Girl (In Real Life) Read online

  There was no sign of Spud, so I sat on the wall at the bottom of his drive and put my headphones on. I clicked on All About Eva. A new Update Vlog appeared called Letting Go. It had been posted late last night. I tapped play.

  “Hi guys! Welcome back to our channel!” Mum said. “So, I had a little fight with Eva.” She bit her bottom lip. “And I’m sharing because I’m seeing so many people in the vlogging community right now making out their lives are perfect, and I don’t want us to be like that, you know?”

  I jumped as Spud sprang out from behind the wall. “Spud!” I shouted, almost dropping my phone.

  “First rule of ju-jitsu, Eva,” he said, grinning. “Always be prepared for attack.”

  I pulled my headphones off. “You don’t do ju-jitsu.”

  “You’re wrong,” Spud said. “I’m a ju-jitsu master.”

  “Spud, we both know you’re only the master of those weird insect-plant things you keep in your bedroom.”

  Spud rolled his eyes. “You mean Dionaea muscipula. Venus flytraps to the novice.”

  “Yeah, and Venus flytraps are probably better at jujitsu than you. In fact, I’m probably better at ju-jitsu than you.” I stood up and knocked his water bottle out of his hands then ran up the hill. By the time we’d reached the top, Spud had stood on the back of my shoe about six times and I’d hit him with my lunch bag about the same. We hadn’t played a dumb game like this for ages. I stood by the postbox watching him, a little out of breath from laughing, unsure if reaching this spot meant we were quits or if he was about to whack me around the head with his pencil case. He flared his nostrils.

  “Eva!” Hallie called.

  Spud smiled. “Lucky escape, Andersen.” And he headed across the road.

  As I caught up with Hallie and Gabi, I spotted Carys heading up the hill. “Hey, let’s wait for Carys.” Hallie had her braids tied up in two buns, but as I said it looked nice, she and Gabi exchanged a look.

  “Listen, Eva. We’re not sure about Carys hanging around with us,” Hallie said.

  I stared at her. “What? Why not?”

  They looked at each other again and it was obvious they had already decided this without me. Gabi said, “My cousin goes to her old school and she said Carys is trouble.”

  “What?” I looked at Hallie. “And you just believe that?”

  Hallie shrugged. “Gabi’s cousin was in her class, and…I don’t really know Carys.”

  “Exactly,” I replied. “So what about giving her a chance? Miss Wilson assigned me as her buddy. I can’t just ditch her.”

  “She’s already got you into trouble,” Gabi said, her words forming little clouds in the cold air. “You know. With your mum. I’m sure Miss Wilson would understand.”

  I tried to meet Hallie’s eye, but she looked at the pavement. “I told Gabi about your mum calling me.”

  I didn’t plan to say anything mean, but my eyes started stinging. I felt stupid. And maybe I was a bit sick of Gabi too. “Well, I’ve been getting to know Carys and I like her,” I said. “Maybe Gabi’s cousin is the one who isn’t very nice.”

  “Eva!” Hallie said, as though I’d dumped a bucket of cold water over her head.

  “I’m just saying, you don’t even know Carys yet. Why are you siding with Gabi all the time! What about what I think? I’m supposed to be your best friend, not Gabi Galloney.” I don’t know why I said Gabi’s surname like that. Maybe because I knew she didn’t like it.

  Gabi looked at Hallie and raised her eyebrows. “See?”

  “Eva,” Hallie said. “Gabi thinks you don’t like her.”

  It wasn’t a question, which is one of the reasons I didn’t answer her. The other reason is that it was basically true. And Hallie could always tell when I was lying. Anyway, Gabi was giving me her trademark dead-eye look, which made me want to hit her in the face with my lunch bag. Flask-side up.

  “I’m going,” Gabi said. “You wait with her if you want.”

  Hallie looked at me for a second. “I’ll see you in form, okay?” And she followed Gabi towards school, leaving me standing there on the pavement.

  A lump formed in my throat as I watched them walk off together. I’d known Hallie since primary school. Her mum used to make us fried plantain on a special plate that we could share. We’d mix our squash together at break times and call it magic potion. We used to write our names like a crossword puzzle. I probably should have run after them and said sorry. But, at that exact moment, I would rather have gouged out my own eyeballs than apologize to Gabi Galloney.

