by Rae Earl
“So what are you going to tell them? What can YOU do?”
Okay. He IS sounding harsh now. And Captain Sexist of HMS Patronizing.
When I answer him, I sound a bit sharp. “I’m starting a funny advice vlog. On how to deal with life and idiots and families and trolls.”
Granddad stares at me. “You do know trolls aren’t real, don’t you, Millie? I mean, I know we told you that they lived under bridges and frightened the Three Billy Goats Gruff, but they—”
I do lose my patience slightly here. “Granddad. A troll is someone who keeps hassling you on social media and the Internet.” I try to make it simple. Lauren nods behind me.
“Well, just tell them to stop it,” Granddad says.
I’m trying to be patient. I REALLY am. “It doesn’t work like that. You can tell them to stop it, but they just carry on.”
Granddad’s face reddens and his fists clench. He shouts, “Tell a teacher then! Or me! I could sort them out for you, love.”
This melts me a bit, but I don’t know where to start.
“The thing is, you don’t always know who they are, Granddad.” I’m thinking of Mr. Style Shame. “Or you can’t prove that they’re really being horrible.” Now I’m thinking of Erin Breeler.
Granddad studies me. “Millie. I don’t know if I want you being in that world much.”
“That world? It is the world!” I yell.
“Well, young ladies have to look after themselves.”
Granddad has a thing about young ladies having to be careful. It makes me cross.
“So do young gentlemen,” I snap. “Please, can I use this shed?”
“You can use it, Millie. Because you’re not a daft girl. Your dad’s crackers gene missed you. But … just be careful. Look after yourself, then look after everyone else.”
Granddad always says this to me. It seems a bit selfish to me, but he is selfish. He had all his laundry done and dinner made for him for thirty-five years. He doesn’t really understand thinking about others.
But he’s helping me, so I just give him a hug and say, “Thank you.”
Granddad nods. As he leaves the shed, he says, “By the way, I’ll sort the tumble dryer before the whole place goes up.”
Granddad is like me. He likes me. He gets me. I love him.
I call Lauren in. “Granddad says we can use his shed for the vlog!”
Lauren says, “You sure, Mills? It’s not very glam.”
I explain that we don’t have an alternative and that we are NOT allowed to touch the bird calendar.
Lauren is disgusted. “We can’t do a serious vlog with a bird in the background.”
I can see her point. “Let’s change it to a different month,” I suggest. “Perhaps there will be a better bird.”
Lauren flips through the common sandpiper, the curlew, and the whimbrel before she asks me whether the Temminck’s tragopan looks “a bit sexy with its incredible Olympic cyclist legs.”
I give her a bit of a look. “It’s a bird!” My best friend’s gone off the planet. I need to get her back. “Leave it on the bar-tailed godwit,” I tell her. “Let’s get started. Granddad’s not going to let us stay in here forever.”
Lauren pulls her superserious face. There’s a long pause before she murmurs, “You know … well … I honestly think you should do it on your own.”
“What?!” The whole point was that this is something good that Lauren and I can do TOGETHER.
“Mills, all I’ll end up doing is repeating what you say AND interrupting you! I will sound STUPID. I didn’t even want to do it that much at your mum’s. Seriously. I thought I would want to, but I don’t.”
“Lauren, I’m gutted. Please do it with me!” I’m begging a bit now, but I don’t care. “You’re funny, and people love you. You don’t even have to try! And you look amazing!”
Lauren’s eyes are on the floor.
“No. You do it on your own, but I want to direct, do your makeup, dress the set, and perhaps be off-camera.”
And then Lauren admits the real reason why she doesn’t want to be on-screen. “I just hate how I look even WITH the contouring. I looked like such a spoon on Mr. Style Shame. I hate my legs. And when I speak on camera, I get twenty-five chins!”
This makes me really angry. “Everyone has twenty-five chins, Lauren! If you didn’t have all those, your neck would split and your head would fall off.”
Perhaps we should vlog about that—people who don’t want to be on film because they hate the way they look, even when they are totally wrong about it.
