Finding Bradley Sanderson is not as simple as I thought. I try on Thursday at lunchtime. We’re not supposed to use our phones during school hours, so I suspect he’s hiding in the shadows somewhere. It can’t be easy to have a hugely successful but absolutely terminally dorky vlog. Your friends must be mainly online, not offline.
I try the library, the computer lab, the empty ninth-grade classrooms, and just about every corner that exists in the school. Eventually, I lift up a massive, furry parka in the lost and found closet. Bradley is hidden underneath. With just the light of his phone in his eyes, he looks really spooky. He has thick-rimmed, geek-chic glasses and a floppy fringe. His hair is like a blind he can pull across his face.
“What do you want?” Bradley peers up at me.
“Hello, Bradley. I’m Millie Porter from seventh grade. I was wondering if you could help me with my vlog?” I’m feeling a bit nervous about talking to him.
“Ah! A damsel in distress. ‘Help me, Obi-Wan!’ she says. ‘You’re my only hope.’ I don’t think we’ve met before, but now, because it’s about vlogging, you want my help!”
I think Bradley is being a bit snarky. Maybe I’m not the first person to try to make friends with him for social-media advice. I’m clearly out of my depth, but I want to learn. So I carry on.
“Well, you’re a bit like a famous bat—we all know about you, but no one sees you in daylight. You have loads of subscribers, Bradley. Please, will you let me know your secret?”
This seems to soften Bradley a bit. “What’s your vlog about?”
I sit beside him underneath a blazer. It feels weird but right at the same time. I try to explain. “Well, I want to make a vlog that will help people. People who don’t always fit in at school or are finding it hard at home or who are being trolled. But it’s not going to be all Captain Dullard advice. It will be silly, too!”
Bradley glances down at his phone. I get the sense that this might not be the greatest idea for a vlog he’s ever heard. “Vlogs are easy. Do it in landscape on your phone. Download an app. The app talks to your laptop. Upload and edit.”
Bradley clearly thinks I am very stupid indeed. Talk about mansplaining.
“I know all that. I mean, how do you get people really interested? How do you get people to subscribe? What’s the right way to talk to your subscribers?”
Bradley looks up again and smiles. “Millie, I’m happy to give you advice. But it isn’t as simple as having the right hashtags or uploading stuff regularly.”
“But, Bradley, I really, really need some help! I’ve never done this before. All I’ve got is my granddad’s shed and a best friend who’s great at contouring! And a cat!”
I’m feeling pretty desperate, and it’s starting to get rather hot under this blazer. “Look, I’m not being funny, but can we come out from under these blazers, and I’ll—”
Suddenly, the coats lift up and I see something that takes every single bit of oxygen away from my body, even though that isn’t actually possible or I would die.
It’s Danny Trudeau. Looking at us.
I lose control of some of my atoms and my brain blurts out the first thing it can think of. “We are not kissing!” I bark, pointing at Bradley.
Bradley agrees so quickly that it’s almost a bit rude. “No. We are NOT.”
“Hello, Millie! And don’t worry, it’s none of my business.” Danny beams. His smile is like the northern lights. Probably. It’s certainly like a really beautiful screen saver featuring the sky at night with all the stars. “It’s just—that’s my blazer.” He gestures to the coat I’ve currently got draped over my sweating forehead.
As I try to untangle myself, going EVEN redder in the process, I manage to blurt out some words: “We’re just talking about vlogging!”
Danny leans on the wall and winks. “Of course you were. Sorry to disturb you!”
I don’t want him to go, so I keep talking. “Yeah, so I’m thinking of doing an advice vlog. Sort of following on from the other stuff I’ve done with the bike, the panda, and Dave.”
This sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud.
“Who’s Dave?” asks Bradley.
Danny purses his lips together. “Yeah … That sounds…” When he thinks, he gets a crease in his forehead. “Yeah!” Suddenly, he brightens. “I know! You could call it something short and quick and memorable, like … HASHTAG Help!”
I leap up. “Hashtag Help! Danny, that’s actually fantastic. Thank you!”
“It was your idea,” Danny says. “I was just your muse.”
I have no idea what Danny means, so I just say, “Yes!”
“Anyway!” Danny exclaims. “I’ve got to go. Enjoy your brainstorm.” Then he drifts off like he’s being carried by wings. And not the wings of a wading bird—the wings of a mighty, hot eagle.
When I regain a sort of sensible consciousness, Bradley is giving me a funny look. It’s almost like he feels sorry for me. “Now THAT conversation, Millie Porter from seventh grade, would have made a great vlog!”
I regain some dignity. A bit.
“I was just slightly shocked at … that, but I need your help. I don’t want to beg. I’ve got a name for it now at least! Will you please help me do something actually, possibly useful?”
Bradley sighs. “Come to the shopping center on Saturday. They’ve had Schindler MRL traction scenic elevators installed. Believe me, they are world class. I’ve had requests to film them.”
“You’ve had people asking to see them?!” I find this very surprising.
“Yes, Millie. My vlog has global reach. Meet me there on Saturday at two o’clock. I’ll try to help you a bit.”
“It’s a date!” I quickly correct myself. “Well, it’s not a date, but you know what I mean. It’s a date.”
“Don’t worry, Millie. I’ve got a girlfriend. She likes lifts, too. This isn’t a date.”
“I never knew you had a girlfriend! What grade is she in?” This is turning into a day of quite enormous surprises.
Bradley puffs up his chest and says in a rather cocky way, “She lives in the States. She’s mainly into moving sidewalks and scenic escalators. That’s how we met—online. I want to fly over to see her next year, but my mum doesn’t really get it.”
“They never get it. My mum is lovely, but she’d freak out if she knew I was thinking about vlogging.”
Bradley raises one eyebrow. “She’ll find out, Millie. They always do. If you have any success, she’ll find out. See you Saturday. Got to go. Double math classes. Some relief from the hell that is this place.” Bradley disappears, sort of clinging to the wall in a way that makes him invisible to other people.
Really, I should get to class. Really, I should tell Mum what I’m doing. Really, I should do a lot of things, but I’m too busy thinking about the fact that Danny saw me when I was pretending to be a pile of coats.
I am turning into a boy-crazy idiot. I need to stop. I hate it when girls go like that—dumping their friends for men and being ridiculous. And, besides, we all know what’s going to happen to Danny Trudeau.