She took bites of food while she scanned over all the data she’d gathered over the last thirty hours. And then she tapped on the photos tab and scanned the queue. A few people had clicked while she’d been at soccer practice, and she smiled when she looked over all the new ClickPics, wondering how they’d found each other. Did they hear bloops while they were at the mall? Did their phones call out to each other during football or track practice?
She went through each of the photo clues, one by one, but they looked like they’d been pulled from Instagram. It all seemed innocent enough.
“Maybe it magically fixed itself,” she told Bo as she buried her toes into his soft fur. And then she let out a heavy sigh, because she knew that was impossible.
Allie navigated back to the Fuller University site, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to click on the CodeGirls logo. She was dreading the plunge back into the sea of commands; she’d already swam through the source code four times that day. She turned around and looked at her bed, wishing she could crawl inside the sheets. Instead, she reached for her phone, launched Click’d, and opened her CodeGirls group.
Her profile page looked the same, except she had 20 friends instead of 688. She wished she’d created a teleportation device instead. If they could all just beam themselves into Allie’s bedroom, they’d have this problem solved in no time.
She opened Courtney’s profile and read through her stats, even though there were no surprises there.
Over the summer, the two of them started playing this game they’d made up called “good day/bad day.” At times, CodeGirls Camp could be an emotional roller coaster mixed with triumphant highs and intense lows. So, before they fell asleep at night, they’d each list the top three things that had gone right that day and the top three things that had gone wrong.
Allie opened the chat window and typed a message.
Allie
good day/bad day?
Courtney
YES!!!
Allie
you first
Courtney
happy to be home with my sister met a new girl at school—rly nice teacher called my game “addictive”
Courtney
now you
Allie
688 users and growing fast everyone loves it—phones everywhere have a good shot at winning G4G
Courtney
miss the fishbowl miss the codegirls miss you most
Allie wanted to tell her about the glitch in Click’d, but after that, she wasn’t sure how to do it. Instead she kept it simple.
Allie
friend drama stuck working next to my nemesis! miss you like crazy!
Courtney
Allie
Courtney
Goodnight
Allie
Goodnight
Allie returned to the Fuller University server, clicked on the CodeGirls logo, and navigated over to Click’d’s source code. She blinked a few times as the colorful text filled her screen, and then she brought her fingers to the keyboard. “Okay, bad code,” she said. “I’m tired. And I’m done messing around. I’m not going to stop until I fix you. Got it?”
Allie sat down next to Zoe on the bus, let out a long exhale, and dropped her head on Zoe’s shoulder. Zoe patted it and asked, “No luck?”
“I was up until midnight. I fixed the issue in the code, but every time I tested it, it caused a problem somewhere else. It’s going to take a little longer.”
“Well, I deleted all my pictures, just in case.”
“Yeah,” Allie said. “So did I.”
Allie closed her eyes and the two of them rode the rest of the way in silence. Every once in a while she’d hear a bloop-bloop-bloop and see a phone make its way around, but most of the people on Bus #14 seemed to have found each other. Between the gentle rocking and hum of the engine, Allie almost drifted off. But when the bus pulled into the roundabout and she and Zoe stepped off, she suddenly felt wide-awake again.
The bus might have been quiet, but the campus definitely wasn’t; the scene on the front lawn was even crazier than it had been the day before. Everyone was running around, dashing past the roundabout and disappearing into the hallways. They were tapping phones, snapping selfies, and comparing leaderboards. And Mr. Mohr was standing in front of the office with his arms crossed, watching the whole thing. Until the bell rang, there was nothing he could do about it.
Allie walked to her locker feeling pumped with adrenaline. But when she turned the corner, she saw Maddie waiting there, staring at her phone and looking upset.
“Chris is gone,” Maddie said as soon as Allie was within earshot.
“What?”
Maddie spun her phone around. “Look. Gone. Emma, too, and you and Zoe are down to nine and ten. I barely know the rest of these people!”