“I don’t want to talk about it, Mills,” Lauren snaps.
I get it.
“Have you been trolled? Lauren! Don’t let them get to you! Turn them off!”
This is great advice, but I don’t know if I would follow it.
Lauren gets angry. “Millie, I don’t want to talk about it, but I can help with the other things. If I’m going to direct and dress the set, then I’m going to tell you what I really think: Before you do your first vlog, you could do with some expert advice so it looks good. I don’t mean YOU looking good—I mean IT looking good. We are in a shed. We need all the help we can get. Who do we know that does great videos or stuff online?”
“Erin Breeler and loads of famous people who won’t help us.” Yes. I’m getting breathless again now. This was exciting. Now it’s going bad very quickly.
“We do know someone who can help,” Lauren says sort of sheepishly. “Bradley Sanderson.”
“Bradley Sanderson? The king of lifts and escalators?! But we’re not going to be vlogging about machines.”
“It doesn’t matter what he vlogs about, Millie. The point is that he does it really well. He gets loads of views! You should ask him about it at school tomorrow. And keep out of Erin’s way.”
Erin. She’d make my advice vlog into something about birdwatching and wading birds in an instant. I can’t imagine her EVER posting anything filmed in a potting shed. Lauren is totally right. I need James Bond’s geek genius, the one who sorts out his gadgets. I need Bradley Sanderson to be my secret weapon.
#GeekHelp
Finding Bradley Sanderson is not as simple as I thought. I try on Thursday at lunchtime. We’re not supposed to use our phones during school hours, so I suspect he’s hiding in the shadows somewhere. It can’t be easy to have a hugely successful but absolutely terminally dorky vlog. Your friends must be mainly online, not offline.
I try the library, the computer lab, the empty ninth-grade classrooms, and just about every corner that exists in the school. Eventually, I lift up a massive, furry parka in the lost and found closet. Bradley is hidden underneath. With just the light of his phone in his eyes, he looks really spooky. He has thick-rimmed, geek-chic glasses and a floppy fringe. His hair is like a blind he can pull across his face.
“What do you want?” Bradley peers up at me.
“Hello, Bradley. I’m Millie Porter from seventh grade. I was wondering if you could help me with my vlog?” I’m feeling a bit nervous about talking to him.
“Ah! A damsel in distress. ‘Help me, Obi-Wan!’ she says. ‘You’re my only hope.’ I don’t think we’ve met before, but now, because it’s about vlogging, you want my help!”
I think Bradley is being a bit snarky. Maybe I’m not the first person to try to make friends with him for social-media advice. I’m clearly out of my depth, but I want to learn. So I carry on.
“Well, you’re a bit like a famous bat—we all know about you, but no one sees you in daylight. You have loads of subscribers, Bradley. Please, will you let me know your secret?”
This seems to soften Bradley a bit. “What’s your vlog about?”
I sit beside him underneath a blazer. It feels weird but right at the same time. I try to explain. “Well, I want to make a vlog that will help people. People who don’t always fit in at school or are finding it hard at home or who are being trolled. But it’s not going to be all Captain Dullard advice. It will be silly
, too!”
Bradley glances down at his phone. I get the sense that this might not be the greatest idea for a vlog he’s ever heard. “Vlogs are easy. Do it in landscape on your phone. Download an app. The app talks to your laptop. Upload and edit.”
Bradley clearly thinks I am very stupid indeed. Talk about mansplaining.
“I know all that. I mean, how do you get people really interested? How do you get people to subscribe? What’s the right way to talk to your subscribers?”
Bradley looks up again and smiles. “Millie, I’m happy to give you advice. But it isn’t as simple as having the right hashtags or uploading stuff regularly.”
“But, Bradley, I really, really need some help! I’ve never done this before. All I’ve got is my granddad’s shed and a best friend who’s great at contouring! And a cat!”
I’m feeling pretty desperate, and it’s starting to get rather hot under this blazer. “Look, I’m not being funny, but can we come out from under these blazers, and I’ll—”
Suddenly, the coats lift up and I see something that takes every single bit of oxygen away from my body, even though that isn’t actually possible or I would die.
