[Backup] PHR Ch. 4: Swimmingly

Backup of https://joelrees-novels.blogspot.com/2017/10/phr-04-swimmingly.html.

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Ch. 3: Invitation

Ch. 4: Swimmingly

[JMR202008172359 replace all -- cleanup of first dump from old notebook]

"Late's okay, Mom!"

"So's early."

We left for the pool on foot a little before nine and got there about nine twenty.

The sign above the counter said,

Open swim from 

10:00 AM to 7:15 PM 

in good weather.  

Changing rooms 

open at 9:45,

close at 7:30 PM.

Swimming class only 

before 9:45.

"Twenty-five minutes, Mom, what're we gonna do?"

"It's enough time for a walk."

Not much rainfall, so the park there is a little on the dry side most of the year. But there are baseball diamonds and football fields, and children practicing. Around the pool and the wading pool, they grass is pretty green, and they try to keep it green around the picnic tables and the children's park. More of a yellow-green, the further you get from the pool.

We read the botanical tags on some of the trees and bushes.

"Western soapberry. Says it can be used for soap."

"Broom dalea, also known as purple sage."

"Desert willow."

"Blue oak. Maybe there's more to like about this town than we thought."

"Wha ...?" I stopped. "Mom, did you just admit you had doubts about this move?"

Mom walked ahead and didn't reply.

We were back at the pool by the time they opened the changing area.

"Where's your swimsuits?" the girl at the counter asked.

We held up our bundles. "Tee shirts and shorts okay in the pool?" I asked.

She looked at our bundles. "Not unless they're clean and you're wearing a clean swimsuit underneath."

We both spread our bundles on the counter. 

"Looks clean. Shower and check the rules before you go in."

We paid our money and went into the changing area. Mom and I shared a locker basket. We showered and changed quickly and went into the pool area dripping wet.

"That winds a little cold."

"We'll warm up quick in the water."

Swimming coaches were still chasing stragglers out of the pool. Life guards were skimming the water surface with nets to clear leaves. We had to wait.

The pool is a big Z. There's a diving area on the far end and a kid's play area on the near end, and a huge practice area ten lanes wide and fifty meters long between.

"We can do some serious swimming here, Cherry Hill."

"Not until the lifeguards blow their whistles."

Mom and I dove in the moment the whistles blew, and did laps. Mom still swims faster than I do when she's motivated, but not much. We stayed pretty even.

Rusty dove past us on the third lap and stayed just ahead. His friends started jumping in behind us. One girl kept up, but the rest lagged behind.

About the tenth lap, one of the boys was stopped ahead of us, blocking Rusty's path. A girl that looked like his twin was behind Rusty, and they teamed up to dunk him. I stopped and the girl who was keeping up did, as well, and we teamed up to dunk the twins. All his friends stopped and joined in the water fight.

Then the lifeguards' whistles blew, and I got to meet everyone. The girl who had kept up was June, the twins were Karl and Kim. And Karen and Kelly were there, as were their moms.

Mom got to gossip, well, find out a lot more about the school, the town, and the people. At first, they teased her about the workout she was doing while they talked. But she talked them into joining her.

I think it was Kelly that suggested water polo. We got permission from the life guards, and they roped off half the length of the practice area for us and set up goals. My mom and the other two moms did some short laps while we played.

Rusty's friends may not all be fast swimmers, but they are serious about water polo.

We had fun playing that for almost an hour, then rested on the sides and talked, and dove off the diving boards, and played piggy-back wars -- with permission from the life guards, of course.

No, I was not riding on Rusty's shoulders, at least, not most of the time. We all took turns being horses and riders, and I was a horse a lot of the time.

A guy named Joel tried to do a back flip from the low board, and didn't get his head down. he ended up in a major back-flop, splashing water to both sides of the pool. It hurt just to hear him hit the surface. Then he went limp in the water, face up and sinking.

I was close and swam for him. Rusty was on the other side of the pool, but he was under the lifeguard station and Sharon, who was manning the station, waved him off so she could get in safely. She was in mid-air when Joel floated back up, still facing the sky. He let out a roar, "IH-TEH YAHN KAH!" and started laughing. Then he rolled gingerly over and stroked carefully for the bank while the rest of us broke up in relieved laughter.

Sharon made him lie on the bank while she checked his eyes and reflexes.

I asked him where he learned Japanese. Turns out his dad is from Awaji Island, across from Osaka and Kobe.

It didn't take him long to convince Sharon and Hank, the other lifeguard on duty that day, he was okay, and he went back to the low board and turned a perfect back flip. Kim followed with a rolling bomb that splashed water over the banks, and Karl did a deliberate belly-flop, shouting, "Feels GOOD!" when he surfaced. Joel dunked him and the whistles blew again.

