by Mike Thayer
I pushed up the hill and flanked one of the bodyguards with the gamertag BooterScooter. Peppering her surroundings with arrows, I drove her back to take cover behind a ridge … directly below Freddie, who hid behind a set of three large boulders. As planned, Freddie pushed against one of the huge stones and sent it tumbling down the hill.
FreddieCougar splattered BooterScooter
“You gotta be kidding me!” Carolyn, aka BooterScooter, cried from the far end of the lunch table.
I smiled. Getting a boulder kill didn’t happen all that often and was one of the more embarrassing ways to die. I sprinted into the bog and found my next target, MasterCheese116, who was busy harvesting attack-boost flowers near the base of a huge tree. I stuck him with two arrows, one in each leg, before he even knew he was being watched. His character dropped to the ground, unable to walk. FreddieCougar came sprinting over a nearby hill, and I gestured toward the crippled MasterCheese116 before taking off to find the third and last bodyguard, CatHissEverdeen. Ten seconds later, another kill notification flashed across my screen.
FreddieCougar pelted MasterCheese116
By now, Noah would be getting nervous. Two of his most trusted bodyguards were down within the first minute of the game and both by Freddie.
I spotted CatHissEverdeen by an open treasure chest at the base of a gnarled swamp bush. I fired a pair of arrows while she donned a suit of heavy plate armor. My shots went wide, and she spun to see my unarmored elf retreat to the trees. Sensing an easy kill, she immediately came barreling after me. I ran in a zigzag pattern and watched throwing-axes thud into the trees around me. I turned the corner behind a row of wild hedges, sprinting past FreddieCougar as she tossed out a bear trap. Within seconds, CatHissEverdeen, fully armored, turned the blind corner and lumbered straight into the trap. Regan Russell, a few seats to my right, yelled as Freddie finished the kill.
FreddieCougar put CatHissEverdeen out of her misery
Three down. One more to go. Freddie would have collected the gear from three different kills. Everyone watching the kill notifications knew that she’d be stacked with loot. This couldn’t have worked better. By the time I ran back up the hill to get a better view of the area, FreddieCougar and SpudMasterFlex were already exchanging shots. I rushed downhill and looped back behind SpudMasterFlex. He didn’t even know I was there. He had gotten too cocky, too used to winning. I pulled my bow, sighted in my target, and fired as many arrows as I could … at FreddieCougar.
I pressed forward and sprinted straight for Freddie, forcing her to shift her attention from Noah to me. I dodged her incoming shots and returned fire, shooting the last of my arrows. I ran past her, forcing her to turn her back to SpudMasterFlex, who predictably took the opening to press his advantage.
SpudMasterFlex assassinated FreddieCougar
“Moldy monkey butts!” Freddie yelled as she slapped the table, causing everyone around her to jump. Her performance was so convincing I’d have to tell Freddie later that she had a future as a drama nerd if this Shoebox Game didn’t work out.
I turned my character around to face SpudMasterFlex, made sure that he saw me, and bowed. He paused for a second and returned my bow … just before he threw an ax at my head.
SpudMasterFlex chopped Texcalibur
“Gal darn it,” I hollered. Before the match was even over, I pulled up my messenger and shot a note to Spud-MasterFlex.
The competition is getting better. Your bodyguards aren’t. I could have put a knife in your back, but I protected it instead. I’ll do it permanently for $5/game, plus $1 for every kill assist I get. I’ll be at the Shoebox, but so will Freddie. I heard she came up with the money. My price for that event is $30 plus $5 for every kill assist. Freddie has gotten really good. You need me.
I waited for the game to finish and Noah to collect the brown bag. I watched as he walked out of the lunchroom and paused to check his phone. Ten seconds later a message popped up on my screen.
You’re hired.
CHAPTER 25
COOKIES AND TOTS
(Discard Friday—Oct. 15th)
I finished another online round of Champions Royale and put my phone down, rubbing my face with both hands. It was late. Just thirty more minutes left in the last discard day before the Shoebox Game. I had spent the entire week playing the game every moment I could spare. Most of my afternoons had been at the Roost, while my lunches were spent serving Noah the Brown Bag Game on a silver platter. It was a weird balance to maintain.
