We have a neighbor my kids call “the Sim.” Many mornings while my kids stood at the bus stop, waiting to go to school, this particular woman would walk out of her house, stare at her yard, walk a few more steps, stare at her yard again, then go back into her house—her actions seemingly as random and pointless as a character in the Sims computer games.



My kids were in middle school then, so of course neither they nor their friends dared to ask, “Excuse me, ma’am. What are you doing? What are you thinking about when you stare like that—crabgrass? Dandelions? A long-lost love? A family tragedy? A body buried under the grass?”



Given that last possibility, I guess I’m glad they never asked.



Years ago, I worked as a newspaper reporter. There was a truism popular among journalists then: “Everyone has a story.” Some newspapers even assigned reporters to randomly pick names out of the phone book, as a way to find their next interview. I never had to do that, but I quickly noticed that some seemingly ordinary people who’d managed to live their lives outside the glare of publicity were absolutely fascinating interviews, even as they protested, “Oh, you don’t really want to write about me.” And, conversely, some people who had captured the attention of the entire world were actually deadly dull in person.



Since then, the Information Age has exploded. We believe we can find out anything we want to know on the Internet, about any politician or celebrity or faux-celebrity. Hillary Clinton fighting tears? Barack Obama without (gasp) his flag pin? John McCain mixing up Iran and Iraq? Paris Hilton going to jail? That Youtube kid, Fred, pretending to be hyperactive? It’s all there, available any time we want to look.



But in the flood of information, sometimes truth recedes. What’s image and what’s reality? What’s a one-time mistake and what’s rock-bottom character? We don’t know.



More and more, it seems, we’re all just watching Sims.



Get more on Margaret Peterson Haddix at SimonandSchuster.com