He knew who she was. He knew, and he wanted to meet her in person. She couldn’t wait to tell Zoe that her Marcus Plan had worked. It actually worked!
“Sure. Why not,” Allie said. She hoped she sounded cool. “Bring all twenty items with you.”
“Okay . . .”
He didn’t hang up. She was still waiting for him to say her name. She was dying to say his.
“See you, Princess Peach.”
“See you, SurfSup.”
They hung up.
Allie squealed, dancing around her room. She couldn’t wait to call Zoe and tell her everything. She was about to dial her number when her phone chirped.
Courtney
CALL ME!
BAD NEWS!
Courtney answered the FaceTime call on the first ring. “The ticket just went up to four hundred and twenty-five dollars! What are we going to do?”
Allie let out a breath. “That’s it? It’s no big deal,” she said.
“No big deal? How can you say that? We only needed forty-eight bucks. Now we need seventy-three!”
“I’ll make that much all on my own. Look at my queue.” Allie waited while Courtney switched over to the right screen. “I’m selling the DS. There are four really good video games. There’s a pair of Air Force Ones, and Nathan posted the Adidas and a bunch of Supreme gear—all the stuff that people fight over. Someone’s even selling a monitor.”
“How are you going to deliver that?”
“I have no idea!” Allie giggled. “But I’ll figure it out.”
“You have a lot more than I do,” Courtney said.
“I know! Everyone’s totally into it.”
“And you’re definitely selling the DS this time?” Courtney asked.
Allie held it up to the screen and did a little dance in place. “Number three is Dry Bones,” she sang. “And I have the rest of the night to unlock number four.”
“Can I just tell you who it is? You have to sell it—”
Allie cut her off. “I will, no matter what. Look, I already posted it.” She had taken her time photographing the DS from all different angles. She’d even spread all the games across her bedroom floor to make it look more impressive. “I started the bidding at forty.”
“You’ll get at least that.” Courtney got quiet and Allie could tell she was estimating everything. “Okay,” she finally said, letting out a heavy sigh. “I think we can do it, but this one’s up to you. I’ve got a bunch of lower-priced stuff, and I’m all out of my own things to sell. At ten percent, I’ll be lucky if I pull in twenty bucks.”
Allie brought the phone close to her face. “We’ve got this. I promise. By this time tomorrow, we’ll have your plane ticket in hand.”
Courtney’s face relaxed. “You’re sure?”
“I’m positive.” Allie said it with all the certainty she felt. She pictured herself standing in front of Naomi Ryan on Saturday, demonstrating Swap’d, telling them how it went from idea to working game in less than twenty-four hours. For the hundredth time, she thought about the Hackathon application, just waiting for her to press SEND.
She almost told Courtney. She wanted to. But then Courtney jumped to her feet, looking more elated than she had in days, and let out an optimistic cheer. “In that case, I’m going to stop worrying and go straight to celebrating!”
“Achievement unlocked dance party?” Allie asked instead.
“You read my mind!”
It was a Fishbowl tradition. Anytime someone hit a huge milestone, their teacher cranked up the music, and they all danced around the lab. Allie picked a song, pressed play, and climbed on top of her bed. Courtney did the same. They started jumping, making faces at each other each time they were airborne.
“In five days, we’ll both be jumping on this bed!” Allie screamed. “Because you’ll be here in San Francisco!”
“Five days!”
“Five sleeps!”
“We’re going to Game On!” Courtney screamed back. Then she stopped jumping. “Allie!”
Allie stopped jumping, too. “What?”
They were both beaming, and sweating, and panting, trying to catch their breaths.
“We did it. We actually did it!”
“Of course we did. Why would you ever doubt us?”
“It will never happen again.”
Allie held her pinky finger up to the screen. “Pinkie swear?”
Courtney pressed hers against the glass. “Pinkie swear.”
“I was this close to getting that gaming headset,” Evan said.
“I was even closer,” Nick said.
“Wait, so you’re not LuckyCharms?” Evan asked.
“I wish,” Nick said. “I had that thing locked in, and then at the last second, he swooped in and outbid me!”
She, Allie thought, grinning to herself. If the two of them only knew they’d lost to Cassie Finn, a girl, and a sixth grader at that.
Allie had been impressed with Cassie’s strategy. She’d been logged in the whole time, watching the auction for almost the full five minutes before she finally made one single death blow of a move. Evan and the rest of them hadn’t even seen her coming.
“That was a steal. I can’t believe it only went for sixty bucks. Those things are a hundred bucks, easy.”
Allie had never been so happy to be anonymous. Everywhere she went, she overheard people talking about the upcoming auction. They talked about it in the bathroom, during passing periods, and during every one of her classes. This time, she wasn’t the game’s creator—she was one of them.
A few people had started to make the connection to Click’d, though. Cory Johannsen stopped her in the hall to ask if Swap’d was her game, but she just shrugged and said, “Maybe.” In PE, Avery Duncan caught up to her on the track and casually said, “So . . . Swap’d, huh?” Allie grinned at her and said, “Isn’t it fun?” And then she took off at a sprint.