Sharon is June's older sister, and Hank is Karen's older brother. They're members of the college swim team.

While we were resting, Rusty and I got to talking about RFCs 1459 and 2813 and encrypted channels, and suddenly four girls grabbed me and four guys grabbed him and we went into the water. And the lifeguards' whistles blew again.

I was having too much fun to think about it, but it felt like I had known everyone forever. Everybody shared and everybody was included. No cliques. Well, except for Karl and Kim, but they have an excuse, and, anyway, they're an open clique.

And everyone wore conservative suits. Mom was right about the shorts and tee-shirt. I never took them off.

Some of the group had to leave about twelve, and others came. Mom and I said our goodbyes and left about one.

That evening, after Mom and I got back from finishing my registration for my senior year in high school, I did some web searches for Rusty's name and his public key. I found out he's on the school's science and technology team. He runs the school's student servers, and is teaching several students how to take his place. And his jobs with the ISP and the newspaper are official.

{join gwydyr.ussw pen9choir=}

{nick cutegeek}

{cutegeek :oxide Hey!}

{oxide alias superpaperboy}

{superpaperboy 'sup?}

{cutegeek had fun today. there long?}

{superpaperboy til 2. ya coming tomorrow.}

"Mom, can I go swimming tomorrow?"

"Of course."

"Thanks."

{cutegeek yeah}

"All week if you want. Can I come, too? It'll be good exercise for me."

"I guess so."

We chatted a little before I signed off and went to bed. IRC is much more convenient than raw UDP packets.

Wednesday morning, I gave Rusty a copy of one of my public keys before we went in to change. Mom went again and met Rusty and June's mothers.

I mentioned something about encrypted channels once while we were taking a break and we got thrown in the pool again.

That evening, Rusty and I imported each other's keys and talked shop over encrypted IRC. And other stuff.

{superpaperboy having a party at my house sat}

{cutegeek ?}

{superpaperboy friends from school and church}

{cutegeek oh}

{superpaperboy interested?}

{cutegeek maybe}

{superpaperboy dancin n games}

"Mom, Rusty's having a party at his house on Saturday. Kids from school and his church."

"Yes you can go."

"Just like that?"

"Rusty and his friends are good people."

{cutegeek im on}

We got thrown in the pool on Thursday, too. Mom laughed, and the life guards didn't even bother blowing their whistles until it turned into a water fight. And it wasn't even Sharon and Hank on duty that morning.

We were on unencrypted IRC that night.

{Superdad joined gwydyr.ussw}

{cutegeek Dad?}

"Mom, did you tell Dad about Rusty's IRC channel?"

{Superdad Hi, Rusty.}

"Well, yeah."

{superpaperboy Hello, sir.}

”Oh."

{Superdad I hear you're smooth-talking my daughter.}

{cutegeek :Superdad Identify yourself.}

{Superdad joined sugitahkr.net}

The sugitahkr.net channel can only be joined encrypted, with keys that only Dad, Mom, and I have.

{Superdad@sugitahkr.net Hi, Cherry.}

{cutegeek@sugithkr.net Hi, Dad.}

{Superdad@sugitahkr.net exited}

{cutegeek@sugithkr.net exited}

{cutegeek meet my dad}

{Superpaperboy Hi, Dad.}

{Superdad Just wanted to say hi.}

So Dad joined us that night. Mom joined us, too. Rusty suggested I pass his public key to Dad and Mom, and I did, out-of-band. (Sent it in encrypted e-mail to Dad, just handed it to Mom.) So we established an encrypted channel, and talked a little shop. Rusty's dad also joined for a bit.

After Rusty and his dad logged off, Dad and I got back on the encrypted channel.

{Superdad@sugitahkr.net So ...}

{cutegeek@sugithkr.net Haven't mentioned the computer room, Dad. Or anything about your work.}

{Superdad@sugitahkr.net Get as much information as you can.}

{cutegeek@sugithkr.net OK!}

{Superdad@sugitahkr.net And watch yourself.}

{cutegeek@sugithkr.net ok}

{Superdad@sugitahkr537738.net And don't have too mucho fun. ;-).}

Dads.

[JMR202008172359 replace all -- end]

[JMR201710220339 original dump from old notebook]

"Late's okay, Mom!"

"So's early."

We left for the pool on foot a little before nine and got there about nine twenty. But the swimming classes weren't finished yet, so we walked around the park. They had a children's playground with interesting , and there was a small garden with local flowers and plants.

"Maybe there's more to like about this town than we thought."

"Wha ...?" I stopped. "Mom, did you just admit you have doubts about this move?"

Mom walked ahead and didn't reply.

We were back at the pool by quarter to ten, and they had opened the changing rooms for everybody.

