CHAPTER 14 THE FURRY MENACE SAVES MY LIFE

CLAUDIA

By the time we went back to school on Monday, Reese had fallen from his Saturday-morning peak of 25,000 followers all the way down to 21,000.

Which was encouraging… but still 20,800 followers more than I had. So I was pretty desperate to start posting the Furry Menace Blurts. I’d been bugging James to let me get started ever since we’d finished shooting in Central Park on Saturday.

CLAUDIA AND JAMES (text messages)

(CLAUDIA) Hi! Are the Blurts done yet?

(JAMES) Most of them. Doing some post-production

Can you send me the first ones so I can post?

Will put them on thumb drive and bring to school tomorrow

Can’t you just email them?

What part of “I’m banned from the Internet” don’t you understand?

Oh, right. Sorry!

While you’re waiting, you should join other social networks

Then you can cross-post to drive more traffic

Great idea. Which sites should I join?

Right now I am only on ClickChat and Blurt

Join Flippy, Blather, Bloop, GrabBag, Readr, Shout, and Kimchi

Are all those real?

Yes

I just checked out Kimchi and, ummm… it’s in Korean

Srsly?

Trust me. Furry Menace will go over HUGE in Korea

CLAUDIA

I joined all the sites James told me to join, including Kimchi.

At least, I THINK I joined Kimchi. When I put the confirmation email I got through Google Translate, it said, “Congratulations! You can use the brine close. If you can be used to set, press here.”

So I’m not totally sure what my status is over there.

Then I linked all the sites to Blurt so they’d cross-post whenever I Blurted. But since I didn’t get the thumb drive with all the Blurts from James until Monday morning, I had to wait until after school that day to start posting.

There were eleven days left in the bet, so James put me on a four-Blurt-a-day schedule. He also told me when to post, what hashtags to use, which Blurt stars to tag in the comments, and how to lie ^{Ed. Note: official story: my weird cousin asked me and Jens to help with his student film} to people so nobody would know he had anything to do with it.

JAMES

Speaking as an artist, not being able to take credit for my work was very painful.

But not as painful as getting expelled would’ve been if Vice Principal Bevan caught me going online.

And I figured I could always reveal my identity after the school year ended and The Furry Menace had become a massive global phenomenon.

CLAUDIA

I posted the first four Blurts every two hours between 3:30 and 9:30pm on Monday. And for a massive global phenomenon, they got off to a very slow start.

In fact, it was such a slow start that on Tuesday morning, I had to hide out in the library again before school to avoid getting laughed at by the Fembots.

And when I passed them in the hallway before second period and Athena yelled, “Nice try, Claudia! Lamest Blurts EVER!” I got a horrible sick feeling in my stomach because I thought she might be right.

I was so worried that—since some of the Blurts were much funnier than others—I asked James if we should rethink the strategy and release the funniest ones first.

JAMES

That was ridiculous. Would you ask Herman Melville to shuffle chapters of Moby-Dick around to get to the whale faster?

CLAUDIA

I don’t know. I’ve never read Moby-Dick.

JAMES

You wouldn’t like it. There’s no cute boys.

CLAUDIA

That is very sexist, James.

Anyway, by the end of school on Tuesday, the first four Blurts were picking up steam. They each had over 8,000 Blips, and I’d gotten seventy-five new followers.

And when I released Blurts #5–8 that night, The Furry Menace really started to get some traction.

PARVATI

Can I just say, number 6 was my personal favorite? It was like a scene from an actual movie.

WYATT

Those first four Blurts were just weird. I didn’t really understand what was going on at all. I was like, “Reese, did your sister have a mental breakdown or something?”

But then when the next four came out and the Flubby started chasing Jens, I was like, “Wait a minute—this is actually INSANELY COOL.”

JENS

At the first, I didn’t watch them. Because I did not have the Blurt account.

And also my head was still hurting from the bat. So I just wanted to forget whole thing.

But then after soccer practice Tuesday, there was new Blurts, and Wyatt shows everybody them on his phone. And the whole team is saying, “This is great!”

So I make a Blurt account to watch. And almost right away I get fifty followers!

CLAUDIA

By Wednesday after school, six of the eight Blurts had over 40,000 Blips, #6 had 60,000 Blips, and I was closing in on 1,000 followers.

Then I released #9–12, and things REALLY started to take off.

It was so exciting that I basically got zero homework done that whole night.

CLICKCHAT POSTS (PRIVATE CHAT)

CLAUDIA

By the time I went to bed that night, #FurryMenace had been trending on the Blurt home screen for two hours, a couple of Blurt stars had RB’ed it, and I was up to over 1,500 followers.

James’s plan was working—I was actually starting to go viral. So right before Mom came in and made me put away my electronics for the night, I texted James to thank him.

CLAUDIA AND JAMES (text messages)

(CLAUDIA) Are you watching these numbers?

(JAMES) Banned.

From.

The.

Internet.

Right. Sorry. IT’S AMAZING!

#FurryMenace trending on home page!

Almost 100K for biggest Blurt!

1,600 followers!

And 20+ more Blurts to go?

Exactly

THANK YOU SO MUCH JAMES!!!!!! YOU ARE A ROCK STAR

Yes I am

I COULD NOT HAVE DONE THIS WITHOUT YOU

You really couldn’t

Just don’t tell anybody I was involved

I won’t. I promise

Unless somebody wants to make a film/TV deal

That’d be worth getting expelled over

Congrats—u r going to be bigger than that kid who bit his brother’s finger

CLAUDIA

Speaking of brothers… while I was lying in bed dreaming of victory over the Fembots, Reese was spiraling down into a waking nightmare from which there was no escape.

And by “waking nightmare,” I mean the comment section of his Blurt page.