“Who’s Caroline?” Dad asked.
Mum tutted. “Carys’s mum. Don’t you remember anyone?”
“What are you calling Carys’s mum for?” he said.
“Are you joking?” she said. “Her daughter’s just done an Edward Scissorhands on our daughter!”
“Mum, please!” I shouted. “It’s not Carys’s fault! It was my idea.”
“Shh, it’s ringing.”
I crept to the top stair, pulled out my phone and quickly messaged Carys:
My mum’s calling yours about the haircut!!!
sorry. I said it was my idea.
Carys replied: It’s okay. You’re still alive yay!!
I typed: She’s taking me to the hairdresser’s tomorrow. Don’t take it personally.
Carys: For extensions???!
I typed back: Hope not. Anyway, Dad likes it
Carys: What’s your mum saying? Did she say we can’t hang out?
I listened for a moment.
“Yes, I know,” Mum was saying. “I’m sure they were having fun. I’m sure Carys was trying to do a good job. But obviously she isn’t a hairdresser. With the channel and everything, we just prefer to get these sort of things done professionally…yes, I know what they can be like…yes…”
I replied: Think it’s okay. She’s mainly annoyed it happened off camera.
Carys: It looks amazing! Hope hairdresser doesn’t mess it up
Mum laughed down the phone, so maybe it wouldn’t be too awkward next time I saw Carys’s mum. I went into my room and closed the door. There was a cardboard box on my bed that Mum or Dad must have put there. I probably wasn’t supposed to open it until they were filming. I looked inside. I pulled out a framed picture that said “Be YOU-tiful” in gold swirly letters. I dropped it back in the box and closed the lid. It was just a load of stuff to put my room back the same as it was before.
I sat on my bed and took out the photo Carys had taken of me. I put it on my desk, took a picture of it and uploaded it to my Instagram. It took about three seconds to get the first comment. I scrolled down for a few minutes liking and replying to comments from people at school: Eva!!!! You look AMAZE and love your hair and hair looks so good!!!
I was replying to the third comment from Jenna when Mum called up the stairs. “Eva! Sasha can fit you in at seven-thirty.”
“In the morning?” I called back.
“Yes!” Mum said. “She’s fully booked tomorrow so she’s opening early as a favour to me.”
Great, I thought. That means we’ll definitely be filming it.
“And wear that new top I put on your wardrobe door, okay?”
I sighed. Why couldn’t I ever wear what I wanted? Carys was allowed to bite her nails and wear that little stake in her ear. I wasn’t even allowed to choose my own T-shirt. I held up the top hanging on the wardrobe. It actually didn’t look too bad. Then I turned it round. There was a picture of a cartoon pea wearing trainers and in massive letters it said: I GOTTA PEA!
The next morning, I had to wear the I GOTTA PEA! T-shirt to the hairdresser’s. There was “no choice about it” unless I wanted to be banned from Carys’s house for the rest of my life. I thought about writing over it with my Sharpies, but I’d had to get up really early and Mum was rushing me.
“Oh, it looks fabulous short, Eva!” Sasha said, putting her hands through my hair. I felt her long nails gently scratch my scalp. “Oh, yeah, I can tidy this up, no probs. Shall we get started?”
I’d decided not to speak at all during the haircut. But it was hard to stick to because Sasha is so nice. I stared up at the ceiling as Mum filmed me getting my hair washed.
“How shocked was I about you cutting your hair, Eva?” Mum said. “Tell everyone how shocked I was! I seriously had no clue she was going to do this! I don’t think Eva can hear me because of the water,” Mum said, and laughed like she didn’t mind. She did though.
As Sasha snipped around the back of my hair, Mum pointed the camera at the mirror.
“It was so funny!” she said. “She comes home with all her hair cut off and I completely freak out!” She told everyone about what happened last night, leaving out the bit about knocking her wine over and calling Carys’s mum. I could have corrected her, but what was the point? They’d only edit it out.
