Keeping Score

At a bus stop in Odyssey, Jay Smouse and Zoe Grant listen to a podcast by A-Jax Manick, a loudmouth host who insists that people who ask for help are taking advantage of you. Zoe can't stand him, but Jay decides she is exactly the kind of giving person who gets manipulated. As proof, he shows off Friendalyze, a new app he is testing that scans people and scores who has contributed more to a friendship. Using A-Jax's own voice, the app promptly announces that Zoe, with 47 points to Jay's 12, "is a way better friend, dude." Jay hands her a rock as a gift and watches his score tick up a point.

An unseen narrator introduces Jay as a small, egotistical boy who likes people who give more than he gives, and warns that Jay's selfish game is about to turn his comfortable world upside down. Sure enough, Jay uses the app to run his whole life. He refuses to help Vincent set up the Kids' Radio studio for a broadcast, announcing, "I do not help. I star." He tells his project partner Claire she will only get his cue cards if her friendship score measures up. At lunch he scans kids to decide who may sit at his table, welcoming high-scoring Jeremy with a ketchup packet and publicly ditching poor Carson, who scored zero.

Then things get strange: Jay realizes he can hear the narrator, and starts talking back to him. When Carson begs for help with a math test, Jay scans him again, and the app offers a brand-new option: delete this friendship. Jay accepts, and Carson vanishes. The narrator explains that the app has moved Jay into another reality without Carson in it. Delighted, Jay deletes Claire, deletes a boy who borrowed his bike, and finally uses a shiny new update to remove every "underperforming" friend at once. The narrator solemnly observes that Jay has also wished away compassion and generosity, but Jay looks forward to a leechless, hassle-free life.

The next morning there is no Zoe, no bus, no one at the locked school, and no one at Whit's End, where Jay cheerfully helps himself to a free sundae. "Welcome to Jaysville, population one," the narrator intones. Jay isn't worried until he realizes that people like Mr. Whittaker and Zoe had more points than he did, so his app shouldn't have deleted them. The narrator delivers the chilling answer: they had the app too. Everyone with a higher score got rid of Jay. He is the loneliest boy in the universe, and there is no way back from the Twilight Zone.

Alone in the empty town, Jay's phone chimes with the reminder he set for Vincent's broadcast. Racing to the studio, he hears sound effects and believes Vincent is trapped in the control room behind heavy crates. For once Jay strains and sweats to help someone, finally levering a crate aside with a crowbar, only to discover a cat walking across the soundboard. Vincent isn't there at all. When Jay scans Vincent's name, the app shows Jay far ahead in points, and the awful truth lands: Vincent never abandoned him. Jay deleted Vincent.

Just then Zoe appears; she has been searching for Jay everywhere. She never lost him because she deleted the app after it claimed she was a better friend than Olivia, who has been sick and truly needed her help. She reminds Jay of the week she hurt her ankle, when he and Olivia took turns carrying her backpack without keeping score. Humbled, Jay admits that is what he should have done for Vincent, and he sets about cleaning up the studio for him even though Vincent is gone, with Zoe pitching in. The narrator closes with a warning: the more people keep score in their friendships, the deeper they descend into the twilight zone.

Then comes the twist: someone calls out that it's a wrap. The whole spooky tale has been a Kids' Radio broadcast written by Zoe as her answer to A-Jax Manick's podcast, narrated by Pastor Knox, with the real A-Jax insisting on playing himself. Jay volunteered to star as the main character, and even wrote the narrator's insults about himself to seem more sympathetic. When Zoe gently asks whether the final scene got to him, Jay scoffs, "It's called acting. Look it up." Then he hurries off to drag the real Vincent out of the control booth for a bear hug, for reasons he insists are completely unrelated to the script.