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Girl (In Real Life)

Page 21

by Tamsin Winter


  “Eva!” Carys’s mum said as she opened the door. “Oh, darling, it’s lovely to see you. But I’m not sure you should really be here, under the circumstances.” She grabbed Bernie’s collar just as he tried to launch himself at me. “We’re all so dreadfully sorry for what Carys did.”

  “It’s okay, Mum.” Carys was standing at the bottom of the stairs. I could see the tiniest trace of a smile. “We probably need to talk.”

  “Well, maybe just ten minutes then.” Her mum smiled and let me in.

  I followed Carys into a room I hadn’t been in before. It had loads of paintings on the wall. One was of a woman with long red hair, sailing down a river, her dress caught in the reeds. “You can sit down if you want,” Carys said. She sat on a sofa underneath the window and I hovered awkwardly next to her.

  “I tried calling you,” I said. “Loads of times.”

  “I’m not allowed my phone right now. My parents think I’m some kind of criminal mastermind.” She let out a laugh and I smiled.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “For everything. It’s all my fault!”

  The floorboards outside creaked and Bernie padded in. He sniffed at my shoes then plonked himself down on my feet. He was kind of squashing them, but I didn’t try to move.

  “What did the police say?” I asked.

  “Oh, you know,” Carys said. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say may be given in evidence.” She grinned. “I’m kidding! I did have to go to the police station. They told me not to do it again. And I can’t anyway, because Dad’s got my laptop.”

  “I’m really sorry. I had no idea my parents had called the police, I promise.”

  “I know,” she said. “The stuff I did at St Aug’s didn’t exactly help matters. Nor does the fact they think I intentionally made friends with you to target your parents. And they think I did it all by myself.”

  I looked down, wishing the carpet would swallow me up. “Is it true you’ve been excluded from Hope Park?”

  Carys shrugged. “They’re still deciding. I’m not sure I want to go back there now anyway.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said again, feeling like the biggest idiot for not having anything better to say. “Carys, I wanted to tell the truth. I really tried. I was just so shocked with the police and everything. And Mum was saying I could never have done anything so awful. I just couldn’t get any words to come out. I really wanted to tell my parents later, but you’d already said it was you and no one else so…” I couldn’t finish my sentence because tears started in my eyes. “I feel so bad.”

  “The last few days haven’t been that great for me either.” Carys studied my face for a minute. I hoped she could see how sorry I was. “Eva, the whole reason we did this was to show your parents how much you hate the channel. So, when we got caught, I figured you would tell them. But now everyone’s saying I was jealous of you, and that I wanted to ruin your life. When, actually, this whole time, I’ve been trying to help you get it back.”

  I swallowed. “I know. I’m so sorry all this has happened.” I watched Bernie’s fur moving up and down as he breathed. “You could still tell them it was all my idea.”

  Carys shook her head. “I can’t be the one to say that, Eva. Why would they believe me? If you really want your parents to stop the channel, this is your chance. But you have to tell the truth. Not me. I’ve admitted what I’ve done. And if you don’t say anything, that’s okay. But then, we kind of did all this for nothing. Look, my mum will probably come in here in a minute. You’d better…”

  “Yeah. I’d better go.” I prised my feet from underneath Bernie and just before I left, said, “How come you didn’t tell the police it was me as well? I mean, it was all my idea.”

  Carys shrugged. “You’re my friend.”

  And the words you’re my friend seemed to echo louder and louder in my head as I walked home.

  That night, I waited up until Mum and Dad had gone to bed. I didn’t need to set my alarm this time because I was too nervous to fall asleep. I thought about them hearing me, and coming downstairs to see what I was doing. But, even if they did, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Like ripping off a plaster. It would be done right then and there and I wouldn’t have to wait until the morning. Maybe seeing Carys had made me feel a little bit braver. Or maybe I’d realized I needed to be a better friend. To everyone.

