For ten perfect minutes, they were free. The study hall, the firewalls, the threat of detention—it all melted away. Leo was just a guy in a bear car, driving toward the horizon.

“Violent?” Leo whispered to his friend Maya, who was hunched over her own laptop in the back of Mr. Henderson’s study hall. “It’s a game where you drive a giant inflatable bear car and honk at raccoons.”

Just then, a new kid slid into the seat next to them. He wore a faded t-shirt with a pixelated honey jar on it. He didn’t say hello. He just placed a grubby USB drive on the table. On it, written in sharpie, was:

The game was everything. The physics were gloriously janky. The Bearmobile drifted on dirt roads like a hippo on roller skates. Leo dodged a kamikaze chipmunk, drifted past a ranger station, and perfectly tossed a honey jar into a kid’s campsite.

Mr. Henderson, a man who had once given a student detention for a “suspiciously loud pencil case,” stared. Leo’s heart stopped.

Then he straightened up, pretended to check a clipboard, and walked away.

He was in.