They stepped inside, and she followed her parents to the first row. The music was loud and upbeat. Allie tipped her chin back and counted ten gigantic screens hanging from the ceiling, all placed at key points so everyone could see them. And the room was enormous—filled with seats in neat rows, all facing a circular stage in the center—and already packed with people.
When they arrived at their seats, Allie’s jaw dropped. Emma, Zoe, and Maddie were sitting in the front row, and as soon as they saw her, they jumped up and wrapped their arms around her.
“What are you doing here? You shouldn’t have come,” Allie said.
“We told you we’d be here!” Zoe said.
“To watch me compete, but now…” Allie trailed off. She couldn’t finish her sentence.
“We wanted to be here,” Maddie said.
“Yeah, I wasn’t about to miss this nerd party,” Zoe said as she craned her neck and looked around the room. “This place is ah-maze-ing!”
Emma didn’t say anything at first. She stared at Allie. “It’s my fault, isn’t it?”
Allie rested her hand on her friend’s shoulder. “No, it’s not.”
“You were right. You should have left the code alone. If I hadn’t insisted you fix it—” Emma began, but Maddie cut her off.
“No, it’s my fault,” she said. “It was my idea for you to share it in the first place. You wanted to wait until the competition was over. I should have listened to you.”
“It’s not your fault,” Allie said to Maddie. And then she looked at Emma. “And it’s not your fault, either. It was one hundred percent mine. I shared it because I got worried about Nathan’s game. I got competitive. If I’d shut it down as soon as I realized it was sharing personal pics, I would have been up on that stage, introducing Click’d and its more than three hundred users. Instead, I’m here in the audience, watching.”
Allie’s gaze traveled up to the stage and hung there, taking in the lights and the huge projection screen, and it was all she could do not to cry.
She was relieved when the houselights dimmed, the music went silent, and everyone took their seats. A spotlight shined on the stage, and when Allie looked up, she saw the Spyglass CEO, Naomi Ryan, standing right in the center.
“Welcome! Thank you all for coming to the Fourth Annual Games for Good Youth Developers Competition.” When the applause died down and people returned to their seats, she began pacing the stage slowly.
“I created Spyglass to entertain people. I built this company to bring fun, unique, expertly designed, slick-looking games to mobile devices. I’m excited to say we’ve achieved that, thanks to our hardworking developers and to all the partners we have in this room. But if you know me, you know this: I never intended to stop there. We’re all here for a bigger reason: to use our collective talents to make this world better than we found it.”
The room exploded into applause.
She smiled as she clapped along and paced the stage, waiting for the room to quiet down.
“Today you’re going to meet nine passionate developers. The youngest one is twelve years old. The oldest just turned nineteen. These games are planting trees, protecting endangered animals, teaching people how to survive a massive pandemic, providing bicycles for people in impoverished villages, and grooming people to be teachers in countries where girls are not allowed to learn.”
Allie felt goose bumps travel up her arms.
Naomi Ryan walked to the front of the stage and stood there quietly, waiting for the applause to die down before she continued.
“I promise, you will leave this room today feeling inspired and enlightened. I promise that you will leave this room feeling devastated, because only one person can win this year’s Games for Good competition. And I promise you will leave this room today with renewed hope for the future of this planet, because you’re about to meet representatives of a generation that thinks, cares, and acts.”
When the room erupted into applause again, she walked to one side of the stage with outstretched arms.
“The winner today will receive not only a five-thousand-dollar scholarship, but also serious bragging rights.” There was scattered laughter around the room. “No, the big prize today isn’t the money or the bragging rights, it’s the power of these firms backing one single project.” She turned to the panel of judges. “This is a group of our industry’s most impressive leaders, seven people who have proven to be uniquely gifted at finding the next big thing. Each firm will bring its vast resources to help this one developer take his or her game to the next level. They will spare no expense, right?” she asked. The judges smiled and nodded while the room clapped and cheered.
“Each young developer has six minutes to tell you about his or her game, give you a short demo, and explain why he or she deserves to be this year’s Games for Good winner. Are you ready to meet them?”
The music came back on and the nine developers walked across the stage and stopped in the center. Allie’s heart sunk. It was almost impossible to watch. She so desperately wanted to be up there. Her dad must have sensed it, because he reached over and took her hand in his.
Nathan had ditched the shorts and T-shirt, and he was standing with his feet rooted in place, looking confident in dark jeans, a white collared shirt, and a black blazer.
Allie was still so angry with him, but she couldn’t help feeling nervous for him, too. After everything they’d been through together that week, she was surprised to realize that she wanted him to win.
“Before we begin, I just have to tell this group how impressed I am with every single developer. I don’t get to be a judge, and thank goodness, because I can’t imagine picking one of these games. Each has the potential to reach millions, and change the lives of many people. So, on your feet! Be loud and give our developers a big round of applause!”
Everyone stood, clapping and yelling. And then the lights went dark.
Allie could see the shadows of everyone exiting. Then the music and lights came back up, and there was a girl standing in the middle of the stage. The screen behind her was filled with a bright blue water drop and the words WIL’S WAY.
“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Lauren Secatero and I’m here today to tell you about Wil’s Way, a game designed to bring clean water to developing countries. This is Wil,” she said, pointing proudly to the animated water droplet with big eyes and a wide smile. “Wil stands for Water Is Life, and the name comes from that saying, Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
She launched her game and Wil bounced along the bottom of the screen. As she tipped her phone up, down, and side to side, the water droplet bounced, climbing a series of platforms and avoiding obstacles like piles of dirt and drains. When Wil reached the empty water glass at the top of the screen, the droplet advanced to the next level. Her game was much simpler than Nathan’s, but Allie liked that. At the end of Lauren’s presentation, she got a huge round of applause.