by Non Pratt
“But don’t you crazy kittens be thinking that this here’s the collaboration, we’re going Inception on your asses…” A black-and-white splice of Moz pretending to be his own viewer, specs drawn on his face in pen, with an overlay thought bubble of someone having a thought bubble of someone having a thought bubble.
“This is just the trailer for the real collaboration video.”
“Dropping when, Moz?” Sef times it perfectly.
“Excellent question, Dare Boy – this collab’s only going to happen if YOU make it.” Moz points to his viewers. “These guys and Mozzy are going to film the best challenge video the internet has ever witnessed, but we need your help. Find these guys’ channel –” he flips his fingers to point at me and I take the cue to say the name of our channel – “watch their trailer –” a splice of viewer Moz crying and smudging the drawn-on glasses – “go through to the donations page and … HIT DONATE.”
“The target is twenty thousand pounds,” Dare Boy says. “And when we reach that, we’re going to hold the mother of all food fights.”
“Where?” I pretend I’m asking.
“Secret,” Moz says and there’s a cut to all three of us doing the three-monkey “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” pose. “But I guarantee it is gonna be EPIC!”
The three of us mess about pulling faces and doing slow-motion firework bursts with our hands and then there’s another cut to us in hysterics.
Short, punchy and perfectly edited.
Our golden ticket.
CHAPTER 22
It’s New Year’s Eve tomorrow and the mood in the Rec is pretty festive.
“Merry Christmas, Kam,” I say.
Merry Christmas.
At the start of December, Kam’s fine motor skills had developed enough for him to point and press, and before I went away for Christmas, he’d been given an iPad with an app that allows him to choose what to say.
I watch as he presses two short phrases on the screen.
A present. For you.
“You have a present for me?” Kam hoots at my reaction. “Do you need me to get it?”
He makes a noise and moves his hand a little towards the table behind me. There’s an envelope on the table and I pick it up.
“This?”
Kam moves his head in a nod. It doesn’t feel like there’s anything inside and I’m careful as I tuck a thumb under the flap and rip along the edge. Inside, there’s a slim piece of laminated paper and I reach to pull it out.
“It’s a bookmark?” I whisper, looking up.
From me.
The paper is filled with writing – typed and overlapping, sentences jumbled up – and I have to concentrate to read them: Friend. Books. No pirates. It’s become a sort of running joke – if Kam’s in a good mood I show him the book and we have a laugh about it – and I smile through the tears that have welled up at the sight of a present that is specific to us.
One that I know will have taken hours of effort to make.
I step over to his chair. “Can I hug you?”
He nods and I wrap my arms carefully around him. “Thank you for my Christmas present, Kam. Best one I’ve had this year. Fact.”
I can feel him moving for the comms board and I let go to read his response.
That’s OK.
“I got you something too.” I pull a gift bag out of my rucksack and put it carefully on his tray. Then, making sure Kam’s the one directing things, I help him take the present out of the bag.
It’s the bowling shirt from The Big Lebowski. A hideous yellow and brown that brings an enormous grin to Kam’s face.
Totally worth borrowing against my birthday money.
Kam insists I get someone to help him put it on and, as he changes, I give him privacy by turning my back and examining the cards on the chest of drawers. There are loads, but I find the one I gave him before the holidays peeping out behind a photo I’ve not seen before. It can only have been taken a few days ago, Kam in his wheelchair festooned with tinsel, his parents on either side and Amir leaning in, arms splayed as if mid-photo bomb.
“I like the photo that’s up in Kam’s room,” I tell Sef when I see him. He’s on shift and hasn’t much time to talk, but this is the first chance I’ve had to see him since I came back. (I don’t count watching the clumsily edited streaking video on my laptop, hands over my face while I died with cringe.)
“What photo?” He’s distracted, frowning over my shoulder at some of the kids who are running around the foyer.
“The one you took at Christmas, of your parents and Amir with Kam…”
Sef stands up straighter. “No touching the displays!” he calls over. Then to me, “Sorry.”
He looks at me, frowning, like he’s trying to work out what we were talking about.
“Thought you didn’t take any?” I’d asked Sef if he could send over pics of Kam’s Christmas when I sent him the daft selfie I took with the glowing reindeer Granny had up on her back lawn, but he’d replied late at night to say he’d not taken his phone with him.
“They’re all on Amir’s phone.”
“How was it, though? Christmas at the Rec?” It’s not something that’s easy to ask Kam, whose life is very much about what happens in the present. If anything, mine and Kam’s little bubble is even harder to break out of than the one I occupy with his brother.
“As good as could be expected. Tiring for Kam, though— Seriously, those kids…” He points a finger at someone and gives them a death stare. It’s hard carrying on a conversation with only half his attention, and I reach for the scarf I left on the counter, thinking it’s best if I go.
“What are you doing?”
“Leaving. You’re working…”
“I could be on a break?” he suggests quickly.
“You don’t have to—”
“I could be kissing you on my break?”
Scarf in hand, I stop to look at the mischievous curve of his lips. Two minutes later and Sef has left a grumpy Mia in charge, holding the door marked STAFF ONLY long enough for me to slip through, before he’s pushed it shut behind us and is pulling me gently towards him.
