“Maddie, it was my stumble, my catch, and my call. I sent out the message about the party. If anyone finds out . . . I can’t lose this. I’m so close.” Lucy reached into her purse, took a deep breath, and pushed her own phone into Maddie’s line of sight. “I’m Racing. Seven, Maddie, I’m a 7. Just in time for the beta test. Do you have any idea what this means? For Lit? For us? And we have Ryan Thompson to thank.”

Maddie forced a smile, except all she could picture was Emma Santos saying the same thing. Right before she went from Crushing It to Comatose.

As Lucy tried on what looked like an entirely new wardrobe, Maddie opened the Pulse app and signed up for an account.

EIGHTEEN

SWEAT EQUITY • The equity or ownership stake gained in a startup due to its founders’ hard work and perseverance

IN ALL THE YEARS Delia had been coding—creating the theater website, adding the online ticketing system, expanding Delia’s Den to include the likes of Grace Hopper and Mary Jackson—she’d never had pain in her wrists. And yet a single night where a Frisbee tournament, a skateboarding competition, and a “hottest tech gadgets of the year” convention collided threatened to sideline her. Could one possibly get carpal tunnel from jabbing buttons on a microwave?

Though it was almost midnight, light filtered out from under nearly all the doors as Delia made her way down the hall. ValleyStart teams may have been running on fumes, but they were still running. She heard a slew of curses from a room far down, smelled nachos from one near, and heard the pounding of music from another and the pounding of a fist in response next door to it. She unlocked the door to her room and kicked off her shoes. She set her backpack on the floor by her bunk and nodded to Maddie, who was still awake, headphones in her ears. Lucy seemed to be asleep in her bed, facing the Stanford pennant on her wall.

As quietly as she could, Delia downed two ibuprofen and crawled into bed. The moment the night turned to the next day, ValleyStart sent its daily message:

ValleyStart: Proof comes through use. And that proof starts today. The beta test is here: hooray!

And Delia could only think of home.

Even though the shows had resumed their regular schedule, being two hours behind meant even theater folk would be asleep. Instead of calling her parents, she texted Cassie.

Cassie: You know it’s like two in the morning right, Dee Dee?

Delia: I showed you how to set up your “Do Not Disturb.”

Cassie: I turned it off.

Delia: Then don’t complain if I wake you.

Cassie: You didn’t.

Delia: Then don’t complain.

Cassie: Who said I was complaining? Just asking if you know it’s two in the morning. Why are you awake?