  “Hey,” Carys said, out of breath. “Thanks for waiting. Shall we catch Hallie and Gabi up?”

  “No, they have some student council thing to do,” I said. I didn’t want to tell her about what Gabi had said. Knowing Gabi, she was probably making it up. Or maybe it was Gabi’s cousin who had been bullying Carys.

  “Are you okay?” Carys asked, watching me swipe my phone. “Did your parents post something else?”

  “You want to see?” I asked, and she nodded.

  I tapped play and handed Carys my phone. “So, I had a little fight with Eva…” Mum’s voice started. I rolled my eyes and tried not to listen. But it was kind of impossible.

  “…I don’t want us to be like that, you know? I think it’s important to share the stuff that goes wrong too. Those days you feel kind of rubbish. I’ve never claimed to be the perfect mum, but as you guys know, Eva and I are really, really close. But lately, we haven’t truly been connecting as well as we usually do. Maybe it’s her hormones going crazy, but… I’m going to be honest, guys, tonight she slammed her bedroom door. As you know, that doesn’t sound like our Eva. She’s usually so…chill! Lars says she needs us to back away sometimes. You know Lars, he is the voice of reason! But I don’t know…” Mum fans her hands in front of her face then wipes her eyes.

  I almost felt sorry for her at this point. Almost.

  “So, if you guys have any tips for connecting better during the teenager years, do drop them in the comments. We have a big announcement tomorrow morning, so don’t miss it! You can subscribe to our family updates by clicking on the link right here…”

  “Well, that was kind of weird,” Carys said. “What’s the big announcement?”

  I sighed. “They’re getting a newspaper column. About me, I guess.”

  “Oh God, I would literally die if my parents did that about me.” She looked at me and added, “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  I stopped the video before another one automatically started playing, and shoved my phone in my pocket. Once we watched a video in geography about coastal erosion, where this person’s entire house slid off a cliff. I kind of felt like that. Like my life was slowly sliding into the sea and there was nothing I could do about it.

  In form, Hallie barely looked at me. I wanted to talk to her, but Miss Wilson made us do silent reading, and even though I willed Hallie to look over, her eyes didn’t budge from her book. I tried to speak to her when the bell went, but Miss Wilson asked me to stay behind. Her hands were covered in dry paint splotches that she picked at while she was talking to me.

  “So, Eva!” she said. “Your Cool Wall spot is still blank.” I bit my lip. “You know, I could choose one of the many beautiful drawings you’ve done for me. But the whole idea, Eva, is you display something that you are proud of.” Miss Wilson smiled at me. “I know you have a busy schedule, Eva. You can talk to me, you know. If things are getting a bit too much.”

  “I’m okay,” I said, trying to avoid her eyes.

  Teachers have a way of telling when you’re lying. They must get special training. Miss Wilson looked at me for a moment. “All right. Promise me you’ll try to find something for the wall.”

  I nodded and she let me go.

  In science, Mr Jacobs put on a video about electromagnetism. I moved my stool next to Hallie’s, but Gabi deliberately moved in between us, so I couldn’t speak to her. Anyway, it seemed like she was really into the ele
ctromagnetism video.

  I tried to speak to her again at the start of lunch, but she said, “Sorry, I’ve got to go. Mrs Marshall said she’d watch my routine. Anyway, you’ve got Languages Club, haven’t you?” And she left without looking back even once. Carys went for lunch with Jenna and Nadira, and I headed to the languages lab.

  “Saved you a seat,” Rami said when I got there, taking his pencil case off the chair next to his.

  “Thanks.” I sat down and logged on to Hej Danmark! – this Danish website with pronunciation videos, tourism information and a pretend chat room where you have conversations with computer characters. I doubted it got many hits.

  I’d selected a video about Copenhagen when Rami started tapping me on the arm. I pulled one side of my headphones off.

  “Saw you’ve been hanging around with the new girl.” He glanced over at Madame Chapelle, who was reading a magazine at her desk, then he whispered, “Did you hear she lied about being homeschooled? And that she really moved here from St Augustine’s?”

