by Lindsey Kelk
Before I had a chance to laugh in my own face, the security doors at the back of the room opened and people began to pour into the arena, racing to snag seats right at the front. Before they could see me, in all my torn-shirt glory, I slipped back through the red velvet curtains, grabbing a Snazzlechuff Says T-shirt as I went.
‘Five minutes to showtime,’ I told everyone as I skipped across the room. ‘Looks like you’ve got some very excited fans out there. Everyone’s going to love it.’
As I slipped into the backstage bathroom, I really hoped I was right.
‘Team Snazzlechuff!’ Ted bellowed, two minutes later as we huddled in the middle of the stage. ‘My boyzzz! Is everyone good to go?’
Dustin, Greg, Travis and Veronica gave various grunts of affirmation then looked to Snazz for approval.
‘Yeah,’ he said with a mild shrug.
‘This is going to be the pinnacle of my career,’ Ted breathed, his face so white I was afraid he might faint. ‘Ros, I want you to go out there and introduce everyone and then let’s make some magic happen, my brosephs.’
‘Don’t you want to do the introduction?’ I asked, waving up and down at the state of myself.
‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘But it’s a better look for the company if a woman does it. We don’t want people to think it’s a sausage party over at our place.’
‘Of course not,’ I agreed, even though it absolutely was.
Standing up, I attempted to comb my fingers through my mess of curls before giving up and winding my hair up into a topknot. Ted handed me a microphone, branded of course, and curled his mouth into a disapproving frown.
‘Have you not got a bit of lipstick?’ he asked.
I answered with an ungodly glare.
‘You look great,’ he said, giving me the double-finger guns.
‘OK, let’s do this,’ I declared, winking at my new friend, Max. ‘See you on the stage then.’
Before I could think any more about it, I stepped through the curtains and onto the stage, soundtracked by an absolute thunderclap of applause. The last time I’d heard clapping on stage, it was because I’d abandoned my rendition of ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ halfway through the song during the Year Eight talent show. There was a reason I preferred to stay behind the scenes.
In the third row, I spotted Adrian, Sumi and Lucy, cheering so loud their voices soared above everyone else’s in the crowd. But they weren’t alone. John was sitting in Patrick’s chair, whooping and cheering as loud as anyone. Pushing away a stab in my guts as I remembered the look on Patrick’s face when I’d walked away, I smiled directly at my friends, stepped forward and turned on my mic.
‘Hello, World E-Sports Championship!’ I shouted. Everyone except for my friends immediately stopped clapping. I tapped the microphone, it was still on.
‘Noob!’ yelled someone at the back of the room, sending a ripple of hand-over-mouth dampened chuckles around the crowd.
‘Fine, whatever,’ I muttered. ‘My name is Ros and I’m the producer of Snazzlechuff Says.’
I paused for applause but there was none.
‘I’d like to thank you for coming,’ I went on, desperate to get off stage and into a drink. ‘And without further ado, let’s bring on our guests for this evening. First up, from Kansas City, Missouri, we have Overwatch legend, Beezer Go-Go!’
I stuffed the mic into my armpit and clapped as he sloped onto the stage, shoulders rolling in a denim jacket so big it looked as though he’d borrowed it from his dad, if his dad was a giant.
‘Also joining us is one of this year’s Fortnite World Cup runners-up. From Milton Keynes, England, it’s PsychoBang!’
The teenage boy who had just inhaled three packets of Wotsits in a row rushed onto the stage, throwing his arms out wide, a PC-gaming Jesus Christ as the crowd howled his name. Definitely not someone who was going to struggle to form functioning relationships when he got older.
‘And of course, last but not least, we have this year’s Fortnite World Cup Champion, a Dreamcast Extreme Master, the most subscribed-to player on any streaming site in the world and host of PodPad’s first gaming podcast, the one, the only Snazzlechuff!’ I called out his name like a boxing announcer, riding the wave of screams echoing around the room. Rows and rows of teenage boys, teenage girls, grown men and even a few grown women leapt up, clapped their hands and stamped their feet as they waited for their hero to appear.
Only he didn’t.