“I’m sorry I was distracted,” he says, brushing one hand across my scalp as the other hooks itself through my belt loop. “Gets busy in the holidays.”
“I was asking how Christmas went,” I say, resting my hands on his chest and looking up at his face, wanting to know the truth. “Was it OK? Not just for Kam, but for you?”
His face is inscrutable for a moment as he looks down at me.
“We can talk about that if you want…” He presses his lips lightly to my forehead. “But there are other things we can do that would make me happier…” He kisses my nose. “Things that I’ve not been able to do…” My lips. “… without you here.”
“Sef…” I say quietly. “You can talk to me about it, you know.”
“I know.” He buries his face in my neck, lips brushing against my skin when he says, “I know, C, but I don’t want to.”
Which I guess I already knew.
“Please just kiss me,” Sef whispers into my ear. “I’ve missed you.”
JANUARY
CHAPTER 23
Although I’m sure Rich’s mum wouldn’t have minded me inviting Sef along to the traditional Richards gathering – the thought of going public is so scary that I don’t even mention it to him. Besides, it’s not like I’d have had much time for my own relationship given how much of my night is spent counselling Rich and Gemma through theirs.
Sometime approaching midnight, Rich’s sister catches me in the hall having a rest. Flo slides down the wall to where I’m sitting and offers me her spare drink.
“What is it?” I frown at the cup and she laughs.
“Non-alcoholic punch. Cheers.” Flo taps her cup to mine as we listen to the grown-ups shouting along to “Come On Eileen” in the front room, fuelled by something distinctly stronger than punch.
“Your brother’s a pa
in in the arse,” I tell her.
Flo rolls her eyes at me. “I’m related to him. At least you can walk away and leave him to it.”
“I’m considering it…”
“Don’t.” She nudges me gently and stands up. “I like you as my faux big sister.”
“I like you as my faux little one.”
Whatever Sef gets up to, he doesn’t reply to the message I send of me kissing the camera lens until four o’clock in the afternoon on the first day of the new year.
The last week of the holidays passes in a frenzy of finishing the assignments I’ve been neglecting around monitoring the channel and squeezing in as much time with Sef as possible – sitting in the back row of the cinema watching obscure films that don’t make much sense if you spend more time kissing than reading the subtitles, going for a drive in Mrs Bennet, or just sitting squashed up together on a window seat in his uncle’s caravan, talking and kissing and exploring our relationship at a pace we’re both comfortable with.
And filming. I want to get a jump on all the challenges that have come flooding in since our collaboration with Moz drove more viewers to our channel. When school starts back up, I’ll have more work and less time for editing.
School. The thought worries me. When we were in London, before the video went live, working with Moz didn’t seem real, but now it’s out there, the view count climbing… People watch Moz’s channel. Teenagers. Who might go to my school.
Fear flutters in my throat every time I think about it.
So I don’t.
On Saturday, Sef’s free for the whole day, having swapped his shift with Mia, and after filming, we Skype Moz as scheduled.
“Hey hey.” It might be long after lunch, but it took three tries for Moz to answer and his face is puffy with sleep.
“Hey,” Sef and I chorus together. Below the view of the camera, Sef slides one hand up from my knee to mid-thigh and runs his thumb along the seam of my jeans.
“You scored any more subs?” Moz asks through a yawn and I wonder what it must be like to be such a hit that you don’t feel the need to check.
“A few.” Sef holds up the scrap of paper on which he’s been totting up the increase in traffic, his other hand squeezing my leg gently. It’s distracting.
Onscreen, Moz reaches beyond the camera as someone passes him a coffee. There’s a tattoo of the Deathly Hallows from Harry Potter with a red Z through it on the coffee guy’s wrist and I wonder whether it’s Moz’s nemesis, ZimBob. A feud as real as an episode of Made in Chelsea.
Moz sips his coffee and blows the person who gave it to him a kiss. “Donations are looking a little sluggish, aren’t they?”
Comparing the current rate to the old rate is like comparing a peregrine falcon to a beach ball thrown by an incompetent child.
“Yeah … sluggish…” Sef nods as his thumb brushes a little further up my leg so that I’d quite like to both chop it off and let him to keep going.
“So I’m gonna liven things up, OK? Thought I’d film a video saying that anyone donating more than twenty pounds will be entered into a draw from which we’ll pick fifty people to join in with the fight. What do you think?”
“Fifty?”
Moz nods, giving me a shrewd look. “Your boyfriend thought it was a good idea when I messaged him about it…”
I dart a glance at Sef, who gives me a sheepish sort of shrug. I don’t like the thought of them talking without keeping me in the loop. And I don’t like Moz calling him my boyfriend. Whatever we have, it’s not something I want Moz to know about.
“Not my boyfriend,” I say – although the way Moz eyes me through the screen, it’s like he can tell exactly where Sef’s hand is on my body. “But if you two think it’s a good idea…”
“I think you want this to work fast.” Moz raises his eyebrows and I get the feeling I’ve just been schooled.
“Sure,” I say. “Whatever you say, Moz.”
