The Friendship Code #1 Read online

  She shuffled them, saying, “I’m going to make a sandwich. I just don’t know how . . .” And after an overly dramatic pause, she added, “Oh, look, I’ll use Lucy’s instructions.” She held up my card, putting the rest aside. “Bradley, come help me.”

  Bradley was a joker, but he was also the second best student in my math class. As he went to stand by Mrs. Clark, I wished we were in the same group. He was with Maddie and Mark, really funny twins. That group was bound to be more exciting than mine. Plus, with Bradley being so good at math . . . I bet he could help me with my app.

  Mrs. Clark handed him my instructions. “Read them step by step,” she said.

  “‘Take two pieces of bread.’” He over-emphasized the words.

  She raised one of the paper bags and pulled out a brand-new loaf of bread. She stared at the loaf, turning it around in her hands.

  I wanted to hurry this along. It was a waste of precious coding time.

  “Two pieces . . .” Mrs. Clark tore the plastic bread bag down the middle and picked out one slice of bread and a bit of crust from a second slice. “A crust is a ‘piece of bread.’ Isn’t it?” she asked Bradley.

  I blurted out, “I meant that you should undo the twist tie to open the bag and take the first two slices. No one likes the crusts.”

  Mrs. Clark stared at me as if I was speaking an alien language. She turned back to Bradley. “What’s next?”

  “‘Open the peanut butter.’”

  She took a jar out of the paper bag and set it on the table. “We are using sunflower butter,” she explained. “In case anyone has allergies. But we’ll pretend it’s peanut.” She turned to Bradley. “How should I open it?”

  He gave her a blank look.

  “You mean Lucy’s instructions don’t say?” she said.

  Bradley got a twinkle in his eye. “You could slam it on the desk!” Kids chuckled.

  “Other ideas?” Mrs. Clark asked.

  Taking their cue from Bradley, kids started spouting out crazy ideas. Sammy suggested dropping the jar from the school roof. Maddie and Mark came up with a plan that involved pliers and a hammer. Another girl at Sammy’s table, Leila, had an idea that involved ropes and pulleys and a sharp battle-ax. Mrs. Clark had to cut her off because she was taking forever to describe it.

  I heard a small chuckle next to me and saw that Erin had raised her head. Now she was interested.

  “No. No. No,” I said when I couldn’t take it anymore. “What I meant was to use your wrist to open the jar.”

  Mrs. Clark hit the lid with her wrist and frowned. “It didn’t work.”

  “You have to wrap your fingers around the lid and turn it,” Sammy said.

  She wrapped her fingers loosely but didn’t clasp the jar. The lid swiveled around under her palm.

  It went on like this for a while, until Sophia said, “Put your hand over the lid, lower it until the jar touches your palm, tighten your fingers, and now rotate the lid counterclockwise while holding the jar still.”

  Mrs. Clark did exactly what Sophia said, and it worked! I was annoyed that she’d figured out how to get Mrs. Clark to open the jar, but at least we were making progress.

  With the jar finally open, Mrs. Clark asked Bradley what was next. “Lucy said, ‘Spread it on one side of the bread.’”

  “With what?” she asked. When he shrugged, Mrs. Clark stuck her fingers in the jar and scooped out a glob. She spread it along the crust edge.

  “I meant . . . ,” I started, but I was getting the point. My instructions weren’t very good.

  In the end, Mrs. Clark handed me a sandwich with one plain piece of bread and a smear of sunflower butter on the bit of crust. I’d only said to spread jelly on the “side,” so she’d spread it on the side of the sunflower butter jar. Since I hadn’t made it clear which halves went together, she’d rolled the bread and crust together like a burrito. I took the “sandwich” from her sticky fingers, wondering if anyone in the club had thought to mention a knife. Or a napkin.

  Now it was our turn. Using what was in the paper bags at each of our tables, we had to make a sandwich following someone else’s instructions. Since Erin hadn’t filled out her card and mine was already used, Maya and I read Sophia’s instructions while Sophia and Erin read Maya’s. Turned out, Sophia had done everything the rest of us missed. She mentioned a knife and a napkin. And she’d suggested putting the sandwich on a plate. Her index-card novel was perfect, and so was the sandwich we made.

