by Karen Swan
Caro, standing ten feet away and filming her on her phone, laughed. ‘Yeah! That’s great, Nets. Funky dancing – they’ll love it!’
Caro was live-streaming shorts of the ‘build-up’ and Jules was hoping the hashtag might start trending. She was sitting on the steps outside the National Gallery, monitoring the social media activity with an intense expression and nibbling on her nails as Daisy lackadaisically tried to give parking directions to the men in the van who were delivering the ice. This alone made Nettie nervous. She had assumed they would just use a few cubes from a cafe or, at most, buy a bag from the nearest grocery store. Why did they need a van?
Apparently, the latest ‘short’ – whipping up public appetite for the ‘soak or not’ vote – was already at well over 2,000 retweets, and donations were at £4,100. Nettie was sending up small prayers that the outstanding £900 wouldn’t come in time.
But for all the supposed frenzy online, actual support in the square was muted. Whoever these two thousand people were, sharing and spreading her adventure on the net, seemingly precious few of them were in the vicinity of Trafalgar Square right now. Only tourists and students mingled outside the National Gallery, taking selfies of themselves ‘with Nelson’, or else eating sandwiches on the steps. Nettie’s giant blue bunny costume was attracting some curious stares, but no one seemed particularly aware, or excited, that they were in the middle of a ‘happening’.
Doubtless this was because she had been ordered by Mike to stay – ‘and not move’ – at the foot of the giant Christmas tree, which had its lights on even at this time in the day, so no one understood why a giant blue bunny was trying to keep warm in the middle of Trafalgar Square. Mike, wearing a purple sash, was off shaking his bucket, enjoying being ‘in the field’. He still believed in recruiting sponsorships and donations ‘the old-fashioned way’, handing out flyers to everyone who stopped to stare at the dancing blue bunny and not realizing he was actually chasing most of them away. He had even handed a testicular cancer leaflet to a little girl who had come over to feed the pigeons, telling her to ‘give this to Daddy’ and the little thing had run off in tears.
Nettie now stood motionless, granted a brief reprieve from the birds’ attention as some tourists began throwing out crumbs from their sandwiches. She scanned the square, grateful to have insisted on wearing the rabbit head almost the moment they’d got out of the van. It was less embarrassing if no one could see her face. Mike came over, brandishing a clipboard.
‘How are you feeling, Nettie?’ he asked, trying to see her inside the suit by peering through the mesh-covered eyeholes of the bunny head.
‘I’m frozen,’ she said, beginning to jog on the spot again, even though the pigeons had been frightened off by Mike’s proximity. ‘How can I be the size of a bus and yet my puffa wouldn’t fit under this?’
‘Don’t knock it. That internal padding is what kept you safe on the ice. Besides, we’ve got towels on standby for you.’
‘And coffee,’ Caro said, hot on his heels and holding out a flat white. Nettie went to take it, only to realize that even if she could hold the cup in her paw – which she couldn’t – she couldn’t get it anywhere near her lips. ‘After, then,’ Caro said, placing it on the ground at the foot of the tree.
Nettie shrugged and dropped her paw down despondently. This sucked. She automatically did another recce of the square, sifting the students and the tourists from the homeless and the city workers. ‘I still don’t get why we’re doing this here. No one’s even looking at me, and if you won’t let me go round with one of the buckets, I may as well be in the back garden at home.’
‘Holy mother!’
The shout made them all look back at Jules who was suddenly on her feet, jumping up and down on the step and air-punching at the same time.
‘What? What’s happened?’ Mike asked excitedly as Jules sprinted over, holding her iPad like it was the Holy Grail.
‘Jamie Westlake’s what’s happened!’ Jules shrieked, jumping up and down again so excitedly that they could barely make out the words on the screen. ‘He’s only just gone and donated ten grand!’
‘Shut! Up!’ Nettie shouted as she read the tweet. ‘Let’s get this party started. #ballzup #Tested.’
‘We are good to go, baby!’ Jules laughed, holding up her hand for a high five.
The smile faded from Nettie’s face as she realized what blitzing their target meant – there was going to be no getting out of this now.