"Where's your swimsuits?" the girl at the counter asked.

We held up our bundles. "Tee shirts and shorts okay in the pool?" I asked.

She looked at our bundles. "Not unless they're clean and you're wearing the swimsuit underneath."

We both spread our bundles on the counter. 

"Looks clean. Shower, and check the rules before you go into the pool area."

We paid our money and went in. Mom and I shared a locker.

We finished showering and changing and went in to the pool area, dripping wet and just a little cold because of the wind.

Swimming coaches were still chasing stragglers out of the pool. Life guards were skimming the water surface with nets to clear leaves.

The pool was a zigzag. There was a diving area on the far end and a play area on the near end, and a huge practice area ten lanes wide and fifty meters long between. We could do some serious swimming here.

Mom and I dove in the moment the life guards blew their whistles, and took laps. She still swims faster than I do, but not much.

Rusty joined us on the second lap, then several of his friends. He and one girl (June) kept up, but the rest fell behind.

About the sixth lap, a guy and a girl (Karl and Cris) dunked Rusty. I stopped to help him dunk them back and that stopped the laps and started a water fight. The life guards' whistles stopped the water fight and Rusty introduced me to his friends.

Karen's and Kelly's moms both came, and Mom got to gossip, I mean, find out a lot more about the school and the town. At first, they teased her about the workout she was doing while they talked. But then they joined her.

Rusty introduced me to June and the rest, and I think it was Kelly that suggested water polo. We got permission from the life guards, who roped off half the length of the practice area for us and set up goals. My mom and the other two moms did a few short laps while we played.

Rusty's friends may not all be fast swimmers, but they are serious about water polo.

We had fun playing that for almost an hour, then rested on the sides and talked, and dove off the diving boards, and played piggy-back wars -- with special permission from the life guards.

No, I was not riding on Rusty's shoulders, at least, not most of the time. We all took turns being horses and riders.

I was having too much fun to think about it, but it felt like I had known everyone forever. Everbody shared and everybody was included.

And everyone wore conservative suits. Mom was right about the shorts and tee-shirt. I never took them off.

Some of the group had to leave about twelve, and others came. Mom and I said our goodbyes and left about one. Rusty stayed, he told me later, until two.

And that's how it was I was swimming with Superpaperboy and his friends during the mornings the whole rest of the week. Of course, I did not call him Superpaperboy.

And we didn't talk shop at the pool. Well anytime we said anything like RFC or packet protocol, four of the girls would gang up on me and four of the guys on him and we'd end up in the water. And the life guards would blow their whistles.

The fourth time it happened in as many days, the life guards warned me and Rusty to quit talking tech around the pool. As if it were our fault!

We also chatted over IRC in the evenings. IRC is much more convenient than assembling UDP packets by hand. Rusty introduced me to some of his white hat friends on the 'net, too. Sometimes he changed his nick to superpaperboy, and I changed mine to cutegeek.

Wednesday evening, I mentioned the computer room, and he sent me the name of a friend of his father's who could do the final check-off. I asked Dad by IRC, and he got a little upset. He contacted Rusty's father, and then the friend, a mister Whiteall, himself, and messaged me back later on an encrypted session to say it would be okay.

But he told me to watch like a hawk when he was there for the check off. And to sweep for bugs after. Like I wouldn't. He also told me not to let Rusty look at the computer room until he said it was okay. And he told me to double-check after any time Rusty came over. Dad is a little too paranoid sometimes.

On Thursday, Rusty told me he was having a back-to-school party at his home on Saturday, with dancing in the back yard and board games and stuff inside. I said I'd think about it.

Friday, just as Rusty, June, Jake and I had finished eight laps and were resting, Karl was sneaking up behind Cris to dunk her, and everyone suddenly became just a little quiet. It felt a little eerie. Some of my new friends were looking at the entrance to the changing area. Some were looking anywhere else.

Rusty looked up and waved. There was a small group of four students I hadn't met yet coming in. These students were different. The guys were in speedos and the girls were in bikinis. Tiny, expensive bikinis. Without thinking, I looked down at my tee-shirt. I had worn a one-piece under my tee and shorts every day after the first, and suddenly I was doubly glad. I would have looked positively under-endowed standing next to any of those four in my bikini.

They waved back, and a woman followed them out carrying a baby. One of the girls turned around and took the baby and lifted him up to see the pool. Maybe she was showing him off to the students I was with. He beat the aiMom and I left on foot at nine the next morning, and got there about nine twenty. But the swimming classes weren't finished yet, so we walked around the park, exploring the children's playground and looking at the trees.

"Maybe there's more to like about this town than we thought."

"Wha ...?" I stopped. "Mom, did you just admit you have doubts about this move?"

Mom walked ahead and didn't reply.

