Chapter Eight
Thursday morning, I rushed into school, fully expecting to find a note on my locker. Alex had left home earlier than usual, saying there was something he “had to do.”
When I got to my locker, there it was—a note taped to the door—just as I expected.
As confusing as the ball-playing note was (I was still annoyed about not understanding what it meant), this one was worse.
It said:
int number_of_buttons = 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8;
string button_type = “ ”;
boolean has_sleeves = true false;
string sleeve_type = “ ”;
string collar_type = “ ”;
string lace_type = “ ”;
I considered texting Alex and asking, “What the heck?!” But since he hadn’t answered any of my texts or calls the day before, I decided not to bother. Besides, he would have acted like he didn’t know anything, anyway.
If I couldn’t figure this one out myself, I’d have two notes to talk to him about at dinner tonight!
As I turned the corner, I saw Sophia walking down the hall with a huge pile of textbooks in her arms. They were stacked up past her head, and she was shouting, “Out of the way!” to the other kids in the hall.
I stepped up next to her, where she could see me from the side.
“Soph, what are you doing?”
“Ugh,” she grunted. One of the books at the top of the pile teetered. I grabbed it before it fell. “I went to the office to get the athlete health forms for my parents to sign so I can try out for the softball team . . .” She paused and said, “Thanks for helping me practice yesterday, by the way.”
“You’re welcome,” I told her. “Any time.”
“I was about to leave the office when Principal Stephens asked if I was going by the library. He wanted me to return a few books.”
“A few?” I grabbed another book from the top of her stack. “This is more than a few!”
“I know.” She shifted her weight to keep the pile even. “He was laughing when he added the last one to the top.”
We had time before class, and I was headed past the library, too. “Let me help,” I said, taking another couple of books and adding them to my pile.
“Thanks, Lu. You’re a good friend.” Sophia smiled at me. “I mean that.”
“You’re a good friend, too, Soph,” I said, smiling back.
When we got to the library, we dropped off the books on the librarian’s desk.
“So, I got a new note,” I told Sophia as the librarian scanned the books.
“Really? What’d it say?” I handed her Alex’s strange lesson for the day.
“Boo-le-an? String? Type?” Sophia scrunched her face. “I don’t get it. Did you text Alex?”
I shook my head. “There’s no point. And I want to try to solve this one on my own,” I told her. We walked out the library’s large glass doors and into the hall.
“Maybe we could ask Maya about it,” Sophia suggested. “Button, lace, collar—she’s into fashion and she’s in coding club, so she might have an idea of what it all means.”
“I—” Talking to Maya wasn’t really on my list of things I wanted to do. I hardly knew her, and for some reason I got nervous talking to her. We’d barely said a word when we made Sophia’s sandwich during coding club.
Soph could tell what I was thinking. She put a hand on my shoulder. “I can ask her for you, if you want,” she said. “My locker is next to hers and I see her all the time.”
“I don’t know . . .”
“I think she’s our best bet for solving this one, Lu.”
“Okay,” I said eventually, grateful for her offer. “But let’s ask her together.” I was the one getting the notes, and I didn’t want Sophia to have to do the work for me.
We agreed that Sophia would ask Maya if we could talk at lunch.
At lunch, I sat with Anjali—for once she wasn’t doing extra work for film club.
“Sorry for being so MIA with film,” she said. “This week has been crazy. But I want to hear all about the new club. And what’s going on with the coding thing?” she said, taking a bite of her apple. “Are Alex’s notes helping you? Do you still need me to figure out how to fast-track you?”
I told her about Alex’s latest notes. “I did learn something after the playground thing,” I said. “But I have no idea about the other ones. And I still haven’t learned enough to get started on my app.”
She took out a granola bar. “Hmm . . . that is annoying. But, Lucy, I really think Alex is trying to help you.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I answered after taking a bite of my tuna sandwich. I was still unsure the notes were actually helping, but figured it was worth a try. Plus, it’d been fun getting to know Erin at the playground and hitting balls with Sophia on the softball field.
I saw Sophia at the end of the lunch line and waved at her. She came over and plopped her tray next to mine.
“Hey, Soph!” Anjali said. She looked back and forth between us. “Wait, are you guys talking again? I thought that was, like, not allowed.”
Sophia and I smiled at each other.
I reached for my milk carton. “Yeah, we’re good now,” I said to Anjali. “Sophia realized how stupid she was being,”
“Hey!” Sophia said, elbowing me. I elbowed her back, giggling.
“Um, okay, not sure what’s going on here, but I like it!” Anjali said. “Hey, did you guys hear about Erin?”
