Girl Online (10 page)

I totally get what you’re saying . . .

I’ve definitely grown out of friends before . . .

I’ll be your friend . . .

You sound so lovely . . .

It’s her loss not yours . . .

I know this sounds weird but I think of you as one of my closest friends . . .

My eyes fill with tears and I hug my knees to my chest. The fact is I’m totally honest on my blog, totally me—and my readers seem to really like me. So I can’t be all bad, can I? And at least none of them have seen my underwear.

According to Elliot, there are currently over seven billion people alive on the planet. Out of all those billions of people, only about three hundred have seen my unicorn knickers. That’s the equivalent of less than one pebble on the whole of Brighton beach. OK, so a lot of those three
hundred people are my fellow schoolmates but still—they’re bound to forget about it soon. I wriggle down in the bed and close my eyes.
Billions of people have not seen your knickers
, my inner voice whispers gently, as if it’s telling me a bedtime story.
Billions of people have not seen your knickers
.

•  •  •

I’m having this really cool dream about a gigantic advent calendar with hundreds of doors when suddenly my email notification pings. I fumble around in the dark to turn it off when there’s another ping and another. I squint at my alarm clock. It’s 1 a.m. Why am I getting so many emails at this time? As the phone goes off again and again, my first thought is that people are commenting on my blog but when I click into my inbox all I see are Facebook notifications.

Megan Barker has tagged you in a post
, the first one says. The others are all telling me that various people have commented on that post—half of the cast of the play by the looks of things. I feel really sick as I click on the link and wait for the page to load. On the page is a video of the cast taking a bow. I break out in a cold sweat as I watch myself going onstage and then tripping over. The camera zooms in, right in, on my knickers, so close you can actually see a piece of frayed thread hanging down the inside of my thigh. I fling the phone onto the floor.

Oh my God.

I’d totally forgotten that the play was being filmed. This is awful. Worse than awful. My entire body is prickling with horror and embarrassment. What am I going to do?
Take a deep breath and keep calm
, I tell myself. I can delete the post—can’t I?

I pick up my laptop and turn on my bedside lamp. My
phone goes off again. I swallow hard and log on to Facebook on my computer. The tiny red icon in the top right-hand corner informs me that I have twenty-two new notifications. Oh no!

Seventeen people have liked the video already. I make myself look at the comments. “
Whoops
,” Megan has written in the original post. The other comments are mainly LOLs and red-faced emoticons. Then I see one from Bethany, who was the nurse in the play: “
Ew, that is so gross!
 ” Underneath it, Ollie has put “
I think it’s kind of cute.
” I don’t think I’ve ever felt so sick. I hover my cursor over the post and remove the tag. This instantly removes the video from my wall, but my news feed is still full of it as one by one, various cast members comment on the link and share it.

How could Megan do this to me? I would never, ever do something like this to her. I quickly fire her a private message. “Please can you take that video down?” I sit and stare at the screen waiting for a response, but nothing.

“Come on!” I mutter over and over again. But there’s not a peep from Megan.

After about half an hour, my Facebook feed falls quiet. My school friends must have finally gone to sleep. I should try to get some sleep too. But how can I? In the morning everyone else is going to see the video. I feel as if I’m sitting on a ticking bomb, just waiting for it to go off.

I lie in bed for hours, checking and rechecking my phone. Refreshing and re-refreshing my Facebook page, in the hope that Megan has seen my message and taken down the video. At 5:30 a.m., when I’m starting to go a little demented from tiredness, I send her another message begging her to remove
it. Then I lie back down and close my eyes. It will be OK, I tell myself. As soon as she wakes up and sees my messages she’ll delete it.

I finally fall into a fitful sleep just as it’s turning light outside. Then I hear Elliot knocking—and knocking and knocking—our secret code equivalent of dialing 999. I sit bolt upright, filled with dread. I knock back, telling him to come over. The text alert goes off on my phone.
Please, please let it be Megan
, I think, grabbing it. But it’s from Elliot.

OMG HONEY! DO NOT GO ONLINE UNTIL I GET THERE. I’M LEAVING RIGHT NOW

I hear his front door shut and the sound of his feet pounding up the path. I run downstairs to let him in.

“Have you just woken up?” Elliot says as soon as I open the door.

I nod.

“OK, I don’t want you to panic but something terrible’s happened,” he says gravely.

“It’s OK, I know,” I say back.

“You do?” I can’t help thinking Elliot looks the tiniest bit disappointed; he does love being the bearer of bad news.

“The video?” I say, leading him up the stairs.

Just as we’re walking across the landing, my parents’ bedroom door opens and Dad comes out. When he sees Elliot, he shakes his head and grins. “It’s seven o’clock in the morning,” he says.

“Actually it’s one minute to, but thanks, Mr. P,” Elliot says, looking at his watch.

Dad raises his eyebrows and sighs. “No, I wasn’t giving you the time. I was trying to say that it’s a bit early for a visit, isn’t it?”

“It’s never too early to give your best friend some moral support,” Elliot says seriously.

Dad instantly looks at me, worried. “Is everything all right, love? You rushed up to your room last night like you needed to put out a fire.”

“Yes, I’m fine,” I say. “It’s just a . . .”

“Homework crisis,” Elliot finishes for me. “Those pesky French verbs.”

“But Penny isn’t doing French.” Dad stares at me like he’s trying to see inside my mind to work out what’s really going on.

“No, but I am,” Elliot says, quick as a flash. “That’s why I need Penny’s help.”