We were back at the pool by quarter to ten, when they opened the changing rooms for everybody.

"Where's your swimsuits?" the girl at the girl's side counter asked.

We held up our bundles. "Tee shirts and shorts okay in the pool?" I asked.

She looked at our bundles. "Not unless they're clean and you're wearing the swimsuit underneath."

We both spread our bundles on the counter. 

"Looks clean. Shower, and check the rules before you go in the pool area."

We paid our money and went in. Mom and I shared a locker.

When we finished showering and changing and went in to the pool area, hair and bodies dripping in the hot morning sun, swimming coaches were still chasing stragglers out of the pool, and life guards were skimming the water surface with nets to clear leaves. The pool was a zigzag,  with a diving area and a play area on the ends and a practice area ten lanes wide and fifty meters long between. We could do some serious swimming here.

Mom and I dove in the moment the life guards blew their whistles, and took laps. She still swims faster than I do, but not much.

Rusty joined us on the second lap, then several of his friends. He and June kept up, but the rest fell behind. About the sixth lap, Karl and Kris dunked Rusty, and the water fight that caused stopped us doing any more laps until the life guards' whistles blew.

Karen's and Kelly's moms both came, and Mom got to gossip a lot, I mean, find out a lot more about the school and the town. They teased her about the workout she was doing and then joined her.

Rusty introduced me to June and the rest, and I think it was Kelly that suggested water polo. We got permission from the life guards, who roped off half the length of the practice area for us and set up goals. My mom and the other two moms did a few short laps while we played.

Rusty's friends may not all be fast swimmers, but they are serious about water polo.

We had fun playing that for almost an hour, then rested on the sides and talked, and dove off the diving boards, and played piggy-back wars -- with special permission from the life guards.

No, I was not riding on Rusty's shoulders, at least, not most of the time. We all took turns being horses and riders.

I was having too much fun to think about it, but it felt like I had known everyone forever. Everbody shared and everybody was included.

And everyone wore conservative swimming gear. Mom was right about the shorts and tee-shirt. I never took them off.

Some of the group had to leave about twelve, and others came. Mom and I said our goodbyes and left about one. Rusty stayed, he told me later, until two.

And that's how it was I was swimming with Superpaperboy and his friends during the mornings the whole rest of the week. Of course, I did not call him Superpaperboy.

And we didn't talk shop at the pool. Anytime we said anything like RFC or packet protocol, four of the girls would gang up on me and four of the guys on him and we'd end up in the water. And the life guards would blow their whistles.

The fourth time it happened in as many days, the life guards warned me and Rusty to quit talking tech around the pool. As if it were our fault!

We also chatted over IRC in the evenings. IRC is much more convenient than assembling UDP packets by hand. Rusty introduced me to some of his white hat friends on the 'net, too.

At some point, I mentioned the computer room, and he sent me the name of a friend of his father's who could do the final check off. I asked Dad by e-mail, and he got a little upset. He contacted Rusty's dad and the friend, himself, and mailed me back later to say that it would be okay.

But he told me to watch like a hawk when he was there for the check off. And to sweep for bugs after. Like I wouldn't. He also told me not to let Rusty look at the computer room. And he told me to double-check after any time Rusty came over. Dad is a little too paranoid sometimes.

I think it was Wednesday Rusty told me I was invited to a back-to-school party at his home on Saturday, with dancing in the back yard and board games and stuff inside. I said I'd think about it.

Friday, just as Rusty, June, Jake and I had finished eight laps and were resting, Karl was sneaking up behind Kris to dunk her, when everyone became just a little quiet. It felt a little eerie. Some of my new friends were looking at the entrance to the changing area. Some were looking anywhere else.

Rusty looked up and waved. There was a small group of four students I hadn't met yet coming in. These students were different. The guys were in speedos and the girls were in bikinis. Without thinking, I looked down at my tee-shirt. I had worn a one-piece under my tee and shorts every day after the first, and suddenly I was doubly glad. I would have looked positively under-endowed standing in my bikini next to any of those four.

They waved back, and a woman followed them out carrying a baby. One of the girls turned around and took the baby and lifted him up to see the pool. Maybe she was showing him off to the students I was with. The baby beat the air with his feet and hands and laughed.

I looked at Rusty and saw an odd expression on his face. His face was often unreadable, but now it was a mask.

The new group came around the pool and some of our group went over to greet them, Rusty among them. He looked back at me with another expression I couldn't read, so I followed.

The baby's sister seemed to single me out. She smiled. "Hi. We heard Rusty found a new girl to join the group. You must be Cheryl."

While we played water volleyball, I noticed that the girl whose mother had brought the baby seemed to be holding back a little. Her bikini revealed a certain lack of tone around her stomach. I was not intending to look closely, but I noticed a fresh scar that reminded me of the one my mother carried from when I was born.

