by Non Pratt
“Yeah, to the camera –” I nod at the camera on my shelves and the lie comes to me so easily it feels like the truth – “I’m practising a monologue for Drama.”
It’s obvious she’s wondering where the camera came from, but instead she glances over to where my digital alarm clock spells out the time in enormous red digits.
“You’ve got the whole of half-term for this, Sef. Is there any need to do it at five minutes to midnight on a Sunday? I can hear you murmuring from along the landing and I’ve work in the morning.”
I hadn’t realized I was being that loud – too used to the privacy of Uncle D’s caravan.
“Could I just have five more minutes?” I have to get this done now or what’s the point? “I’m just about to nail one of the lines. OK?”
She purses her lips and holds up her hands, five fingers splayed, backing out of the door – although Amir presses forward, the nosy beggar.
“What monologue?” he asks.
“Not one you’d know,” I say, bouncing my heel, impatient for him to go.
“Why the mask?” he nods to where the material is balled in my hand.
“Why all the questions? Since when have you given a shit about what I do for Drama?”
“‘For Drama’,” he repeats, air-quoting at me before he gives me a dismissive, “Whatever.”
I wait until I hear his door shut, then bring the camera close so I don’t have to talk so loud and start over.
MONDAY
CLAIRE
My parents find me crying in the kitchen. I put a hot chocolate tab in the coffee machine, but didn’t click it in properly and there’s grainy chocolate goo everywhere.
I’m extremely upset about this.
Inconsolable.
Over a capsule of hot chocolate.
Mum rests a hand on my shoulder and guides me gently over to the breakfast bar in my chocolate-covered pyjamas while Dad cleans up the side.
“I’m so sorry…” I say, stuck on repeat. “It was an accident.”
“I know, darling.” Mum squeezes my shoulder. “No one would deliberately sabotage their own attempt to make hot chocolate.”
And she kisses the side of my head like I’m a little kid.
I feel like one.
There’s a clunk on the marble as Dad pushes a fresh mug of chocolate under my nose and I catch sight of the cufflinks in his shirtsleeves.
“Big meeting today?” I sniffle, trying to change the subject.
“Big enough for the lucky links, not so big that I’ve got to leave before I find out what’s wrong with my one and only daughter.”
“Nothing’s wrong,” I say. “Just a bit emotional. Girl stuff.”
Except Mum knows I had my period last week because she had to give me a tampon out of her handbag to take to school.
“Claire…” Mum rubs a hand across my back and I lean into her. We’ve never been a family of affectionate gestures and all the cuddles I’ve had recently came from Sef. The thought surprises a little sob out of me and Mum presses me even closer, rubbing a hand across my shorn hair. It’s longer now and I’ve been thinking about getting it cut properly into some sort of style – one I think I might like to keep.
“Is there anything you’d like to talk to us about?”
I think of the channel, how much time I’ve spent lying to them about what I’ve been doing at the mysterious “Film Club” – skipping school, the food fight… Of all the things I’ve done, though, me getting into Sef’s car last night would frighten them the most. If I tell them one thing, I’ll have to tell them all of it.
Seren once said that honesty isn’t everything and right now, I think it would be too much for all of us. So I take it one step at a time.
“I’ve been seeing someone.”
SEF
I sleep in so late that it’s gone lunchtime by the time I surface. First thing I do is turn my phone on, checking the video’s gone live overnight and seeing the comments people have left speculating what I’m doing and when the video will go up. There’s a message come in from Moz – he must have stayed up into the night editing and he’s seen the new video on our channel.
Nice one. Add in a link to my channel, though, yeah? This fucking footage is MAMMOTH. Reckon the earliest the teaser will go up is Wed.
My heart withers at the wait, but Claire used to go on about how fast Moz was and if he says Wednesday’s the soonest he can do it, then I’ll have to accept it. Not like I’d be any faster.
There’s a message from her, too, sent this morning. One word.
