Danny is not in class today. I message him to ask him where he is, but get no response. To be honest, I’m a bit hurt. I thought after seeing my vlog he would immediately want to speak to me. He’s either seen my vlog and can’t cope with me being emotional (this is my anxiety talking, I don’t actually think this is the case for one minute), OR he is too busy with his big family meeting to have looked at what is going on with me. Perhaps his grandma has decided she wants to scale Mount Everest or something and they are trying to talk her out of it. I don’t think they should. As far as I’m concerned, old women can do what they like. They come from a time when women had fewer opportunities! If they want to travel and probably injure themselves rappelling in the snow I think they should be allowed to!
Allowed to? I check myself. They don’t need permission either! Just do it, old ladies. We are with you!
Sometimes I vlog in my head. That was a great example of it. It’s good practice and it stops me from being a pathetic girlfriend.
At break time, I spend my time in the quiet corners of school. It saves me from live human vlog reaction. Lots of people want to make appointments to meet Dave. Sometimes it feels like too much. Kayla Beacham, who has her own gluten-free snack business and should be on The Apprentice, is already talking to me about “merch opportunities” like #LoveDave environmentally friendly bags. Etsy isn’t the answer to everything. There are already Dave pages on Pinterest, too.
The quiet corners mean I bump into Bradley. He likes to get away from noise of any kind. He’s sitting on concrete steps doing some kind of really detailed drawing. I go up to him.
“Hello, Bradley. How’s…”
Bradley shoots his hand up in the air and wiggles it. This means “give me time.” I stand there and wait. He’s not being rude. He’s just being Bradley.
Eventually he stops. “Sorry,” he says quietly, “I was just doodling a lift mechanism to show my subscribers. It’s a revolutionary design. They think it can go sideways like a classic paternoster, but without the risk of death. Which is good, as in my experience, death does sort of curtail your ability to have fun. Anyway, how are you? I was sorry to hear about your dad going. That’s, er—well, that just sucks.”
Bradley sort of always says it like it is. It’s very sweet that he watches my vlog. It’s even sweeter that he tries to make me feel better.
He looks at me earnestly. “Has fame changed your life, Millie?”
Fame. I try not to think about it too much. “It’s not really fame, is it, though?” I sigh. “I’m not in a private jet with an entourage. I’m still me. I’m just me with people looking at my life and being interested in my life.”
Bradley laughs. “Yeah, I think you’ll find lots of people would define that as a celebrity!”
I can’t think about that too much. I need my Zen Loo. The tiled, pine-clean, disinfected place of calm and safety. I need to just breathe and rearrange the jumble in my head. I’ve got ways to cope and one of them is sometimes by blocking out actual reality in a tiny cubicle. A big part of me doesn’t feel like I deserve any of this.
I can tell Bradley anything. I trust him and, honestly, he still hasn’t got many close friends. He doesn’t really need them. He says he’d rather have a “few humans that mean something than lots of the same species who mean nothing at all.” That’s just the way he talks. This is someone with a hugely successful lift and escalator vlog. He knows what he is doing.
I sit down beside him. I can’t lie to him.
“If I’m being honest with you, Bradley, I mainly have increased anxiety levels. I find myself vlogging in my head sometimes.”
“Oh, I do that!” snaps Bradley. “I wouldn’t worry too much.”
“But is it healthy?” I ask.
Bradley stares off into the distance. He seems to think for a while. Bradley often takes a long time to answer questions. He thinks about them, then puts them in a specific compartment in his brain that asks questions about questions.
“I think people have always vlogged in their heads. In a way. They imagine talking to people who aren’t there. They imagine conversations they are going to have or conversations they don’t want to have. They daydream. Prehistoric man probably vlogged in a way in their own heads.”
I look at Bradley strangely. “What would they vlog about?”
Bradley grins from ear to ear. “Oh, you know, the everyday stuff!” (And Bradley puts on a caveman sort of voice.) “Have seen a mastodon. It big. Shall I try to fit it in sandwich?”
At this point Bradley collapses in fits of laughter at his own joke.
