Truth or Dare

by Non Pratt

  “You mean in the school that we both go to?”

  “I’m trying to be cool and secretive,” he says as my phone bings and I glance down to see that he’s just sent me a message, which I regret reading while standing in front of him.

  Fine. But no one ever died from legal nudity.

  But they might die from talking about it.

  “You got my message then?” he says, watching my reaction.

  “Yeah. Look.” I really do not want to bring this up, but I can’t see how else to shut down any further nudity discussions. “Haven’t you seen the video?”

  Sef’s eyebrows do a cute little quirk, a comma-shaped hollow appearing above the frame of his glasses. “What video?”

  One of his friends – Matthew Lund with the blue eyes and bad shirts – sticks his head out of the classroom.

  “If you’re skipping, mate, maybe do it where Lester can’t see you?”

  When his pretty baby blues slide my way, I tip my head forward to hide behind my hair. Matthew Lund has definitely seen the #MilkTits video.

  “Two secs, Matty.” And Sef waits to be sure he’s gone before saying again, “What video?”

  “The Milk Tits video.” I keep my head down. “The one that literally everyone in this school has seen of me having a wardrobe malfunction of the bikini-top variety.”

  Perhaps if I stare hard enough at that smear of chewing gum on the floor, it will turn into a vortex that will suck me into another dimension?

  “Claire –” Sef’s shoes shuffle into my vision – “I don’t know what video you’re talking about.”

  “You really don’t?” I look up to scan his face for the lie, but all I find is an implacable honesty that makes me want to fling my arms around him and thank him for not being like all the others.

  “I’ll co-sign your no nudity clause,” he says, taking a step towards the door before he turns round to add, “YouTube screens for anything gratuitous anyway.”

  And he actually winks.

  “I’m going to have to do something,” Rich says on the bus home.

  I’m tired and Rich’s shoulder is my pillow. “Do something about what?” I murmur into his jumper. We had PE last lesson and he smells like other boys’ deodorant.

  “My feelings. For Seren.”

  Rich’s ego must be the size of Mount Everest, the difficulty he’s having getting over himself, and I’m bored of how long it’s taking. Bored of playing referee. Bored of lying to Seren about why our friend is acting like a humourless goat turd. Bored of having the same conversation running across three separate chats – one for all three of us, one just for Seren and one just for Rich – Seren moaning and Rich mooning and me getting RSI.

  “Please stop talking to me about it,” I say.

  “Unhelpful.”

  “I’ve told you. Be nice to her. Get over it. In that order.”

  “And…?”

  “And I’ll stop worrying that my two best friends might kill each other in a debate over what the difference is between Brie and Camembert.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” Rich shrugs me off his shoulder so he can look at me. “Do you really think I shouldn’t say anything? It’s not like I’m some random…”

  He’s wearing me down and, buried deep below layers and layers of more honourable parts of my character, there’s a seed of hurt that Rich has chosen Seren. It’s like hating netball, but still not wanting to be the last person picked for the team.

  “It won’t change anything,” I say, when I should really just say “No”. Again.

  “Maybe not,” he says, picking at the skin around his nails. “But it’ll mean I don’t have to keep hiding it from her.”

  “I love you to bits, Rich,” I say, laying my head back down and shutting my eyes. “But my advice is don’t say anything unless you really can’t not.”

  Since he had last period free, Sef’s been setting everything up at the caravan for tomorrow morning and when I check my phone after Media Studies, I find a picture of where he’s hung the bedsheet backdrop and questions about equipment – can I bring a couple of extension leads and maybe a desk lamp if I have one? I’m about to reply when he sends through a series of ridiculous selfies of him lying on what appears to be a leopard-print bedspread.

  Sef rubbing his face against the material … tilting his chin to look down over his glasses … a finger hooked over his teeth as if biting it…

  Excitement writhes around in my belly at the sight of them.

  Think maybe I should take up a career modelling?

