I’ve been awarding myself experience points every night for finishing my homework and studying for tests, and I know I’ve done a lot better. The Wall of Heroes is starting to get filled in, with thousands of experience points in the bank. The problem is that there’s no way to hit “reset” on seventh grade, and first-quarter report card day is here.

They hand them out right before the end of school, so it’s not until I’m sitting on the bus that I actually get to look at mine. The whole walk from the lobby to the bus I feel the closing music revving up, but I don’t know what it’s going to be. Joyful trumpets or sad trombone?

I run to the first seat I can find, not worrying about the usual positioning to stay away from the elementary school goblins with their squeaky voices and snotty noses. Alone, a first grader is cute. In packs, they are a menace to the civilized world.

I scrunch down, my whole body tense as I press my knees into the seat in front of me. I pull the report card out and scan down the columns that will determine my fate for the next quarter.

And the amazing thing is, I survived. Various flavors of Bs, a C+ in math, and I’ve even gotten an A– in English. Ms. Pritchard must have really liked my reading report on how Tuck Everlasting was pro-death propaganda and should be banned for supporting the Grim Reaper’s murderous agenda. How can anyone not think that living forever would be totally awesome?

I’m pretty impressed with myself, given that I started the year out suffering under some sort of laziness jinx.

I practically run downstairs when Mom gets in that night.

“Why are you thudding down the stairs, Joshie?” Mom asks.

I shove the report card in her face.

“I did it!”

She grins and examines the report.

“I guess you did,” she admits. “Well done. You passed, anyway!”

She leans in and gives me a hug. Which is normally annoying, because lately she squeezes a little tighter than is really necessary, but I don’t even mind, because I know what’s coming next.

I look at her and raise an eyebrow. “So, this means that …”

She nods slowly. “Are you sure you want them back? Maybe you discovered that you don’t like them anymore?”

I give her my best witch doctor hex stare.

“But wouldn’t you rather spend your time studying and doing math than playing video games? I mean, does anyone even play them anymore?” Apparently she has been building up an immunity to my hexing powers. Moms are sly like that.

She can see the fury in my face, and she cracks up before it goes any further. Then we both start laughing, though mine is a bit more nervous than hers. I won’t feel at ease until I actually have a controller in my hand.

I get over the joke pretty quickly, but she’s still giggling at her own cleverness as she unpacks my video game systems and brings them down for me. When she puts the cardboard box of games and systems back in my room it feels like my birthday, Christmas, and the last day of school all wrapped into one.

They’re a little dusty from the closet, and I clean everything off like it’s an archaeological dig. For a minute I sit there staring at the pile of games, not knowing what to do first. They are all there, my old friends with their bright covers, so many memories trapped on each disc. Sure, you can download all of them now, but I still like to have the physical copy if I can get it. Something about the shelf of games makes it feel more like my collection.

There are the Nintendo games, with characters who’ve been with me since I was a little kid. There are the Final Fantasy games, with their crazy hair and huge swords. I never tell anyone, but I cried a few times in those. Then there are the ones with guns that I keep in the back and don’t play when my mom is around. And so many others—swords and sorcery, crazy animals, robots with lasers.

And then, underneath the pile, the sports games that I haven’t touched in almost two years. The ones I used to play with Dad after he got home from work, hoping we could get in one more game before Mom called us in for dinner. He would plop on the couch, unbutton his dress shirt to reveal a grimy white T-shirt, and grab the second controller. His face would be covered with stubble and he smelled like sweat after a long day at the bank, but somehow that smell came to feel safe and normal.

It seemed that, with his hands on a controller, Dad would talk freely, way more than he normally would. He’d tell me about the crazy rich people he had to talk out of harebrained investment schemes, and the less-inappropriate half of the dirty jokes his officemate Harry told.

His deal with Mom was that she cooked and he did the dishes, but I can’t tell you how many times we would bet his five dollars against me doing the dishes on a game of basketball. And somehow, in those games, he always played way better than usual. You’d be shocked at how many years it took me to figure that trick out.

And when I tried to procrastinate and get him to play one more game, he would shrug and say, “If you have something hard to do, the best time to start is now.” He seemed to think his saying was so wise. And since I was doing his chores while he was beating my high scores on my video game system—well, I guess I have to admit he must have had a certain sort of wisdom.

“Josh, come down for dinner,” Mom calls from downstairs. “I made bacon-stuffed cheeseburgers to celebrate your grades.”

I look up at the clock and realize I’ve been sitting here staring at the cover of that basketball game for almost half an hour. It was a couple years out of date even then, but we liked this version. And I swear Dad knew some cheat codes on this one.

I get up, wipe my eyes with the backs of my hands, and go down to the dining room to celebrate.

