The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth - Alexandra Robbins [6]
Blue felt as if he were on trial. He and Angelique made their rebuttals, which were somewhat dampened by Arwing’s clueless advisor chiming in. Blue couldn’t stand Pakaki, who sometimes called students “trash” and “stupid” to their faces. The principal, whom Blue liked, was understanding and sympathetic. He proposed that Arwing could continue as long as he approved all of its online activities. This was okay with Blue; it was what the advisor did next, he said, that “screwed it all up.”
“We’re going to be extra careful from now on,” Pakaki said, then decided to illustrate obsequiously how extra careful he would be. “We won’t play anything on PC anymore.” Blue blanched. What was Pakaki doing? Forbidding PC use would take the serious gaming out of the gaming club.
Immediately, the advisor restricted Arwing’s activities and yanked away Blue’s responsibilities. Pakaki even took over Blue’s LAN party. He disregarded Blue’s work, halting all advertising and prohibiting PCs, the draw for the majority of attendees. He refused to let students bring their own consoles. He renamed the party a “video game tournament” and changed the events to three games that true gamers didn’t play.
Blue’s “epic LAN party,” the event he had planned for months, degenerated into ten students at a table under the fluorescent lights of the unadorned high school gym. Blue left after setting up the equipment. He couldn’t bear to watch. Many of the hundreds of people to whom Blue had advertised the party, unaware of the behind-the-scenes fiasco, blamed him for the failure.
In late spring, Arwing held its officer elections. Thirty students showed up to submit secret ballots. Blue began to worry when Herman’s followers made their selections public. “Yeaahhh, Herman!” one yelled. “Herman gonna be president, awriiight!” the other echoed. Ty and Stewart abstained from voting.
After the vote, Pakaki pulled Blue aside, as if the rest of the students wouldn’t hear their conversation from three feet away. “Mark, I want you to know that I voted for Herman because I think he needs it more than you.” Pakaki’s voice oozed faux compassion. “It’s something to put on his résumé for college.”
Pakaki was known for playing favorites; apparently he had chosen to anoint Herman as president no matter the vote. Blue watched as Pakaki flipped through the ballots without bothering to count them formally. As Pakaki announced the new officers, Blue went numb. Blue’s club, the club that was supposed to start “a revolution in video gaming,” the club for which he had sacrificed schoolwork all semester, was stripped of its gaming. Blue, out. Herman, in. Herman, who didn’t even game in the first place.
When Blue’s senior year began in August, he was more reserved than usual. Nobody asked what was wrong. His friends talked around him, tossing jabs at him now and then. So he wasn’t surprised when they made fun of him at the arcade.
“Did you beat that guy on Tatsunoko yesterday?” Ty asked him.
Herman sneered. “Oh, you mean that game that takes no skill—just mash buttons all day?”
Herman’s followers laughed maniacally and chorused, “Ooo.”
At home late that night, Ty invited Blue to chat online with him, Herman, and two other classmates. Blue dipped in and out of the conversation as he built a Nirvash, a miniature mechanical model of a robot from an anime. After a while, Blue threw inhibition to the wind and said what he had wanted to say all summer. “It’s ridiculous that the president of Arwing is somebody who doesn’t play video games,” Blue ranted, only half-joking. “He hasn’t done [jack] with the club.”
Herman responded, “I like how you’re not even president material at all.”
And Blue was done. Done with the conversation, done with Arwing, and done with Herman and his followers. Blue worried that Herman