CHAPTER ONE
SADIE
Figures close in on me in the dark.
I crouch against the padded wall, making myself as small as possible. The music blares, and the heavy bass pounds along with my heart. My helmet feels too tight over my ponytail, but there’s no time to fix it. I raise my phaser, finger on the red button, and peer around the corner. I can’t see anyone, but I know my teammates are hiding, covering me from behind.
There’s a flash of movement.
Someone was clueless enough to wear a white T-shirt into the arena. I shake my head, watching it glow in the black lights. They might as well have worn a target on their back. Shouts ring out, and red laser beams slice through the darkness.
Time to make my move.
I run with my shoulders hunched, protecting the “strike zones” on my chest and waist, and skirt the area where White Shirt’s getting ambushed. If an enemy laser hits me one more time, I’m out of the game, and I can’t let my team down. We’ve made it this far across the arena.
“Sadie!” someone hisses in my ear. I whirl to see my best friend, Jeremy Thomas, whose helmet barely fits over his curly cloud of hair. He yanks me into an alcove formed by two padded mats. “I lost Iggy back there. I don’t know where he is.”
I say a bad word that my brother taught me. “So it’s just you and me?”
Jeremy’s teeth are ultra white against his dark skin. “It’s just you and me.”
The electronic dance music booms harder than ever. Ten feet away, the roaming strobe lights illuminate our goal: a swinging rope ladder leading to a tower. The tower means safety. The tower means victory. The tower means bragging rights.
I grin, imagining Clip’s face when he sees that his eleven-year-old sister has crushed him at his own game. “Okay. Here’s what we’re gonna do,” I tell Jeremy, in a low, businesslike voice. “You hold both our phasers and get on my back. That’ll protect you. I’ll carry you to the ladder, and then you climb up. Don’t look back.”
Jeremy looks doubtfully from his chubby frame to my scrawny one. “Are you sure? I just had, like, a gallon of fries, and my dad always says salt makes your body hold water.”
“And my grandpa says I’m strong for my size, like an ant. I can carry you,” I say confidently. “I will carry you.”
His eyes mist over. “This is just like Sam and Frodo going up Mount Doom.”
Shouts break out not far from us. If that is Clip’s team, then their distraction is the window we need. I bend over so Jeremy can clamber onto my back. “No matter what you see or hear, you keep climbing that ladder and get yourself up to the tower. Okay?” I ask.
“But what about you?”
“Don’t worry about me. You’re the President, and once I get you to safety, we win. Doesn’t matter if the enemy takes me down.”
Jeremy grips my shoulder solemnly. “You’re a hero, Sadie Chu.”
I give him my phaser and grab his legs behind the knees. “Victory, here we come,” I whisper, and then I run at full throttle toward the rope ladder.
It happens so fast, I’m on the ground before I know it. Figures burst from the shadows and tackle us, sending Jeremy to the ground with a yelp. The sudden loss of balance pulls me onto my back on the padded floor mat. The edge of my helmet presses into my skull as I stare up at my older brother’s smug face. He aims his phaser right at the target on my chest.
“Any last words, Chu?” he asks.
“It ain’t over yet, Chu,” I bite out, scrambling for my phaser before I remember that I gave it to Jeremy. I groan as Clip smirks and pushes his button. A red laser beam emerges and hits the strike zone on my vest with a high-pitched ping!
Next to us, a guy in shiny basketball shorts is doing the same to Jeremy.
“Noooooooo!” Jeremy cries, just like Darth Vader in Revenge of the Sith.
I know he’s trying to make me laugh, but I don’t have the energy. Outside the arena, the master computer has tallied those final shots and decided that Clip’s team is the winner. For the fifth time in a row. I press my hands over my eyes. Maybe if I lie here long enough, I’ll melt into the mats and they’ll forget about me.
