OK… I finally got around to updating this story… bet you guys'll have to go back and re-read all the old chapters to remind yourself what it's all about. If you forgot, it's late 1975, and the parents of the kids of LM are in high school.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of the characters here that I didn't make up myself. I don't own Lizzie McGuire, but she's not actually born yet at the time of this story, anyway.

You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.

"So, what do I do now?" asked Sam, looking at the printing terminal which had just output this message.

"Dropping objects can help in keeping track of locations so you can map the maze," said Larry. "But be sure to pick them up again; you'll probably need them."

They were playing the Colossal Cave Adventure game on the mainframe computer for which the school had recently installed a terminal for student access. In the following semester, this would be used for the programming classes, replacing the antiquated punch-card-based computer that was currently being used. Larry was ecstatic, raving about how much more powerful the new computer was compared to the one he had at home, or even the old one at school. "It's got 256 kilobytes of memory!" The computer wasn't actually at their school; it was over at one of the state university campuses. Several different schools hooked up to it through terminals, accessing the computer at the same time through its time-sharing operating system. "See… this thing that the telephone fits into is called a 'modem', and it lets the terminal talk to the computer over the phone. And ours is high-speed; it connects at 300 baud, not the slowpoke 110 baud that some modems use."

"I don't really understand all those bauds and kilobytes and stuff," said Sam. "But I know you do, and that you'll be careful using that computer, so I trust you with it." Students weren't really supposed to begin using the computer until January when the new semester began and the teachers showed the programming class how to use it, but the terminal had been set up in the Multimedia Room, to which Sam had access as president of the Multimedia Club, and he had yielded to Larry's desire to try out the terminal a little early, after school hours when nobody else was watching. However, Larry also needed to run off his fanzine on the ditto machine, so soon he left Sam playing the text adventure game, supplying hints as needed from across the room.

"How do you know how to play that game, anyway? You've only had a few minutes at the terminal," said Sam.

"There was a feature on it in one of the computer magazines I read," said Larry.

The Colossal Cave Adventure was a text-based game (obviously, since the printing terminal had no graphic capability!) where you controlled a player who was exploring a cave using commands like "GO NORTH" and "GET LAMP". Along the way you found treasure, encountered monsters, and solved puzzles that sometimes required clever uses of the objects you found. This engrossed Sam for a while, until he was interrupted by Larry. "Here it is… cold off the press!"

"I thought the expression was 'hot off the press'?" said Sam.

"Whoever came up with that expression obviously wasn't using a ditto machine," said Larry. "Printed sheets that come off this machine are cold to the touch, from the evaporation of the alcohol-based ditto fluid. Here… look at my fanzine!"

The fanzine was nicely done, for a dittoed publication. The front cover even had multiple colors. "How did you manage the colors?", asked Sam. "I thought ditto machines only printed in one color… at least, everything I've ever seen from them was in a kind of purplish blue."

"My dad's office supply store stocks multicolored ditto masters," said Larry. "By using several different carbons, of different colors, on the same page, I achieved this effect. Pretty neat, huh?"

Sam had to admit it was pretty neat. He refrained from critiquing the drawing quality of the cover picture of the Star Trek crew, which indicated that, whatever career Larry pursued, it probably wouldn't be as an artist. But the technical quality was pretty good.

"Go ahead… read my story! I want to get back on the terminal, anyway!", said Larry.

Sam wasn't that happy about abandoning his game before he had gotten all the way through the cave, but Larry was the computer geek, so he let him on.

At the lockers the next day, Sam gave Jo his copy of Larry's fanzine. "I think you'd like this… it's about Star Trek, but it's not just the normal geeky stuff… this 'fan fiction' thing seems to get into relationships and romances and all that girlie stuff… OK, the lead story is by Larry, so it's not really 'girlie' per se, but it does have that Vulcan-human romance in it. But he also publishes a couple of other stories that are written by girls… not even any that we know, but I guess they saw his announcement in another fanzine and mailed the stories in to him to be published. I didn't know there were so many girl geeks out there."

"Girls can do anything guys can do… and you don't have to be a 'geek' to appreciate and explore the ideas of a fictional universe," said Jo.

"Anything, huh?", said Sam. "Even play football?"

"Well, maybe I'll stick to touch football for now," said Jo. "But I don't know why girls can't play contact sports; it's not girls that have a spot in their crotch that hurts real bad if they get hit there…" As she said that, she aimed a playful kick in the direction of Sam's crotch, but he pulled back immediately and said, "Let's not have any demonstrations… that isn't funny. I get the idea. There's a reason they make athletic supporters, after all."

"What would you know about anything athletic, anyway?", said Jo.

"Hey, chess is a sport… there are actually people trying to get it into the Olympics."

"Yeah, like you need to protect your crotch against those nasty chess injuries. If a captured bishop is flung too hard, it can do all sorts of damage!", said Jo.

"Well, for all his bluster, Sanders isn't on any sports teams himself… he just coasts on the reputation of his dad as quarterback of the football team years and years ago."

"But his girlfriend's the head cheerleader," said Jo. "I say cheerleading is a sport… more so than chess."

"Oh… are they at risk of severe cheerleading injuries then?", said Sam.

"It could happen… what if that pyramid they form collapsed? Somebody could get hurt," said Jo. "But it seems kind of perverse to judge a sport favorably based on how often people hurt themselves playing it."

"You started it… and did you just call me a 'pervert'?", said Sam.

"I said 'perverse'… that's entirely different," said Jo. "OK… this conversation isn't really going anywhere good, so let's talk about something more pleasant. What are you doing for the Christmas break?"

"Relatives from back in Michigan are visiting… the house is going to be really crowded. How about you?"

"I'm going to be out of town… we're going up to Washington state to visit our relatives," said Jo.

"Too bad," said Sam. "That means we won't be able to get together over the holidays."

"Well, there's too much family stuff going on then anyway… but I'm impressed you care about me enough to want to get together," said Jo.

"I'm glad you care that I care," said Sam. "We've just known one another for a few months, and already we've been through a lot. I'd like to get to know you better." ("What did I just say?", thought Sam. "I'm starting to sound like I want her to be my girlfriend or something… but we're just friends, and ought to stay that way!")

"That would be nice," said Jo. "We should have plenty of time for it after the holidays." ("Ummm… are we talking like we want to be girlfriend and boyfriend now?", she thought. "No need for that, but boys and girls can be good friends, can't they?")

NOTES: Ditto machines were, as described here, a popular means of duplicating school materials and fanzines in the 1970s before photocopiers and computer printers were widespread. You made a "master" by drawing and typing on a sheet with a sort of carbon paper on the back that created a reversed image of what you wrote. In the machine, an alcohol-based ditto fluid wetted the master and caused ink to be transferred to the paper sheets. You could make about a hundred copies before the master wore out, and the resulting sheets were cold to the touch until the fluid finished evaporating. Another machine used for duplication in schools (and for fanzines) was the mimeograph, which used "stencils" that ink went through; this could produce more copies and was faster, but was also messier; the ink could get all over you.

The "Colossal Cave Adventure" (usually known simply as "Adventure", or "Advent" on systems that limited filenames to six letters) was created in 1975 by Will Crowther (and later improved by Don Woods) based on the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. It was widely played on mainframe computers in the late '70s, and was later ported to personal computers. It began the genre of text adventure games of which the Zork series is the best-known.

Chess has indeed been promoted as a possible Olympic sport, and the U.S. Chess Federation has even controversially proposed drug testing for chess tournament players to bring its practices in line with Olympic rules. Just what substances might be performance-enhancing for chess players is strongly debated.