My Life as a Gamer Page 5

  It’s the second time Carly’s won a prize, so she makes a real show of it, holding her fist in the air like she’s now the poster child for a new Girl Power movement. Her buddy El Cid gives Carly a small bow when Tom hands us our prize.

  A hundred dollars each!

  “You just did the impossible!” Umberto says as we file out for lunch. “You outscored the number one player in the world!”

  I can’t take the credit; there’s no way I ever would’ve racked up such a high score if it weren’t for Carly, who’s now surrounded by several other girls who want to congratulate her.

  After a week of failing everything, it feels good to WIN for a change.

  DER-EK!

  DER-EK!

  Bragging Rights

  I rub my victory in Matt’s and Umberto’s faces whenever I get the chance, which is probably half a million times. I also spend thirty dollars of my winnings on new comic books. (Mom drives me to Meltdown on Sunset on the condition that I put the rest of the money in my savings account.) Most of the week is business as usual, until I get to brag about my win to Hannah when she comes over for our study session.

  Hannah seems shocked. “YOU beat El Cid?”

  How did she just make me feel like a loser for winning? “Yes, ME. I’m not a failure at everything.”

  “Give me the details,” she says. “Don’t leave anything out.”

  To prove that I actually AM good at something, I tell her how Carly and I made a great team during the cooperative play.

  “Oh, so someone helped you,” she says.

  I now despise Tutor #13.

  To make Hannah believe me, I share the details of our victory—from the multiplying ice block walls to our strategy for escaping the deadly icicles. I tell her about the narwhals, the killer snowmen, and the secret code until I feel like I’ve earned her respect.

  “Sounds like Carly’s a good player.”

  I tell her she’s never even met Carly.

  Hannah starts going through her bag for the practice tests. “But I feel like I know her; you talk about her all the time.”

  I blush, wondering if that’s true.

  “Enough about your game,” Hannah says. “It’s time to do some math!”

  I look at the clock on the kitchen wall. It seems like my entire life is spent sitting with work in front of me while I stare at clocks waiting for time to move faster.

  “Go!” Hannah shouts with so much enthusiasm, you’d think I was in a skateboard competition instead of taking a stupid practice test. (Isn’t a practice test still just a test? Does it make it any less terrible to call it practice?)

  I stop stalling and begin the first problem. After a few minutes, I look up and see Hannah rapidly texting on her phone. She’s probably a decade older than I am, but I gather my courage to question her anyway.

  “You’re not writing down any of that information I just told you about Arctic Ninja, are you?”

  She puts down her cell and looks at me with an expression of sheer boredom. “I’m texting my roommate to meet me at the Grove tonight. Is that okay with you?” She points to the clock. “Come on!”

  “I know, I know. Time’s a-wastin’.”

  I settle into my work, and when Hannah grades me afterward, I’m thrilled to find out I passed my first practice test. It feels as if I’m riding the victory over El Cid like a giant wave all the way to shore.

  The Wrong Kind of Party

  The people who come to Mom’s veterinary office usually park on one of the side streets, so I’m surprised when I come home from school and find several cars in the driveway.

  The mystery’s unveiled when I discover Dad and some friends playing video games in the living room. I hang back in the doorway to take in this unfamiliar scene.

  I recognize Dad’s college friend Eric, and Mr. Jensen, who used to work with Dad a few years ago. I have no idea who the other guy is. The four of them are huddled around the TV, screaming at the monitor. Two empty pizza boxes and several beer cans litter the floor.

  The kitchen clock reads ten after three. I only hope my mother has a full day of appointments and doesn’t pop into the house to change clothes or grab a file.

  “Hey, guys!” I shout in my happiest voice. “Who’s winning?”

  “I am!” Eric responds, barely looking up. “Your dad was ahead till he got too cocky.”

  “I was ahead till you cheated,” my father yells back. “Derek, introduce yourself to Mr. Chapman.”

