My Life as a Gamer

by Janet Tashjian

Matt isn’t even listening—he’s telling a story about his uncle’s trek to Alaska—but El Cid snaps to attention. He types into the note app on his phone and holds it up for me to read. Carly peeks over my shoulder to see it too.

  “Well!” Carly says. “Looks like El Cid is impressed.”

  “I know lots of random information; unfortunately most of it is pretty useless.” But that isn’t to say I don’t feel pretty great conversing with all these brainiacs today.

  Tom calls us into the room and tells us the company really wants to hear any and all improvements to the game. We sit at our consoles and type in all the cool things we’d like to see in Arctic Ninja when it’s released next year. After that, we break for lunch—a giant feast of sliders and mashed potatoes. I’m almost too full after the all-you-can-eat buffet to lift the controller off the desk.

  I’m surprised when El Cid comes to join us for the afternoon session. He sits quietly between Carly and me, and when Tom blows his whistle for us to begin, El Cid gives me a thumbs-up.

  Maybe it’s because it’s one of the last sessions, but the air in the room is full of more excitement than usual. Kids who are normally pretty quiet are whooping when their narwhal avoids a fatal harpoon or finds a missing part of the code. I’d always assumed El Cid got such high scores because he was fast, but sitting next to him now, I realize he seems relaxed and casual as he racks up more points than the rest of us combined.

  Watching El Cid’s score escalate gets me thinking about my own performance. I mean, is getting a high score on a video game THAT different from acing a state test? Don’t they both require concentration? And who knew that relaxation was involved? I’m one of the most relaxed people I know—when I’m not taking a test, that is.

  I get so spellbound by this new concept that I don’t realize my poor narwhal just got impaled by a giant icicle. As I start the level again, I look over at El Cid, who’s just clocked an incredible 276,425 points. Whoever is underneath that helmet, he’s an expert at getting to the next level in the game. For me, the next level is passing and keeping up with the rest of my class. I may have just lost this level of Arctic Ninja, but I’m not willing to go back a level in real life.

  I’m going to devise a way to unleash my gaming skills on the state tests.

  You Want Us to What?

  The next afternoon I decide to call an emergency meeting with my friends. Carly’s cousin Amanda is in town for the weekend, so she tags along too.

  “Watching El Cid gave me an idea for passing the state tests.”

  Amanda almost does a spit-take with her soda. Carly laughs and hands Amanda a napkin.

  “I’ll take any kind of help I can get,” Amanda says. “What’s your plan?”

  “Believe it or not, acing Arctic Ninja uses a lot of the same skills as passing the state tests.”

  “I haven’t seen any narwhals or killer snowmen on those tests, have you?” Umberto jokes.

  “It’s all about attitude,” I explain. “I’ve been so focused on not failing that I haven’t been having any fun.”

  This time it’s Matt’s turn for a spit-take. But unlike Amanda, he sprays a mouthful of root beer around the room. “Are you trying to say taking those tests can be fun? Because that would be insane.”

  “I’m not saying the tests are FUN,” I explain. “I’m just saying we should play to our strengths.”

  Umberto and Matt look at me blankly.

  “I think it’s a good idea,” Carly says. “Try to find a part of the test you can identify with—just like you draw stick figures to illustrate vocabulary words.”

  “But how can we have fun if we don’t know what the topics are?” Amanda says. “You never know what you’re getting when you open those booklets. I don’t mind an essay on a cool topic like geology or reading your horoscope, but what if it’s a subject I don’t know anything about? How do I have fun with it then?”

  Amanda’s question is a good one, something I spent last night working on. (Yes, I did spend a Saturday night working—surprise, surprise.)

  “Umberto, how fast can you create a phone app?”

  “I can do a rough cut in maybe a few weeks.”

  “I can’t believe you work so fast now,” Matt tells Umberto. “That first app took you forever.”

  “Are you going to have Umberto animate your drawings?” Carly asks.

