Girl (In Real Life)

by Tamsin Winter

  “Don’t mention it,” Spud said, walking off. And it was only then I realized he’d still been standing there.

  Miss Wilson called me to get back onstage. I took my place in the centre, wishing for this whole thing to be over so I could speak to Hallie. And say a proper thank you to Spud.

  “Good morning, everybody!” said Mr Andrews, the principal. He only came out of his office on special occasions, like assemblies and the Christmas carol concert. “It is my absolute pleasure to introduce 8W for their form assembly, which is all about their special day of hugging!” A wave of laughter went around the hall and I felt my stomach drop through the stage.

  Miss Wilson loud-whispered something from the front row like it was a pantomime.

  “Sorry!” Mr Andrews said. “Misunderstanding!” He grinned at us and clapped his hands together. “Their special day of unplugging. That is a relief! Thank you, Miss Wilson. Take it away, 8W!”

  My mouth felt dry, like I’d just swallowed a mouthful of sand.

  “Good morning,” I said into the microphone. The first note Spud had given me said MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU! and was surrounded by smiling emojis. I laughed, then looked up at the million faces staring at me. I straightened my face. “Did you know, young people today spend less time outside than prisoners? So, on the thirty-first of January my classmates and I decided to do our own digital detox for twenty-four hours. We were all really excited about taking part.” Techically a lie, I thought. But then I stopped. I could hear humming coming from the audience. Miss Wilson gestured for me to carry on. I swallowed. “So, from sun-up to sun-down, we put our phones down and switched off our computers and…” I looked up at the sea of faces in front of me. The humming was getting louder. “And, um, instead of screen time, we spent the day in…um, FaceTime. I mean, real time.” The notes were shaking in my hands. Because I recognized the tune they were humming. It was “Super Freak”. The song from the workout video. I could feel every single pair of eyes on me. Not just the ones in the assembly hall, but every pair of eyes that had seen that video. And all the others. Millions and millions of eyes, all staring directly at me. They felt heavy. Like I might collapse under their weight.

  Miss Wilson and the other teachers on the front row were looking round, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. But it was coming from everywhere. Then I heard Hallie’s voice. It somehow sailed over all the humming.

  “Keep going, Eva.”

  I cleared my throat and said, “We hope you enjoy hearing what we found out.” Then I stepped backwards, into the shadow of the stage curtain.

  Lucas started saying his bit about visiting a reservoir. I could still hear the humming faintly, only maybe it was just in my head. When the assembly was over everyone clapped and I heard the humming again as Mr Andrews dismissed everyone.

  “Well done, everyone!” Miss Wilson said, and she clasped my hands. “Oh, you’re trembling, Eva! Bless you. I didn’t think you’d get so nervous.”

  “You did amazingly!” Carys said. “Guess you heard the song?”

  I nodded. “Didn’t everyone?”

  “Forget them,” Carys said, linking my arm. “They’re just jealous of our butt clenches.”

  I tried to laugh, but my insides were churning, like they were getting dredged. “Hallie hurt her ankle at the finals,” I said. “I totally forgot it was this weekend.”

  “Maybe you should talk to her.” Carys nodded towards Hallie, who was waiting by the hall doors. Gabi was standing beside her holding her bag. “I’ll see you in class.”

  I smiled at Hallie. She looked back at me, but she didn’t smile.

  “Hey,” I said. “Thanks for helping me in there.”

  “No problem,” she said. “The humming was mean.”

  “So, what happened?” I said, looking at her cast. Gabi’s name was written in purple felt-tip.

  “I messed up landing my backflip,” Hallie said. “But you’d already know that if you’d asked how it went.”

  “I’m sorry.” I knew those words weren’t enough. But I couldn’t think of any better ones.

  She looked at me, her brown eyes shining with tears. “You didn’t even say good luck.”

  I really wanted to give her a hug, but it was like the invisible wall between us was thicker than ever. “I’m really sorry, Hals. It’s just there’s been this thing happening with the channel and…”

  “Right,” Hallie said. “Well, next time I break my ankle, I’ll be sure to comment on All About Eva. That way you might actually notice.”