  When Mrs. Clark asked her what her method was, Sophia explained, “Writing rules for sports isn’t so different. You have to think of every way someone might misunderstand and cover for that.”

  When had Sophia gotten so smart? I felt disappointed and a little angry that she had done better than me. This was supposed to be my club. Sophia had her own clubs.

  I hoped at least the groups were temporary. Maybe next week I could be with Bradley or Leila.

  “Okay, kids, that’s all for today,” Mrs. Clark said as she wiped the sunflower butter and jelly off her fingers with a napkin. “I want you to think about what today’s exercise might mean, and tell me what you came up with at our next club meeting. See you all next Monday.”

  Whoa. I raised my hand. “This is coding club, not cooking, right?”

  Mrs. Clark nodded.

  “So when are we going to make an app?”

  “Slow down, Lucy,” Mrs. Clark told me. “It’s not that easy. Plus, you’ve just taken your first step.”

  “But I need to make an app. How is this,” I said, waving my hand at the jars of sunflower butter and jelly, “going to help?”

  Apparently I wasn’t the only one who thought making sandwiches was not what we had signed up for. Other kids started speaking up.

  “Yeah—I want to make an app to track hockey scores.”

  “And I need an app to find ice-cream trucks!”

  “I want to make something that can do my homework for me!”

  I chimed in. “My uncle has cancer, and I have to make an app to help him.”

  The room fell silent, and everyone turned toward me.

  Mrs. Clark took a long look at me. “Lucy, that is important, but we need some basic skills before we try to help cancer patients—or find ice cream.” She had that look she got when she changed her mind about something. She pointed at each of our groups. “Look at your sandwiches.”

  “Mine is a jar of peanut butter sitting on a folded loaf of bread,” Sammy said, looking at the mess on his table.

  “You’re lucky you got a loaf of bread,” Bradley snorted. “I got two jars and no bread. I can’t believe I forgot to mention bread!”

  Mrs. Clark smiled. “Now you know about input and output. Your instructions are input, and the sandwich is output. What you put into your coding in a computer determines exactly what comes out the other side—just like your instructions for how to make a sandwich.” She gathered her things and held the door open for us to leave. “That’s it for today.”

  I smiled at Mrs. Clark. I had a feeling this coding thing was going to be a bit different than what I’d imagined.

  Chapter Three

  “Mom! Dad! I’m home!” I rushed into the kitchen. My parents were both sitting at the counter, staring at their laptops. Mom was a software programmer and worked from home, though she sometimes had to go to her company’s office for meetings. Dad was an artist. He had a studio downtown, but he liked to work on his designs at home. Even though there was office space in the basement, they preferred to work next to each other, upstairs.

  The only sound was the clicking of keyboards—they hadn’t even heard me come in. “Where’s Alex?” I asked, dropping my bag on the floor. There was a third laptop covered with band stickers that sat unopened at the end of the counter.

  “Oh, hi, honey!” Mom said, raising her eyes from the screen. “
Alex isn’t home yet. He had a college counseling appointment.”

  I grabbed a drink from the fridge. From where I stood behind her, I couldn’t see what she was writing. All I could see was her reflection. We looked a lot alike: same dark skin, brown eyes, and thick hair—I liked to wear mine in two long braids, and she preferred hers short.

  “Why? And how was coding club?” Mom asked me, focusing on her computer again.

  “It was fine,” I said, not wanting to get into it. “I just need to talk to Alex, that’s all.” And give him an earful about his lousy prank, I thought.

  “He should be back for dinner,” Dad said, filling in the shading for the sketch of a sculpture on his touchpad.

  Artists have this reputation for being hip and cool, but not my dad. He was way nerdier than Mom. When they met in college, Mom thought his heavy glasses and rumpled clothing were adorable. I’d seen pictures of the two of them back then. If Sophia thought I was a geek, she should have seen my parents. There was no contest.