‘Let’s hear it for Snazzlechuff!’ I shouted again, turning off my mic and sticking my head back through the curtains. Veronica, Ted and Travis were all standing around Max’s chair, where he was still playing his game.
‘Max,’ I hissed. ‘Get out here.’
‘Don’t wanna,’ he replied without moving.
‘That’s not funny,’ I said as the cheers began to fade away into discontented murmurs. ‘You need to come out here right now.’
‘No,’ he said, looking up at me as defiantly as someone in a robot mask was able to. ‘You need me to come out there right now. I need to play Super Smash Bros.’
I looked at Ted but he was frozen to the spot. Travis ran over to the sound desk and began fiddling with unnecessary knobs.
‘Veronica?’ I said, helplessly.
‘Kids today,’ she shrugged. ‘I’d give him a slap but it’s illegal. Maybe somebody shouldn’t have filled his head with ideas about giving up gaming.’
I gulped. How could it be anything other than my fault?
‘I know!’ Ted screeched. ‘You put on the tiger mask and pretend to be him.’
‘I think they’re going to know,’ I hissed, pointing at my tits. On the other side of the curtain, the crowd was beginning to get restless. ‘Travis,’ I ordered. ‘Cue the video.’
He nodded and gave a salute, hitting a big red play button in front of him. In the arena, I heard the crowds hush as our Snazzlechuff Says introduction video began to roll.
‘All right,’ I said, dropping to my knees in front of the teenage maestro and feeling nothing. ‘I am begging you. What do you need? Ted, did you get him that Chicago pizza?’
‘Order the pizza, I repeat, order the pizza,’ Ted barked into his iPhone. I could only assume he had the intern at Heathrow, ready to go.
‘Don’t want pizza,’ Max mumbled inside his mask.
‘Then what do you want?’ I asked, utterly frantic. I had not come this far to fuck up now. ‘Are you hungry? Thirsty? Do you want a new mask? The tiger mask? A real tiger? Ted, he wants a real tiger.’
‘Cancel the pizza,’ Ted screamed into his phone. ‘I repeat, cancel the pizza and find us a tiger.’
But still, nothing.
Taking a deep breath in, I dug deep. There was only one thing for it.
‘That’s it, you’re officially on my shitlist, Max,’ I said, fixing him with the glare of a woman whose fucks had all but expired. ‘Do you think I want to be doing this? No, I don’t. I’ve spent ten years working as a radio producer, I have won awards for my culture programming, I have produced interviews with world leaders, I have shown Greta Thunberg the way to the toilet. Michelle Obama once told me she liked my shoes.’
I paused to let that sink in but the robot was unmoved.
‘Yes, a real tiger,’ Ted marched up and down the room, still bellowing into his phone. ‘What other kind of tiger would I be talking about?’
‘But forget everything else I’ve ever done,’ I said, still focused on my target. ‘Because this is what we’re doing today and I have worked too hard for too long for you to cock it up now. I’m not going to get sacked because you can’t even be bothered to go out onto that stage and talk about Street Cleaner Three with your two chuckle buddies.’
‘Street Fighter Two,’ he corrected sullenly.
‘It could be Street Fighter Seventy-Eight for all I care!’ I shouted. ‘I am sick to the back teeth of putting all my energy into something when the other person could not give a flying fuck. Do you know how long women
have been doing this? Forever, Max. For-Ever. So I will not eat your shit and call it ice cream, so either get out there and show me the same respect I’ve shown you or go home and stop wasting everybody’s time.’
The robot head looked up at me, shining silver, all its bright lights flashing.
‘You’re amazing,’ he gasped. ‘Will you go out with me?’
I looked around the room to make sure everyone else had heard the same thing I had. From the looks on their horrified faces, they had.
‘Absolutely not,’ I replied.
‘I’ll be sixteen next December,’ he said, a trace of teenage bravado forcing its way through the robotic effects on his voice modulator.
‘Which means you’re fourteen now,’ I said, looking him dead in the robot eye. ‘Max, you are a child, I am not going out with you.’
‘Then I’m not going on stage,’ he replied.
‘Fifteen seconds left on the video!’ Travis yelled.