When we ended up on the same team, they introduced themselves to me.

"You must be Cheryl."

"I am."

"I'm Pietra. I'm with Kazu." I guessed she meant they were going steady.

"I'm Mandy. Jimmy's my man over there. That's my mom, Clarinda, with little Jimmy."

While we waited for service, Pietra said, "I hear you know a lot about computers."

”Yeah." I bumped to Mandy and she set to June. June spiked and Rusty blocked, sending it back to Pietra. She jumped and killed it. We rotated and Luke took the serve.

"Swim pretty well."

"Sometimes. You play volleyball?"

"On land, mostly."

We won the game. Pietra was asking the questions, but Mandy was listening. Made me feel a little uncomfortable.

Saturday was the last day before school, and it seemed like everyone in the city was at the pool. Anyway, there was no room to play water polo, and there was only room for laps until about nine thirty. The pool had opened for general swimming at nine. I met more of the students at the new school, but I didn't have as much fun.

Pietra and Kazuo were there, and it seemed like they were near me all the time. I can handle silence, but I'm not sure Pietra can. It kind of seemed like she was still pumping me for information.

Mandy's mom had to work, so Mandy was watching little Jimmy and couldn't come. Big Jimmy was not in evidence, either. Pietra said he had to work, too.

At one point, Kazuo and Rusty were clowning around with some other boys on the diving boards, and Pietra said, looking significantly towards Rusty, "You really ought to show off your curves more."

I don't know why, but I pulled off my tee and shorts and left them on the grass, and went for some dives. Competition one-pieces show off curves in a little different way from bikinis, but they do show off curves.

As I came of the board, I saw Rusty looking at me with an unreadable expression of another type. I cut the water as clean as I think I ever have.



I looked at Rusty and saw an odd expression on his face. His face was often unreadable, but this was a mask. The small group came around and some of our group went over to greet them, Rusty among them. He was careful to be among those who said hello to the baby. I don't know how I knew it, but he was being very careful not to be obviously interested in the little boy, and at the same time careful to be interested.

While we played water volleyball, I noticed that the girl whose mother had brought the baby seemed to be holding back a little. Her bikini revealed a certain lack of tone around her stomach. I was not intending to look closely, but I noticed a fresh scar that reminded me of the one my mother carried from when I was born.

When we ended up on the same team, they introduced themselves to me.

"You must be Cheryl."

"I am."

"I'm Pietra. I'm with Kazu." I guessed she meant they were going steady.

"I'm Mandy. Jimmy's my man over there. That's my mom, Clarinda, with little Jimmy."

While we waited for service, Pietra said, "I hear you know a lot about computers."

”Yeah." I bumped to Mandy and she set to June. June spiked and Rusty blocked, sending it back to Pietra. She jumped and killed it. We rotated and Luke took the serve.

"Swim pretty well."

"Sometimes. You play volleyball?"

"On land, mostly."

We won the game. Pietra was asking the questions, but Mandy was listening. Made me feel a little uncomfortable.

Saturday was the last day before school, and it seemed like everyone in the city was at the pool. Anyway, there was no room to play water polo, and there was only room for laps until about nine thirty. The pool had opened for general swimming at nine. I met more of the students at the new school, but I didn't have as much fun.

Pietra and Kazuo were there, and it seemed like they were near me all the time. I can handle silence, but I'm not sure Pietra can. It kind of seemed like she was still pumping me for information.

Mandy's mom had to work, so Mandy was watching little Jimmy and couldn't come. Big Jimmy was not in evidence, either. Pietra said he had to work, too.

At one point, Kazuo and Rusty were clowning around with some other boys on the diving boards, and Pietra said, looking significantly towards Rusty, "You really ought to show off your curves more."

I don't know why, but I pulled off my tee and shorts and left them on the grass, and went for some dives. Competition one-pieces show off curves in a little different way from bikinis, but they do show off curves.

As I came of the board, I saw Rusty looking at me with an unreadable expression of another type. I cut the water as clean as I think I ever have.

[JMR201710220339 original dump from old notebook -- end]

Ch. 5: Swimmingly

TOC

---

Backup at https://joel-rees-economics.blogspot.com/2017/10/bk-phr-04-swimmingly.html.

[Backup] PHR Ch. 3: Invitation

Backup of https://joelrees-novels.blogspot.com/2017/10/phr-03-invitation.html.

---

Ch. 2: UDP Packets

Ch. 3: Invitation

Just as he said, he gave me ten minutes. Mom and I were waiting on the porch when he rode up on his bike. He laid the bike on the grass and came up and sat down on the other side of Mom. I had sat on one end of the step, and Mom, at first, had sat on the other. But I made Mom scoot over before he arrived, so there was no room for him to sit next to me.

