*
Worrying about what the professor had said, or avoided saying, kept me wide awake most of the night. By dawn, I had decided that I had to see him, no matter what. So, before anyone else in the house was about, I rinsed my face, dressed and ran into town to catch the day’s earliest bus to Stonehenge. At the bus stop I joined a few silent locals, half-a-dozen bleary eyed back-packers, and some excitable corn-circle freaks.
Crowded and noisy, the bus bounced us mercilessly through the Wiltshire countryside, much to the enjoyment of the tourists. They laughed at every bump, and pointed out thatch roofs to each other as if there were not hundreds of them in Wiltshire.
On the back seat I shrank into my shirt collar feeling criminal. I had never been so deceitful and secretive about anything as I had about this trip. Nobody knew where I was. I had left a note telling my parents I was visiting my granddad in Bradford on Avon, and had sneaked away over our back fence to escape the police officer watching the front of our house. The professor wasn’t expecting me, and I couldn’t tell Chloe because her phone was on voice mail. So, nobody knew. And of course I had not told Sindra Gains. If anything, she was probably more devious than anyone I knew.
Thinking of her started me wondering again, how had she managed to get my mobile number? And how come she was so conveniently driving by when she saw me? Was she following me, or worse, tracking me? Was I bugged?
Did you know that you can bug somebody’s mobile phone and track them everywhere? I’ve seen it advertised on the internet. It’s an intelligent GSM powered device. It can listen in to your conversations, on or off the phone, and record them, as well as track you with an accuracy of two metres, even when your phone is switched off. Did you know that?
It makes me shudder to think of it. I took the battery out of my mobile, that’s the only way to stop them tracking your phone. Now, nobody knew where I was or going to, and I could keep it that way.