CHAPTER 20
REESE GETS CRUSHED BY THE BEWBEE ARMY
CLAUDIA
By the time we got home from BlurtUp, the police had left. Mom said they were very polite, but it was still extremely scary to have them show up at the door because an anonymous caller had tipped them off that Reese was behind a whole bunch of armed robberies.
REESE
It was totally cray! I mean, I knew the Bewbees were coming at me hard by then. But I didn’t think it was gonna be “the cops are here” hard.
CLAUDIA
When did you first realize the Bewbees were attacking you?
REESE
I guess at the soccer game that morning. We were warming up, and Xander was like, “Yo, why’d you change your Blurt password?”
And I was like, “I didn’t.”
And he was like, “SOMEBODY did.”
So I knew something was up. And after the game, I asked Mom if I could have my phone back for a couple minutes to make sure there wasn’t anything wrong with my Blurt account.
When I turned the phone on, the first thing I saw was a text from Wyatt.
WYATT AND REESE (Text messages copied from Reese’s phone)
REESE
I tried to open ClickChat, but the app was like, “Incorrect password.”
Which was scary. I couldn’t get into my own account! And the Blurt app was the same way.
So I was already starting to freak out when Grandma called. And all of a sudden, Mom was like, “REESE! WHY DID YOU EMAIL AN OBSCENE PHOTO TO YOUR GRANDMOTHER???”
Then Mom checked HER email and was like, “I GOT IT, TOO!!”
CLAUDIA
Which photo was it? The dog?
REESE
One of the dogs, yeah. I mean, eventually, there were, like, ten different dog photos flying around the Internet. But all of them used the exact same pic of my head from that soccer photo the Bewbees got off my ClickChat feed.
CLAUDIA
And the dogs were all pooping on your head?
REESE
Not exactly. My head WAS the poop. So they weren’t pooping ON me. They were just… pooping me.
And it wasn’t just dogs. They used a bunch of other animals. Cows, horses, elephants… that rhinoceros…
Hey, wait a minute—you’re not putting those pics in the book, are you?
CLAUDIA
I kind of have to.
REESE
NO, YOU DON’T!
CLAUDIA
Yes, I do! This book’s all about the bad things that can happen if you’re not careful about what you do online. So I think people need to see the actual photos to really understand the dangers here.
REESE
Can’t you just SAY they were crazy bad? Do you have to show them, too?
CLAUDIA
How about I draw a picture of your head and Photoshop it over the actual heads so the dogs are just pooping a cartoon head?
REESE
I guess that’s okay. Just don’t make the cartoon look too much like me.
CLAUDIA
Deal. Where were we?
REESE
Let’s see… locked out of my accounts… the pics of dogs pooping out my head got sent to everybody on earth… the pizzas started showing up… then the cops came.
But honestly? The cops weren’t THAT bad. ’Cause once they figured out they’d been pranked by hackers, they put me on some list Ed. Note: also now we are on “do-not-deliver” list with every pizza place on Upper West Side so they wouldn’t have to keep showing up whenever the hackers called in a fake tip.
I think the worst part was what happened to me on MetaWorld. The Bewbees took over my account, and by the time I got it back, they’d stolen all my goldz, Ed. Note: goldz = MetaWorld money killed all my soldiers, and burned down my castle.
Plus they figured out what servers I like to play on and started stalking me. So whenever I’d log on to play a deathmatch, I’d get gang-murdered in the first five seconds.
That was definitely the worst.
CLAUDIA
I think Mom and Dad would disagree. They’d probably say the worst part was the hours and hours they had to spend trying to get all your accounts back.
Plus the fact that now when you google “Reese Tapper,” all that comes up are pictures of animals pooping out your head.
That’s not going to look good when you grow up and try to get a job.
REESE
I guess not. But I feel like I’ve got a few years to turn it around.
CLAUDIA
All in all, the Bewbees’ attack on Reese was devastating. Even weeks later, Mom, Dad, and Reese were STILL trying to fix all the problems it caused.
On a personal level, I spent the whole rest of that weekend freaking out. This was partly because Reese is my brother. And even though he can be seriously annoying, it’s very scary to see bad things happen to him.
But it was also because I was terrified that an angry mob of Marcel Mourlot fans were about to launch EXACTLY the same kind of attack on me.