“Now what?”
“I’m not sure.” He pointed at the user count in the top right corner of the monitor. “Activity has been steady all through lunch. There were eight hundred and sixty-two users when I sat down, and that barely changed.”
“And?”
“It just started spiking. Look.” The user base was on the rise again, and it was growing fast.
876.
881.
883.
890.
“Why are you getting all these new users suddenly, especially when the lunch bell is about to ring?”
Nathan’s fingers flew across the keyboard. “Here, let me sort it by ‘last updated’ so we can see the most recent new users. Maybe that will help.”
Allie used Nathan’s armrest to lean in to get a better look. She scanned the first twenty names, trying to figure out what they had in common, but she couldn’t see a thread. “I don’t know any of these people, do you?” she asked, and Nathan shook his head.
“This is so strange,” Allie said. “I haven’t seen spikes like that since Tuesday, when it first started going around. Why would a bunch of people join out of nowhere?”
They watched the numbers climb:
903.
912.
918.
925.
“That’s impossible. There are only nine hundred fourteen students at Mercer.”
Nathan’s jaw dropped open to say something, but he didn’t have a chance to. Allie beat him to it. “Wait. I know her,” she said as she pointed to the screen. “She used to be on my soccer team. She goes to Steinbeck.” Steinbeck Middle School was two towns away.
The bell rang.
927.
935.
943.
“It’s going around Steinbeck.” Allie knew she shouldn’t see this as good news, but she couldn’t help but be a little excited. She shot Nathan a nervous smile.
“Yep.” He shook his head and smiled back. “And ten bucks says their lunch just started.”
After school, Allie went straight to the lab, and she and Nathan worked together for the next hour. She carefully scrolled through her code, stopping at each line in question, highlighting it, and hitting the DELETE key, carefully separating all connections with the photos app from the other functionality. Every time she pressed DELETE, she thought her heart was going to explode, but she kept going until she reached the last line.
She looked down at the paper Nathan had handed her at lunch, double-checking to be sure she’d followed his handwritten changes perfectly.
Everything matched up.
The leaderboard was no longer connected to the photos in any way. No more ClickPics. No more woo-hoo. Allie wondered how long it would take before people noticed.
She took a deep breath and held it as she ran the final test.
“It passed,” she told him. She couldn’t keep the smile off her face. As much as she hated losing features, she couldn’t help but feel relieved.
Her phone chirped by her side and made her jump in her seat.
Mom
In the roundabout
“Are you going to send out the update?” Nathan asked.
“I can’t. My mom’s here. I have to get to soccer practice.” Allie stared at her monitor. “I’ll do it when I get home. That way I can run one more test first.”
Nathan shook his head. “Send the update, you chicken.”
Allie logged out and powered down her computer. “I will. Soon.”
He took a big handful of microwave popcorn and stuffed it into his mouth. “You’re stalling,” he mumbled as he chewed.
She reached for her backpack. “Maybe I am.”
After soccer practice and dinner, Allie ran up the stairs to her bedroom. She rested her feet on Bo as she sat at her desk working on a math assignment, and then taking an online vocabulary quiz, and finally, reading a chapter on the American Revolution for her social studies class.
By nine o’clock, she still hadn’t sent out the update.
“Here goes,” she said to herself.
She logged into the CodeGirls server and navigated over to her code. She double-checked all the work she had done in the lab earlier, and pulled Nathan’s printout from her backpack to be sure she didn’t miss anything. It still matched up perfectly.
Her phone chirped. She picked it up and read the screen:
Nathan
Stop. Stalling.
She laughed quietly. He was right. She’d done everything she could. There was nothing left to do but to send the new version out to the user base.
Allie
I know!!!
OK
I’m doing it right now
She typed up a message to the installed base: SECURITY UPDATE: REQUIRED INSTALL
Her finger was on the mouse, hovering over the SEND button, ready for her to press it.
Nathan
count of three
Allie took a deep breath and blew it out slowly.
Allie
1
2
3
Allie pressed SEND.
A few seconds later, the update message showed up on her phone. She installed it and went straight to her profile. Everything looked good. The ultimate test would come in the morning, when people got within range and the photo queue started filling up, but so far, everything seemed to be working.
Allie wanted to keep staring at the screen, but her eyes were burning and she was fighting to keep them open. She tossed the phone on her bed and changed into her pajamas. She was about to go brush her teeth when she heard another chirp.
Nathan
you did it
Allie
no YOU did it
WE did it and now we’re even Good luck on Saturday
You too
Goodnight
Allie smiled when she saw the alligator emoji. She was still smiling ten minutes later when she climbed into bed, opened Click’d, and navigated over to the CodeGirls group. Even though it was too late for good day/bad day with Courtney, Allie had to tell her about the good parts.
Allie
1200+ users fixed the glitch have more success stories
She put her phone on her nightstand and let her eyes fall shut. As she drifted off, she thought about all the stories she’d gathered so far.
Blake and Jackson. Kira and Sean. Ben and Brody. And then there was Zoe and Ajay, who had been texting each other every night, and Maddie and Chris, who had eaten lunch together that day.
But then she realized she had a sixth one. She thought about the photo she and Nathan took in the lab the day they clicked, and smiled to herself. Their new friendship might have been her favorite story of all.
Allie waited on the corner for the bus, feeling exhausted but pumped with adrenaline at the same time.
She couldn’t wait to get to school. She was going to try to click with as many people as she could before the first bell rang, and at lunch, she’d make Zoe sneak around with her, finally playing the game she’d invented. But most important, she couldn’t wait to tell Emma it was fixed. Maybe then she’d reinstall it. Or maybe she never would, and that would be okay, too. She just wanted to make it right for her.
The bus pulled up, the doors slapped open, and Allie climbed the steps with a big grin on her face. But as soon as she hit the landing and she heard Marcus’s voice, the smile slipped from her lips.