by Geoff Rodkey
I got a sick feeling in my stomach, because I knew they were up to something evil.
I ran to the lounge (which is the only place you can use a phone during school hours) and logged on to ClickChat.
When I saw the fan page, I got even more sick to my stomach.
CLICKCHAT POSTS ON “FANS OF CLAUDIA TAPPER” WALL
ClaudiasBiggestFan This is a page dedicated to the greatest singer in the history of the universe. Post all your favorite videos of Claudia’s AMAZING singing here!
ILoveClaudia She is the best EVAH! This is my favorite!
ClaudiaSuperstar Whenever she sings I get tears in my eyes <3<3<3
CLAUDIA
In case you can’t tell from the screenshots, those were videos of A) a howling dog, B) a toddler throwing a temper tantrum, and C) a Mongolian throat singer (I don’t even know what “throat singing” is, but it is NOT good).
The rest of the comments on the page were so awful I couldn’t even look at them long enough to take screenshots.
Even though “Fans of Claudia Tapper” was all done with fake names, it was obvious who was behind it. Because Athena is the most sarcastic person on the planet. And since she became a Fembot, Meredith is, like, the second-most sarcastic person on the planet. The whole page was basically Sarcasm Central. With a side order of Vicious and Cruel.
It was the worst day ever. By lunchtime, my sick feeling had turned into stabbing pains. I called Mom from the school nurse’s office, and she didn’t even try to convince me to stay in school. She let me take a cab home, and she asked Ashley to come in early and bring me my favorite kind of soup.
That’s how bad it was. But don’t take my word for it:
SOPHIE
Honestly, that fan page was, like, the meanest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. It was even worse than some of the stuff on Violent Housewives.
PARVATI GUPTA, friend
The Fembots are just so vile. If karma exists, Athena and Meredith are going to come back to life as cockroaches.
Not even, like, normal cockroaches. Deformed ones. That all the other cockroaches will make fun of. And Clarissa and Ling will be, like, bacteria or something.
CARMEN GUTIERREZ, friend/political ally
It was just so wrong! Somebody had to do something to stop them. Cyberbullying is a VERY serious issue. Like, even before you mentioned it, I was thinking about bringing it up in SG.
CLAUDIA
“SG” is Student Government. I am sixth grade class president, and Carmen is not only my second-best Ed. Note: Tied with Parvati. So, best friend ranking is 1) Sophie 2) Carmen (tie) 2) Parvati (tie) friend but also my closest ally among the class representatives. And she decided—almost without my having to suggest it—that it was time for the SG to lobby Culvert Prep’s administration to outlaw cyberbullying.
Which was SO great of her. Carmen is awesome. Plus, she takes her class rep job VERY seriously.
And it was much better that she brought up the cyberbullying issue instead of me. Because pretty much the whole school was talking about “The Vest Song” and the Fembots’ stupid fan page. So if I’d brought it up, it’d look like I was trying to get them in trouble.
And I am not the kind of person who’d do that. I would NOT use my political power to go after my enemies, even if they deserve it.
Although I did help Carmen prepare thirty-two pages of research on cyberbullying that she presented at Wednesday’s SG meeting.
CARMEN
At first, Mr. McDonald [Editor’s note: Mr. McDonald is the SG’s faculty advisor.] seemed like he wasn’t really on board. He was all, “You know… if it’s not happening on school property… can we really legislate it?”
But then he saw that article you gave me about the high school that got sued in Arizona and had to pay some kid a million bucks.
And that pretty much scared him into changing his mind.
CLAUDIA
At Wednesday’s meeting, by a vote of 17 to 4, the Student Government officially passed a resolution proposing a policy of zero tolerance for cyberbullying.
“Zero tolerance” basically means that if you bully another student online, you’ll automatically get suspended from school, with no exceptions.
But for any Student Government resolution to become official policy, it has to get approved by the Vice Principal in charge of student discipline. And Mrs. Bevan was kind of lukewarm on it.
JOANNA BEVAN, Vice Principal, Culvert Prep Middle School
I completely agree that Culvert needed a policy to address cyberbullying. It’s the twenty-first century—this issue isn’t going away.
But I did have some reservations about zero tolerance. As an administrator, I’m always wary of “one size fits all” punishments.
CLAUDIA
Fortunately, when I showed Mrs. Bevan the story about the school in Arizona that got sued for a million dollars, she decided her reservations weren’t that big a deal. She announced the new zero tolerance policy in a school-wide email on Thursday.
The email went out at 4:17pm. By 8:36pm, the “Fans of Claudia Tapper” wall had permanently disappeared from ClickChat.
Coincidence?
I don’t think so.
So basically, Attila the Fembot got back in her time machine and quit ransacking my life. At least for the time being.
Which was good, because I needed to get back to focusing on The War. As vile as the Fembots were, they never would have created that stupid page if Reese and Xander hadn’t uploaded “The Vest Song” in the first place.