  The guy I don’t know holds out his hand. I tell him it’s nice to meet him and ask how he knows my dad.

  “We met at Stan’s. Your father’s quite the storyteller.”

  The thought of my normally hardworking father sitting at the counter of the local doughnut shop, telling stories to strangers, fills me with dismay. I’ve been to Stan’s with Dad a million times—they have the best peanut butter and jelly doughnuts in the city—but we’ve never sat at the counter to chat with people we don’t know. I’m suddenly worried my father will never work again and we’ll be forced to live on the street. Mom would say I’m letting my imagination get the better of me and to STOP, but my mind goes into overdrive.

  I’m roused from my scary daydream by a shout marking the end of Borderlands. After all my fears, when my father gets up from the couch, he’s just regular Dad.

  “You want a snack?” he asks. “Eric brought over some pretzels and chips.” He tosses me the bags, and several pretzels fall out. Bodi scarfs them down as soon as they hit the floor.

  Since I was little, my mom’s always made a big thing about me cleaning up after myself. I’d say I’m successful with that maybe half the time, but now I find myself scooping up napkins, plates, and pizza boxes with lightning speed so Dad doesn’t get in trouble. I bury the beer cans deep in the recycling bin.

  “We were playing Mario earlier,” Mr. Jensen says. “Any tips so I don’t get killed next time?”

  I tell him it’s all about collecting the mushrooms and saving the princess, which leads to a lively discussion about the pros and cons of the Mario games. We debate whether Bowser makes a better protagonist or antagonist. (Mr. Chapman thinks Mario’s better when he’s part of an ensemble. No one else agrees, but he makes a forceful argument anyway.)

  Even though I was apprehensive before, it’s the most time I’ve spent with Dad and his friends, and I end up having a fun afternoon. Mr. Jensen wants to try a retro game, so we play a quick round of Space Invaders before he has to pick up his kids from their after-school program. Then Eric breaks into a whole routine about how sea horses don’t belong on kitchen wallpaper.

  Even though my dad’s the butt of the joke, he laughs and I can see why so many people like hanging out with him. I know he wants a new job more than anything, but today he seems happy just to enjoy the company of his friends. Watching him goof around with Eric and Mr. Chapman reminds me of Matt, Umberto, and me sitting around the same kitchen table, bantering back and forth about stupid things too.

  Maybe being a grown-up isn’t so different from being a kid—just the same brain in a bigger body. I know I should be working on the practice test Ms. McCoddle gave us to take home, but for the moment I’m content to be talking about video games and wallpaper with Dad and my new grown-up friends.

  You’re Doing What?

  I spent WAY too long hanging out with Dad yesterday and completely spaced on taking another practice test. I should’ve known Ms. McCoddle wouldn’t forget; like all teachers, she has the memory of an elephant. Make that a herd of elephants. I barely have a chance to settle into my chair before she’s handing out papers and pencils, barking out instructions for the next hour. I shake my head—is school ever going to get easier?

  I try my best to answer the questions, but halfway through the test I come to the conclusion that I’m condemned to be at the bottom of my class—or any class, for that matter. I put my pencil down and lay my head on the desk.

  A few minutes later, I hear Ms. McCoddle’s voice
in my ear.

  “You can do this,” she whispers kindly. “I know you can.”

  I can’t find the words to tell her I’m tired of trying, tired of failing, so I remain mute.

  She picks up my pencil and makes it walk across the desk toward my hand.

  “The Derek Fallon I know isn’t a quitter,” she continues. “He doesn’t give up.”

  I raise my head and look at Ms. McCoddle. She’s one of the youngest teachers in the school, but she looks older since I first had her in kindergarten. I remember how nice she was to me when my mother used to drop me off for morning kindergarten and I’d sit by the window and cry. I always hated to see Mom go, but Ms. McCoddle would take me by the hand and lead me to the comfy loft with the picture books and pillows. Whether it’s because she’s looking at me with that same caring expression now or because I don’t want my classmates to see our teacher hanging out at my desk, I take the pencil from her hand and sit up in my chair. The smile on Ms. McCoddle’s face as I start working is almost worth the price of reading this boring essay on aqueducts.

