The Disconnect

by Keren David

  It’s so weird to hear her voice crackling out of a phone. We always message. We never even FaceTime. We’re both self‑conscious about our voices.

  “Well, I’m round at Shaquilla’s—”

  “What?” I interrupt Natalie. “How come she didn’t ask me?”

  “We just did last period together and she mentioned it,” Natalie says. “Don’t think she’s got your number, babe.”

  Maybe not, I think, but you have.

  “Anyway, all sorts of stuff is going down,” Natalie continues. “And we have no idea about any of it.”

  I know Natalie’s a bit of a drama queen. But still …

  “After two days?” I say.

  And she’s off. How this one is fancying that one and that one is angry with this one, and Nancy’s set up a group for her party, and Shaquilla’s in it but Sophie isn’t, and what about us?

  “We won’t be invited to anything for six weeks,” I say, and my heart sinks a bit.

  “I know, babe,” Natalie says. “Anyway, get yourself down here. You’re missing out.”

  But I say no. It’s a bit late to go all the way to Shaquilla’s now – she lives down near the Arsenal stadium. And I need to finish the peppers for Avi.

  Avi and Mum met five years ago. They’re perfect for each other. They have so much in common. They both love to cook and sing. They love walking in the countryside, going to see movies and reading the Guardian. Mum had been internet dating a bit before they met, but without any success. “Who wants to meet a single mum in her forties?” Mum would ask. Then she went to dinner at a friend’s house, met Avi, and they talked and talked and talked. He was a single parent, so they had that in common.

  Mum said it was an instant connection, but I think it was something that started because they had a lot to talk about, and then bit by bit they found out all the other things they shared. They’re both very honest. They both believe in sticking up for people who haven’t had great chances in life. They’re passionate about education – Mum’s at her Japanese evening class right now, and Avi’s learning to code. They both have friends from all over. And luckily Rosa and I love Avi too.

  Anyway, a year after Mum and Avi met, he moved in, and a year after that they opened Basabousa.

  He’s so different from my dad. Avi’s bald, with a handlebar moustache. He’s short and solid, and he doesn’t talk much because English is his fifth language. He’s practical. He makes things. And this cafe means the world to him because he’s made every bit of it, from painting the walls a shade of Mediterranean turquoise, to creating a menu made up mostly of the foods he ate when he was growing up – Yemeni, Moroccan, Egyptian and Israeli flavours. “This place, it is me,” Avi always says. “It is my family. It is my past, our present, our future.”

  I liked Avi as soon as Mum introduced us. I’d never say this to anyone, but sometimes I wish he was my real dad. And now he’s looking at me, his head on one side, his eyes all twinkly.

  “Go and meet your friends,” Avi says. “It’s OK. I can manage. We’re not exactly rushed off our feet in here.”

  “No, I don’t want to.” I’m not sure I can explain it, but I have a go. “They’ll just be talking about stuff on their phones. And I want to see what happens without a phone. I want to see what life’s like without one.”

  Avi shrugs. “Whatever you want, princess.”

  “And I’ve got a postcard to write for Rosa,” I tell him. “I got stamps on the way home from school.”

  I pull the postcard out. It was kind of difficult to find one, because Finsbury Park isn’t exactly a part of London that tourists visit – it’s all people and shops and traffic, and even the park’s a bit scruffy. Maybe I’ll go into central London at the weekend to buy more. This postcard was tucked into a corner of our local newsagent’s, left over from the last royal wedding. There’s a smudge on the prince’s nose. Never mind. Rosa knows what he looks like.

  I finish the peppers and Avi pours hot water over fresh mint in a tall glass. I take the drink and my postcard to the window table. I chew my pen a bit and then I write:

  Dear Rosa,

  It feels so weird actually writing to you, with a pen, and knowing you won’t get this for ages. Like I’ve time‑travelled to the past. I wish you were here, you and Zack, in Basabousa, drinking mint tea (not great for Zack, I know, but one day!).