  No. I amble slowly after Gemma and Chloe as they round the corner, heading for our lockers.

  Wow. Harsh much.

  Models have to look serious.

  I can look serious.

  Shortly followed by a picture of him in a pose you’d find on the back of a book, the author with their chin resting on their fist, deep in creative thought.

  I take it all back. You’re clearly the next Gandy.

  Gandhi? I guess all us brown people look the same to you…

  Usually I’d agonize over the right response to a joke like that, but everything with Sef – even uncomfortable jokes about race – seems so much easier than with anyone else.

  David Gandy. The model??? Think Gandhi was famous for something more than his physique.

  Are you saying you only like me for my body?

  Who said I liked you at all?

  Stop flirting with me, Claire. It’s unprofessional.

  My smile is snatched from my face as someone grabs me from behind.

  I say me – I mean my boobs.

  “Guess who!” James Blaithe’s voice is loud and hot in my left ear.

  “Get off me!” There’s a desperation in the way the words squeal out of me as I squirm away, but James laughs as if this is a joke I’m enjoying as much as him. Before he lets go, he gives my breasts a gentle little double-squeeze, like it’s a private treat just for us.

  Disgusted and humiliated and desperately sad, I watch as James walks off down the corridor, high-fiving someone from the football team as he passes.

  CHAPTER 8

  My bag is packed with everything except the desk lamp, since I’m not sure I can convince my parents I need one for the Film Club I’ve fabricated to explain my Saturday morning absences.

  Hopefully, once Sef passes his driving test in two weeks’ time, I won’t have to worry about logistics as he’ll pick me up from the layby at the end of my road, but for now, Mum drops me in town on her way to Pilates. From there, I catch a bus up to the caravan. It takes a while and I would have missed the stop if it weren’t for Sef waiting to meet me.

  Despite the rain pattering applause in the trees, he’s wearing nothing more substantial than his denim jacket and I wonder why it is that boys look so much better wet.

  “Truth Girl.”

  “Dare Boy.” This feels strange.

  Taking my bag, Sef heads towards a sign for Sunny Slopes Caravan Park. Slopes that are more slippery than sunny as we pass rows of static caravans. Some have flowers outside marking homes more permanent than temporary, the washing hanging inside for today. It’s only once we’re inside that I realize our caravan falls into the same category. I’d thought it was somewhere Sef’s Uncle Danish spent his holidays, not his life, but there’s no doubting that this is someone’s home – pictures up on the wall, mismatched mugs on the shelves, the carpet and furnishings displaying a softness that speaks of regular, affectionate use.

  Thanks to Sef’s prep the day before, it doesn’t take long to set up, the camera balanced on one of the chairs and strips of tin foil stretched over some of Uncle Danish’s bigger cookery books to act as reflectors.

  “Here.” Sef pulls a pair of black eye masks out of his pocket.

  “Let’s do a screen-test.” I wave him forward, more comfortable behind the camera than in front.

  The same cannot be said for Sef, who bounds into the spotlight. His brown skin and bright T-shirt stand
out against the white backdrop.

  Hitting record, I tell Sef to say something.

  “Like what?”

  “Something long enough to get a sense of what the microphone picks up when we’re on camera.”

  Sef clears his throat, staring out of the window a moment before he turns to look at the lens.

  “Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law my services are bound…”

  At first I watch him through the camera, but then I sit back to watch for real, Sef slipping out of his own skin to wear the words he speaks, his expression shifting to accentuate the feeling behind them, voice rolling and rich.

  It’s a little bit magic.

  “What?” Whoever Sef was pretending to be is shrugged off in a matter of seconds.

  “What was that?”

  “Shakespeare, bruv.” He laughs. “Edmund the bastard’s soliloquy from King Lear. We all have to study one for Drama.”

  “Is that what you want to do? Act?”

  “Maybe.” He shrugs. “I’d like to try. World needs all the brown faces on telly it can get.”