  My hands weren’t shaking this time. After all the stuff I’d done – the deleting, the videos, the lying – now I was telling the truth, I didn’t actually feel that scared. I know Carys would never have told. Maybe we’d have even stayed friends. In secret, obviously – my parents would never have let me see her again. The trouble was, I’d spent too long clinging to the thought that if I never told anyone about my part in all this, then it wouldn’t matter. But actually, the opposite was true. Secrets matter the whole time. When they’re fizzing with excitement in your stomach. And when they sit on your heart like they’re crushing it. A secret always matters to someone. It’s always going to find a way to get out.

  The floorboards outside the office creaked. I held my breath as the door slowly opened and Miss Fizzy padded in. I sighed with relief. Maybe I was feeling a bit frightened actually. I turned on the camera and checked I was in the picture okay. I pressed record, and heard its familiar beep. No going back, I told myself. I took a deep breath and smiled.

  “Hi everyone. I’m Eva Andersen, although you probably already know that. What you don’t already know, is everything I’m about to tell you. And you also don’t know how sorry I am. I don’t know what you’ll think of me once you’ve heard what I have to say. But if I don’t tell you the truth about myself, what you think about me can’t exactly be right anyway. So here goes…”

  I said my name again and the date at the end of the recording. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to do that, but it made it seem more official-sounding. It wasn’t that easy to log on to the channel, as my parents had changed their password again. But I found the new one written on a sticky note in their filing cabinet. So they definitely had no idea the person who’d been logging in this whole time was me. My heart flinched when I thought about my parents watching my video when they woke up. About everyone at school watching it. I wondered if I’d get a criminal record for lying to Sergeant Edwards. Although, right then, that felt like the least of my problems.

  I clicked create and fiddled with the edge of the mouse mat as I waited for the video to upload, trying not to think about what might happen next. When millions of people would watch: NEW Eva Andersen’s Hacking Confession. I uploaded the thumbnail I’d made, set the video to public, then hovered the mouse over the save button. I listened to check my parents were still asleep. The house was completely silent. Apart from Miss Fizzy purring at my feet and my heart pounding against my ribcage. I clicked the mouse and watched the little dots go round in a circle as my video was published on All About Eva. I’d almost finished.

  I pulled Sergeant Edwards’s card down from the notice board and turned it over in my hands. Farmor used to say: jeg er trådt ind i spinaten. It means “I’ve made a mistake”. Well, literally it means “I stepped in the spinach”. I wondered what she’d say if she was here to find out what I’d done. I wondered if she’d understand. She’d probably be disappointed. But she’d still make me kartoffel soup and remind me that no matter what’s going on in the outside world, there’s another, more important world inside your heart. And that’s the world you need to protect. I always felt safe with Farmor. She always knew the right thing to do. I still wasn’t sure if this was right or not.

  I copied the link for my video and pasted it into an email. I typed in Sergeant Edwards’s email address and clicked send. I did the same with Carys’s email, Spud, Hallie, Gabi, Jenna. And Mum and Dad. I listened out for their phones to beep, but I couldn’t hear anything.

  As I got into bed, a cold feeling hit me, like when you walk along the seafront in winter. But as I lay and watched the views counter cr
eep up and up on my phone, I knew it was too late to take it back. Even if I wanted to.

  I don’t know what I was expecting to hear in the morning. A scream, maybe. But when I heard my bedroom door burst open, I felt scared. Mum stood in the doorway with tears rolling down her face. Dad was right behind her and ducked under the door frame to come in. My chest felt weird, like I was getting the hiccups.

  “Is it true?” Mum was wringing her hands on the belt of her dressing gown.

  “Well, Eva? Is this confession the truth?” Dad said, holding up his phone. “Jen thinks you might have done this out of some misplaced loyalty to Carys.”

  I took a deep breath and swallowed the boulder I could feel in my throat. “It’s true,” I said quietly. “Carys was the one protecting me. Hacking the channel was all my idea.”

  “But, Eva,” Mum said, leaning back against my bedroom wall. “Am I really that awful?”