“No,” I said, realizing I hadn’t seen Erin by our lockers all day.
“She went home sick. She wasn’t feeling well in Spanish class so Señora Martinez let her go to the nurse, but she came back to get her things and went home. She had a fever, apparently.”
“That sucks,” I said.
“I told her we’d text her tonight to see how she’s doing.”
Of course—leave it to Anjali to reach out to the new girl. She was doing what she did best—being the nicest person in school.
“Group chat?” I asked her.
“Let’s do it!” Anjali said. “Want to be in on it, Sophia? You know Erin from coding club, right?”
“Sure!” Sophia said.
I saw Maya approaching our table from behind Sophia, and instinctively got nervous about what I was wearing. I didn’t know why I got so self-conscious around Maya—it’s not like I cared that much about clothes.
I looked down at my outfit. Black skinny jeans with a white sweater and my jean jacket. Okay, that wasn’t so bad. My shoes were the problem—I was wearing scruffy old sneakers. I tried to hide my feet under the lunch table, hoping she wouldn’t notice.
Maya was wearing boots with a full patchwork skirt and bright yellow blouse. As usual, she looked amazing.
“Hey, guys,” she said, taking a seat next to Sophia. “Lucy, Sophia told me you had a question,” she said to me. “What’s up?”
“Oh yeah . . . thanks . . . um . . . for helping!” I stammered. Ugh, why was I so embarrassing! I reached into my jacket pocket, where I was now collecting all the notes.
“I told my brother I wanted to learn how to code, and I’m pretty sure he’s been leaving me these weird notes at my locker.”
I handed Maya the pieces of paper.
“Lucy’s been trying to figure out what they mean,” Sophia explained. She pointed to the latest note. “Since this one has clothing stuff on it, we thought maybe you’d have some ideas.”
Maya looked it over, her eyebrows furrowed. She thumbed through the other notes, too.
“Have you figured out what these other ones mean?” she asked, looking up at us.
“Well, kind of,” I said. “I went to the playground with Erin—the new girl—on Tuesday after school, and we followed the instructions on the first note. We’re pretty sure it’s about the input/output stuff we learned in coding club on Monday.”
“Except that you actually gave decent instructions this time,” Sophia said teasingly. She pointed to the second note. “Yesterday, Lucy and I hit softballs to try to figure this one out, but we got nowhere.”
After a long pause, Maya said, “Lucy, are you sure it’s your brother who’s behind all this?”
“Pretty sure,” I answered. Anjali and Sophia nodded in agreement. “Why?”
“Well, I don’t know him, but I think whoever wrote this note knows me,” she said, handing the third note back to me.
“What?” I was confused. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll show you,” Maya said. “Can you come to Dress to Impress after school?”
“The designer clothes place?” Anjali asked. “Why there?”
“I help out at the store sometimes.” She looked at me. “There’s something I want to show you.”
“I can go with you, if you want,” Sophia offered. “I don’t have to be at practice today till later. And I’m curious about the note, too.”
This was turning out to be an even more interesting day than I’d anticipated.
Dress to Impress specialized in designer wedding dresses, but also custom-made tuxedos and party dresses. If someone needed a dress hemmed or a fancy button replaced, the shop was the place to go for that, too. I’d never been there, but I knew my mom had gone to get clothes fixed for special occasions.
After school, Sophia and I followed directions to the store from my phone. When we walked by the new computer place, I couldn’t help glancing at the newest models in the window. I loved trying to pick the one I’d get if I could buy a new one—not that that would happen anytime soon. In the meantime, at least I got to inherit Alex’s and my parents’ hand-me-downs.
I got a glimpse of a few new laptops in cool colors, like metallic pink and gold. But what caught my eye was a flyer taped to the window.
CALLING
ALL
CODERS!
Don’t miss the six-hour hackathon for middle-schoolers at the community center on October 28! Some beginner coding knowledge required.
Includes a $100 prize!
COME PREPARED TO BUILD FOR THE FUTURE!
Sophia had stopped to take a look, too. “What do you think a hackathon is?” I asked her.
“No clue,” Sophia said, checking the time on her phone. “C’mon, I gotta get back before the end of football practice. Let’s go!”
There were some flyers in a basket, so I took one and put it in my jean jacket pocket.
When we got to Dress to Impress, Maya was sitting on a tall stool at the front counter, sewing a button on a silky yellow dress.
After our conversation at lunch, I was feeling more comfortable around her. She hadn’t seemed to notice my scruffy sneakers—and if she had, they didn’t appear to bother her. I was relieved to think she wouldn’t judge me for my clothes.
