“Thanks, Nate.” She stepped forward to hug him, but she stopped short. She stuffed her hands in the pocket of her hoodie instead. “I’m going to go set everything up.”
“Want help?” he asked.
Allie stared back at him. “Don’t you have to work on your app?”
He gave his computer a cool, disinterested glance.
Clearly, Nathan had this assignment completely under control. Again. Allie wished that, just once, he wasn’t two steps ahead of her, making her feel like she had to sprint to catch up and keep pace. Why couldn’t she be the one in front for once?
Nathan didn’t wait for her to answer. He stood, kicked his chair in, and combed his fingers through his hair. “The latch on my locker sticks a bit. Sometimes you have to jiggle it a little.”
“I don’t need your help opening a locker, Nathan.” Allie rolled her eyes as she walked to the door.
“Fine, then I’ll just keep you company,” he said as he took off for Ms. Slade’s desk and came back holding a hall pass of his own.
“I’ve never understood the purpose of lockers,” he said. “Everything is on my computer.” They turned into the four-hundreds hallway and stopped in front of Allie’s locker, #405. Nathan slapped his hand against the door. “Why do you need this anyway?”
“For my textbooks and stuff.”
Allie dialed the combination. When she opened the door, Nathan took a huge step backward. “Whoa.”
Textbooks might have been somewhere in there, but the “stuff” was a lot easier to spot. There were flyers and forms, reminders about overdue library books she’d long since returned, wadded up papers, stray hair ties, and wrinkled notes she’d taken in classes that somehow never made their way into her backpack. And wrappers. Lots and lots of wrappers. Gum wrappers, candy wrappers, and even an ice cream sandwich wrapper wedged in the far corner. She had to stand on her tiptoes and put half her body inside to get to it.
“Gross.” She held it at arm’s length.
Nathan made a face. “How long has that been there?”
“No idea. I can’t remember the last time I cleaned this thing out.” Allie pinched the sticky wrapper between her thumb and forefinger, walked to the nearest garbage bin, and dragged it over to her locker.
Nathan pointed at one of the pictures on the inside of her locker door. “How old were you and Emma here?”
“That was third grade. Our team was the Tigers, and Em and I had those matching orange tiger socks.” It was back when they went to different elementary schools and only saw each other during soccer practices and games.
She scanned the rest of the photos of her and her friends, plastered over every inch of space inside her locker door, documenting their friendship over the last four years. There were pictures of Maddie and Allie at a concert in the park last summer, Zoe and Allie at Six Flags with her family, and all four of them at the waterslide park for her birthday. She moved everything around, making space so she could see the vents. And then she closed the locker door.
Allie took three dollars from her wallet, folded it in half, and slipped it through one of the openings. It landed on the other side with a soft thud.
“Well, we have our cash locker.” Allie dialed the combo, opened the door, and scooped up the money. “Your turn.”
The two of them walked the empty hallways, passing all the classes in session.
“I bet your locker’s even worse than mine,” Allie said.
“I’d have to keep six-month-old bologna sandwiches and rotten bananas in there to have it be worse than yours.”
“Oh, come on. Mine’s not that bad.”
“Fine. Then go ahead. Guess.”
“Let’s see.” Allie thought about it. “A bunch of those spiral notebooks you’re always using, but they’re all half-empty.”
Nathan raised an eyebrow. “Or maybe they’re half-full.”
Allie stared at him.
“What else?” he asked.
“A bunch of old thumb drives. A few pens . . . some are out of ink.” She snapped her fingers. “Headphones.”
“When was the last time you saw me without my headphones?”
“Never. That’s my point. Maybe you have an extra pair in there, in case you forget yours at home.”
“I never forget my headphones,” he said as they walked through the breezeway that separated the seven-hundreds and eight-hundreds buildings. “What else?”
“Popcorn,” she said. “Empty, greasy microwave popcorn bags. Everywhere.”
They arrived at the lockers that lined the eight-hundreds hallway and stopped in front of 860. Nathan dialed the combo and opened the door. It was completely empty.
“Where is everything?”
“I told you, I never use it.”
She stepped in to get a closer look inside. There wasn’t even a library book or an old, marked-up practice test.
“No pictures?”
He shook his head. “Guys don’t tape pictures of their friends to their locker doors.”
“Some do.”
“Well, I don’t.”
There was something about the way he said it that made her wonder if there was more to it than that. She hadn’t asked about his friends in a while, but she hadn’t thought she’d needed to. When Built was still going strong, she had to force him out to the blacktop every so often, but now that things had slowed down with his game, he was always with Cory and Mark. She hadn’t seen him hiding in the computer lab during lunch for over a month. Maybe even longer.
“Everything okay with your friends?”
“Yeah. It’s not that.”
“Then what is it?”
He looked at the ground. “It’s just . . .” He reached for the string on his hoodie and twisted it around his finger. “It’s nothing.” And then he slapped his hand against the bottom of his empty locker. “I bet you can’t wait to see this filled with stuff.”
Allie beamed and did a little dance in place.
“We should get back. Ms. Slade’s probably wondering where we are. And I need to get to work.” He swung his locker door shut and started walking away.
