At two, more than five hundred had installed it.
At three, there were a bunch of new groups and she had more than one hundred new users. She could tell Maddie, Zoe, and Emma were spreading it around the mall, and she laughed when she saw all the new ClickPics pouring in featuring her friends with complete strangers.
At four, when she was nearing fourteen hundred users, she typed out a text to Nathan.
Allie
what are you doing right now?
Nathan
nothing why?
come over? I want to show you something.
Allie texted him her address, and an hour later she heard the doorbell ring. She sprinted down the stairs, but her mom was already in the entryway, opening the front door.
“Hi. I’m Nathan.” He sounded nervous. “I’m a friend of Allie’s.”
Bloop-bloop-bloop.
Her mom pulled the door open wider so he had room to step inside. “Of course!” she said excitedly. “I saw your presentation yesterday. I loved your game! Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” Nathan said.
Her mom pointed to the kitchen. “I’m making dinner. Would you like to stick around and join us?”
Nathan looked up and saw Allie standing on the bottom step. When she nodded approvingly, he turned back to her mom and said, “Sure.”
Suddenly, Bo came racing down the stairs. He flew past Allie and stopped at Nathan’s feet. He sat looking up at him, his tail wagging excitedly.
Nathan crouched down. “Hi there!” he said as he reached out with both hands and rubbed Bo’s back. “Who’s this?”
“This is Bo. The best dog in the world.”
Nathan stopped petting him and looked at her. “That’s impossible. My dog, Archie, is the best dog in the world.”
Allie rolled her eyes. “Are we actually going to compete over who has the best dog?”
“Yep.” He covered Bo’s ears with his hands. “Because I have the best dog.”
“No, you don’t.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Yes, I do.”
She rolled her eyes. Allie and Nathan tapped their phones together, and then Allie curled her finger toward her chest. “Follow me. I have something to show you.”
They climbed the stairs and Allie led Nathan into her room. She sat down at her computer and opened all the data stored on the CodeGirls server.
“So…something you said yesterday got me thinking. Thanks to Click’d, I have all this data, right?” She scrolled down through the user information. “I have all the basic profile stuff, plus answers to fifty questions from more than fourteen hundred people, and I’m getting more every day. You once asked me what I was going to do with all of it, and I didn’t know. It hadn’t really occurred to me to analyze it until yesterday, but now that I have, I feel like I have a pretty good understanding about my user base.”
Allie had created new check boxes, filters, and a pull-down menu to help her easily sort everything.
“Check it out. These three hundred and sixty-eight people are into charitable causes and do-gooder-type stuff. You can tell because of the way they answered questions four, twelve, nineteen, and forty-three.”
She unchecked the CAUSES box and clicked one titled GAMES instead. A new set of names filled the screen. “These four hundred and ninety people love video games. I know this because of the way they answered questions six, twenty-seven, and forty-four.”
Allie filtered the data again. “These two hundred and eighty-four users like crafts and making things.” She selected another box. “And these three hundred and fifty-eight people like the outdoors and things like extreme sports, which isn’t the same as building a house or anything, but I figured it was kinda close.”
“Where are you going with this?”
Allie leaned back in her chair. “Did you install the update I sent out this morning?”
“Yeah.”
“Three new screens popped up before the install began. Do you remember what they said?”
Nathan thought about it. “There was a user agreement.”
“Yep,” Allie said.
“And I had to give it permission to access Instagram and photos.”
She nodded.
He looked out of the corner of his eye, like he was trying to visualize the third screen. And then he grinned. “It was an opt-in. It asked if I wanted to be notified about similar apps and games.”
A huge smile spread across Allie’s face. “Did you check the box?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“You did. I know so.” Allie turned back toward the monitor. “You agreed. And so did these nine hundred eighty-four users.” She sorted the data again and their names filled the monitor. “This is all of them, broken up into four categories based on their specific interests.”
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“If you’re thinking that we’re going to send them the link for Built, then yes.” She opened all the categorized user data again. “And we’re going to use their interests in video games, crafts, outdoor activities, and causes to craft specific messages to each group.”
Nathan stared at the screen for a long time.
“You seem to be at a loss for words,” Allie said. He didn’t take his eyes off the screen. Allie wasn’t even sure he’d blinked. “That’s kind of a new thing for you.”
He ran his fingers through his hair. “Why are you doing this for me?” he finally asked.
“I’d do anything for my friends,” Allie said with a shrug. “And what can I say? I keep trying to get rid of you, but you just keep coming back. Always in that number one spot.”
Allie rested her lunch tray against one hip and used her free hand to check her jeans pocket. Yep. Her phone was still there. Just like it had been two minutes earlier.
Relax, she told herself. It’s all good.
As Allie walked to the old oak tree, she looked around the quad. Every once in a while, she’d hear a bloop and see two people walk toward each other and quietly tap their phones together, but it wasn’t like last week. Most people had already reclicked. Now they were forming new groups like “Mercer + Steinbeck” and planning new leaderboard parties after school at the mall, so they could click with kids in nearby towns.
Mr. Mohr stopped as he passed by her. “Congratulations, Ms. Navarro,” he said. “Ms. Slade told me you were brilliant at the Games for Good competition.”
“Thank you, Mr. Mohr. But…I didn’t compete. And I didn’t win.”
He kept walking. “I know that, too.”
Allie smiled to herself and continued to her table. When she arrived, Emma and Zoe scooted over to make room, and she sat down between them. Then she looked across the table at Maddie. And then at Chris, who was sitting next to her. He whispered something in her ear, and Maddie blushed and scooted closer to him.
Allie pressed her hands flat against the table. “Best. Street. Team. Ever.”
“It’s working?” Maddie asked.