Spotlight on Coding Club!

by Michelle Schusterman

  “No, I think we should!” I exclaimed. “It definitely makes sense for the talent show.” Then I stuck my arms straight out. “Work . . . need work . . . ,” I droned in my best zombie voice.

  Everyone laughed. Then Lucy leaned forward and grabbed my arm.

  “If you really want more work, I have an idea.”

  “You want me to do your homework?” I pretended to consider it. “Okay. Twenty bucks per page.”

  “Ha ha.” Smiling, Lucy sat up straighter. “That’s not what I meant. I’m still bummed about Mrs. Clark leaving coding club, and this morning I asked Principal Stephens who was going to replace her. He said he’s still working on it, but he has several teachers who are interested.”

  “Oh cool!” said Leila, and the rest of us nodded.

  “Yeah, it is,” Lucy responded. “But I started thinking, how is he going to choose the best one? They all have different qualities, kind of like the talent show contestants . . .”

  She stirred her yogurt and looked at us, eyebrows raised. After a few seconds, Maya cleared her throat.

  “And?”

  Lucy sighed. “And, we’re already working on a voting feature that narrows down contestants based on qualities, right? I bet once we finish, we could modify it to help pick the best coding club teacher!”

  Sophia looked confused. “So everyone in coding club would vote for a new teacher? Couldn’t we just do a headcount instead of using an app?”

  “No, I mean we could use it to gather data,” Lucy explained, gesturing with her spoon like she was gathering data out of the air. “For the talent show, everyone will give contestants thumbs-ups based on creativity, presentation, and all of those qualities, right? So we can choose qualities for an ideal coding club teacher, enter all the teachers Principal Stephens is considering, and then get as many students as possible to vote, so we’ll have lots of data to help him choose the best one. I was going to ask him about it right after school today, as long as you’re all in. You are, right?”

  Her eyes were sparkling, but I could tell the other girls weren’t nearly as excited. And I had to admit, while it was definitely a cool idea, it did seem like another big commitment on top of our already intense deadlines.

  But until I heard from Dad, I was determined to keep myself distracted. Plus, I didn’t want to disappoint Lucy. If theater was my one true love, coding was definitely hers—she’d been so passionate about it right from our very first meeting. Mrs. Clark leaving was probably harder on Lucy than it was on the rest of us. No wonder she was so eager to find a good replacement.

  “Dahling, what an absolutely brilliant idea!” I exclaimed in a pompous British accent, pushing my glasses to the tip of my nose and peering over the frames. “Top drawer. Absolutely corking.”

  “It is a good idea,” Sophia said, laughing along with the others. “But honestly, softball tryouts start next week, so between that and working on this voting feature for the app, I’m going to be pretty busy.”

  Maya nodded. “Same here. I’m entering the talent show, and—”

  “You are?” Leila interjected, beaming. “Me too! I’m trying to program a robot to play a song on a toy xylophone. What are you doing?”

  Maya told everyone about her fashion-runway idea, and soon the conversation had turned to Sophia’s dress and all the other cool stuff Maya might design. I glanced over at Lucy. She had a funny, tight expression on her face.

  “Erin, you’re entering, too, right?” she asked me, and I nodded. “But you can still help me with this? I just want to make sure we get the best possible replacement for Mrs. Clark.”

  An awkward silence descended over the table. Maya and Sophia glanced at each other, and Leila stared down at the apple in her hand. My stomach tightened a little.

  “I know!” I told Lucy, keeping my voice as upbeat as possible. “We all do.”

  “So you’re in?”

  “Of course, dahling,” I answered, hoping to lighten the mood. But this time, no one laughed.

  “Are you sure, Erin?” Maya asked, eyebrows arched. “You just said film club is going to be really busy, too.”