  I’d never seen Mum look that bad, apart from when she had a migraine ages ago. It was the only time she didn’t want to do any filming. I thought about the avocado stuff at school. And the sanitary pad stuck to the Cool Wall. The humming in assembly. And the picture I’d drawn for Farmor on Instagram.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have told you straight away that it was me. But I had said I wanted you to stop filming me. I told you a million times I hated being on the channel. And you wouldn’t listen. You wouldn’t stop. I didn’t feel like I had any choice.”

  Mum walked over and sat on the bed. She had red marks around her eyes where she’d been rubbing them. Maybe she was getting another migraine. “Oh, Eva. I’m sorry,” she said, “that you felt this was the only thing you could do.”

  Dad rubbed his hands over his face. “We won’t recover from this. The papers have picked up the story already. Look, Family Vloggers’ Own Daughter Confesses to Hacking Channel.” He groaned. “My phone’s ringing again.”

  “Switch it off, Lars.” I’d literally never heard Mum say those words before. “Just switch it off. Mine too.” She took her phone out of her dressing-gown pocket and handed it to him. “I don’t want to speak to anyone today apart from our daughter.” She took my face in her hands. “I’m sorry it’s taken all this for us to listen to you, Eva. For me to see what it was like for you.”

  Dad sighed. “I don’t think you needed to take it quite this far.”

  “Dad, millions of people knew I started my period!” I shouted. “It had already gone too far by then. For me anyway. I couldn’t get you to understand any other way. I had to try to stop the channel myself.”

  “Well, you’ve certainly done that,” Dad said, swiping his phone. “Your confession video has already got half a million views.” He looked at Mum. “Should I take it down?”

  “Just leave it, Lars. It will look even worse if we take it down now.” Mum stroked the hair away from my eyes. “There’s no way we can carry on All About Eva now anyway. God knows what people must think of us.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t want people to hate you or anything. I didn’t think it would get this reaction. I just didn’t want people watching me the whole time. I wanted my life to be my own life. Not yours to share with everyone.”

  “We get it,” Mum said. “I just wish we got it a long time ago.”

  Dad rubbed the back of his head and sighed again. It was the first time I’d seen him lost for words. Even Danish ones.

  “I didn’t see it,” Mum said. “I’m sorry. I’m so used to sharing everything. Maybe I just didn’t want to see it.” She looked up at Dad. “We knew we’d have to end the channel one day, I suppose.”

  “Yep,” he said, and reached over to hold Mum’s hand. If they kissed on my bed I would literally die. “But not like this. I don’t know what we’re going to do, Jen. Our reputations are shredded. Our vlogging career is over.”

  “Will we have to move house?” I asked. Moving house didn’t sound too great, but at least maybe I could go to a different school and not have to face everyone.

  “I don’t know, Eva,” Dad said. “We’ll have to figure something out. Who knows? Maybe we’ll be invited on Strictly.”

  Mum laughed, but part of me wondered if she was seriously thinking about it.

  They got up off the bed and Dad said, “Okay, one day at a time. First, I’ll make pancakes.”

  “That sounds like a really good idea.” Mum smiled and reached over to squeeze his hand.

  “So…I’m not in trouble then?” I asked.

  “Oh, you’re in trouble,” Dad said, but he was smiling. “You’ve stepped on the spinach, all right! And you’re writing letters of apology to…let me see.” He counted on his fingers as he said, “Sergeant Edwards, Carys, Carys’s parents, Mr Andrews, Miss Wilson. I’ll let you know if I think of anyone else. And Jen and I will be coming up with a pretty brutal chores-and-homework schedule. But in the meantime, I’ll make some pancakes. And listen, Farmor would be really proud of you.”

  “For wrecking All About Eva?”

  “No,” Dad said, almost knocking his head on the door frame. “For owning up like that. Although come to think of it, she’s probably up there smiling about the channel being wrecked too. We can try to have…what was it you said in your vlog? Et normalt liv. For today anyway.”

  I smiled as they headed downstairs. I was pretty sure what he meant, but I checked on Google Translate just to be sure. Et normalt liv. A normal life.

  I swung my legs out of the covers, rubbed my eyes and looked at my phone. I had about twenty million notifications. I replied to Hallie’s: OMG EVA!!! with: I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth. Hope you can still hang out with me?

