The three siblings Jasir, Inaya and Leena have a meeting to discuss the case of the stolen selfies......
COVER STORY
The three siblings Jasir, Inaya and Leena have a meeting to discuss the case of the stolen selfies. “Let me get this straight.” Jasir leaned forward and looked closely at Inaya. “You, out of all the obsessive selfie-takers in the world, never got into the selfie sharing mania that is more commonly known as Instagram.”
“No.” Inaya sighed. She was sitting stiffly with her arms crossed and brow furrowed. Leena was seated in the middle, looking from one to the other as they spoke.
“I find that hard to believe.” Jasir tilted his head to one side and tapped his chin with one finger thoughtfully. “You sure you don’t have a secret Instagram account with a following of secret admirers?”
“I think I would know if I did,” Inaya said with more than a touch of sarcasm.
“Just checking,” Jasir said. “I need to know all the details before I launch my investigation.”
“You’re going to do what now?” Inaya frowned at him.
“I’m just returning the favour,” Jasir said. “You helped me out with the Student Super Star competition. I owe you one. I’m going to get to the bottom of this mystery regarding how someone got their hands on your photos and made a fake Instagram account out of them. Inspector Jasir is on the case!” He half rose up from his seat and pumped his fists in the air. He looked down at the disbelieving and skeptical faces of his sisters with unflagging enthusiasm. “I am going to require unrestricted access to all your social media accounts,” he added.
“Forget it,” Leena said.
“Dream on,” Inaya said.
Jasir was not to be dismissed so easily. “If not unrestricted access, then a carefully supervised tour. I need to know what’s going on.”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with our social media accounts,” Inaya said with a sigh. “They clearly got the pictures from the stolen laptop.”
“Point!” Jasir held up a finger. “You usually transfer all your photos to the laptop before uploading them to social media, correct?”
“Yes,” Leena said, “but I don’t see where this is going.”
“Listen to the point first,” Jasir said. “Inaya!”
“I’m listening,” Inaya said.
“Say ‘yes, Detective Jasir’!” Jasir said.
“You were an inspector just a minute ago,” Inaya said.
“Details, details,” Jasir said. “We’re going to pretend that you said ‘yes, Jasir!’ All right, Inaya. The point is, if the pictures were taken from the stolen laptop, then where are the stolen pictures of Leena?”
Leena and Inaya stared back at him, then looked at each other.
“I was wondering why they didn’t abuse your photos, actually,” Inaya said to Leena.
“It’s clear as day,” Jasir said. “Nobody would bother to use or abuse photos of Leena. They aren’t worth much.”
“What?” Leena gasped.
“It’s the nearest truth that is the most difficult to see,” Jasir said, shrugging. “It’s obvious that Inaya is the prettier sister.” This statement was met with a solid wall of silence. Leena and Inaya moved as one: Leena got up and opened the door, and Inaya pointed Jasir out of the room.
“That was a lot of help,” Leena said, closing the door with force.
“Boys,” Inaya said with emphasis, rolling her eyes. She proceeded to flop onto the bed and heave a huge sigh. “What are we going to do about this now?”
“We are going to learn from the stolen laptop incident,” Leena said decisively. “We are going to report that fake Instagram account.”
“All right!” Inaya shot out of the bed and onto her feet. “Let’s go do that on the computer right now.”
The family computer in the living room, which had previously been the sole domain of Jasir, now had separate user accounts for Leena and Inaya as well. The two sisters entered the living room to see Jasir seated at the computer table, browsing through Facebook.
“You sure have a lot of girls on your Facebook account,” Leena said offhandedly as she approached the screen.
“You have no idea,” Jasir said smugly.
“You wish,” Inaya said. “Get off the computer, we need to use it. It’s urgent.”
“I’m doing important work here.” Jasir pounded a fist on the table without taking his eyes off the screen.
“What’s so important that-hey!” Inaya looked more carefully at the screen. “Those are my photos! That’s my photo album on Facebook!” She lunged for the mouse and keyboard. Jasir raised an arm to fend her off. “What are you doing with it?” Inaya grabbed Jasir by the shoulders.
“You left it logged in,” Jasir said. “I took the chance to collect important data for the investigation.”
“Yeah, right.” Inaya took a deep breath.
“I’m serious.” Jasir pointed at the screen. “Look at that!”
“What’s so remarkable about it?” Leena asked, draping an arm over the back of the computer chair.
“Apart from the fact that it’s a bunch of selfies posted to Facebook, which is an anomaly, because everyone knows you use other apps for that now-” Jasir began, but Inaya interrupted him. “Point?” She asked.
