Play the Game

by Charlene Allen

Genres: YA Mysteries & Thrillers; YA Historical Fiction

Synopsis

From debut author Charlene Allen comes a captivating YA contemporary mystery and coming-of-age story, celebrating the power of friendship, first love, and exploring the criminal justice system from the lens of restorative justice. Perfect for fans of Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, and Maureen Johnson.

In the game of life, sometimes other people hold all the controls. Or so it seems to VZ. Four months have passed since his best friend Ed was killed by a white man in a Brooklyn parking lot.

When Singer, the man who killed Ed, is found dead in the same spot where Ed was murdered, all signs point to Jack, VZ’s other best friend, as the prime suspect.

VZ’s determined to complete the video game Ed never finished and figure out who actually killed Singer. With help from Diamond, the girl he’s crushing on at work, VZ falls into Ed’s quirky gameiverse. As the police close in on Jack, the game starts to uncover details that could lead to the truth about the murder.

Can VZ honor Ed and help Jack before it’s too late?  

Release date: January 31, 2023

Publisher: HarperCollins

Print pages: 304

Sample

The Girl and the Game

“I got a plan,” Jack says, falling in step beside me as I come up out of the subway. “For tonight. You understand what’s going down tonight, right?” He drops a lanky arm across my shoulder. Classic. Ambushes me at the subway, and now I’m supposed to ask what’s going on, so he can go off on one of his Jack-rants. I shove his arm off me. The sidewalk’s crowded with people sorting through racks that’ve been pulled outside stores now it’s April and the weather’s decent. Any other time, I’d be pumped, going to work on a nice day like this. The way it is, I’m jumpy as hell about walking into Yard for the first time since Singer got killed. And I don’t need Jack making it worse.

“What do you know, Jackson?” I ask, sidestepping a dog walker who’s got half a dozen yappy dogs on too-long leashes. “Or think you know?”

“More than you, buddy,” he says, flashing a grin at a bunch of girls coming out of a diner. He’s turned up, got himself in a state. “Listen. The cops told Ms. Fox she shouldn’t reopen the restaurant yet. Some shit about an active police investigation, which means they’re gonna be up in our business when we reopen tonight. Well, I say whatever they want, we don’t do it. Teach them to settle the hell down.”

“Right,” I say. Roll my eyes at the thought of Jack telling somebody else to settle down. “Ms. Fox knows what she’s doing,” I say. Which is true. Ms. Fox’s been running her restaurant forever without help from him.

We turn a corner. There’re no stores here, less people. Jack slows down ’cause he gets his juice from an audience. Has since we were kids. Jack, the outgoing one. Ed, the goofy geek. And me, the guy in the middle. With good sense. The thing is, though, now I’m seeing Jack, there’s something I want to tell him. So I try to shake off being irritated. But, of course, Jack doesn’t stop.

“Just roll with it, all right?” he says. “If the cops start asking questions, we tell ’em we already gave our statements, we don’t have anything else to say.”

When I don’t answer, he shoots me a side-eye, accusing, ugly. “Still going with Easy VZ, huh? Still can’t get up off your ass and do what people ask you?”

Just like that, four months of irritation walks between us. Because the whole time since Ed died, Jack’s been dogging me to be like him and go at the cops, join the protests, make noise in the streets to get Singer up on charges for what he did to Ed. I don’t say what’s obvious, that you can’t bring a dead guy up on charges, so give it a rest. I don’t need another Jack-rant about how it’s the principle of the thing. What I do is, quit

walking. “Know what?” I say. “Go on ahead. I gotta make a call.”

“No problem.” He strides off down the block.

It’s not like I don’t get it. Not rocket science, why Jack wants to take on the cops. But he should’ve believed me when I told him I couldn’t go out there and yell about Ed. In December, when it first happened, it was hard even getting that it was real. Some random white man actually killed Ed. I stayed in my room all day, stuck as fuck, doom scrolling online and especially in my head. But Jack acted like I was just blowing him off—and Ed, too.

Stepping back into the closest doorway, I watch his back, thinking of what happened this morning, before I left home. The way Jack’s been acting, he mighta given me shit, anyhow, if I’d told him. Even though I didn’t ask for what happened. Was just trying to get out of the house on time when Ed’s ma showed up at the door, with her little intense self. And the next thing I knew, she was shoving Ed’s red laptop at me, telling me she had to give his stuff away since the cops were back in their business, now Singer’d got killed.

“Have it,” she said. “You knew this part of him best.”