  I tell her that’s what I WAS going to do, but unfortunately it’s too late. Time for Plan B. (Yes, I spent Saturday night making TWO plans.) I head to the hallway and holler upstairs. “Dad! Can you come down here a minute?”

  My father joins us in the living room. He’s a little disheveled, still wearing his sweats from cleaning the garage earlier. “You guys need something?”

  “Yes,” I answer. “We need someone who can help us make some storyboards. Fast.”

  A broad smile spreads across his face as if he’s been waiting forever for someone to ask him just that.

  My Own Kind of Instruction Manual

  The idea is simple: figure out a way to visualize the tests the same way my stick figures help me visualize vocabulary words. That’s pretty much what my dad does for the movies. He draws panels for each scene to help the director visualize the movie before anyone even sets up a camera. It would take me months to do those kinds of drawings; lucky for me, I live with a guy who—until recently—did that for a living.

  My dad runs to his office and returns with his large rectangular pad and markers. Carly, of course, has come prepared with enough practice tests to keep the entire state of California busy for the next two years.

  Matt, Umberto, Amanda, and I stare at Carly as she unpacks her bag.

  “Who walks around with practice tests on a Sunday?” Matt finally asks. “You’re a freak!”

  “A freak who’s bailing out a friend,” she answers smugly.

  I tell Matt to leave Carly alone. She’s right—I need her help right now if my plan has any chance of working.

  Carly hands me one of the essays to read, but I politely decline. Reading out loud is something I avoid at all costs. She realizes her mistake and starts to read the passage herself. Before Carly gets the first sentence out, my dad’s already divided the page into several neat panels.

  The essay’s about the legend of Sasquatch, and Dad draws a series featuring the funniest, most original Bigfoot any of us have seen. My friends and I crowd around him, commenting on each panel as he creates it. He’s having so much fun—the same way he enjoyed playing my video games but with a serious look in his eye that’s comfortably familiar.

  When Carly reads the questions at the end of the essay, my father holds up the storyboard for us to see.

  “What group of people have supposedly had the most sightings of Sasquatch?” Carly asks.

  Umberto knows the answer but waits for me to respond. I point to one of the panels my father just drew of a man on a horse, chasing a herd of buffalo. “Native Americans?”

  “Very good,” Carly says in her best teacher voice. “Amanda, here’s an easy one. The mythical Bigfoot is usually covered in what?”

  Amanda traces my father’s drawing with her finger. “Brown hairy fur?”

  “Congratulations!” Carly says. “You two just passed the first essay on the practice test.”

  “Great, another fifty to go,” I say.

  My father looks up at me with a smile. “One picture at a time, Derek. Think you can do that?”

  I look over at Carly, so happy in teacher mode, and at Amanda, so eager to find a strategy that will help her too. I need all the assistance I can get, and everyone in this room knows it. I’m going to pass these tests the same way I play video games—one screen, one image, one move at a time.

  Dad turns the page in his pad, exposing a fresh sheet of paper. “Ready?” he asks.

  And I am.

  Drawings, Drawings Everywhere

  As much as Carly tries to organize all the pages from my dad’s storyboard pad, the room still looks as if it�
�s been hit by a hurricane. Dad’s in a creative frenzy—drawing, crossing out, starting over—and the pages are flying. By the end of the afternoon, we’ve answered most of the test questions correctly. (Don’t ask me again about homophones; I got that one wrong every time.)

  Amanda collapses on the floor next to Bodi. “I can’t believe I’m in L.A. for the weekend and we’re studying!”

  Carly tells her cousin she’ll make up for it on her next visit by taking her to her favorite cemetery in Hollywood. The rest of us look at Carly as if she just burped in front of the pope.

  “We both love walking around graveyards and looking at all the tombstones,” Carly says. “What’s wrong with that?”

  She and Amanda stare us down until the three of us drop the subject.