“Oh.” Dad frowns and scratches his head. He doesn’t look convinced at all. “Well, when you’ve sorted your French crisis, come down and have some breakfast. I’m making eggs over easy,” he says in an American accent, “and we need to talk about New York.”

“Will do,” I call over my shoulder as Elliot and I race up the second flight of stairs.

As soon as we’re in my room, I shut the door tight.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Elliot says.

“I was too embarrassed.” I sink down onto my bed. “And, anyway, it’ll be OK. I’ve sent Megan a couple of messages
asking her to delete the video so hopefully it’ll be off Facebook as soon as she wakes up.”

Elliot stares at me. “When did you last go on Facebook?”

“About five o’clock this morning.” I get a sick sensation in the pit of my stomach. Why do I get the feeling Elliot knows something I don’t? And how has he even seen the video? I untagged myself from the post, so it shouldn’t have come up on his Facebook feed; he isn’t friends with any of my schoolmates. I open up my laptop and refresh my Facebook page. “Oh no!”

Some kid from Year Nine has tagged me in a link to the video—the video that is now on YouTube. I’ve also been tagged in a link to the school “unofficial” Facebook group. The video is on there too.

“I’m so sorry, honey,” Elliot says to me gravely. “But it looks like you’re about to go viral.”

Chapter Eleven

“Penny!” Mum exclaims as soon as I walk into the kitchen. “What’s the matter?”

I sit down at the table and put my head in my hands. If I wasn’t feeling so numb I would wail.

“She’s about to go viral,” Elliot says solemnly, sitting down next to me.

“She’s got a virus?” Dad turns to face me. “I thought you looked a bit peaky earlier, love. Do you want a Lemsip?”

“No, she’s about to go viral . . . you know, as in on the Internet,” Elliot explains. “Like Rihanna did that time that naked video of her was posted on Twitter.”

“There’s a naked video of you on the Internet?” Dad sits down at the table opposite me. I’ve never seen him look so serious.

“No!” I say, shaking my head.

“Well, semi-naked,” Elliot says thoughtfully.

“There’s a semi-naked video of you on the Internet?” Dad stands up, and sits back down again. He looks at Mum.

Mum comes and sits beside me and takes hold of my
hand. “What’s going on, darling?” And that’s all it takes for me to go into a full-on meltdown.

“There’s—a—video—of—me—in—my—unicorn—knickers!” I gasp between sobs.

“So, in some ways, it’s actually worse than being naked,” Elliot says.

“Unicorn knickers?” Dad looks completely bewildered. “What unicorn knickers? What video? Will someone please explain what’s going on?”

“Penny fell over onstage last night when she was taking a photo and she flashed her knickers to the entire audience,” Elliot explains.

“My worst knickers,” I sob. “Well, actually, they were my favorite—that’s why I wore them.” I look up at Mum through tear-filled eyes. “They were so comfy. But not anymore. Now I just want to burn them.”

“Want to burn what?” Tom says, trudging into the kitchen, his hair all messy from sleeping.

“Her unicorn knickers,” Elliot says.

“OK, clearly I’m still asleep and dreaming,” Tom says, slumping down in a chair.

“So you’re not actually
naked
in this video?” Dad says.

“Yep, definitely still dreaming,” Tom mutters, putting his head on the table and closing his eyes.

I shake my head.

“Well, that’s OK then, isn’t it?” Dad says, looking at me hopefully. “So what if they saw your knickers for a second? They’ll have forgotten all about it by today.”

“Please tell me I’m dreaming,” Tom mutters, his eyes still closed.

“But they didn’t just see them for a second,” I wail. “It’s on a video on the Internet, in close-up and slow motion. People will be able to watch it over and over again. And they’re so faded and frayed!”

“What’s so faded and frayed?” Dad says.

Elliot and I answer in unison: “Her unicorn knickers!” “My unicorn knickers!”

“Oh dear.” Mum hugs me to her. “Haven’t you had those knickers since you were twelve?”

“Mum!”

She gives me a bashful smile. “Sorry.”

Tom looks up at us through sleepy eyes. “I’m not dreaming, am I?”

Elliot shakes his head. “Fraid not.”

“OK.” Dad places both his hands on the table. “Who posted the video online?”

“Megan,” I say.

“Mega-nasty,” Elliot mutters.

“Megan?” Mum looks really shocked.

“Yes, she put it on her Facebook page and now someone’s put it on YouTube and someone else has posted it on the school Facebook page.” I start to cry again as I think of the entire school watching action replays of my knickers.

Tom stares at me. “Are you serious?”

I nod.

“Right.” Tom gets to his feet, suddenly looking wide awake.

“What are you doing?” Mum says, looking at him anxiously.

“I’m going to go up to school and find everyone who’s
posted it online and I’m going to make them take it down.” I’ve never seen Tom look so mad.

Mum jumps to her feet and grabs hold of his arm. “You can’t do that; you’re not a student there anymore.”

Tom frowns at her. “So what? Penny is and she’s my sister. I’m not going to sit back and do nothing.”

I smile up at him gratefully.

Dad shakes his head. “It’s OK, son, I’ll take care of it. The last thing we need is you getting into any trouble.” He takes hold of my hand. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’ll go up to the school this morning and I’ll get them to take it off their Facebook page.”

I shake my head. “It’s the unofficial Facebook page—the teachers don’t have any control over it. And so many people have been sharing it; everyone’s going to see it anyway.”