Hi.
Hi. I reply without thinking.
I saw the video this morning. That you recorded on my camera presumably.
Yeah. Sorry. Had to download the footage and I thought…
But she’s been typing at the same time as me.
Wasn’t trying to be narky, btw. You can keep the camera for as long as you need it.
Thank you.
It’s only once I’ve sent it that I realize I’ve added a kissing emoji. In an attempt to put that behind us as fast as possible, I type another message.
I can bring the rest of your stuff over if you want?
Um … maybe not. Kind of told my parents about you.
Ah. I could drop it off while they’re at work?
But even I know that’s not a good idea. That if Claire opened her front door, I’d want to step inside and do more than hand over her bag.
I can get it at school next week.
Even your purse?
My parents aren’t really letting me out, tbh. Just promise me you won’t lose it. K?
“Fuck!” I slam my palm into the wall next to my bed with enough force for my skin to go numb before the pain flares up.
Sure.
CLAIRE
All I want to do is message him back and tell him I miss him.
Which is pathetic given that it’s less than twenty-four hours since I last saw him walking away after I broke up with him.
“Get it together,” I tell myself.
Two minutes later and I’m rewatching his video on my laptop.
As I said: pathetic.
SEF
Planning is so much harder when you have to do it yourself.
“Get off!” I shove Cheddar from where she’s trying to sit on my notepad and she tumbles off the table with a squawk.
Amir glances up from watching something shit on telly and clicks his fingers for Cheddar to come to him. But he’s looking at me.
I ignore him and reread a list of bullet points that make no sense.
“Bollocks.” I tear the sheet out and rip it up.
“You OK?” Amir is leaning on the arch. He looks calm, and old. When did I become the angry one?
“Fuck off, Amir.”
But it doesn’t work the way it used to. He doesn’t get all affronted. He doesn’t sulk. He stays where he is.
“Want to talk about it?”
“No.” A defensive reflex without thought.
“School stuff?”
I put my pen down, take my glasses off and rub where they’ve been pressing behind my ears. This pair has never been comfortable. I’m so tired, so sick, so … powerless.
“No. Not school stuff.”
“Kam stuff?” I look up at that – all the confirmation he needs. “I’m the same. Keep going in circles, thinking there’s something I can do, but then…” He shrugs. “Maybe this is OK, you know? The Rec’s not the only place out there—”
“It’s the best.”
“Is it?” I expect him to ask me how I would know, but the question is as much for him as it is for me. “Or did we just think it was because that’s where he had to be? Were we all just making ourselves feel better by saying it?”
Kam’s accident has changed us all – Amir the most. My little brother, all grown-up.
TUESDAY
CLAIRE
I’ve got to stay in and revise for the mocks I’ve been pretending will never happen. Yesterday Dad called
the house – “Do I need to pick up milk on my way home?” Today it’s Mum – “Can you check the calendar? I can’t remember when my hair appointment is.” I’m sure they think they’re being subtle, but Dad was the one who did the shopping at the weekend and Mum lives her entire life off her phone.
That’s what happens when your parents find out you’ve had a secret boyfriend for the last three months. Imagine how hard they’d find trusting me if they knew about all the sneaking around I’ve done for the channel…
Across my screen I’ve got about ten tabs open on different revision sites covering everything from French idioms to electric circuits, and yet I can’t help opening one more…
The video Sef made is the only upload since Sunday and I check out the most recent comments. At some point someone started speculating on the fact that neither Truth Girl nor Dare Boy had been seen since this video was posted and as is the way with the internet, there are a few people getting carried away with the drama.
OMG. Do you think those guys are all right?
Videos only post Sundays + Wednesdays. CTFO.
No comments though???
This only went up early Monday morning. They’re probably having a break.
What if something happened? I’m worried.
me2
db/tg if u are reading these comments can u maybe let us know ur ok?
WTF r u gonna do if their not?
