Maddie dumped her untouched lunch into the closest trash can and ran off after Emma.
“I’d better go talk to her,” Zoe said as she stood from the table. “You coming?”
Allie pictured the lab and the empty seat in front of her computer station. “I know I should, but I need to get back to work. People are already clicking.” She hooked her thumb toward two girls on the far end of the quad, sneaking their phones from behind their backs and tapping them together on the down-low.
Zoe waved her off. “Go. This is my fault anyway, not yours.” Allie started to jump in to disagree with her, but before she could say anything, Zoe turned on her heel and took off in the direction Emma and Maddie had gone.
Allie left the table, and as she walked by each group of friends, someone looked up and waved at her, or called out, “Hi, Allie.” She waved back. All these people suddenly knew who she was. If she weren’t feeling so horrible about what happened with Emma, she might have been a little more excited about it.
She opened the door to the computer lab and immediately saw Nathan in the back corner. Again. She groaned under her breath. She was hoping to have the lab to herself.
Allie crossed the room, collapsed into her chair, and pulled the keyboard toward her. She was typing in her password when Nathan leaned closer, right into her personal space.
“Allie Navarro, you’re the most famous person at Mercer Middle School,” he said, pretending to hold a microphone to his mouth. “What do you think about all this attention?”
Allie couldn’t look at him. It was all she could do to keep from screaming. Just twenty-four hours earlier, she’d sat in this seat and told Nathan her app was a hit. She bragged about how many users she had, and she couldn’t believe how perfectly everything was going. Everywhere she looked, people were playing her game or talking about it. Now, two of her best friends were furious with her, and Allie knew they were right to be. She should have told Emma.
“You don’t have any words for your adoring fans?” he asked, pushing his imaginary microphone under her mouth again as he cocked his head to one side.
She pushed his hand away.
“Hey…you okay?” he asked. He sounded genuinely concerned.
Allie shook her head. She wasn’t okay, but she didn’t feel like talking about what happened, and she certainly didn’t feel like talking about it with Nathan. Besides, she didn’t have time to chat; she had too much work to do.
“I…messed something up with one of my friends, that’s all.” Allie could hear her voice trembling. She sucked in a breath and changed the subject. “What are you doing in here, anyway?”
“Big lunch date,” Nathan said, and then he tapped his hand against the side of his monitor. “Agnes and I kind of have a thing going.”
“That’s not at all weird.” The back of her neck felt tight, so she took her fingers off the keys and brought them to her shoulders instead, pressing them deep into her skin. “What about Cory and Mark?”
Nathan shrugged. “I don’t really hang out with them anymore.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Why is that so surprising?”
“It’s just that back in elementary school you guys were like brothers.” Allie shot him a half smile. “Remember that one year, on the first day of school, when all three of you were in tears because you were in different classes?”
Nathan cleared his throat. “First off, that was third grade. And second, Cory and Mark were in the same class and I was in a different one.” He rested his hand on his chest. “I was the only one crying. But hey, thanks for bringing it up.” He shot her a half smile and added, “Good times.”
She smiled back at him before she went back to her screen. He returned to his, too, but she noticed he didn’t put his headphones back on.
“So what happened with you guys?” Allie asked as she deleted a blurry photo of someone’s dog.
Nathan kept his eyes on his screen, too. “I don’t really know. Cory and Mark started playing basketball during lunch and made a bunch of new friends, and…I guess I wasn’t good at that.”
“At playing basketball?”
“No, at making new friends.”
Allie felt her chest tighten, but she didn’t take her eyes off her monitor. She kept scanning the photo queue, but there wasn’t much to see. Word must have gotten around about Mr. Mohr’s orange bucket.
“Nothing happened, really; it just got awkward, that’s all. And I was working on my game during lunch anyway, so it didn’t really matter.”
Allie stopped what she was doing and looked at him. “Wait a second.” She pointed at the little animated characters walking around on his screen. “Are you saying you spent every lunch last year in this room, with Ms. Slade, working on your game?”
He laughed. “Well, when you say it that way you make me sound like a loser.”
“I didn’t mean…” Allie stammered. “I don’t think…”
“Whatever. I don’t care. I like my game. These little animated people make sense. Real people don’t always do that, you know?”
Allie put her elbows on the armrests and leaned closer to him. “I get it. I swear, I do. And that’s the whole point of my game, you know? It’s supposed to make it easier to make new friends.” She pointed at his phone. “I bet your new best friend is on your leaderboard right now. How many people have you clicked with since you installed it yesterday?”
He crossed his ankle over his leg and pulled on a frayed part of his jeans. Then he looked up at her from under his eyelashes and smiled. “Still just the one.”
Allie looked at him. “Really?”
He angled his phone so she could see the leaderboard. Her name was at the top, and the other nine slots were still filled with question marks, exactly the way they were the day before.
“Why?” she asked.
He shrugged and set his phone facedown on the desk. He opened his mouth to say something, but then, suddenly, the door flew open.
“There you are!” Maddie yelled. She stepped inside, but Allie couldn’t tell from the look on her face if she was still angry at her.
