Josh Baxter Levels Up

by Gavin Brown

  Finally, on the last finished page, there’s a picture of all of us together that I drew last night when I couldn’t sleep.

  “Oh my gosh guys, that is so very totally positively perfect!” Taniko squeals.

  Peter leans forward, looking closer. “It actually kind of is. We’ll have to rip out a bunch of the stuff in the game now …”

  Chen shrugs. “That’s just placeholders that I made. It’s total junk. You know I’m really just the tester and animator. I can’t draw.”

  I shake Peter off me, and he finally lets go and starts back in on his pineapple coconut sundae.

  “What the heck are you guys talking about?” I demand.

  “Your art,” Chen says. “The video game we’ve been making. We’ll have time to get back to it now that the Decathlon’s over.”

  “We had kind of stalled, since all the art we made was kind of ugly,” Maya interjects. “Didn’t we mention it do you?”

  “Not exactly,” I answer.

  “Well now you’re going to do the art for it!” Taniko says.

  “I am?”

  “Um, only if you want to,” Maya adds. “See, we couldn’t agree on a theme, but this is perfect. It’ll be at a school, and the Mitten Monster will be the final boss.”

  “Taniko and I are programming,” Peter explains. “Maya is writing the script and doing the levels, and Chen is testing it and will be getting it out to the world. The basic gameplay is pretty much there.”

  “So are you in?” the Whirlwind demands. “You have to!”

  I sit back in my seat. I remember hearing that they were working on something, but had no idea how serious they were. “That … that sounds awesome.”

  I watch in amazement as they throw out all kinds of terms I don’t understand, figuring out what changes they’ll have to make to integrate my art into the programming, writing, and level design.

  I take a spoonful of my sundae. It tastes like victory. Delicious, gooey, chocolaty victory. The Wall of Heroes is going to get a big splash of green ink tonight.

  The more I actually try at my life, the more I realize how many excuses I was making. I was constantly rationalizing how to surrender before the fight even started. “It’s too hard,” I’d say, or “It will never work,” or “They probably don’t want to.”

  An adventurer doesn’t make excuses. Sometimes we have to do things that scare us to prove that we can. Because your mind is lying to you, telling you to stay in your safe zone, to hide at home and not take up the quest.

  You have to pick up your gear, rally your allies, and get out on your journey.

  That’s what I find myself thinking, sitting in math class, watching Gym Leader Ramirez lecture about something that Taniko already showed me a few days ago, and wondering why I’m not living up to my own advice. It all sounds great in my head—but it’s much harder to actually live it.

  You see, to be the hero I set out to be, I have one final challenge to overcome: I have to ask Maya out. The holiday dance is a week away.

  But the questions dance around in my head anyway. What if she says no? What if she’s already agreed to go with someone else? What if asking makes things awkward and ruins our friendship? What if she turns me down and the awkward tension messes up our whole group of friends?

  During one of our Decathlon practice sessions, Maya told us that her favorite game of all time was The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time. What if I set up a whole performance around that? How could she say no?

  I sketch it out in my graph paper notebook, hoping Mr. Ramirez won’t walk by and notice that I’m not taking notes.

  I’ll get speakers so the soundtrack is playing in the background, slowly fading in until she realizes what it is. I can make a Link costume, or maybe at least a hat. I might look silly, but hey, that’s always a risk.

  I sketch it all out, with Peter, Chen, and Taniko playing other characters from Zelda, and a great speech about how I’ve learned so much from her, and how I would journey through castles and temples, back and forward through time, between worlds, or anywhere else for her.

  I’ll need to get them all to join in, like I did for the Decathlon. I can probably get Lindsay to help with the costumes. She’s been making her own clothes for years, chopping up old stuff and sewing it back together to make something new.

  It’s a grand plan, and I need to call on every resource I have to make it happen in time for the dance.

  I’m brought back to math class when Gym Leader Ramirez stands at the front of the room and starts calling out names, handing each of us our graded tests one by one.

  “Josh Baxter,” he says.

  As I walk to the front of the room, my world narrows into cinema mode. This is the cut scene where my judgment comes down.

  “It looks like you have reached your next evolution, Josh,” Mr. Ramirez says quietly as he hands me my test.

  I return to my seat, take a deep breath, and look down.

  91/100.

  An A-minus!

  I close my eyes and let out a breath. Is it perfect? No. But I did it. I’m back in the game. The controller is in my hands now. I put the test into my notebook to review later. Taniko is out sick today, but she promised to go over the problems I missed. This time there won’t be too many of them!

