She reached into her backpack and took out the piece of paper Zoe had ripped from her notebook on the bus that morning. She unfolded it and stayed hunched over, shielding it from all the curious eyes around her:
She read her post all the way through again. And again. And then she typed it up, added a picture of Princess Peach in her race car, and posted it before she had time to change her mind.
Allie was all alone on the bus, hunched down low in the spot by the window where Zoe usually sat. She couldn’t bring herself to look up and see if Marcus was there yet. She couldn’t even bring herself to see who’d logged in.
“Is he playing?” Allie asked Zoe when she arrived.
“I think so. He’s looking down at his phone, along with, like, practically everyone on the bus, so I’m guessing yes.”
“Practically everyone?” Allie lifted her chin and looked around. Just like Zoe had said, almost everyone had their phone in their hands and their heads bent low.
Word was beginning to spread about Swap’d, both at Mercer and at Courtney’s school. Allie now had sixty-two users, and Courtney had seventy-three. It was building slowly, entirely by word of mouth, exactly the way they wanted it to.
As the bus pulled away from the roundabout, phones echoed off the walls with the celebratory ta-da sound, and the second Swap’d auction was officially under way.
This time, there wasn’t even a slight delay before people started jumping in and bidding on the first set of items.
Maddie’s sweater got the first hit, with a $20 bid from a player named BooBooBear. SuperGirl swooped in within seconds and increased it to $21. BooBooBear was back within seconds, upping it to $22, before SillyString stepped in and raised the bidding to $23. Zoe’s candy was already up to $12. Chris’s skateboard was up to $40.
The bus was quiet at first, but as the clock counted down to the final minute, the mood changed completely.
“Whoever Buh-Buy is, you’d better back off!” someone yelled. “That skateboard is mine.”
“Then pay up!” another voice yelled from the back of the bus.
A girl two rows in front of Allie screamed straight into her phone screen and then went right back to typing in a bid, as if nothing had happened.
The people on the bus who weren’t playing Swap’d had been looking around, trying to figure out what was going on, but now, they looked terrified. They kept making eye contact with each other, like they needed to join forces and strategize their escape.
A guy in the first row kept shouting, “Stop raising it!” to no one in particular.
Three.
Two.
One.
The cash register sound came from more phones than Allie could count. There were cheers, and high fives, and a few scattered obscenities.
“Here we go,” a voice behind Allie yelled as the next auction started.
It was even fiercer, even louder. Every item had at least three bidders, and by the time the cha-ching sound filled the bus, everything had sold for well over its starting price. The leaderboard flashed on the screen with BooBooBear in the lead, and Zoe—aka SweetTooth—right behind her. A few seconds later, the next set of items appeared.
The next auction was even more fast-paced, with higher bids and even more competition, and Allie could feel the energy all around the bus. Players shifted in their seats, yelled, and sucked in their breaths. When the leaderboard appeared, a few kids jumped to their feet.
“Hey, settle down back there!” Mr. Steve yelled. “In your seats.”
But Mr. Steve didn’t have to tell them to sit. They were already back where they belonged, eyes glued to the screen, ready for the next set of items.
A sweatshirt posted by 3DPea was getting a lot of attention. There was another fierce battle going on over Zoe’s candy. And just like the day before, RainbowDash, ElevenWaffles, and ConeZone were fighting over Emma’s slime. Allie was so caught up in the excitement, for a moment she forgot all about her item.
When the cha-ching sound echoed off the sides of the bus, Zoe had sold her third bag of candy for $15. Zoe took the #1 spot on the leaderboard.
“Re-invest-ing,” Zoe sang as she did a chair dance, waving her arms over her head. And then she stopped dancing, interlaced her fingers with Allie’s, and whispered, “Final auction. This is it. Marcus Plan in three, two, one.”
It was right there, filling the screen, big and bold and unavoidable. Starting bid: $15.
