Daddy's Little Mobster

You Rang?: Gatti

The error message flashed for the hundredth time on the screen. The little white box seemed to taunt Carla. The little red “X” along with the words “Sorry wrong password. Please try again.” That little please didn’t seem so polite anymore. Carla had been trying for hours to unlock her dad’s laptop; she had used every conceivable thing her father would use for a passcode. His name, his favorite slur in Italian, her mother’s name, but none of them worked. She was almost ready to give up too, her task didn’t seem as important anymore, nothing did at this point except sleep.

She had only gone this far in the first place because of a flyer she saw stapled up on a wall across from a holding cell she and her friends were in. The flyer was bright green so you couldn’t miss it, and in big letters across the top said, “Ms. Viola Scourge’s School for the Excellent and Gifted”. The rest was too far away to read, but that was all Carla need to know that that was the place she and friends need to go to if they didn’t want to end up in another grimy, too-small cell that smelled like the ass of a gassy horse.

Her dad’s laptop was the only access to internet they had in their apartment. Her last resort was to call her friend Michael. He was always good in a bind. He was the only reason Carla didn’t stay in the cell for more than a couple of hours. He was like her savior, but saviors need rest too. She didn’t expect him to pick up when it was 4 o’clock on the dot, but he did. His greeting was mixed between a grunt and the slurred words of a drunken person. She quickly explained her situation to him in a hushed tone so her father doesn’t hear. Michael didn’t really hear all of it because sleep was much more inviting, but when Carla mentioned password he perked up a little. He was considered an expert in these types of things among his friends.

“So will you help me Michael?” Carla begged.

“Yeah I will. Have you tried looking for the password hint button?” Michael replied.

Carla couldn’t say anything. Of courses there would be a password hint button. Maybe staring at the screen for so long has impaired her vision.

“Michael, I am so sorry for waking you up so late with all this nonsense.” Carla said, hoping he wasn’t too upset with her.

“It’s no problem. You’re doing this for the good of the gang remember.”

His words gave her that bit of a spark she needed to keep trying

“Thank you Michael!”

“No problem. You know I’d anything for you”

She didn’t know why but heat crept to her cheeks and turned them as red a ripe strawberry against her olive- colored skin. She said a hurried goodbye and another apology then hung up. The error message had disappeared and reviled an icon in the shape of a question mark followed by “Do you need a hint?” Carla had never thought that words could sound anymore sarcastic nor could she think that she would want to punch a digital sentence so bad. When she rolled the mouse over to the icon the hint read ‘The most important person to you.’ From all the passwords she tried she never tried that one, but it is her dad of course he would use that.

When she finished typing in the password Carla felt that she was just handed the keys to the city and was told she could open any lock she wanted to with no restrictions.