“What are you doing here?” Allie asked.
Maddie waved her phone in the air. “I thought you should see this. There are a bunch of new users.” She clicked on one of the profiles in her friend list and turned the phone toward Allie. “Do you know who this is?”
Allie looked at the picture. She couldn’t place her. “I’ve seen her before.”
Maddie laughed under her breath. “Yeah, you definitely have.”
She handed Allie her phone so she could get a better look. “No way,” Allie said.
“Yep. That’s Ariana Grande,” Maddie said. “There are a bunch of others, too. Apparently, if you play your cards right, you can have Justin Bieber, Beyoncé, Miley Cyrus, and Lady Gaga on your leaderboard, too.”
Allie didn’t care so much about the fake accounts. She was mostly watching Maddie, trying to get a read on her. Was she still mad about what happened with Emma? Allie couldn’t tell for sure. But then Maddie smiled and said, “Anyway, I thought you’d want to know right away, so I…tracked you down.”
It was her way of breaking the tension. Maddie hated conflict; she could never stay mad at anyone for very long.
“Thanks.” Allie looked over at Nathan. He already had his headphones back on and he seemed to be concentrating on his screen, so she turned back to Maddie. “Hey, is Emma okay?” she whispered.
“Yeah. She’s embarrassed. And she’s mad. But you know Emma, she won’t stay mad at you forever.”
Allie bit down on her lower lip. “And you?”
Maddie shrugged. “I said what I had to say. We’re good.”
Allie shot her a grateful smile and then looked over Maddie’s shoulder at her screen again. “When did you find these fake profiles?”
“About five minutes ago. Zoe and Emma were talking, and I didn’t want to get in the way, so I went into the bathroom and thought I’d check
for new users, and that’s when I saw them. I’m guessing there’s at least twenty.”
Allie buried her face in her hands. She didn’t have time for any of this. She was supposed to be building her user base and collecting stories that proved Click’d was a game for good, not fixing broken code, deleting suspicious pictures, and dealing with fake accounts.
She glanced up at the clock over the door. The bell was going to ring any second.
“I’m going to have to get rid of them one by one,” Allie said matter-of-factly.
Allie’s fingers flew across the keyboard. She could feel Maddie watching over her shoulder as the names, photos, numerical rankings, and phone numbers filled the screen.
“Man, you’ve got dirt on the whole school,” Maddie said.
Allie clicked the top of the column and sorted all the users by last name. She started scanning, stopping to delete a famous person every time she saw one. She’d only deleted two of the accounts when the bell rang.
“Ms. Slade won’t let you stay,” Nathan said. “Trust me, I’ve tried.”
The fifth-period students were already filing in through the doors and heading to their computer stations.
“Look, they aren’t hurting anything,” Nathan said as he pointed to the screen. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I can’t just leave it like this,” Allie said. “The judges are going to see this on Saturday. What will they think?”
Nathan shrugged. “That your user base is made up of a bunch of middle schoolers,” he said matter-of-factly.
Allie opened her mouth to object, but she couldn’t think of a comeback.
“Seriously,” Nathan said. “It’s not a big deal. Let it go.”
Allie stared at Taylor Swift’s profile data, thinking that Nathan was probably right. She had bigger problems to solve. Still, she highlighted Taylor’s name, photo, and the rest of her data, and hit the DELETE key.
Then she looked over at Maddie. “You’re his twelve. He’s your fifteen.”
A slow smile spread across Maddie’s face. “Really?”
Allie nodded.
Maddie looked at her sideways. “That’s not why I came in here today. You know that, right?”
Allie wasn’t sure she was telling the truth, but it didn’t matter that much. She just didn’t want her to be mad at her anymore. Emma’s anger was punishment enough.
Maddie wrapped her arms around Allie’s shoulders from behind. “Thank you,” she said as she squeezed her hard.
Allie stole a glance at Nathan. He looked confused as he logged out and reached for his backpack.
A crowd had already formed at the office counter.
“I’m going to miss my bus,” one guy said.
“My mom is waiting for me at carpool,” a girl behind her said. “She’s probably texting me right now.”
“This is stupid,” a guy on her left whispered under his breath.
On the one hand, Allie was glad she didn’t have soccer practice after school so she could stay in the lab as late as Ms. Slade would let her. But on the other hand, she wished she had soccer practice so she could talk to Emma. As she stood in line waiting to get her phone back, she started wondering if she could do both. If she could get Emma to meet at the lab, she could show her the Click’d database and all the code, and explain how she was fixing the issue. She could apologize for not telling her about the glitch right away, as she should have.
She couldn’t wait to get her phone back.
Finally, Mr. Mohr walked out of his office carrying the orange bucket and looking triumphant. He stepped up to the counter and started sliding the phones down to the waiting students one by one. “I can’t keep you from using these before the first bell or after the last one, but you know the rules. If I see a phone during the school day, it’s all mine.”
Allie’s must have been at the bottom, and when she finally spotted it, she didn’t even make eye contact with Mr. Mohr; she grabbed it and raced out of the office.