‘We could go to the cinema,’ Max suggested. ‘I can probably get into a fifteen but if you want to see an eighteen, my mum has to come with us.’
‘Ten seconds!’
‘Veronica?’ I squealed, looking for help in all the wrong places.
‘I usually put Maltesers in my popcorn,’ Max added. ‘But we don’t have to if you don’t want to.’
‘Fine,’ I said, panicking. ‘We can go to the cinema. But we’re not going to see an eighteen and it’s not a date.’
‘Seriously?’ He leapt to his feet and tossed his computer game to the floor. ‘You’ll go to the movies with me?’
‘Hold the tiger,’ Ted barked down the phone, staring at me. ‘I repeat, hold the tiger.’
‘Yes, seriously,’ I confirmed, holding my head in my hands. ‘Now will you please get on stage before the crowd tears this place apart?’
Silently, he grabbed hold of my hand and strolled out through the curtains right as the video finished playing.
‘Let go of me,’ I hissed, trying to shake him off as the crowd began to whoop and scream. ‘I need to be backstage.’
‘Aight WESC-ers!’ Max said into his microphone. Everyone, except for Lucy who seemed to have doubled in size since Saturday, and Sumi who looked very confused, stood up and began chanting for Snazzlechuff. ‘I have an announcement to make.’
The crowd lowered their volume to a reverent hush, almost silent save for the sound of four hundred and ninety-eight people clamouring for their mobile phones.
‘It’s kind of a big deal but I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, like, the last couple of weeks.’
The room gasped.
‘As of today, I am retiring from competitive gaming.’
You could have heard a speck of dust fall off the head of a pin.
‘Having discussed this with my girlfriend—’ he raised my hand in the air.
‘I’m not his girlfriend,’ I said quickly.
‘I have decided to spend more time travelling the world and doing charities and going to the pictures with Ros. Thank you for all your support.’
And then the boos began in earnest.
‘You’re not Snazzlechuff!’ shouted a girl with candyfloss-pink hair at the back of the room. ‘You’re an imposter!’
‘From today, I am no longer a slave to the mask,’ he shouted back, fiddling with the clasp on the side of his ear. The booing stopped, and all the air was sucked out of the room as he carefully unhooked the catch and let his mask swing open to reveal his face.
‘My name is Max, this is my girlfriend, Ros—’
‘Oh god, please make this end,’ I groaned, covering my face with my arm as dozens of camera flashes popped below us.
‘And I am Snazzlechuff!’
I stared at the crowd, trying to shake my hand free of Max’s vice-like grip as five hundred people livestreamed my worst professional nightmare to millions of people all around the world.
‘I am Snazzlechuff!’ A voice bellowed in the crowd.
I peered through my arms to see Adrian standing on his chair, arms aloft.
‘Yes! So am I! I am Snazzlechuff as well!’ Sumi echoed, giving Lucy a kick as she climbed up onto her own seat.
‘Don’t make me stand up,’ Lucy groaned as she reluctantly raised her hands halfway into the air, John beside her doing the same. ‘Fine, I’m Snazzlechuff too.’
A girl I didn’t know, three rows behind them, rose to her feet.
‘I’m Snazzlechuff!’
‘Me too! I’m Snazzlechuff!’ shouted three different teenage boys, all standing at once, swiftly followed by an entire row by the back door. Slowly but surely, the entire room stood up, waving their arms in the air.
‘I’m Snazzlechuff!’ they chanted, individually at first but soon, all as one. ‘I’m Snazzlechuff!’
Max grinned and wrapped his skinny arm around my waist as I tried to push him away.
‘We’re all Snazzlechuff!’ he cheered. Dustin and Greg stood behind him, chanting along with everyone else.
‘And I am so fired,’ I groaned, watching Ted march off down the middle aisle and storm out the back door.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Saturday morning was announced by a single drop of water, landing directly on my face. Bloody condensation in the shed, I thought, rolling over and bumping into another body. Lying on her side, surrounded by a nest of pillows and cushions, was heavily pregnant Lucy, happily snoring away under my sheet. I sat up, the night before slowly seeping back into my memory, to see Sumi wedged onto the world’s smallest sofa and, when I looked over the edge of my mattress, Adrian was curled up in a ball between the bedframe and the front door. Empty pizza boxes were stacked up at the side of the sink and my head throbbed with recollection. Patrick followed by podcast followed by Pinot Grigio.