“That’s part of the fun, remember?” Allie said as she gave Maddie’s shirtsleeve a shake, just like Maddie had done to Emma the day before. But Maddie’s face fell, and Allie could tell she wasn’t in the mood to joke about this. “Hey, don’t worry. You’re probably still his number six.”
“I’m not. I checked. I’m gone from his leaderboard, too.”
Allie went back to swapping out her books.
Maddie rolled her eyes and leaned back against one of the lockers. “You don’t get it, Allie. You weren’t here last summer. Zoe and Emma know…I’ve been waiting for months for a reason to talk to him and I finally did, and now it’s just…so…over!”
“No it’s not,” Allie said, nudging her with her shoulder. “Look, Click’d got you two talking. That’s the hard part, right? Who cares if your status has changed? Just go up to him and say something like, ‘I miss your face…on my leaderboard.’”
Maddie started cracking up. “Seriously? ‘I miss your face’?”
“No,” Allie said, laughing along. “You’ve gotta get that pause in there, and then really deliver the rest of it.” She tried it again. “You have to say, ‘I miss your face—pause—on my leaderboard.’ It’s not the same without the pause and the second part.”
Maddie started laughing even harder. “Not that I have a clue about any of this!” Allie said, still giggling. “You’re the flirt, not me. Gotta run.” She shut her locker and gave Maddie a wave. She started to walk away when she heard Maddie say, “Allie! Wait.”
When Allie stopped and turned, Maddie stepped in closer.
“As much as I appreciate the flirting advice,” she said, still giggling, “and trust me, I do, I kinda had another idea.”
“Yeah?”
“I was thinking…You know, I’m real-life best friends with the developer of Click’d.”
Allie looked at her sideways. “True. And?”
“And, so, I get perks.”
“Perks?”
“Yeah, I thought, maybe…you could go in and, you know, tweak a few things?”
“Tweak a few things?” Allie repeated. She looked at Maddie like she must have misunderstood her.
Maddie clasped her hands together, pleading with her eyes, and Allie laughed again, even though she knew that wasn’t the reaction Maddie was expecting.
“No way.”
“Come on! Puhhhhllllllleeeeeeese!” Maddie begged, stepping in closer, but Allie kept shaking her head. “It wouldn’t hurt anything and no one has to know. Just change a few of my answers to match his? Just change my ocean to forest and my noodles to pizza, and like, change ten more things so we have more in common than anyone else.”
“No.” Allie couldn’t believe what she was asking.
Maddie combed her fingers through her hair. “Okay, fine. Can you at least tell me what number he is now? Because seriously, how am I supposed to sleep at night without knowing? I mean, what if he’s my eleven? Then you may only have to change, like, two or three things. That’s it. That’s nothing.”
Allie hung her head, but she could tell Maddie wasn’t ready to give up.
“I can’t do that.”
“But what if he’s
my eleven?” she repeated, gripping Allie’s arms with both hands. “Which reminds me, why can’t we see past the top ten?”
“Because I thought it would be more interesting.”
“Interesting? That’s not interesting! That’s evil.”
Allie snarled as she wiggled her fingers in front of her and let out an evil laugh, trying to make Maddie smile.
“Stop it!” Maddie swatted at Allie’s fingers, but that only made her wiggle them harder.
Then Maddie folded her arms across her chest. “Fine. Okay, I have another idea! Don’t change anything. Just look at Chris’s quiz answers and tell me what he picked. I’ll delete my profile, go back in, and answer the same way. That way you’re not changing anything!”
Allie pictured the database, filled with columns and rows of information. Hundreds of names and cell phone numbers, answers to more than fifty personal questions. “First of all, he would totally notice if you fell off his leaderboard and then suddenly reappeared. Think about it,” Allie said as she tapped her finger against her temple. “And second of all, that’s cheating.”