Has anyone heard from MozzyMozza?
I feel bad about this, like maybe people really are worried, but at the same time I really don’t want to get drawn back into it. Besides, knowing Moz and Sef, this is probably all part of the plan.
SEF
The caravan is a shit tip and I open all the windows as wide as they’ll go in the hope of getting rid of the last of the banana fumes. Tomorrow I’ll have to bring the vacuum cleaner down here, but for today, I set about dismantling the set, unpinning the backdrop, charting our dares by the map of weird stains spread across the sheet. There are bin bags in Uncle D’s cupboard and I fill one with leftover foodstuffs – marshmallows and cream crackers and an assortment of the foulest possible herbs and spices that I fed to a blindfolded Claire until she correctly identified each one.
She’s not going to forget fenugreek in a hurry.
Slowly, surely, miserably, I move my way around cleaning up the mess we’ve made of everything. Of the caravan, our friendship, the channel. Somewhere between stripping the bed and emptying the bedroom bin, I start crying, tears edging silently down my cheeks, my breath wet as I carry on with what I’m doing, taking out fresh sheets and googling how to do hospital corners the way Uncle D does it, swearing at my phone because I don’t type in the right thing.
When I’m done, I think about lying on here with Claire. Not the sex stuff, although, yeah, the sex stuff, but also wrestling around trying to tickle her feet, her kicking and squeaking and laughing. Falling asleep and waking up with her squashed up against my chest, my nose buried in the back of her neck. The warm, clean, welcoming smell of her skin.
Taking all the comfort another human had to offer.
All the hope.
I fold this sheet up the same way I did the backdrop and put everything by the door, ready to take the rubbish to the refuse site and the washing back to my car.
“I tried,” I whisper to the room, when what I mean is that I failed.
WEDNESDAY
CLAIRE
I get a notification to say that MozzyMozzaMeepMorp has posted a new video and promptly set a record for the fastest email-to-link click in the history of the internet, my fingernail tapping impatiently on my laptop casing as my cursor hovers over where the skip ad button will appear and:
Black screen.
A flicker of light hinting that the shot was taken in a car, the sound of an engine revving added in over the top.
Black screen with a text overlay on a single drum beat.
FROM THE TEAM THAT BROUGHT YOU THE FOOD FIGHT …
A split-second shot from the camera set up next to the wheel of Mrs Bennet and I recognize myself onscreen, laughing with Sef – a sound drowned out by the engine effect.
Black screen and drum beat.
… COMES A DARE SO DANGEROUS …
Same angle, longer shot, the engine changing gear as you see me tensing back in my seat, Sef’s arms braced on the wheel.
Black screen and drum beat.
… YOU WON’T WANT TO DO THIS AT HOME.
And as the pitch of the engine rises, there’s a series of shots barely long enough to register: from someone’s camera looking through the windscreen to the distant flare of headlights; Moz whooping and punching the air; Sef shouting at me; me, arm raised as if to protect myself from imminent impact, the engine fading masterfully into the sound of someone screaming.
The screen flares bright once more, the once-distant headlights almost filling the frame.
Silence and then:
DONATE
TO
SEE
THE
VIDEO
A single shot of Moz, his face made up like he’s cut his lip, blood on the side of his head as he points to the link below.
“It’s worth it.” And he winks at the camera before it goes black.
I’ve been holding my breath, braced in my chair like I’m right back in the car, my heart hammering in horror. I take a moment to relax, get some oxygen back into my body and then, the same way hundreds, maybe thousands of other people must be doing, I click to watch it again.
THURSDAY
SEF
It’s been slow for a Thursday. Although it could just be me who’s slow. I’ve been on the gateline checking tickets for the nine (ish) o’clock showing of Akira, for which a group of comic-book girls have shown up, talking loudly about the sorts of things I only know about because of Amir. The sort of knowledge I’d have once used to my advantage.