“I’m going to throw up,” Allie said.
“You’re not going to throw up.”
“I’m going to die.”
“Make up your mind. Are you going to die, or are you going to throw up?”
“I’m going to throw up and then I’m going to die.”
Zoe tipped her chin toward the bus driver. “Mr. Steve is not going to be happy about that clean up.”
The clock counted down.
Four minutes, thirty seconds remained, and there still wasn’t a single bid. Allie could tell that six users were watching it. And she could tell that Marcus wasn’t one of them. He was too busy bidding on the last bag of Zoe’s candy.
“This is humiliating,” Allie whispered.
“How can it be humiliating? No one has a clue who you are.”
Finally, bids appeared.
ShakeItOff: $16
DollaBill: $17
DianaPrince: $18
“Now we’re talkin’!” Zoe said.
“I seriously feel sick.”
“Why? This is exciting! You have three bids.”
“Notice how none of them are from Marcus.”
“Oh yeah. Good point.”
“I can’t look.”
A bunch of guys in the back of the bus were screaming at each other. “What kind of wimpy bid was that?” one said. “Watch this. This is a bid!” another yelled. And then there was a chorus of “Oh, come on!” and “No way!” and “Who has that kind of money?”
A guy at the front of the bus stood up and yelled, “Would somebody please tell me what is going on?”
The girl next to him tugged on his shirtsleeve and showed him her phone. He returned to his seat and peered over her shoulder.
Allie was dying to know what the guys in the back of the bus were fighting over and how much she was about to make off them, but she wasn’t about to take her eyes off her own item, especially now that the bids were coming in again.
BubbleGumThumbs: $19
LastPopTart: $20
That must have been more than BubbleGumThumbs and DollaBill could afford. They both dropped out within seconds. But DianaPrince and LastPopTart didn’t seem to be going anywhere.
The clock counted down.
DianaPrince: $21
LastPopTart: $22
And then a new bidder joined the competition.
SurfSup: $23
Allie stared at her phone.
“He bid,” she whispered. “He actually bid.”
DianaPrince: $24
SurfSup: $25
Two minutes, ten seconds left. She watched the status. She couldn’t tell if LastPopTart was no longer bidding or just waiting patiently for the right moment to pounce. The countdown timer kept going.
1:48.
1:47.
1:46.
The guys in the back of the bus were still screaming at each other. “Just let him have it!” one said. “Not a chance!” someone else replied.
Mr. Steve pulled over, stopped the bus, and stood in the aisle, hands on his hips, face bright red. “I said knock it off!” He waited there, staring them down until everyone had returned to their seats. The bus was quiet, but Allie could still feel the electricity bouncing off the walls, and the roof, and the floor. It was everywhere.
Mr. Steve took his seat, put the bus in gear, and pulled back into traffic. And right at that moment, another bid appeared:
DianaPrince: $27
“No!” Allie slapped the back of the chair in front of her, and the girl sitting there flipped around and
yelled, “Hey!”
“Sorry,” Allie said. She looked up to be sure Mr. Steve hadn’t heard her. And then she turned to Zoe. “What am I going to do?”
“There’s less than a minute left. Marcus might not be able to bid again without Mr. Steve catching him. You’d better see who she is. She might be your first student.”
Allie switched screens, scrolling through all the user data until she found the name she was looking for.
Kelsey Gilbert. Allie knew her. She was an eighth grader, but they were in the same art class the year before. She was nice. And Allie couldn’t help but appreciate her using Wonder Woman’s secret identity as her avatar name. But Kelsey Gilbert, aka DianaPrince, could not win this tutoring item. She absolutely, positively, could not win.
Forty seconds.
Allie toggled back to the main screen. No one had made another move. Maybe Marcus was being smart, Allie thought. Maybe he was planning to hang back and then swoop in at the very last second.
“Wait her out, Marcus,” Allie whispered. “Be patient.”
