Girl (In Real Life)

by Tamsin Winter

  “Can’t you wait until I’m not in the room?” I said.

  “Oh, lighten up, Eva!” Dad said. “It’s Valentine’s Day!”

  “Really? I hadn’t noticed,” I said, holding up a heart-shaped piece of toast.

  Mum laughed as she fiddled with the camera. “Oh, Eva, put those on!” she said holding a fluffy red headband with two glittery hearts attached on springs. As I backed away, my head almost smacked into a beam.

  “Watch your head!” Mum shouted.

  Just then, Miss Fizzy padded in wearing a vest covered in pink hearts.

  “Oh God,” I said, picking her up. “They got you too, huh?”

  I noticed a card on the kitchen worktop that said We’re Gouda Together. I wondered if they got matching cheese-themed cards deliberately.

  “Have some strawberries!” Dad said, handing me a bowl.

  “I’m not that hungry.” I pulled off Miss Fizzy’s jumper and she immediatey scarpered under the table. Good idea, I thought.

  Just then, I heard Spud’s signature knock on the door. He walked in holding a tiny plant.

  “I managed to propagate my Venus flytrap,” he said proudly. “I thought you’d like it for your new room.”

  “Thanks, Spud!” I said, examining the plant. “Baby Venus flytraps are actually pretty cute.”

  “Awww, look, Lars!” Mum said, pulling Dad’s arms around her. “Spud’s plants have had a baby and he’s given it to Eva for Valentine’s Day!”

  Spud’s face went bright red. “Is it Valentine’s Day today?” He laughed awkwardly. “I didn’t realize. I just felt bad about Eva’s head injury.” He grabbed a handful of strawberries. “And Venus flytraps don’t have babies, Mrs Andersen, they’re called offsets. They reproduce asexually, you see, erm…”

  I guess he got the hint to stop talking because my dad was kind of glaring at him, and me and Mum couldn’t stop laughing.

  That night, as I flicked through Instagram, I felt nervous about my short hair all over again. I clicked on Hallie’s new profile picture. Her braids were in a big bun on the top of her head, and she was pulling her jumper up so half her face was hidden. Then I saw she was online. I was about to message her when a message from her popped up.

  I really like your hair, she said.

  Thanks, I replied.

  Hallie: Your mum finally let you cut it short

  I replied: Kind of I’m so sorry about your competition. I should have been there.

  Hallie: It’s okay. Doctor reckons it will mend fine in a few weeks.

  I tapped to like her message then uploaded a photo of my new baby Venus flytrap. Jenna immideatey liked it. I thought about commenting on one of Gabi’s pictures, to show Hallie I was making an effort to be nice. I clicked on a video of Gabi doing a front flip in Hallie’s garden. But I couldn’t help wishing she’d fall face first into the compost heap. I clicked back onto Hallie’s profile picture and liked that instead. Hallie put a love heart on the picture of me and Spud doing our ferrofluid experiment. I put one back, and it felt like part of my heart had clicked back into place.

  It was the Monday of half-term, and I was at Carys’s house helping her play Arcadia Colony, this world-building game. I was half watching the screen while I flicked through the All About Eva channel on my phone. I tapped a new vlog called Eva’s Room Clear-Out!

  “What’s Mum doing in my room?”

  Carys looked up. “She’s filming in your room?”

  I nodded and tapped play. After the usual adverts, Mum was saying, “So, as you can see, we’ve cleared everything out! It’s literally like a prison cell in here!” The camera spins round absorbing my entire bedroom. “I’ll show you her wardrobe space!” She opened my wardrobe doors and started pulling out all the things hiding my sketchbooks. My skin went cold. “We’re going to get some larger storage. Eva’s got so many clothes, right? So, I’m thinking a really dark blue on that back wall, and maybe some kind of 3D arty thing.” She picks up one of my sketchbooks and opens it. I can barely even watch. “Look at this beautiful picture of a butterfly that Eva’s drawn, isn’t this amazing? I just LOVE it!” Mum films the page of my sketchbook with the butterfly doodle I’d drawn ages ago. Angry tears burned the back of my eyes. It was like the entire world seeing my diary. “I’m thinking we could get this butterfly made up really big, in gold, and put it over there. And, we definitely need a lighting solution. We’ d really love to hear your suggestions for Eva’s room. Pop them in the comments below and if we end up using your idea, we’ll send you one of our gorgeous goodie bags. Don’t forget to subscribe! ”

  I covered my face and felt Carys put her arm around me.