  And there was nothing I could say. She was right. It was her biggest competition and I didn’t even wish her good luck. I didn’t even remember.

  I sat in maths that morning listening to Mr Gregory talking about vectors, whatever they are, while Alfie hummed “Super Freak” at the back of my head. I thought about the channel, about what I’d done. About all the people who watched me every single day. The people who had seen me grow up. Who talked about me like they knew me. But they didn’t know me at all. I’d known Hallie since Year Four. I knew she loved spicy food, and hated the sight of blood. That she couldn’t go cross-eyed properly no matter how many times she tried. How she sometimes sang without realizing. I knew practically everything about her. But I didn’t even notice her break her ankle.

  And there was this one thought I couldn’t shake out of my brain. Okay, I hadn’t exactly been a great friend. But this never would have happened if it wasn’t for the stupid channel!

  And call it a coincidence or whatever. But that night, Carys sent me a link. It was this vlogging family called The Grant-Laceys. They’re an American family with eight million subscribers. I’d seen a few of their videos. Their eldest daughter was a bit older than me. I remembered watching a video where her parents went berserk after she bleached her hair. Mum kind of idolized them. She got annoyed at Dad once when he called them “dysfunctional”. Just as I started watching, a message from Carys popped up:

  Look at her T-shirt.

  I watched closer. The mum was talking to the camera. But she was wearing a button-up shirt, not a T-shirt. Then I saw the daughter standing in the background. I couldn’t make out what her T-shirt said at first. But she straightened it out, and then I saw it in big black letters: STOP FILMING ME.

  And that’s when I realized. I’d been trying to take control of the channel from the wrong side of the screen.

  It was a few days later, the last week of term, and Mum and Dad were still glued to their computers. They’d put up a special vlog about the hacking. And instead of losing subscribers, they were gaining them. They watched the subscribers counter like hawks, ready to film my live reaction. The celebration video we’d already filmed wasn’t enough apparently. They needed something live too, so they had the cameras going 24-7. I didn’t really see how they could film it live. What if, at the crucial moment when the counter turned to 500,000, I was at school? Or on the toilet? But Mum rolled her eyes whenever I brought it up.

  On Thursday, Miss West had given us a load of Shakespeare quotes to memorize for homework, and I felt like doing it about as much as I felt like sticking my head into the fermenting experiment Spud had in his garage. So, I put my new plan into action. I took the pictures off the walls first. Then the pink canopy that cascaded over my bed. I pulled down all the fairy lights I could reach and the giant bow on my wall. I collected up all the plants and ornaments, everything from my parents’ dumb sponsors, and dumped it in a pile outside my door. It was almost reaching the other side of the landing by the time Mum came upstairs.

  “What’s all this!” she asked as I peeled heart-shaped stickers off the wall.

  “I’m redecorating.”

  “Is that what you call it?” She chuckled in a way that told me she was filming. “Eva seems to be having a spontaneous spring clean! I hope you’re going to put all this stuff back when you’ve finished!”

  “Nope,” I said, matter-of-factly. “It’s all your stuff, so you can have i
t back.”

  “Eva!” she said, stepping over the pile into my room. “You’ve emptied the whole room out! It looks like a prison cell in here.”

  “It suits my life then.”

  “Did you hear that?” Mum said, turning the camera on herself. “My darling daughter, everybody!”

  I stood on a stool to take down the wall stickers by my wardrobe. “It’s so dusty up here!” I said loudly. “Like properly disgusting.”

  I heard the beep-beep of the camera switching off.

  “Eva!” Mum said. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you! Lars and I have a lot to deal with at the moment, with all this hacking stuff. I’m sorry if you’re not getting enough attention.”

  I peeled off a wall sticker and let it flutter down to the carpet. “Like I haven’t had enough attention to last me ten lifetimes.”

  Mum sighed. “You’re not serious about changing your room, are you? Because I really don’t think we have the time right now.”

  I wiped my dusty hands down my leggings. “I want to do it myself, anyway.”