It was only a matter of time before word got out. Eventually, someone would see her taking cash out of her locker or spot her checking the status of the pickups. And that was fine. When it happened, she’d own it proudly. For now, Allie was having too much fun being exactly like everyone else.
When the lunch bell rang, Allie launched into action. She met Emma at her locker and handed her the money. She counted out Nathan’s take and stuffed it into a plain white envelope. She couldn’t wait to get to the computer lab, to deliver it personally.
She ran off to the eight-hundreds building, hid behind the student garden, and watched everyone pick up the things they’d bought on Friday. All throughout lunch, people kept walking up to the locker, removing PopSockets and Hacky Sacks, iPhone cases and bath bombs, nail polish and video games, bags of candy and tubs of slime.
When the locker was empty, Allie checked the time. There were ten more minutes left before lunch ended. Her friends had all the payment deliveries under control. She’d checked the queue for that afternoon’s auction more times than she could count. She had nothing else to do, so she headed to the lab early.
Ms. Slade looked up from her desk when Allie stepped inside. “I was wondering if you were going to stop by.”
Allie was surprised to see the lab empty. On release day it was usually packed with people, scrambling to finish their projects. “Where is everyone?”
“Oh, they’ve been here. It’s been a busy lunch. In fact, you and Nathan are the only ones I haven’t seen.”
Allie played it cool, but inside, she felt like she was about to burst. She liked hearing that the rest of her classmates were rushing to finalize their games while she’d had hers up and running for almost a week.
She walked to her workstation.
“How about giving me a little look?” Ms. Slade asked, following her. “You’ve been working so hard all week and I have no idea what you’ve been building back here. I can’t wait to see what my star student has created this time.”
Allie’s whole body felt lighter. She’d never really thought of herse
lf as Ms. Slade’s star student. Wasn’t that Nathan? He was the one who made her so proud during Games for Good. He was the one who won every coding competition and science fair since the third grade. Allie wasn’t sure what she had done to deserve that title, but she liked the sound of it.
She sat up taller in her chair and brought her fingers to the keyboard. “Sit down,” she said proudly. “I’ll give you a demo.”
She typed in her password, navigated over to the server, and turned the monitor so Ms. Slade could see the screen.
“You always tell us to look around, to get ideas from the real world . . . to notice the way people already do things and look for ways technology can help improve them, right? Well, that’s what I did. Kids buy and sell things here on campus all the time—stuff like video games, controllers, clothes . . . all kinds of stuff. So it got me thinking, why not make a game out of it? What if people could sell their stuff, make money, and compete with each other all at the same time?”
Allie started with the backend code, explained how it worked at a high level, and how they’d built it so quickly. “I used my leaderboard code from Click’d, but everything else—the auction engine, the interface, the avatar creator—all came from my CodeGirls summer camp friends. You were right. We snapped everything together, connected it with some new code, and that was it. We had a completely new app.”
Allie was reaching for her phone, preparing to click on the icon and demo the app itself, when Ms. Slade said, “Hold on.” She leaned in closer, resting her elbows on her knees.
Something wasn’t right. Allie could tell from her voice. “What?” she asked.
“Allie,” Ms. Slade said carefully. “I love this idea. I really do. But I’m afraid it won’t work.”
Allie couldn’t wait to tell her she was wrong; it was working. It was working perfectly.
“Selling items on campus is not only against school rules, it’s against the law,” Ms. Slade said.
Allie stared at her. “What do you mean, against the law? It happens all the time.”
“I’m sure it does, but it’s not supposed to. California law says you can’t sell anything within one thousand feet of school property. It might seem unfair, but the law is designed to keep you safe while you’re at school.”
“But still—” Allie began.
Ms. Slade cut her off. “I can’t condone this. I could get in trouble, too.”
Allie had no idea what to say. No idea what to do. A week’s worth of work, a queue full-to-bursting with products to sell, and Courtney’s plane ticket on the line. This couldn’t be right.
Ms. Slade scooted her chair in closer. “Hey, it’s okay. You’ve done great work here. I love how you embraced the assignment and pulled in code from all your friends. That’s exactly what I was looking for.”
Allie wanted to scream.
Ms. Slade’s eyes lit up. “Here’s an idea: You can’t roll this out across campus, but maybe we can find a way to play it with a smaller group of students. Why don’t you deploy it the class? We can do, like, a mock auction, you know? We can all pretend to buy and sell stuff.” She picked up Allie’s mouse and dangled it in the air. “Who knows, maybe you’ll sell this for a thousand dollars. That would be fun.”
It was all Allie could do to sit there and not bolt for the door. “Yeah,” she said under her breath. “Fun.”
“Well, I know you, and I know you’ll come up with something.” She stood and brushed her hands on her jeans. “You definitely aced the reuse assignment. Whatever you decide to do next doesn’t matter. I’m already impressed.”
Allie felt sick. As Ms. Slade turned and walked back to her desk, Allie switched over to the screen she hadn’t shown Ms. Slade: The queue, filled with more items than ever before, all estimated to sell for more than five hundred dollars.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Nathan asked again.
Allie nodded without looking at him. Just as she’d done the last four times he asked her that question.
