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Chapter 1: THE FIRST BLOG

On a cold, February day, three best friends had just started their brand new YouTube channel. Well, it was more of a blog than a real channel, but they were calling it a channel because it sounded cooler. Sage held the phone up high, her fingers already numb from the freezing wind, and she gave her biggest wave to the camera.

"Hey, viewers!" Sage announced, her voice way too loud for a quiet suburban street at dusk. She was a thirteen year old white girl who had lived in the city her whole life, and she was convinced that her personality alone could carry this entire operation. She was probably right.

The camera wobbled as Naomi stepped into frame, her dark hair whipping across her face. She brushed it aside with a polite little bow, the way she'd been taught back in Tokyo, and then she remembered she was supposed to be casual and cool for the internet.

"I'm Naomi, and welcome to our channel!" she said, her accent soft and musical. She had moved from Tokyo only six months ago, and sometimes her sentences came out backwards or with the wrong words, but she didn't care. She was having the time of her life.

The camera panned left, and Tyla rolled her eyes so hard it was almost audible. She elbowed Naomi out of the way and planted herself right in the center of the frame, her hands on her hips like she owned the whole sidewalk.

"We are glad to have you watching," Naomi continued, stumbling over the word watching because she accidentally added an extra g at the end.

"Sorry, she's still learning English," Tyla cut in, but she said it with a grin so Naomi knew she was just teasing. Tyla was a twelve year old Black kid with a gap between her front teeth and a laugh that could wake up the whole neighborhood. She was the smallest of the three, but she had the biggest energy by a mile.

"I'm Tyla!" she announced, pointing both thumbs at her chest. "And my birthday's in two months! Mark your calendars. I want cake, gifts, and absolutely no math homework."

Sage zoomed in on Tyla's face dramatically, and Tyla leaned closer to the lens until her nose was practically touching it.

"Today," Naomi said, lowering her voice to a theatrical whisper, "we're going to be sneaking into Tyla's crush's house. Ethan."

Sage let out a cackle that sounded like a dying seagull, and Tyla immediately slapped her hand over Sage's mouth. The phone dropped for a second, capturing nothing but a blurry shot of the sidewalk and a single discarded gum wrapper.

When the camera stabilized again, the three of them were huddled together like a tiny gang about to commit their first felony. The sky had turned a deep, bruised purple, and the streetlights were flickering on one by one. Their breath puffed out in little clouds, and Sage had to wipe the lens clear every few seconds because the cold was making everything foggy.

Tyla pointed down the street toward a two-story house with blue shutters and a sad little birdbath in the front yard. A single light glowed in the upstairs window, which meant Ethan was home, probably strumming his acoustic guitar or writing poetry or doing whatever perfect boys did in their rooms.

"Ethan Chen," Tyla whispered, her voice suddenly shy. "Eighth grade. Plays guitar. Offers to tutor me in pre-algebra for absolutely no reason. He said I have good vibes. Good vibes, Sage. That means something, right?"

Sage snorted. "It means he thinks you're nice. That's it."

Naomi shook her head firmly. "In Tokyo, if a boy says you have good vibes, he is writing your name in his notebook with a little heart next to it. I have read many manga. I know these things."

Tyla grabbed Naomi by the shoulders and shook her. "See? See? Naomi gets it. Naomi is my only real friend. You two are dead to me."

Sage rolled her eyes but she was smiling, and she turned the camera back toward the house. "For the viewers at home, let me set the scene. Ethan's parents are at some wine tasting thing until ten. His older sister is upstairs but she's basically in a coma because she's been FaceTiming her boyfriend for three hours straight. That means we have a thirty minute window to get inside, leave a mystery valentine on his desk, and get out without anyone screaming or crying or calling the police."

Naomi held up a crumpled envelope covered in glitter glue and badly drawn cats. The cats looked more like potatoes with ears, but she had tried her best. Inside was a note in Tyla's neatest handwriting that said, "You make algebra feel like poetry. —Secret Admirer."

Tyla took the envelope and pressed it to her chest like it was made of gold. "This is it. This is the moment my whole life changes. Either he falls in love with me, or I die of embarrassment and become a ghost who haunts his bedroom. Either way, I win."

Sage grabbed her arm. "Okay, enough dramatic speeches. Let's move."

The three of them crept down the sidewalk, staying low even though there was nobody around to see them. Sage kept the phone angled forward so the viewers could see everything, and she narrated in a whisper that was way too loud to actually be a whisper.

"We are now approaching the side gate," she said, her voice shaking with suppressed laughter. "The gate that Tyla swore would be easy to open."

Tyla grabbed the latch and yanked. It didn't budge. She yanked again. Nothing. She gave it a good shake, and the metal groaned like a dying animal.

"Okay," she muttered. "Maybe I underestimated the gate."

Sage pointed the camera at her own face and raised an eyebrow. "And that, folks, is why you always bring supplies to a heist. But we have nothing. We have three phones, a bag of sour gummy worms, and Naomi's lucky chopsticks."