  “It’s no biggie,” I said airily, opening a carton of milk. “Actually, I figured out the trick to keeping up with everything—no sleep! It totally works, I swear. All you have to do is stay up all night and . . .” Trailing off, I thunked my head down onto the table and let out a loud snore. The sound of my friends’ laughter sent a wave of relief through me, and my shoulders relaxed. “Just kidding,” I continued, sitting up. “I’m giving up my favorite TV shows for the next few weeks to make time for this stuff, that’s all.”

  Leila gasped. “So you didn’t watch Spyland last night? The ending was amazing, they—”

  “I can’t hear you, lalala!” I plugged my ears with my fingers, and my friends started giggling.

  The awkwardness finally seemed to be gone, thank goodness. But as the conversation turned to our favorite shows, I felt a familiar and unwelcome flutter of anxiety in my chest. Maya was right—I had a lot of commitments over the next few weeks. Could I really keep up with them all?

  That’s the point, I told myself firmly. Every minute I spent working on something was a minute I wasn’t worrying about Dad. All the Distractions was a stellar plan.

  Chapter Four

  Film club stayed an hour later than usual Wednesday after school, watching the videos students had submitted and approving them to go up online. It seemed like every time we finished one, two new ones popped up. It was awesome, but by the time I got home from school, my head was spinning. After dinner, I cast a longing look at the television before getting started on my homework.

  By Thursday morning, over fifty kids had uploaded videos to the All the Talents app.

  “The first round is going to be huge,” Maya said, watching me twirl the combination on my locker. “I can’t believe how fast everyone’s making these videos.”

  “I know! It’s so cool. How’s yours coming?”

  “Well, I figured out which five outfits I want to use for the fashion show, but two of them aren’t finished,” Maya replied. “What about you? Have you practiced your act yet?”

  “You mean besides every morning in the shower?” I slammed my locker closed, then held an imaginary microphone to my mouth and started to belt out a song. “I know you don’t think so—oh no, my soap!” I grabbed and snatched at the air, like an invisible bar of soap kept slipping through my fingers, and Maya cracked up.

  “I can’t wait to see the real act,” she said, her eyes glowing. “Are we still on for filming Saturday?”

  “Yeah! Is noon okay?”

  “Yup!”

  My phone lit up with a text message from Lucy.

  principal stephens said we could help out

  I quickly texted back.

  roger that. mission is a go.

  over and out.

  Maya gave me a look but I shook my head.

  “My project with Lucy,” I told her. “Finding a replacement for Mrs. Clark.”

  “Is that okay?” Maya asked. “I mean—”

  Both our phones buzzed at the same time, cutting her off. This time, it was the group chat.

  can u guys make it to an extra coding club meeting after school today?

  mrs clark said she’ll be there for anyone who needs more time on their projects

  Maya sighed. “I really need to work on those outfits . . . I don’t know.” She glanced up at me. “Can you make it?”

  “Definitely,” I answered without hesitation. I hadn’t been looking forward to going home to an empty apartment and no messages from Dad. “But don’t feel bad if you can’t go.”

  “Nah, I’ll go, too.” Maya was already typing a response. “We do have a lot to do on that program. Maybe your no-sleep idea isn’t so bad after all.”

  “Sleeeeeeeep,�
�� I moaned, sticking my arms straight out. Maya shrieked when I gnashed my teeth. She hurried down the corridor, looking over her shoulder and giggling as I zombie-stomped after her.

  * * *

  When I walked into Mrs. Clark’s room after school, she and Lucy waved at me from behind Lucy’s computer.

  “I was just taking a look at what you girls have done so far on your feature for our site,” Mrs. Clark told me. “I’m so impressed!”

  Lucy half stood out of her chair, peering at the door. “Did you see Sophia or anyone else?” she asked with a frown.

  I shook my head. “No. I’m sure they’re on their way, though. So whaddaya say, kiddo?” I said in a nasal voice like an old-timey reporter, cracking my knuckles and wiggling my fingers. “Ready to start coding?”

  Lucy laughed. “Ready!”

