Chapter Six

“‘If (you agree to my terms) . . .’ What do you think this first part means?” Erin asked me, holding my latest locker note as we went outside.

It was a chilly fall day. Erin had put a knit cap over her blond hair and tucked loose strands under it. The school playground was just behind our building, next to the elementary school. There were usually a ton of kids there, especially on a nice day.

“I have to do everything he says, if I want to learn.” I showed her the first note, which I’d taken from my locker. I figured it couldn’t hurt to have both.

She read it over. “Oh, okay. Well, do you agree?” she asked me. “To do anything the notes say to do?”

She handed me back both notes.

“I guess so. I mean, going to the playground means I already sort of did, right?” I sighed, hoping I wasn’t making a huge mistake. I didn’t want Alex to think I’d do anything he said. I told myself that if he asked me to do anything ridiculous—like clean his gross room or wash his beat-up car—there was no way I’d do it.

“My brother pranks me all the time,” I explained to Erin. “Most of his jokes are really annoying. Well, I guess sometimes they’re funny, but I never admit it.” I gave her a sideways look. “If you ever meet him, you better not tell him I said that.”

She laughed and put a hand over her heart. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

I glanced at the latest note again. “Look for a big envelope taped under the closest bench,” I read out loud. What did “closest” mean?

“Closest to the middle school?” I asked Erin.

“Or to the path?” she suggested.

“Or the drinking fountain?” I wondered.

“Or maybe the kid in the red sweatpants,” Erin said, half joking. He was on roller skates and struggling to get across the playground by grasping each bench as he passed it.

In the end, we picked the bench closest to the path, which was also closest to the middle school. It was metal and slightly weathered. I looked underneath the solid black seat, and there, just like the note promised, was a large envelope.

Erin clapped her hands, excited about finding it.

“Open it, Lucy,” she said in a rush. It was nice to see her enthusiastic about something after she had looked so sad at coding club.

The yellow envelope was bulkier than I’d expected—not that I’d known what we’d find, but still, I was surprised. I tore open the flap and peeked inside. There was a piece of paper and a strip of soft black fabric.

“That’s weird,” I said, waving the cloth around. It was long and narrow. “Is it a scarf?”

Erin took the fabric and playfully wrapped it around her shoulders, tossing the ends over her back. In a fancy French accent she said, “Ve are ready for ze opera,” her green eyes shining.

I chuckled.

Then she took the cloth, wrapped it around her head like a 1980s aerobics sweatband, and said, “Dude, this is totally radical to the max.”

She wrapped the scarf around her head several times, covering her eyes, and moaned. “Beware the mummy’s curse!”

I laughed so hard, my side hurt. “You should be a comedian! You’re so funny!”

“You should hear me sing,” she said with a smile.

“Really?” I said. I could totally imagine her onstage. She’d be great.

Erin slowly unwrapped the scarf. She looked at me with a spark in her eyes. “What if it’s a blindfold?” she suggested.

“You think?” It could easily be tied as a blindfold, plus it was black. No light would get through.

“Are there instructions?”

I had been so entertained by Erin’s antics that I hadn’t bothered to look at the paper that was in the envelope. I took it out and read:

One of you wears the blindfold. The other gives directions through the obstacle course on the map. The blindfolded one shouldn’t ask questions, and can’t be physically guided by the direction-giver. Be sure to follow the instructions exactly. Good luck.

“What map?” I asked, turning over the paper. The other side was blank.

Erin peeked inside the large envelope. “There’s still something in here.” She turned it over and shook out a smaller envelope. It had my name on it, and there was a map inside.

“I guess if the map is addressed to me, then you should wear the blindfold,” I reasoned. Alex wouldn’t have known who was going to come with me to the playground.

Erin held the scarf out in front of her, and this time, instead of acting silly with it, put it over her eyes. “Okay, tie it tight,” she told me.

Once the blindfold was on, I looked at the map. “Please don’t let Alex embarrass me . . . ,” I whispered to myself. Then I glanced at Erin. “Ready?”