  “I like your mum, Eva. But that’s seriously not okay.”

  I angrily bashed a message to Mum:

  Don’t film in my room without me there.

  “I’ve got to do something, Carys,” I said. “All that stuff I deleted, it’s not made any difference! And cutting my hair just gave them even more content. Look – the EVA CUTS ALL HER HAIR OFF!!!! video has had three hundred thousand views. They’re just not getting the message.”

  Carys thought for a moment, twisting the stake in her earlobe. “Okay, so we’ve got to get a message out there to your parents, and all their subscribers. We’ve got to show them that you don’t want to be on the channel. I’m pretty sure not many people would subscribe to All About Eva if they knew how much you hated it. But that message can’t come from you directly, because obviously then you’d get into trouble. So…” She picked up her laptop.

  “So?” I said.

  She smiled at me mysteriously. “It’s time to implement Plan B.”

  “Plan B?” I said. “What’s Plan B?”

  “Maybe I have a secret weapon.”

  “Come on, Eva, please,” Dad said later, as he passed me the bribery muffins he’d made while I was at Carys’s house. They had extra sugar syrup and fresh strawberries and icing sprinkles. I took two. I’m not saying he wasn’t good at bribery. “Just a short clip saying how close we are to half a million. Then you can do whatever you want. All you have to do is look excited.”

  I took a massive bite of muffin and pointed to my mouth like there was no way I could say anything.

  “It’s a lovely thing for our subscribers,” Mum said. “To say thank you. And it’s a celebration for us. We’ve almost hit half a million subscribers! Lars, can you remember how excited we got over a hundred!”

  Dad kissed Mum’s cheek. “I remember how excited you got over one!” They smiled at each other and I looked away in case they started snogging or something. “Feels good, right?” Dad said. “We’ve made a lot of people happy over the years. Why don’t we do the video, then take a drive out to Redcliffe Woods. It won’t be dark for a couple of hours.”

  “That sounds perfect,” Mum said. “We could film a Family Special.”

  I shook my head. “No, thanks.”

  Mum looked at me. “Okay…how about we make it just us three? No cameras.”

  Dad raised his eyebrows. “Sounds good to me. Eva?”

  Maybe it was the sugar rush from the muffins. Or maybe it was impossible to implement Plan B without giving my parents a final chance. I smiled and said, “Okay.”

  It wasn’t exactly warm that evening, but the sun was setting and the sky looked like it was on fire. Dad shook out a picnic blanket and Mum was looking in her rucksack for something. I wiped some leaves off a tree stump and sat down. I’d said to myself in the car on the way over that if they could do this one trip just us three, then I wouldn’t upload the new video I’d just made with Carys. Putting it like that, it sounds like a test. Maybe I was testing them. Seeing if they could do one normal family thing. Just for us, not their subscribers. I guess I was clinging onto a tiny bit of hope, like the scrappy bits of paper left in the margin after you’ve torn pages out. If they could spend time with me right now, just us, without sharing it, then there was a chance that things could change.

  I closed my ey
es and listened to the leaves rustling above me, daydreaming. Maybe they could start vlogging only once a week. Like, slowly share less and less about me. And we could have certain days, like now, when they didn’t do any filming at all. I wouldn’t even mind if they kept that stupid newspaper column. It was basically fiction anyway – Mum had even admitted that. And it’s not like anyone at school read newspapers. I felt a beam of sunlight cross my face and then I heard it. A sound that made my skin crawl. Click. I opened my eyes. Mum was a few metres away in the shadows, pointing her phone at me.

  “I thought you said no cameras,” I said, jumping down from the tree stump.

  “Oh, it’s just for Instagram, sweetie. No caption.” She blew me a kiss then looked back down at her phone.