I took the thing because no sane person argues with Ed’s ma. But I didn’t want it. After she left, I zipped it into my backpack and walked the streets, feeling like I had a shiny red corpse on my back. And, of course, it wasn’t even true, what she said. I never bothered with the game Ed was making on the laptop, even though it was his best thing. I’d get irritated when he came barging in—any hour, since our families lived on the same floor—going on about some puzzle he could use in the game. I remember the last time he did it, a Saturday morning. Me toasting waffles in my kitchen, Ed leaning on the counter holding up his phone—red like the laptop.

“It’s called a rebus puzzle,” he said. “You use lateral thinking on these, thinking outside the box. Otherwise, your brain’ll see what it expects to see and you won’t be able to solve them.” He lowered the phone. “How I do it is, close my eyes and wipe my brain like it’s a chalkboard. Then I open them and stare at the puzzle. Don’t even blink.” He scrunched his eyes shut, to demonstrate, his round cheeks bulging. Then he opened his eyes and put the phone back in my face.

“Have a waffle,” I said, sliding a plate to him.

“Just try!” he said. The screen had a bunch of letters in different colors: an orange U, a red E, and a black YET.

“Yeah,” I said. “No clue.”

“Come on! Close your eyes.”

I rolled them instead. Got the syrup down. Ed moved on to his favorite part, explaining the thing in detail. “Okay, watch. The U is orange and the E is red, right? So, if you see it like that, it’s orange-u red-e. Or are-n’t you read-y. See? Then on the last part, Y-E-T, the color doesn’t matter, it’s just the word yet. Aren’t you ready yet?” His grin broke loose, taking over his face. “So cool. You think letters just spell words—you don’t think the color of them can be part of what they’re spelling.”

I poured my syrup, started eating. Ed picked up his whole waffle on his fork, raised it overhead, and lowered it into his mouth. With one long arm in the air over his big head, the other bent on the counter, I remember thinking he was shaped like a stick-figure drawing. And I was impressed, too, with how his brain worked. Like a scientist in a fifteen-year-old body. I just didn’t bother saying it. I wonder if I’d remember the puzzle at all if Singer hadn’t done what he did. How do you even make a memory when you aren’t paying attention in the first place?

“And, by the way!” The shout comes from the end of the block. It’s Jack, who should’ve been long gone by now. “I got Ms. Fox to make it all-hands-on-deck tonight,” he says. “Diamond’s gonna be there.”

“What? Oh . . .” I try not to let it show, but if Diamond’s gonna be there, the night can’t be all bad. She wasn’t on the schedule to work, another reason I wasn’t feeling going in tonight.

“You done with that call?” Jack asks.

I take my time catching up to him, doing my best to let the Ed-thoughts go. When we hit the next corner, we can see the green neon letters under the blinking yellow palm tree. YARD, Caribbean Home Cooking and Song. A cop blocks the restaurant’s doorway, framed in the gold lights Ms. Fox uses to decorate. Police tape and wooden barricades section off most of the parking lot. Just like when it was Ed.

Jack lets out a heavy breath. “This, right here?” he says. “Is what you call a mindfuck. Singer could’ve got killed anyplace in the whooole city. And we get him here.”

We trade looks. No question, we agree about this, at least.

The usual homeless guy’s digging through the dumpster by the restaurant’s side door. Got on his checkered suit jacket over a sweatshirt and pants. He lifts his head, mutters in the cop’s direction.

“He messing with you?” Jack asks.

“Ain’t about me,” the guy says. “That woman deserves better.”

Also true. The whole neighborhood’s over these cops messing with Ms. Fox. It’s bad enough that she was the one who found Singer’s body. The cops don’t have to keep asking her about it. I grab a breath. Remind myself Diamond’s inside that restaurant. Jack and I walk by the cop, a Black guy who’s been here before, and go inside. She’s the first thing I see. Diamond, in the middle of the dining room, spreading out a red tablecloth that matches her tight skirt. She runs over in her low boots, bare brown legs too sweet to be real. Pulls me into a hug that’s all softness.

“Glad you’re working tonight, VZ,” she says.

I am, too, now. I tell her that, and when she doesn’t move back I tighten my arms, rest my head on hers, my hands right where her bra cuts under her shirt. She’s so little; she only hits my chest. Is barely half as wide as me. The girl-lotion smell of her mixes with the curry scent in the air, the low-volume soca music, the orange walls. For a minute, it’s all good.

“So much for Easy VZ,” Jack whispers in my ear as he passes by. Then louder, so Diamond can hear, “Just better hope I don’t tell Fisk.”