With the help of his shadow team and being able to play the field on a discard day, I could have set up my mother to walk away with the brown bag. The Shoebox Game wouldn’t be so easy, however. The Shoebox Game forum showed fifty-four confirmed players, the most I’d ever seen for a game. That meant over a thousand dollars was going to be on the line. The shadow teams would be tighter than normal, and everyone would be bringing their A game. The rules were also different. All the monsters, weapons, and items would be available, and every player would have three lives instead of just one. It was going to be chaos, and the best place from which to strike at Noah would be his inner circle.
In addition to my gaining Noah’s trust over the last week, Freddie, Zak, and I had also put considerable effort into testing which shadow teams would squeal back to Noah when shown evidence of his cheating ways. It wasn’t hard to tell which ones would. Noah wasn’t exactly the non-confrontational type once he found out someone was conspiring against him. We were left with around thirty players who I could reasonably trust to band together to seek and destroy Noah and his team of cheaters. Once the playing field was leveled, it would simply be up to the best man or woman to win.
The cheaters that could be flushed out had been flushed out. Whatever practicing I could do had been done. Noah trusted me completely, and Freddie was chomping at the bit for her chance to put SpudMasterFlex in his place. The only thing left would be to send out the message to the non-cheaters with evidence of Noah’s foul play to get as many shadow teams to band together as possible. I’d do that the morning of the Shoebox Game. I didn’t exactly want to spring it on them at the last minute, but the longer people knew, the more of a chance that the info would make its way back to Noah.
My stomach grumbled. It was as trustworthy an alarm as my phone for a late-night, discard-day snack. I got up to make my way downstairs when I heard the garage open. Was my dad seriously just coming home? I stood at the top of the stairs and waited. A minute later he came quietly into the house, walking by the light of his phone to the kitchen. I debated whether or not to go downstairs. If he was coming home this late on a Friday night, I doubted he’d be all that happy. But I had been meaning to catch up with him some more about the football game tomorrow. I couldn’t afford to be late to the Shoebox Game.
I walked downstairs, sure to make a bit of noise so I didn’t scare the crud out of my dad when I wandered into the kitchen in the middle of the night.
“Danny?” my dad said, flashing his phone light in my direction. He stood at the kitchen counter, his tie loosened and skewed to one side. He reached over and turned on the single light above the sink. “What are you doing up?”
“I was coming down to get a glass of water. Are you just getting home?”
“That I am, Danny boy.” My dad breathed out. “Look, son. I got some bad news. I don’t think I’m going to be able to go to the football game tomorrow.”
“Oh,” I said. My initial reaction was relief. Getting back from the game in time to go to the Shoebox Game had been a big worry for me. When I saw the look on my dad’s face, however, that relief soured to guilt. This meant a lot to my dad and should have meant more to me.
My dad slowly shook his head from side to side. He reached up into the cupboard and removed two glasses, clinking them down onto the counter. He turned and got the milk from the fridge and a packet of Oreos from the pantry.
“Don’t tell your mother,” he said, stripping back the top of the Oreo package and filling the gl
asses with milk.
“How many can I have?” I asked, plucking my first one from the package. I snapped one of the sides before dipping into the milk. You got the best milk penetration that way.
“I find with Oreos that you should never start with a number.” My dad grabbed two and dunked them at the same time.
We sat in silence for a while, our entire focus devoted to the enjoyment of cookies in the dark.
“I’m sorry I’ve been so busy, Danny.”
“It’s okay, Dad,” I said.
My dad grabbed a paper towel and wiped black crumbs from his lips. “No, it’s not. I’m starting to think this whole thing was a mistake.”
I scrunched my eyebrows. “What whole thing?”
“Taking this job. Coming up here.” My dad stared off to the side as he spoke. “If it ain’t broke, Danny, don’t fix it.” This wasn’t like my dad, or at least it wasn’t like the dad I knew.