  Mom comes in with a giant bucket of fried chicken from Dinah’s that sends Matt diving over the couch. When he realizes he almost knocked Umberto out of his wheelchair, Matt slows down and waits for everyone else to go first.

  “Jeremy, I think this is some of your best work.” Mom puts her arm around my dad and pulls him in tight. It dawns on me that they might start kissing in front of my friends, so I get ready to pretend I’m choking and need someone to give me the Heimlich maneuver. Thankfully, my dad just gives my mom a warm smile instead.

  Amanda’s face is buried in Bodi’s fur; he looks as happy as a dog can possibly be. But Carly’s still all business, gathering the storyboards into a giant pile while everyone else eats. I go over to help her, knowing she won’t stop working on her own.

  “If I can picture the essays in my head like a video game or comic book panel as I’m reading, maybe I can answer the questions as well as I did today,” I tell her.

  Carly looks around to make sure no one’s watching, then leans over to give me a quick kiss on the cheek. “You’re going to do great. I just know it!”

  I stand in the doorway, thunderstruck. Did that just happen? Or has doing schoolwork on a Sunday made me hallucinate?

  I just got my first kiss!

  What am I supposed to do NOW?

  For the Win

  Carly’s quick kiss leaves me kooky for the rest of the weekend, which is probably good because it keeps me from worrying about school. I try to analyze what was going through her mind: Had she planned to kiss me? Or was it a spontaneous burst of support for my new study idea? Was I supposed to kiss her back? Is this something hanging in the air between us that I have to deal with now? I can only hope the answer to that last question is a resounding NO.

  Of course I’d be lying if I didn’t also say that part of me is a little thrilled by something so unexpected. A few months back when Carly was going out with that surfer Crash, I did feel a tiny bit jealous, but it’s not like I’ve spent any time since then thinking about what it would be like to be her boyfriend. (A couple minutes, maybe, but not a lot.) As tempting as it is to dissect this new development, however, it’s time to put on my game face and apply my storyboard study plan to these ghastly exams.

  When I see Carly at her locker, all my crazy thoughts fly out the window because she is totally, 100 percent normal and doesn’t mention a thing about yesterday’s peck on the cheek. I suppose that’s good, but her nonchalance makes me wonder if I imagined the whole thing.

  “I got a text from Amanda this morning,” Carly says. “She’s actually excited about the test today. I’m so glad she was in town for our brainstorming session.”

  “I’m not a visual learner like you,” Umberto tells me. “But I still think the storyboard idea will be helpful.”

  Matt has on his good-luck Tony the Tiger T-shirt, which he always wears when he wants something to be GR-R-REAT! I don’t know how great the tests will be; I’ll be happy to pass by the skin of my teeth.

  Principal Demetri isn’t in to oversee the proceedings. Ms. McCoddle smiles and tells us to just do our best.

  Carly turns in her seat to wish me good luck, but all I can think about is that kiss. I shake off the intruding thought and open my test booklet as soon as Ms. McCoddle gives the word.

  The first essay is a letter to the editor complaining about a dangerous rotary on the highway. I imagine the illustrations my dad would draw if this were a movie, picturing cars stopping and going along the circular road. I answer three out of the four questions easily and guess at the one I don’t know. So far, so good.

  The next essay is about spotted cats, including the cheetah, jaguar, leopard, and ocelot. I’ve watched a lot of animal shows, so this essay is okay too.

  But the third essay throws me for a loop. It’s about acoustics and has several technical terms. Since the subject is sound, I create an internal soundtrack to go alongside the images in my mind. I make good use of the millions of cartoons I’ve watched in my life by adding several CRASH! PING! BOOM! and AWHOOOOOGA! effects from my favorite Looney Tunes and Hanna-Barbera shorts. (Insert bongo sound of Fred Flintstone running here.)

  “And … STOP!” I’m almost at the end of the test when I hear Ms. McCoddle’s voice. She seems as excited as we are that today’s test is finally over. “It’s going to be a busy week—we have four more sections to do—but I think it’s time to celebrate.”