We all looked out at the sunset.

"Rusty Ellison."

"Hi Rusty. I'm Joy, and the Cute Geek is Cheryl."

"I guess I was a little abrupt."

"Understood." Mom just smiled.

Superpaperboy nodded with a grin.

Mom understood, and I did, too, really, but I had to defend myself. "A port scan shouldn't be a problem, should it?"

"Well, unannounced, it is a little bit uhm, disconcerting to a sysadmin, don't you think?"

"Maybe."

"But it wasn't the port scan. Or the other parts of the standard vulnerability tests. Those were professionally done. Who taught you?"

"Dad. I picked up a lot on my own, too. But he made me learn how to do it the way a business would want it done."

"What came after was not professional."

"Maybe I went too far. But most servers, nobody pays attention."

"I take recurring parses of my logs."

"When you sent the UDP packets, I thought you must have been watching for me or something."

"No, I didn't really take you that serious when you said you were a geek. But the parser triggers a notification to my phone, so I was watching by the time you started directly fuzzing the customer database server."

"Cheryl?" Mom raised her eyebrows.

"Well, I wondered how tight he keeps things."

"Pretty tight. There are local black hat groups. It would be real easy to get owned."

"You guessed it was me?"

"Uhmm, the thought did cross my mind. But I didn't really think so. I also run the local access for your ISP, and I can look up an IP addresses. "

I leaned forward to look at his face. "You're a little scary, you know."

Mom was just laughing at us.

"Okay, okay. But it's not like an ISP doing their job wouldn't have looked up the address."

"But usually there's a little division of responsibility."

True. I suppose this isn't really my job." He thought for a moment. "But you need to understand that this town is not a place to play carelessly on the 'net."

Mom lost her smile. "Is that a threat?"

"No, Ma'am. I'm relatively harmless, but there are people here who aren't."

Mom and I both waited, but he wasn't volunteering more than that.

After a minute, he broke the silence. "Say, Cute Geek, we can talk shop anytime, but a bunch of my friends are trying to finish up the summer in the pool. Ya interested?"

"Are you going to keep calling me Cute Geek?"

He laughed. "No, not in front of my friends. That wouldn't be fair."

I wondered how he might have known I like swimming. But I decided to indulge my paranoia later. "Where is this famous pool?"

"It's in a park named after a mythical European forest."

"Gwydyr Park? I think I saw that on the map. About a mile from here?"

"That's it. Mile and a half, really. The pool is on the northeast corner. We meet there at ten in the morning so we can swim for a couple of hours without getting sunburned."

"Close enough to walk. How many?"

"Eight to twelve, sometimes more. About half and half guys and girls."

"Parents?" Mom asked.

"Somebody's mom usually comes. Kelly was saying something about his mom coming tomorrow. Karen's, too."

"And I could come, too?"

"Mom, ..."

"Sure."

Now he leaned forward to look at me.

"I'll think about it," I said before he could ask.

"Listen. I'm okay if you attack my servers, just let me know when you do, so I can tell the real owners you're running tests for me."

"Maybe I'm not interested any more."

"Promise me something else. Don't test any other nodes or hosts without permission."

"Permission from you?"

"From the legal owners."

"It's dangerous."

"Very."

"Cheryl, ..."

"Okay I, promise."

"Thank you, Cheryl's mom." He jumped up. "Gotta go. Good night." He picked up his bike and stopped, then set it back down. Coming back the porch, he handed me a slip of paper. Then he nodded and left.

"Mmmm?"

"His IRC nick and usual chatroom, mail address, and public key. I guess I could start a local web of trust with this."

 Mom and I went back inside and explored the news and SNS services for a boring half hour, going through the front door this time.

Well, I was bored. Mom found out lots of things about the town and neighbors. I captured the data stream for later analysis.

"You should check your suit." Mom said as I shut down my laptop.

"I wore it two weeks ago at home. Uhm, our old home."

"Miss the place, huh?"

"Yeah. Anything from Dad?" I went into my room and dug my swimming stuff out of a box.

"He says he's trying to find a certified electrician to come sign your work off." Mom came into my room behind me. "Hasn't that bikini grown too small for you?"

"Small is fashionable." I was checking it for stretch holes. Yeah, it really was too small.

"I have a hunch you'll be more comfortable in one of your one-piece team suits."

"No way, Mom!"

My team suits are actually pretty cool. But somehow I thought I'd be starting off on the wrong foot if I weren't in a bikini.

"Well, if you go with the bikini, be sure you take shorts and a tee you'll be comfortable swimming in."

It was time for bed, but I got the laptop back out and did some web searches for my name. I wanted to figure out how much Superpaperboy might have found out.