So Reese and Xander had to be dealt with.
By this point, Reese was doing his best to be nice to me. But it was too little, Ed. Note: WAAAAAAY too little too late.
REESE
I felt really bad about the whole “Vest Song” thing. And when I read that stuff Mrs. Bevan wrote in the email about how we should all have a code of conduct for how we act online, I decided to come up with a code of my own.
Not just online, though. For everything. I decided I was going to be a Person Who Chooses To Be Kind To Others At All Times, No Matter What.
And I really meant it! I wasn’t going to tease people, or say mean things, or do anything mean at all to anybody, ever.
ESPECIALLY Claudia.
I was going to be the nicest brother in history.
CLAUDIA
Too little. Too late.
CHAPTER 9
OPERATION STUPID HAIRCUT
CLAUDIA
After The ClickChat Atrocity, I decided to dedicate my life to making Reese and Xander suffer a public humiliation at least a hundred times worse than the one they’d put me through.
This turned out to be kind of hard.
For one thing, Operation Fishy Revenge had taught me my brother was very difficult to humiliate. Things that would make a normal human being so embarrassed that they’d consider moving to a whole other state—like, say, smelling like a dead fish for three days—didn’t really seem to faze him.
And Xander’s barely human, so I figured he’d be even harder to embarrass.
Not only that, but it had to be a stealth humiliation. I didn’t want Reese and Xander—ESPECIALLY Xander—to get any ideas about attacking me again. So whatever I did, I had to keep my fingerprints off it.
In the end, it took me a whole week to come up with a plan.
It would have taken even longer if Rodrigo Barrando hadn’t gotten a Mohawk.
REESE
Rodrigo Barrando is the world’s awesomest soccer player. Seriously. He’s a beast. If you don’t believe me, search “Rodrigo Barrando best goals” on YouTube. That one against Liverpool in the Champions League last year was NUTS.
He also has awesome hair.
CLAUDIA
I will admit that Barrando used to have pretty great hair. He was actually cute until he went and got that Mohawk, which was a seriously bad idea, because his head is totally the wrong shape for it.
I mean, nobody looks good in a Mohawk. B
ut Barrando REALLY doesn’t look good in one.
REESE
I thought it looked beast! He did it for, like, charity or something.
Claudia came in when I was watching him get interviewed on The Header, and she was all, “Ohmygosh, he looks like a COMPLETE PSYCHOPATH.”
And I was all, “He looks AWESOME!”
CLAUDIA
That’s what got me thinking that if I could convince Reese and Xander to get Mohawks, they’d show up at school thinking they looked awesome, and everyone would laugh at them.
And then they’d realize they looked ridiculous. But it’d be too late, because there’s nothing you can do to get rid of a Mohawk except to shave your head, which would look EVEN MORE ridiculous.
So they’d be stuck looking like idiots for WEEKS.
It was genius.
All I had to do was figure out how to trick them into getting Mohawks.
REESE
I remember at breakfast one morning, Claudia was like, “You should get a Mohawk.”
That seemed kind of random.
CLAUDIA
I knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. I was just testing the waters. And Reese’s answer was actually very helpful. He snorted and went, “Yeah—like Mom would ever let me.”
Which made me realize the real challenge wasn’t going to be convincing Reese to get a Mohawk—it was getting the idea past my mom. Not to mention Xander’s parents, who I figured weren’t going to be too psyched about it, either.
So I needed to create a situation where they’d get Mohawks without asking their parents first.
And I didn’t know how things worked over at the Billingtons’, but in our apartment, haircut appointments are Ashley’s job. Ed. Note: along with groceries/dentist/soccer ball replacement (Reese)/etc.
ASHLEY O’ROURKE, after school sitter
All I can say is, under normal circumstances, there is no way I would ever let your brother get a Mohawk without checking with your mom first. Like, NO WAY.
CLAUDIA
This was why I had to create some kind of Mohawk crisis situation.
Not to be mean, but Ashley isn’t good in a crisis. I know this from experience. First, she panics. Then she looks around for somebody to tell her what to do.
And she’s willing to take orders from a twelve-year-old if it means she doesn’t have to make a decision by herself. So in the right crisis, I was pretty sure I could get her to approve the Mohawk.
But creating a situation in which your brother ABSOLUTELY HAS TO GET A MOHAWK IN THE NEXT HALF HOUR, so there’s no time for Ashley to get in touch with Mom to sign off on it, is not easy.
It’s not like you can get good ideas for this kind of thing online. If you google “Mohawk crisis situation,” there’s just not a lot out there except for some actual crisis involving the real Mohawk tribe, which is totally unhelpful when all you want is a bad haircut.
So it took me a while to come up with the Barrando Charity Video idea.
Once I did, though, creating the fake email account was easy.