  She replied straight away: I might have to run it past the student council call me later x

  Then I tapped the ones from Spud.

  If you’re still alive, want to have a Star Wars marathon?

  Nerdophobia said you may as well be a full member now.

  Strong ju-jitsu skills btw

  I smiled and replied: yeah okay x

  Because weirdly, a night watching films with Spud sounded like the best normal life thing ever. My kind of normal life, anyway. Then, because I knew it would annoy him, I added:

  Is Star Wars the one with that hobbit thing?

  The air felt fresh as I jumped down from the stile at the bottom of Lavender Lane. The giant puddle that was there the last time I came this way had dried up. Although there was still a patch of sludgy mud in the middle. The fir trees framing the lane still looked the way they always did. But the cherry trees were covered in blossom; the petals scattered on the wind like confetti cannons. I pressed the doorbell, and heard Bernie charging towards the door. Sunlight glinted on the windows and Carys’s face peered through. I waved. And that expression that Farmor used to say came to mind about feeling like an egg yolk. I shouldn’t have felt contented. Not after everything that had happened. Everything that’d been written and posted about me in the past few weeks after my confession vlog. All the apologizing I’d had to do. I mean, that was embarrassing. But standing there on Carys’s doorstep feeling the last glow of April sunshine on my skin, I did kind of feel like an egg yolk. Like, the worst bit was over. And I was okay. I was putting things back together the way I wanted them to go. Trying to, anyway.

  “You ready?” Carys said as she opened the door.

  “Yep.” I smiled and patted Bernie’s head, minding out for the blobs of falling drool.

  “Come on.” Carys led me down the hallway, through the kitchen and up the back staircase.

  Her mum called, “Hi, Eva! Me and Carys’s dad will be there later, okay!”

  “Thanks, Mrs Belfield.”

  “Call me Caroline!” she said, like she always did.

  The back stairway was cold and narrow, and I held onto the bannister as we climbed. Carys turned around and put her finger on her lips.

  “You have to be really quiet.”

  I nodded. Carys smiled as we got to the top. It smelled kind of we
ird, like wet hay. She carefully undid the latch of a wooden door, opened it and pointed towards the top of a tiny room.

  “Up there,” she whispered. “Don’t get too close.”

  I crawled past her and crept in. Above my head was a tangle of twigs and straw. I carefully slid along the stone floor and stood on my tiptoes to peer inside. I had to slap my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming with excitement. Inside the nest were three baby barn owls. Their tiny heart-shaped faces peered back at me. The smallest one put its head on its side. They were covered in grey fluff, like they’d been dunked in cotton wool. Tucked in beside them, their mum watched me with black, beady eyes. My heart soared into the sky. It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. In real life.

  Later, on the way into town, Carys asked me, “You sure you want to do this? Give all of your stuff away?”

  “Too late to change my mind now,” I said. “Mum’s invited half the internet. Including the For-Evas. Or Ex-For-Evas as Dad’s calling them now.”

  Carys laughed and linked my arm. “What’s this place called again?”

  “The Crêpe Cabin,” I replied. “You may know it as the Creep Cabin.”

  “And how many people from school will be there?”

  “Hallie and Gabi. Jenna, Nadira, Rami. Maybe a few others.” I caught a piece of blossom as it fluttered towards me. “Miss Wilson said she would come. And Spud, obviously.”

  “And you’re selling all of your stuff?” Carys said. “Even the clothes?”

  “Not everything,” I said. “I’m keeping my fairy lights. And a giant llama cushion I found in one of the boxes. But we had all of this brand-new stuff. Most of it hasn’t been opened. And my parents didn’t even have to send it back. So, I figured, we could sell it and make some money, you know, for charity. Anyway, one of the pictures says, Eat glitter for breakfast and shine all day! I mean, it literally says to eat glitter. That is really bad advice.”

  “Eat glitter for breakfast and spend the day in A&E.” Carys laughed and took her invitation out of her bag. The gold swirls I’d designed caught the sunlight. “Brighter Future,” she said. “That’s the charity?”

 

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