Can you get on the wireless Colleen asked Ava looked at the Wi-Fi signal strength The school had a password-protected wireless network to keep students from surfing the web from their phones when they should be studying Doesn’t look like it Ava said I’ll have to give this a try after school Colleen took the card back It’s weird right Someone stole my lunch and Is that my lunch Miles shouted from the other side of the cafeteria He ran toward one of the other lunch tables Did you take that Ava looked at Colleen and stood up just as Mao brought her tray of meat loaf corn and a carton of milk to the table 10
What’s going on Mao asked looking around Ava watched as Miles snatched a lunch bag from Peter Yeboah’s hand The bag ripped and a bagel a packet of pretzels and a handful of small cookies fell to the ground That’s my lunch Miles Peter shouted Look what you did Well someone stole my lunch Miles cried He held a small familiar white card in his hand for the rest of the lunchroom to see I thought it was mine Miles looked at the rest of the sixth graders in the lunchroom His face was flushed red with anger and embarrassment A girl in the corner of the lunchroom cried out Same here Mine was taken too 11
Ava looked around Five students were standing up and proclaiming they’d been robbed of their cold lunches too All of them including Colleen were holding a business card with the lunch bandit website Knowing there was nothing to be done just then Ava sat down and offered half of her sandwich to Colleen with a sigh Is this school normally so strange Mao asked biting into her first taste of meat loaf Mao had moved from the East Coast to finish the school year at Wheatley Middle School a little more than a month ago Ava nodded Lately she said looking at the teachers who were setting the other lunch bandit victims up with hot lunches it seems like there’s always something strange going on 12
2 SAD SITE Ava convinced Colleen to give her the lunch bandit card the thief had left in her locker She promised to look into it with the rest of the Codeheads during their after-school coding club Toward the end of last period Principal Grodichuk came onto the PA system to give her afternoon announcements Most of the stuff didn’t really interest Ava until the end and I would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that theft including the stealing of lunches is 13
