Ms. Slade circled her hand above her head. “Everyone, take out a piece of paper and make a list of every app or game you’ve ever written. Then list each one’s assets. Mentally tear your own apps into smaller pieces. When you have your list, I want you to get up and walk around the room. Tell each other what you have. Brainstorm. Work together. Use each other’s code and brainpower.”
All around the lab, Allie could hear people shuffling around in their backpacks and tearing pages from their notebooks. And then the room got quiet.
She leaned over to Nathan. “Any idea what you’re going to build?”
He shook his head. “Not a clue.”
Good, Allie thought. At least she wasn’t the only one.
For the rest of the day, the reuse assignment was all Allie could think about. She kept picturing the list she’d made in class—which not only included the apps her classmates built, but also the ones her CodeGirls had made over the summer—hoping an idea would magically leap off the page and into her head. But by the time school ended, she still had nothing.
She gathered her stuff from her locker, swapping out her Spanish and science textbooks for math and history, and took off for the roundabout where Bus #14 was waiting. She climbed the steps and paused at the landing, just like she did every day.
Marcus Inouye was in his usual spot in the third row, leaning up against the window. He tipped his chin toward her. “Hey, Three.”
“Hey, Six,” she said, tightening her grip on her backpack strap.
It had been like that for almost four months, ever since Allie released Click’d, when Marcus took the number six spot on her leaderboard, and she took the number three spot on his.
She walked to her seat in the middle of the bus and flopped down next to Zoe.
“ ‘Hey, Six.’ ‘Hey, Three,’ ” Zoe mocked, using the same voices she had during lunch.
Allie smacked her arm with the back of her hand.
“You know what you need?” Zoe asked.
“A new seatmate?” Allie said sarcastically.
Zoe ignored her. “You need a Marcus Plan.”
“I don’t have room in my head for a Marcus Plan. I’m too busy trying to come up with a Reuse Plan.” And in the back of her mind, she was still holding out hope for a Courtney Plan.
“What’s a Reuse Plan?”
Allie told her about the Legos, and the game she had to create and roll out in less than a week. It made her sweat just thinking about it.
“If you don’t have to write it from scratch, shouldn’t it be easy?”
“Sure, but I still need a good idea. That’s the hardest part, and everyone else in class already came up with something. Ava is making some geocaching game that’s going to take people all around campus to find hidden boxes filled with prizes. And Ben is building an app to get people collecting objects for a time capsule. Even Nathan figured out what he’s building.”
“What’s he doing?”
“He wouldn’t tell me. But I’m sure he’s got some killer idea. He was talking to everyone in class about taking parts of their code. He’ll build something good, I know it.” Allie felt that familiar adrenaline rush. “I need an idea, Zoe.”
“Well, you came up with the idea for Click’d because you had a problem to solve, right? What’s the biggest problem you need to solve right now?”
Allie didn’t even need to think about it. “Getting a plane ticket for Courtney.”
“Maybe the App Store has an idea for us.” Zoe reached into her backpack. She tried to free her phone, but the earbuds were plugged in and the cord kept getting tangled up in books, pens, and candy wrappers. “Ugh. Hate. This. Cord.” She finally freed her phone, launched the App Store, and scrolled through the icons, mumbling to herself. “Let’s see . . . apps that make money. Money-money-money-money . . .”
Allie looked over Zoe’s shoulder as the apps blurred by. Nothing on the screen caught her eye, but something else had: Zoe’s earbuds.
She thought back to what Zoe had said during lunch, about wishing she’d saved her money to buy the wireless ones instead. And she pictured that long list of assets she’d created during class. She’d been waiting all afternoon for one of them to leap from the page and give her a big idea, and suddenly, she had it.
Share|wear, she thought. It could work.
Allie picked Zoe’s earbuds off the seat and held them in the air. “Do you still want to get your money back for these?”
Zoe looked at her sideways. “Why?”
