“Hey,” she said. “I’m sorry about your game.” Allie bit down on the inside of her cheek. “I’ve made special arrangements for you to sit next to your guests in the audience. Your badge will get you in a little early. Look for the seats in the front row with your names on them.”
Allie dipped her chin to her chest and stared at the stark white carpet.
Jen squeezed in closer. “It happens all the time, you know?”
She looked up. “It does?”
“Yep,” she said. “Almost every year, there’s someone in the pavilion who had to drop out of the formal competition. And it’s okay. Your app will still go up on our website whenever it’s ready, and you’ll get to tell a ton of people about it today. So try to have fun, okay? You’ve earned this spot.” She pointed up at the sign above their heads. “I can’t wait to play your game. It sounds amazing.”
“It is.” Allie heard Ms. Slade’s voice from behind her, and she slowly turned around. She found her teacher standing there in a light blue suit with a crisp white shirt. She was wearing more makeup than she typically wore in class, and her hair was even curlier than usual. Allie thought she looked beautiful.
“Hi,” Allie said as she tried to swallow down the giant lump in her throat.
Ms. Slade reached out and took Allie’s hand in hers, gripping it hard. “Allie…I’m kind of at a loss for words today. I’m so sorry. But at the same time, I’m so proud of you.”
“For what?” The words squeaked out of Allie’s mouth.
“For…everything. For building your app. For working all week to fix it. For being here in the pavilion. I’ve never been so proud of one of my students.”
Allie forced a smile. She tried to say thank you, but nothing came out.
“Here,” Ms. Slade said. “These are for you.” She pressed a small box into Allie’s hands.
Allie opened it, and inside, she found a pair of dangly Click’d logo earrings, just like the ones Ms. Slade had worn to the CodeGirls demo a week earlier. She looked up to thank her, and realized Ms. Slade was wearing one in her left ear, too. And in her right, she wore one of the little houses from Built.
“I’m going to go check on Nathan. Let me know if you need anything, okay?”
Nathan.
Allie watched her walk away until she reached Nathan’s kiosk. He was on the opposite side of the pavilion, and Allie realized for the first time that she had an unobstructed view. His sign looked perfect: two of his animated characters were leaning against either side of a colorful house with the word BUILT forming the roof.
Nathan was wearing a pair of khaki shorts, tennis shoes, and a black throwback T-shirt with an Atari logo on the front. She could see his monitor and the small neighborhood street, complete with miniature cars and trees lining the sidewalks, and those little characters standing on tall ladders with their hammers in hand, pounding away on the side of a tiny house.
Then he turned his head and caught Allie looking at him. He held up his hand, giving her a small wave, but she didn’t return it. Instead, she turned her back to him and kept setting up her slideshow.
When the show floor opened at ten o’clock, the exhibit hall came to life as it filled with people. It got louder and louder as games from neighboring booths competed with one another for attention. There were games running on oversize screens designed to look like phones, and movie theater–size screens with huge groups of people gathered around them. Off to one side, Allie spotted a bunch of people standing in line to take turns jumping up in the air in front of a green screen while a photographer snapped a picture, converted them into animated characters, and placed them into a game setting.
“Hi.” Allie looked down when she heard the voice, and saw a young girl standing next to her. She was watching the pictures on Allie’s screen.
“What’s your game?” the little girl asked, pointing up at the sign.
“It’s called Click’d. I created it to help people make new friends.”
“That sounds fun,” the girl said.
Allie looked over at her monitor right as the picture changed to one of her and Courtney. The slideshow continued, slowly rolling through all the pictures people had taken over the last few days and all the ClickPics from the leaderboard party. But Allie’s favorites were the shots of her real-life best friends, taken on the staircase on the first day of school.
“My friend Zoe may have had the most fun.” Allie pointed to the picture of Zoe, racing across the lawn with her arm in the air and a huge smile on her face. And then she leaned down like she was telling the girl a secret. “She got a little bit carried away,” she said as she crinkled her nose and let out a laugh. The little girl copied her expression and laughed along.
The next picture was the ClickPic Maddie and Chris took that day in the quad. “And my friend Maddie actually started talking to this boy she’s liked for a whole year.”
The next photo filled the screen. It was Allie and Emma on the stairs with their arms around each other. “And my friend Emma…” She didn’t know how to finish her sentence. “Well, let’s just say that Emma wasn’t such a big fan of my game,” she finally said. “But I click with her in real life, and that’s all that really matters.” Allie wished she had realized that earlier. Clicking with Emma in real life was always the most important thing.
The little girl smiled up at her. “I built a game at school. It’s called Tiger Run. Because I love tigers. I’d show it to you, but I don’t have it on my phone.”
“Darn. I wish I could see that.” Allie smiled at her. “What grade are you in?”
“Fourth.”
“Hey, that’s how old I was when I started coding.” Allie gave her a high five. And then she curled her finger toward her chest. “Want to see the code?” she asked, and the girl’s eyes lit up as she stepped in closer and came up on her tiptoes.
“Attention, everyone! The Fourth Annual Games for Good Competition is starting in fifteen minutes in Theater A.”
Allie squeezed her eyelids tight and gripped the sides of her kiosk with both hands.
“Ready?” She heard her dad’s voice behind her, but she didn’t turn around. She didn’t open her eyes. She didn’t loosen her grip.
“I think I’ll wait here,” she said.
“Allie…” It was her mom’s voice that time.
But she shook her head slowly. “I can’t do it, Mom.”
“What if we told you we had a surprise for you?” her dad said.
Allie opened her eyes and stared at one of the signs hanging from the ceiling. She blew out a breath. “What is it?”
“Well, it wouldn’t be a surprise if we told you, would it? Come on,” he said as he led her out of the pavilion and toward the exhibit-hall exit.
When they reached Theater A, a man at the front door handed her a program and said, “Welcome. Do you need help finding your seats?”
“No, thank you,” her dad said. “We know where we’re going.”