You Don't Know Me

A Million Reasons Why

It's October and the competition has already been running for six weeks. The deadline for votes is in December and there are currently over 2,000 entries, from right across UK. Last year, the winner was a drummer called Shady from Inverness. Since then, he's played on several TV shows, guested with two international rock groups, made an ad for Interface which pops up several times a day on the web, and got over half a million fans on his Interface page. Killer Act is a serious competition. The final is televised across UK and streamed online worldwide. As Shady's shown - if you win, it could chnage your life.

This year, the leading acts all have over 1,000 votes already. Call Of Duty, from Castle College, are way down the list with 357. Not that I'm checking on hourly basis, OK, I am, now I've got my phone back. But so is Jodie, even more than me, and so is Nell. Only Rose doen't bother. Mostly because I tell her the latest count several times a day anyway, but also because she usually ignores social networking in favor of 'real people' and 'actual conversations', and finally because she noticed the misplaced apostrophe in 'it's 3rd year.' 

Yeah. Of all the information on that page, that's what Rose focused on: the apostrophe. As a result of which, she has no faith in Killer Act at all.

85, 97, 109... 

In the course of next week, a couple of people in our class spot the video and send the link to their friends. Not that we are talking about it to anyone. We're still really, really nervous about everybody knowing that we revert to our inner six-year-old's on a regular basis.

i think it might be worst for me. Do you want to know the real secret about my dad? When he left, it was because he wanted to be an Elvis impersonator in Vegas. Seriously. It took him years to make it. Years of not being in touch - until last summer, when he invited me over, out of the blue. I think it was his latest girlfriend's idea for me to go, and actually it was fun, much to my surprise. Dad wasn't bad as a performer, but it's hardly something you brag about. It's bad enough being a child of a novelty act: I don't want to be one myself.

However, as the news of our video spreads, people don't seem to mind about the boa, or the pyjamas. In fact, if anything, they seem to like them. Over the days that follow, increasing number of people nod and smile at us in corridors. When Jodie overhears our French teacher humming the tune of 'Sunglasses' while he sorts through some textbooks, she is officially FREAKED. OUT. A week later, the Head has it as her ring-tone. I'm not kidding. 

And the votes keep rising.

205, 207, 323 . . . 350, 370, 410 . . .

We start hanging out in the school library at lunchtimes, where Rose works as a monitor. It's good for checking ourselves out on the computers, because the screens are bigger there and we can surreptitiously try to see if anyone nearby is voting for us, to explain the crazy numbers.

"I've created a band page for us," Jodie announces one day in early November. She brings Interface on the screen in front of her (which is supposed to block social networking sites, but honestly, there is SO much we could teach our IT department, if they asked.)

"There we are. See? Sam helped me." 

There's a page with an enormous banner across the top, with a picture of all of us in our glittery finery. Jodie's brother, Sam, must have done that for her - he's a sixth-form computer nerd, so he'd know all about grabbing still photos from video. Jodie sighs. 

"The only problem is the name. I had to use the same one as on Killer Act. Of all our names, why did Mystery Guy have to pick Manic Pixie Dream Girls? I liked the Powerpuff girls." 

Two Year 7s look at us, annoyed because we're disturbing their study time, but as Rose is currently in charge of the library there's not much they can do.