by J. Dillard
“The state flower is . . . the magnolia. The state animal is the . . . owl.”
Vanessa cringed.
“No, J.D., the state animal is the white-tailed deer,” Granddad said. “Now, what’s going on here that made you miss such an easy question?”
Vanessa and I were both quiet.
“You’ll have to stay inside for an extra hour tomorrow with homemade flash cards,” Granddad said. He headed back to the living room, probably to continue his soap operas.
“Serves you right, J.D.” Vanessa said.
“Whatever,” I replied. “Now do you want to get everybody together to shoot this video or not? We’ll see who ends up getting the most views.”
To seal the deal, we shook on it.
* * *
»»««
Later in the day, we gathered our friends on the back porch and explained our idea for the video.
“Huh?” Eddie said. “I thought you called me over here to practice new throws.” Eddie spent most of his free time playing football.
“Maybe if you learn how to do videos, you can upload your own football highlights,” I said.
With that, Eddie was in.
“I’m missing Minecraft for this,” Jordan said.
Minecraft was Jordan’s new favorite thing to do.
“Jordan, you always said you wanted to learn how to make your own movies. This can be your start as a director or producer. Me and Xavier will be your actors,” I said.
I knew my friend, and I knew this would get him excited.
“Here’s the script I wrote this morning.” I handed him a piece of notebook paper.
Not only did Jessyka have a stand for her iPhone, she even had attachments for sound and could angle the camera however she wanted. The daylight made the video extra clear.
I set up my barber chair and asked Xavier to have a seat.
“Hey, J.D., I think you should make some changes to your script,” Jordan said.
I wondered if Jordan was just trying to give me a hard time. He was one of the main reasons I started cutting my own hair. When my mom tried to give me a fade and messed up my hairline, he told so many jokes.
“Look what I did.” Jordan handed the paper back to me with notes and some lines crossed out.
AUDIO:
Hey, everybody, which one of my friends is going to win a free haircut today?
VIDEO:
EDDIE JORDAN (I’m behind the camera), AND XAVIER wait for J.D. to pull one of their names out of a hat. The winner gets a special haircut by J.D. the Kid Barber.
AUDIO:
Oh, look, it’s (whichever friend’s name was pulled out of the hat). XAVIER. (He has to win because he’s the only one with enough hair. Just tell him to act surprised.)
Sit down and let’s have a look at what J.D. the Kid Barber can do!
Tell the audience what you want, bro!
VIDEO:
J.D. sits the “winner” down in a barber chair. He spins him around three times and puts a piece of toilet paper around his neck and a bedsheet over his clothes.
AUDIO:
A hi-top fade looks hard, but it’s only three steps. 1) Pick out the hair as high as you can. 2) Take your barber shears and even out the shape all around. 3) Fade the sides and create an edge.
Then I have my special trick: a ruler!
VIDEO:
J.D. picks out the winner’s XAVIER’S hair and blow-dries it. Then he begins to shape the hi-top with a trimmer.
AUDIO:
And for extra credit, you can cut a design! Start with lines and half moons, and soon you’ll be up to Marvel characters or whatever else you want.
VIDEO:
J.D. begins to sketch out a design with his edger.
AUDIO:
I’m done!
VIDEO:
J.D. fills in the design with a colored pencil.
AUDIO:
That’s J.D. the Kid Barber, signing off!
VIDEO:
Everyone jumps up and down and congratulates J.D. on a job well done.
VIDEO:
THE END.
“It’s either that or the winner gets to choose his own style for you to do,” Jordan said. “That adds a challenge.”
Jordan was right. I knew he’d have great ideas! But I wanted to show off my ruler technique. I walked over to Xavier and showed him the new script.
“Do you think you can act surprised?” I asked him.
“What?! You mean like this?!” Xavier put his hand over his chest and started fanning himself like he’d just won the lottery. It was too much, but it worked. That gave me an idea for Eddie.
“Eddie, I need you to be real dramatic when you don’t win, like fall on the ground or something.”
“Got it.” Eddie went down just like when he takes sacks on the field. It was hilarious!
* * *
»»««
“TAKE ONE! Jessyka, roll tape!” Jordan yelled out, clapping his hands together like he was using a real movie director’s board.
I handed Jordan one of my Tuskegee University baseball caps. Inside, it had strips of blank paper since we already knew who the winner would be.
“Turn to the camera, J.D., say your name, and try to follow the script,” he said.
“I’m J.D. Jones, aka J.D. The Kid Barber, and I’m the best barber in Meridian, Mississippi. Today, I am going to cut a hi-top fade!”
I closed my eyes, reached into the hat, and pulled out a paper.
“The winner of the free haircut is my friend Xavier!”