  The bell rings, and we all stand up to leave. And then another miracle happens. Mittens walks right by me. No whispered taunts, no funny faces. A couple of his friends walk behind him. One of them looks at me oddly—not mocking or angry, just confused. For the past three months, not a day has gone by without at least a whispered “Creep.”

  But now, as far as Mittens is concerned, it seems I no longer exist. I can live with that.

  I walk out of the class and head to my locker. I stand in front of Vault 151 for a moment, looking down at the mess of lines and shading in my sketchbook. I imagine what the Oracle would say about my plan. The truth is, I don’t even need to ask her.

  “Josh. That is a dumb idea,” Lindsay would tell me, probably making that exasperated grunt she does whenever I suggest something. “An unbelievably dumb idea.”

  I glance down the hall and see Maya walking toward our lockers.

  And I realize, those plans, those questions, they’re all more excuses. Made-up reasons not to take on the challenge. It’s like Dad always said. “Why not do it now?” he’d tell me. “Now is always the best time to do something hard.”

  I try to call back that feeling from last week, when we won the Decathlon. Nothing could stop me then. I’d hit a power-up and was charging through every obstacle.

  “Hey, Maya,” I say.

  “Hi there, Howard Taft Middle School Video Game Decathlon Champion,” the Punk Princess answers, with a wide smile. “What’s up?”

  No grand romantic gestures or performances. No gimmicks.

  I just ask her.

  Unlocking “book published” is a massively multiplayer achievement. Both this novel and I owe a great debt to Sarah Evans, who first hatched the plot to create this book and followed through with editorial expertise, creativity, and patience. Chris Danger’s art and Christopher Stengel’s design direction brought not just the cover but many of the pages to life.

  The rest of the Scholastic team, including production editor Emily Cullings; copy editor Daniel Letchworth; proofreaders Gabriel Rumbaut, Maya Frank-Levine, and Lindsay Walter-Greaney; and Kirk Howle and Joanna Gras in manufacturing, were all vital in bringing this book to its final form. I would also like to acknowledge Ellie Berger, Lori Benton, Nelson Gomez, David Levithan, and Abby McAden for their support of this amazing opportunity, and Rachel Griffiths for giving me my first shot at getting published just a few years ago. In addition, the teams all across Scholastic Trade, Book Clubs, and Book Fairs have been incredible both for believing in this project and helping make it a reality.

  In the world outside of Scholastic, I would like to thank Ash Byrnes, Carrie Brown, and Keith Fretz for reading versions of this manuscript, as well as
Grace Kendall, Laura and Michael Bisberg, Laura Jean Ridge, and Nick Eliopulos for their feedback on its early stages. There are pieces of your inspiration and imagination throughout. And I must especially thank Mallory Kass—you built me up and have had the generosity not to destroy me.

  To my many friends and family members, in New York and spread across the world, thank you for sharing your lives, your wisdom, and your laughter. And finally, to my nuclear family Yorke, Carrie, Galen, and Christine: thank you for being my fusion-powered core.

  Thank you all for joining my adventuring party on the journey that led to Josh Baxter Levels Up. Say the word and I’ll unlock my vault, grab my gear, and ride out to join your quests.

  This concludes my emotions. Please turn the page to enjoy my biography and a moderately smug photo.

  Gavin Brown has written stories and designed games for the bestselling Spirit Animals and The 39 Clues series, and is the creator of the highly rated iOS and Android game Blindscape. He lives in a narrow apartment in New York City’s East Village.

  Copyright © 2016 by Gavin Brown

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Brown, Gavin 1983– author.

  Josh Baxter levels up / by Gavin Brown.—First edition.

  pages cm

  Summary: Because his family has moved again, Josh Baxter is starting at a new school for the third time in two years, and this time he has really started off on the wrong foot—but when his mother takes away the video games that have become his refuge because of his poor grades, Josh realizes he has to come up with a new strategy for success.

  ISBN 978-0-545-77294-5

  1. Moving, Household—Juvenile fiction. 2. Middle schools—Juvenile fiction. 3. Families—Juvenile fiction. 4. Video games—Juvenile fiction. 5. Bullying—Juvenile fiction. [1. Moving, Household—Fiction. 2. Middle schools—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction. 4. Family life—Fiction. 5. Video games—Fiction. 6. Bullying—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.1.B795Jo 2016

  813.6—dc23

  [Fic]

  2015016236

  First edition, March 2016

  Cover art © 2016 by Chris Danger

  Cover design by Christopher Stengel

  Author photo by Michael Bisberg

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-77295-2

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.