Chapter Three

The next day, I found Coach between classes. When he wasn’t on the field, he was teaching eighth-grade English.

“Hi, Coach,” I said, jogging up to him. “Sorry to ask you this, but . . . would it be okay if I missed practice this afternoon?”

He frowned. “Sophia, I gave you the manager job because you’re usually so responsible.”

“I know . . . and I am.” I paused, giving him an apologetic look. “But I’m in coding club, and we’re getting ready for our first hackathon this weekend. It’s just that I need to meet with my team to prepare.”

He gave me a long look. “If it’s for a school-related activity, it’s fine to miss practice today, Sophia.” Coach pointed his finger at me, his face stern. “But don’t make a habit of it.”

“Thanks, Coach—I won’t!” I said, running off to class.

When the last bell rang, Maya, Erin, Lucy, and I met up in front of the school to go to Maya’s.

“Want to stop at the Bakeshop first?” Maya asked us. “We don’t have any good snacks at my house, and I’m dying for a cake pop.” Her mom was pretty strict about eating between meals, though she sometimes baked us a Chinese dessert called a sweetheart cake that was out of this world. It was a flaky pastry with a delicious spiced filling that tasted like melon and almonds.

“Hmmm, I’m not sure,” Lucy said, her dark eyes twinkling. “Cinnamon buns, muffins . . . sounds awful.”

“Right? And what if there’s biscotti and apple crumb cake?” Erin gave a mock shiver. “The things we do for coding.”

“All I can say is, my brain works better after a cupcake,” I declared, linking my arm with Lucy’s. Lucy linked hers with Erin’s, and Erin joined arms with Maya, and we made our way down the street.

As soon as we walked into the Bakeshop, we realized we weren’t the only ones with the same idea. We got on line, and I recognized kids from school hanging out on the couches and chairs in the main area. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sammy sitting with his hackathon team.

He glanced at me, and I felt my face start to get warm. It’s not like I always felt awkward around boys. I spent enough time with the boys’ football team to know that it was ridiculous to get nervous around them—they were loud, weird, funny, and, let’s be honest, stinky. Plus, I’d known Sammy forever. But lately, I’d been getting strangely nervous around him. It’s like I suddenly realized that he had the nicest smile, the deepest, brownest eyes that matched his dark skin, and the thickest, longest eyelashes I’d ever seen. I looked over again, and he gave me a wave. I turned around, my face on fire.

Lucy must have noticed, because she nudged my arm. “Sophia, wave back!” she whispered.

I gave Sammy sort of a half wave, wrist flippy thing, and then looked at the menu on the wall as if it were the most fascinating thing I’d ever seen.

Lucy leaned into me. “Maybe next time you’ll actually make eye contact.”

“Shut up!” I hissed, still staring at the menu, wondering what shade of red my face had become.

In front of us in line, I saw Leila, another girl from coding club. Glad for the distraction, I tapped her on the back. “Hey, Leila!”

Leila turned around and smiled. “Oh, hi, guys.” A taller girl was standing next to her. “This is my sister, Tania,” Leila introduced us. They both wore head scarves—Leila’s was maroon, which complemented her blue eyes well, and her sister’s was teal with a gold border.

Erin tucked a strand of blond hair under her slouchy gray beanie. “How’s it going with your hackathon team? You’re with Mark and Maddie, right?”

Their group was the only three-person team; everybody else was in teams of four or five.

Leila frowned. “Not anymore—I’m not going to the hackathon.”

“Huh?” I said. That was a surprise. “Why not? It’s going to be so fun.” Leila seemed really into coding. She was always talking about robots, and I’d heard her say she wanted to work in artificial intelligence someday. I wasn’t sure what that was, exactly, but it sounded cool.

“Mark and Maddie’s grandfather died, so they won’t be here for the rest of the week,” Leila explained. “I just found out today. They’re not coming back till Sunday.”

“Oh, wow.” I didn’t know what to say.

“That’s too bad,” Maya chimed in as we inched forward in line.

Leila’s sister was ordering her drink, and it was Leila’s turn now. “Yeah. It’s okay—there’ll be other hackathons. See you later!”