“Hey,” I said. “Cool place.” The window display was set up like a school dance scene with a boy mannequin and girl mannequin standing together. The girl’s dress was beautiful; it was teal and white with a low back and long puffy skirt. The guy had a basic black tux, with a teal tie that matched his date’s dress.
“Thanks,” Maya said, gathering her stuff. “Come in. Did you bring the note?”
I reached in my jacket pocket where I was collecting all the notes, and took out the latest one. “Yep.”
“Great.” She opened a door to the back of the shop and led us to a workroom. There were stacks of fabric piled between a rack of partially finished clothing and two sewing machines. I saw bins along the wall that were labeled “lace” and “buttons,” plus other things I didn’t recognize, like “tulle.”
“This is what I wanted to show you.” From the corner of the room, she brought out one of those mannequins without a head that professional designers use. It had on a gorgeous, shimmery green dress that looked half-finished. “Friends of my mom own this store, and when I help out, they let me use their supplies for my own projects. I’ve been working on this dress for a while—I usually leave it out front, but I thought I’d bring it back here to show you guys,” Maya said. “I’ve already asked Principal Stephens if I can show it at the school’s spring talent show.”
“Wow, it’s so pretty!” I said, moving in to take a closer look. “I didn’t know you were into making clothes.”
“This is so amazing,” Sophia said, reaching out to touch the fabric.
It wasn’t done, but what she’d finished was incredible. The green material shimmered with purple swirls, like someone had mixed two paints, but not blended them all the way. The skirt ruffled around the waist with an Asian floral print down one side. I could imagine Maya wearing this dress, not just to the talent show, but to the middle-school spring dance. She’d definitely have the best dress there.
“But wait, what do you think your dress has to do with the note I got?” I asked.
She turned the mannequin so that Sophia and I could look at it together. “I’ll show you. There are some major decisions I need to make at this point.” She paused as if challenging us to guess what those were.
“Buttons?” Sophia pointed to where tiny buttons could go down the front.
“Sleeves?” I asked. There were none yet.
Maya was waiting for us to say more, but we were stumped.
“Look at the note you got, Lucy,” Maya said. I read the note in my hand.
int number_of_buttons = 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8;
string button_type = “ ”;
boolean has_sleeves = true false;
string sleeve_type = “ ”;
string collar_type = “ ”;
string lace_type = “ ”;
“Collar,” Sophia said. It was no longer a question.
I finished the list. “And lace!” I could see where Maya could add lace on the skirt, or on the top part of the dress.
“Exactly,” Maya said. “Those happen to be the four things I’ve been planning to add to my dress. Whoever wrote this note seemed to know that, and I highly doubt that’s your brother, Lucy.”
“That is really weird,” I said, letting it all sink in. “But what does this even mean for coding?”
“I’m less curious about what it means,” Maya said, “than about who knew those were the decisions I needed to make.”
“Maybe it was a coincidence,” Sophia suggested.
Maya shook her head. “It can’t be,” she said. “The similarities are just too obvious.”
“Who’s come to the shop recently?” I asked.
“A lot of people,” Maya said. “Let me think . . . A bunch of kids from school, their parents, some teachers . . . Not your brother, though. I’ve never seen him here.”
“Maybe he was here getting a suit for prom or graduation? He might have come when you weren’t here,” I suggested, but as I said it, I knew it was impossible. One, he wasn’t a suit kind of guy. And two, those events were months away. Alex wasn’t the type to plan past lunch.
“I checked all the recent receipts. His name isn’t on one,” Maya told us. “But lots of other people from school came in. This past week, I saw the new eighth-grade science teacher and a bunch of teachers from the seventh grade. They’re having some kind of fancy staff banquet. Principal Stephens was also here.”
There didn’t seem to be any clear clues about who could have known what Maya was planning for her dress, and then left me a note about it.
“I know!” Maya suddenly said, standing up. She brought down four bins from the shelves. Each was labeled: Buttons. Lace. Collars. Sleeves.
“It looks like we’re supposed to fill out the note, right?” she said as she took the lids off the boxes. We nodded. “So why not do that? Maybe it’ll give us a clue. Buttons first.” Maya dumped out hundreds of buttons on the table. There were big ones and little ones. Plastic, metal, wood, and pearl—buttons in every color of the rainbow.
Maya handed me a pen. “Lucy, write down our choices on the note’s blank lines.”
“Are you sure this is what we’re supposed to do?” I asked.
“No,” Maya admitted. “But it’s all I can think of, and besides, if it’s wrong, at least you’ll have helped me make decisions for my dress,” she said, smiling.
Sophia and I looked at each other and shrugged. Maya was right. Might as well fill out the note as best as we could. What was there to lose?