Afterwards, when Sef has gone to grab something from the car, I message Moz.
This fight is going to be EPIC.
I figure the more I talk like him, the more likely he is to reply.
Epic to infinity and beyond, TG.
Can I ask a favour?
So long as it’s not sexual.
Ew. Gross. I totally walked into that.
If there are going to be other people there, I don’t want them to find out who I am.
Privacy is overrated. Says the person who Snapchats while he’s on the toilet.
I’m serious, Moz. Online me and offline me are different people. I want to keep it that way.
Being serious: your secret identity is safe with me.
Locking my phone, I stare out of the window as Sef hurries back from the car. Moz’s reassurance at least puts my anxiety of being unmasked by a stranger to rest, but there’s nothing he can do about my fears over someone from school recognizing me.
Internet-land is so vast that logic says there’s no reason to worry, but then I think of all the conversations I’ve had with people about our favourite channels, how many times I’ve recommended Moz’s channel… It’s not often I actually hope no one was listening to me.
A pale girl with a shaved head is pretty distinctive with or without the eye mask.
There are so many things I’m willing to risk to raise the money for Kam, but the truth isn’t one of them. If anyone at school found out I was Truth Girl, how long would it take for them to revive that stupid #MilkTits video? I’ve felt so strong, so proud, carving a niche for myself on the internet that isn’t defined by anything I am at school.
One simple puff and the whole thing could blow down.
Sef and I must have fallen asleep.
“Someone’s phone’s ringing,” he murmurs into my neck. We’re curled up together on his uncle’s bed, mostly clothed, on top of the sheets.
“Probably yours.” I close my eyes and wait for the buzzing to stop, but he’s already shifting round to reach for his glasses.
“It’s yours,” he says, picking it up. Then, “Claire?” The shift in his voice tells me this is a call I want to take. “It’s Seren.”
Hurrying to answer the phone, I still manage to miss it, but before I can ring back, her name flashes up again and I accept the call.
“Seren?”
“Claire.” Then she bursts into tears and I sit up so fast that I knock Sef’s glasses askew on his face.
“Seren? Seren? Are you OK? What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” She is not fine.
“Are you OK? Are you hurt?”
“Not really.” I wish I knew which question she’s answering. “Can you come and get me? I can’t call my—”
“Of course,” I say immediately, not caring what or why or where.
Seren is hiding in the disabled toilet at the big cinema in the retail park and when she opens the door, she pulls me into a hug, whispering fierce thanks into my shoulder. Even blotchy, she looks beautiful – she’s wearing my favourite of her wrap dresses, legs bare because she’s wearing a chunky pair of sandals, red-painted nails peeping out of the toes.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“Don’t be. What’s wrong?”
Pulling away from our hug to splash some water on her face, Seren tells me there were supposed to be a group of them meeting up to watch the film, but when she got here, Chloe had paired off with Oliver Martinez and the other girls were running late, leaving Seren with the Cave Boys for company.
Dread creeps up my skin.
“We couldn’t find anywhere to sit with all of us and James…” She pauses, frowning at her own reflection. “I thought it was unusually considerate of him to say he’d sit with me.”
She looks so disappointed and her lip trembles a little. I’ve never seen Seren like this and it scares me.
“What happened?”
“It could have been worse…” She turns to the hand dryer, not looking at me. “He just tried to kiss me and…” With he
r back to me, Seren gestures below where her dress is tied.
“And what?” I step closer.
Seren waves more frantically in the general area of her crotch. “I shouldn’t have worn a dress,” she whispers.
Hearing her say this is horrific because it is so far from what she believes.
“It’s a dress, not an invitation.” I echo what she said to Rich about his scrawny torso back when the idea was nothing more than a joke to any of us.
Seren doesn’t respond and I want to shake her, I want to cry, I want to shout and I want to find James Blaithe and do something unspeakably violent and definitely beyond my physical capabilities.
“This isn’t your fault, Seren.” I hug her maybe a little too tight because there’s a tiny bit of me that thinks it is mine. That when James called me Milk Tits or grabbed my boobs, I should have drawn a line around my body and told him it wasn’t OK to cross it.
I hate having to ask this, but, “Do we need to go to the police or something?”
“God, no.” She shudders so violently that my jaw clacks where it’s resting on her shoulder. “He didn’t do anything. Just tried to.”
I want to point out that trying still counts as doing, but she clearly doesn’t want to think about it.
“Come on,” I say. “Let’s get out of here.”
When we approach the car, Seren frowns, as if she didn’t really think through how I might have got here. But I hurry the pace up and shovel her into the back before she has a chance to ask too many questions. Sliding in next to her, I watch as Sef turns in his seat to look at us.
“Hi.” He grins at Seren – not the usual carefree curve of his lips, but a smaller, more subdued, more sympathetic smile. “I’m Sef, your taxi driver for this evening. Where am I taking you ladies?”
Ignoring her wide-eyed stare that’s trying to brand a question mark in the side of my face, I ask Seren if she’d like to stay at mine. She wouldn’t – but after only the briefest of pauses, she asks if I’d stay at hers.
There are fresh tears in her eyes when she looks at me. “I’m sorry, Claire.”