  Ms. McCoddle brings out two plaid bags from behind her desk. She reaches inside the first one and dramatically holds up a bundle of colorful Sharpies tied with thick ribbon. She hands it to Maria, who reads the attached card. “Thanks for being such a ‘sharp’ class.” Maria helps Ms. McCoddle pass out the rainbow bundles.

  “If Ms. McCoddle was going to buy us presents at the 99 Cent store, she should’ve gotten food,” Matt complains. “You wouldn’t believe the bags of candy you can get for a dollar there.”

  “Are you kidding? I go through markers so fast, she can give me a new pack of these every day of the week,” I tell him.

  “I can’t wait to talk to Amanda tonight and see how she did.” Carly turns to face me. “So, what’s the verdict?”

  For a minute I think she’s referring to yesterday’s kiss but then realize she’s talking about the test. “I don’t want to jinx it, but I think I did okay.”

  The celebration continues with a surprise hot fudge sundae bar Mrs. Pankow has set up in the cafeteria to reward us for our hard work. I load up my bowl of ice cream with enough chocolate sauce to drown an eighteen-wheeler. Passing these tests is actually a possibility now. As I shovel the chocolatey goo into my mouth, all I can think about is how I can’t wait to get home and thank my dad.

  My Contribution

  I use my new storyboard skills for the rest of the week, hoping I score enough right answers to pass. My storyboard theory’s a little less helpful on the math test, but I try to visualize the word problems as comic panels too. By the end of the week, the whole school is loopy from all the testing, and we leave school on Friday as if it’s the first day of summer vacation.

  I stare at the TV for hours that night, barely paying attention to the comedies I’ve taped on the DVR. I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired. My mom even lets me eat in front of the television, which is usually forbidden. I gratefully accept the plate of pasta and chicken without moving from my place on the couch.

  The next morning is our last day of Arctic Ninja. I’m a little sad, but my father seems energetic when he drops me off, saying he’s got lots of errands to keep him busy today. When I ask how the job hunt’s going, he takes a few moments before answering.

  “I actually started working on a new project this week,” he says. “Something to keep me busy between interviews.”

  I ask him what it is.

  “You’re not going to believe it,” Dad says, “but I started working on a graphic novel.”

  I don’t know why I’m surprised—my father certainly is creative—but I hadn’t thought of him as an author before.

  “I’ve never been the comic book or superhero type,” Dad continues, “but maybe all the video games we’ve been playing have rubbed off. Not to mention how fun it was to do those storyboards with you an
d your friends.”

  I ask him what the graphic novel is about, and Dad seems embarrassed when he answers. “It’s about this group of barbarians who turn into fish, creating this gigantic barbarian aquarium. It may sound corny but I’m enjoying it.”

  I tell Dad I love the idea and ask if I can see what he has so far.

  “Only if you help me draw some of the characters.” My father seems more positive than he has in a while. He really is someone who needs to use his imagination to be happy. He tells me to have a good last day.

  “Okay, everybody,” Tom begins after we settle down. “We at Global Games want to thank you for all the great feedback you’ve given us on Arctic Ninja. We have a little something for each of you.”

  Several interns magically appear, laden with gift bags bearing the Global Games logo. The shouts of joy from the other participants reach me before my gift bag does. When the intern finally hands me mine, I let out a whoop of my own.

  The bag is overflowing with more video games than even Umberto owns. From Ni no Kuni to Me & My Katamari to Uncharted to Portal 2 to LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, it’s stuffed with enough games to give any kid an embolism (I’m kidding, Mom!). A few kids complain that some of the more “mature” games aren’t included but I’m not one of them.

  Tom also tells us that we each will get a copy of Arctic Ninja when it finally hits the shelves next year.

  “We can put together some cheat sheets and walk-throughs to sell online,” Matt whispers. “Let other players know where all the Easter eggs are.”