Allie looked at him. “Really?”
He angled his phone so she could see the leaderboard. Her name was at the top, and the other nine slots were still filled with question marks, exactly the way they were the day before.
“Why?” she asked.
He shrugged and set his phone facedown on the desk. He opened his mouth to say something, but then, suddenly, the door flew open.
“There you are!” Maddie yelled. She stepped inside, but Allie couldn’t tell from the look on her face if she was still angry at her.
“What are you doing here?” Allie asked.
Maddie waved her phone in the air. “I thought you should see this. There are a bunch of new users.” She clicked on one of the profiles in her friend list and turned the phone toward Allie. “Do you know who this is?”
Allie looked at the picture. She couldn’t place her. “I’ve seen her before.”
Maddie laughed under her breath. “Yeah, you definitely have.”
She handed Allie her phone so she could get a better look. “No way,” Allie said.
“Yep. That’s Ariana Grande,” Maddie said. “There are a bunch of others, too. Apparently, if you play your cards right, you can have Justin Bieber, Beyoncé, Miley Cyrus, and Lady Gaga on your leaderboard, too.”
Allie didn’t care so much about the fake accounts. She was mostly watching Maddie, trying to get a read on her. Was she still mad about what happened with Emma? Allie couldn’t tell for sure. But then Maddie smiled and said, “Anyway, I thought you’d want to know right away, so I…tracked you down.”
It was her way of breaking the tension. Maddie hated conflict; she could never stay mad at anyone for very long.
“Thanks.” Allie looked over at Nathan. He already had his headphones back on and he seemed to be concentrating on his screen, so she turned back to Maddie. “Hey, is Emma okay?” she whispered.
“Yeah. She’s embarrassed. And she’s mad. But you know Emma, she won’t stay mad at you forever.”
Allie bit down on her lower lip. “And you?”
Maddie shrugged. “I said what I had to say. We’re good.”
Allie shot her a grateful smile and then looked over Maddie’s shoulder at her screen again. “When did you find these fake profiles?”
“About five minutes ago. Zoe and Emma were talking, and I didn’t want to get in the way, so I went into the bathroom and thought I’d check for new users, and that’s when I saw them. I’m guessing there’s at least twenty.”
Allie buried her face in her hands. She didn’t have time for any of this. She was supposed to be building her user base and collecting stories that proved Click’d was a game for good, not fixing broken code, deleting suspicious pictures, and dealing with fake accounts.
She glanced up at the clock over the door. The bell was going to ring any second.
“I’m going to have to get rid of them one by one,” Allie said matter-of-factly.
Allie’s fingers flew across the keyboard. She could feel Maddie watching over her shoulder as the names, photos, numerical rankings, and phone numbers filled the screen.
“Man, you’ve got dirt on the whole school,” Maddie said.
Allie clicked the top of the column and sorted all the users by last name. She started scanning, stopping to delete a famous person every time she saw one. She’d only deleted two of the accounts when the bell rang.
“Ms. Slade won’t let you stay,” Nathan said. “Trust me, I’ve tried.”
The fifth-period students were already filing in through the doors and heading to their computer stations.
“Look, they aren’t hurting anything,” Nathan said as he pointed to the screen. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I can’t just leave it like this,” Allie said. “The judges are going to see this on Saturday. What will they think?”
Nathan shrugged. “That your user base is made up of a bunch of middle schoolers,” he said matter-of-factly.
Allie opened her mouth to object, but she couldn’t think of a comeback.
“Seriously,” Nathan said. “It’s not a big deal. Let it go.”
Allie stared at Taylor Swift’s profile data, thinking that Nathan was probably right. She had bigger problems to solve. Still, she highlighted Taylor’s name, photo, and the rest of her data, and hit the DELETE key.
Then she looked over at Maddie. “You’re his twelve. He’s your fifteen.”
A slow smile spread across Maddie’s face. “Really?”
Allie nodded.
Maddie looked at her sideways. “That’s not why I came in here today. You know that, right?”
Allie wasn’t sure she was telling the truth, but it didn’t matter that much. She just didn’t want her to be mad at her anymore. Emma’s anger was punishment enough.
Maddie wrapped her arms around Allie’s shoulders from behind. “Thank you,” she said as she squeezed her hard.
Allie stole a glance at Nathan. He looked confused as he logged out and reached for his backpack.
A crowd had already formed at the office counter.
“I’m going to miss my bus,” one guy said.
“My mom is waiting for me at carpool,” a girl behind her said. “She’s probably texting me right now.”
“This is stupid,” a guy on her left whispered under his breath.
On the one hand, Allie was glad she didn’t have soccer practice after school so she could stay in the lab as late as Ms. Slade would let her. But on the other hand, she wished she had soccer practice so she could talk to Emma. As she stood in line waiting to get her phone back, she started wondering if she could do both. If she could get Emma to meet at the lab, she could show her the Click’d database and all the code, and explain how she was fixing the issue. She could apologize for not telling her about the glitch right away, as she should have.
She couldn’t wait to get her phone back.
Finally, Mr. Mohr walked out of his office carrying the orange bucket and looking triumphant. He stepped up to the counter and started sliding the phones down to the waiting students one by one. “I can’t keep you from using these before the first bell or after the last one, but you know the rules. If I see a phone during the school day, it’s all mine.”
Allie’s must have been at the bottom, and when she finally spotted it, she didn’t even make eye contact with Mr. Mohr; she grabbed it and raced out of the office.
As soon as she turned it on, a text popped up on the screen. It was sent to the whole Click’d community:
LEADERBOARD PARTY!
BLACKTOP!
NOW!
“Leaderboard party?” she said under her breath. She guessed it meant a bunch of people would be in one spot, generating picture clues at the same time, and that meant she needed to get to Ira. Fast.
But first, she had to see if Emma would meet her.
Allie
Can you meet me in the computer lab right now?
There was no reply for a full minute. Allie started walking to the lab, watching her screen as she went. Finally, her phone chirped.
Emma
Can’t. Guitar lesson.
She could tell she was still angry from the tone of her text. As she walked, she typed a message to Zoe.
Emma’s still mad at me. Did you talk to her?
Zoe