‘Ha!’ Caro laughed, looking towards the fourth plinth where the delivery men were decanting the ice into a bath. A bath? ‘Hope you didn’t do your hair this morning, Nets.’
Nettie wondered if Caro would be quite so enthusiastic about all of this if the bath of ice was going to be thrown over her. ‘Slight problem. How are you going to lift that bath when it’s full of ice?’
‘We won’t,’ Daisy laughed, overhearing her as she joined the group, intrigued by Jules’s excitement. ‘But White Tiger have sent a couple of guys they sponsor in the powerlifting arena. See?’
She pointed to where a pair of vastly muscled men in tight shorts and White Tiger-logoed muscle vests were now climbing onto the famously empty fourth plinth in the square, shaking their arms and feet out like boxers primed for a match. Even given the size of them, Nettie couldn’t believe they were able to tolerate the low temperatures in those flesh-baring outfits. There had been a hard frost last night and the black Trafalgar statues glinted ever more coldly in the flat light.
Nettie watched as the ice delivery men ran to and from the van – hazard lights flashing – to the plinth, huge sacks of ice balanced on their shoulders. The musclemen were looking down into the bath as it was filled, shaking their heads and laughing. She could see that the activity on the plinth was beginning to attract attention. Anticipation grew on people’s faces as they looked from the muscled men on the plinth to the giant blue bunny who was surrounded by a team of people with sashes and clipboards and buckets, and was now being hustled towards the plinth. Something was clearly about to kick off.
Nettie noticed a megaphone in Mike’s hand. Daisy and Jules had shot off again, now herding curious passers-by towards the fourth plinth, and Nettie felt her nerves grow as the small crowd quickly stood several people deep, everyone staring up at the two men as Jules and Daisy began distributing information. Nettie jogged on the spot again, swearing profusely under her breath because Jamie had chosen now as his moment to make contact again. Did he like seeing her suffer? Being humiliated?
Mike leaned in to her as they walked towards the plinth. ‘OK, Nettie, let’s give the people a show. We’ve got a chance to prove to White Tiger what we’re made of. They are lapping this up. This campaign idea of mine has really got them going, so let’s not “balls-up” like last time.’ He laughed at his own joke.
Nettie looked at him, one of her ears falling over her eye. His campaign idea?
‘You get up on the plinth. I’ll do the rest.’
Nettie, at the foot of the plinth – which was at least fifteen feet high – stared up at the flimsy ladder that had been propped against the side. It was one thing to climb it as a five-foot-three, nine-stone woman who did circuits once a week. It was quite another doing it dressed as a seven-foot bunny with the waist circumference of a small car.
It took six minutes to climb the ten rungs of the ladder, with two guys standing underneath and pushing up on her bottom, so that by the time she stepped onto the plinth to a crescendo of cheers, it wasn’t just Caro’s phone recording her every move.
Mike’s voice began booming out of the megaphone. ‘Wassup, London?’
To the side, Nettie saw Jules, Daisy and Caro all drop their heads in their hands. On the far side of the square somewhere, a cab tooted its horn.
‘You wanted more, so we’re giving you more!’
The crowd frowned in puzzlement, clearly not having a clue what he was talking about or why the strange assortment of characters – bunny, bath, muscleme
n – were assembled on the plinth.
Nettie went and stood between the two musclemen, holding out her paw for a fist bump with each.
‘More than forty thousand of you have already taken Blue Bunny Girl to your hearts and, in so doing, helped waved the flag for a charity very close to our hearts, Tested, which is standing at the coalface in the battle against testicular cancer. So we’re picking up the baton again today and we’re going to keep picking it up every day for twelve days. Today, we asked you to vote – and donate – on whether Blue Bunny Girl should do the Ice Bucket Challenge, something I know many of you will be familiar with. Well, ladies and gentlemen, you have spoken. And we have heard you. The public has made its wish clear by a majority of’ – Mike glanced down at his iPad and quickly did the maths, the murmurings of his mental arithmetic carrying over the crowd – ‘six thousand and twenty-four votes, and with donations of nearly £15,000, smashing our target of £5,000, Blue Bunny Girl shall do the Ice Bucket Challenge.’