Later that day, they posted Eva Cuts All her Hair Off!!!!! with scream emojis on the thumbnail. I scrolled straight down to read the comments.
hilarious!!!!
can’t believe you did that, Eva!!!
So pretty with short hair! Love it.
can you do more challenge videos?
I was on the hundredth comment or something, when there was one from somebody called TheThinker. It said:
Eva’s face 4.45 and 5.20. She don’t wanna be there, Mom.
It had nine thumbs up, and sixteen thumbs down. I tapped on the replies.
Haha. Yes. That was funny.
I noticed too. Shouldn’t film if she don’t want to.
Child exploitation.
NO! She always does that. She’s A TEEN! Great family.
Yes. Making the kid cut her hair for ad revenue.
THAT KID IS FAKE.
I dropped my phone when Mum knocked on the door.
“Hey,” she said. “Want to come down and do an unboxing? I’ve got some gorgeous things for your new room.”
“Not really,” I said.
“Are you sick? Your cheeks look a bit red.” Mum came in and put her hand on my forehead. “Your temperature’s okay. You know what, it might be your period coming.”
I took a deep breath. “I just don’t feel like it right now.”
“Want me to bring you up a hot squash? We can always do the unboxing tomorrow. Watch a film instead, just us two?”
I actually did want to do that. It would be nice to curl up next to Mum and watch a movie. But I knew she didn’t mean just us two. She meant all of their subscribers too. She was probably planning an EVA’S SECOND PERIOD!!! vlog and I didn’t exactly feel like hanging around for it.
“No, I’m going over to Spud’s. He said something about watching a film with this new projector he’s made.” It was only a half lie. Spud did say something about making a film projector.
Mum smiled. “Okay. But whatever you do, don’t let Spud touch your hair.”
Like I’d ever be that stupid.
I walked down Spud’s drive and the security light came on. I noticed the side gate was open. I hadn’t gone into Spud’s bedroom the back way for years. There’s this old oak tree in their garden, and one of the branches goes right up to Spud’s bedroom window. We always used to climb down it out of his room when we were younger. I looked up and saw his light on.
I messaged: I’m coming round. Then I put my leg up on the first branch. It was harder than I remembered to get a grip. I pushed my other leg off the ground and swung it up over the branch. Okay, I thought, looking at the branches above me forming a kind of archway. This doesn’t seem that hard.
I’d been stuck in the tree for about five minutes before I called for help. I’d tried to get onto the branch under Spud’s window, but I don’t know, his dad must have pruned it or something. There was nowhere to get a foothold, and I wasn’t strong enough to slide myself all the way along. I tried to get back down, but climbing backwards down a tree is harder than it sounds. I couldn’t get my phone out of my pocket, because that would mean letting go of the branch I was gripping onto. So, basically, I had no choice.
“SPUD!” I yelled as loudly as I could. “Spud!”
The curtains opened at the next window and Spud’s brother Chip appeared. He squashed his face against the glass so his nose was flattened. I hadn’t seen him for ages. He looked like he’d grown a metre since starting college. Chest hairs were poking out of the top of his T-shirt. My cheeks went hot with embarrassment.
“Eva?” His breath steamed up the window around his mouth. “Are you in the tree?”
“Can you get Spud, please?�
�� I shouted.
He pushed his bedroom window open. “Are you spying on Spud?”
“No! I’m coming round to watch a film!”
Chip looked at me suspiciously. “We do have a front door.”
“Yes, I know. Look, my hands are slipping. Just get Spud to help me, will you?”
He stood there for a minute. “Would it help if I threw you a rope?”
I sighed. “Not really!”
Chip disappeared and a few seconds later Spud peered out of his bedroom window. “Eva? Have you got short hair?”
“Spud!” I shouted. “Please, just help me get down.”
“Should I get your dad?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Because what I really need right now is a clip of me stuck up a tree on YouTube.”
Spud leaned further out of the window, checking the distance. My palms felt sweaty against the branch. I was about to tell Spud to hurry up, when I heard Chip say, “I could probably get that old chainsaw working.”