Xavier pumped his fists in the air and strutted over to claim his prize as Eddie crumpled to the ground in fake agony. I had asked Vanessa to be in charge of the props for this video.
“Vanessa, toss me a hair dryer!”
A dryer with a comb attached would make Xavier’s hair stand up really high.
Xavier had a lot of hair. After I blew his hair up into a tall square puff, I created my guideline, faded his hair, and then edged him up. When I was done, I checked if his hi-top was even. I pulled out the ruler that I used for school and laid it on top to make sure it was even all the way across. It was perfect.
“Now, big sister assistant,” I said, changing my voice to sound like a football announcer, “pass me my set of art pencils.”
I don’t know why my voice came out like that, but I went with it! I didn’t really follow my script, either. It was like everything changed when the camera turned on!
“I’m not your assistant!” Vanessa rolled her eyes as she handed me the pencils.
I carved the word Stylin’ into the back of Xavier’s head and alternated the colors crimson and gold, Tuskegee University colors.
“Voilà!” I said. “I’m J.D. The Kid Barber, and that was another perfect cut!”
Jordan and Eddie jumped up and down and patted me on the back and head. They gave me high fives like I had just scored a pick-six!
“Okay, I’m stopping the video before I run out of memory,” Jessyka said. “And Jordan, directors are not supposed to jump into the movie.”
Jordan wouldn’t stop jumping, though.
Vanessa sighed loudly and then laughed when Jordan bumped into her.
“I’m going to go home and edit this with my mom,” Jessyka said. “I’ll call you tomorrow when it’s finished!”
I had done it. I had made my first YouTube video!
“Oh man! I wonder how many views I’ll get, Vanessa,” I said to her as Jessyka sprinted off the back porch.
“Well, we’ll see how many I get when I make my next one with me front and center again!”
CHAPTER 8
Legend Only in My Own Mind
The next day, I was so eager for Jessyka to call us that it was hard to sit still. At breakfast, I p
layed with my bacon, flipping it back and forth with my fork.
“Hey, J.D., are you planning to eat that bacon or just flip it until it’s cold?” Granddad asked. “If you need an outlet for your energy, I’ll gladly teach you to cut the lawn,” he said.
For Father’s Day, Mom had bought Granddad a motorized lawn mower. He had used a manual one for years, but when my grandmother inherited her brother’s lot next door, adding lots of extra grass, my mom wanted to help Granddad.
“Thanks, baby. I hope this new machine doesn’t make it too easy!” Granddad had said. He liked to do yardwork to keep in shape, he told me, especially after he’d had a heart attack a couple years ago.
I bit into a strip of bacon and watched Mom gather her things for work. That’s when the phone rang!
“Hello, Jessyka,” Mom said. “Would you like to speak to Vanessa?”
Mom handed the old cord phone to Vanessa. The cord was so long that Vanessa could sit in the living room to take her calls. One night, I almost tripped over it on my way to the bathroom when Vanessa stayed up past bedtime!
“Really, it’s already done?!” I heard Vanessa say. “That’s great!”
When she hung up, Vanessa told me my video from yesterday was live on YouTube. We still had to do our morning homework, but Vanessa said we could sneak on the computer when Granddad went to drop off Mom at work.
“But Vanessa,” I said, “we aren’t supposed to go on the computer without someone watching us!”
Vanessa sighed.
“It will only take a few minutes, J.D. I memorized the password.”
* * *
»»««
Vanessa laid out our multiplication workbooks on the kitchen table so they would be open in case Granddad came back early.
“I’ll just do a few of your math problems first so it looks like we’ve been working,” Vanessa said. “It’s fourth-grade math. I already know it.”
I didn’t need her help. I was really good at math.
When I was done, I moved like a secret agent into the living room.
“Why are you tiptoeing, J.D.?” Vanessa asked, walking like normal. “No one is here.”
Even though there was no one home to catch us, we knew we had to be fast. I sat by Vanessa at the computer, my palms sweaty. She was as cool as a cucumber, as my grandmother would say. I don’t know why it seemed so much easier for her to break the rules! I thought back to her telling me to not be a scaredy-cat.
“There it is!” Vanessa said, pointing to the screen.
The video was about ninety seconds long. Wow, that was short! We had been outside filming all day.
Jessyka had added some cool special effects, like a floating title and some background music. Even though the shot was clearer, it still didn’t look as good as some of the videos Vanessa had shown me of other kids on YouTube cutting hair.
I could see by the date that Jessyka had uploaded it the night before. It only had twenty-five views and no comments. I guess we had to give it time to get some more attention, but I was still disappointed.
A car pulling into the driveway snapped me out of my thoughts. Granddad was back.