The next morning on the way to the bus stop, I walk with a new swagger. I’ve leveled up. Who would have thought that working at something actually made you more successful at it? That doing schoolwork led to parents and teachers not going crazy? I swear that I had no idea that’s how it works.

I resolve to keep doing my schoolwork, even though I have my games back. Well … most of it, anyway. I’m not making any guarantees. But I promised Mom at dinner last night that I would, and now she knows that taking away my video games means I get better grades. Which is an unholy power that no mother should have.

I stare out the bus window as the big-box stores and apartment complexes roll by. The problem with leveling up is that once you start, you don’t want to stop. My life is better, but still feels empty. I have my games back, but at my old school I had friends to play them with.

Which is strange, because I can’t remember how I got those friends in the first place. I guess when you’re a kindergartener, making friends over blocks, seesaws, and toy trucks is a lot easier. Once you grow up and go to middle school, it’s a lot more complicated. What’s the trick?

It was fun hanging out at Peter’s house, but that was just the once, and none of them really talked to me much this past week.

So I call up my usual cast of advisors to try to figure this one out. How would they make friends?

YOSHI would offer to give people a ride on his back and lick their enemies to death.

Strategic Assessment: This seems like a pretty solid plan, but I have a skinny back, and I can’t even use my tongue to whistle properly, so I doubt I can use it to defeat bad guys. Not a great outlook on this one.

SOLID SNAKE would speak in a gravelly voice, make threats, and avoid talking about his feelings at all costs.

Strategic Assessment: Solid Snake doesn’t actually have any friends. He’s cool and all, but as a role model for making friends … probably not that useful.

MARIO would jump through world after world, sacrificing everything to try to save Princess Peach. And she would keep getting captured. It seems like every couple years it happens again. It’s almost like she’s actually in league with Bowser and wants to be captured.

Strategic Assessment: This whole scenario is starting to creep me out. Mario should probably quit chasing Princess Peach and go do some online speed dating or something. He’s got a much better shot at success that way.

LINK would find out what each person in the town wants and then go on epic quests to get it for them.

Strategic Assessment: Doing nice things for people. Actually not a bad idea!

CLOUD STRIFE FROM FINAL FANTASY would seek out other noble warriors who share his goals and form up an adventuring party.

Strategic Assessment: This is pretty brilliant. You see, Mom? Video games do have important lessons they can teach us. They’re not only rotting my brain, they’re also teaching valuable social skills.

I need to find common cause with a group of like-minded adventurers. I step off the bus, narrowly dodging a third grader who seems to think his pencil is a lightsaber. Kind of funny, but I pretend not to notice.

It all comes together as I walk up the stairs to my locker and see one of the signs:

VIDEO GAME DECATHLON

SIGN UP THIS WEEK!

ALL PROCEEDS GO TO THE SPRING FIELD TRIP.

That’s it. I know a bunch of kids who are video game nuts like me. Maybe they’ll ask me to play with them! Once you’ve been in an adventuring party with someone, I figure it’s going to be much more likely you’ll end up friends with them. So I have to hope that they’ll ask me to join their party. I remember overhearing Maya and Taniko talking about it earlier in the year.

At the beginning of the day I’m so excited I can barely pay attention in class. I chat with Peter in math, help Chen decipher the corrections in a social studies essay, and have my tutoring session with Maya, but none of them mention it. I hear several other people talking about the Decathlon in the hallway, but I end the day no closer to having an adventuring party. By the time I get home, the nervous energy from the morning is gone. I trudge into my room and toss down my backpack. I do my homework first—which I almost never do—because video games remind me of my failure today. I go downstairs and sit on the couch for a while after I’m finished, not having the energy to do anything, but not tired enough to sleep. I turn the TV on, and end up watching pro wrestlers taunt one another but never get around to having a wrestling match. Those guys seem to talk about their feelings a lot. Solid Snake wouldn’t approve.

From the couch, I watch Lindsay come in, disappear into her room to change outfits, and then head back out.

“Hey,” she says each time, not even looking up from the messages flying back and forth on her phone. As I lie there, I look down at my phone. Nothing but notifications from annoying games that I don’t play anymore. No, I don’t want free dragon bucks or a bonus laser cannon for my battle station. Mom isn’t going to be home until late tonight, so it’s my rumbling stomach that finally gets me off the couch. I make a peanut butter sandwich, grab some milk, and trudge up to my room.

I sit on my bed eating, trying to figure out what could raise my spirits. When I’m done eating I wipe my hands on my jeans and look through my collection, carefully staying away from the ones in the back. But I do look at some of the classics, the games I’ve kept because I heard they’re timeless, like the original Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. My hand stops on Final Fantasy VII.

If I’m trying to form a party, this is one of the best games to show the way. I look at Cloud, standing on the cover with his improbably enormous sword. What would he do?

