Emma couldn’t stop laughing. Allie was cracking up, too.
“Oh my God, this is so insanely fun,” Maddie said, touching her phone to Allie’s.
“I know, right?!” Zoe squealed as she and Emma made it official.
Then Allie turned to Zoe and Maddie reached out to Emma. They all held their breath as their leaderboards appeared.
“This is ah-maze-ing!” Zoe yelled.
Woo-hoo!
The sound came from all four phones simultaneously. “What’s that?” Maddie asked, laughing.
“Now we take a selfie together,” Allie said. “It will go out to the whole user community to show that we clicked.”
“By ‘user community’ you mean the four of us?” Zoe drew a circle in the air in front of them.
“Well, for now,” Allie said, laughing. “It’s just for us until after the competition on Saturday. Then maybe we can invite some more people.”
Maddie looked at her phone. “But without more friends, we can’t see the rest of the leaderboard,” Maddie said. “I just have question marks.” She turned the screen toward the other girls. “I can’t have question marks.”
“Exactly,” Zoe said. “We need more users.”
“Right? We need everyone in here!” Maddie said as she tapped a manicured fingernail against the glass.
“Like, the whole school,” Emma added.
Allie loved how excited they were to share it, but she couldn’t let them do that. Not yet. “Just wait till next week, after the competition is done. Then I’ll count on you to help me share it with everyone and teach people how to use it. You can be my street team!” Allie said. But that didn’t seem to be what her friends wanted to hear.
“I don’t know about that,” Maddie said, as she glanced around campus. Allie watched her, thinking that she knew that look on her best friend’s face far too well. Maddie was calculating. “You have more than nine hundred kids stuck inside a two-acre campus for eight hours each day. And it’s the first week of school, so about three hundred of them are sixth graders who hardly know anyone, along with who knows how many seventh and eighth graders who might want to start off the school year with some new friends.”
“What’s your point?” Allie asked.
“Isn’t your competition all about games for good?” Maddie said. “I would think a few stories about it doing good on your own middle school campus might be a nice touch, that’s all.”
Zoe hooked her thumb in Maddie’s direction. “She’s right, you know.”
Allie thought about it. She was dying to see what Click’d could do in the real world. She’d tested it in the lab to be sure it could handle hundreds, even thousands, of concurrent users, and it passed with flying colors. And she loved the idea of sprinkling her presentation with real-life success stories of newfound friendships. But there was too much at stake.
“I can’t risk it crashing, you guys…not with the Games for Good competition on the line.” Allie held up a finger. “Just wait one week. And then it’s all yours to share.”
Allie was beaming when she opened the door to the computer lab. She was still thinking about the way her friends squealed with excitement as they tapped their phones together and took their spots on one another’s leaderboards. They loved Click’d. She’d spent all summer hoping they would, and they did.
She couldn’t wait to get home after school and text her fellow CodeGirls to tell them all about her first real-life beta test. Courtney would be so excited for her. They all would be. She pictured herself on the couch with her dog, Bo, curled up by her side, her fingers buried in his soft fur while she tapped away on her phone’s keyboard.
The lab was filling up quickly, and Allie was happy to see that no one had taken the station she’d sat in last year. She was racing toward it when she heard Ms. Slade call her name. Allie turned to see her teacher waving her over. “Can you come here for a second?”
Nathan Frederickson was standing there, too. Allie felt her eyes narrowing as she walked toward him.
She and Nathan had gone to the same elementary school. They were both in the same computer class. Every year, they entered the same contests and competed against each other in the science fair, and Nathan beat Allie out every time. And every time, he couldn’t wait to rub her nose in it.
Allie could count her enemies on one hand. In fact, she could count them on one finger. And his name was Nathan Frederickson.
He was wearing loose, light-washed jeans, black slip-on Vans, and a white T-shirt with a big Poké Ball on it. He was taller than he was last year, but other than that, he looked pretty much the same, with freckles spread across his cheeks, and messy red hair.
“Hey,” Allie said.
“Hey,” Nathan mumbled back.
Ms. Slade must have been able to feel the tension because she laughed and said, “Well, now that we’ve got those pesky formalities out of the way!”
No smile from Nathan.
No smile from Allie.
“I wanted to congratulate both of you in person.” Ms. Slade looked at the two of them. “I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am to show off my two Games for Good contestants.”
“What?” Allie asked. Ms. Slade hadn’t mentioned anything about mentoring Nathan, too. She couldn’t be serious. Allie looked over at Nathan and saw the color drain from his face.
“Allie’s in G4G?” he asked.
“Yep. I added her last weekend. Wait until you see her game, Nathan. It’s extraordinary.” And then she turned to Allie. “And the game Nathan’s been working on all summer is going to blow your mind!” She drummed her hands on her desk excitedly.
Allie didn’t say a word.
Nathan didn’t say anything, either.
They were both trying as hard as they could not to look at each other.
“Now, as your mentor,” she said, “it’s my job to help you get ready for Saturday in every way I can. Your games are solid at this point, so the best thing I can do is to prepare you to wow those judges. And I had an idea on my way to school this morning! What do you think about demonstrating your apps to your classmates today?”
Allie didn’t say a word. Neither did Nathan.
Ms. Slade batted at her dangly earrings, showing off her yellow strong-arm emojis. “Remember these? They’re my first-day-of-school earrings. They’re supposed to remind you to be brave and strong when you walk in these doors every day for the next ten months.”
Allie didn’t feel brave or strong. She felt nervous. Her palms were getting clammy, so she rubbed them against her jeans. “I would, but I don’t have the voting app.”
“You can improvise, can’t you?” Ms. Slade asked.
“I guess. But I…just…” Allie heard herself stammering. “I just didn’t plan to show it to anyone other than my three best friends until after the competition.”
Nathan looked over and raised an eyebrow, silently questioning her, and Allie suddenly felt defensive. She glared back at him. “Not because the code isn’t solid, Nathan. It is. It’s rock solid.”