美国青少年故事（25）

Hi, my name is Lizzie. I'm a pretty ordinary girl to be honest- I do quite well at school, have a kind family and a great group of friends.


One of my closest friends is called Amanda. I haven't known her for very long- she only moved to the school about six months ago, but from the first time we met we got on so well that we now spend loads of time at school together. Her family live over the other side of town to mine, so we can't really meet up after school, but we make up for it by sitting by each other every day at lunch. 


One day, we had an assembly at school. Mr Harris, our ICT teacher stood at the front and told us about how important it was to keep our information safe online, to stop people hacking into our accounts. He said that hacking was becoming more and more common and that people could end up having lots of money stolen. He said that your password shouldn't just be your birthday or your pet's name. I was a bit ashamed because my Facebook password is my cat's name, Snowy. 


After the assembly, we headed towards the canteen for lunch. I was looking around for Amanda, but I couldn't see her anywhere, which was weird because usually we would stand in the queue together. I got my jacket potato and sat at our usual table. About ten minutes later, looking a bit flustered, Amanda ran over with her lunch. 
'Are you okay?' I asked her.
She nodded as she quickly ate her potato, checking something on her phone at the same time. This was odd in itself: we weren't supposed to have phones at school, and although most people usually ignored the rules and did it anyway, Amanda usually stuck to them. 
When I asked her what she was looking at, she said that she'd realised she'd forgotten her history research we'd been given for homework, and that she was asking her mum to email it to her. I didn't know if I could ever remember Amanda forgetting her homework, but I guess we all have off days. 


Amanda was acting a bit strangely for the rest of the afternoon. She told me that the assembly we'd had worried her about her internet security, and that she was scared that somebody was going to steal her passwords. I was relieved that nothing more serious was happening. I said that she didn't need to worry- that my passwords, especially my Facebook one, weren't very strong at the moment, but I thought it would probably be fine. 
That seemed to make her feel a bit better. She changed the subject, saying that she was getting a new cat at the weekend, and asked me what my cat's name was. I told her it was Snowy, and we spent the rest of lunch discussing names that she could call her cat. 


That evening, I was doing my homework on the computer, and browsing on Facebook at the same time. I came across a funny video of a cat drinking from the kitchen sink, and was about to click 'like' when I realised that I already had liked it. How could that be right? I was sure I'd never seen that video before! Maybe I'd just accidentally clicked on it while scrolling on my phone. 
Another strange thing was that all the adverts and recommended videos were all for computer software, which is stuff I'm not interested in and never look at. I probably would have just brushed it off, but I kept coming across   opened messages that I hadn't read, and there were a few people who I didn't know who had requested to be my friend. It was all little things, but it freaked me out. After the assembly today, I was worried that someone had hacked my account. I suddenly remembered telling Amanda my cat's name, and my passwords were easy to guess. But surely Amanda wouldn't do that- she was my friend. It must just be a coincidence. I decided to change my password to something much more secure. 
The next day, Amanda was acting a bit more normal, so I was glad that I hadn't jumped to conclusions about her. But at lunch she started asking me quite a lot of personal questions, like when my sister's birthday was, or what was my mum's middle name. Although I was sure that this must still be a coincidence, I told her all the wrong answers, just in case.