It’s Danny Trudeau. Looking at us.
I lose control of some of my atoms and my brain blurts out the first thing it can think of. “We are not kissing!” I bark, pointing at Bradley.
Bradley agrees so quickly that it’s almost a bit rude. “No. We are NOT.”
“Hello, Millie! And don’t worry, it’s none of my business.” Danny beams. His smile is like the northern lights. Probably. It’s certainly like a really beautiful screen saver featuring the sky at night with all the stars. “It’s just—that’s my blazer.” He gestures to the coat I’ve currently got draped over my sweating forehead.
As I try to untangle myself, going EVEN redder in the process, I manage to blurt out some words: “We’re just talking about vlogging!”
Danny leans on the wall and winks. “Of course you were. Sorry to disturb you!”
I don’t want him to go, so I keep talking. “Yeah, so I’m thinking of doing an advice vlog. Sort of following on from the other stuff I’ve done with the bike, the panda, and Dave.”
This sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud.
“Who’s Dave?” asks Bradley.
Danny purses his lips together. “Yeah … That sounds…” When he thinks, he gets a crease in his forehead. “Yeah!” Suddenly, he brightens. “I know! You could call it something short and quick and memorable, like … HASHTAG Help!”
I leap up. “Hashtag Help! Danny, that’s actually fantastic. Thank you!”
“It was your idea,” Danny says. “I was just your muse.”
I have no idea what Danny means, so I just say, “Yes!”
“Anyway!” Danny exclaims. “I’ve got to go. Enjoy your brainstorm.” Then he drifts off like he’s being carried by wings. And not the wings of a wading bird—the wings of a mighty, hot eagle.
When I regain a sort of sensible consciousness, Bradley is giving me a funny look. It’s almost like he feels sorry for me. “Now THAT conversation, Millie Porter from seventh grade, would have made a great vlog!”
I regain some dignity. A bit.
“I was just slightly shocked at … that, but I need your help. I don’t want to beg. I’ve got a name for it now at least! Will you please help me do something actually, possibly useful?”
Bradley sighs. “Come to the shopping center on Saturday. They’ve had Schindler MRL traction scenic elevators installed. Believe me, they are world class. I’ve had requests to film them.”
“You’ve had people asking to see them?!” I find this very surprising.
“Yes, Millie. My vlog has global reach. Meet me there on Saturday at two o’clock. I’ll try to help you a bit.”
“It’s a date!” I quickly correct myself. “Well, it’s not a date, but you know what I mean. It’s a date.”
“Don’t worry, Millie. I’ve got a girlfriend. She likes lifts, too. This isn’t a date.”
“I never knew you had a girlfriend! What grade is she in?” This is turning into a day of quite enormous surprises.
Bradley puffs up his chest and says in a rather cocky way, “She lives in the States. She’s mainly into moving sidewalks and scenic escalators. That’s how we met—online. I want to fly over to see her next year, but my mum doesn’t really get it.”
“They never get it. My mum is lovely, but she’d freak out if she knew I was thinking about vlogging.”
Bradley raises one eyebrow. “She’ll find out, Millie. They always do. If you have any success, she’ll find out. See you Saturday. Got to go. Double math classes. Some relief from the hell that is this place.” Bradley disappears, sort of clinging to the wall in a way that makes him invisible to other people.
Really, I should get to class. Really, I should tell Mum what I’m doing. Really, I should do a lot of things, but I’m too busy thinking about the fact that Danny saw me when I was pretending to be a pile of coats.
I am turning into a boy-crazy idiot. I need to stop. I hate it when girls go like that—dumping their friends for men and being ridiculous. And, besides, we all know what’s going to happen to Danny Trudeau.
#Predictable
“He is totally going to end up going out with Erin Breeler.”
During the Thursday afternoon torture that is Shakespeare, Lauren manages to say what the whole of our year is thinking. And it’s a real tragedy.
“I know,” I whisper. “I spoke to him at lunch and thought exactly the same thing. He even SMELLS good, like a really expensive oil diffuser.”
