and a black skirt—which was weirder than you might think because Winston Macintosh was a public school that didn’t have uniforms. They barely had classrooms.
Emma leaned in so close her braids brushed Dylan’s ears. “Are you a Game Changer?”
“Why are you asking?”
“Chad Worthington is telling people that if you are, he’s gonna beat the snot out of you.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Dylan replied, although he did not, in fact, know that.
“He told Anjali he’s gonna turn you upside down and mop the cafeteria with your dreads.”
“So?”
“You’re not scared or anything? Want me to walk with you to language arts?”
“Like I want to be seen in public with Viral Emma. No offense.”
“Whatever,” Emma shrugged. “Just remember what the philosopher Sun Tzu said . . .”
Dylan knew what was coming and covered his ears. “Not listening! La-la-la-la!”
“Winning without fighting is the ultimate martial art,” she quoted anyway.
Dylan, his fingers still in his ears, rushed away from his sister as fast as he could—and nearly slammed right into Ivan, a spiky-haired seventh grader so big he looked like he had swallowed a couple sixth graders.
The hulking kid pretended to throw a punch and when Dylan jerked back to dodge it, Ivan laughed. “You’re no Game Changer! For real, though, at three p.m. the Chadster is gonna end you! Sucks to be you right now, don’t it, Loopy?”
Ivan, who was chewing a wad of gum the size of a hamster, popped a bubble, faked another punch at Dylan’s head, and lumbered away.
Dylan was officially freaking out. He often felt like he had sixteen browser windows open in his head all at once. Now it felt like he had 160. Why did Chad think he was a Game Changer? Was this a Loopy thing? He and Emma were both in the accelerated group at school—technically it was named the Learning Outlier Opportunity Program, but in reality everyone called them Loopys. Other kids, even members of the glee club, were constantly tripping Loopys in the hall, knocking lunch trays out of their hands, or locking them in their own lockers.
Maybe there was something to Emma’s warning. But Dylan barely even knew Chad, a sofa-sized seventh grader who hung out with gum-chewing goons like Ivan. And after the whole Viral Emma thing, Dylan tried to steer completely clear of Chad and his crew, who were the kind of jerks who spent the school day in the parking lot, bullying scrawny kids, torturing small mammals, and seeing who could fart the loudest. If passing gas ever became an Olympic sport, Chad and his goons would be gold medalists. So why were Chad and his butt-trumpet bunch gunning for Dylan?
At 12:05 p.m., Dylan reported to language arts in the Loopy wing, a cluster of rooms tucked away in the school’s leaky basement, which, depending on the day, smelled like old roadkill, wet sneakers, or public transportation. As Dylan walked into room 103, up on the blackboard, scrawled in red chalk, he saw this message:
GAME OVER LOOPY.
I’M COMIN FOR YOU AT 3.
THE CHADSTER
The language arts teacher didn’t even do anything about the threat until halfway through the period—and then she didn’t erase it, she just added a “g” to the end of “comin.” As Dylan scurried out of the room, trying to figure out how he could escape Chad and his goons, Eli Marquez, another sixth grade Loopy, rolled up in his wheelchair.
“Hola! I’ve got some intel on Chad,” Eli announced, whipping out his computer and peering at the screen through his glasses, which magnified his sea-green eyes to a cartoon size. He had a shock of straight black hair he never combed except with his fingers, and he carried around this plaid thingy he called a snuglet that was a cross between a sweater and a blanket and guaranteed nobody but Dylan would ever sit with him during lunch.
“How did you get info on Chad?” Dylan asked.
“Dude, how long have we known each other?” Eli replied.
“Don’t tell me you hacked into Chad’s computer.”
“Then I won’t tell you that. ’Cause I hacked his phone.”
Dylan bumped fists with Eli. “Sweet! So why does Chad want to murder me?”
“Because he thinks you’re a Game Changer—and he’s afraid he’s not.”
“Seriously? This is really about a video game?”
Everyone at the school was into a video game called Xamaica, and there was a huge tournament coming up. Only the forty-four best players got to enter—the Game Changers, they called them. So the question running through the halls was, Are you a Game Changer? Nobody knew the answer—yet.
“They’re gonna announce who made the Game Changers tonight,” Eli explained. “Chad wants to kill you before that happens.”
“That’s insane! I couldn’t afford a ticket even if I was picked!”
“Xamaica is a stupid game from an idiotic company, but you’re a beast at it. And if you’re awesome at something, morons like Chad try to eat you alive. You know the way zombies are stupid but they always devour people’s brains? It’s the same principle.”
Dylan felt his forehead get hot. There was a secret to why he was so great at Xamaica—it was something he hadn’t even told Eli and that he could never let Chad find out. “This is a nightmare.”
“It gets worse. If he catches you, he’s gonna give you the gas.”
This was bad. Chad had a habit of sitting on his enemies and farting on them. Once he did that you were basically so humiliated you had to change schools. “What’s my move?”
Eli smiled. “Well, I have a plan.”
Dylan frowned. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
* * *
Thirteen minutes until the Chad Attack. Whenever goons came after Eli, he would say his asthma was acting up and get a pass to leave school. At 2:47 p.m., taking Eli’s advice, Dylan went to the nurse’s office, a small windowless room that seemed purposely designed to be no fun at all.
Ms. Barett, the school nurse, was a tiny woman with small eyes that darted around her face like scared mice. “What are you here for?” she asked.
“I’m not feeling well,” Dylan wheezed. “Can I get a note to go home early?”
The nurse looked skeptical. “You seem fine.”
“But you know I have—that condition. It’s acting up again.”
“Your attention problems?”
“You know I take stuff for that.”
“Your
