On Monday, back at school, we're all on the lookout for the Mystery Uploader. Jodie and Nell are in one form room, Rose and I in another. Jodie holds a conference in the locker rooms before we go our separate ways.
"It'll be somebody shifty," she says, "who gives us strange looks or a smug smile. He'll definitely be watching us, to see if we've noticed. Before he enacts part two of his plan."
"What part two?" Nell asks nervously.
She shrugs. "I couldn't say. Who knows what he could be capable of?"
"Maybe he did see that video of you in the leotard and he's nefariously entered you for Strictly Come Dancing." Rose says, smiling at me.
"Oh, fabulous," I sigh. "This is still funny for you.It wouldn't be so funny if you'd been the one in the kilt, shimmying your little butt off,"
Rose laughs. She sounded great on guitar, and looked it too, in her full-length dress. Sitting down. She has no idea.
We scan the crowd in the corridors and our form rooms, and, frankly, if Jodie's right, the Mystery Uploader could be anybody. Everyone in St Christophers's seems to give us either strange looks or smug smiles or both.By lunchtime, Jodie's pretty convinced that at least half our year are in on it. Nell's a nervous wreck and i'm pretty close myself. Rose has taken notes for me in History, because I just can't concentrate.
Then, back in our classroom, I'm rootling around in my school bag for a Biro and suddenly there it is: my beautiful iPhone, still in it's sparkling turquoise cover, nestling in it's little pocket as if it has always been there. Is this a mirage? Is it a joke? Did he or she read my comment last night? Is this the reply?
I turn it over and over, checking for signs of damage, but there are none rthat I can see. Rose, seeing me holding it, rushes over to me with a shriek of delight. When I turned it on, my emails are still intact. So are my messages and my Interface page. Nothing has changed. Nothing embarrasing seems to have been sent, done or used, apart from that one video.
Still only that one mean comment about Rose, which was half nice anyway: it did say she was good at guitar, after all.
Plus one saying:
The fit bird in the skirt has great legs.
And one saying:
Hotlegs is Sasha Bayley, Year 11.
75 votes. 76. 77.
This is what it says on the home page of Killer Act on interface:
Do you have the talent? Are you a future star?
Now in it's 3rd year, the most exciting competition for teen talent is back - sponsored by Interface, the fastest-growing social network in the world. You can be any kind of musical act - singer, dance, rapper, band. You just have to be 18 or under, still in full-time education, and unsigned.
Upload your video and get your friends and fans to vote.
The 100 acts with most votes will get the chance to audition for the LIVE TV FINALS!!!!!
In March, the top 9 acts, as chosen by our team of internationally successful star judges, will compete ON LIVE TV IN THE UK AND STREAMED LIVE WORLD-WIDE, for the prize of a contract to advertise Interface for a year, worth £100,000!!!!!
Want to be the face of Interface? Then upload your video now.
KILLER ACT. CAN YOU KILL IT?
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.
I agree with Jodie. "And more to the point, how did Mystery Guy even know what we called ourselves? We didn't say it on the camera, did we?"
"Nope," Jodie says.
We all shivered slightly. Are we being bugged?
"We might have said it on another video, though, "Nell suggests brightly, keen to find an alternative tot he bugging theory. " "I'm sure I did it at least once. I might have said that name, because it was the stupidest. Why'd you pick it, Rose?"
Rose blushes.
"It's a literary device. A trope." She catches us staring at her. "A. . . thing, I promise you. Look it up on Wikipedia. It's a name they give to all those girls in books and films who don't seem quite real. They're just these kooky creatures who the hero wants to find, or rescue or be life. Jennifer Aniston plays them all the time. We were talking about it in the book club. I just thought it sounded funny."
"It does," Jodie grumbles, "and now we're stuck with it. Imagine them announcing that at the Grammys." She rolls her eyes.
"We're not going to the Grammys," I promise her, laughing.
"We might," She retorts. "A boy in sixth form already asked us to do a gig at his birthday party. Well, half a gig, anyway. And if we carry on at this rate, we could make the Killer Act top 100, you know. Then we could be on TV."
Rose and I shake our heads sadly at her insane optimism. Nell practically chokes on a Starbust.
"Really, Aren't we way behind everyone?"
Jodie pouts. "Not way behind. Slightly. We're catching up fast, haven't you noticed?"
Then I suddenly think of something.
"Which boy?" I ask.
"Hmm?" Jodie says.
"Which boy in sixth form has asked for us?"
She checks the details on the page, "Er, someone called George Drury. My mum knows him vaguely. They have a big house the other side of Crakey Hill with an awesome party barn. We'd be performing in there and we'd get £100. Paid money for a gig! £25 each! Are you OK, Sash?"
George Drury: the boy who had a crush on me last summer. I had a feeling it might be him.
"Fine," I lie.
Was this whole video thing just some trick to get us to play at his party? And if so, why? And what is he going to do next?
"Who else is playing?" asks Rose. She sounds edgy too, picking up on my nerves somehow.
Jodie grins.
"Call of Duty. George is a friend of theirs. They do first half, we do second."
All the laughter abruptly disappears from Rose's face. So does the colour. She shakes her head.
"We can't"
"Why not?" I ask gently, concerned for her, and confused. I mean, I can think of a million reasons why not. but they only affect me.
She pauses for a while to think, then gives a nervous, high-pitched laugh.
"This is getting ridiculous. We've never sung live before. They do it all the time."
"But people like us," Jodie insists. "Mrs Richards has our song AS HER RING-TONE. And we get to go to a George Drury party. They're famous. We'll get a million cool points and everyone will want to friend us. Please Please Please?"
Rose hesitates, looking increasingly panicked.
"When I joined, you made me promise to keep this band a secret, remember? That was the point."
"Yeah, but that was before we got million trillion votes," Jodie pleads. "It's different now. You'll be fine. Just think of all the boys who'll want your number."
Rose shudders. "They won't," She whispers in a tiny voice.
"Oh, they will," Jodie grins. "Trust me."
I hate to see Rose like this. She's so interesting and fun in private, with us, and so shy in public. She's been like this ever since I've known her. People don't know what they are missing.
"You'd have us," I promise her. "We'd look after you."
She bites her lip.
"Nell, what do you think?"
"You do whatever you want, Rose. I don't mind."
Kind, sweet, unhelpful Nell. I say I am happy to do the gig. I don't want to let anyone know I have a problem with George Drury(because I so do). Rose hesitates some more. It's obvious she doen't want to do it, but she can't face letting us down.
"OK," She says eventually. "Whatever you want."
"Great!" Jodie says, patting her on the back. I'll let George know."
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QQ: What do you think of Rose until now?
QQ: Do you like how the story is progressing?