As soon as she turned it on, a text popped up on the screen. It was sent to the whole Click’d community:
LEADERBOARD PARTY!
BLACKTOP!
NOW!
“Leaderboard party?” she said under her breath. She guessed it meant a bunch of people would be in one spot, generating picture clues at the same time, and that meant she needed to get to Ira. Fast.
But first, she had to see if Emma would meet her.
Allie
Can you meet me in the computer lab right now?
There was no reply for a full minute. Allie started walking to the lab, watching her screen as she went. Finally, her phone chirped.
Emma
Can’t. Guitar lesson.
She could tell she was still angry from the tone of her text. As she walked, she typed a message to Zoe.
Emma’s still mad at me. Did you talk to her?
Zoe
Yeah. Still upset but she accepted my apology
She’ll get over it.
But still, you should talk to her
Allie
I’m trying. She doesn’t want to talk to me
Zoe
Did you fix the glitch yet?
Allie knew she should have told her about the four blurry pictures, the two unflattering ones, and the two text exchanges she’d deleted during lunch, but she didn’t.
Almost. Working on it now.
Allie pulled the lab door open.
Well, I don’t think Emma will accept your apology until you do
“Great,” she mumbled to herself. Then she pocketed her phone and stepped inside.
Allie expected to see Ms. Slade behind her desk, but she wasn’t there. Nathan was hiding behind Agnes’s monitor as usual, with his headphones over his ears and his forehead practically pressed into the glass. He didn’t even look up as she slid into her chair and typed in Ira’s password.
She went straight to the photo queue, figuring she’d focus her energies there until the leaderboard party was over, and then she’d go back to fixing and testing the code again.
But as soon as Allie landed on the photo queue, she could practically see her plans sprout wings and fly out the window. There were two screenshots in the queue—both of fairly boring text exchanges—along with a picture of Eric Valente standing in his bedroom in a pair of green-and-blue plaid boxers.
“Oh my God,” she said, and immediately wished she hadn’t. She turned to Nathan. She could hear the music through his headphones, and she was glad he had the volume up.
She deleted both screenshots and then clicked on Eric’s picture, but with all those people in one place, the queue was moving a lot faster than it usually did—adding new photos and sharing new clues every ten seconds or so—and by the time she selected his photo and pressed DELETE, she wound up deleting the next one in the queue by accident. Her heart was racing as she toggled over to the catalog of photos that had already been sent out as clues, and saw Eric’s picture right on top.
“No…” Allie muttered.
There was only one thing she could do.
She quickly navigated back to the database, found Eric’s name, and clicked on it, drilling down into the underlying data. There, she could see his leaderboard stats and tell that he hadn’t located match #7, but that the two of them were actively looking for each other.
With a few more clicks, she could tell that “someone” was Abigail Brenton.
She did another scan of the queue. It was adding new ClickPics and sharing clues even faster now. She figured there must have been at least sixty people playing out on the blacktop.
Allie went back to the main screen, highlighted Eric’s and Abigail’s names along with all the information stored in the database, and hit DELETE.
She pictured the two of them running around, searching for each other when suddenly, their screens went black. They’d go back to their home screens to relaunch Click’d, and they’d be prompted to join all over again, to start fresh.
Al
lie knew she had to go out there and find them, to tell Eric what happened and make sure Abigail hadn’t taken a screenshot and sent the ClickPic to anyone.
But she couldn’t leave. Not with the images coming in and leaving as quickly as they were. She turned her head to the right. Nathan’s music was still blaring and his eyes were glued to his screen.
Allie looked at the photo queue again. And then back at Nathan. She had no other choice.
When she tapped Nathan’s shoulder, he lowered his headphones and draped them around his neck.
“Can I ask you a huge favor?”
He pointed at his screen. “I’m kind of in the middle of something,” he said, but he must have been able to tell from the look on Allie’s face that this was a big deal, because his expression softened and he lowered the volume on his music. “Are you still worried about those fake accounts?”
Allie hid her face in her hands. “I wish. That’s nothing compared to this.”
As quickly as she could, she explained what had been going on with the photos, and how she’d been monitoring the queue to be sure nothing else got through. She was expecting him to look surprised or maybe even smug, but instead he said, “So that’s why you’ve barely left this room in two days.”
Allie nodded.
“Would you just watch this screen for the next fifteen minutes? Delete any picture that looks like it might not have been posted on Instagram. If it’s blurry, if anyone’s making a weird face or looks otherwise bad, or if it looks personal, delete it. If you see a screenshot of a text or any saved snaps, delete those, too.”
“Got it,” he said, and as soon as Allie stood up, Nathan scooted over into her seat and put one hand on the mouse and the other on the DELETE key.
Allie opened the door and the warm breeze hit her smack in the face. She ran through the quad and over to the cement staircase that led to the large blacktop area next to the field, and when she saw what was happening below, she stopped cold.
She was wrong about the count. There were a lot more than sixty kids gathered on the blacktop. Some were racing back and forth, taking selfies, and tapping their phones together. Others were clustered together in smaller groups, looking at one another’s phones.
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