“She hates me,” I tell Figo. “My best friend hates me, because my mother moved us out of Alex.”
Figo shrugs. “It’s a good reason to hate someone. Not…” he continues in a hurry, seeing my expression.
Andile walks past. He doesn’t even look my way. I leap up, while Figo mutters behind me: “No, Thando, no…”
“It’s not me. I know you don’t believe me, but it’s not me.”
Andile sighs. “Eish, Nothando, drop it already.”
“Let’s go, Thando …”
I shake Figo’s hand off my arm. “Have you got any messages lately? Like for the last five days?”
Andile shakes his head.
“Because I changed my password and so the hacker can no longer get into my account.”
Andile looks dubious.
“Because that’s what’s going on. Someone’s been hacking into my account, and I know who it is.”
“Okay, let’s go, Thando…”
“Shuttup!’ I turn on Figo. I turn back to Andile: “It’s Lerato.”
“Nooooo…”groans Figo.
Andile gets angry. “You’re even sicker than I thought you were, blaming your best friend!”
“I thought she was my best friend, but she’s not…”
“Stay away from me, you creep.” Andile turns and walked away.
I look at Figo. “You have to help me, Figo! I’ll pay you… do whatever you want… you have to help me prove that this is not me!”
Figo nods. “What do you want?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Nothing. Maybe just to hang out every now and again.”
“For sure.”
I go home with Figo after school. He lives with his older brother who works night shift, so we have to be quiet because he’s sleeping in the next room. Figo has three monitors connected to hard drives, and cables all over the room.
“There’s a way of proving Lerato’s the cyber-bully. But it’s not exactly legal.”
His hands fly over the keys: he’s typing in Lerato’s cell number and a document comes up that looks like ancient Greek. “Code,” he tells me. “I’ve got to hack into her account to see if she’s hacked into yours.”
I tell him Lerato’s password, and it doesn’t take him very long before we’re scrolling down through all her messages. There are the ones I was meant to have sent to Andile!
Even though I know it was her, seeing the hard proof makes me feel depressed.
“How are we going to prove this though?” I ask Figo. We spend a good half hour thinking. Eventually I have to leave. Figo’s already opened up his homework diary. As I’m heading for the door, he yelps. I turn back. He looks at me like he’s won the lotto.
“We have that English speech coming up.”
“So?”
“So it has to be on how technology either harms or helps humankind.”
I begin to see where he’s heading. Figo’s brilliant. He really is. My respect for him grows daily.
***
Tell us what you think: How is Nothando going to prove she’s not the cyber-stalker?