Noah waved her away before pulling out a sandwich. “Whatever.”
Amy twirled her fork through her salad, not taking a bite. “But do we have to be on the show if we don’t want to be?”
I shook my head. “You heard Mr. Davenport. If your parents don’t sign the release form, then you won’t be on the show.”
Sam pointed a fork at her. “You’ll just have a blurry face, like you’re in witness protection or something.”
Amy sighed, relieved. “That’s fine with me.”
Noah popped a grape into his mouth. “There’s something much bigger to worry about, though,” he said between bites. “Since Davenport announced the show, that’s all everyone’s been talking about. I’ve hardly seen anyone using my app. There’s no way everybody’s collected enough loot to feed the beast today.”
My best friend had a point. Since he’d launched his app, more and more of our classmates had been scanning the hallways looking for cartoon food items to use at the end of the school day. But since the announcement, I couldn’t remember seeing anyone using the app between classes. After glancing around, I only spotted a couple of students in the cafeteria searching the room for loot.
“Maybe you should just lower the amount of food it takes to satisfy the beast,” Sam suggested.
Noah shook his head. “That defeats the purpose of the game. Everyone is supposed to work together, tell their friends, get more and more people to participate.”
Sam rolled her eyes. “I think you’ll survive.”
“Yeah, but Ms. Jensen said the producers wanted to feature my app,” Noah explained. He jutted a thumb toward me. “Tom’s even going to build a special lens to help.”
“That’s true.” I explained how I planned to use the technology of my glasses so the cameras could pick up the loot and the beast.
“You can have Mr. Davenport make a special announcement,” Amy suggested. “Like I did.”
“Oh yeah.” I rounded on Amy. “I didn’t know you were behind the gum thing.”
“I did,” Sam said with a smug grin.
“How in any known universe is that your project?” Noah asked. “Especially for a germaphobe like you.”
Noah had a point. I wouldn’t necessarily describe Amy as a germaphobe, but she has always been a little more than obsessed with cleanliness. In fact, in her backpack (which is so well-equipped, it would put Batman’s utility belt to shame), there were bound to be at least two bottles of hand sanitizer.
Amy laughed. “I almost didn’t go through with the project, but my parents talked me into it. They said it was good to move out of my comfort zone once in a while. That’s how we grow.”
I sighed and nodded. “Yeah, my dad says the same thing.” That’s the same logic he’d used to get me to agree to that interview a while back.
“How do you recycle gum, anyway?” Noah asked. “Isn’t it from a tree or a root or something?”
Amy’s eyes lit up. “It used to be, but now most of it’s made from a synthetic rubber.”
“You know, like car tires,” Sam added.
Noah’s mouth dropped open. “I don’t think I want to chew gum anymore.”
“This wasn’t my original idea,” Amy continued. “There are already people installing gum receptacles in Europe. But I wanted to come up with a system that students could do themselves, maybe set it up in their own schools and use the recycled product for their 3-D printers or something.”
Amy is usually soft-spoken, but when you get her going about one of her inventions, she can’t be stopped.
“If all goes well, I’m going to be collaborating with Sam,” she continued with a wide grin. “Give her the raw material for her invention.”
“Which is?” I asked, turning to face Sam.
She took a bite of her pasta and shook her head. “I’m not saying yet.”
Noah rolled his eyes. “Whatever it is, I still say messing with used chewing gum is all kinds of nasty.”
Throughout the rest of the afternoon, I tried to put the reality show and upcoming Olympics out of my head. I think I wasn’t the only one, since I heard less and less chatter about becoming TV stars and I saw more and more students hunting for loot with Noah’s app. Maybe today would be the day that we satisfied the beast after all.
When the final bell rang, I gathered my belongings as quickly as possible and met Noah outside. Just as the days before, we weren’t the only ones waiting on the school’s front lawn after classes. Dozens of students faced west, holding their phones out in front of them.
“About the same as yesterday,” Noah said as he glanced around. “I don’t think it’ll be enough.”
“You never know,” I said. “Maybe a couple of them found most of the loot.”
Noah shrugged. “Maybe.” He held up his phone. “We’re about to find out.”
I did the same, aiming my phone’s camera in the same direction as everyone else. At first, I just saw the modest skyline of Shopton. But as always, I felt it before I saw anything. My phone began vibrating in my hand, though it wasn’t as strong as when someone was calling. There were just little bursts in a slow, repeating pattern, simulating the beast’s footsteps as it approached.
I focused on the screen, examining the skyline, and then I spotted it. A small figure appeared on the horizon, but it quickly grew in size as it lumbered forward.
Around us, other students were pointing at the horizon and scanning the skyline with their phones. It didn’t take long before everyone was angling their phones identically like the panels of a solar farm.
Through my screen, the figure grew larger, until it resolved into a giant reptilian monster. Of course, there wasn’t really an enormous beast trundling through Shopton. Noah did a fantastic job blending the animated creature in with the surroundings, making its feet disappear behind trees and buildings so it looked like it was really there… as long as you were looking at