The music stops and the lights turn on, signaling the end of the game. All around us, kids climb out from their hiding places, wearing the regulation helmet, vest, and shin and elbow guards. They crawl under nets and over railings, talking and laughing as they make their way through the maze of blue mats to the exit.
Iggy Morales jogs over to us, his dark brown skin gleaming with sweat. He’s a big, bulky kid and one of Clip’s soccer buddies. “Hey, Sadie, Jeremy, I’m sorry I left you guys in the lurch back there,” he says. He points to a mess of ropes and nets in one corner of the arena and quirks an eyebrow at Clip. “Someone shoved me into that, knowing I’d get stuck.”
“Well, I had to take out the strongest player on your team, didn’t I?” My brother crosses his arms over his chest and smirks down at me. “Tough luck, sis. Time to do the walk of shame.”
I reach out and grab my own knee. Sometimes it’s got a mind of its own, and my brother and his tenders are right within kicking range.
“Good going, man.” Shiny Shorts takes off his helmet, showing off his messy, sandy-blond mop of hair and twinkling blue eyes, which make my cheeks feel warm. Derek Marshall is twelve and going into the seventh grade in the fall, just like Clip. He lives next door, plays basketball with no shirt on in the summer, and has been best friends with my brother for as long as I’ve been alive. I’m okay with all of the above … except maybe the best-friends-with-my-brother part.
“Aw, I didn’t do much,” Clip says modestly.
“You came up with an awesome plan.” Derek’s twin sister, Caroline, removes her helmet, too. Today she’s wearing skinny jeans and her nails are painted neon blue. “Making noise like we were being attacked, while really we were lying in wait the whole time? Brilliant.”
Seeing how cool she looks makes me want to disappear into the mats again. I wanted to impress her and Derek so bad, but now they probably think I’m just a silly kid for losing.
Clip puffs out his chest. “Little Sadie here still has a lot to learn about strategy.”
“If you can call puppy-guarding the goal a strategy,” I snap, but he and Caroline are busy bumping fists with the other sixth graders, and he doesn’t even look at me.
“Sadie’s strategy was good,” Jeremy speaks up, loyal to the end. “She was going to sacrifice herself so I could climb up the tower. That takes guts.”
“It does take guts. And hey, laser tag is just a game. You’ll get us next time.” Derek grins at me and holds out his hand to help me up. “You and Darth Vader here nearly made it.”
My insides feel like ice cream left in a hot car. “Thanks,” I say, trying to stay casual. He doesn’t need to know I am never, ever washing this hand again. I can still feel his fingers when he pulls away to help Jeremy to his feet.
“We’re not going to be defeated for long,” Jeremy vows. “This is just like the Battle of Helm’s Deep, when Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli all thought they were done for.”
“Helm’s Deep is that fortress King Théoden owned, right?” Derek has seen the Lord of the Rings trilogy with Clip and me a zillion times and knows exactly how the story goes. But he still listens as Jeremy blabbers on excitedly about dark lords and wizards all the way to the exit.
Outside, the control room looks fake bright after the darkness of the arena. A bored high school dude with potato chip crumbs on his lip collects our equipment. Beside him is the master computer that monitors the entire game and tracks points. Our vests send information to it whenever we’ve been hit by an enemy laser.
“Looks like Team Scissors wins again!” my brother gloats, looking back to make sure Jeremy, Iggy, and I have seen the score. The 150,000 points under his team’s name—inspired by his nickname, Clip—show that they not only got their President to safety, but they also vanquished every one of their enemies. Us.
Iggy just shakes his head and walks out the door, unbothered by my brother’s bigheadedness. But Jeremy sees my clenched fists and puts a hand on my shoulder. “We might have only scored ninety-five thousand points, but I wouldn’t count Team Foehammer out just yet.”
“Yeah. Keep telling yourself that, kid.” Clip swaggers out into the lobby with Derek and Caroline, not bothering to hold the door for us.
Text copyright © 2022 by Julie C. Dao.
Illustrations copyright © 2022 by Chi Ngo.