“How much would you take for them?”
“I paid fifty.” Zoe held her hand out flat in front of her.
Allie slapped it lightly. “You’re not getting fifty. They’re used earbuds.”
“Barely used.”
“Still used.”
Zoe looked even more confused. “I thought you were saving your money to get a plane ticket for Courtney?”
“I am. Would you take forty?”
Zoe’s eyes narrowed. “What are you up to?”
Allie scanned the faces on Bus #14 and then twisted in her seat, facing Zoe. “About halfway through CodeGirls camp last summer, we all got bored with the clothes we brought to camp, so we swapped all our stuff, all the time. It was like having one giant closet, right?” Allie was talking fast. “After a week or so, stuff started getting lost. And people wanted to borrow specific things but couldn’t remember who owned them. And anyway, it all started getting super complicated, so just for fun, Courtney whipped up this simple app so we could share and track everything. She called it share|wear.”
“Like a library, but for clothes.”
“Exactly!”
“What does this have to do with my earbuds?”
“If I’m right . . . everything.”
Zoe still seemed confused, so Allie leaned in closer. “I want to do an experiment, but I’ll need your help. Would you sell them for forty bucks?”
“Sure. Whatever.”
Allie came up on her knees and spoke loudly and clearly.
“Hello! Can I have your attention?” Everyone kept talking, so Allie had to raise her voice. “Hello!” she yelled, waving her arms in the air. The bus gradually got quieter.
“Hi.” Allie gave them an awkward wave. “I have a pair of barely used earbuds.” She held them high in the air so everyone, from the front of the bus to the back row, could see them clearly. “As you can see, they are blue and gray. They sound great. Zoe paid fifty bucks for these two weeks ago.”
“Plus tax!” Zoe yelled as she came up on her knees, kneeling next to Allie.
“She’s looking to sell them. Does anyone want them for thirty bucks?”
“Thirty?” Zoe whisper-yelled. “You said forty!”
“Trust me,” Allie said. And then she raised her arm even higher in the air, demonstrating Zoe’s earbuds like a game show host.
“Do I hear thirty?”
It was quiet.
Too quiet.
People started looking away, returning to their conversations. Allie’s heart started racing. She was just about to sit back down when Penny McCaskill spoke up from across the aisle. “What’s wrong with them?”
“Nothing,” Zoe said. “I just want to get wireless ones.”
Penny thought about it. And then she said, “I’d take them for thirty.”
“Penny has thirty bucks,” Allie said, scanning the bus. “Anyone want them for thirty-one?”
“I’d pay thirty-one,” a guy’s voice called out.
Allie’s head spun in the other direction, and she saw Ryan Shay’s arm in the air. She pointed at him and said, “Thirty-one.”
“Thirty-two.” The voice came from behind her right shoulder. She turned and spotted Alex Jefferson up on his knees in the second to the last row.
“Thirty-three!” A voice called from the front of the bus. Allie spun around and spotted Marcus looking at her. “Thirty-three,” he repeated. Allie grinned at him.
“Do you still have the case and
all the unused silicone thingies?” Anna Sheridan asked from her seat in the first row.
“Yeah.” Zoe reached down into her backpack and popped up again. “Right here,” she yelled, waving the black zippered case in the air above her.
“Then thirty-five,” Anna said.
Someone yelled, “Thirty-six!” and another voice called out, “Thirty-seven!” and someone else hollered, “Thirty-eight!”
“Thirty-nine,” Penny said from across the aisle.
Allie looked over at Zoe, silently asking for her approval. Zoe gave her a thumbs-up and handed Allie the case. She was about to start passing the earbuds across the aisle to Penny, when a girl’s voice behind them yelled, “Forty!”
Allie’s and Zoe’s heads whipped around. Julia Sanders was on her feet, standing in the center of the aisle in the back row, waving her arms in the air.
Zoe bounced in place. “Now we’re talkin’.”
