Suzie’s House 215 : But Mom, It’s My Flashdrive

“Mom!” Ben just about flipped out when he saw what she was doing. “How’d you get that?”

“What? This flashdrive? It was sitting on my desk.”

“But… but…” Ben swallowed hard, trying to think and not doing a good job of it.

“Mom, no! Don’t look. Wait, What is all that?” He ran across Mom’s office to her desk. She’d already finished putting the flashdrive in her USB port, and a menu of everything on it popped up.

At first he thought maybe it was just another black flash drive made by the same company or something, because those things mostly looked alike. Then, mixed in with stuff he didn’t recognize, was his file.

“What the H*ll!!” He didn’t mean to swear in front of his mother, it just came out.

“Ben! What has gotten in to you?”

“That…” He stabbed a finger at the menu “is MY flashdrive! I went out all by myself and bought it with my own money for me. It’s only supposed to be for me, for my writing. What is all that other stuff doing there? And how did it get in here when I put it in my desk?”

“It was sitting in the middle of my desk when I came in a few minutes ago. I thought someone wanted me to see something on it. But this doesn’t make much sense to me. Is that a music file?” Mom pointed.

“Um… yeah. I think so. Click on it. No, wait. What am I saying? You mean you didn’t have anything to do with it?”

“No.” Mom shrugged. She also clicked on the file. A Foo Fighters song started playing.

“Hey, I recognize that. I heard that coming out of Gene’s room about a month ago. You think Gene…?”

“No.” The voice, sounding all determined, came from behind him.

Ben whirled around. There was Tracy, Gene’s girlfriend, just standing in the doorway. She was looking kind of normal now, with only a little gold glitter in some dark shade of brown that might actually have been her natural color once.

“Gene didn’t do that. I did.”

“You did?” Ben put a finger in his ear and wiggled it around cause it itched, but maybe also cause he wasn’t at all sure he got her.

Tracy shrugged. “It was supposed to be funny.” She walked over, leaned around him, and looked at the screen. “Oooo, look. It’s all luminous, like an omen.”

“You mean ominous?”

“No, I mean all glowy. Doesn’t it look brighter than the rest of the screen?” She squinted at it, kind of smiling.

It did, kind of, but Ben wasn’t going to agree with anything she said while he was so mad at her.

“There’s some erratic stuff, too.” Tracy beamed. She pointed to a picture with a thumbnail mostly the color of skin. “See? But don’t blame me. Miranda’s the one who put that on.”

“Erratic? You mean erotic? I’ll have to have a word with her,” Mom said.

“I can’t believe you two are like this!”

They looked at him like he’d gone nuts.

“That is MY flashdrive. And even Miranda has messed with it?! It’s private! You have no right!”

“I’m sorry,” Tracy said, all quiet.

Mom nodded. “I’m sorry, too. I didn’t realize.”

“Give. Me. My. Flashdrive!”

“Oh. Yes, of course.” Mom did the thing to make the computer let it go, looking apologetic. She didn’t argue or ground him or try to look in the one file that mattered. She handed it over like it was no big deal.

And then Ben realized, it really was no big deal. She didn’t mind that he had it. She wouldn’t try to take it and see what he wrote. It was all right. He could delete off all the stuff he didn’t want that Tracy put on, and use it right there in front of everyone. And if anyone messed with it, he could yell at them. Because it really was all his.

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