I wasn’t so sure about that—I hadn’t heard of that many hackathons. But the smell of chocolate distracted me. We were up next and all ordered the same thing: hot chocolate with homemade marshmallows, and we each got a snack to go with it. A group of people were getting up from a booth near the door, so we grabbed it.

“Mmmm . . . I could drink this every day,” Maya said, wrapping her hands around the steaming mug of cocoa. “It. Is. So. Good.”

I nodded, taking a sip. It made my stomach warm and tingly . . . or was that because of Sammy? I squeezed my eyes shut for a second, trying not to think about him. I made a mental note to pretend Sammy was Tyson next time I saw him—maybe then I wouldn’t act so awkward.

“You know what I was thinking?” Erin said, spooning up a marshmallow. “Wouldn’t it be cool to have a robot baking assistant? To get ingredients for you and be a mixer and stuff?”

“A girl can dream,” Lucy agreed, sighing.

“Some girls are already dreaming,” Maya teased, jabbing her finger into my shoulder. “About a certain soccer-playing, always-smiling—”

“Be quiet!” I hissed, holding up my palm to cut her off before she could say you-know-who’s name. “For your information, I wasn’t dreaming. I was thinking.” Something genius had just occurred to me. “Why don’t we ask Leila to join our team?” I said as I took a bite of my berry muffin.

My friends all looked at me. “That’s a great idea!” Lucy exclaimed.

“Right? She seems cool, and it’s not like we’ve come up with an amazing robot idea yet.” They all nodded. “Leila’s always talking about robots in coding club—maybe she could help us.”

Erin nudged me. “Um, Soph? You have a hot chocolate mustache,” she said quietly. “Might wanna . . .” She gestured toward her napkin.

I quickly grabbed a napkin and wiped my lips. That was the last thing I needed Sammy to see.

Lucy looked over in his direction. “Don’t worry, he’s not looking.”

“You stop looking!” I said, elbowing her. I glanced surreptitiously across the coffee shop, and I could have sworn I saw Sammy watching me.

“Didn’t Mrs. Clark say we had until this Thursday at 1:00 p.m. to sign up online for the hackathon?” I added, wanting to change the subject—fast.

“She did,” Lucy answered, biting off a piece of her chocolate chip cookie. “But if we’re going to invite Leila, we should probably do it now—I think Mrs. Clark also said something about not being able to change your team after signing up.”

Erin polished off her cinnamon crunch muffin and crumpled the brown wrapper into a ball. “Yeah, she mentioned being disqualified. I wonder why they have such strict rules. Seems kind of weird.”

“Maybe it’s because they need to know how many robots and modules to get or something.” Maya picked leftover chocolate off her cake-pop stick. “But I totally think we should ask Leila to join our team.”

We all looked at one another and grinned.

We picked up our mugs and what was left of our snacks and walked over to Leila and her sister.

“Hi, ladies,” Lucy said, sitting down at one of the empty seats at their table. She wasn’t one to wait for permission.

Neither was I, so I joined her. “We have something we wanted to ask you,” I began.

Leila seemed interested. “Sure. What’s up?”

“We were thinking, do you want to be on our team for the hackathon?” Maya asked, looking from Leila to all of us.

Leila looked at us excitedly. “Really? You want me in your group?” she asked, her eyes lighting up.

“Totally!” I answered as my friends nodded enthusiastically. “Honestly, we could use your robot knowledge. Plus, it’d be fun to hang out!”

“And you don’t want to miss it,” Erin added. “It’s supposed to be really fun . . . like a carnival with tons of food and activities.”

“And coding,” Lucy said.

Leila looked over at her sister, who smiled reassuringly back at her.

“Well, sure, why not!” Leila said.

Lucy gave her a hug. “Yay! Welcome to the Rockin’ Robots!”

“Thanks so much!” Leila said, her smile ear to ear. Maya hugged her, too. “Do you have your hackathon T-shirt with you? We were going to go over to my house and paint them. You can join us, if you want.”

“Let me see if I still have my T-shirt in here . . .” She rummaged through her backpack and pulled it out triumphantly.

“Awesome! Let’s go—we’ve got some shirts to decorate!” Maya said, leading the way.