Caleb nodded. He’d heard of it.

“It’s kind of based on the book you’re holding,” Zach said. “Philip K. Dick is probably my favorite author.”

Caleb slid the book back onto the shelf. How many kids had a favorite author? Did he know any? What he did know was that most kids had an act, a front, a face they put on for the rest of the world to see. One was a tough guy. Another wanted to be everyone’s friend. In language arts, Mr. Parnes once read them a quote from Shakespeare: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”

Deep down, Caleb knew that was true of him. He spent most of his time trying to act like the person he thought he should be. But Zach was different. Once he got to know you, a lot of the weird stuff faded and the real Zach started to show through. The kid who really knew what was going on when they played TGW. The kid who gave himself up for his squad. And this room, with its skateboards, surfboard, and books. It all felt sincere and authentic. It wasn’t for extra credit. Zach wasn’t trying to impress anyone. This was who he was.

Zach gestured to the rack of skateboards. “You ride?”

Caleb shrugged. “Tried it a few times.”

A smile crept across Zach’s lips. He pulled a couple of boards from the skateboard rack. “Grab a helmet. Let’s go.”

Emma assumed that she was going to hate being streamed. The idea of other kids watching her play, seeing her make mistakes, unnerved her. To make matters worse, the casters had set up a camera in the computer lab to show the players in real time. So that afternoon, Emma played very cautiously, afraid to do anything wrong. But after the first round, she heard Zach’s voice in her headset: “Just go for it, Emma. Don’t hold back.”

At first, Emma was startled that Zach noticed the way she was playing. But then she remembered what Caleb said about Zach knowing almost everything that happened during a match. Most players were so busy trying to improve their KD ratios that they didn’t pay attention to what their teammates were doing. But Zach was different.

Emma began to play more aggressively. And in the end, she did fine and contributed to their win. And the funny thing was, for once she didn’t have to worry about being compared to her perfect older sister. Because Sarah had never been into gaming.

It was still early evening and Emma had finished her homework. There were other things to do—YouTube, Netflix—but instead she turned to Google. A week ago, on her own, she’d begun to read about the Nazis and the millions of people they’d killed during World War II. Now she read that Adolf Hitler believed that the Jewish people were an inferior race and a threat to German racial purity. Hitler believed in the superiority of the Germanic peoples, whom he called the Aryan “master race.” For Hitler, the ideal “Aryan” was blond, blue-eyed, and tall. This seemed ironic, since Hitler himself was short and had very dark hair. And yet, he’d insisted that the German race had to remain pure in order to one day take over the world.