Allie followed him. “Get back to work on what, exactly?”
“I told you, it’s a surprise.”
“But you know everything about my project.”
“So?”
“So, you have to tell me about yours.”
“No, I don’t,” he said.
“Come on . . . At least give me a clue.”
“Well, it’s . . . unexpected.”
“And?”
“And unique. No one else in class is doing it.”
“Yeah, and . . . ?”
They reached the lab door. Nathan reached past her, opened it, and stepped inside. “And it’s a surprise.”
When Allie arrived at the field for soccer practice that night, her friends were already there. Allie dropped her bag on the turf and started changing her shoes.
“Is it ready?” Maddie asked. “Because I found this really cute shirt I could sell. It still has the tags on it and everything.”
“I’m going to post a bunch of books,” Emma said. “And some slime. Because everybody loves slime.”
“Thank you!” Allie said, lacing up her cleats.
“Ladies!” their coach yelled. “That’s enough stretching. Get running!”
Emma stood and extended her hand toward Allie to help her up. They all brushed the turf dust off themselves and took off for the track.
“I have no idea what I’m selling,” Zoe said. “I turned my room upside down and I can’t find a single thing anyone would want to buy.”
“That can’t be true,” Maddie said. “You must have something.”
“Well, I did find a huge pillowcase full of leftover Halloween candy under my bed. I’d forgotten all about it. Think anyone will buy that?”
“Ew,” Emma said.
“Ew,” Maddie echoed.
“How bad can Halloween candy get in three months
?” Zoe asked.
“Um, isn’t bad bad enough?” Maddie asked.
“I’m doing it,” Zoe said. “I’ll even let them have the pillowcase. It’s got little rainbows and unicorns all over it.”
“Unicorns?” Maddie asked. “Are you sure that candy is from last Halloween?”
“Actually, no.” Zoe shrugged. “To be totally honest I’m not sure how long it’s been there. It could be from a few years ago.”
“Ew. Again!” Maddie said.
“Someone will buy it!” Emma said. “If one of the popular kids bids on it, you’ll start a full-on candy war.”
“That’s going to happen anyway, with all the stuff,” Maddie said with confidence.
Allie shot her a look. “Really? You think.”
“Sure. All the popular kids will just bid on one another’s stuff, and the rich kids will battle over the expensive stuff. But whatever . . . It doesn’t matter. The whole point is for you to make money.”
The four of them kept running side by side, bending into the next turn.
The point was to make money, but it wasn’t the whole point. Allie still wanted to create a game people wanted to play. Something that would be fun for everyone, like that first auction on Bus #14 had been.
“But I don’t want it to be that way. That’s why Courtney and I set up the leaderboard the way we did, so it wasn’t just a popularity contest.”
“The popular kids will still dominate the leaderboard, Allie,” Maddie said.
Zoe nodded.
“Yep. There’s no way to prevent it unless no one knows who the popular kids are,” Emma said. And then she slowed to a stop. The rest of them stopped, too. “Unless everyone was anonymous.”
“Avatars?” Allie asked.
“Avatars,” Emma echoed. “No intimidation. No cliques. You can have a secret identity. You can be anyone you want to be.”
“No one will know who the cool kids are, or who the nerds are. None of that will matter,” Maddie said.
“Keep it moving over there, ladies!” their coach yelled. They took off at a jog.
Allie pictured the Swap’d code. She and Courtney were so close to taking it live, and even the smallest addition could throw everything off, but this seemed too important. And it wouldn’t be that hard to snap it in. They just had to do it fast.
As they ran past their bags, Allie peeled off from the group. “Cover for me,” she told her friends.
When she reached her duffel bag, she crouched down and pretended to tie her shoe. Then she unzipped her bag, found her phone, and texted Courtney.
Allie
Who has code for creating avatars?
“Okay over there?” her coach yelled. Allie gave her a thumbs-up, and then untied her other shoe and took her time retying it. She was about to join her friends on the track when her phone chirped.
Courtney
Rachel. Jayne. Shonna.
Courtney
They all had avatars in their summer projects
Hang on, I’ll text them
Allie stuffed her phone back into her bag and rejoined the others. Practice began, and for the next hour, she was too busy to think about Swap’d. It wasn’t until the four of them were walking to Maddie’s mom’s car, when Allie remembered the text she’d sent.
Got it. Shonna’s a genius!
Allie thought back to the previous summer, when Shonna was building the avatar engine during camp. She’d pooled everyone for ideas for hats, glasses, funny T-shirts, and different hairstyles. Allie marveled at the fact that something she’d helped brainstorm in the Fishbowl six months earlier was now about to be part of an app she’d be rolling out at her middle school.
I dropped it in, did a little tweaking, and voilà!
Allie
You’re a rock star!!!
Allie showed everyone the screen.
“Guys . . . we have avatars.”
Allie yawned. “What’s next?”
It was only nine o’clock, but it felt like it was the middle of the night. Allie and Courtney had been sitting at their desks for hours, tweaking the code and testing it, over and over again. They were equally exhausted and impatient.