  “Okay, well, if you are serious, I’ve got some lovely things still boxed up in the garage. But I wish you’d picked a better time, sweetie. We’ll need to do an unboxing video and a before-and-after. Honestly, I don’t think I have the energy for it this week. We already have the Valentine’s Special scheduled and then we’re off to Farmor’s next week.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I actually like my room plain. It’s called minimalism. Miss Wilson told us about it.”

  “You can’t be serious, Eva,” Mum said. “How are we supposed to film in here with it looking like this? What would people think? It really does look like a prison cell.”

  “I don’t care,” I said.

  She looked at me for a few seconds. “Okay, sweetie, I can see you’re not in the mood for talking.” She waited for me to contradict her. But I didn’t. So she kissed me on the head and walked out.

  Later, Dad called, “Prisoner Andersen! Dinner’s ready!” So I deliberately didn’t go downstairs for ages.

  That night, I looked up at the blank ceiling where the fairy lights used to be. It was dark in my room without them. I guess it was kind of prison cell-ish without all of my stuff. I mean, their stuff. But it felt like a blank page too. Like I’d turned over a new page in my sketchbook and I could draw whatever I wanted.

  On Friday, I went to Carys’s straight after school. I was supposed to be at home in case the 0.5 million subscribers thing happened, but I’d begged Mum and Dad so many times they agreed just to get some peace and quiet.

  We were taking silly photos in Carys’s room when she peered at herself in the camera and pulled at her fringe.

  “Needs cutting,” she said. She rummaged around in a drawer for a while then pulled out a black case and took out some scissors. “These are strictly for professionals.”

  “You’re not going to do it yourself, are you?” I watched her take off her glasses and carefully comb out her fringe.

  “I always cut it myself,” she said. “Well, my fringe anyway.”

  “Your parents let you cut your own hair?”

  “Yeah, course,” she said. “It’s my hair.”

  I fished in my pocket for a bobble. “I wish I could have my hair short,” I said, moving closer to watch. “I hate it long.”

  “So, get it cut.” Carys snipped at her fringe in the mirror. Tiny bits of jet-black hair scattered onto her nose. “It would suit you short.”

  “Yeah, like my mum would let me.” I pulled my hair back to see how it looked short. “Think I’d look older with shorter hair?”

  Carys snipped at the edges of her fringe, then picked her phone up off the floor. She flicked through it for a minute then handed it to me. “Something like that would really suit you.”

  I studied the picture of Emma Watson on her phone. “Oh my God, that is seriously short. I meant like…” I searched through hairstyle pictures for a while, then held up one of a girl with wavy hair just above her shoulders. “Like that,” I said.

  “Oh, yeah, nice!” Carys said, studying the photo. “I could probably do that.”

  “You could cut my hair like that?”

  Carys shrugged. “Yeah, my auntie’s a hairdresser at this super expensive place in London. I watched her cut my cousin’s hair at Christmas. She let me do the back. With her help, obviously.” She took back her phone and flicked through her photos. “Look. That’s her before. And that’s after.”

  “Wow,” I said. “And you think you could do mine like that?”

  “Sure. I mean, my auntie showed me and she’s really good. She let me have these scissors. We’d have to go in the bathroom though as hair gets stuck in the carpet.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I’m supposed to do this ad for a hair mask thing for long hair next week before we go to Farmor’s. It’s in the schedule.”

  Carys grinned. “Sounds like the perfect time to me.”

  Just then, the gong sounded and her dad called up the stairs, “Girls! Dinner is served! And would you like to try my elderflower and mint sparkle?”

  We looked at each other and burst out laughing. I can’t really explain what we found so funny. Maybe just the randomness of her dad. But for that moment, actually, for the whole of that night, I felt like I could be myself. The Eva I actually wanted to be. The Eva I would actually be already if there were no strangers watching.

  After dinner, I sat in Carys’s bathroom with butterflies in my stomach.

  “You sure about this, Eva?” she said. “Because it’s not like I can stick it back on if you don’t like it.”