  We could think up a way to get more customers, because it’s so sad that Mum and Avi work so hard and no one comes. The food is so good.

  I’ve hardly started, but I’ve run out of space. So I squeeze Love you lots, Esther xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx PS Love to Dad into the last corner.

  Next time I’ll make my writing a lot smaller.

  8

  Support group

  The week really drags, but at last it’s Friday and here we are at Basabousa. There are ten of us crowded round a table – the Disconnect support group. I think we must make up about a quarter of the kids who are still taking part in The Disconnect, because there are a lot fewer than at the start. All week, people have been going to Miss Chen’s office to get their phones back.

  The latest one was Marcus O’Malley. He ran round the playground yesterday, followed by a cheering crowd, holding his iPhone in his hand like it was the Olympic flame. Loads of people were taking pictures and – according to Shaquilla and Sophie – posting them on Instagram.

  In fact, according to Sophie I was in one of those pictures, and it wasn’t very flattering. “I’ll tell you who wrote the nasty comments about you, if you want,” Sophie said at school earlier.

  I felt sick and somehow ashamed that I couldn’t see for myself. Why, I don’t know.

  “I think they’re taking a liberty,” Sophie added. “They know they’re going behind your back.”

  “You could look yourself later,” Shaquilla said. “If you won’t look at my phone, you can use your mum’s laptop.”

  “But she can’t comment, so what’s the point?” Natalie said. “You speak up for her. You’re meant to be her friend.”

  “I really don’t care,” I told them, and tried to look completely unbothered. “When you come off social media, you realise how stupid it is.”

  “Yes, I agree,” Natalie said. But I could see Shaquilla and Sophie weren’t so sure. I wish they’d ditched their phones too. Now it’s like we’re speaking different languages.

  Anyway, never mind them. Here we are – the support group – drinking Mum’s homemade pink lemonade and eating Basabousa cake. It’s Avi’s Yemenite grandmother’s recipe. The cake is soaked in syrup and flavoured with orange blossom water and is just delicious. Everyone in the support group thinks so too, judging by the speed with which it’s wolfed down. So Avi brings out a plate of ka’ak cookies stuffed with dates and then disappears into the kitchen.

  “Wow,” River says, brushing away the crumbs. “This is great, Esther.”

  “Thanks,” I say.

  I’m about to suggest that if everyone likes the food they should tell their families to come here, but River thumps on the table and says, “OK! Shut up! How’s it going?”

  A babble of noise. Everyone’s complaining.

  “OK, how about this?” River asks. “Is anyone actually enjoying not having a phone?”

  Silence. And then a girl speaks up. Her voice is so soft that we have to lean towards her to hear.

  “I didn’t have a smart phone to start with. I don’t like them. So I had to persuade Dame Irene to let me be part of The Disconnect. I mean, I wasn’t really disconnecting from anything.”

  “Is that even fair?” Natalie blurts out, but everyone shushes her.

  “I had a smart phone until last year, but I didn’t like it,” the girl says. “I found it really stressful. I was always worrying about saying the right thing and being in the right groups.”

  I know this girl, just a bit. She’s in my Geography class. She was in my English class last year. But I can’t remember her name. I don’t know anything about her.

>   “And then,” the girl continues, “my friends started being mean to me. I don’t know why. They’d talk about parties and things but never tell me the details. And then afterwards they’d put the pictures on the group chat and act all surprised if I asked them why I wasn’t included. I mean, I began to feel a bit paranoid. I was checking my phone the whole time.”

  Maura. That’s her name. Maura.

  “And then the nasty comments started,” Maura goes on. “I’d post a picture and they’d just …” She looks down at her hands. “Well, I don’t want to go over the whole thing again. Put it this way, I got rid of my phone. It gave them power over me, and I took that power back.”

  “And did they stop?” I ask.

  “How would she know?” Natalie snaps.

  Maura shrugs. “True, I don’t know. I’m not on social media. I don’t do any of that. I keep offline. It’s quieter. I found it hard at first, but now … I don’t know … I can focus better. Everything doesn’t have to be instant.”