The clock ticked down: 35 seconds. 34 seconds. 33 seconds.
DianaPrince was silent. Marcus was silent. LastPopTart was nowhere to be seen. Allie could tell there were two other players watching the auction, but they hadn’t made a move.
Allie couldn’t stand it. She toggled over to the administration screen and watched the auction from there, where she could see all the details, including the real names of everyone bidding and the people who were still lurking.
And then a new bid appeared.
SurfSup: $28
There were still six seconds left.
Five.
Four.
And then, without even stopping to think about what she was doing, she clicked on the clock field, highlighted the numbers, and typed a single zero. She hit ENTER.
Her phone let out a cha-ching sound, and so did all the phones around her.
“Yes!” The guy at the back of the bus jumped to his feet. “I told you!” he yelled, pointing at another guy two rows in front of him. Mr. Steve was trying to quiet the bus again, but Allie wasn’t paying any attention to him. She was too busy staring at her screen in disbelief. What had she done?
SOLD
Marcus won. But, of course he had. Allie had just made sure of it.
Zoe grabbed her arm in both hands. “See! I told you he’d win.”
Allie felt a twist, deep in her stomach.
But the feeling didn’t last long. All the auctions were over, and the bus exploded with cheers, chatter, and speculation about who was who, and no one seemed to notice that the last auction ended a few seconds too early.
The leaderboard shifted, and new names appeared. Apparently, everyone had been battling over a Supreme sweatshirt, which sold for $82 and landed someone named HalfPipe in the number one spot.
The system automatically sent out a message announcing the winner of each item and followed it with the standard instructions for sellers and buyers. And then it kicked out a message to all the players:
THANKS FOR SWAP’N
NEXT AUCTION TOMORROW AT 3:30 P.M.!
The bus pulled up to Allie’s stop and she jumped up as fast as she could, eager to get off the bus. She couldn’t sit still with all that adrenaline coursing through her veins.
As she rounded the corner, Marcus said, “See ya, Three.”
She stopped and looked at him, blocking out what she’d done. She threw her shoulders back, mustered up all the confidence she could find, and said, “See ya, Six.”
Allie was sitting at her desk, studying the day’s winnings, and waiting for Courtney to get home from volleyball practice. She glanced around her room at the posters and pictures of her and her friends, and then her gaze settled on her bookcase.
Up on the top shelf, in the far-right corner, she spotted the collection of spiral-bound notebooks she’d saved from every class since fifth grade. She grabbed the green notebook with SPANISH I written in black Sharpie and sat down on her bed with her legs crossed. Bo jumped up and settled in next to her.
She turned the pages, looking over the notes she’d taken the year before, scanning the dates at the top, until she reached January. She’d drawn a line down the center of the page, dividing it into two columns. On the left side, there was a short list of questions in Spanish, and on the right, a long list of regular household objects.
“I remember this test,” Allie said. Bo grunted and turned onto one side so she could pet his tummy. “I had to stand in front of the class while Señor Flores asked me all these questions. It was terrifying.”
Allie read over the list, translating each item: Wrench. Chair. Train schedule. Cup. Bread. Flashlight. Shampoo. Apple. Balloon.
Her phone rang, jolting her back to reality.
“I made bank today!” Courtney screamed, her face the perfect mix of pride and elation. “The boots only went for twenty-five, but my second controller went for twenty, and the games brought in ten each, so that plus my ten percent brought me to one hundred and sixteen dollars!”
“I didn’t do as well. Only bought in forty-two dollars.”
“That’s okay. Together we made a hundred and fifty-eight.” Courtney’s enthusiasm was as contagious as usual. “Add that to yesterday’s take, and . . . we made three hundred and thirteen dollars! We’re nearly there!”
“Not bad for two days!” Allie reached for her water bottle. She tipped her head back and took a big sip.
“Let me see what you sold!” Courtney said. Allie could hear her keyboard in the background. “What’s this tutoring thing?”
