Taylor, and it’s not.

It’s Michael Quinn.

So that article was a fake. A fake like the birth certificate she shows to schools.

A fake like everything else I know about myself!

CheshireCat: There’s a database of missing children, and I looked up Stephania Quinnpacket and Stephanie Taylor and neither are in it.

LittleBrownBat: But what if Stephania Quinnpacket is also a lie?

Icosahedron: I looked up the owner of the domain of that website, but whoever it is uses a privacy service so I can’t see the name.

LittleBrownBat: Figures.

Icosahedron: I’ll try some social engineering and see what comes back.

Firestar: What’s social engineering?

Icosahedron: It’s like how if you want to know your next-door neighbor’s Wi-Fi password, instead of asking, “Hey, what’s your Wi-Fi password?” you might have a casual conversation with them about how to choose a password that’s easy to remember because sometimes they’ll say, “Maybe you could use your pet’s name.”

LittleBrownBat: What are you actually doing?

Icosahedron: There’s a way to send a message through the privacy service, so I created a new email account and sent a message saying that I’m an assistant to someone at a movie studio and we’re in preproduction for a movie that involves a super spy named Brun Quinnpacket and so we want to buy the Quinnpacket domain if it’s available, offering $5000. Maybe he’ll email me back.

Hermione: Is it possible that both things are true?

Your father is dangerous, AND your mom kidnapped you?

LittleBrownBat: I don’t even know what to think.

Hermione: I guess you really can’t talk to your mom right now …

LittleBrownBat: Not sure I’d talk to her anyway.

Even she weren’t in the hospital we kind of don’t have a talking sort of relationship.

Hermione: Have you told her about your secret cat yet?

LittleBrownBat: Well, for example, I have not told her about my secret cat yet.

Boom Storm: How’s the cat doing?

LittleBrownBat: She had kittens.

Firestar: OMG FREE KITTENS! I WANT ONE!

16

Steph

CheshireCat is using their magic AI powers to do all the searches on Michael Quinn. Rachel is lying on her bed. “Is CheshireCat, like, a private investigator?” she asks. “I sort of figured everyone was a teenager.”

“They’re homeschooled,” I say, like that’s an answer, and Rachel says, “Oh, okay,” so I guess it is.

Rachel’s mom knocks on her bedroom door. “Don’t forget it’s a school night!” she says. I look guiltily at the time and realize it’s midnight. We’re lying in the dark a few minutes later.

“Put a notebook by your hand,” Rachel whispers. “Tell yourself to remember your eighth birthday and write it down when you wake up.”

I wake with the uneasy sense that I’ve spent the night running away from who-knows-what in my sleep and no better recollection of my eighth birthday. It’s raining again.

“Do you want to go see your mom?” Rachel asks.

The thought is overwhelming. “I don’t know if she’ll be glad to see me, or if she’ll freak out, and if I go back there, they’re going to want her Social Security number and stuff that’ll identify her.” I swallow hard and shake my head and immediately feel relieved.

“Does she have a phone? Some way to contact you?”

“I didn’t find her cell phone in the apartment when I cleaned up, so … I think so? I don’t know if she has a charging cable for it.”

I don’t tell Rachel that I don’t even know what I would say to my mother if I saw her right now, and “Why did you lie to me about practically everything?” is probably not a comforting, supportive thing to hear when you’re recovering from surgery.

Rachel looks at me, her brow furrowed, and says, “Okay.”

I check in online before I head to school to ask CheshireCat if they’ve learned anything new about Michael. CheshireCat tells me that they’ve found 621 people named Michael Quinn, and they are currently monitoring all of them and will let me know if any of them start moving toward New Coburg.

“Can’t you narrow it down?” I ask.

“I already have,” CheshireCat says. “I eliminated everyone too young to be your father, and I’m working on more elimination criteria. In the meantime, I’m trying to keep tabs on all of them.”

We leave Rachel’s house early and stop off at my apartment so I can feed the cat and fill her water dish. No one’s been there. On impulse, I run out to the van and take the laminated article out of the glove box where Mom keeps it. Sure enough, it’s about a man named Taylor. Taylor this, Taylor that. I shove the article in my bag so I can give the details to CheshireCat later.

“What’s that for?” Rachel asks.

“I think she kept it in case she gets stopped by the police. Like, her license won’t ever be up to date, you know?”

“Oh. Yeah, that might work.”

“Maybe not if it’s Officer Olson who pulls her over.”

“Well, she’s white and not a teenager, so who knows.”

The news crew is long gone, but everyone at the high school is still talking about it: who got interviewed, what they said. In health class, the principal is there instead of the robot and delivers a stone-faced lecture on sexually transmitted diseases, reading off a printout. Emily is sitting in the front row, her legs crossed at the ankles, tapping her pen against her lips. I think the principal still thinks I did it somehow, but she doesn’t know how, and she knows she can’t prove it. The rumor this morning was that the blame had focused on Robono, so she