  “Yeah. You’re right. Of course.” I’m not used to people talking so frankly about stuff like this. Even Seren seems more comfortable talking about gender than she does race and the unwelcome thought that this might be because her best friends are white scurries across my conscience.

  “But I’m not sure I will,” Sef carries on. “There’s no money in acting, no stability.”

  “You sound like my parents – about making films, not starring in them.” I think of how hard I had to fight to convince them to let me take Media Studies as one of my options – how dismissive they’ve been of my vague dream of making films or TV shows, or safety videos about what to do in the event of a fire.

  “You’re about to star in one now.” Sef hops off his stool.

  “So long as you know I can’t act as well as you...”

  “Anyone who thinks they’re bad at acting doesn’t realize they’re doing it every single day.” He holds his fist up for me to bump, and yet again, I wonder whether or not he’s being serious.

  “All you can see is my mask!” I say as we watch the clip of me telling the camera my name and mumbling out a bit about what I had for breakfast. “How come you look so much better?”

  Sef holds his arm next to mine, every cell of his skin the same rich ochre as the freckles that pepper my wrist. “Slightly different complexions, Snow White.”

  He tilts his head back as if studying me and I try not to get too twitchy under his scrutiny.

  “Don’t suppose you brought any make-up with you?”

  Ten minutes later and we’re giggling uncontrollably as we duel with a blusher brush and a kabuki brush, each of us trying to swipe powder on the other’s nose. It’s getting a little dangerous and a lot silly.

  “That’s cheating!” I protest when Sef snatches my brush with his free hand.

  “You’ve met me, right?” He flashes me a careless grin. “Rules aren’t really my thing.”

  Picking up some black kohl, Sef bites his lip and raises his eyebrows as he waggles the pencil at me.

  “What are your feelings on boys wearing eyeliner?”

  “Hot,” I say, not specifically meaning boys wearing eyeliner so much as Sef looking at me like that. I can feel myself blotching at this slip-up when his phone vibrates, making us both jump as the name “Laila” flashes up.

  For a moment, we both stare at the phone buzzing between us, until Sef looks up at me and says, “Gotta get this.”

  He picks up, edging away towards the bedroom, but not before I catch him saying, “Hey, babe…”

  Well obviously. Why wouldn’t he?

  I have the length of that phone call in which to get over the fact that the boy I’ve been trying my hardest to flirt with all morning and – yes, all week – has a girlfriend. No matter how hard I try and rationalize this, no one calls their cousin or co-worker or boring old friend “babe” do they? It’s a word you use for people you think are actual babes.

  People who aren’t me.

  The sickness rising within me isn’t so different from the wave that washed ashore when I found out about the #MilkTits video going live – the shame that comes from feeling exposed.

  I glance to where Sef is still talking in the other room. If I change how I am around him when he comes out, he’ll know that I fancy him – that I was only acting like that because I thought I might be in with a chance…

  The tide rises higher.

  Of course not.

  Sef’s easy manner is just that.

  “You all right there?” Sef re-enters the room, sliding his phone screen-down on the breakfast bar.

  For a moment, when he meets my eyes, there’s a hint that he’s asking me for real, like maybe he knows I’ve had a mini emotional crisis in the last sixty or so seconds.

  “Sure. Just thinking about what to film first…”

  I pick my eye mask up and put it on. Claire Casey might fancy the pants off Sef Malik, but I came here today as Truth Girl.

  “You good to go?” I ask him.

  CHAPTER 9

  The only light in my room is coming from my laptop where there’s a thumbnail image of me and Sef. We look cute. Or at least, I do, my face contoured into shape, iridescent-purple eyeliner popping beneath my black mask, my hair coiled up into two buns atop my head, like a pair of pale orange panda ears.

  Sef looks hot – sharp – the way he’s lined his eyes, hair combed flat and slicked into a side parting like an edgier Clark Kent.

  I hit play for what might be the thousandth millionth – and hopefully last – time.