Vanessa quickly turned off the computer, and we raced back to the workbooks waiting for us in the kitchen.
“I have a new idea for the next video,” I told her.
“Well, it is MY turn to go next,” Vanessa said.
Vanessa was busy doing math problems as if she had never left the table. Even though I knew it would bug her, I put my hand on her page so she’d look up and see that I was serious.
“That’s part of the problem,” I said.
Vanessa looked both surprised and annoyed at the same time.
“We need to do something really different,” I said.
“Like what?” Vanessa asked.
“We need to do something together, at the same time. Like Chloe x Halle! They made a YouTube channel singing songs, and now they’re famous,” I said. “Jordan showed me their first real video because his brother Naija helped them film it when he was in college in Atlanta.”
Vanessa smiled from ear to ear. I knew she liked Chloe x Halle.
“I think Naija still has some camera equipment in his old room,” I said. “I bet Jordan would let us use it! He likes directing!”
“Wow, really?” Vanessa said. “If that’s true, we just need to think of a really, really good idea for the next video!”
I was excited. Vanessa was excited. Now it was time to get Jordan excited to use a piece of equipment that didn’t belong to him and that I had already promised we could get.
CHAPTER 9
Iron Man
Sunday was the only break we got from Evans Summer School. Today was Saturday.
“I’m glad we’re getting back to our French lessons!” my mom said. She had already started teaching us the different sounds of the alphabet and the numbers one through ten. Mom knew French well, and even patois.
I wasn’t sure when I was ever going to have to speak French, but it was easy enough to memorize the sounds, and I liked learning from Mom.
Mom asked us to pull out our French flashcards and quiz each other while she stepped out for a second.
Vanessa wasted no time sliding a piece of paper to me, grinning like she’d just won first place in her own hairstyling competition.
It was a new video script.
VANESSA DOES IT ALL’S BEADS AND NAILS
Script by Vanessa Jones
AUDIO:
Hey, this is Vanessa Does It All here, and today we’re going to do something pretty cool: match hair beads to your nails!
VIDEO:
Jessyka sits in a chair and shakes her braids while she flashes her nails at the camera.
AUDIO:
First things first: Remove your nail polish and take off your old beads.
[Jessyka says] “Bedazzle me!”
VIDEO:
Jessyka removes her nail polish and waves her fingers at the camera so everyone can see.
AUDIO:
Let’s see. With yellow beads, purple is the perfect complementary color.
VIDEO:
Vanessa Does It All shows a color wheel to the camera and selects a purple nail polish from the table.
AUDIO:
Now, for the bedazzle!
VIDEO:
Little plastic beads are glued onto every other nail.
AUDIO:
For the hair, this looks hard, but it’s easy. I’ll show you how to do two rows at home.
VIDEO:
Vanessa takes down two of Jessyka’s rows of beads and adds yellow beads.
AUDIO:
That’s all for today, everybody!
VIDEO:
Jessyka shakes her hair back and forth as music plays.
VIDEO:
THE END.
I couldn’t believe it. Vanessa had cut me out! I thought we had agreed that doing something together would get us more views. Instead, I was being forgotten again.
This wasn’t the first time Vanessa completely ignored me. When I was younger, if she was frustrated with me, she’d pretend I wasn’t even in the room with her. When I’d talk, she’d say something like, “The wind sure is loud today.” Cutting me out of this video made me feel the same way.
“Vanessa, this isn’t much of a family business,” I said to her. “What happened to doing one together?!”
Vanessa took her script back and shrugged.
“I do have a part for you in this video,” she said. “You can be the equipment assistant.”
There was no way I was going to be the equipment assistant! I took her paper and started to mark it up. Jordan wasn’t the only one with notes.
VANESSA DOES IT ALL + J.D. THE KID BARBER DO AN UNDERCUT WITH BEADS AND NAI
LS
Script by Vanessa and J.D. Jones
AUDIO:
VANESSA: Hey, this is Vanessa Does It All here, and today we’re going to do something pretty cool match hair beads to your nails! with my brother J.D. The Kid Barber!
I’m going to match hair beads to our friend Jessyka’s nails! And J.D. will give her an undercut with a design!
VIDEO:
Jessyka sits in a chair and shakes her braids while she flashes her nails at the camera.
J.D. spins her around in the chair and lifts her beads to show the back of her neck.
AUDIO:
VANESSA: First things first: remove your nail polish and take off your old beads.
JESSYKA: “Bedazzle me!”
VIDEO:
Jessyka removes her nail polish and waves her fingers at thecamera so everyone can see.
AUDIO:
VANESSA: Let’s see. With yellow beads, purple is the perfect complementary color.