“Spud!” I shouted. “Don’t let Chip anywhere near this tree. Spud?” And that’s when I realized they’d both gone.
The next thing I heard was something being dragged across the grass.
“It’s okay!” Spud called from below. “You can jump!”
“Are you actually crazy?” I said, trying to see what was down there.
“Come on! The trampoline’s right here.”
I repositioned myself so I could see. “You can’t be serious. I’ll break my legs!”
“It’s fine!” Spud shouted. “I’ve done a rough calculation. You’ll only bounce a couple of metres, I promise. I would catch you, but I think from that distance, there’s a significant chance you’d crush me to death.”
Chip stood next to Spud with his arms folded. “Ten quid says she breaks a bone.”
Something glinted in the moonlight. “You’d better not be filming this!”
“Course not!” Spud said. “It’s my army helmet. Catch!” Spud threw the helmet up to me and caught it again when I didn’t grab it.
“Eva, you need to catch it!” Chip shouted.
Spud threw it again, but I didn’t dare let go of the branch.
“I’m not wearing that stupid helmet, Spud.” I peered beneath me. I could see the vague outline of a trampoline. “Are you sure this is safe?”
“Trust him!” Chip shouted. “He’s going to be a doctor one day.”
I took a deep breath and slowly lowered myself down until my legs were dangling in the air.
Then Spud said, “An academic doctor. Not a medical one. Just to be clear.”
Chip laughed and shouted, “Disclaimer!”
But it was too late to climb back up. I took one last look down, held my breath and let go.
Twenty minutes later, I was sitting in Spud’s bedroom with a bag of frozen peas on my head. I’d bashed it on the branch as I’d bounced back up. Just like Spud said I would. He looked at me and laughed for the hundredth time.
“Okay, I should have worn the helmet,” I said. “Is it really noticeable?” I asked, feeling the golf-ball-sized lump on my forehead.
Spud peered at my head. “It looks like an egg,” he said. “Why were you climbing the tree anyway? You haven’t done that for years.”
“Yeah, and now I know why,” I said. “It’s a deathtrap. You should chop it down.”
Spud laughed, then he looked serious all of a sudden. “Hey, I want to run some ideas by you,” he said, pulling a bit of paper out of his pocket. It looked like a list. “I’ve been thinking about a new name and I wanted to test some out on you.”
“A new name? Are you getting another guinea pig?”
“No, a name for me. Instead of Spud.”
“What’s wrong with Spud?”
“It lacks maturity.” I gave him a look. “I just think being named after a potato isn’t doing me any favours socially.”
“Says who?” Like I even needed to ask. “You mean what Gabi said.”
Spud shrugged. “I’d been thinking about changing it anyway. So, what do you think about Fossil?”
“Fossil? You can’t be serious.”
Spud sighed.
“Sorry,” I said. “It’s just you’ve always been Spud. I’m finding it hard to imagine you being called something else. Especially Fossil. Please tell me the rest. I won’t laugh, I promise.” I clamped my lips together.
“Volt?” he said and a laugh came snorting out through my nose. “Okay, that’s it. I’m not telling you any more.”
“I’m sorry!” I said. “But you’re saying names that sound like…wrestlers.”
He picked up a plastic puzzle from his desk and started playing. It was one of those where you have to get the tiny silver balls in the holes.
We sat in silence for a while. Well, not exactly silence. The anime film we’d been watching was still playing, but it was in Japanese and neither of us was looking at the subtitles. I could hear the bubbles popping in my lemonade.
“I’m sorry,” I said, putting the list on his desk. “I do get it. But, you know, being Spud of Nerdophobia is actually pretty good. You can just…be yourself. Like, make weird stuff in your garage and come up with Minecraft theories and no one’s judging you the whole time. You’re like, free. Or whatever. I cut my hair and a million people have an opinion about it.”
Spud smiled. “Don’t read the comments,” he said, in an accent that I think was supposed to be my dad’s.