  “We have a dinner guest.” Dad tipped his head toward the living room. “Uncle Mickey is here.”

  “He is?!” There was no one more wonderful than my uncle. He was my dad’s twin, and an artist, too. But they made different kinds of art—Dad created modern sculptures, and Uncle Mickey was an abstract painter. He lived about an hour away. Whenever he came to town, Mickey would tell us crazy stories about gallery openings and the celebrities who collected his paintings.

  I was about to rush off to see him when Dad warned, “Keep it quiet, Lu. He might be napping.”

  “Oh,” I answered, feeling my spirits drop. I made a point of tiptoeing around the corner, breathing quietly so as not to disturb Uncle Mickey if he was asleep. The back of the couch faced me, so I cautiously peered over it to see if he was lying down. He wasn’t there.

  “I’m outside,” a voice called out.

  I hurried to the back porch where Uncle Mickey sat on our old glider, rocking a little. He looked much older and thinner than the last time I’d seen him. “Sit with me.” Uncle Mickey patted the seat next to him on the glider.

  I walked over and leaned into his open arms for a hug. “I’m glad you’re here,” I told him, feeling his slight arms wrap around me.

  “Good to see you, too, kid. I have a doctor’s appointment in the city tomorrow, so your parents invited me to stay over tonight.”

  Before getting cancer, Uncle Mickey was the healthiest guy I knew. Unlike my dad, he was always outside when he wasn’t in his studio. Even though he was a little pudgy in the middle (exactly like my dad), Mickey could climb mountains.

  Now he couldn’t climb stairs, and there was no pudge left.

  I leaned back on the glider and enjoyed the rocking motion. “Have you painted anything lately?” I asked.

  Uncle Mickey sighed. “On my good days. I only have a few more treatments, so I should be back at it soon.” He changed the subject. “Tell me about my favorite niece.” I was his only niece.

  I’d started telling him about school and explaining my disappointment about the coding club when Mom popped her head outside. “You asked me to remind you to take your pills,” she said to Uncle Mickey, stepping onto the porch.

  “Right, thanks.” Uncle Mickey turned to me. “Hang on to that thought, kiddo.” He started digging in a tote bag on the ground nearby. He pulled out a large plastic bag filled with prescription bottles and checked a label. “Hmm, not that one, not yet, I don’t think,” he mumbled, placing it back in the bag. He picked up another bottle and took off the lid.

  Mom handed him a small glass of water. He swallowed several greenish-colored pills, then asked Mom to remind him again in a few hours.

  “Of course,” she said, taking the empty glass and heading back to the kitchen.

  “Now,” he said to me, “tell me about the coding clu—” He stopped and looked down at his tote bag. “Hang on.” There was a bottle of pills in the bottom that he’d missed. “I think I forgot to take the pink one,” he said. “These are new. Lucy, would you mind grabbing me more water?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Be right back.”

  While I refilled his glass, I was reminded why I wanted to do coding club in the first place. This was the reason!

  It wasn’t the first time Uncle Mickey had come to stay at our house since he was diagnosed with leukemia, a form of cancer. During the past year, I’d often seen him do this exact same thing with his pills. I knew he had one of those plastic pill-organizing boxes with the days of the week marked on it, but he kept having to take new pills, so he didn’t always fill the pill organizer. And it’s not like a plastic pillbox could remind him to take his pills. Once, he left an important bottle at home and we had to call the doctor and get a few tablets to hold him over for a couple days.

  I had an idea for an app that would solve all that. Not just for Uncle Mickey, but for anyone who needed pills, or even just vitamins (which I usually forgot to take). It would remind them which pills to take and when. It would also register when they took the pills and send an alert if they needed refills. I knew there were already some apps like that, even though Uncle Mickey didn’t want to use them—he kept saying they wouldn’t help. I thought I could create an even better one that I was sure he’d like. It would have cool features like setting up texts and group chats with family members and friends so that they could remind you to take pills, pick them up for you—or even take you to doctors’ appointments.