  Carys had told me not to say anything about her getting bullied. I guess people had found out anyway. I shrugged one shoulder. “She told me, but…”

  “Pretty bad, hey?” Rami raised his eyebrows. “Apparently one of her friends told the head teacher. Soooo bad!”

  “Told? About what?” I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “Cutting out the school Wi-Fi!” He looked over at Madame Chapelle again to make sure she wasn’t listening. “Carys hacked into it somehow and shut the whole thing down! She told you though, right? And that’s not even the worst thing!” Rami blew out his breath.

  “I don’t think that’s what happened, Rami,” I said and turned back to my computer screen. “Someone’s making stuff up.”

  “Okay,” Rami said, putting his headphones back on. “But Gabi said her cousin goes to St Augustine’s and she was in Carys’s class.”

  “I wouldn’t believe everything Gabi Galloney says.”

  “I don’t,” he said. “But Becca Matthews’s friend goes there and she said the same thing. She’s deputy head of the student council.” Rami went back to watching The Simpsons with Arabic subtitles.

  I stared at my screen. Becca Matthews said it? Why would she make something up about Carys?

  And, she wasn’t the only one. By the end of lunchtime, when Madame Chapelle was handing out Oreos, I’d already seen three group chats, all talking about the same thing. According to Amber, this girl in our year, Carys set up a new signature on her science teacher’s email that said, To infinity and beyond! and changed his profile picture to Buzz Lightyear. Luca said Carys had cut out the school Wi-Fi during an ICT lesson, and everyone had lost their work. Callum said she’d hacked into the St Augustine’s website and changed photos of teachers on their Meet the Team page to ogres from the Trolls movie.

  I messaged: Someone must have made that up.

  But then this boy in 8T called Charley Rhodes sent an old screenshot his brother had been sent. And there it was. The St Augustine’s Meet the Team page. Mr Denham, Head Teacher, it said, and underneath was a picture of Prince Gristle. And underneath that about a million laughing emojis from Charley Rhodes. I couldn’t believe Carys had done it. And I couldn’t think about anything else.

  Carys was waiting for me in the corridor outside English, playing a game on her phone. I tapped her arm and she took out her AirPods.

  “Hey, how was Languages Club?”

  “Fint, tak!” I said, which means “Good, thanks!” Or at least I think it does. I waited until the corridor was empty. “Hey, can I talk to you about something?”

  “Sure,” Carys said. “I think I know what this is about.”

  “It’s just…I heard a few things—”

  “About the hacking, right?” She twisted a little transparent stake in her earlobe.

  “You don’t have to tell me, it’s just…we’re friends, right?”

  Carys sighed and leaned her head back against the wall, narrowly missing a 3D picture of Jane Austen. “Do you still want to be friends if it’s true?”

  “Yes!” I said. “So, is it true?”

  “Not all of it.” Carys shrugged. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but some things have been exaggerated. I disabled the Wi-Fi a few times. I changed a few photos on the school website, made a few videos.”

  “I didn’t realize you could do that stuff. It’s amazing!”

  Carys smiled. “It was supposed to be a joke. It just got kind of out of hand. I was figuring out what I could do with the advanced coding I’d been learning, see what I could get away with, but…the school didn’t find it very funny. Neither did my parents. I got kicked out when they found out it was me. If I mess up again, my dad’s sending me to live with my Aunt Edna. She’s a hundred years old and lives on this freezing cold Scottish island in the middle of nowhere. With no broadband.”

  “I’m sorry they kicked you out,” I said, checking the corridor for Miss West. “They should have given you a second chance.”

  Carys bit her lip. “I’d already had a few chances. Stupidly I trusted one of my friends not to tell anyone.”

  “One of your friends told?”

  “Her older sister lost some of her A-level work so…” Carys glanced behind her. We both spotted Miss West at exactly the same time. “Maybe we should talk about this later.”