  “But have you actually got any friends?” Natalie asks. I think she realises as soon as she’s said it that she’s been way too blunt, because she’s looking at her nail varnish and not making eye contact with Maura. Meanwhile, Maura blushes and blinks her eyes a bit.

  “Natalie doesn’t mean it like that,” I say. “She means, isn’t it hard to keep up with people’s plans and stuff?”

  Maura shakes her head. “To be honest, I don’t have many friends. My friends are outside school – my cousins, my neighbours. I do feel left out. And sometimes it feels like people are talking about me behind my back, and that just makes me want to disappear altogether.”

  Maura’s totally crying now. The girl next to her puts her arm round Maura.

  “I’m so sorry,” the girl says. “I had no idea.”

  “None of us did,” I say. “This is horrible, Maura. But now we can all be your friends. After all, we’re all in the same position.”

  Maura manages a small wobbly smile and says, “I was so excited when The Disconnect was announced. I thought, this could really change things.”

  “It could,” the girl next to her says. Hannah, she’s called. I remember she had a really cool Instagram account featuring her cute pug.

  “And you know, it’s not all bad,” Maura says. “I read more. I cook. I did a course over the summer in bicycle maintenance, which was kind of cool …”

  It all sounds a bit lame, but everyone’s nodding like Maura’s a guru who’s leading us to a different, cleaner, slower sort of life.

  “And my grades have gone up massively,” Maura adds.

  9

  Identity theft

  River talks next. He’s got a whole speech prepared.

  He quotes statistics. He talks about mental health. Lack of focus. Poor social skills.

  River tells us all about how social media companies misuse our data. How we’re just pawns in the hands of people making money out of us. How identity thieves can use our information to steal from us.

  “You know those stupid quizzes?” River says. “Which Harry Potter character are you? Well, they just use all that to find out more about you. And those things like your film‑star name, your porn‑star name, the name of your first pet plus your grandmother’s surname? They are designed to find out your passwords. We’re all just mugs. We’re handing ourselves over to the enemy.”

  River is very passionate, but he does go on a bit. In the end, a murmur of conversation starts buzzing in the background and River’s speech stumbles to a halt.

  Natalie’s been whispering into Tommy Olivero’s ear for at least five minutes. “Well, that was all fascinating,” Natalie says, “but I’ve got to go. Thanks for the cake and lemonade, Esther.”

  She sounds a bit snarky. Was it babyish, serving lemonade? Should I have had the group round to the flat for crisps and cider?

  Everyone goes. All apart from River. He’s looking pretty downcast.

  “I don’t think anyone gets it,” he says.

  “I think everyone got a bit confused. All that stuff about data mining, it’s quite complicated,” I tell him.

  River runs his hands through his hair. He’s got nice hair, I think, all springy and wild. He’s grown it a lot in the last year. He’s taller too. And he’s much more serious.

  “Just because something’s complicated doesn’t mean it’s not worth listening to,” River says.

  “I know that,” I reply.

  “Weren’t they listening when I told them how phones mean you can’t focus?” he asks.

  “Maybe they’re still affected,” I say. “I thought what you were saying was very interesting, but I did find myself wishing I could video it.” He looks baffled, so I add, “Then I could have shared it.”

  “Really?” River says, and there’s this slightly awkward moment where I swear he’s blushing. I can’t think of anything to say that won’t add to the idea that I have a crush on him. Which I don’t, but I’m guessing I might have given that impression.

  “There are people out there who steal other people’s identities,” River continues. “And we make it easy for them.” He pauses. “Look, Esther, you might not know this, but my dad … my real dad … I never knew him. He stole someone else’s identity. He took this false name, and he spied on my mum and her friends …”

  “Why?” I ask him.

  “Mum was an environmental activist, and he was a policeman. An undercover cop. And it all went too far and he ended up in a relationship with my mum. Do you know what that does to you? What it did to her?”