  “Yep,” I said. “I’ve wanted it short for ages. Just do it.” I closed my eyes and listened for the first snip.

  After a few minutes, Carys nudged me. She was holding up my ponytail. It looked weird, not attached to my head. I felt my hair at the back. “Oh my God.” I shook out my hair and looked at my reflection in the mirror.

  “It already looks amazing!” Carys said. “But I’ll cut those bits at the front so they’re more level.” I sat back down and felt Carys’s hands on my shoulders. “Everyone is going to love it.”

  When Carys had finished, I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked so different. I twisted a short strand around in my fingers. “You really think it looks nice? Like, better?”

  “One million per cent,” Carys said, beaming at me in the mirror. “Oh, come with me!” I followed her back into her bedroom where she rummaged around in a box by her wardrobe. “Here it is!” She held up an old-fashioned camera, stuck out her tongue and the flash went off. It made a whirring noise, then a photo slid out of the front. “Test photo,” Carys said, and waved it around for a few seconds. “Okay, your turn. Smile!” I looked into the camera, tilted my face to the side and did a half-serious pose. “Amazing,” Carys said, handing me the photo.

  I watched as my face slowly came into view. “I really love it,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “I love it too,” Carys said. “But don’t tell your parents that it was my idea to cut it, okay? I don’t fancy getting on the wrong side of your mum. Not after those air punches she was throwing during that workout.”

  I smiled and carefully dropped the photo in my pocket. “You know she’ll probably faint or something.”

  Carys laughed. “Maybe we should call the ambulance now.”

  I grinned, picked up the ponytail and folded it into the pocket of my bag. Then I headed downstairs, stepping over Bernie, who was snoring in the hallway.

  “Hope she likes it!” Carys said as I left.

  “You might be hearing from their lawyer!” I called back. And I could hear Carys laughing as I closed the door.

  The excitement I’d felt at Carys’s house turned into nerves as I walked home. It’s only hair, I repeated to myself. And it’s my hair. But that message didn’t exactly make it to my heart, which was beating so fast I wondered if I really should call an ambulance.

  “Hey, sweetie,” Mum ca
lled cheerfully as I opened the door. Then the colour completely drained from her face. “OH MY GOD! EVA!” She screamed and jumped up from the sofa, knocking over a glass of wine on the coffee table.

  “Jen!” Dad said as he caught the glass with weirdly good ju-jitsu skills. Then he saw my hair and said, “Ah,” and nothing else.

  “What on earth have you done?” Mum said, pulling the strands of hair around my face. “Where did you get this cut?”

  “I did it myself,” I said, like cutting your own hair was something normal people did all the time.

  “But…why? I mean, it’s so short! Why would you do this, Eva?”

  “I’ve had a haircut, Mum, not a facial tattoo,” I said.

  “Lars, will you please say something.”

  Dad stood up. “Well, it’s a little dramatic. But actually, it suits you.”

  Mum stared at him open-mouthed. “Are you serious? I can’t believe you’ve done this without even speaking to me, Eva!” She spun me round to look at the back. “There’s no way you cut this yourself. Did Carys do it?”

  “Only because I asked her to.” I stared at my shoes. “I take it you don’t like it.”

  “Jen,” Dad said, putting his arm round Mum’s shoulder. “It is only hair. Eva’s hair, right? It looks more like mine now!” I hoped he wasn’t serious. “I’ll get you another wine.”

  Mum wiped her hands over her face and looked at me. “Right. It is your hair. But I’m texting Sasha right now to see if she’ll do an emergency appointment for tomorrow.”

  “Jen!” Dad called from the kitchen. “Since when is the hairdresser’s an emergency service?”

  Mum put her hands on her hips. “Lars, we all know your hair defies gravity, so I don’t expect you to understand. I suppose you forgot about that hair mask ad next week?” she said to me. I twisted my mouth into an apologetic smile. “Well, Lars, it looks like you’re doing the hair mask with me instead now Eva’s cut hers off!” I picked up my school bag and headed upstairs, then Mum said, “Oh, and I’m calling Caroline before it gets too late.” I stopped mid-step.