I sigh. He wouldn’t be some loser, waiting around to get asked to join in the fun. He’d go right after whatever he wanted.

That night I lie awake in bed, mind spinning in circles. What if they don’t want me? What if they’ve already made their team? If they wanted me, wouldn’t they have already asked me? It all seems so futile.

I finally fall asleep, early in the morning, still flopping back and forth trying to get comfortable. And I swear, in my feverish state, that Sir Lancelot appears to me in a vision.

“Josh Baxter,” he says, his voice booming through the halls of Camelot. “You must seek out your companions, for the path of the hero is the path of action.”

“But, Lancelot,” I complain. “What if they don’t want me? What if they’ve already got a full team?”

The greatest knight of the round table shakes his head and chuckles. “You have to undertake this challenge not because you are guaranteed victory, but to prove that you can make the attempt, to prove yourself worthy. A true hero doesn’t wait for the permission of others to undertake his quest.”

“But …”

“It does not need to make perfect sense, Josh Baxter. It’s just a dream,” Lancelot intones, and then turns around and demands another flagon of mead, and I wake up to my buzzing alarm.

Now, I can’t explain why a hero like Sir Lancelot bothered to take the time to visit a middle school kid and help him overcome his anxiety, but I appreciate it. And I know he’s right. A player character needs to take the initiative. If I want to make this happen, I have to be the catalyst.

So that day in math class, I put the question to Peter, even though I would rather face all the knights of the round table than ask one of my classmates to let me join his video game team.

“Hey, Peter,” I say when he sits down across from me.

“ ’Sup, Bax?” he answers.

“Are you guys doing the Video Game Decathlon? I’m kind of … looking for a team.” It comes out so lamely, but for a second it feels good to have it out there in the world instead of rattling around inside my head.

Peter shrugs and grumbles, and I feel like an idiot for asking.

He sits there for a minute, looking sour. Finally he turns to me and shrugs.

“Don’t feel bad, man. We were going to ask you, since teams can be up to six,” he says. Which is a nice thought, but my stomach drops out from the hopelessness in his voice. “But Mittens and his student council friends got ahold of it,” he continues. “They changed the format. It’s got a bunch of sports games now. We don’t play that junk.”

As Peter is talking, Chen drops his backpack and slides into the seat behind him.

“You guys talking Decathlon?” He almost growls after he says it. “I can’t believe they changed it so much. It’s barely even the same thing anymore.”

“Last year Chen and I got knocked out in the semifinals when it came down to us versus Maya and Taniko,” Peter explains. “When we heard they were changing the game list, we decided to join forces to stay competitive. Also, I’m trying to get Chen to talk to Taniko more, ’cause he has a ginormous crush.”

“Shut up,” Chen says. “You know that it can never happen.”

“Dude …” Peter starts to argue, then shrugs and gives up, as if he knows how this conversation will go from previous attempts. “Anyway, when the student council released the final list, it had changed too much. There’s a bunch of sports games on there now. NBA 2K-something, Football something, NCAA whatever …”

“NCAA Soccer. I don’t think anyone even watches that on TV, let alone plays the game. I don’t know how to play that stuff,” Chen says, making a face like he’s about to puke. “I don’t think they’re even real games. The student council said they ‘wanted to be more inclusive.’ Which means they want it to be more inclusive of us losing.”

Peter shakes his head. “So we all got together last week and decided not to do it. Let the jocks win without us competing. That way it won’t mean anything.”

I’ve gotten so excited I have to grip the edge of my desk to keep steady.

“I’ve been playing those games since I was a little kid. My dad and I used to … we would always …” I struggle to get it out. “Anyway, I’ve been playing those games for years. I can play them, and I can show you guys how to play for the team ones.”

Peter gives me a long look and raises an eyebrow. “Really? How good are you?”

I wonder how skilled I really am. But would Lancelot back down? No, I don’t think so. “Good enough,” I say with confidence that I don’t feel. “I’ll show you.”

Peter shrugs. “Okay, let’s talk it over with the girls at lunch.”

Chen’s lip curls up. “I want to destroy them.”

We both look at him.

“The jocks, not the girls!”

Unfortunately, I don’t start off lunch that day with a persuasive argument uniting us all behind one common goal. It doesn’t quite go like that.

“Captain America is a meathead with a dinner plate, and Thor is a Labrador retriever with a comically large hammer. Iron Man is a billionaire industrialist!” Peter is saying when I walk up and put my tray down.

“Hulk is a brilliant research doctor, at least when he’s not big and green,” Chen says, clearly repeating himself. “Why don’t you even mention him?”

“Iron Man is a scientist, too,” Peter answers. “And he makes things people actually want to use!”

“Uh, what’s up, guys?” I mutter as I sit down.

