The next day, Cleo dragged me into the library on our way home from school. She settled in front of a computer. “I hope I can find this stuff again. I told you. There’s loads about technology addiction.” She clicked on one article after another. “See?” she said. “Discomfort. Short temper. Anxiety. That’s you.”
“I don’t have a short temper,” I snapped.
“It says here that it’s much like any other addiction,” said Cleo. “It shares many of the same withdrawal symptoms. It’s an illness, really. And you’re not the only one.” She glanced around the library. Some people were reading in the lounge chairs. Others were hunched over tables, studying. But nearly everyone had a phone sitting beside them, was plugged into an iPod or was texting. “Don’t you think it would be a great topic for our socials report?” she asked.
“I thought you told Stryker we were going to do our project on homelessness?”
“That was the first thing that came into my head when she assigned us to work together. Do you have a better idea?”
“Not this, that’s for sure.” All I needed was to treat my rotten life like a research project. “What’s wrong with homelessness?” I asked.
“Lots!”
“I mean for a project, you jerk.”
“See. There you go again,” said Cleo. “Temper, temper!” The purple pompom on her hat bobbed. “Do you happen to know any homeless people?” she asked. “If we do addictions, it would be like a real scientific study. I’ll be the control, as I’m not addicted to anything. You could be the subject, seeing as you are the one who’s hooked.”
“Why me? What about your dad?”
“I’m talking about technology here. Not booze. So shall we do this or not?”
“All right, all right,” I said. Wet rag meets bulldozer, I thought. I knew which one I was. “But before we get into it, let me check Facebook while I have the chance.”
“This can be the first experiment.” Cleo grabbed the mouse as I tried to move the cursor to the address bar. “We need to document what happens when you are prevented from feeding your addiction.”
“Give that to me.” I tried to yank the mouse back.
She held on tight. “Withdrawal symptom number one. Impatience.”
“Cleo!” I squeezed her hand.
“Violence now? I’d better record this stuff.” When she released the mouse to reach for her bag, I grabbed it.
She hauled it away from me by its cord.
“Girls. Girls. You know the rule. One person at a work station at a time,” said the librarian with the red spiky hair. “If you can’t work quietly, I’ll suspend your Internet privileges for the day.”
“Excuse my friend,” Cleo told her. “She’s going through withdrawal. But we’re cool.”
“Thanks a lot,” I hissed as the librarian went back to her desk.
“Loss of sense of humor. Must include that in our observations. This is going to be great!” Cleo picked up her bag and stood up. “You log off, and I’ll find us a table.”
“I’ll be right there.” I was about to open my email when I noticed one of the links. Project Disconnect, it said. I opened it up to find it was a website about a school in the United States that had banned all phones, iPods, iPads and other devices for a month.
“It would never catch on at our school,” said Cleo. “Log on. Log off. Check this. Text that.” She rolled her eyes. “One person in withdrawal at a time is all I can handle.” She opened her binder and wrote down a bunch of notes. “Your task is to start a journal of all your symptoms. Make a note every time you feel the urge to connect with someone, and record the side effects of staying offline.”
Any minute, I thought, she would stick me on a treadmill or clip wires to my head!
I’d often worked with Josie and Selena on projects. Josie was the one to assign tasks and set timelines. Then something would come up. Flu. A dance exam. Visitors from out of town. And soon Selena and I were on our own.
Cleo was a born organizer. And bossy too. By the time we left the library, we each had a list of things to do. Timelines, even.
She said she wanted an A for our first joint project.
And she didn’t care what it took.