  So if you want to know why I did it, that’s the reason. Because no matter how much you want there to be a better way – a nicer way – to do the stuff you have to do, a way nobody gets hurt…sometimes that way just doesn’t exist.

  I reached in my pocket for my phone and messaged Carys.

  Okay, Plan B tonight.

  Carys had told me that nothing would happen instantaneously. It might take a while, she’d said, maybe even weeks, for our new video to get noticed. So, I didn’t expect everything to happen so fast. I’d found all the clips we needed on the All About Eva channel. I chose the music too – this old 1980s song by Kim Wilde. Mum had mentioned her in the diary she’d vlogged about a while ago. The title was my idea too:

  Does ALL ABOUT EVA want her vlogger parents to stop filming her?

  We wrote the subtitles together. But Carys came up with the “exploitation” stuff. She’s way better at English than me. She made it sound exactly like stuff an adult would say. There was no way anyone would suspect me and Carys. We even used a fake name to set up the YouTube channel we posted it on.

  I knew that if my parents saw our video, they wouldn’t close the channel down immediately or anything. They’d told me enough times that our “financial security” rested on All About Eva being successful. And as much as I hated the channel, I didn’t want my real life to collapse around me. But I hoped it would make them stop and think. Stop them invading my privacy all the time. Make them finally listen to me. I knew my parents would see the video eventually. I mean, it was kind of a drastic way to get their attention, but I honestly didn’t think it would get so out of control. I thought it would take ages for anyone to even watch it.

  So, the next morning, when I looked at the number of views, I went cold. Eight thousand? Last night it had only had nine.

  “You okay?” Dad asked, poking his head round my bedroom door. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Just playing a game,” I said, my hands frozen on my screen.

  “Well, hurry up and get dressed. We’re leaving for the airport in an hour.”

  I nodded and he closed the door. I stared at my phone. How did it jump from nine views to eight thousand over night?

  I messaged Carys:

  Did you post the video anywhere else?

  I saw the message bubbles come up, then they disappeared. A few seconds later, she called me.

  “Don’t leave a trail, remember,” she said as soon as I answered.

  “Oh, yeah, sorry,” I said. “It’s just that the video has had loads more views since last night and…” I let my voice trail off.

  “I tagged a few people,” Carys whispered. “A few significant people. It’s up to ten thousand now. Told you this was my secret weapon.” I heard Carys’s mum in the background. “I’ve got to go. Don’t message me about it, okay. It’s all going to plan. Loads of people are going to see it. Don’t worry. We’ll speak about it properly when you get back from Denmark.”

  I hung up and scrolled down to the comments.

  literally wanna cry that poor kid

  I’m embarrassed for her

  The whole family makes me feel ill

  Awful

  Feel so sorry for eva

  FREE EVA!!!!

  I put my phone down and headed into the bathroom. It’s fine, I told myself in the shower. It’s good so many people are seeing it. I want people to see it. So why did I feel like my heart was getting sucked down the plughole?

  Back in my room, I scrolled through the rest of the comments. I had to make sure no one had tagged my parents’ account. Yesterday, my parents seeing the video had seemed like a brilliant idea. Like it would fix my entire life. But now, all I could think about was how complicated it made everything. What if my parents somehow figured out I was behind it? I looked at the views counter. 15k. 16k. 17k. It was happening.

  Just then I heard my mum’s voice. “Eva! Have you finished packing, sweetie?” She peered round the door. “Sorry to hurry you, but we need to leave soon-ish.” She stepped into my room. She was wearing pink and white stripy leggings, a jumper that had a rainbow knitted on the front and a giant yellow bow in her hair. It looked like she’d painted freckles on her face too. I stared at her, waiting for some kind of explanation. “It’s my travelling outfit! I got you one too.” She held up the exact same outfit she was wearing. “Now, before you say anything…”

  “Please, no.”

  Mum laughed. “It’s a little bright, I know, but…”

  “Mum! That outfit is exactly the same as yours!”

  “I know! Isn’t it the cutest thing? Pretty and Proud sent it specially!”

  I sank onto my bed and put a pillow over my face.