“I don’t know, Dad,” I said, reaching for another Oreo. “Sometimes you got to break something perfectly good so you have the pieces to build something even better.”
“Oh yeah?” My dad turned down his mouth in surprise. “And where’d you hear that?”
“Saw it on a Lego box.”
My dad gave a quiet chuckle. “I am glad to see you doing well. Your mother was worried that the change might, well … that it might be hard on you.”
My dad didn’t like to discuss the “early days” before Dr. Donaldson, but I could read between the lines well enough.
“I’m doing fine, Dad,” I reassured him. “So what happened at work today?”
My dad looked to the ceiling and grunted, massaging the back of his neck with one hand. “You ever forget to back up a presentation that you’d spent weeks preparing, only to accidentally save over the top of it?”
While my dad was generally a pretty happy guy, he did come home from work a bit grumpy on occasion. I’d only ever used the double day in those instances to steer clear of him or ensure he didn’t make things worse by forgetting something around the house. It had never occurred to me that I might actually be able to help solve the root of the problem at work.
“What time did it happen?”
“Twelve nineteen p.m.,” my dad recited. I got the feeling he’d had to talk to more than one person about it today. “I tried the whole afternoon to find some sort of backup or temporary saved file. I’ll have to spend all weekend re-creating it since the presentation is on Monday. Sorry, buddy.”
“Don’t worry, Dad,” I said, plunging my ninth Oreo into my milk. It’d been a while since I’d had a moment like this with my dad. A shame we weren’t having it on a sticky day. “It’s gonna turn out all right.”
(Sticky Friday—Oct. 15th)
“You okay, Danny?” my dad asked at the breakfast table. The twins sat in their chairs, smashing their muffins into crumbs and mush.
“Yeah,” I said, making a show of rooting through my backpack. “Hopefully I forgot this assignment in my locker. It’s due today.”
My dad took a swig of orange juice and brought the cup to the sink. “If I had a dollar for every time I’d forgotten something over the years, we could retire to the Hawaiian Islands.”
“Wouldn’t that be something?” my mom added from the kitchen, stirring a pan of scrambled eggs with a spatula.
“Maybe us absentminded folks should stick together,” I said. “Send each other daily reminders or something. If we’re both half-brained, maybe we’ll round each other out.”
“Ha,” my dad responded, patting the twins on the head and giving my mom a kiss on the cheek before briskly walking to the door. “Maybe so.”
“Badge, Dad,” I said, pointing to his work ID badge.
“Well,” he said, and jogged back over, plucking his badge off the counter and shaking it in the air. “Maybe you’re onto something.”
My dad rushed out the door, and my mom gave me a look that said she knew I was up to something but was committed to not prying. She’d seen enough of these last-minute morning reminders to my dad or moving random objects out of reach of the twins to know that Dr. Donaldson hadn’t exactly “cured” me of my premonitions.
I finished my breakfast, put my backpack on, and headed for the door to catch the bus.
“Hopefully you find that lost assignment, Danny,” my mom called from the kitchen, her lack of real concern revealing exactly how much she didn’t believe my story. Not a lot got past my mom.
“I think there’s a pretty good chance.”
The rest of the morning went smooth, up to and including the last Brown Bag Game that I would ever have to help Noah win. I felt dirty taking payment from Noah, but that money would pay for both Freddie and me to play in the Shoebox Game, so that had some good irony to it.
After Noah walked away with the brown bag, I made brief eye contact with Freddie across the lunchroom. I gave her a quick smile, and she replied with a funny scrunch of the nose. I’d kept my distance from Freddie during bus rides and lunches ever since I started working for Noah. It was probably a ridiculous over-precaution, but the closer I got to the big day, the more nervous I was that something would pop up to derail our plans.
