Chapter 23 Flora
Flora
Their first summer in Greece was very hot.
Flora and her mother were re-binge-watching Gilmore Girls from beginning to end—this was how they comforted themselves in a strange city.
Regan’s phone made a weird, tonal sound, and Flora glanced over her mom’s shoulder.
She couldn’t believe her eyes: Her mom was using Telegram, an app no one used for anything legal.
“Mom, is that Telegram?”
“What?” Regan flipped her phone to face the couch.
“Telegram, I saw it,” said Flora.
“I’ve met someone, you know that,” said Regan, her cheeks growing red.
“Mom! Telegram is for drug dealers.”
“It’s just more private than Facebook,” said Regan. “You know it’s not smart to put your personal information on Facebook! You—of all people—know not to trust Mark Zuckerberg!”
“What do you mean ‘more private’?”
“Oh, honey. It’s just a safer platform,” said Regan breezily.
“It’s actually not,” said Flora. “What it is is ungovernable. If someone steals your money on Telegram, it can’t be traced…and they can’t be prosecuted.”
Regan shook her head. “No one is stealing my money, honeybee,” said Regan. She put her phone in her purse and zipped it closed. “There,” she said. “OK?”
Flora knew it was far from OK. There were kids at her school buying cars from scamming and making fake credit cards by punching numbers into a card with a special machine.
They called their stealing “reparation,” even the white ones, whose ancestors had pillaged Greece back in the day.
(One of her classmates was the daughter of the museum curator who was trying to get the Elgin Marbles returned to Greece, and another classmate was the great-great-great-grandson of Lord Elgin, who had stolen them in the first place, using saws and chisels to detach and move the massive marble pieces off the Parthenon in 1800 and shipping them to England while no one was paying attention.) Flora had missed getting a perfect score on her Greek history final because she couldn’t remember the name of the island where one of Elgin’s marble-laden ships sank in a storm in 1804.
(Flora wrote “Crete” and it was Cythera.)
Most kids at her school were rich, but some were not, and to keep up, they scammed.
Punching cards was dangerous (it was a felony, after all) and complicated.
Flora respected hard work. They made more money than the kids who sold pills and vape cartridges, and ten times as much as working at Starbucks or even Pizza Hut, which was a fancy restaurant in Greece (with white tablecloths!).
Flora liked to listen to Punchmade Dev and other scam rappers—she played them on her Spotify, walking around the hallways of the American School of Athens, wearing her corded headphones (earbuds were out), and learning about how scams worked….
Everybody listen up, this a punch lesson.
Go and get a fire carding site, go to the dump section.
Never get a savings account dump, you always want checking.
Make sure you go and grab a credit dump, they never hit with debit.
You better put a proxy server on it or use public connection.
You can’t get too comfortable on there, get the proper protection.
But Flora never thought her own mother would be scammed!
—
Flora called a meeting of the White Hat Hackers and biked to Starbucks Syntagma Square. They shared one Strawberry Acaí Lemonade Refresher and four cups of tap water. Flora explained that her mom was using Telegram to message her internet boyfriend.
“Romance scam,” said Maya.
“Bet that,” said Nico. Outside the window of Starbucks, the Hellenic Army Evzones, who guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in front of the Parliament Building, started their elaborate hourly change.
For a moment, the kids watched the guards in their white kilts, red tasseled hats, and red clogs.
The guards lifted their legs high and kept their upper bodies perfectly still.
“Has anyone ever seen an army guy smile?” said Nico.
“Not allowed,” said Flora.
“Let’s scambait,” said Maya, tapping her index fingers together.
“What, pretend to be my mom?” said Flora.
They sat in silence for a moment. “OK,” said Nico. “I mean, let’s do it. Just to see if we can get any more information about him.”
“Could be a woman,” said Maya.
“Could be nonbinary,” said Nico.
“And then we find him and contact him on our own,” Maya concluded.
“We can geolocate,” said Nico. “First, reverse image search.”
“Yes,” agreed Flora.
“Get his profile pics,” said Maya.
Flora was silent. She didn’t want revenge. She just wanted her mom back.