  “Eva!” Mum said, laughing. “Come on, you don’t have to wear it for long, I promise. Just a few pictures at the airport. Take something to change into in your hand luggage if you’re that uncomfortable.” She lifted up the pillow I was hiding under. “Pretty and Proud are donating ten per cent of profits to educating girls in disadvantaged communities this month.”

  I groaned. “Fine.” I took the outfit from her hands. “But only because it’s for charity. And I’m getting changed before we get on the plane.”

  “Thank you, sweetie,” Mum said, planting a kiss on my head. “You are an angel. But we do need some onboard pictures, so change when we get to Copenhagen, okay.”

  I groaned again and stuffed a pair of leggings into my rucksack. By then, any doubts I’d had about the video had vanished. Actually, I couldn’t wait to see her face.

  “Looking great, Eva!” Dad said as I came downstairs. He was wearing a giant yellow bow in his hair too. “What? I didn’t want to feel left out!”

  I wondered if my life could get any worse. Then Mum handed me a key to take round to Spud’s, so he could feed Miss Fizzy while we were away.

  “Couldn’t you have reminded me to do this before I put the outfit on?”

  “Make sure his mum looks after the key, okay!” Mum shouted, ignoring me.

  Spud burst out laughing as soon as he opened the door.

  “Don’t say anything,” I said, chucking him the key. “And don’t forget to give Miss Fizzy her treats.”

  “Have a good trip!” Spud called as I walked back down the drive. “If the aeroplane’s engines fail, at least you can use that bow as a propeller.”

  We’d been in the car for about twenty minutes when my phone beeped. Carys had sent me a screenshot of my parents’ Instagram page. Dad had posted a photo of me and Mum in our matching outfits, with his head just poking into the shot.

  Carys had written: It’s a form of child abuse.

  I snorted.

  “What’s so funny?” Mum asked, twisting round.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Carys sent me a funny picture.”

  “You two are thick as thieves,” she said, checking her make-up in the passenger mirror. “You’re not planning any other major image transformations I should be aware of, are you?”

  I smiled at her in the mirror. “Nope.” It wasn’t technically a lie. Posting a video about them on YouTube wasn’t a “major image transformation”. I tapped my phone to check the views. It was almost up to twenty-five thousand. I put my phone down and watched
the traffic out of the window. Dad turned on the stereo and they both started singing along. It wasn’t until I took my lip balm out of my bag that I noticed my hands were shaking.

  Once we’d checked in our cases, we went to the airport coffee shop. I sat next to Mum as Dad went to get hot chocolates.

  “Everyone’s staring at us,” I said, fidgeting with my jumper. “It’s so embarrassing.”

  “What, sweetie?” Mum said, taking her phone out.

  I felt a sprinkle of nerves in my stomach as I watched her unlock it. “Everyone’s staring at us.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly!” She squashed up closer to me and took a picture while the people on the next table stared at us. “They’re just jealous of our bows,” she whispered. A few of the freckles on her nose had smudged but I didn’t say anything.

  People in the queue were staring at Dad’s giant hair bow.

  I glanced over to the bookshop opposite. “I’m going to look in there,” I said. Mum barely looked up. I pulled the bow out of my hair, and dumped it on the table.

  I wandered into the bookshop and picked up the first book that caught my eye. Ghost Lair. I was reading the blurb on the back when I heard it.

  “Eva? Eva Andersen? It is you, isn’t it? I recognize your picture!”

  I looked up to see a complete stranger gawping at me. It had happened before a few times, but not for ages, and never when I was on my own.

  “Hi,” I said, and nothing else. My brain always went blank in these situations.

  “I just saw the picture of you and Jen at the airport and I couldn’t believe it!” she said. “We’re on our way to Berlin, aren’t we!” A girl a couple of years younger than me stared out from just behind her.

  I stood there, silently blinking, unable to think what to say.

  “You’re off to your grandma’s!” she said. Her skin was shiny and she had rosy patches on her cheeks. She was maybe about forty. Or fifty. It was hard to tell. “I’ve been watching you since you were this high!” She put her hand out by her knee. “Your parents are hilarious! I love them! Where are they? Think they’d mind if I said hello?”