Allie only planned to be in the quad for five minutes, six tops, just long enough to grab her lunch, swing by the table to say hi to her friends, and tell them she had to get to the computer lab to get ready for the Games for Good competition on Saturday. It was only half-true, but only Zoe would know that.
As Allie waited in line for her lunch, she couldn’t help overhearing the chatter around her. People seemed to have come up with a whole new language to talk about Click’d:
Elizabeth was my three and I was her five, but now she’s my five and I’m her eight.
Aidan and I were ones yesterday, and now he’s not even on my leaderboard!
Eva and I have been twos from day one! Haven’t budged! Allie turned around as two girls high-fived each other.
Bloop.
Allie heard the sound coming from her back pocket. She grabbed her tray from the lunch window and headed out for the old oak tree, and as she walked she could feel her phone buzzing; she couldn’t wait to get to the table so she could check the screen.
Bloop-bloop.
She looked around. The coast was clear, so she stopped right in the middle of the quad, pulled out her phone, and right as she did, the screen flashed red and the bloop-bloop-bloop sounded. She looked up, expecting to find her match, but instead, she found herself nose to chest with someone much taller than her. She slowly tipped her chin up.
Mr. Mohr held a small orange bucket in his outstretched hand. Something inside was blooping three times.
Allie stuffed her phone in her back pocket as fast as she could, but it triple-blooped again. The phone in his bucket called out to hers in response.
“Sorry. I—” she began, but Mr. Mohr cut her off.
“No, don’t be sorry. You’re making this a really good day for me.” He looked at his watch. “The bell only rang ten minutes ago and I’m already up to seven phones.” He held his hand out flat. “I’ll take it, please.”
“No…really…I promise it won’t happen again.”
He tapped a fingertip against his open palm and looked down at her with his eyebrows raised. Allie scanned the quad and saw a bunch of people watching the two of them. Mr. Mohr might have let her off with a warning, but with an audience and a point to prove, there was no way he’d do that.
“You can pick it up at the end of the day.”
Allie reluctantly dropped her phone into his hand. When he tossed it into the bucket, her phone must have touched the one that had been blooping, because one of the phones let out a shrill woo-hoo!
Mr. Mohr peered inside. “What was that?” he asked.
Allie shrugged and shot him a how-am-I-supposed-to-know look.
Mr. Mohr looked like he was about to say more, but then his gaze settled on something over her shoulder. “Hmm. Another one,” he said as he gave the bucket a little shake, like he was determined to fill it to the top before lunch ended.
He walked away and Allie squeezed her eyelids tight. But then she opened them and shook it off. It didn’t matter, she reminded herself. She could live without her phone. She had everything she needed in the computer lab.
When she arrived at the table under the oak tree, Allie slid in between Zoe and Emma. “Mohr just took my phone,” she said with a huff.
She was expecting a little sympathy, but no one said a word. Then she looked at Zoe and realized she was staring back at her with wide eyes, as she shook her head and mouthed the word bad.
Allie didn’t get it. She looked across the table at Maddie, who was sitting there with her arms crossed, glaring at her.
“Hold up. You’re not actually mad at me for refusing to rig your leaderboard?” Allie asked, and Maddie slowly shook her head and pointed at Emma.
Emma was staring down at the table. She wasn’t speaking. She wasn’t even moving.
“What’s wrong?” Allie asked, even though she had a sinking feeling she already knew.
“Wyatt didn’t delete it,” Zoe said. “He sent it to tons of people.”
“No,” Allie whispered.
Emma’s head snapped up. Her eyes were red and puffy. “No?” she yelled. “Seriously? That’s all you can say? No?” She pulled out her phone and shoved it under Allie’s nose.
And there it was: the text exchange Zoe showed her on the lawn the day before. The same one Allie had deleted. The same one that was responsible for the stomachache Allie felt that whole day before, and the one that seemed to have resurfaced again.
Zoe jumped in. “Allie tried to help. It wasn’t her fault, it was mine. I’m so sorry. I never should have taken the screenshot of our conversation. I guess I was just so glad you told me, you know—that you trusted me with a secret. You’ve never done that before, and I guess…I just…” Zoe trailed off when she realized she was rambling and making it worse.
Allie jumped in to try to rescue her. “Don’t be mad at Zoe. It’s not her fault. It’s mine. That picture never should have gone anywhere! As soon as she told me what happened, I deleted it from the system, and after that, I spent hours in the lab after school, trying to figure out what happened.”
Emma kept her eyes locked on Allie. She didn’t blink. “I’m not upset about the picture—”
“Oh, good!” Zoe cut her off with a sigh. “Because I know it’s embarrassing, but—”
Emma slapped her hand hard on the table. “I am upset about the picture! I’m mortified and humiliated. But that’s not what I’m most upset about.” She pointed at Allie and then at Zoe. “You both knew yesterday. You saw me at soccer practice, after this all happened, and you acted like nothing was wrong. You both knew and neither one of you told me.”
“We didn’t think anyone else would see it.” Zoe looked at Allie for support, and Allie tried to nod, but inside, she was cringing.
“In other words, you didn’t think I’d find out?” Emma asked accusingly.
Zoe squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them and locked her gaze on Emma. “I didn’t want you to find out, because I felt horrible and I didn’t want to hurt you. Wyatt said he was deleting it, and I honestly thought that was the end. I didn’t think he’d send it to anyone.”
Emma took a deep breath and folded her arms across her chest. “Well, he did. As it turns out, he thought it was pretty hilarious, so he sent it to all his friends. And they sent it to all their friends, including Andrew. And now the entire school knows something I told exactly one person.” She held her finger up in front of Zoe. “One person I trusted.”
“I’m really so—” Zoe began, but Emma held her finger up in front of her face.
“I know. I get it. You’re sorry.” Emma shook her head. “Do you know where I was when I found out?”
Allie and Zoe looked at each other, and Zoe whispered, “No.”
“I was in the girls’ locker room,” Emma said. “I was standing there in my underwear, when Megan Braxton shoves her phone in front of me and says, ‘Aww…so cute!’ And everyone laughed. The entire row. Because they’d all seen it already, and it was pretty clear I was the only one who hadn’t. So I know you’re sorry, Zoe, and that you never meant for this to happen, Allie, but it did. And it happened to me. So no, I’m not going to accept your apology right this second.”