I had to send Erin up the steps and down the slide, weave her around the swings, and have her crawl under the monkey bars. The course ended with a trip across the wooden beam that surrounded the sand pit, as if it was a balance beam.

According to the note, Erin couldn’t ask me questions and I couldn’t physically guide her, so I had to give her detailed directions. “Starting with your right leg, take two steps forward. Stop. Now starting with your left leg, take two to the left side,” I told her. I tried to give her measurements, like, “Move one foot’s length” after checking the size of her foot in relation to the distance she needed to travel.

Erin followed every word, and when I wasn’t perfectly clear, she stopped and waited for better instructions.

By the time she finished the “balance beam” activity and jumped off, I was feeling proud of myself. Erin had gotten through every obstacle perfectly! She tugged down the blindfold, and we high-fived each other.

“That was fun!” I said. I looked down at the notes I was holding. “But what could it have to do with coding?”

“Well, it was kind of like the sandwich exercise in coding club yesterday,” she said, folding up the blindfold. “Like, having to give someone really precise instructions for them to do something.”

I hadn’t thought about it, but the two exercises were actually pretty similar.

Erin patted me on the back. “And you did so much better at giving instructions this time!”

“I guess I did!” I said. “I don’t see how this is going to help me learn how to code faster, though.” I was starting to think this was another stupid prank of my brother’s, and that he had no intention of helping me learn how to code, after all.

“Looks like it’s more of that input/output stuff Mrs. Clark was telling us about,” Erin said. “Like, if this was a computer program and you told me to climb onto the third monkey bar instead of the second, we’d have a serious”—she put her hand over her mouth, about to sneeze—“guy-go problem!”

Wait a minute—did she just sneeze, or say “guy-go”? I didn’t want to embarrass her, so I didn’t mention it.

“Ha-ha—true!” I said. “Well, if it was meant to teach the same thing, at least I did do better than in coding club.”

“Totally,” Erin answered. She took her phone out of her coat pocket and checked the time. “Ugh, I better go before my mom starts calling me. There are books to put away and towels to fold,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I hate moving.” She coughed a few times. It was getting a bit chilly.

I’d never moved before, so I wasn’t sure what to say. There was one thing I could do, though. “I could help you this weekend if you want,” I offered.

“Really?” Erin said, clearing her throat after another cough. “That would be . . .” She paused and got a twinkle in her eyes. “Totally radical to the max, dude.”

She cracked me up.

Later that night, I sat down at my desk and turned on my laptop. After doing the obstacle course with Erin, I kept thinking about how she’d said it was probably about input and output, like the sandwich exercise we’d done with Mrs. Clark. I thought I’d do some research to find out more.

A quick online search of the terms input and output for computers confirmed what Erin and I had talked about: A computer only does what it’s told—and exactly what it’s told—so if the directions you give it (the input) are terrible, the result (the output) will be terrible. Ha! Erin had totally nailed the connection between the playground exercise and Mrs. Clark’s activity in coding club.

I found something else interesting: a term called GIGO, which was when you coded bad directions—it stood for “garbage in, garbage out.” It sounded a lot like the “guy-go” sound Erin had made that I thought was part of her sneeze. If that was really what she was referring to, I wondered if she knew more about coding than I’d thought.

Either way, I finally felt like I was making some progress. I might have failed the input/output exercise in coding club, but I did really well with the playground version of it. Maybe Alex really was helping me, after all!

I went downstairs and found Alex sitting at the kitchen counter next to Mom and Dad, all working on their laptops. Typical.

I came up behind Alex and hugged him tight.

“I can’t breathe,” he choked out, fake coughing a few times.

“Lucy, let go of your brother,” Mom said distractedly.

I hugged Alex tighter. “Thank you!” I whispered.

“For what?” Alex said as I let go of him.

“You know what,” I said, grinning. I hurried out of the kitchen and dashed up the stairs two at a time, back to my room.

Sometimes my brother could be really cool.