Maddie laughed and threw her hands in the air. “Cheating? Who cares? It’s not like you created a game to reverse the effects of climate change. It’s a friendship app. And you said it yourself, it’s all for fun.”
“It is.”
“Well, it was a lot more fun when Chris Kemmerman’s name was on my leaderboard.”
Allie only planned to be in the quad for five minutes, six tops, just long enough to grab her lunch, swing by the table to say hi to her friends, and tell them she had to get to the computer lab to get ready for the Games for Good competition on Saturday. It was only half-true, but only Zoe would know that.
As Allie waited in line for her lunch, she couldn’t help overhearing the chatter around her. People seemed to have come up with a whole new language to talk about Click’d:
Elizabeth was my three and I was her five, but now she’s my five and I’m her eight.
Aidan and I were ones yesterday, and now he’s not even on my leaderboard!
Eva and I have been twos from day one! Haven’t budged! Allie turned around as two girls high-fived each other.
Bloop.
Allie heard the sound coming from her back pocket. She grabbed her tray from the lunch window and headed out for the old oak tree, and as she walked she could feel her phone buzzing; she couldn’t wait to get to the table so she could check the screen.
Bloop-bloop.
She looked around. The coast was clear, so she stopped right in the middle of the quad, pulled out her phone, and right as she did, the screen flashed red and the bloop-bloop-bloop sounded. She looked up, expecting to find her match, but instead, she found herself nose to chest with someone much taller than her. She slowly tipped her chin up.
Mr. Mohr held a small orange bucket in his outstretched hand. Something inside was blooping three times.
Allie stuffed her phone in her back pocket as fast as she could, but it triple-blooped again. The phone in his bucket called out to hers in response.
“Sorry. I—” she began, but Mr. Mohr cut her off.
“No, don’t be sorry. You’re making this a really good day for me.” He looked at his watch. “The bell only rang ten minutes ago and I’m already up to seven phones.” He held his hand out flat. “I’ll take it, please.”
“No…really…I promise it won’t happen again.”
He tapped a fingertip against his open palm and looked down at her with his eyebrows raised. Allie scanned the quad and saw a bunch of people watching the two of them. Mr. Mohr might have let her off with a warning, but with an audience and a point to prove, there was no way he’d do that.
“You can pick it up at the end of the day.”
Allie reluctantly dropped her phone into his hand. When he tossed it into the bucket, her phone must have touched the one that had been blooping, because one of the phones let out a shrill woo-hoo!
Mr. Mohr peered inside. “What was that?” he asked.
Allie shrugged and shot him a how-am-I-supposed-to-know look.
Mr. Mohr looked like he was about to say more, but then his gaze settled on something over her shoulder. “Hmm. Another one,” he said as he gave the bucket a little shake, like he was determined to fill it to the top before lunch ended.
He walked away and Allie squeezed her eyelids tight. But then she opened them and shook it off. It didn’t matter, she reminded herself. She could live without her phone. She had everything she needed in the computer lab.
When she arrived at the table under the oak tree, Allie slid in between Zoe and Emma. “Mohr just took my phone,” she said with a huff.
She was expecting a little sympathy, but no one said a word. Then she looked at Zoe and realized she was staring back at her with wide eyes, as she shook her head and mouthed the word bad.
Allie didn’t get it. She looked across the table at Maddie, who was sitting there with her arms crossed, glaring at her.
“Hold up. You’re not actually mad at me for refusing to rig your leaderboard?” Allie asked, and Maddie slowly shook her head and pointed at Emma.
Emma was staring down at the table. She wasn’t speaking. She wasn’t even moving.
“What’s wrong?” Allie asked, even though she had a sinking feeling she already knew.
“Wyatt didn’t delete it,” Zoe said. “He sent it to tons of people.”
“No,” Allie whispered.
Emma’s head snapped up. Her eyes were red and puffy. “No?” she yelled. “Seriously? That’s all you can say? No?” She pulled out her phone and shoved it under Allie’s nose.