  “Hi!” My voice sounds so much higher than in my own head.

  “Hi!” Whereas Sef appears to have dropped his an octave.

  “I’m Truth Girl and he’s…”

  “Dare Boy.”

  I spliced in a static shot of the pair of us doing stupid poses overlaid with the words INTERNET SUPERHEROES!

  “And we challenge you to copy us –” Sef punctuates all of this with his hands – “doing dares and telling truths and…”

  “… generally being complete idiots,” I finish. Then, so stilted it’s hard to believe I was actually trying to act natural, I say, “So far, so like any other challenge channel – am I right, Dare Boy?”

  God. I actually put a finger to my mouth as if I’ve googled “questioning pose” and copied the first image I found.

  “No! You are wrong – this isn’t about the challenges, this is about the cause.” Sef’s much more comfortable than I am in front of a camera. And probably wasn’t excruciatingly self-conscious about how much he fancied the person next to him. “We’re asking you to help us raise money for a friend of ours who has suffered a massive brain injury and needs our help.”

  “Every time someone copies one of our videos, we ask that you donate two pounds to the Doing Dares, Saving Lives fund –” as I talk, Sef is pointing to where the link will be at the bottom of the screen – “link back to our channel and use the hashtag to spread the word.”

  #DoingDaresSavingLives appears as an overlay.

  Onscreen I hold out homemade Truth or Dare? cards to the camera like a tarot reader.

  “One of us picks a card... If it’s a dare, no matter how silly, how embarrassing—”

  “How downright dangerous!” Sef interrupts and I had to cut out the nervous little glance I gave him for that.

  “… the person challenged must accept.”

  “If it’s a truth card, we both confess.”

  We finish with us throwing the cards up into the air, doubling over in hysterics.

  As trailer videos go, it could be worse.

  It also took over an hour to film and three to edit. Tomorrow night we’re scheduled to post two videos: one DARE, one TRUTH – and then the same on Wednesday. If all four take as long as this to edit, my hands will have curled into claws before the week is out.

  I open up my phone to let Sef kn
ow it’s loading privately onto the channel so he can check it over before posting. After a pause, I scroll through and re-read the conversation I had with him earlier.

  Hey Sef, was just wondering – how secret are our identities?

  ???

  Are we telling people what we’re up to? Does your girlfriend know? Your family? Am I OK talking about this with my friends?

  It’s not exactly subtle and if I blurted this out in person I’d be mortified, but messaging has always been easier than talking face to face.

  Sef answered my question in a series of short replies.

  Hm. Wasn’t planning on telling anyone, is that OK?

  Can’t face the idea of people knowing and it not working.

  False hope and that.

  Something I can identify with.

  When I tap on my Instagram app, it opens straight onto Laila Jalil’s account. There’s only one Laila in our school so it wasn’t exactly hard to find her.

  Half her feed is made up of heavily filtered photos layered with fragmented poetry, the rest recording the minutiae of her life – home-cooked food and close-up selfies of artfully flicked eyeliner and fancy plaited hairdos. Pictures taken on nights out with her friends. And her boyfriend.

  He’s only there once, months before we teamed up, before his brother fell from the bridge, his arms around Laila, their faces pressed together, lips twisted as if trying to kiss as the pair of them look right into the lens.

  Celebrating the end of the exams with my favourite boy.

  I read the comments below, also for what might be the thousandth millionth – and hopefully last – time.

  FINALLY.

  You guys are officially the cutest.

  More like that until there’s one from someone called @HisMalisty:

  I’m your favourite boy, am I?

  To which Laila has replied:

  Don’t fish for compliments, @HisMalisty. It’s undignified.

  But she’s added a row of hearts in brackets.

  I resist the urge to click through to @HisMalisty’s account. I feel stupid enough having looked at Laila’s.

  CHAPTER 10

  Hallie has infected me with the plague. Can you make sure people collect notes for me? Maybe drop them round after school???