I walked aimlessly around the schoolyard, staring at my shoes and thinking about all the work we had done to prepare for Saturday. I had never put so much time and effort into having one day go a certain way in my entire life. Not even when I snuck out of the house and into the movie theater in the middle of the day to see the last Venom movie. I had a lot riding on this. I didn’t get anxious about many discard days, but getting a good first crack at the Shoebox Game tomorrow would be absolutely vital for making sure everything went off without a hitch and allow me to adjust my plans if needed.
My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out. It was an alarm to send my dad a reminder. Four minutes from now he would save over his presentation. I stopped walking and worked on my text.
Yo, old man. I just found my assignment. This is your daily friendly reminder to back up all important documents, and to remember to
“Hey!” someone yelled.
I jumped, and my phone tumbled from my fingers, falling to the grass. I looked up, and the blood drained from my body. Jaxson stood not four feet in front of me.
“You taking pictures of Braxlynn?”
“I’m what?” I managed, looking over his shoulder to see Braxlynn and the Clique sitting on their bench. I must have unknowingly wandered over to their bench and stopped behind it when I’d gotten my alarm.
“You were standing behind Braxlynn and her friends with your phone up, doofus. What else would you be doing?”
I blinked hard as if trying to start my brain like it was an old truck engine struggling to turn over on a bad battery. If I didn’t send that message to my dad in the next minute or two, then his presentation would be lost. I’d fail him just like I had when he fell asleep and screwed up his neck. Way worse than that, actually. But this was a sticky day. This was Jaxson. This looked bad. I needed evasive maneuvers. Abandon ship. Hit the ejector seat. Emergency evacuation. But I just froze.
“I … uh,” I stammered.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, Texas turd,” Jaxson said. “Let’s see what’s on your phone.”
Jaxson made a move to grab my phone off the grass. “Don’t touch my phone,” I blurted. I wasn’t thinking, or maybe it was just some other part of me that was thinking. Just as Jaxson bent down, I reached forward and pushed him as hard as I could. He toppled backward, rolling into Braxlynn and her friends and knocking them down like a human bowling ball scoring a strike. I snatched my phone and ran faster than I had ever run in my life.
“You’re a dead man!” I heard Jaxson yell as I zipped between students, sprinting back inside the school, not daring to look behind. I had no plan, no refuge in mind. My shoes squeaked as I flew around a hallway corner. I couldn’t find anyone. It was like I was running for my life in a zombie apocalypse wasteland. I had to find a teacher. Where did th
ey friggin’ eat lunch?
I heard a door slam open down the hall behind me followed by the heavy slap of sprinting steps. Jaxson would catch me. He’d pound me to a pulp. I barreled around a corner and slammed into an unsuspecting student, his small basket of Tater Tots launching into the air.
“Sorry!” I said, desperately swimming past the kid.
“My tots!” he yelled after me.
Tots … wait. Mr. Wilding! Jaxson’s thundering steps grew louder. I looked around. Racing forward, I took the next right and dashed up the stairs three at a time. Out of breath, legs ready to collapse, I burst into Mr. Wilding’s office.
Mr. Wilding, sitting at his desk, popped out of his seat, his glasses bouncing off his nose. “My goodness!”
“Mr. Wilding.” I quickly shut the door behind me and pressed my body against it, shoulders heaving. I took my phone out and sent my text message to my dad. Two minutes to spare. Hopefully he’d see it in time. “Let’s hear all about your grandpa and the history of Tater Tots.”
CHAPTER 26
DISCARD SBG
(Discard Saturday—Oct. 16th)
“It’s gonna be a great day,” my dad said from behind the kitchen stove. He flipped half a dozen golden pancakes on the griddle with one hand and prodded at a pan of sizzling bacon with the other. My sisters giggled as they launched handfuls of fluffy scrambled eggs across the table and onto the floor. “It should be a fantastic game. The Idaho State Bengals haven’t won their first five games since 1995. They’ve got a great team this year. Their quarterback’s actually from Katy, Texas, would you believe it?”
My mom stumbled out of the bedroom, her hair like a bird’s nest and dark circles under her eyes. My mom almost never left the bedroom without being done up, so I knew it could only mean one thing: She was sick.