  Mrs. Clark headed back to her desk as Lucy and I got to work. After a slow start—and a few questions for Mrs. Clark—we fell into a groove, coding the specifics for our voting system that we’d talked about the night before. But Lucy kept glancing at the door with an increasingly irritated expression, and the knot in my stomach kept getting tighter and tighter. Where were the others?

  When Leila and Maya finally burst through the door, I exhaled a huge sigh of relief.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Leila said, pulling up a chair next to Lucy. “Tania called—I needed to ask her a few questions about my robot before I work on it some more tonight.”

  Leila’s older sister, Tania, was just as into robots and programming as Leila. She was also super smart and nice—I’d met her a few times. She was planning to go back to Pakistan (where they were from) after college and make robots that would help farmers.

  “I’m sorry, too.” Maya flopped down next to me. “I ran into Hannah and lost track of time. She has so many amazing ideas for her outfit!” Her cheeks were all pink again, just like at lunch.

  “Like what?” I asked enthusiastically. “Did you take my suggestion to add wings that actually work?”

  Maya laughed as I flapped my arms. “No wings, sorry. But it’s going to be almost as cool.”

  I faked a disappointed pouty look. “I can’t wait to see it,” I said. But Lucy didn’t say anything—she just kept typing. A second later, Sophia trudged into the classroom, wiping her sweaty face on her sleeve.

  “Sorry, guys. I was at softball tryouts,” she huffed.

  “How were they?” I asked, and she beamed.

  “Awesome,” she replied, pulling out the chair next to Maya’s. “I think the team’s going to be amazing this year. We—”

  “Here’s what we’ve done so far,” Lucy interrupted. She turned her monitor so Maya and Sophia could see the code we’d written. “But if we’re going to get at least a draft of this finished by tomorrow, we need to split up the work.”

  “That’s why we’re here,” Maya said tightly. Next to her, Sophia rolled her eyes.

  I could feel the tension rising in our group. I had to do something.

  “Speak for yourself!” I joked, wiping my suddenly sweaty palms on my jeans. “I’m here for these super-comfy chairs.” I leaned back in the rolling chair until it started to tip over, then grabbed Lucy’s arm. “Ack, help!”

  To my relief, she finally cracked a smile. “They’re not recliners, you goofball.”

  “Well maybe they should be,” I said fervently. “Can you imagine how awesome class would be?”

  “You’d just fall asleep!”

  “Exactly—power naps.” I closed my eyes and let out a loud, fake snore that made my friends giggle. Then I sat up straight and clapped my hands. “Wow, I feel so much better. Let’s do this!”

  Lucy looked a bit calmer, and so I relaxed, too. Tension defused. After Lucy explained to the others what was left to do, everyone chose a task. For a few minutes, we wrote code in silence. Nice silence, though—not the awkward kind. It felt like good old coding club again.

  “So what ideas did Hannah have for her dress?” I asked Maya, and her face lit up.

  “Actually, they’re about her accessories,” she said excitedly, fingers still flying over her keyboard. “And fabrics. I started sketching a few ideas while we were talking, and they already look awesome. They’re a bit more complicated than anything I’ve made before, but it’ll be a great way to try some new materials and sewing techniques.”

  “You could really grow as a designer,” I said. “You know, get to the next level. Really . . . spread your wings.”

  Maya faked a glare.

  “I’m not designing wings,” she said.

  “The more you deny it . . . ,” I said, with a shrug.

  “Shut up.” She finally cracked a smile. “No, Hannah had some really great ideas.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  Soon we were chatting about Maya’s fashion show, then Sophia’s softball tryouts, and then Leila’s robot. We were making progress on the site, too, and I could tell even Lucy had started to relax. An hour later, Mrs. Clark was looking over a finished draft of our app.

  “Great work,” she told us, scrolling through pages of code. “Next step will be beta testing, which is usually the last stage before an app is released. We need someone outside of the club to try using all the features to check for problems. But before we do that, we should get one of you to test it for bugs before tomorrow.” She glanced at the clock. “Whoops, I didn’t realize how late it is! We’d better get going.”

  Mrs. Clark hurried back to her desk as the rest of us started putting on our jackets.

