Courtney
Did you show your friends Click’d?
Allie smiled at the screen as she typed her reply.
Allie
Yep. And they LOVED it. And shared it. Get this:
Allie took a screenshot of her profile and sent it to the group.
Courtney
68 users!
Zaina
what? already?
Allie
YEP. Crazy, right?!?
Allie told them all about her strategy to collect more data and real-life success stories, so she’d have even more to show the judges on Saturday.
Kaiya
you have nothing to worry about Morgan
Yeah! G4G is in the bag, baby!
Allie wasn’t so sure about that. She thought about Nathan’s game. She pictured all those little people marching from house to house, building something important together and making a real difference in the world. That’s the kind of stuff the judges would want to see. Built was so obviously a game for good. Was Click’d?
She put her phone on the coffee table. “We need to get out of here,” she said. Bo had been dozing happily, but as soon as he heard her voice, his head snapped up. “I have no idea how I’m going to make it through soccer practice tomorrow. Wanna go for a run?”
Bo knew that word well. He jumped off the couch, ran straight for the door, and sat there with his tail wagging while Allie grabbed his leash off the hook in the laundry room.
At dinner that night, Allie told her parents all about her day. “I’d only planned to share it with Zoe, Maddie, and Emma, but then in fifth period Ms. Slade asked me to present it to the whole class, and they looked so excited about it. So I shared it with all of them, too. And now look!” Allie turned her phone so her parents could see the screen. “Ninety-four users! As soon as we all get within range tomorrow, our phones are going to go crazy! Our leaderboards are going to start changing and everyone’s going be running around, looking for clicks.”
“Are you allowed to use phones during school?” her dad asked.
“Not technically. But we can use them before the first bell and after the last one.” As soon as she said the words, her phone chirped in her pocket and she reached for it.
Zoe
Check the user stats!!!
“Speaking of rules…” her mom said as she pointed at Allie’s phone. “Not at the table.”
“Hold on. Just this one thing,” Allie said as she tapped on the Click’d icon. “No. Way.”
“What’s wrong?” her dad asked.
Allie turned the screen and showed them her profile. “One hundred!” Allie squiggled in her chair, giggling and waving her phone above her head. “One hundred!” she repeated. “That’s huge! That’s like a real user base!”
Her mom and dad smiled at each other and her mom shook her head. “Congratulations, sweetie. Now put the phone down, please.” Allie set her phone facedown on the table and reached for her fork.
Bo crawled under Allie’s chair and she started petting him with her bare foot. As they ate, her mom filled them in on the company she’d been investigating all summer for the newspaper where she worked. And then her dad told them all about a new client he just took on in his law office. Allie listened, but all through dinner, she couldn’t stop picturing all those people from school sitting in their bedrooms, taking the quiz she wrote. She’d watched it spread across her CodeGirls class, but that was different—those girls had practically helped her build it. The whole idea of other people—some of them total strangers—creating a profile, taking the quiz, made her feel oddly powerful. And also a little freaked-out.
But later that night, when she went up to her room and logged into the server, she realized she had nothing to be worried about. She could see everyone’s profiles. She could see the Instagram shots the system pulled for clues, and the gallery of ClickPics everyone had taken so far. They all looked so happy—cheeks pressed together, arms around each other, all wearing huge smiles.
She flopped down on her bed and Bo cuddled up next to her, and then she opened her group text to Maddie, Zoe, and Emma. She felt like she was on top of the world as she typed:
Allie
Best. Street. Team. EVER!
The bus doors slapped open and Allie climbed the stairs.
“Hey, Three,” Marcus said from his spot in the third row.
“Hi, Six,” she said. She was about to ask him about his leaderboard, but when she looked up and saw what was happening on the bus, she found herself at a loss for words.
Every single person seemed to be talking, laughing, twisting around in their seat, and passing phones across aisles. Blue, yellow, and red lights flashed, and bloops ricocheted off the windows, one after another.
Allie walked to her seat wide-eyed. She’d expected a little excitement once all those new users got within range of one another, but this wasn’t even close to what she had in mind!
“Everyone—and by that, I mean ev-er-y-one—is talking about your game,” Zoe said. “You’re famous.”
A voice behind them yelled, “Anyone know who this is?” Allie turned around. A guy in the back row wearing a Warriors cap held his phone up high.
“That’s Ana Hirono,” someone else yelled.
A girl a few rows in front of him twisted around in her seat and waved. “Hey! I’m Ana,” she said. He waved back and passed his phone to her. Everyone watched as it made its way to Ana, and then she tapped their phones together and yelled “Six and seven!” She held the phone up in front of her to take a selfie, angling it so she could see him waving his arms around in the background.
“This is…” Allie was at a complete loss for words. She finally settled on, “Unbelievable.”
Zoe laughed. “It was like this when I got on the bus three stops back,” she said as she tipped her phone in Allie’s direction. “I filled that last open spot on my leaderboard as soon as I stepped on the bus, and within minutes, people who were there yesterday fell off and new ones swapped in. I gotta tell you, I think I’m a little bit addicted.”
“Uh-oh. Is this going to be like your Snapchat obsession?” Allie joked.
“Maybe,” she said proudly.
Zoe tapped the shoulder of a girl in front of her with thick red braids, and she turned around. “This is Lauren. She’s a sixth grader. She’s my number seven.”
Lauren gave them an awkward wave and a shy smile. She had blue braces and wore shiny lip gloss. Then she turned around again and the girl next to her elbowed her, like having Zoe for a friend was a big deal or something.
“How is it that I have more in common with her than I do with Maddie and Emma?” Zoe whispered.
She showed Allie her leaderboard. Maddie had moved down to #8 and Emma was #10.
Allie’s phone blooped three times and her screen started flashing red. “That was fast.” The picture clue was someone’s volleyball team, so it wasn’t any help. Then Penny’s phone blooped three times and started flashing red.