  I glanced outside to where Uncle Mickey was waiting. I had to learn coding fast so I could make my app. Days like today were a waste of time.

  “Mom,” I said. “I need your help.”

  She grabbed salad from the fridge for dinner. “With what, honey?”

  “Coding club is going way too slowly. We didn’t even use the computers today.”

  “Well, it was just the first day, wasn’t it?” she said, taking the cutting board out of the cupboard. “Coding takes time to learn.”

  I looked outside and saw Uncle Mickey nodding off, so I figured I had a few minutes. “I know, but I want to move faster.”

  “Lu, you know how we feel about shortcuts,” Dad said, peering at me over his junky grocery-store reading glasses. “I didn’t jump from drawing stick figures to welding big sheets of metal. I had to learn design, engineering, and chemistry before I was ready to do that.”

  I started rolling my eyes at him, but he gave me a serious look. “Everything worth doing takes time,” he added. I’d heard that a thousand times.

  “I know, but if Mom could just help me a little . . . ,” I explained. “I can still learn most of what I need from Mrs. Clark—I’d just have a little head start.”

  Mom and Dad exchanged a look. “I could have given you a head start by teaching you some programming years ago, but you were never interested,” Mom said. She patted my hand. “I’m so glad you got interested this year, but now that you’re in the coding club, we want you to follow the program.” She added, “You can always come to me with questions, but I don’t want to interfere with Mrs. Clark’s curriculum.”

  “Just like Alex,” Dad added. “He’s an excellent coder, and he began with Mrs. Clark, like you.”

  “But we didn’t even do any coding today!” I repeated, my voice rising. “And it’s a whole week until the next club meeting. What if we don’t do any coding again then? It’ll take me forever to learn, at this rate.” I knew there were coding tutorials online, but I hadn’t found anything I could really learn from. They all seemed geared toward people who already knew a bit about coding, or were in a class. That’s why I had thought the coding club would be helpful for me.

  “That’s probably true regardless,” Dad said in his always mellow, soft voice, giving Mom a knowing look. “It takes a long time to get proficient in anything.”

  “But I—”

  Slam. The front door closed with a
bang.

  Alex was home. In a flash, an idea came to me. My brother was eighteen—a senior in high school. Like Dad said, Alex was a really good coder. Maybe, once I explained to him why I needed to learn coding, he’d be willing to help give me a head start. Plus, it would make up for the phone prank he’d pulled on me.

  Thing was, Alex never wanted to help me with anything. He had a girlfriend, college applications to fill out, and a job at the pizza parlor. I knew that getting him on board was going to be hard, but it was worth a try.

  First, I needed to give Uncle Mickey his water so he could take the pill he almost forgot. “Don’t go anywhere,” I told Alex as he walked into the kitchen. “I need to talk to you.”

  Alex looked at me with a big grin on his face and set his bag down. Over the summer, he’d let his hair grow long into curly springs. It was a look I was pretty sure he’d regret. At least he’d shaved off the mini-mustache he’d been unsuccessfully trying to grow over the past few months.

  Mom offered to take the water to Uncle Mickey, and Dad went downstairs to put the computers away in the office. He asked me and Alex to set the table for dinner.

  “So, how was coding?” Alex asked me, grabbing forks and knives.

  I glared back at him. “You’ve got to stop with the tricks, Alex. Having my phone beep like that was really embarrassing, and it wouldn’t stop for the longest time!”

  He put his hands up. “What are you talking about? You can’t blame me for your phone problems, Lu.”

  “C’mon, Alex, I know it was you,” I told him. “But I am going to forgive you,” I said slowly. I wanted to move on. “I’m having some issues in coding club and I need your help.”

  “Oh yeah? You’ve got the best teacher.”

  “I know . . . but the coding stuff is moving too slowly, and I don’t have time to wait.”

  “What’s the rush?”

  I set plates down on the table and looked up at him. “I want to make an app for Uncle Mickey to help him take his medicine. You know how forgetful he is about his pills.” Alex considered this and nodded.