They had a game. They had a leaderboard. They had lockers set up to collect cash and deliver the things that sold. They had an administration area where they could check off items as buyers picked them up. Allie could barely believe it was all happening. Swap’d was real.
“We’re ready to go. Nothing left but our secret identities.”
The two of them were silent as they opened the brand-new avatar engine and scrolled through their options. Girls. Boys. Hats. Glasses. Tank tops, T-shirts, blouses, and sports jerseys, all in different colors and patterns.
A few minutes later, Courtney said, “Okay, check mine out.”
Allie refreshed the main screen and found Courtney’s avatar smiling back at her. She’d given herself long dark hair, round eyes, and a bright orange ski hat with a matching shirt. She’d named herself GamrGrl.
“I love it! Okay, hold on, I’m just adding a finishing touch to mine.”
Allie picked a girl. She gave her long curly hair just like hers. It took her forever to settle on a shirt, but she finally picked a bright blue tee with a scoop neck. She scrolled through the optional items, passing the sunglasses, and the baseball caps, and the scarves. And then she stopped on a gold crown. It was perfect.
And then it was time to pick a name. Allie glanced around the room, looking for ideas. Her gaze settled on the DS, still sitting on her bedspread and opened to the last Mario Kart game she’d played. She grinned as she typed in the name and hit ENTER.
Courtney laughed out loud when she saw it. “Princess Peach? That’s your secret identity?”
“Of course! She’s always been my favorite of the eight racers.”
Courtney giggled. “You mean twelve.”
Allie picked up the DS and counted the racers at the starting line. She made the sound of a game show buzzer. “Wrong. There are eight.”
Courtney’s giggle morphed into that belly-laugh of hers. “That’s because you’ve never gotten far enough to unlock the other four.”
Allie checked the screen again. “Really?”
“Really,” Courtney said. “See, all the more reason you should not be allowed to go to Game On Con without me! You don’t even know the real true pain of leveling up.”
“Fine. I am going to prove to you that I deserve to be at Game On,” Allie said, waving the DS in front of the phone. “Before I sell this, I’m going to unlock all four of the secret racers.”
“You have to tell me their names to prove you did it. And no cheating. You could google it in about ten seconds.”
“Oh, I won’t cheat. I’m going to earn GamerGirl’s respect fair and square.” Allie touched her fingertips to the glass, and Courtney reached back with hers. It wasn’t a handshake, but it was close enough.
And then her eyes flicked back to her computer monitor.
“Courtney,” Allie said.
“Yeah.”
“This might sound crazy, but . . . I think we’re ready to take it live.”
Courtney sucked in a breath and shook out her hands, like she was releasing all the built-up nervous energy. “Are you sure?”
“We’ve tested it ten times. What do we have to lose?”
“Nothing, I guess,” Courtney said. “It just seems so . . . weird.”
Allie knew what she meant. It did feel weird, but it also felt right.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Ready,” Courtney said.
“Three.” Allie brought her finger to the mouse and hovered over the button that took everything out of development mode.
“Two,” Courtney said.
“One,” they said at the exact same time.
They clicked. And just like that, Swap’d was live at a school in Arizona and another in California.
Allie could have invited all 657 people in the Click’d database who sa
id they wanted to be notified about new apps, but she’d learned her lesson. This time, she started smaller, carefully hand-picking a mix of boys and girls across all three grades who she thought might be the most likely to buy and sell.
She chose people she knew well. But she also chose some she didn’t know at all, selected purely because of what she learned about them from studying the user data in Click’d. They were into electronics and video games. They were readers. They were into fashion. They collected things. She picked a few of them because they had after-school jobs or got a generous allowance and always seemed to have a little extra cash on hand.
Her phone buzzed at the exact same time everyone else’s did:
GOT SOMETHING TO SELL? CHECK OUT SWAP’D,
AN ONLINE STORE EXCLUSIVELY FOR MERCER STUDENTS!
It didn’t take long for people to start poking around. Soon, they were registering and creating avatars.
Zoe was already in the system, so her avatar popped up on the player’s screen first. She’d picked a girl with white spiky hair, a black T-shirt, dark sunglasses, and the name SweetTooth.
Emma’s avatar looked nothing like her. She’d chosen a girl with dark hair and straight-cut bangs, and dressed her in a white T-shirt with a peace sign on the front. She’d named herself after the leader of her Hogwarts house: Helga.Hufflepuff.
Maddie’s avatar looked a lot like she did in real life, with long blond hair and blue eyes. She gave herself bright red lipstick and a matching red blouse. She’d picked the name Fashionista.
Allie had invited two guys from her math class, Nick Bannerman and Evan Cardoza. She didn’t know them well, but they sat in front of her in math, and as far as she could tell, the two of them didn’t talk about anything but video games. She invited a few kids from her science class, two guys from Spanish, and a bunch of girls from her PE class. She kept toggling back and forth between the PLAYERS screen and the backend database, chuckling to herself as she watched all the new avatars fill the screen.
A new player named RiskItBiscuit appeared, and Allie didn’t even need to consult the database to see who it was. The avatar had bright red hair that stuck up in all directions, freckles across the bridge of his nose, and a black T-shirt with a bright green zombie on the front.
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