Maverick Mania by Sigmund Brouwer

tournament.
    And it was enough to win the game.

chapter fifteen
    Late that afternoon, I joined Leontine in front of her computer in her bedroom. The wall behind it held posters of Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny and Big Bird. She had explained them to me once. Streaking her hair purple, orange and green and dressing in black made her a rebel against boring people like me who wanted to look normal. The cartoon posters were a way for her to rebel against people who followed eachother like sheep and raved over the “in” rock bands and movie stars. I’d rather use my energy for soccer and not worry about what was cool.
    â€œLook at this,” she said, pointing at her computer.
    I pulled up a chair. With Bugs and Mickey staring down at me, I watched the screen as she clicked her mouse button. Colors and images flickered before us.
    â€œI’m online,” she said. “Hitting a website called belcher-dot-com.”
    â€œHang on,” I said. “Back up. Belcher? Is it a website about burping?”
    â€œNo, it’s someone’s name. A person who lives in Roaring River. That’s where the Riggins family came from. Remember?”
    â€œI’m still lost.”
    â€œWhen I went surfing this afternoon, first thing I did was search for the local library. Most towns have libraries. Most public libraries offer Internet access.”
    â€œI get it,” I said, waiting for the computer to download new images. “You chatted with the local librarian.”
    â€œNo,” she said, “I didn’t have any luck. But I did have a brainstorm. If Roaring River was too small for a public library, I thought I might be able to hook up with a local elementary school. Lots of school libraries are online.”
    â€œSo you patched into a local school?”
    â€œIt wasn’t that easy,” she said, enjoying the fact that I couldn’t guess right. “I had to search for a North Carolina education directory. All I could find was an e-mail address.”
    As she talked, an image began to expand on the screen. It was a newspaper article with most of the headline cut off. In the center, a large black-and-white photo started to slowly paint across the screen. I listened to Leontine as I watched the photo grow line by line.
    â€œSo I fired off a message,” she said. “Asking for someone to give me a time and location to meet in an online chat room to answer questions about the Riggins family. And I got lucky. The school principal happened to check her mailbox about an hour later.”
    â€œYeah?” I said. The photo on the computer screen showed a family: a mom, a dad and a boy, maybe two years old. It was one of those Sears portraits, with a fake background. Everyone was smiling. But the mom and dad did not look like a younger version of Mr. and Mrs. Riggins. And the boy had dark curly hair, nothing like Caleb’s.
    â€œHer name was Lola Max,” Leontine said.
    â€œThe lady in this photo?”
    â€œThe school principal.”
    â€œOh,” I said. I began to scan the article. It was about a car accident.
    â€œAnyway,” Leontine said. “Mrs. Max e-mailed me back right away. She remembered the Riggins family very well and said my request for information about them was so unusual that she wanted to talk with me. She sent her telephone number and asked me to call. Dad gave me the okay, and I called her.”
    â€œGo on,” I said. The article described how a cement truck with no brakes ranthrough a red light at the bottom of a hill.
    â€œWhen I told her I was looking for some background information on them since they had moved to Lake Havasu City, she said she would fax me a newspaper article from their local newspaper.”
    â€œWe don’t have a fax machine,”I said.
    â€œExactly, Einstein,” she answered. “So Mrs. Max took the article over to a computer-genius friend of hers with a website. Someone named Sam