“I can tell something’s wrong. Why won’t you tell me?”
She couldn’t, because if she told him, that would make it real. And if she made it real, she’d think of Courtney, and then she’d fall apart. And she wasn’t about to let that happen, not in front of her entire class, and certainly not in front of Nathan.
Nathan.
When he found out, he’d be nice and understanding, but deep down, she knew what he’d really be feeling: pity. She didn’t want his pity—she’d had plenty of that last fall when Click’d failed miserably, and oh-so publicly. She wanted his respect. She wanted Ms. Slade’s respect, and Naomi Ryan’s respect, and the class’s respect, and the whole school’s respect. She wanted to wow them all.
She barely had time to enjoy her status as Ms. Slade’s star student, and it was already coming to a screeching halt.
“You sure you’re okay?” Nathan asked again.
“I’m fine.”
She wished he’d quit asking. Every time he did, she wanted to scream. Until the last ten minutes, he knew everything about her game, and she knew nothing about his. Now she knew one thing: He was going to beat her. Again.
“Why won’t you talk to me?”
Allie couldn’t bite her tongue a second longer. She turned to him, hands shaking, blood boiling. “Why won’t I talk to you? I have. I’ve told you everything. You’re the one who won’t talk to me. You’re the one with all the secrets and the surprises,” she said, wiggling her fingers and rolling her eyes sarcastically. “Why won’t you tell me what you’re working on, Nathan?”
“Because I can’t.”
“Why not? Because you don’t even consider me your competition anymore?”
“No . . . that’s not it.”
Allie fixed her gaze on his. “That is it, isn’t it? You’re too good for all of this?” A few kids at the closest workstations turned around in their chairs to see what was going on, so she lowered her voice. “You’ve got this assignment in the bag. And I bet you already got into the hackathon program, too, didn’t you? That’s why you don’t seem at all concerned about any of this. That’s why it’s all a big secret.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about!” Nathan said, raising his voice. “And you’re one to talk. Last time I checked, you had a huge secret that only I know about.”
Allie glared at him, teeth clenched, hands balled into fists by her side. She hated that Nathan knew she’d cheated. She should have known he’d hold it over her head at some point.
“Actually,” Nathan continued, “you don’t have one secret, you have two!”
“No, I don’t.”
“Oh, yeah? When are you planning to tell Courtney that you’re applying to Hackathon?”
Allie didn’t reply. She couldn’t.
“See,” he said slowly. “I’m not the only one with secrets, Allie.”
The truth in his words hit her hard. Her chest felt tight and she could feel tears begin to sting her eyes. He was right. She did have secrets. But hers weren’t the same. Not at all.
She forced in a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “I might be keeping secrets, Nathan, but mine are different.”
“Oh, really? How?”
Allie stood. “I’m not keeping them from you.”
She needed to get out of there. Fast. But she could barely move and hold the tears back at the same time. She finally made it to Ms. Slade’s desk and asked for the bathroom pass.
She waited until she was alone in the hallway to let the tears fall.
That hollow, empty feeling in her chest was too familiar. It was exactly how she felt during Games for Good, watching those nine kids unveil their games on stage while she sat in the audience and watched. How could this be happening again?
She’d created an amazing app in less than twenty-four hours—an app people loved. It was so unfair. She did everything right, and she still failed.
Allie punched the side of a locker bank with her fist. It didn’t help at all. An
d now her hand was throbbing. She walked to her hiding spot by the student garden, tears still running down her cheeks, as she pulled out her phone and tapped on the Swap’d icon.
Everything was there. Thirty-two items to be bought, and sold, and fought over, in only two hours. One more auction, and she and Courtney would have all the money they needed. They’d buy the plane ticket that night. She’d tell Courtney what they’d been doing was illegal, and they’d shut Swap’d down for good. Ms. Slade would never have to know.
It would be so easy to get away with it.
But that’s what she thought last time.
When things went wrong with Click’d, Allie had tried to fix it without telling anyone. She’d worked in the lab all through lunch and after school, and stayed up late every night, trying to find the glitch before anyone figured out what was going on. And it backfired in the worst possible way.
Allie stared at the queue. She knew what she had to do. And she hated it more than she could ever explain.
She highlighted the first item: ProperPrim’s hair braiding with a starting bid of $5. She pressed the delete button and it disappeared.
She highlighted the second item: A video game Buh-Buy had posted with a starting bid of $40. She pressed the delete key.
She highlighted the next item: a rainbow-colored bath bomb posted by SparkleMotion.
And she kept going, highlighting items, feeling her stomach knot up every time she watched an item disappear. When she finally got to the DS, she let her finger hover over the delete key a moment longer than the others. But then she forced herself to press it.
Pretty soon, the queue was empty. Everything was gone. It was over as fast as it had begun.
No more Swap’d. No more chances to redeem herself in Naomi Ryan’s eyes. No more plane ticket. No more Courtney.
Allie walked home from school. It was over three miles, and a lot of it was uphill, but she didn’t care. It was a lot better than sitting on Bus #14, listening to everyone wonder why the clock hit 3:30 p.m. and the auction never began.
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