“Fisk knows I’m friends with VZ,” Diamond says. But she pulls away from our hug.

Jack heads to the stage to hook up the sound equipment, and Diamond goes back to putting flowers and silverware on the tables from the cart beside her.

“What can I do for you?” I ask, picking up a pile of napkins. She grins like I meant more than I meant to mean. The air melts between us. Like it’s been since Ed. We’re more than just flirting; there’s something real here. But she still won’t say she’s leaving Fisk.

I take the stack of silverware she hands me. We move to the next table, me watching her. She’s always focused. Intentional. Even doing something as simple as setting a table.

“Ms. Fox is having nightmares again,” Diamond says, glancing at the kitchen, where Ms. Fox does her magic.

I know she thinks of Ms. Fox like a mom, but there’s so much feeling in her eyes, I wouldn’t mind her looking at me that way. “I’ve been sleeping upstairs to keep her company. She wakes up screaming, then comes down here and cooks for the rest of the night, just like she did after Ed.” She half laughs. “I end up studying all night, so at least it’s good for something.”

“You want a break?” I ask. “I can finish. You could play your Switch before we open.” This gets a grin, dimples and all. She shakes her head, but just thinking about it seems to cheer her up. She’s like Ed, the way she loves her gaming.

I put down my silverware. Pull off my backpack, unzip it. Stare at Ed’s laptop.

“What?” Diamond asks, noticing.

I check the room. Jack’s caught up in the soundboard, and there’s still ten minutes before Fisk needs to be here. I grab Diamond’s hand, pull her into the stock closet, heart racing from what I’m thinking and what I’m doing. My idea’s batshit, but I still think it’s right. A chance to do something for Ed.

I have to leave the door open so Ms. Fox doesn’t get on us, but it’s still private, the two of us stuffed beside the table we use to measure spices. It smells like ginger and cloves.

“Ed’s ma came over this morning,” I say. Tell her the quick version of the story. “You got how much he loved the game he was making, right?”

She lets out a sad laugh. “You know that day I helped him with his coding class? I kept telling him he wasn’t bad at code, he just had to take his mind off the rest of it for a minute. He had this whole complicated story. And the puzzles had to be hard enough to make people work but still fun. He was so into the experience his players would have.”

“Yeah, good,” I say. “And this contest—it was like every ounce of his game love went into this contest. He worked his ass off and finished the game so he could submit it. But then . . .” The next part’s hard to say. I take a second and start again. “Even though he finished it, Ed never got to play the

whole game through. Because he was waiting for me. He’d entered it in this big contest for game makers, and before the competition I was supposed to play it with him—you know, like consumer-test it—so he could find the glitches, clean everything up. He wanted to win bad. I promised I’d help, but I wasn’t in any hurry. And then . . .”

“I get it,” Diamond says, soft-voiced.

“You don’t, though!” I tell her, getting excited again, now that I’ve said the hard part. “That contest hasn’t happened yet. And now I’ve got Ed’s game.”

My hands shake when I take out Ed’s laptop. I set it on the spice-measuring table. “I can play it like I was supposed to, fix whatever needs fixing. Then show up at the contest and win the thing.”

The more I talk, the more I realize the idea’s been coming together in my mind all morning—I just needed Diamond. And here she is, acting like I haven’t lost my mind trying to get a win for somebody who’s dead. I keep going.

“Just one problem,” I say. “I’m the guy who quit video games in seventh grade. I’m gonna need backup from a serious gamer.”

Diamond’s smile comes with a worried forehead crease, but before she can explain it, the front door opens. And, damn it to hell, it’s Fisk, sliding in on his stupid electric scooter. Diamond’s smile turns guilty, and she bolts out of the stock closet. I lick my lips, swallow back the hurt. Watch Fisk slip an arm around Diamond’s waist, almost white-boy confident. That’s his thing. Him and Jack are older than me, but Fisk’s the one with the nice clothes and gear. All the time turning on the charm, like he’s too good to have problems like the rest of us.

I leave the closet but stay in the back of the room, Ed’s laptop pressed to my chest. Diamond goes to the table she’d been working on, adjusting stuff that doesn’t need it.

“That cop still out there?” Diamond asks Fisk, eyeing the front windows.

“He says he’ll come in when his partner gets here,” he tells her. “They getting to you?” He looks all concerned. “Want me to take you home? I could cover for you.”

“Yo, Fisk! Give me a hand over here?” Jack shoots me a look, tells me he’s getting this Fisk fool out of my way so I can finish my conversation with Diamond. But too late.

The front door opens again. In walk the cops.