Allie almost spit out her water.
“Oh, it’s silly. Zoe has Spanish with Marcus and apparently, he’s not doing very well, so she talked me into auctioning off anonymous tutoring sessions.” She laughed nervously. “She thinks if I get to know him over the phone, I won’t trip over my tongue every time I try to talk to him in person.”
“Who’s Marcus?” Courtney asked.
“What do you mean ‘Who’s Marcus?’ ” Allie looked right at the screen. “The cute guy from my bus. I’ve told you about Marcus.”
“Nope.”
“Of course I have.”
“Not a word.”
Allie thought about it. She must have said something about him at some point, during some good day/bad day exchange at the very least. She told Courtney everything.
“You know . . . Marcus. With the great hair and the cute dimple. We clicked, remember? I’m his number three. He landed on my leaderboard at number six and I’ve been trying to talk to him ever since. Zoe gives me a hard time about it practically every day.”
“News to me.”
“Not possible.”
“Completely possible, and absolutely true.”
“Wow. Okay, whatever. The point is that Marcus, who is totally adorable, bought three anonymous tutoring sessions, and we’re twenty-eight dollars richer.” Allie clicked over to her administration screen and changed the subject. “Look at my queue for tomorrow’s auction. It’s already packed. By Monday, we’ll have more than enough to buy your ticket.”
Allie barely had the sentence out, when her phone chirped.
Nathan
Can you come over?
I need your help with something
Allie checked the time. Her mom wouldn’t be home for another hour and Bo needed a walk anyway. Maybe he was finally going to show her what he’d been working on.
“I’ve gotta go,” she told Courtney. “Talk tonight?”
“Like always,” Courtney said.
When they hung up, Allie typed a reply to Nathan.
Allie
I’ll be there in 20
Allie put on her running clothes, laced her shoes, and grabbed her earbuds. Bo always had a sixth sense about these things, and when she got downstairs, he was already standing in the entryway, sitting politely in front of the coat rack, peering up at his leash.
“Well, someone’s ready.” Bo’s tai
l swept across the hardwood floor excitedly. “Want to go play with Archie?” His tail wagged even faster.
They left the house and took off at a jog, heading for Nathan’s. She ran past the corner store and the Laundromat, past her family’s favorite restaurant and the little bookstore. Past clothing boutiques and the hardware store.
Two blocks later, the shops ended, and she was back among the brightly painted, tightly packed houses. She rounded the corner, ran up a hill, and turned down Nathan’s street. When she reached his door, she was panting, sweating, and parched.
She knocked. Nathan opened it right away. “Wow, you got here fast.”
Allie tapped her finger against her throat. “Water.”
Nathan stepped inside, and Allie followed him into the kitchen. He walked straight to the sliding glass door and opened it so the dogs could play in the backyard, and then took a glass from an upper cabinet, filled it with water, and handed it to her.
He leaned back against the counter. “I didn’t think you’d race over here for me.”
Allie drank her water and took her time responding. “Excuse me. I did not ‘race over here for you,’ Nathan. I ran. It’s called exercise.”
He gave her a dismissive head tilt, like he didn’t want to get into it. “Well, thanks for coming.”
“Sure. What’s up?”
“I have something to show you.”
“Are you finally going to tell me what you’re working on?”
Nathan didn’t answer her. He just curled his finger in the air and headed for the staircase. She followed him into his room.
It had only been a month since Allie had been there, but it looked completely different. Last time, the bed was unmade, there were clothes strewn all over the floor, and his desk was covered with stray papers, soda cans, and candy wrappers. This time, it was clean. She could actually see the hardwood floor. His bed was made, his bookcase was neatly organized, and there was nothing on his desk but his monitor and a keyboard. She remembered the posters from last time—funny sayings, video game artwork, and one of his favorite bands. Over his desk was a poster that read THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE 127.0.0.1.
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