CHAPTER 8 ATTILA THE FEMBOT

CLAUDIA

By the time Mom got back from her spin class, Dad had sent Xander home, taken away all of Reese’s electronics, and grounded him indefinitely.

And this is how horrible what Reese and Xander did to me was, and how ugly the comments on ClickChat got: Reese did not even try to argue about his punishment.

Not only that, but after Mom heard the whole story and watched the video on Reese’s laptop—right before she made him delete the file forever—she didn’t try to make me feel better by saying things like, “Oh, honey, it’s not so bad” or, “Sweetheart, I know it’s annoying, but try not to blow it out of proportion.”

Instead, she took me shopping for shoes and let me get a pair of boots that were way too hot and weren’t even on sale.

But before we went shopping, she called Xander’s mom and had a long conversation with her in the bedroom with the door closed.

XANDER

Yo, that was WEAK, getting moms all up in my bizness. But it was a fail, yo. ’Cause I was clean. Ain’t nothin’ on MY ClickChat wall but skate videos. All that “fan page” ish? That was some otha bruthas.

Actually, it was sistas.

CLAUDIA

If the “Vest Song” nightmare had ended when Reese took the video down, it would have been bad enough.

But it was about to get even worse.

Because at some point between Saturday night and Sunday, the Fembots created a “Fans of Claudia Tapper” wall on ClickChat.

As far as The War went, the Fembots getting involved was like… I don’t even know. It was MUCH crazier than anything in normal world history.

It was like if right in the middle of World War II, when America was totally focused on trying to beat the Nazis, Attila the Hun suddenly came out of a time machine and ransacked half the country.

Seriously.

I didn’t find out about “Fans of Claudia Tapper” until that Monday morning. I’d been dreading going to school that day, because basically the whole sixth grade had seen “The Vest Song,” and I knew just walking through the halls was going to be a nightmare.

But even though their ClickChat comments were the absolute worst, the Fembots weren’t even my biggest worry. The person I was REALLY worried about seeing was Jens Kuypers.

Because even though the song was absolutely NOT about him, everybody thought it was. So I figured he must think I was some kind of insane stalker or something.

And of course, practically the first person I saw that morning was Jens. Although it actually wasn’t THAT bad. Because he is such an incredibly kind and thoughtful person, Jens made a point of smiling and saying “Hi, Claudia!” in this really cheerful voice. Which was very cool of him, except that I knew he was only doing it to be nice, so it kind of just made me more embarrassed. I couldn’t even look him in the eye, and afterwards I decided it’d be better to completely avoid him for a while.

Like a year. Or maybe two.

I was still recovering from seeing Jens when I walked past the Fembots. They were all clustered around Athena’s locker, and when Clarissa Parker saw me, she went—in this REALLY snotty voice—“Ohmygosh, Claudia, have you SEEN your fan page?” Then they all laughed like it was the most hilarious thing ever.

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

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.