“Settle this argument, OK?” one of them asks. She’s wearing a vintage Final Fantasy T-shirt and has her hair pinned up into two little buns the way Claire used to wear hers on the channel before we shaved it all off.
“What argument’s that?” I rip her ticket and hold my hand out for the last one – although the girl won’t meet my eye, and I ask her, “You’re fifteen, right?”
“Yeah, I’m, like, seventeen.” The girl rewards my question with the mother of all stink eye from under the rim of her beanie.
“Sorry, of course you are. Um…” I say, quickly changing the subject. “What was the argument you wanted me to settle?”
Beanie girl gets in there first. “Sarah wants to ask you some bullshit question about the best anime film you’ve shown this week because she wants to flirt with you—” Final Fantasy girl identifies herself as Sarah by giving her friend a slap on the arm. “But we’re already late for the film, so can you just tell her your email or something?”
Despite her mortification, Sarah gives me a very direct and inviting look and I feel myself sliding towards old habits.
“I’ll still be on shift when you come out. Gives me one-hundred-and-thirty-nine minutes to form an opinion on anime…” And I step aside to wave them through, enjoying the way Sarah seems to be impressed that I know the running time, as if that means I’m a fan. Which it doesn’t. I know the running times of all the last films on my evening shifts.
Once they’ve gone, I drift over to where Mia glitters disapproval as she wipes down the counter with unnecessary vigour.
“Back to your old tricks, I see…”
“Mia…” She ignores me, concentrating on a blob of chocolate that’s melted on the warm glass.
“One smile from a pretty girl and you can’t help yourself.”
“It’s not like that,” I try.
Mia glares up for a moment and I feel a lot like that chocolate. “The way it wasn’t like that with Claire?”
“It isn’t any more.” I go round the counter and sit on the floor, my back pressed up against the fridge as I tip my head back a
nd stare at the lights.
Mia’s stopped her aggressive wiping and is looking over at me, her scowl softening slightly.
“Things not going well with Claire?”
“She broke up with me.” I can sense Mia’s waiting for more information, too aware of how I behave to side with me automatically. “I … she…” I press the heels of my hands up to my eyebrows to try and squash away the headache that’s come on from a lack of sleep and a lot of stress. “I did something she can’t forgive.”
“Sef…”
“Not that,” I snap, annoyed at her for thinking the same as Claire once had. “Flirting’s not cheating, for fuck’s sake, OK?”
I’ve never lashed out at Mia like that and she reels a little at the fury of it. When she steps back from the counter, I assume that she’s gone to wipe tables somewhere I won’t yell at her and my head falls forward against my knees.
One less friend to worry about, I guess…
“Sef?” I feel her sit down on the floor next to me, the top of her arm resting against mine. “Are you all right?”
“You don’t need to worry about me,” I say, not looking up.
“Yeah, sure. But if you ever need to talk, I’m here, OK? I know you’ve friends all over the place, but you have one here too.”
But I’m shaking my head into my knees, wishing she would take that back. Mia doesn’t need a friend like me. No one does.
FRIDAY
SEF
I vacuum Uncle D’s caravan.
SATURDAY
CLAIRE
“Just ring him.” For all she’s sympathetic, Seren has limited patience for problems she can’t fix.
Rich turns round from where he’s sitting in front of us on the floor. Gemma is out with her friends, Rich is with his. “Stop interrupting the film.”
“Claire’s interrupting it with her melancholic phone-checking.”
“I’m not checking it for messages from Sef,” I say, as Rich gives up and pauses the film. I don’t even know what we’re watching. “Donations reached twenty thousand pounds this afternoon and I’m refreshing Moz’s channel in case the full chicken video goes live.”
For all I’m trying to disengage with my online alter ego, there’s a part of me that’s cross at having to wait for the video to be broadcast across the internet like I’m just another viewer. It’s hard to let go of the ownership that comes with creating a monster.