As soon as I open the front door at Mum’s house, Dave attacks my ankle. This is the new normal.
Mum says animals don’t understand fame, but if my cat had opposable thumbs she’d definitely be trying to offer you an autograph right now. I go to pet her these days and she either walks off with her tail poker-straight in the air and her butt wiggling OR she tries to bite me. I put up with all of it. She’s one of the keys to being viral, and she knows it.
Mum is looking tense. I’m half expecting her to launch a full psychological investigation into the sausage incident, but she seems distracted and a bit angry. Gary is not here and, breaking news, his robot vacuum cleaner is not around, either. It still follows him around like a dog and he still calls it McWhirter. He’s probably taken it out on the street for a dust and a walk.
Mum looks at both of us. She can sniff out that there’s been some fun.
“What have you two been up to?” she asks. This makes us both giggle. “Oh, I don’t want to know, actually. Gary’s gone out. McWhirter’s little wheels that help it roll around broke and it needs looking at.”
I think I hear Mum mutter, “I think he needs looking at” under her breath, too.
“Anyway,” she shouts, “I need to go get some milk. You two behave yourselves!”
Lauren falls into the big armchair and flops her legs over the sides. Gary would not approve of this, but Gary is not here. “Okay, Mills!” she exclaims. “Let’s have a look at how your latest vlog is doing!”
I’ve been nervous about doing this because of what I told you before. The bigger it all gets, the more my brain becomes a mixture of excitement and total doom. I really want this to work. I want Mum to be proud. She’s a go-getter. I don’t want to be just a “slightly better.” I’d never vlog that rhyme. It’s dreadful.
My vlog has already got thousands of views and lots of likes. It’s really weird thinking I’m in someone’s “liked” file. Or in their history. Or—
Deep breaths. My ribs are beginning to hurt with all of this.
I focus my attention on the comments.
LOVE THIS. Love you Millie. Love your work. (People are lovely)
Shut up. No expert. Pull yourself together. Everything is a drama with you (Well, most people are lovely)
What’s the thumb about? (Fair comment)
We need the cat. (This is harsh, but I get it)
Get Dave in. Dull without Dave (Bit too harsh)
Need more cat (Okay, I get the message)
Would be better with someone hot. (Oh, GO AWAY SunshineGenius45738—you are clearly a nine-year-old boy)
Lauren leans over and reads. “Wow, Millie. Loads of views. You are getting bigger and bigger.”
“Yeah,” I mutter REALLY quickly. “Want to watch something on Netflix?”
Lauren knows what I’m doing. “Excellent change of subject. But you need to get used to this, Millie. This is your life now. You’re sort of famous—”
At this precise moment Dave jumps on Lauren’s shoulder.
“Sorry, Dave, yes!” Lauren says. “You are famous, too!”
Lauren is saying this as a joke, but I know that Dave totally understands what Lauren is saying and that she completely believes it. Dave falls into Lauren’s lap and rubs against her chin for some attention. When Lauren isn’t quick enough to give it to her, Dave punches her arm without using her claws. This is her latest party trick. Everyone thinks this aggression is cute—including Lauren.
“Oh, Davey-Lady,” she says in a really silly voice, “are you being ignored by the horrible humans?”
Dave half closes her eyes in agreement. Lauren and I both start stroking her.
Lauren looks at me hard. “By the way, where’s Danny going this weekend?”
I sigh. “Oh, he’s going with his parents to some kind of spa. Facials. Pedicures. That sort of thing. He can’t really text me much because they are in the middle of nowhere. So it will probably be all massage. No message.”
I’m quite proud of this joke, but Lauren completely ignores it.
Lauren looks down at Dave. “Must be weird wanting to spend time with your parents. I couldn’t relax with mine—even if I’d had an anesthetic. I don’t even mean local anesthetic. It would have to be general. I’d need complete unconsciousness.”
Lauren is really getting good at the dark humor thing. I don’t know whether I should laugh or just hug her again. Instead, I say what’s been on my mind for a few days.
“To be honest, Loz, Danny doesn’t generally message me as often as I thought he might do. Even when he’s not in the middle of a forest having microdermabrasion he’s not really … very…”
“Into you?” Lauren blurts out. I know she doesn’t mean to be so blunt, but this STINGS.
“No. He likes me. I think he’s into me. We’ve spent quality time together. It’s going really good, but…”
How do I explain this to Lauren? You know when you’ve got a tiny bit of peanut butter left in the jar and you have to spread it really thinly over your toast to make it work? Danny is that peanut butter. He is spread very thinly. His parents love him. His friends love him. I love him. So we all get little bursts of his buttery time. And like I’ve said before, he’s so relaxed sometimes he’s practically asleep. He’s Zen. In fact, he’s his own brand of Zen. He’s Danny Zen—Zan. I LOVE that about him, but sometimes I want him to be more a part of my life and more a part of my vlog.
He puts his phone away too much. I try to be cool with it, but he puts it down in his room and doesn’t check it for hours. I’m not like that. I’m a bit more … look, I love my friends and I love my phone. I just wish Danny were a bit more … present? OH NO. I SOUND PATHETIC.
“Oh, Lauren,” I say with a tut. “I think love might have turned my wise-woman button off and my obsessive-girlfriend button on.”
“Not you, Mills,” Lauren scoffs. “You’ll be sensible till you die. That’s what Hashtag Help is all about. Solid advice! OUCH!”
Dave scratches Lauren with her claws extended.
“And you, Dave, obviously,” Lauren snaps.
That was absolutely not a coincidence. I’m sure Dave can understand just about everything that we are saying. Knowing Dave, she can probably speak several languages. She already knows English and Cat. She’ll be learning coding next and, after that, it’ll be Dave World Domination.