Allie held the earbuds higher in the air. “Anyone want them for forty-one bucks?”
The bus was silent. Julia was still standing at the back of the bus. And now Penny was standing, too. Allie was surprised the driver hadn’t noticed.
Penny sat down. “I don’t have it.”
Allie addressed the bus again. “Forty from Julia. Anyone else want in?”
No one said a word. Allie silently counted to five. And then she slapped the back of her chair with her palm. “Forty bucks! Congratulations, Julia!”
Zoe coiled the earbuds cord, zipped everything into the case, and passed it to Allie, who passed it to the person behind her. The two of them watched the case travel to the back of the bus, seat by seat, until Julia waved it in the air. Then a wad of cash began making its way to Zoe.
A minute later, Zoe had the money in her hand. “Okay, what was that?” she asked, fanning herself with her cash.
“I know what I’m building for the reuse assignment.”
“You’re going to sell earbuds to people on the bus?”
“Nope,” Allie said, matter-of-factly. “I’m gonna sell all kinds of things, and not just to the people on the bus . . . to the people walking home, and the people in carpool, too.” She tapped a finger against the bills, still fanned out in Zoe’s hand. “I’m going to start with Courtney’s share|wear app, turn it into an auction game exclusively for Mercer students, and make a bunch of money. Fast.”
A slow smile spread over Zoe’s face. “For Courtney’s ticket.”
“Yep.” The bus pulled to a stop and Allie practically flew out of her seat. “I’ll text you later,” she called over her shoulder.
She couldn’t wait to tell Courtney. She pulled her phone from her back pocket, preparing to hit the call button the second her feet connected with the pavement.
Allie was turning for the steps when she heard, “See ya, Three.”
She stopped. She’d been so distracted, so excited, she’d almost forgotten about their daily ritual.
She looked over her right shoulder at Marcus and said, “See ya, Six.”
Courtney answered the FaceTime call right away.
“Hey, guess what?” Allie asked as she raced up her front steps.
“What?”
“You’re coming to California in eleven days.”
Courtney sat straight up in her chair. Allie could see the posters on her bedroom wall in the background. “Your parents changed their minds?”
“I wish. Hold on.” Allie balanced her backpack on one knee and dug deep, feeling for her house key, which was lost somewhere in the textbooks, notebooks, and stray papers. As soon as she opened the door, Bo was at her feet, jumping excitedly.
“Hi, buddy!” She closed the door behind her and collapsed onto the entryway floor, legs crossed, arms out. Bo jumped into her lap and licked her cheek.
“Hi, Bo!” Courtney called through the phone.
Allie kissed him on the nose. “Come on, let’s get you a snack.”
As Allie walked to the kitchen, she told Courtney all about Ms. Slade’s reuse assignment and her big idea on the bus ride home.
“People buy and sell stuff at school all the time,” Allie said.
“Mine too,” Courtney said. “I bought half my games off kids at school.”
“See? We’re just going to make it faster and easier. Thanks to Click’d, I already have a user base. And we already have the perfect storefront.”
“We do?”
“You do. You built it in share|wear.”
“I do, don’t I?” Courtney threw her shoulders back. “It’s super simple, but I always liked that interface.”
“It’s clean and friendly, totally easy to use—”
“And share|wear knows how to display items—”
“Exactly. And it already has all the fields we need, like color, description—”
“Except share|wear doesn’t have code for buying or selling. We’ll need to build an auction engine.”
“Borrow,” Allie said. “Who built an auction engine during camp last summer?”
Courtney didn’t hesitate. “Kaiya.”
“Going Once,” Allie said, snapping her fingers.
Kaiya’s CodeGirls project was a game called Going Once. Items appeared on screen one at a time, and little characters in the audience held up signs with their bids. The game didn’t really have a point, but it was fun and a little too addictive.
“It’s exactly what we need,” Allie continued. “We’ll use that as the foundation—”
“And then snap on the share|wear front end—”
“And grab the Click’d leaderboard code—”
“And we’ll have a whole new app.”