  “So, testing for bugs,” Leila said slowly. “Who wants to do it?”

  I bit my lip. Part of me wanted to volunteer—work zombie and all that—but I had a history test tomorrow, and a ton of algebra homework, and more videos to sort through for film club. So I waited until someone else spoke up.

  “I’d do it, but I really need to get started sewing,” Maya finally responded.

  Leila nodded. “Yeah, I wanted to spend tonight working on these fixes Tania suggested . . .”

  I glanced at Sophia, who was slowly zipping up her backpack. She looked exhausted from tryouts, and I knew she probably wanted to go home and crash.

  Lucy sighed. “Well, I was going to work on the teacher app tonight. But if none of you can do it . . .”

  “I can!” I blurted out, because that weird, awkward tension was back, and I couldn’t stand it. “It’s no problem.”

  “Cool!” Lucy beamed at me. “Thanks, Erin. Hey, maybe we can chat while we’re working! I can show you what I’ve done with the teacher app so far.”

  “Sounds fun!” I smiled at Lucy, but I couldn’t help noticing the expressions on my other friends’ faces. A little bit irritated, a little bit uncomfortable. I fought down yet another wave of anxiety as we followed Mrs. Clark out of the classroom.

  Was this just how things were going to be now? I knew everyone had a lot going on—myself included—but coding club had never been stressful before. I figured we’d be able to relax after the talent show, but then Mrs. Clark would be gone. Besides, we’d been under pressure before, like while trying to get our robot to dance at the hackathon, or figuring out how to incorporate coding into the future-themed winter dance. But even then, we’d had fun. What if coding club never went back to how it had been?

  The second I got home, I made a beeline for the computer in the living room and opened a chat window. The little circle next to Dad’s name was gray for offline. The perfect color, I thought glumly. Gray matched my mood exactly.

  I left the window open while I did my algebra homework, then read a few chapters of my history textbook. By the time I finished, my eyes were ready to fall out of their sockets. But Mom would be home in half an hour, and I still had to test the voting part for bugs.

  Ten minutes later, I could feel a headache starting to throb behind my temples. Our voting
feature looked good, but I’d already hit a few problems trying it out. I’d created a fake talent show candidate, and I was experimenting with giving thumbs-ups on different combinations of all the qualities we’d entered. But no matter how many thumbs-ups I clicked, it just kept giving my fake candidate a “three” for her overall score. And when I clicked enter to submit my vote, the site wasn’t saving the new vote to the database. I’d just started reading over our code to try and find the problem when a little flash of green in the chat window caught my eye.

  Hope rushed through me, quickly followed by disappointment. The green light was next to Leila’s name, not Dad’s. Still, maybe Leila could help me figure out these bugs. I double-clicked her name, then started typing.

  Erin: LEILA!!! helllllllp this bug test is NOT going well and I’m stressing out big-time

  I waited, drumming my fingers on the desk. A few seconds later, a response popped up.

  Leila: hi, Erin! this is Tania—Leila must’ve forgotten to log out.

  Erin: oh! hi tania. plz ignore my message.

  Sighing, I leaned back in my chair. Should I text Leila? Or anyone else from coding club? I knew they were all busy with other stuff tonight . . . but hey, I had a lot to do, too. Yet here I was, tackling our group project alone.

  Because you volunteered, I reminded myself firmly. Stop complaining.

  A loud beeping noise startled me, and I looked at the screen. A little window had popped up.

  Accept call from Leila Devi? Yes/No

  I clicked yes, and a second later, Tania’s face filled the screen.

  “Hey!” she said. “Haven’t seen you since spring break. Break any more hula-hooping records lately?”

  I burst out laughing. “Oh, I forgot about that!” Over the break, Leila had us all over for a sleepover. Tania ended up judging our hula-hoop competition, which I won by a mile—twenty-four minutes, thank you very much. Hula-hooping was my secret talent. “No new records lately,” I told her. “Had to give my hips a chance to recover.”