FAKE EMAIL (sent to Reese Tapper and Xander Billington)
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
BCC: [email protected], [email protected]
Date: 10/08/14 3:02:04 PM EDT
Subject: SPECIAL OFFER FOR NYC FANS OF BARRANDO!! HURRY!!
Ola! New York City Fans of Barrando!
We have for you a special offer ONLY FOR YOU!
As you know, Rodrigo is in your city TODAY ONLY OCTOBER 8TH filming his special charity video to help the children with special diseases!
Any Barrando fan 12 years old or smaller WITH A MOHAWK HAIRCUT JUST LIKE BARRANDO can show up to the special video shoot IN THE CENTRAL PARK “SHEEP MEADOW” AT 4:45 PM TODAY and be a star in the video with Barrando himself!
If you do not have MOHAWK HAIRCUT, we are sorry but you CAN NOT BE IN THE VIDEO OR MEET BARRANDO.
You must have MOHAWK HAIRCUT to participate and meet your idol!
See you TODAY OCTOBER 8TH AT 4:45 PM in the Sheep Meadow with your Mohawk!
Arriba!
Hector Dominguez
El Presidente, Barrando Fan Club
New York City Chapter
CLAUDIA
I thought I did a pretty good job with the fake email considering that I don’t know any Spanish. In fact, I was so proud of it that I showed it to Sophie and Carmen.
They actually got a little offended.
CARMEN GUTIERREZ
I just think it’s kind of uncool to make fun of non-native English speakers. Recent immigrants face a LOT of challenges that, tbh, I think you might be a little blind to as a member of the dominant culture.
CLAUDIA
I know. And I’m totally sensitive to that! I swear I wasn’t trying to make fun of non-native English speakers. I was just imitating one to fool Reese and Xander.
SOPHIE KOH
I dunno. That’s kind of a gray area.
CLAUDIA
But I can’t explain the Mohawk situation without the email. How about I include it, but also put in an apology to anyone who might get offended?
CARMEN
Good idea.
SOPHIE
Yeah. That’s smart.
CLAUDIA
For the record, I would like to officially apologize to anyone who might have thought my email was offensive and/or not cool.
I would also like to point out that I only sent it to Reese and Xander. Who are idiots. And can barely read anyway.
The timing of the email was critical, because I had to send it when A) Reese and Xander would be checking their email and B) there would be JUST ENOUGH time for them both to get Mohawks and make it to the spot where the video was supposedly shooting, but C) NOT enough time for Ashley to get in touch with my mom.
So I waited until the next Wednesday afternoon, when Reese and Xander didn’t have soccer and my mom was on a plane to California, so she couldn’t get text messages.
I had Student Government after school that day, but right before it started, I sent the email. Then I waited five minutes, excused myself from the meeting, and called Reese.
REESE
I was on the bus with Ashley when Claudia called me. She was all, “Did you hear about this Barrando video thing? EVERYBODY’S talking about it.”
And I was all, “Huh?”
And she was like, “Check your email! Hurry!” Then she hung up.
I thought that was kind of weird. But I checked my email, and I found this thing from, like, the “Barrando Fan Club”—which I didn’t even remember signing up for—but it was like, “Get a Mohawk and come to Central Park and you’ll meet Barrando!”
And I basically went nuts and started begging Ashley to take me to the haircut place over on Columbus.
ASHLEY O’ROURKE (texts to Mom)
Hi! Just lft msg fr u—plz call ASAP
Hi! Need 2 ask u ? re Reese—plz call!
ok u r not pickng up but I need 2 no
ASAP if ok for R 2 get Mohok haircut
can u call plz its kind of emergency
hard 2 expln in txt
CLAUDIA
I figured Ashley might need a little push, so I waited a few more minutes, then stepped out of Student Government again (when Mr. McDonald asked why I kept leaving, I told him I was having lady problems, which always freaks out male teachers and gets them to stop asking questions) and called Ashley.
ASHLEY
So, Reese had gotten this weird email about some soccer player who was going to make him a movie star if he got a Mohawk in, like, ten minutes.
I couldn’t get your mom on the phone to approve it, and your brother was, like, totally freaking out. And then you called me, and you were like, “Hey, Ash, I just wanted to say I heard about this Mohawk thing from the kids at school, and I think Reese should totally go for it, because YOLO! And also if he misses out he’ll totally regret it for the rest of his life, and—”
>
Wait. Why are you asking me about this?
CLAUDIA
No reason.
ASHLEY
I thought this interview was just about the big fight between you and—OHMYGOSH! CLAUDE! Was the Mohawk thing part of it?! Like, did YOU send that email?
CLAUDIA
Umm… maybe.
ASHLEY
CLAUDE!!! How could you DO that??? You got me in serious trouble!
CLAUDIA
Sorry, Ash!
[Editor’s note: Oops! I totally forgot that until now, nobody knew I was behind the Mohawk email.]
ASHLEY
That was seriously not cool, Claude. Like, your mom was RIPPED when she called me that night.