  “It must have been awful,” I answer.

  “Yeah. It was. And now we’re just handing over our information, in the most stupid way possible, to anyone. We don’t have the first idea of what they will do with it.”

  I don’t know what to say. “I’m so sorry. I never realised. I don’t do those personality tests.” (I gave them up when I did one and it said that my dream lover was Murray Myles from Sun Fixation. Which was spot on, actually, but my secret. Natalie teased me for days, and I felt totally embarrassed and had to say nasty things about Murray to shut her up. Which was annoying for several reasons.)

  River smiles. He’s got a great smile. His face is quite thin and his mouth is big, and so his grin takes up all of the bottom of his face. It’s impossible to look at and not smile as well.

  “It’s really messed up my head, you know?” River says. “It’s hard to explain to people with normal families.”

  “I’ve not exactly got a normal family,” I say. “I never lived with my dad.” River looks puzzled, so I explain that Avi is my stepdad. (He’s still in the kitchen, chopping parsley to make salads and looking all hopeful because the cafe has two bookings tonight.) “My real dad lives in America. But he hasn’t got any money, and nor do we, so we never see him. I mean, we FaceTime a lot, except now we have to Skype, because of the no phone thing …”

  “Ugh, that’s hard,” River says.

  “It’d feel weird to spend time with Dad now,” I say. “I’m used to it.”

  River’s watching me. “But you’re not happy about it, are you?”

  I try to smile. “It’s OK. It’s just pretty full on, you know? Like we can’t just be around each other, watching TV or whatever. We have to have important conversations all the time. Sometimes I can’t think of anything to say.”

  “I can imagine that,” River says. “I don’t ever want to talk to my real dad. Good thing we’ve got stepdads, eh?”

  “Yes,” I nod, even though I think our situations are very different. No one would want to talk to a dad like River’s. My dad is lovely. It’s just that I never get to hug him. And sometimes I feel sad that being in New York seems to be more important to him than being with me, even if he and Mum both say it isn’t like that.

  “Are you finding it really difficult, not having your phone?” I ask. “Because I am.”

  “I’m surprised,” he says. “I’m liking it. It gives me more space to think. A
nd be. I’ve been running a lot. And doing research. And reading.”

  “I like reading,” I tell him. And it’s true, books have helped a bit. I don’t feel so twitchy when I’m wrapped up in a book. I’m not thinking about what I’m missing out on. Last night I read for two hours before I went to bed. I haven’t done that for years. I fell asleep right away. Normally it takes me ages to drop off.

  “I don’t think I’ll go back to having a smart phone,” River says. “I don’t want to be on social media. But I want to campaign … about data mining and other stuff. How can I do that without social media?”

  “There must be ways.” I try to think. “You could write letters to people? Protest? Go and see your MP?”

  “I’m keeping a diary about The Disconnect,” he says. “Jason – that’s my stepdad – is a journalist, and he thinks maybe I can write an article about it. About our experiences. About Dame Irene.”

  “Dame Irene?” I ask.

  “Well, it is a bit weird, isn’t it?” River says. “Why is Dame Irene taking phones away from us? She makes the things.”

  It is weird. I hadn’t really thought about it before.

  River shakes his head. “We need to find out more about her.”

  “I’ll help if you want,” I say. “I need things to do now so I’m not thinking about my phone all the time.”

  “Thanks,” River says. “Do you want to come running sometime?”

  When he leaves, I feel like I’ve made a new friend. Several new friends, actually. I’m going to look out for Maura and some of the others at school.

  I get out one of the other postcards that I bought to send to Rosa and I write on it:

  Hey Rosa,

  The experiment is going OK. It’s hard, but I have more time for things like reading. And I’m making different friends, or I think so anyway, and might be going running. Life feels slower and sort of cleaner, if that makes sense. Or clearer, anyway. But it’s a bit strange. Like when you fly on a plane and your ears go funny and you can’t hear properly? My life is muffled.