I try to get him back to the point.
“They didn’t have delis till the Iron Age, Bradley. Everyone knows that.”
Unfortunately, this makes Bradley crack up even more. I have to let him shake with the giggles until his sensible side kicks back in. Eventually, he comes around and sees that I’m still looking a bit tense.
“Sorry, Millie,” he says sheepishly. “I’d try to just … enjoy it more. I think you are coping with it fine. You’re still the same old Millie. Is Romeo able to handle it?”
By “Romeo” Bradley means Danny. I can tell Bradley still feels weird about him.
“Yes!” I snap a bit defensively. “He’s actually very supportive of everything I do!”
Bradley looks at me like he’s not convinced.
“I think you have to be a vlogger to truly get vlogging. You have to understand what it takes to connect with people. He doesn’t strike me as our type. He’ll say stuff like, ‘I prefer the real world,’ like what we do isn’t real and all fake. I can’t stand people like that. They think they are revolutionary. Same old thing—just trying to be cool by making out that they are different. They don’t know what it means to be actually different. I bet he’s never been called a nerd because he appreciates a good speed governor.”
Though this is a bit of a rant, Danny HAS said things like that, but NO WAY can I tell Bradley that. First, it feels disloyal, and second, I think Bradley might be—
Hang on.
“What’s a speed governor, Bradley?”
Bradley looks at me like I’m insane.
“It governs the speed of the elevator. The clue’s in the name, Millie.”
I realize I look a bit spoon, so I change the subject.
“Danny hasn’t said anything like that. Not really. He just prefers sports.”
Bradley makes a face of disgust. “Odd thing, sports. Being out of breath. Broken bones. Spending your entire life on a racetrack or a field for the first twenty years on this earth just to win a medal. Then what? Nothing. You have to retire at thirty and watch other people become better at what you love. Sports are total madness, Millie. I’d ban them.”
There’s not a lot I can say to this. Bradley seems to get very angry about lots of things. Perhaps it’s hormonal. Perhaps boys have a time of the month. I try to offer a positive thought.
“Carb-loading is good!”
Bradley looks at me down his glasses. “You can do that and lose the running about. Perfection.”
Then, and don’t ask me why, my mind decides to take the brain bus to a really weird stop.
“I’ve asked Erin to do my makeup.”
Bradley tenses up for a moment, then relaxes his shoulders and almost shrugs.
“Great idea!” he says. “She helped me with my new, slightly improved look.” Bradley almost swaggers. He knows he looks good. It’s annoying. I change the subject back to me.
“The thing is, my agent suggested it, and I can see what she means, but I don’t want to be all about how I look, Bradley. The whole glamorous, flouncy girl thing isn’t really me. What if I lose a lot of followers?!”
Bradley does his intense thing. “You’ve got to do what you like, Millie. Erin helped me, but she didn’t try to take over. I think she’s learned her lesson. She’s been horrible in the past, and she’s hurt my feelings, but other people have done that, too. I’ve forgiven them and moved on, so why not her?”
I know Bradley means me, but it’s different. I didn’t go out to hurt him. Erin was just plain evil to everyone. The whole school agrees. If there were a vote about it, there’d be a record turnout and everyone would be voting YES to still leave Erin WELL alone. And I know when Lauren finds out that I’ve asked Erin to do my makeup, she’ll be FURIOUS.
I can’t say any of this, so I just say to Bradley, “Thank you.”
As Bradley leaves, he turns around and winks at me. My stomach flips a bit. Pancake feelings. Actually, more pancakes being carried by butterflies riding on bikes on a really bumpy road. This isn’t good. I should have wink resistance. Eye movements should not make me remotely wobbly. I am Millie Porter. I am as tough as a very tough thing that’s had, of late, a very tough time.
I bury my emotions by demolishing an apple I find in the bottom of my bag. I can’t remember putting it in there. Probably Dave rolled it in there. She’s always putting stuff in …
I stop eating the apple. Having a cat that helps you with your lunch isn’t always pleasant. Dave kills cockroaches with those paws.