After The Artist Formerly Known as Snazzlechuff’s big announcement, absolute chaos had broken loose. And by chaos, I meant three teenagers turned their chairs over and had to be escorted out of the convention centre. After that, came the social media decimation, the Snazzlechuff Is Over Party, Hashtag Cancel PodPad and, my personal favourite worldwide trending topic of all time, Who the Fuck Is Ros Reynolds? It was an excellent question and not one I was certain I could answer.
By the time I’d fought my way off the stage and down to find my friends, John had disappeared, late for work at the bar, and there was an email in my inbox from Ted confirming that since Snazzlechuff Says was not going ahead, my services would no longer be required at the office. Those weren’t the exact words he’d used but I got the general gist. I’d been sacked. But this time, I wasn’t overwhelmed by shame. It wasn’t my fault. Or at least not entirely. And this time, I had my friends to support me, I would work it out somehow. We left the convention centre and went straight to the closest pub where I gave them a blow-by-blow recap of my Patrick predicament and proceeded to get very, very drunk.
Sacked, single and hungover. The perfect start to my parents’ special day.
‘Are you awake?’ I asked Lucy as I saw one eyelid flicker.
‘I’m thirty-seven weeks’ pregnant, I don’t sleep,’ she muttered. ‘I just close my eyes and hope that when I open them, the baby will have fallen out.’
‘God, it hasn’t, has it?’ I rubbed my hand against my face. ‘I felt something wet on my head?’
Lucy stared straight at me.
‘Are you asking if I got up, straddled your face, waited for my waters to break and then got back into this position, all without you noticing?’
I looked up at the ceiling and back down at my friend.
‘Yes.’
‘You got me,’ she grunted, closing her eyes again. ‘Was it a boy or a girl?’
‘You didn’t have to stay over, you know,’ I said, somehow managing to smile at the bodies crammed into my tiny space.
‘Please,’ Adrian grunted. ‘As if we were going to leave you alone.’
‘The first night is the most dangerous,’ Lucy added. ‘Sumi needed to be here to ch
op your hands off if you tried to change your mind and call him.’
I lay back on my bed and smiled happily. All my friends around me, all my friends (bar Lucy) hungover. Just like the good old days. Another drop of water landed on the top of my head. I looked up at the ceiling, which was moving too quickly, the room spinning around me.
‘What’s that sound?’ I asked, leaning over Lucy to move the curtain.
‘In England, we call that rain,’ Adrian replied from the floor. ‘Listen.’
‘I thought that sound was in my head,’ I groaned. It wasn’t just raining, it was torrential. Water was splitting the sky in two, it was practically coming down sideways.
‘At last,’ Sumi said in a muffled voice, still face down on the settee. ‘Maybe it won’t be so bloody hot today.’
‘But Mum and Dad’s party.’ I flexed my head left and right, wincing at the headache that was starting to scratch away at my temples. Outside the rain was coming down so hard, I could barely see the house. ‘She’s going to be so upset.’
‘Rain on your wedding day is good luck,’ Lucy replied. ‘Don’t worry.’
I flipped my legs out of bed, narrowly avoiding stepping on Adrian’s face. ‘What about rain on your fortieth-anniversary slash marriage-vow-renewal day?’
‘I think it’s fine and you should be quieter and we should all go back to sleep,’ Sumi answered in a monotonous tone I recognized all too well. ‘Ugh, what was that?’
‘The roof is leaking,’ I wailed as another giant droplet landed on my face. ‘I knew it!’
But the roof wasn’t just leaking, water was pouring in. At first, the drops turned into a trickle which turned into a steady stream, the gaps in the roof widening from minor cracks to gaping chasms until it was raining as hard inside as it was outside.
‘This isn’t good,’ I said, eyes on the ceiling as I felt around on the floor for my trainers. ‘We should get inside.’