Free Maxwell's Retirement by M. J. Trow Page B

what was rapidly becoming the Front, a girl’s voice piped up. ‘Why are they all boys, sir?’
    Maxwell beamed broadly. ‘Sophie, light of my life; well spotted. What we are doing here, dearly beloved, is to build up the two armed camps in Europe in 1914. This was a man’s business –killing usually is. But don’t worry, Sophie. We’ll be looking at Edith Cavell – she was a brave nurse, and a woman by the way, shot by Jimbo here. And Mata Hari, she was a spy. Now, just a few more volunteers and we’re ready to play World War One. Nobody wants to be Belgium, I suppose?’
     
    Nicole Thompson was still mulling over the events of the day before. School systems were not the most sophisticated in the world, she had often had to accept. But, so far, she had never felt the need to increase security in any way. But the email she had received along with her department yesterday was so clearly not from Peter Maxwell that she felt sure she had a hacker in the school. The problem was … who? She couldn’t think of a single staff member who had both the skill and the residual humour to do it. There were quite a few kids who could do it, but she knew who they were, and if they went a-hacking, the directgov or inlandrevenue sites were where they liked to make merry. Many was the heart-stopping tax demand that they had engendered. Sending an only slightly amusing email purporting to come from Maxwell was beneath their contempt. She didn’t go along with Mike’s theory that Maxwell had had a sudden overload. Ned was right. When Maxwell was waiting for the last trump and Peter was twirling his keys in his face, he would beinsisting on correct grammar and spelling. So, she tapped her teeth with the key to the mainframe cupboard; who was it? Who
was
it?
    She pushed herself off from her desk and shot across the room, to the not very well stifled chuckles of Mike and Ned. The mind of a computer geek is a simple one and prat-fall jokes were still their favourite.
    She stifled them with a look. ‘Put the WD-40 can on my desk by the time I get back and if any of it gets into the office again, there will be trouble. I mean
serious
trouble. I mean,’ and she rested on her knuckles on Ned’s desk, ‘permanent staff record trouble.’
    The two managed to look crestfallen while she was in the room. As soon as she had left they both shrugged. How much trouble could a computer-stored record be? Bless James Diamond and his paperless office. With a casual high five they both bent to their tasks: reading
What Computer?
in the case of Ned, listing old county laptops on eBay in the case of Mike. Another day, another dollar.
     
    Nicole strode along Maxwell’s corridor. She was pretty sure that that was where the answer lay. She knocked on his door but there was no reply. Listening carefully, she could hear his voice along the corridor in the hell-hole that was the History Department and so now she had a dilemma:should she go away and come back later, or should she go in and say nothing? Obviously, the right thing to do would be to go away and come back later but, oddly, her hand was on the handle and she was on the threshold of the room.
    To her surprise, his laptop was not in evidence. So there went one plan of action; to open it up and check when he had last sent an email from it. She went round behind the desk, expecting to find it stashed under there. But no, nothing. Perhaps, against all the odds, Peter Maxwell was actually intending to register classes electronically! Then, she saw the Post-it on his desk: ‘custard, rhs’. Surely he didn’t keep custard in what she correctly guessed was his right-hand desk drawer? Looking round furtively, she slid it open. No … no custard, just a rather spiffy mobile phone. Probably one he had confiscated from a kid. She couldn’t really picture Peter Maxwell with a Blackberry. But the custard note was a bit worrying. What if he
was
losing it? What if the email had actually come from him? Nicole