I grasped onto Jonah’s hand as I leaned forward, watching closely as Austin dropped his head and powered forward.

“Come on!” Jonah urged.

I didn’t know where he got it from, but in the last moments, Austin found a kick and put on a burst of speed, passing the redheaded runner just before they crossed the finish line.

“Yes!” Jonah yelled, jumping up and down. “He did it!”

I smiled and tried to match Jonah’s enthusiasm, but I still felt crappy about what had just happened.

Seeing this, Jonah turned to me, the smile fading from his face. That made me feel even worse. It was one thing to walk around with a thundercloud over my own head, but I didn’t want anyone else to suffer too.

“Okay, what gives?” Jonah asked.

I heaved a deep sigh. “I was up in the newsroom, doing those edits I was worried about—”

“Did you get them done?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I did. About a millisecond before I lost everything.”

He frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“I went to save the changes I made, and when I did, the whole paper disappeared. Everything! All the work we’d done,” I said, feeling my chest tighten as I talked about it. “I have no idea how it happened!”

Jonah stared at me. “Okay. And?”

I blinked in shock. “And? Are you even listening to me?!”

“Yeah, I’m listening,” Jonah said calmly, “and I’m hearing you giving up.”

“Giving up?! I have no idea how to fix it—”

“So figure it out,” Jonah said simply.

“How?” I demanded.

He rolled his eyes. “I don’t know, did you try googling it? Looking on some design software forums? Maybe there’s a glitch in the system, and it’s happened to a lot of people. Someone on the ole internet might know something. Just try,” he went on. “Get back there. Swoop in! Save the day!”

I stared at him for a moment. I’d been so overwhelmed with guilt about losing everything that I hadn’t even been thinking about trying to find an answer. But Jonah was completely right.

“I’m going to go try,” I told him.

He nodded. “Good. You do that. Tell me how it goes when you’re done.” He gave me a little push, and I hurried down the bleachers and ran back toward the school.

Inside, I headed straight for the library. The halls were quiet as everyone else was outside in the stands watching the Spirit Day contents. The library was empty when I walked in, so when I waved hello to Mr. Muñoz, the librarian, he looked pretty surprised to see me. But I didn’t have time to explain. I went straight to a computer, where I logged into a software forum. And just like Jonah had suspected, I was not the only person who’d ever had this problem with this particular design program.

Apparently, it was a big problem, and people on the internet had a lot to say about it.

I scrolled through a couple of forums of people complaining about the design flaw, and I was starting to wonder if this was all just a waste of time. But then I found it! Deep in the recesses of a Reddit forum, I found the script for recovery of corrupted files, and my heart leapt.

I scribbled everything down on a piece of scrap paper and practically flew out of the library.

Sprinting back to the newsroom, I threw the door open and rushed inside.

Eric was sitting where I’d left him, slumped in the chair, staring at the blank pages on the computer screen, looking completely dejected.

He looked over, and when he saw it was me, he glared. “Why are you back?” he snapped.

My stomach tightened, but I pressed forward. “I might have figured out a way to fix what happened.”

“You mean what you did?” he asked.

My heart thudded. “Can I at least try?”

He heaved a sigh and ran a hand through his hair. “I guess. Why not? I don’t think it could get any worse,” he said, and pushed back from the desk.

I grabbed another chair and dragged it over. Then—opening up my hastily scrawled note—I entered the commands in the order Reddit user WonderWizz had instructed. My heart was pounding, and I could feel sweat on my forehead, all made worse by the feeling of Eric watching me over my shoulder.

But when I finished with the commands and pressed enter, the screen refreshed, and the finished pages reappeared.

I stared at them in disbelief for a shocked moment, then I threw up my hands. “I did it!” I cried.

Eric stepped closer and bent, looking closely at the screen. He scrolled through, amazed. “You did it!” he echoed.

Then he straightened and—to my complete surprise—threw his arms around me.