“Smartest Avenger,” Maya explains. “It’s obviously Black Widow, but they’re not listening to me.”

“Loki,” Taniko says.

“Doesn’t count!” Chen protests. “He’s a villain!”

“Loki,” Taniko insists. “He ‘avenges’ with the rest of them when it suits his goals.”

“What exactly are they supposed to be avenging?” I say, hoping to derail the conversation. “They should be called the Mostly Bad at Teamwork World-Saving Group.”

It doesn’t work. They dive in further, pulling out a variety of obscure backstory trivia that I’ve never heard of.

“Do you know that Iron Man and Hulk both have multiple PhDs?” Taniko says at one point. “The five most famous Avengers actually have an average of 1.2 PhDs each.”

I want to smack my head over and over with my math textbook. Where do my friends find the time?

I hope the Video Game Decathlon will come up naturally at some point, but as lunchtime runs out, I realize that it’s not going to be so easy.

In games, you show up and the boss battles happen. You walk in, dodge the cannonballs, shoot some arrows, and you win. In real life, if you want those experience points, it’s a little more complicated. Cannonballs and spike pits are more straightforward than conversations. Sometimes it’s easier to be Hercules and reroute a river than it is to change the course of a discussion.

“Hawkeye is definitely not the smartest,” I toss into the fray. Everyone nods. There is a moment of silence, due to the fact that my statement is immune to counterargument. I open my mouth to say something about the Decathlon, but before I can, Taniko jumps in to say that Loki’s mastery of the art of dark sorcery is equivalent to Iron Man’s education in mechanical engineering.

One of the facts of life at Howard Taft Middle School that you have to accept: the Whirlwind can get out a complete thought before you can finish your first word.

Finally, another moment of silence falls.

“Video Game Decathlon,” I blurt out. “We should do it.”

“Oh, yeah. Right. We were going to talk about that,” Peter says, as if he’s waking up from an amnesia spell. “Josh is sick at sports games. So, back on?”

“Sure!” Taniko answers. Maya shrugs, but everyone seems to take it as a yes.

“So what should we call ourselves? I’ve already got a list of ideas!” Taniko asks as she pulls a page out of her notebook.

And of course she does. The Whirlwind is always one step ahead.

But none of Taniko’s names are a big hit, and the debate begins.

Maya wants names that sound like cool bands no one has ever heard of, like The Vivid or Stalwart.

“Gloves Are Better,” Peter suggests with a snicker. I clench my jaw and shake my head. I don’t need Mittens any madder at me than he already is. Another fight and my mom will probably throw my video game systems into the city reservoir.

“If we’re doing clothes, why not Socks with Sandals?” Taniko suggests, with a disapproving glance at Chen’s feet.

“Link to the Internet,” I throw out. I’ve always liked the puns in the titles of Zelda games.

Finally, with one minute left in the lunch period, we settle on a name that no one hates: The Tap-Dancing Stormtroopers. It was actually the third name on Taniko’s original list.

“Okay okay okay, but someone has to go sign up!” Taniko says as soon as the delicate negotiation is complete. Nothing gets the Whirlwind going more than a deadline, and teachers are starting to usher kids out of the cafeteria.

“Social studies always starts a couple minutes late. I’ll take care of it,” I offer.

I practically run to the office, hoping to sign up and make it back to class in time, but it turns out that we aren’t the only group who are joining at the last minute. I have to stand in line, with time ticking down as other kids sign their names.

Finally I get to the front and am able to scrawl out our names. I’m a pretty good artist, but somehow that doesn’t translate into good handwriting, especially when I’m rushed. And I butcher Taniko’s last name. But I forget about that completely when I hear the voice behind me.

“Hurry it up, Creep.” It’s the sound of pure evil. My nemesis. Schmittendorf’s voice has become almost painful to hear, like the screech of metal against metal.

I spin around, and he leans in to look at the list. “They decided to actually compete, huh?” His breath is rancid with sloppy joes from lunch, and I find myself wishing I could make a called shot to toss a breath mint into his maw.

I’d need to level up my throwing accuracy, though. And maybe learn a Conjure Breath Mint spell. I don’t know of any magic shops in the area that sell that sort of thing.

“Yeah,” I answer with a shrug.

“Don’t forget I’m the champ, Creep. We’re gonna annihilate you,” he says. “I don’t lose. Not to creeps like you. At anything.”

“Whatever, man,” I say, stepping carefully around him and moving for the door.

“If you win by some cheat,” he hisses as I walk out, “I will end you.”

The stench of the Mitten Monster’s breath and the sound of his voice cling to me all day. I have to take a shower as soon as I get home from school. The last time I did that was when we had a straight-up food fight in fourth grade and I had tapioca pudding in my hair and turkey gravy in my ear.