CHAPTER 5 REESE GETS HIS BLURT ON

REESE

It all started with me and Xander messing around on MetaWorld. ^{Ed. Note: MetaWorld = video game where Reese spends 80% of his life (other 20% = soccer)} Version 3.0 just came out, and they added this thing called a “physics engine.” Which makes stuff look WAY more realistic. Even though everybody’s still got, like, square heads and no fingers.

So when Xander threw me off a cliff during a deathmatch, instead of just dying like in 2.0, my avatar went “SPLAAAAM!” and made this awesome-looking avatar-shaped hole in the ground.

It was hilarious! So Xander and I started jumping off cliffs just for fun.

CLAUDIA

FYI, Xander Billington is one of Reese’s best friends. He’s also incredibly annoying.

XANDER BILLINGTON, friend of Reese/incredibly annoying person

Don’t start no beef with me, Clownia! ^{Ed. Note: Xander’s nickname for me} You step to the X-Man, ^{Ed. Note: Xander’s nickname for himself} I’ma bring da ruckus to yo’ door!

CLAUDIA

One of the many annoying things about Xander is that he constantly talks like he’s in a rap battle. Which is especially sad when you consider that his ancestors were some of the original Pilgrims who came over from England on the Mayflower.

This means the Billingtons have officially been the most annoying family in America for almost 400 straight years.

XANDER

No way, dawg! Dem Billingtons got MAD respect back in the day!

CLAUDIA

Xander, have you ever googled “Mayflower” and “Billingtons”? Because I did. And it turns out one of your ancestors almost blew up the ship. And another one got hanged for murder after they landed in America. ^{Ed. Note: 100% TRUE (you can google this)}

XANDER

WUUUUT?? No way that’s legit.

CLAUDIA

It is completely legit.

XANDER

Straight up? No frontin’?

CLAUDIA

Straight up. No fronting. Dawg.

XANDER

AWWWW, YEAH!! THAT’S HOW WE DO! BILLINGTONS IS O.G., YO!!! I can’t wait to tell Mom-a-saurus ’bout this at dinner tonight. She gonna be all, “BODY COUNT! Raise da roof!”

CLAUDIA

I’m getting seriously off track here. Back to MetaWorld.

REESE

Jumping off cliffs got boring after a while. But then I was like, “What if we build a giant tower and jump off that?”

So we did. And it was awesome! Especially when we tricked Wyatt into standing in front of the tower so we could crush him when we landed.

WYATT TEMPLEMAN, friend of Reese

The first time they did that, I got really mad. Because they didn’t tell me what they were going to do. But then they let ME jump on THEM for a while. And it was SO funny! I was dying.

XANDER

Then I was all, “Yo, we should straight-up Blurt this!”

REESE

It was a perfect clip for Blurt. ’Cause it took, like, EXACTLY two seconds to jump off the tower and splat somebody’s avatar. So Xander took a video of me jumping onto Wyatt. Then I posted it.

CLAUDIA

I will admit that even though it’s not my kind of humor, the first time I saw Reese’s Blurt, I laughed out loud. It was one of those involuntary-laugh situations. Like when you’re watching a movie and a cute little girl kicks a big huge guy in the crotch. You don’t WANT to laugh. But you do.

REESE

I’d never posted anything on Blurt before. I’d just watched stuff. So I didn’t have any Blurt followers except Xander and Wyatt. And by the time Mom got home that night and made me turn off my computer, my Blurt only had, like, 50 Blips.

But then Xander tagged a bunch of our friends in the comments to get them to check it out.

So when I got up the next morning and checked Blurt, I had 600 Blips! And 10 new followers!

And when I got to the cafeteria before school started, practically the whole sixth grade was watching it.

CLAUDIA

Kids were all crowding around each other’s phones, watching Reese’s Blurt and laughing their heads off.

And I am going to be completely honest: it was annoying to me.

Because everybody was MUCH more excited about some two-second thing Reese had put zero thought into than they ever were about “Windmill.” Which I had not only spent WEEKS trying to get people to listen to… but actually took me YEARS of hard work, if you count all the time I spent getting better at guitar and learning how to write songs before I could come up with something really good.

It just did not seem fair at all.

But I never, EVER would’ve made a big deal about it if stupid Athena Cohen hadn’t opened her mouth.