The Hacking Club

• Anay Chaube, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2022

Creak… I saw the door open slowly. Whoever it was, was trying to be quiet. I just made out a silhouette of a man. I saw him opening my bottom drawer. The person seemed to know my combination, “1134”, and he got the map to the hacker area. I checked the time.
I desperately needed what was on that map as it led to a hacker club! The club members hack into systems and notify companies of the security breach. I had been invited to the group of ethical hackers and if that map fell into the cops’ hands, then the whole group would be BUSTED.
I had to get the map back, so I started my detective case. I woke up at 3:00 a.m., went to my room to get a pen and paper. I then drew the outline of the silhouette I saw last night.
I went to my neighbours’ houses and found three suspects. I asked them what they were doing at midnight because that is when the theft happened. The first suspect said, “I was sleeping like the rest of the country would have been!”. The second one said, “My house has been robbed as well”. I took him because I never specified what happened at midnight. I took him to my basement. There was a jail cell there, so I just put him in the cell.
I asked my neighbour to hand over the map but he refused to do so. Then I realised, like all good hackers, I kept a digital copy of everything, so I rushed to my PC, which was also in the basement, and found the file. I opened the JPG file and took a printout of it.
I went outside my house and the note told me to dial the phone number (969) 361-7194, so I did. A mysterious voice said that if I cracked his riddle, then I could join the hackers team and, if not, it would turn me into a computer forever. The voice then asked me “What has holes in it and holds water?” I was very scared. I looked at my smartwatch and it said my heart rate was very high. I stood there panic-stricken because if I got this wrong, then my life would be over. Then it suddenly dawns on me that a sponge does just that. I told him it was a sponge and suddenly I was teleported to the hacker base, a fascinating area, full of technology.
I couldn’t wait to mess around, but I stood spellbound and listened to the person in front of me. He told me that I had passed his test and he set up all the riddles to see if I was good enough to join the team. “Also,” he told me, “The person you locked up was a member of the team, so please let him out”.
Finally, I was a member of the Ethical Hacking Club, saving the world!