He might have found me on the swimming team roster. But how would he know my first name before I told him? How would he know what school to look at?

Swimming team. My teammates in South Dakota would just now be finding out I wouldn't be there this year.

We don't post much to national SNS. Even given that he had our ISP records and knew our last name was Sugita, how could he have connected me to Mom, except by guessing?

Was the swimming just guessing? Just a coincidence?

Ch. 4: Swimmingly

TOC

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Backup at https://joel-rees-economics.blogspot.com/2017/10/bk-phr-03-invitation.html.

[Backup] PHR Ch. 2: UDP Packets

Backup of https://joelrees-novels.blogspot.com/2017/10/phr-02-udp-packets.html.

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Ch. 1: Paperboy

Ch. 2: UDP Packets

"Mom!"

Of course, I don't really need defenses with Mom. She is not my enemy. She's my best friend in the world.

Dad is my best friend in the world, too -- and on the 'net. I wish they wouldn't argue.

No, it's not that I need defenses against Mom, it's just that my defenses were so far gone. It's not every day you just happen to be outside your new house when the good-looking newscarrier comes by and you find out he runs a local server.

 "Never mind, I'm sure I'll meet him soon enough. What should we do for dinner?"

"Pizza?"

"Are you gonna make it?"

"Can't we order out?"

"You know we can't afford that. Especially not until your Dad sells the house."

We had tofu and tossed salad and rice. And we split a can of tuna. Mom and I fixed the salad together after I cleaned up in the computer room and she finished some more paperwork.

"It's kind of lonely without Dad, isn't it?"

"Oh, Mom. How long is it going to take?"

"I wish I knew."

"Is it really about selling the house?"

Mom didn't answer, she just took my hand and squeezed it. I don't know what Mom was thinking, and I'm not sure what I was thinking. But we sat there for a while.

"Rusty said I could give him a ping."

"Mmmm?"

"The paperboy. Send him a message so we can talk. Should I?"

"How should I know? Should we look at the news?"

"I wanna see what that neighborhood SNS is all about."

We got on the internet again, and Mom logged on to slashdot and her aggregator, which I don't mention, and she doesn't mind if I don't. While she read to me from the firehose, I logged in to the ISP's modem's control page. It was cool enough (barely) for one fan to cover both of us and our two PCs in the living room. Still not dark. Daylight savings? Get serious. Totally unnecessary here.

The modems that ISPs provide are hardly worth the plastic they're housed in. NAT and port forwarding in name only. What logging? No fine tuning, and only a hundred lines. Just enough filtering to keep Universal Plug and Play from letting your neighbor own everything you dare leave open to UPnP.

I had already set the password and the inside IP address to something not default, so we could safely get our mail. And I had put a real firewall between the modem and our inside router. Nice little low-power semi-custom ARM box running openBSD. Lots of space to keep logs. Dad's job has some perks. Updating the firewall can be a panic sometimes, because the box is semi-custom and there's no place for the drivers in the project source tree.

I wanted to check out our superpaperboy's SNS server before we signed up, and I don't mean the end-users' agreement. That would come after, so I could at least have plausible deniability. Mom would be my witness that I hadn't thought to read it first.

I mapped all the modem ports to the firewall and dropped all the filters the modem would let me. Then I started probing Superpaperboy's servers. I was very impressed. He knew what he was doing. So I gave Mom the thumbs-up and she typed in the URL for the local news and started reading the legal stuff to me.

"Nice of the newspaper company to provide both the news and the SNS in the same service," she commented an hour later.

"Smart business, too. Wait, Mom. Don't sign us up yet, I see something strange in the logs."

Superpaperboy was sending me messages in raw UDP packets.

{Hey, Cute Geek. Uninvited probes are not considered polite.}

I was impressed.

{Hey, superpaperboy. I practice safe hex.}

{Cut it out or I'll come over and tell your mom what you just said.}

{Mom is riding shotgun.}

{I'm coming over.}

{Don't you dare.}

Mom laughed. "Guess I get to find out how cute he is."

"Mo-om!" I whined. I admit it. I whined.

{See you in ten.}

{Won't be here.}

But he had already set the message to repeat every ten seconds, counting down in English, no less, and was not responding.

"Where do you plan to go?"

"Well, I'm not going to answer the door!"

Mom just laughed as I ran into my room to change clothes and get some of the dust out of my hair.

Ch. 3: Invitation

TOC

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Backup at https://joel-rees-economics.blogspot.com/2017/10/bk-phr-02-udp-packets.html.

[Backup] PHR Ch. 1: Paperboy

Backup of https://joelrees-novels.blogspot.com/2017/10/phr-01-paperboy.html.