The bemused but steadily swelling crowd cheered – it was a fractured smattering of noise; Nettie flapped her ear out of the way and looked down at her audience, the overwhelming majority of whom, she was quite sure, had not heard of Blue Bunny Girl till this moment. But they were clapping. And filming. And clearly about to google her when they got home.
‘But we’re gonna do this the White Tiger way,’ Mike said, ever aware of pleasing the client. ‘Bunny, if you would take your seat.’
With the help of the musclemen – for she couldn’t see where to perch herself when her bottom was easily four times the width of the chair – she sat down, her paws on her lap. Across the square, by the Christmas tree, she saw a homeless man pick up her steaming coffee with extra macchiato and wander off with it. Her eyes roamed the square again, darting and quick.
‘Hurry now, guys,’ Mike said in a low voice, away from the megaphone, as the musclemen rolled their arms and expanded their dramatic chests with swinging arm movements. They immediately fell into deep squats at Mike’s order. ‘Caro, are you getting this?’
‘Yes, Mike,’ Caro sighed, her voice flat.
Behind her, Nettie heard a low grunt and the sudden slosh and clatter of ice cubes cracking against each other as the antique bath was lifted. In front of her, almost every person in the crowd had their phone out, ready to capture it on film. A few Japanese students squealed. She tensed, bracing herself for the cold.
‘Head off, Nets! Head off!’ Nettie looked down to see Jules at the back of the crowd, frantically motioning for her to take off the bunny head.
‘No!’ She shook her head, mortified at the prospect of people seeing her. This was embarrassing enough.
‘Yes! You need to get wet!’
Nettie sighed crossly but did as she was told. Jules winked up at her, giving a thumbs-up sign with her free hand, but that was all Nettie saw, for in the next moment Trafalgar Square was washed away as gallons of freezing-cold water were upended over her, most of it rushing straight into the suit through the gaping neckline that was left when the head of the costume was removed.
Nettie gasped – and gasped again. She couldn’t scream: she couldn’t catch her breath to scream. The cold was so shocking, so disorienting, and she didn’t even realize she was now on her feet. She could barely see, her hair plastered over her face by the force of the water, and she was only vaguely aware of the crowd’s delight as she gasped and jumped on the spot, trying to displace the water that now moated her – with nowhere to escape to – and then the collective intake of breath as she staggered too close to the edge. One of the men pulled her back in time.
Her voice returned. ‘Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!’ she breathed, unable to stop repeating herself as the mutual shock of fright and cold kicked in. Just to add to this fresh hell, she had almost fallen off the fourth plinth? ‘Get it off! Get it off!’ she gasped, ice water sloshing around every bit of her body. She was sure she’d be hypothermic within minutes.
‘How? How?’ the poor strongman asked, panicking at the look in her eyes.
Her voice had fled again, but she proffered her back to him and he easily ripped the long Velcro tape apart, having to jump back himself as the water inside rushed out, splashing the people at the front of the crowd and making them scream with excitement. Nettie stepped out of the unwieldy suit as quickly as she could, her T-shirt and jeans drenched, and her teeth already chattering. She could see Jules at the bottom of the plinth holding up one of the giant White Tiger towels for her – safety! Warmth! – and she scooted down the ladder to a hero’s welcome, everyone clapping and cheering.
She felt a hand on her sodden shoulder and she turned gratefully. ‘Jules, thank God! Give me that towel!’
But when she turned, it wasn’t a friendly face that she saw.
‘Do you have the requisite licence for public performance in this space, madam?’ the policeman asked, his radio already in his hand.
‘What’s my dad going to say?’
‘He’ll laugh.’
‘He won’t.’
‘Babe, you’re twenty-six. What’s he gonna do? Stop your pocket money?’
‘This is serious! I’ve got a criminal record.’
‘No, you haven’t. They gave you a caution. Stop being so dramatic,’ Jules said without looking up from her phone.
There was a pause. Nettie didn’t think she was being dramatic. She’d spent all afternoon in Charing Cross Police Station. ‘Well, that’s the end of it now. I mean it. I nearly died on the first thing and got arrested on the second. Really, I’ve done my bit for charity. I’m bowing out while I still can. I don’t care if they fire me.’
