MEG
IT’S JUST A PLAIN BLACK BOX, BUT THE SOLEMN WAY KAT RETRIEVES IT FROM under the bed makes it look like ancient treasure. Like a treasure chest dug out of a spot marked X by a one-eyed pirate or a box of valuable old antiques brought down from a dusty attic, or best of all, a loot box heaved from the depths of the waterlands in LotS.
I flip open the lid.
“O! M! G! Is this your stash?”
“I bought this more for the Kit Kats, not the Rolos.” Kat points her thumb toward the bag of mini chocolate bars.
“Kit Kats? No way. You can’t really prefer Kit Kats to Rolos!”
“Kit Kat has my name in it.”
“Oh. Touché.” I tear open the bag and pull out one Kit Kat and one Rolo, studying the block letters on each wrapper. “There’s no bar with ‘Meg’ in the name. That hardly seems fair.”
She nibbles on her bottom lip for a moment before responding. “They could rename Mr. Big the Megabar.”
“I’m totally going to write to them and suggest that!” I toss her the Kit Kat, then rip open the Rolo, popping all the little pieces into my mouth at once before reaching into the box for another. “This is perfect. I’ll eat the Rolos, you eat the Kit Kats—it’s meant to be.”
She opens her mouth as if to argue, then doesn’t, which is just as well, because there is nothing she could say or do that could convince me that this isn’t a sign.
“Hey, have you seen the Legs video where he falls in lava over and over trying to get the crown?” I ask.
“Episode two of his Speed Run Fails videos? Of course. Who hasn’t?” The corners of her mouth twitch upward just a little, which I think is her equivalent of a huge grin.
“Want to watch it now?”
She looks down at the Kit Kat in her hand. “What about our project?”
“Oh . . . uh . . . right. When’s that due again?” I lift up the bag of salt-and-vinegar chips, revealing a disordered jumble of caramels, Pixy Stix, and other deliciousness at the bottom of the box.
“Well, the final project isn’t due until March—”
“Lizard balls, we’ve got loads of time. Why are we even thinking about this now?” I snatch a caramel. Not my favorite, but better than the bag of dried fruit lying pathetically in the corner.
She blinks at me. “You were the one who—never mind. But we can’t just do the whole thing in March. Our topic’s due in three weeks. Then our proposal, and then we have to complete the experiments by the beginning of February, which means we might have to start it soon if it’s something that takes place over time, and—”
“But our topic’s not due for three weeks?” I can’t get the caramel wrapper off, and I don’t think I’ve ever tried dried fruit, actually. I drop the caramel back in the box, grab the bag, and pull out a soft, white, doughnut-shaped thing.
“Just under three weeks, actually, so—”
“So we’ve got tons of time.” The doughnut-shaped thing is chewy, but not gross. Kind of sweet, actually. “And since Legs doesn’t livestream every weekend, we should do a Legs-a-thon tonight, then the science project next weekend. Or during the week, or whatever.”
I hold out the bag to her and she pulls out a peach-colored mound, which she studies just like the Kit Kat she still hasn’t eaten. “I guess I could use a bit more time to do research,” she says. She pops the peach thing in her mouth.
“Great,” I say, picking up the epic black box of snacky goodness. “Lead on to your computer.”
“Well . . .” She pauses, either to chew or to make a decision or both. “I was going to watch on the big screen in the basement. So we could do that.”
“Even better!” I say. Then I march out of the room with my new BFF right behind me.
Having the Legs video up on the big screen is pure perfection. Normally I’m stuck watching Legs on my tiny laptop or my tablet in my room while Kenzie monopolizes the TV with her Cheery Muffincakes or whatever that show’s called. But down here in Kat’s basement, his cartoony face is big and beautiful.
And it’s not just any episode that Kat puts on. She goes right to the exact episode of his speed runs series that we were talking about, without having to search for it in her video history for a million years like I always have to.
As I settle onto the floor, grabbing a handful of chocolate bars and tossing half of them to Kat on the couch behind me, Legs starts his descent into the rift, leaping from stone to ledge to the wobbly bridge that he immediately tumbles off of, falling into the lava below with a high-pitched scream. “FAIL” scrawls across the screen in big red letters. A deep, echoey, announcer-y version of Legs’s voice reads out the word, accompanied by the ridiculous animation of Legs’s real face crying cartoon tears that I had as my screen saver for a while. I giggle and glance back at Kat, who is scrunching up her lips like she’s trying not to smile.
By the time Legs falls in lava for the bajillionth time, I’m laughing like a hyena and Kat is full-on grinning.
On his bajillion-and-first attempt, Legs finally manages to make it onto the ledge, across the bridge, through the shadowy spiky things, up the vanishing platforms, and, with a whoop of victory, reaches for the crown—as the final platform vanishes and he plunges with a scream of agony into the bottomless lava pool.
“EPIC FAIL,” says the announcer. And the screen. And me.
I turn to Kat, who stands abruptly, her grinning face turning to all business. “We should make pizza. I’ve got a frozen one. I’ll put it in before the livestream starts.” Then she rushes off toward the stairs. I trot after her into the kitchen, where I grab a pizza out of the freezer and start unwrapping it while she turns on the oven.
“Okay,” I say as I set it down on the metal tray she’s pulled out, “one thing I’ve never understood is how Legs knows when a rift is a speed run rift and when it’s just a normal rift full of monsters. They look the same from the outside.”
Her eyes widen as she takes the tray from me and sets it on the stove. “It’s a mod,” she says like it’s obvious.
“A what?”
“A mod.”
I blink at her.
“You know, it’s not part of the original game. It’s a modification someone’s made. You download it and it turns normal rifts into speed runs instead.” She glances at the oven, which is still preheating.
“But everyone does speed runs.”
“Because everyone uses the mod. Or goes on servers that use it. Legs made it popular. Or maybe it made him popular. I don’t know. Probably both.”
As we wait for the oven to warm up, she rambles about mods and whether it’s better to have them server-side or on some other side and why she likes to watch some and play others. It’s the most she’s talked all afternoon.