I sit in my room for hours. I tidy everything about four times. I look underneath the bed and discover a box of My Little Ponies. I go on eBay to see how much they are worth. I find out they are worth nothing because Teresa has cut off their manes and written Teresa is the best jockey ever all over them. I brush Dave and then try to tie a small bow on her head. She attempts to eat it.
After all this, I still can’t decide whether I should upload the vlog or not.
Eventually, I decide I need some advice about my actual advice vlog.
I track down Granddad. He’s in his shed. He’s put his calendar back up, and he’s sawing a piece of wood. He does this a lot. You never get to see where the wood goes or what it does.
“Granddad, would you do something even if you thought people would laugh at you for it?”
Granddad stops sawing and sits down. “I married your grandma.”
I hate it when he does this. Rubbish, ancient anti-women jokes. You need him to be helpful, and he just goes silly.
“Granddad! I’m serious!” I yell.
“So am I,” he sighs. “You’re old enough now, so I’ll tell you something, but keep it to yourself. Your grandma was pregnant with Teresa when I met her.”
My brain takes a second or two to process this. This is a major revelation. I had NO IDEA. “What?” I yelp. “So she isn’t yours?!”
“She’s mine,” Granddad says firmly. “Blood isn’t always thicker than love. Your grandma was seen as damaged goods years ago. People said, ‘Don’t marry her.’ But she was lovely. She’d made a mistake. A man told her he loved her, and he didn’t. I did. So I married her, and I didn’t have a miserable day or a sandwich for dinner for thirty-five years. You’ve got to do what you think is right, Millie. Common sense—that’s what you’ve got. Teresa hasn’t got any, but at least she follows her heart. That’s something. If YOU think that what you’ve got to say is worth hearing, then who cares what other people think? If it could help one person feel better, SHARE IT! But, Millie…”
And Granddad grabs my hand. “You HAVE to look after yourself. That’s important. Now, get lost. I need to cut some wood.”
Granddad may be harsh, but sometimes he gets it right.
That’s it. I’m going to do it.
I call Lauren as soon as I close the shed door behind me.
“I’m with you,” Lauren says, and that’s JUST what I want to hear. “Can I come over? I’d quite like to get out of the house, and anyway, we are doing this together.”
When Lauren arrives at the house, she’s carrying a jar of celebratory chocolate-hazelnut dip. “Let’s toast to our success with sweet grissini!” she shouts before shoving one in my mouth and laughing. It’s a great friend that helps you AND brings you random sugar.
Just as we are about to press UPLOAD, my stomach suddenly goes into a panicked flutter. All the questions that have been rushing around my head all day suddenly seem all too real. What am I doing? What will Danny—or Bradley—think about it? What if Mum or Erin see it?
Dave chooses this moment to jump onto my laptop keyboard and attempt to steal a grissino.
She also presses UPLOAD.
Lauren looks at me. “Well, Mills, it’s gone. Decision made. It’s up. Hashtag it on ALL your accounts with hashtag real, hashtag vlog, hashtag makeup, hashtag feminism, hashtag advice, hashtag life, and anything else that is trending now, and let’s see what happens!”
I agree with her but tell her that we should leave it for twenty-four hours before we even check the views. Otherwise, we’ll just get down about it. New vlogs take time to build an audience. I read that in an article.
Lauren just puts her hugely serious face on and says, “This is history, Millie. This is gorgeous Stalin when he could be in a boy band. This is…”
At this point, Aunty Teresa bursts in, shouting, “Have you started a proper vlog, Mills?! Granddad mentioned you were doing something involving videos that everyone in the world can see. Brilliant! And perhaps, if it goes viral, you can ever so subtly put an advert in for my ice-cream van, too!”
Lauren catches my eye. We don’t want to tell Teresa exactly what we’ve said about her.
“Let’s see how it goes,” I say.
I think I say this to Aunty Teresa quite a lot.
Aunty Teresa skips off to work on more ludicrous flavors of ice cream.
Lauren says to me very seriously, “How are you going to even sleep tonight now that it is out THERE?”
My tummy does a backflip. Perhaps I should give my phone to Lauren so I’m not checking it all night, but then … I know that I can just look at Dad’s iPad. It will be impossible not to check. Impossible not to see how people react. Impossible not to … “Loz, it will be impossible.”
“Millie!” Lauren shouts. “You’re not a celebrity. Nothing will happen for hours. DON’T WORRY. This is a really fun thing we are doing. Don’t spoil it!”
Lauren is right, but it’s a bit of a major life-role reversal when she is the sensible one.
“I bet you can’t stop yourself checking it!” I snap.
“Bet I can!” She laughs as she deletes the YouTube app off her phone and off mine, too.
“Lauren!” I yell. “This is INSANE!” And it is, but I feel like being totally insane.
“RIGHT! No checks till lunchtime tomorrow on any device! HASHTAG PINKIE PROMISE!” Lauren giggles as she curls her little finger around mine. This is our sacred bond. I can’t break this. I think that if I do, something dreadful will happen.
It probably won’t.
I hope.
I try to have an early night. Dave walks on my forehead, pleading with me to give her some tuna-flavor luxury cat snacks. It’s hard to relax.
A MASSIVE part of me says this has been a terrible mistake. It may lead to glory, or it may lead to …