“Hey cut it out,” Sean shouted as Alex shoved his hallmates around in the line for breakfast, running to the front of the line. Sean had arrived at a robotics camp yesterday, expecting to have a fun experience away from home, but things weren’t turning out the way he expected. He certainly didn’t like his rowdy hallmates. There was one hallmate that he (and everyone else) particularly hated: Alex.
After breakfast, Sean went back to his room, wishing that he brought a mouse so he can play video games and not pay attention to Alex and his other annoying hallmates. Just their presence alone irritated him. “These immature idiots…. what’s wrong with these people I hate them so much,” he thought, as he sat around with nothing to do. Next thing he knew, Ian was begging for his cookies that his mom gave him the day before. Rolling his eyes, Sean locked his cookies up in his luggage. It was the first morning, and he was already tired of this place. How can anyone possibly survive three weeks with these people?
    It was the fifth day of camp and Ian finally gave up on stealing cookies from Sean. However, Sean’s experience at camp did not improve at all. “Can I cohm in?” asked Alex as he pounded on the door. Sean opened the door.
    “Whadya want here?” he asked.
    “Can I play on your phone?”
    “Weren’t you playing with Ian’s phone?” Sean responded.
    “I don know why he take it away.”
    “Ok here’s the phone take it and leave. Give it back before breakfast.”
    Sean was confused. Alex had harassed Ian to make him lend him his phone, but what happened all of a sudden? Then he saw Dillon, who looked really surprised.
    “Why the hell would you do that,” he asked, “you can’t trust Ching Chang.”
    Not knowing what’s going on, Sean asked, “Who is Ching Chang? Where’s Ian?”
    “That’s what I call Alex. He got mad about it and dropped Ian’s phone, then punched me. I heard the home button broke. Ask Ian he seems pissed.”
    “Where’s Ian?”
    Dillon had left without answering. Although Sean would much rather avoid contact, he really wanted to know what was going on. Still unfamiliar with the hall’s layout, he searched for Ian’s room. He found it. On the door, a sign said “Ian”. Without even knocking on the door, Sean walked in.
    “Hoi Ian! What’s with Alex?”
    “He broke the home button. I can still press it but the fingerprint thing doesn’t work. Can I have a cookie?”
    “No,” Sean replied.
    “How does that work? The scanner’s inside, both should’ve broke.” Dillon suddenly appeared to be in the room.
    “When did you get here?” Ian asked.
    “Just came. Daniel said we have to go to breakfast now.” Daniel is the supervisor in the hall. They continued to talk as they walked to the cafeteria.
    “What took you guys so long?” asked Leander.
    “Oh we were talking about Alex,” Ian explained, “he damaged my phone.”
“What’s wrong with that kid? He annoys me too,” Leander replied, “I don’t know what he has against me, but on Monday he put crackers in my bed. He even poured juice into my Poweraid at lunch that day! Maybe he has mental problems? He’s also really fat.”
“So are you,” Ian responded, then ran behind to avoid an angry Leander.
    “Shoot,” exclaimed Sean, “he still has my phone!” Alex, refusing to return the phone to Sean, ran ahead of the others.
    “HEY walk!” shouted Daniel. Sean took the chance and snatched his phone back. Fortunately, there was no damage. He quickly put it in his pocket.
    After Sean had finished his breakfast, he pulled out his phone. He noticed the wifi icon at the top of the screen. One of his hallmates last year had logged him in after hacking the wifi. Then an idea popped into Sean’s head. “This will be quite amusing,” he thought, with a grin on his face. Sean was aware that his hallmates lacked technical knowledge; he could easily use that to his advantage.
    Late at 9:00 was a time that many choose to use for showers. Waiting in line for a shower stall, Sean heard horrible things. For example, he heard Ian screaming a very high pitched scream. Apparently, Alex was in the middle shower and was looking under the stall wall between him and Ian, laughing as if he were drunk.
    “WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!” shouted Ian, as he kicked at Alex’s face. A few seconds later, the guy in the stall on the other side of Alex
quickly dressed and left the as quickly as possible.
    “I’m not taking any chances with that bastard over there,” he said, as he ran out of the bathroom. Everyone in line to shower waited for Alex to leave, before they would shower in the other two shower stalls. Sean and Ian reported what happened to Daniel.
    “I have been reporting a lot of things concerning Alex, including when he put chips in Leander’s bed. Oh and by the way, don’t tell anyone what you saw  on my computer screen. I’m not supposed to tell you that I report everything to the site director. They’ll talk to Alex. Try not to get involved with him.”
    Before bedtime, Daniel called a hall meeting. Alex had to leave to get nighttime medicine. Meanwhile. Daniel talked to the rest about respect.
    “You all need to respect everyone in this hall no matter how much you hate them. I had bad experiences with people many times too. I know there is one person who all of you find really hard to respect. It’s understandable, but according to this camp’s rules, you must respect him anyways. What he does to you all is not okay either, and that will be dealt with.”
    One week later, nothing seemed to change. Alex certainly did receive punishments, but nothing changed his behavior. Sean invited Ian and Dillon to his room. He wanted to tell him about his idea, thinking that they may be amused to watch it executed.
    “I have the password to the wifi here, it was hacked last year. You know how Alex wants to play with my phone all the time? With access to the network here, I can let him play on it. Meanwhile, with wifi access, I can SSH and reboot the phone to interrupt whatever he’s playing.”
    Although neither Dillon nor Ian knew what “SSH” is (it is remote access), but they understood the basic details and they liked the idea. “Just imagine what his reaction would be like,” Dillon said excitedly.
    “By the way Ian, you stink. Have you been showering?”
    “Well sorry, gosh! No way I’m taking chances with that guy around.”
    “Then maybe you can take the chance to shower instead of watching me reboot the phone,” Sean advised.
    Because they had breakfast later on Saturdays, they chose that time to execute Sean’s idea. First, Sean offered to allow Alex to play on his phone. Then using his laptop, he rebooted his phone. Then Alex came running back.
    “Uhh Sean you phone not working…” he said.
    Sean picked up the phone, which had already started back up.  “What do you mean? It’s working fine. Look!” Sean looked at Alex as if he were crazy. Confused, Alex left again. The process repeated many times. “I don’t know what you’ve done, Alex, but please stop. Don’t modify the phone’s software.” Then Dillon decided to join Sean, instead of just watching.
“Maybe your left hand is cursed,” he said. Alex then tried to use the phone with his right hand only. Again, Sean rebooted it. Frustrated, Alex returned the phone and left. He still believed Dillon’s words, that his left hand was cursed.
During the last week of camp, Sean realized he could control Alex’s behavior with his phone. Whenever Alex annoyed him, he would tell Alex that he may be allowed to play on his phone if he stopped. “You are a bad person,” Leander told Sean, but Sean didn’t mind. He was happy to have more control during his third and final week of camp.
On the final day, Alex was first to leave camp. His flight back home was at 9:00. Everyone else stayed until the afternoon. They all watched videos about some of the latest robotic inventions. One by one, each of his hallmates were picked up by their parents. When Sean’s parents arrived, they talked to Daniel about the three weeks, quickly ate lunch, then left. Sean entered the car, which he hadn’t seen in three weeks, and his parents drove off. It was only a matter of minutes before Sean got carsick. He already started to miss camp.