‘Nets, you can’t just jib out after the first day. We’ve promised White Tiger a carefully coordinated twelve-day campaign.’
‘You promised that. Not me.’
Jules rolled her eyes. ‘Look, Daisy and Caro have been working on the marketing already. You can’t let them down . . .’ Her voice trailed off, her brow furrowed as she continued with her text.
Nettie huffed and looked mournfully out of the window as the bus trundled up Portland Street. She pulled her coat closer to her neck, tightening her scarf, but it was no good – she couldn’t stop shivering, and looking out at all the frost-pinched after-work shoppers wasn’t helping. She turned back to face in to the rest of the bus again, resting her shoulders against the glass.
‘Plus I nearly fell off the plinth. Can you imagine the headlines with that? “Giant Bunny Girl Leaps to Death from Fourth Plinth.”’
‘Now you’re being completely over the top. If you’d fallen, you just would’ve . . . bounced. Besides, the big fella caught you.’
‘Yes! And as for him – can you believe the way those blokes just legged it as soon as the police arrived and left me to get the blame?’
‘They did text to apologize. They said they didn’t want to create bad PR for White Tiger. You can’t really blame them. They were in all the gear.’
‘But why did no one get a licence? Surely Daisy would have known we needed one? That’s her area. She must have gone to school with someone who slept with the cousin of the housemate of the person in charge of Trafalgar Square licences?’
‘With what time, exactly? Flashmob, remember? We’re flying by the seat of our pants here. This is barely controlled chaos. It’s guerrilla-style. We had to get in, do it and get out.’ Jules looked back down at the Twitter page on her phone and gave a low whistle. ‘Oooh, and check this out. They’re eating it up.’
‘Who are?’
‘Your public, sweetie.’ She passed over her phone. Nettie’s Twitter page was almost glowing from the amount of activity on it. Her number of followers was now up to 51,000, and the post that had today’s short-film link pasted into it had been retweeted over 9,000 times – and was still rising.
‘Do you have any idea how colossal this conversion rate is?’ Jules asked, her eyes wide. ‘Your fanbase is seriously mobilized. They are loving you.’
‘No
t according to some of these comments,’ Nettie said, scrolling down through the comments. ‘“Yo ass fat even outta dat soot.”’
Jules laughed. ‘You sound like Mary Poppins.’
‘Are they saying I have a fat bum?’ She remembered the croissant eaten on the bus this morning. Damn it. Fruit only. Tomorrow, then, she promised herself.
‘It’s funny because you don’t. Besides, there’s always going to be one or two nutjobs. But most of these are really nice.’ She leaned over, resting her chin on Nettie’s shoulder, as was her way. ‘Look, that one’s saying it was a shame your T-shirt wasn’t white. Isn’t that nice? He appreciated your wardrobe.’
Nettie giggled, joshing her in the ribs with her elbow. ‘Stop it.’ But she did scroll through the comments with a smile on her face.
All these people had watched her? She couldn’t believe it. The numbers were hard to comprehend. It was like . . . it was like walking into Wembley and every person in the place watching her on the big screens. She hadn’t even done the Ice Bucket Challenge when it had been the craze of the summer, because no one had thought to nominate her, and now suddenly this YouTube clip had had almost 50,000 views? Most of them thought she was ‘cool’ and ‘badass’, and there were a lot of emojis. Her subsequent arrest appeared to have gone down particularly well too – adding to the subversive element, she supposed.
‘And is there anything from our special friend?’ Jules’s chin dug into Nettie’s shoulder as she spoke, but neither of them shifted to move.
‘Oooh, just give me a week and I’ll come back to you on that. I’ve got twenty thousand messages to get through first.’
‘Sarky!’ Jules grinned, sitting up at last and taking the phone from her. ‘Alternatively, you could just go into his profile and see whether he’s tweeted anything today.’
‘Oh.’
Jules brought up his profile page and turned the screen to Nettie with a very satisfied smile.
Nettie’s eyes widened in disbelief, her hands flying to her mouth as she saw the single tweet he had posted that day. ‘U one crazy chick. #bluebunnygirl #ballzup.’ He had also retweeted the link to his six million followers.