  My positive feelings are shortlived when I realize I’ll have to guess on the last fifteen questions if I’m going to finish the test on time. I pencil in the ovals and hope some of my random choices are correct.

  The torturous morning is made a tiny bit better when the cafeteria ladies serve us enchiladas for lunch.

  “That test was vicious,” Matt says.

  Umberto agrees. “Enough with the practice tests! Just give us the real ones and call it a day.”

  Carly pretends not to be addressing me while she daintily cuts her enchilada. “I don’t know if it’s my imagination, but I think these practice tests are getting harder.”

  “As if any of these tests make you break a sweat,” Matt says.

  “That’s not fair!” Carly snaps. “I studied for three hours last night.”

  Often lately, I find myself taking Carly’s side. “Leave her alone,” I tell Matt. “She can’t help it if she’s a brainiac.”

  “I’m NOT a brainiac,” Carly says. “I work my butt off, and you know it!”

  She picks up her stuff to move to another table, but I grab the edge of her tray and tell her to stay.

  “What are you doing after school tomorrow?” I ask, trying to keep the peace.

  She checks out the three of us to make sure we’re not tricking her into staying. “I’m hanging out with a friend.”

  “We’re your only friends,” Matt teases. “So it must be one of us.”

  Carly takes the apple from her tray and hurls it at Matt, who catches it with one hand, then takes a giant bite.

  “If you really want to know, I’m meeting El Cid,” Carly answers.

  It’s as if someone’s sprinkled quiet dust over the table because Matt, Umberto, and I are suddenly paralyzed.

  “You’re going to El Cid’s house after school?” Umberto finally says.

  “El Cid stays at a hotel every weekend, remember? We’re meeting at the coffee shop.”

  “With or without his helmet?” Matt asks.

  Carly smiles like the cat that ate the canary. “I’ll never tell.”

  “We want to know everything!” Umberto practically shouts. “This isn’t fair!”

  “We aren’t supposed to keep secrets from each other,” I add. “You’re not being a good friend.”

  “I AM being a good friend,” Carly answers. “To El Cid. You don’t want him to have to go into seclusion, do you?”

  Carly checks the time on her phone and says she needs to meet Maria before science class. The rest of us watch her head out of the cafeteria toward the double doors.

  “She’s passing us by,” Matt says.

  “They all do,” Umberto adds.

  “She’s still our friend,” I say. “She’ll ALWAYS be our friend.”

  Even as I say it, I hope more than anything that it’s true.

  WHAT?!

  I spend the entire drive to Culver City on Saturday badgering Carly about El Cid’s secret identity.

  “Did he take his helmet off last night?” I ask. “At least you can tell me THAT!”

  Her smile can only be described as sly. “I’m not talking.”

  “He did!” I shout. “I can tell because you’re grinning.”

  She gives my arm a little punch. “You can stop asking because I’m not going to tell you a thing.” But she can’t wipe the smile off her face.

  “Come on,” I beg. “Tell me SOMETHING.”

  “Let’s just say we had so much fun I stayed for dinner.”

  “So he DID take his helmet off!” I act as if I’ve discovered some gigantic fact about El Cid, but in reality I still don’t know anything about him. I bug Carly for the rest of the drive until she starts a conversation with my mother to shut me up.

  I can tell from the moment we get to Global Games that something’s wrong. The interns all look like someone stole their smartphones, Tom isn’t wearing his usual smile, and the buffet of breakfast goodies is nowhere to be found. Carly heads over to her new best friend to see if he knows anything. Matt, Umberto, and I ask around to figure out what’s going on, but no one’s talking. We wait in stony silence until Tom hops onto one of the tables and addresses the group.