“Ah, yes, the point,” Jasir said. “This is the same photo that was on the fake Instagram account.” He clicked through the album. “This one, too.” He went over the different photos from different accounts that he had picked out. “Apparently, someone has been doing this for a while now. Leena only picked up about it now because of the laptop getting stolen and the question of account security coming up.”
Inaya looked at the screen, then at Jasir, then back again.
“You may be on to something here,” Leena said. “First things first, though...” She leaned forward and logged out of Inaya’s computer account. “You violated our sisterly code of conduct regarding not taking advantage of each other’s accounts being left logged in by accident, which was in effect when both of us shared the laptop.”
“If you haven’t noticed, I’m not your sister, and this is not the laptop,” Jasir said, waving his hand dismissively. “What’s more important is reporting that account for impersonation and weeding out Inaya’s friends list. She evidently has too many random people on there, if the photos she’s sharing are being stolen and reposted like that.” He got out of the computer chair to allow Inaya to sit down and open up the Instagram help page.
“I’m impressed,” Leena said to Jasir. Jasir brightened up and replied, “Yes, I am generally an impressive personality.”
Leena laughed. “How did you figure it out, though? That’s what impresses me.”
“It’s quite straightforward, actually,” Jasir said. “I’m a boy. I know more...how should I say it?”
Inaya rolled her eyes. “You know more just because you’re a boy?”
“No, that’s not what I was going for,” Jasir said. “I mean, I’m a boy, so I know more about how boys operate on social media in general, and Facebook in particular.”
“I am never going to be able to report this account!” Inaya pushed the computer chair back and slammed her fists on the computer table. “They want to see ID now!”
“Really?” Leena looked at the screen.
“Hmm.” Jasir shook his head. “You’re right, they will never be able to match your sparkling online selfies with the grim photo on your ID. Your ID photo makes you look like you were kept awake all night and then slapped across the face before they took the picture.”
“No, look more carefully,” Leena said. “They want to match the name and stuff. Go on, bring your ID. Let’s get this over with.”
After successfully submitting the impersonation complaint to Instagram, the three siblings took a collective breath of relief.
“You managed to remotely lock our data on the stolen laptop, right?” Inaya asked Leena. Leena nodded.
“That means your stuff is safe...for now,” Jasir said. “Do you know what this means?”
“No, what does it mean?” Leena asked.
“Pizza party!” Jasir grinned.
“You wish.” Leena grinned back. “The best you can get right now is a bowl of noodles or ice cream.”
“Both, but in separate bowls,” Jasir said. “I need energy for this detective work. Come on, Inaya, let’s take a look at your Facebook friends list.”
“I can do that myself,” Inaya said.
“If you were that smart about picking up on fake profiles, you wouldn’t be in this mess,” Jasir pointed out. “Let’s take a look.”
Inaya resigned herself to the task of scrolling through her contacts while Jasir checked each one.
“Don’t get used to this,” she warned Jasir. “This is a special scenario.”
“While I love using my detective skills, I agree that it would be better if I didn’t need to,” Jasir replied.
After a quarter of an hour had passed and the brother and sisters team had progressed halfway through Inaya’s friends list, Inaya paused in her scrolling and lowered her head.
“Hey, no need for the thoughtful pose for a social media screening,” Jasir said, poking Inaya in the arm.
“I need it, but for something else,” Inaya said, raising her head and looking Jasir in the eye.
“Oh,” Jasir said. “I didn’t eat your candy. I don’t even know where it is.”
Inaya raised her eyebrows.
“OK, I might have taken one or two,” Jasir admitted, “but-”
“Shush.” Inaya raised a hand. “Listen to me.”
“OK,” Jasir said. “Listening.”
“I...” Inaya’s voice trailed off as she broke eye contact with Jasir to look down at the floor. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Jasir asked. “Though I have a good idea what it is.”
“I apologise for saying all that stuff about your scholarship and everything,” Inaya said in a rush. “I shouldn’t have said it, no matter how upset I was.”
“I thought you were finally going to apologise for keeping your school textbooks so neat that I could never argue my way out of having them passed on to me,” Jasir said, but he was smiling.
“I’m serious, Jasir.” Inaya looked up at Jasir.
“Oh, it’s all right,” Jasir said airily. “After all, I’m the one with the scholarship. I never have to study again.”
“That’s not how it works,” Inaya replied, but she was smiling.
“Returning now to the matter at hand,” Jasir said, turning back to the screen, “let’s find the person who stole your social media photos.”
The identity of the selfie thief remains hidden. Will Jasir, Inaya and Leena discover it in the next episode? Let’s wait until next month to find out.
