The Flinkwater Factor by Pete Hautman

This novel is fun and cute. Ginger Crump walks into her friends room and finds him "bonked." There's something going on with the computers or a computer program that causes people to become mentally incapacitated. This phenomenon is only happening in Flinkwater, a town full of geniuses who work for a computer genius. Therefore, it's an unusual town with geeky people, which makes it quite interesting and highly competitive to outperform technologically. Ginger quickly recruits a boy she hopes will one day be her husband, Billy, to help her cure her dad and the others who are bonked. Billy succeeds because he is a genius, but what or who is behind this bonking?

As she begins her investigation, Ginger realizes her parents' past lives are important as well. The owner of the computer company disappeared a long time ago. Can he stop the bonking? Is he behind the bonking? Why do her parents know him? The National Security Agency gets involved and follows Ginger trying to prove she is behind some of the chaos. Billy and Ginger and even Billy's brother along with Ginger's parents work to stop the evil. There's a race against time and being arrested, but Ginger is determined to find the culprit and keep everyone safe. ( )