“Yeah, don’t read the comments,” I repeated and tried to smile. “Anyway, if you are serious about a new nickname, surely you haven’t forgotten about this?” I tapped a website into my phone and held it up.
“The name generator!” Spud laughed. The last time we went on the name generator we created nicknames for our entire primary school class. Mr Eliot’s came up as CaptainLegsPopper and I laughed so much I couldn’t breathe.
We typed Spud’s name into the name generator and it came up as SnivelWeepie. We both laughed so much that his mum came up to check we were okay.
“Thanks for the frozen peas,” I said later, as I pushed the door open to go. “And for saving my life, obviously.”
“Any time,” Spud said.
“I don’t think you should change your name, by the way. You’re pretty okay the way you are.”
Spud smiled. “Thanks.” Then as I went downstairs he called after me. “Hey, you know what I realized when you were stuck up the tree? Your ju-jitsu skills are lame.”
And I was laughing too much to say anything back.
On the way home I realized I was grateful for All About Eva for one thing. That we got to move next door to Spud. Even though he was the kind of friend to accidentally explode a sheep’s lung in your face, he was also the kind of friend to know when you needed a crash helmet. Maybe he was the kind of friend I should have been listening to all along.
When I got home that night, the living room had a gigantic banner across it saying HALF A MILLION SUBSCRIBERS!!! And I felt like someone had chucked a hand grenade into my stomach.
“You hit half a million?” I said to Dad, who was arranging gold helium balloon numbers.
“Ah, Eva, there you are,” Dad said, moving a gold balloon zero further away from the wall. “No, we’re still a few thousand away. Grab those confetti cannons on the side, will you?”
“So, what’s this for?”
“Jen and I decided that the video we made before didn’t really hit the mark, you know?”
I picked up the confetti cannons Dad had pointed at. “So, we have to do it again?”
“Yes, take two! Hopefully this time we’ll get it. Also, you changed your hair, so…”
“Eva, you’re back. I was just about to text you,” Mum said, unwrapping a string of gold bunting. “Oh my God. What’s happened to your head?”
I felt the lump on my forehead. “I jumped out of a tree. It’s fine. It only hurts if I press it.” Suddenly, one of the confetti cannons exploded in my face.
“Ev
a!” Mum screamed.
“Whoops,” I said, pulling bits of gold confetti off my eyelashes. “Those things are lethal.”
Mum dropped the bunting on the table and inspected my forehead under the light. “Oh, this looks really bad, Eva! What were you doing in a tree?”
“It wasn’t deliberate.”
“Well, we can’t film it now, can we?” she said over my head to Dad. “Not with this massive lump on her head. Oh, Eva, you do pick your timing!”
“Hmm,” Dad said, coming over to have a look. “Is it such a big deal?” Mum glared at him. “Okay, could you cover it up?”
“I could wear Dad’s balaclava,” I said, but I don’t think they heard me.
“I’ve got some make-up, but you’d still see the lump.” Mum let out a sigh. “We’ll have to wait a couple of days. And pray it goes down before we leave for Farmor’s on Wednesday! No more climbing trees, okay? At least not before we hit half a million. I thought you’d grown out of that by now.” She gently kissed the lump on my forehead. I wondered if getting minor head injuries would be a good way of getting out of filming in future.
Farmor called me that night on FaceTime so she could see my new hair. She said she loved it as I held up my phone so she could see it from the back.
Then she said, “Dit indre er endnu smukkere end dit ydre.” Which means, “Your insides are even more beautiful than your outsides.” She must have forgotten I could see her, because she held the phone up to her ear. But I didn’t care. I listened to her talk about the new cakes in the cafe by the waterfront, and the noisy fishing boats in the harbour and a new art collection in the museum she thought I’d like. Her words collected like fallen leaves around me and made my room seem less empty.
Mum and Dad were pretty much snogging when I put my cereal bowl in the dishwasher on Sunday morning. There was a gigantic bunch of red roses on the table and a card with a picture of two triangles of cheese holding hands. It said We Brie-long Together.
Girl (In Real Life) Page 16