---

TOC

Ch. 1: Paperboy

I was out there on on the front steps of the new house, sitting there, doing nothing, kicking with my toes at the grass growing through the cracks in the sidewalk. I felt like I was melting. No, not melting, sublimating. Late August afternoon heat and air so dry that a young woman like me can't even glow. Just evaporates before it can even begin to make your skin glisten.

When my mother and I moved here from South Dakota last week, my father's things were conspicuously absent from the moving van. He said he needed to stay behind to clean things up and sell the house. But he didn't send a single box of his stuff with us.

Mom says it's because he's a geek and an ascetic. He literally owns nothing that he doesn't use every day. I'm not so sure. They've been having a lot of arguments, and it seems like, at least half my friends back home, their parents are divorced now.

He did let me bring the servers I usually work on. But it just feels so strange logging in to his research servers remotely.

Oh. I'm a geek, too. I set up the new computer room here all by myself in the extra bedroom. False floor and walls, insulation, airconditioning, wiring. The county inspector was surprised when he asked who had done the work, but I showed him my apprentice papers and Dad's plans.

Mom insists that I should formally finish real, brick and mortar high school, so I haven't had time to be certified as a journeyman yet. But Dad's a master electrician and he did the blueprints, and the computer room really isn't that complicated.

The inspector made us shut down the computer room until a real electrician came out to "finish the job". Mom said she told us so. Nanner-nanner.

At Dad's suggestion, I swept the whole house and the mains for bugs after he left, but there were none that my bug sweeper or eyes could find.

And that's why I was outside kicking the grass on the front sidewalk instead of inside working in the cool, regulated air of our new computer room. Master electricians have schedules, and no one has an opening for three weeks. No air conditioned computer lab in the house until after school starts.

School is another thing I am not looking forward to, and Mom just laughs it off. She so does not want me to be a geek.

Mom says the new school will be good for me. The sun, too.

I'm glad connecting to the internet doesn't require a full computer room. But there's only so much you can do with a notebook PC cooled by a fan. (Maybe the notebook doesn't need the extra fan just for e-mail, but the human does, in this heat.) So I let Mom do her mail and went outside to sit down and see what the real world looked like in the hot August afternoon in our new neighborhood.

I heard the sound of newspapers plopping onto porches and looked up the street. Yeah, there's so little traffic that you can actually hear a newspaper plop at the end of the street, and our street is a long one -- a soccer field or two either direction from the house.

There was a boy, walking with a load of newspapers in his shoulder bags, front and back, headed our way. I was surprised. No. I was floored. What kind of boy would you expect to be doing such a thing? In this heat? A geek?

Like me?

I could see the red hair from the end of the street. As he got closer, I could tell he was not your average geek. Wavy hair, freckles, clear complexion, nicely defined face.

And he was sweating. You'd have to be superhuman not to sweat. He had to be superhuman, just walking with that load of newspapers in that heat.

He waved, and suddenly I remembered I was wearing one of my grungier tank tops and loose running shorts still dusty from the work in the computer room, and barefoot. Dust in my hair, too.

Barefoot's a plus, as long as I'm not standing on the hot sidewalk. But I am not such a geek that I don't care what I look like when I meet the new superpaperboy.

"Hi!"

"Hello." I was trying to be cool, anyway.

"Did you just move in?"

Ohmigosh, he was going to try to sell us a subscription. "Uh, well, ..." And his eyes ... were, uhm, still are, ... so ... blue.

"Must be. I've been wanting to catch you at home, to see if you need hardcopy."

We'd been out most days during the afternoon. There was a lot of paperwork to take care of, and I went with Mom to help her get it right. Two heads are better than one.

"We get ours on the 'net."

"Great. We have a 'net edition, too. Virtual coupons and stuff. Neighborhood SNS. Lemme give you the URL."

Why not? It gave me a little more time to evaluate him. Maybe on the skinny side, but delivering newspapers didn't seem to have made him a wimp.

He fished in his pocket and handed me an one-page flyer. "My name's Rusty. I run the neighborhood servers."

I retrieved my jaw. And my tongue. Not my brain. "My name's Cheryl. I'm a geek."

I couldn't have said that. Just drop all my defenses.

He didn't miss a beat. "Cool. My mail address is on there too, ping me. Gotta get the rest of these out." And he raised his hand as if to bump fists, but shifted to a half wave when my hand didn't move, and turned and continued down the street. Looked back once and gave me a grin.

I stood up under auto-pilot and went inside to show Mom the flyer.

"Oh. The ISP mentioned this. It's one of the bundled services." Mom looked up at me and smiled dryly. "Is he good looking?"

All my defenses.

Ch. 2: UDP Packets

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Backup at https://joel-rees-economics.blogspot.com/2017/10/bk-phr-01-paperboy.html.