And there it was: the text exchange Zoe showed her on the lawn the day before. The same one Allie had deleted. The same one that was responsible for the stomachache Allie felt that whole day before, and the one that seemed to have resurfaced again.
Zoe jumped in. “Allie tried to help. It wasn’t her fault, it was mine. I’m so sorry. I never should have taken the screenshot of our conversation. I guess I was just so glad you told me, you know—that you trusted me with a secret. You’ve never done that before, and I guess…I just…” Zoe trailed off when she realized she was rambling and making it worse.
Allie jumped in to try to rescue her. “Don’t be mad at Zoe. It’s not her fault. It’s mine. That picture never should have gone anywhere! As soon as she told me what happened, I deleted it from the system, and after that, I spent hours in the lab after school, trying to figure out what happened.”
Emma kept her eyes locked on Allie. She didn’t blink. “I’m not upset about the picture—”
“Oh, good!” Zoe cut her off with a sigh. “Because I know it’s embarrassing, but—”
Emma slapped her hand hard on the table. “I am upset about the picture! I’m mortified and humiliated. But that’s not what I’m most upset about.” She pointed at Allie and then at Zoe. “You both knew yesterday. You saw me at soccer practice, after this all happened, and you acted like nothing was wrong. You both knew and neither one of you told me.”
“We didn’t think anyone else would see it.” Zoe looked at Allie for support, and Allie tried to nod, but inside, she was cringing.
“In other words, you didn’t think I’d find out?” Emma asked accusingly.
Zoe squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them and locked her gaze on Emma. “I didn’t want you to find out, because I felt horrible and I didn’t want to hurt you. Wyatt said he was deleting it, and I honestly thought that was the end. I didn’t think he’d send it to anyone.”
Emma took a deep breath and folded her arms across her chest. “Well, he did. As it turns out, he thought it was pretty hilarious, so he sent it to all his friends. And they sent it to all their friends, including Andrew. And now the entire school knows something I told exactly one person.” She held her finger up in front of Zoe. “One person I trusted.”
“I’m really so—” Zoe began, but Emma held her finger up in front of her face.
Allie and Zoe looked at each other, and Zoe whispered, “No.”
“I was in the girls’ locker room,” Emma said. “I was standing there in my underwear, when Megan Braxton shoves her phone in front of me and says, ‘Aww…so cute!’ And everyone laughed. The entire row. Because they’d all seen it already, and it was pretty clear I was the only one who hadn’t. So I know you’re sorry, Zoe, and that you never meant for this to happen, Allie, but it did. And it happened to me. So no, I’m not going to accept your apology right this second.”
Allie felt like someone had just punched her hard in the chest.
Emma had been holding back her tears, but they started slipping down her cheeks quickly and she wiped them away as fast as she could. She stood and reached for her backpack. “You know what would have made it a teeny, tiny bit better?” she asked. “If anyone—say, for example, one or two of my best friends—had warned me first. That would have been better. Then I would have been prepared with some snappy comeback or ready to totally deny it, but to be surprised like that…” Her voice caught and she sucked in a breath. “I wasn’t even wearing pants!”
Emma stormed off, wiping her face as she left. Allie tried to swallow the lump in her throat, but it wouldn’t budge.
None of them knew what to say, so they sat there for almost a full minute until Maddie broke the silence. “How could you guys do that to her?”
“It was an accident,” Allie said.
“We didn’t think she’d find out,” Zoe whispered.
“Please stop saying that. Do you have any idea how messed up that sounds?” Maddie asked.
“She was already upset about the leaderboard thing, remember? We didn’t want to make it worse,” Zoe added.
Maddie pressed her hands flat against the table and stood. “Just FYI, if I tell either one of you a secret and you tell anyone else, accidentally or otherwise, even if you don’t think I’ll ever find out, and even if you think you fixed it, I want to be the first to know.”
Click'd Series, Book 1 Page 8