Lauren giggles. “Expensive oil diffuser?! Like Gary has in his car? Christmas spruce and gingerbread? But how have you been close enough to him to smell him?”
How to explain this one? “I was under the coats with Bradley Sanderson, and he disturbed us.”
Lauren looks like she has developed Seriously Miffed Disease and hisses, “I think your next vlog should be about when you don’t tell your best friend about the biggest things that are happening in your life right now.”
I have to spend the next five minutes reassuring Lauren that we were just having an undercover vlogging master class, which was her idea in the first place. When I finally convince her that she’ll be the first to know WHENEVER I kiss someone, she shouts, “Now TELL ME what you found out about Danny!”
The class goes quiet. Erin Breeler and Miranda turn around and stare at us. Once we’ve been told to calm down by Mrs. Foss and are safely holding our copies of Romeo and Juliet in front of our faces, I have to admit that I don’t know a lot more than she does. But I do tell her that he had the idea for #Help.
Lauren grunts. “There’s a photo of him on Instagram. Well, of his back. Have you seen it?”
We hide my phone in my pencil case and find the photo. It’s on Leanne Pilton’s Instagram, which is mainly full of her dog. She managed to basically pat the back of the lovely Canadian. He looks Big Ben–tall and has a fantastic bum even in regulation school trousers.
“Should we be looking at a photo of a bum?” I ask Lauren. “I feel a bit wrong and sweaty. As feminists, we go after boys who do that to girls.”
We stop looking. It’s hard, but as Mum says, principles are often hard to carry, but that doesn’t mean you should drop them. I keep the image in the guilty bit of my mind, though.
I know Lauren is still thinking about it, too. She starts off discussing the latest Mr. Style Shame post, but midway through talking about what everyone is now calling “the Pug Print Disaster,” she changes the subject.
“You should share that you’ve spoken to Danny and that you like him, Millie. You’re basically being a journalist by doing that. It’s the breaking news everyone wants to know. OR you could just comment on Leanne’s photo and say something like, ‘Canada’s a great place and full of quite excellent people’ and then just add loads of winky faces and hearts. We’ll know what you mean!”
The tr
uth is, I do like him—even more so after the coat incident. It’s not just his looks—it’s his whole vibe. And why shouldn’t I tell people I met him and he was nice?! I’m going to do JUST as Lauren says. That’s what a strong woman does. I can’t worry about what other people think ALL the time. I can’t worry about what Erin might do or even if Danny might see it. That’s sensible. I am sensible. IT IS SENSIBLE TO LIKE CANADA and share that fact. I have decided.
#TwoFaced
When I check my phone between classes, I find that the High Commission of Canada in the United Kingdom and someone called Annabelle D’Sa have favorited my comment. I suppose it doesn’t really matter that actually the entire country of Canada thinks I love it.
Lauren agrees. “They are probably nice people, too. Their flag has a leaf on it that looks really approachable and friendly.”
How can a leaf look friendly?
Lauren googles it. “Look at it! It’s sort of jumping in the air and saying, ‘Come in … to my hot tree!’”
“You’re off your tree, Lauren—that’s the basic problem.”
We collapse into giggles.
“Seriously, though, Mills, we mustn’t get distracted from the vlog. Let’s see how things are going with the Dave one. Maybe someone’s got an idea for Hashtag Help.” Lauren flicks the phone out from her pocket.
The numbers haven’t changed from last time. Not one more like. Not one more view.
I’m a bit gutted by this. However much #Help means to us, it’s probably not going to be a success. How do people even become popular?! How do you win against all the celebrities, people jumping into frozen swimming pools, and experiments involving sticky goo and massive water balloons?! Or the Erin Breelers of this world?
Lauren sees that I’m down. “You know what you’ve got to do: When you see Bradley Sanderson on Saturday, you HAVE to get him to tell you how he gets so many hits for his stuff about boring stairs. Then we can start vlogging properly.”
I will, but after today, I’m not sure he’s going to tell me that much. I think he’s probably just being kind. He’s only really interested in his own thing, though. Between you and me, I admire him.