  “There’s been a breach of confidentiality.” Tom nods to one of the interns, who sends a screenshot to the giant TV in front of the room.

  Everyone gasps, but because I’m a slow reader, it takes me a while to figure out what everyone else is murmuring about.

  “A person with the screen name PORT47 has posted most of the details of Arctic Ninja—the drones, the igloos, the lemmings, the secret code, the narwhals, everything.” Tom takes off his baseball cap and rubs his head. (Until now I didn’t realize he was bald.) “Does anyone know how this could have happened?”

  Everyone in the group looks around the room wondering the same thing. Who could’ve DONE this?

  “We obviously need to rework the game, which is too bad,” Tom continues. “We can’t risk any more information leaking to our competitors, so we might have to cancel this focus group.”

  Several kids are visibly angry.

  “That’s not fair!” the pogo guy yells. “One bad apple shouldn’t spoil it for everybody else.”

  “It also wasn’t fair for somebody in this room to blab the details of the game on the Internet.” Tom scans the room as if trying to X-ray our souls and find the guilty party. “We WILL find out who did this.”

  I’m listening to Tom but can’t stop staring at the screen. The Web site that leaked Arctic Ninja looks familiar, and I can’t figure out why … until I remember it’s a gaming site I’ve seen Hannah use on her phone. I squint and read the post more closely. A growing sense of dread starts in my toes and spreads to the rest of my body when I realize the post contains all the aspects of the game I shared with Hannah when I was bragging about my win. No. No. No. This is NOT happening.

  “We’ll get to the bottom of this,” Tom repeats. “I promise you that.”

  Everyone in the room looks worried, but no one is more afraid than I am.

  Why is everything always my fault?

  Should I Come Clean?

  I pretend I’m going to the bathroom so I can leave Hannah several messages. She texts a quick message back that she’s busy and will call me later. I text her “ASAP!!!!” but even a dozen exclamation marks won’t guarantee she’ll respond. I should’ve known Tutor #13 would be unlucky.

  As we drive home, I stare out the window and try to decide what to do. My friends complain about how unfair the whole incident is, but I keep my mouth shut, wondering whether I should tell them about Hannah.

  On the one hand, my friends often have good advice—especially Carly. On the other hand, I’m embarrassed that my big mouth could’ve led to not only leaked corporate secrets but possibly the end of our super-fun Saturday focus group. Umberto, Matt, and Carly will have my head on a platter if they find out I’m the one who spilled the beans.<
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  After we drop off my friends and get home, I decide to swallow my pride and come clean to my parents—which is easier said than done. I follow Mom from the laundry room to the kitchen to the garage before she finally stops in her tracks and asks what’s going on. By the time I’m halfway through the story, my father’s joined us. When he realizes I might have undermined the work of his colleagues, he is NOT happy.

  “Let me get this straight,” he says. “You agreed not to disclose any information about the new game, yet you told Hannah all about it?”

  “She didn’t believe I could win, so I told her how I did. I didn’t think she’d leak it!”

  My mother takes a deep breath and lowers her voice. “Were you bragging? Is that what happened?”

  Leave it to my mother to quickly get to the bottom of things. With a bit of shame, I admit I was.

  I can almost see the wheels turning inside my father’s brain as he paces around the driveway. “We don’t know for sure that it was Hannah, so I don’t think you should say anything just yet. Let’s keep a lid on this for now.”

  My mother drops the basket of laundry with such force several socks fly onto the lawn. “Jeremy, you can’t be serious. Even if it ends up NOT to be Hannah, Derek should tell them so they can rule her out.”

  “These are people I’ve worked with, remember? Let’s not be impulsive and make their lives more difficult.” My father tosses the socks back into the basket as if everything’s decided. “I say we sit on this for a while and let the pros at Global Games figure it out.”

  I check my phone to see if Hannah’s gotten back to me, but she hasn’t. I apologize to my father for the tenth time before my mother cuts me short.