Naomi pulled the chopsticks from her back pocket and held them up defensively. "These are for eating. Not for lockpicking. Please do not—"

Tyla jiggled the latch so hard that it popped open with a sharp metallic click that echoed down the entire street. All three of them dropped to the ground instantly, flat on their stomachs in the wet grass, like that would somehow undo the noise. Sage was laughing so hard she could barely hold the phone steady. The camera got a beautiful close-up of her chin, a dead worm, and a single drop of dew sliding off a blade of grass.

"We're going to get arrested," Sage wheezed. "We're going to get arrested and my mom is going to ground me until I turn thirty."

Naomi pressed her face into the dirt and mumbled something in Japanese that probably meant "I regret everything."

Tyla shushed them both and started crawling forward on her hands and knees, her hoodie dragging through the mud. The back door of Ethan's house was just a few feet away, a sliding glass door that led straight into the kitchen. Tyla had seen Ethan leave it open a hundred times after practice. He was a reckless optimist, which was exactly why she loved him.

She reached up and gave the door a gentle push. It slid open without a sound.

The three of them froze. Nobody moved. Nobody even breathed.

Then Tyla turned back to the camera with a grin so wide it almost split her face. "Ladies and gentlemen," she whispered. "We're in."

She stepped through the door first, her sneakers squeaking slightly on the tiled kitchen floor. Sage followed close behind, the phone held out like a torch, capturing every single detail. The messy counter with a half-eaten bowl of cereal. The fridge covered in magnets and old report cards. The faint smell of cinnamon and something burning from earlier that day.

Naomi came last, carefully sliding the door shut behind her so it didn't make a sound. She was still holding her lucky chopsticks, just in case.

Tyla pointed toward the staircase at the end of the hallway. "His room is up there. Second door on the left. We go up, we drop the valentine, we take a picture of his guitar for proof, and we leave."

Sage zoomed in on Tyla's face. "And what if he's not asleep? What if he's in there doing homework or, I don't know, practicing guitar or something?"

Tyla swallowed hard. "Then we improvise."

Naomi shook her head slowly. "I do not like the word improvise. That is the word people say right before something terrible happens."

Tyla grabbed Naomi's wrist and pulled her toward the stairs. "Too late. We're already in. No backing out now."

They crept up the stairs one at a time, each step a careful, deliberate movement. The old wooden stairs creaked under their weight, and every single creak made them freeze and stare at each other with wide, terrified eyes. Sage was biting her own sleeve to keep from laughing. Naomi had her eyes squeezed shut. Tyla was moving like a cat, light and precise, her heart pounding so loudly she was sure the whole house could hear it.

They reached the top of the stairs. The hallway was dark except for a sliver of light coming from under Ethan's door. Soft guitar music drifted out, quiet and melodic, something slow and sad that made Tyla's chest ache.

She turned to the camera and mouthed, "He's playing. He's literally playing guitar right now. I'm going to die."

Sage mouthed back, "Drop the note and run. Do not look at him. Do not make eye contact. We are ninjas."

Tyla took a deep breath and tiptoed toward the door. She pressed her ear against the wood for a moment, listening to the gentle strumming, and then she crouched down and slid the glittery envelope underneath the crack.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then the music stopped.

A voice from inside the room, confused and a little sleepy, said, "Hello? Is someone there?"

Tyla's eyes went impossibly wide. Sage grabbed her by the hood of her jacket and yanked her backward. Naomi was already halfway down the stairs, her hair flying.

The three of them scrambled down the steps, tripping over each other, barely containing their shrieks of terror and laughter. They burst through the sliding glass door, tumbled across the wet grass, and threw themselves over the side gate without even bothering to close it properly.

They ran three houses down before they finally stopped, doubled over, gasping for air and laughing so hard they couldn't breathe.

Sage turned the phone back to herself, her face red and streaked with tears of joy. "We did it," she wheezed. "We actually did it."

Naomi clutched her stomach and leaned against a mailbox. "I thought we were going to prison. I was already planning my prison escape."

Tyla just stood there, staring back at Ethan's house with a dreamy, dazed smile on her face. "He said hello," she whispered. "He asked if someone was there. That means he noticed. He noticed the note. He's probably reading it right now."

Sage groaned. "Or he's calling the police. Either way, we're posting this video tonight."

Naomi grabbed the phone from Sage and pointed it at Tyla. "So, Tyla. How do you feel? Was it worth it?"

Tyla looked straight into the camera, her grin soft and hopeful and absolutely ridiculous.

"Worth every second," she said. "Even if he never talks to me again. Even if I get detention for life. That was the best worst idea we've ever had."

Sage snatched the phone back and waved at the viewers. "And that's a wrap on the first ever blog. Subscribe if you want to see us survive our next terrible idea. Or just subscribe to see Tyla eventually confess her love to Ethan. Either way, we'll be back."

Naomi leaned in and added, "Next time, we are bringing better snacks."

The video cut out to static, but the three of them stayed there on the sidewalk for a long time, laughing until their stomachs hurt, already planning their next adventure.