  I walked into the classroom with Carys, and Hallie shot me a look that said, I told you so. She must have heard the rumours. I smiled, but she looked away. I wondered if I should just apologize to Gabi, even if I didn’t mean it. Gabi looked over and I smiled at her, but she squinted sarcastically at me. So, I decided that actually, I’d rather watch Mr Jacobs’s electromagnetism film every day for the rest of my life than say another word to Gabi Galloney. I just hoped I wouldn’t lose Hallie over it.

  That night, Mum and Dad were looking at takeaway menus on the iPad, trying to decide between aubergine burgers or black-bean noodles. I was on the sofa with my knees up scrolling through the group chats about Carys. She’d said she’d made videos too, but no one had mentioned those. I wondered if it was rude to ask her.

  I jumped as Dad nudged my leg with his foot. He had the camera pointing at me. “So, what’ll it be, Eva? You want to go for the noodles?”

  I dropped my phone face down on the sofa. “Sure,” I said, fake-smiling. If I couldn’t stop them filming me, maybe I could sabotage it. “I mean, they can’t give me diarrhoea every time, right?”

  “Eva!” Mum said. “They did not give you diarrhoea!”

  I really wanted to laugh but I held it in. “Okay, noodles then. Just tell them not to put any of those weird yellow things in mine. They do not taste nice!” I added my own sick noise sound effect.

  “I don’t even know what you’re talking about, Eva!” Mum looked shocked, like I’d sworn or something.

  Dad tutted. “Eva’s been in this mood all week. And it’s getting noticeably worse.” He nudged me again. “Maybe I should make brunkål instead of getting takeaway, huh?”

  Brunkål is Danish for “brown cabbage”. That gave me an idea. “Yes, brunkål would be great!” I said, in my best Danish.

  Dad smiled for a second, then he realized what I was doing. “Eva, speak in English when we’re filming, please.”

  “But, Dad!” I said in Danish. “You said yourself I need more practice!” I told them all about my day and the beautiful city of Copenhagen in the best Danish I could manage, which probably wasn’t very good. But it was definitely working – Mum looked horrified.

  “Eva, you don’t have to ruin the vlog!” she said. “How are we supposed to…”

  “Don’t worry,” Dad said. “Carry on! I can add English subtitles. It might get us some new Danish subscribers!”

  It was enough to make me stop.

  “Whatever. I don’t care.” I grabbed my phone and went up to my room, my face feeling hot with embarrassment. I heard them giggling as I slammed
my door, just lightly enough to not get into trouble.

  I lay on my bed and scrolled through the stuff about Carys again. Then I went onto the All About Eva page. Any time I read a bad comment, I took a screenshot. Mum always said negative comments were from rival family vloggers, jealous of us or something. I honestly used to believe her. I tapped on the screenshots I’d taken and sent them to Carys.

  Michaela188: This is a disgusting thing to do.

  Kelly_Sandra: Feel sorry for your daughter.

  Hennessey: Disgraceful. Why would you share something like that?

  SparkleyAlice: OMG is nothing private any more?

  UFCC: Fame hungry.

  OnlyBuzzin: i hope you get tape worm.

  Carys replied: What is that?

  I sent her the link, then wrote: Fan mail

  It was a few minutes before Carys messaged back.

  Sorry. Watched the period vlog again. REAL bad the second time.

  I replied: IKR. I asked them to delete it, but it’s on 3.5m views. No way they’ll take it down.

  Carys wrote: OMG they should take it down. It sucks! Your period, your rules! I feel so bad for you, Eva

  I sent her the smiling emoji, and put my phone down. The fairy lights that Mum had strung up all over my ceiling twinkled above me like fake stars. Carys was right. It was my period. And it was my life. But my parents didn’t seem to care about that.

  The next day, I was lying on my bed, doodling, thinking about what Carys had done at St Augustine’s, when I heard a tap on my bedroom door.

  “Eva, you HAVE to see this!” Mum came in without waiting for me to say she could. Dad was behind her, filming. I quickly closed my sketchbook. “Look what I just found!” She held up a book that said:

  I wanted to laugh, only because of what she’d called Uncle Gareth. But I said, “Great!” sarcastically, and hoped they’d get the hint to leave me alone. They didn’t.

  “Lars has been screaming with laughter,” Mum said, a huge smile on her face.