“Lucy . . . Lucy . . . Lucy . . .”
“What? Huh?” I was so excited for the bell to ring that I didn’t hear my teacher calling my name. “Oh.” I raised my head, glanced at the long, sprawling math problem written across the whiteboard, and said, “Four.”
Mrs. Clark stared at me for a moment, then looked over her shoulder at the numbers she’d written. “Correct . . .” She grabbed an eraser. “That’s all for today, class. No homework, so use your time to review today’s lesson.” The bell rang. “Have a good after—”
I missed the “—noon” because by the time she finished, I was already down the hall.
I’d been waiting for this moment since the day I saw the posting on the Halverston Middle School website, and now here it was. I was finally in sixth grade. I was finally going to my very first coding club meeting!
I waved hello to my best friend, Anjali, as I passed her in the hall. She was rushing to film club in the opposite direction. “Text me,” she called out, though she didn’t have to say it. I would have texted, anyway.
I tightened my backpack straps and took off running. I’d already picked out my seat in the computer lab. I wanted to be front and center. I was going to get started right away on an app that would help my uncle and change the world—
Oof!
“Watch where you’re going,” Sophia Torres scoffed, blocking the way into the computer lab. Tall and fit, she filled the doorway when she spread her arms across it. There wasn’t room for me to squeeze past.
“Sorry,” I said, looking down at her brand-new tennis shoes. I didn’t want to start a fight. I just wanted her to move.
“Geek,” Sophia muttered under her breath.
It stung a bit, but I didn’t care. It wasn’t the first time someone had called me that, and I wasn’t going to let anyone ruin coding club for me. There were a few kids at school who intimidated me, but Sophia wasn’t one of them. I puffed out my chest. “Shouldn’t you be doing sportsy stuff or something?” I was pretty sure Sophia was managing the boys’ football team this fall. But we’d barely spoken in months, so I wasn’t positive.
She rolled her eyes at me. They were as dark as her hair. “I’m taking Mondays off for this.”
I heard footsteps behind me. If I didn’t move past Sophia immediately, other kids wouldn’t be able to get into the room, either.
I dodged left to pass her, but she blocked my path and laughed.
“Come on, Soph,” I said softly, calling her the nickname she’d had since preschool. “You know how important this is to me.”
“It’s important to me, too,” she answered. And with that, Sophia turned and hustled into the room, throwing herself into the seat I wanted. She planted her hands in front of the computer that I’d had mental dibs on.
Sighing heavily, I took the seat at the end of the row and tried to ignore Sophia as the classroom filled with students. Even though we were ex-friends, there was no reason we couldn’t be in coding club together. At least that’s what I told myself.
A bunch of other kids came into the room before Mrs. Clark arrived. She tipped her head at me. “Well done, Lucy. You made it here in record time.”
I smiled. Mrs. Clark was my favorite teacher, and I was glad she was in charge of the club. She was born in Lebanon, went to England for college, and then came to the United States. She had such interesting stories about traveling the world and the things she did before she decided to become a teacher. Her stories almost made me want to be a teacher like her . . . but only almost. I was going to be a computer programmer, just like my mom. Anjali always joked that my first word wasn’t “Dada,” but rather “data.” She was probably right.
“Alicia Lee . . . Bradley Steinberg . . . Maddie Lewis . . . Mark Lewis . . . ,” Mrs. Clark read off the club list. When she hit the name Maya Chung, I whipped my head around. I hadn’t seen Maya come in, and wondered what she was doing here. Maya was a seventh-grader and, unlike Sophia, she was one of those kids who scared me. Not because she was mean, but because she was really, really cool. She was the president of the student council and wrote a fashion column for the school newspaper. I’d never talked to her, or even made eye contact before, because honestly, what would I say?
I glanced down at my Doctor Who T-shirt. Maya would never wear a T-shirt and jeans, at least not without accessorizing with a scarf in her short black hair, or something bold, like a big necklace or earrings. That’s what her last column said. I always read it.
Looking at me, no one would guess I was interested in fashion. It’s not like I spent a lot of time getting ready in the morning, but I liked reading what Maya wrote and doing some of the things she suggested, like painting my nails light pink. I loved the way they shimmered.
“I’m here,” Maya announced with a groan, as if this was the last place on earth she wanted to be. I figured if she wanted to learn coding, she could have started last year—it was offered to sixth-graders and up. I wondered why she was starting now.
Feeling self-conscious, I smoothed down a wrinkle in my T-shirt. Mrs. Clark was still reading names. “Grace Rahman . . . Sammy Cooper . . . Ellie Foster . . . Leila Devi . . .”
When were we going to start coding? We were ten minutes into the club time, and Mrs. Clark was still on roll call.
When she seemed like she was almost finished, something finally happened.
Beep! Beep! Beep!
But this was not the something I was hoping for. I looked around for a minute before realizing that the noise was coming from my backpack. And it wasn’t a soft, buzzy type of beep that could blend into classroom noises, or an echoing kind of beep that I could pretend was coming from the hall. It was a loud, annoying blast that made everyone in the club look in my direction.
“Lucy,” Mrs. Clark said with a stern expression. “You know the rules about phones at school. The same applies to after-school programs.” She pointed at my bag. “Turn it off and turn it over. I’ll keep it for the rest of the club.”
My heart was racing, and my face felt like it was on fire. I reached into my bag to find the phone, sure I was having a heart attack. My phone had been on silent all day, like the school rules said, so I had no idea what was going on.
After what seemed like an eternity, I found my phone, flipped it around, and desperately tried to silence it. But the screen stayed dark, and the beeps got louder.
“Put it on vibrate,” Maya said, with an exasperated look. It was horrifying that this was the first thing she’d ever said to me.
“I tried, but it’s not working,” I answered, feeling my face redden even more.
“Try turning it off,” Bradley said. He chuckled, his red freckles seeming to twinkle. He clearly thought this was hysterical.
I glared at him. “The screen won’t even turn on.”
“Try slamming it on your desk,” Bradley suggested, snickering to his friends.
I ignored him.
The beeping continued to echo through the classroom as kids shared their ideas. It felt like everyone was shouting at me, which only made my heart beat faster.
Mrs. Clark came over to my desk. With her usual calm, she tucked her long dark hair behind her ears, pushed up her glasses, and held out her hand. I handed her my phone.
For some reason, it finally opened to my main screen. She started swiping around, and I could tell she was looking through my apps.
Suddenly, the beeps stopped. I took a deep breath, and my heartbeat settled.
Mrs. Clark gave me a meaningful glance. “Looks like someone who knows a thing or two about coding made a fake game and downloaded it onto your phone. It’s programmed to beep and freeze your phone.”
“I . . .”
How was that possible? I hadn’t even noticed!
I began to say I had no idea who would do that. It would have to be someone who had access to my phone. And someone who liked to play tricks on me.
“Oh.” I knew exactly who had messed with my phone, and from the look on Mrs. Clark’s face, she did, too. Two afternoons a week, he was her student.
Mrs. Clark gave me a sympathetic smile. “Say hi to Alex for me when you see him.”
“I will,” I said, but we both knew that when I got home I was going to have a lot more than “hi” to say to my brother!