Both girls stared off, visualizing it.
“We’ll make money by taking a cut from every transaction. Like . . . five percent?” Allie suggested.
“Ten,” Courtney said.
“No one needs a credit card, or to ship anything anywhere. We’ll just swap everything at school.”
The two of them stared at each other.
“Swapped,” Courtney said.
“Swapped.” Allie could already see the logo in her mind. Swap’d. Just like Click’d. It was perfect.
Courtney’s face broke into a huge smile. “Hey, guess what?”
“What?”
“I’m coming to California in eleven days,” she said.
“I told you.”
Allie took the stairs to her room two at a time, Bo racing behind her.
“Okay, what are we going to sell?” Courtney asked. She walked around her room, removing things from drawers and piling them on her bed.
Allie went straight to her shelves. There were rows of books, separated by pictures of her and her friends, and keepsakes she’d collected over the years. In one corner, there was a stack of spiral-bound notebooks she’d saved from all her classes. English. Math. Spanish. Science. She couldn’t imagine anyone buying any of that.
She opened her jewelry box and peered inside. Some of the earrings and necklaces were special—presents from her parents or her grandmother—but they were also a few she’d bought at the mall with her allowance and hardly ever wore anymore. She picked out two necklaces and a mood ring.
“How about these?” she asked, holding them up in front of her.
“Perfect,” Courtney said. Allie tossed them onto her bedspread and went back to opening drawers.
“How much do you think I can get for this?” Courtney asked, holding up a snowball microphone.
“I bet you can get at least fifty bucks.”
“Done.” Courtney tossed it onto her bed. “Okay, what else?”
Allie went to her closet. There was a pair of soccer cleats she’d only worn a couple times before she outgrew them. She turned them around in her hands and brought one to her nose to take a whiff. They didn’t smell funky, so she tossed them over her shoulder in the general direction of her bed.
She looked through her tops, but she couldn’t imagine anyone else wearing her clothes. She sat down at he
r desk. She would get decent money for her brand-new keyboard, but she just got it for Christmas and she loved it. Besides, her parents would kill her if she sold that, even for Courtney.
She dug through her desk drawers next, pushing aside her stapler and a bunch of stray bookmarks, paper clips, old birthday cards, and valentines she’d tossed in there and forgotten all about. And then she felt something at the bottom of the drawer.
“No way,” she said as she lifted a white case into the air.
Courtney brought the phone closer to her face, trying to see what Allie was holding in her hands.
“Check it out.” Allie unfastened the Velcro strap that held it closed. Inside, there was a white Nintendo DS, along with a bunch of tiny game cartridges, all organized in little mesh pockets. “This is awesome. Mario Kart. Dragon Quest. Sonic. Kirby. I forgot all about these. Ha, look—Nintendogs.”
“Oh, I loved Nintendogs!”
“Right? But this one,” Allie said, holding up the Mario Kart cartridge. “This was always my favorite.”
Allie slid it into the open slot and pressed the power button. The screen came to life with the familiar logo and that little song that used to get stuck in her head. Allie sat down on her comforter with her legs folded and her thumbs on her DS, just like she used to.
The graphics were old-school and unsophisticated, and she loved it. As soon as she brought her fingertip to the joystick, it all came back to her, that familiar feeling of dodging and weaving turtle shells and skimming across the road to try to capture a boost. She played one game, peering over at her phone every once in a while, to watch Courtney run around her room, opening drawers and tossing stuff onto her bed. She came in seventh place. She played another and came in sixth. And then another and took fourth.
“Okay, what do you think?” Courtney asked.
Allie looked up from her game to find Courtney’s bedspread covered with stuff. In addition to the microphone, there were several game controllers, a pair of boots, three books containing cheats for games Allie had never even heard of, a pair of drumsticks, and two empty picture frames.
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