Diehard Fangirl

Brent Carson

Brent stared at the computer screen, refreshing his Vine account for the umpteenth time in an hour. The number of “likes” and comments on that video had doubled since the morning. Most of the comments appeared to be coming from teenage girls. 

As he browsed through the comments, he swiveled the chair back and forth. The silence in the room was broken only by the soft squeaking of the leather seat, so he began practicing making noises: bird chirping, pigeon cooing, cat purring, monkey calling, anything that came to mind. 

“Shut up in there!”

The muffled voice of his brother filtered through the walls. Ignoring him, Brent continued coo’ing as he read the comments. 

“Yo! Can you keep it down?”

Brent looked over his shoulder, only partially surprised to see Paul standing in the doorway, a serious look on his brother's face. His straight brown hair hung over his forehead, almost covering his chocolate brown eyes which, from the expression they conveyed, indicated that Paul was not happy. Without even asking, Brent knew that Paul had been studying in his bedroom and his round of practicing animal noises had disturbed him. Again.  

With a big smile, Brent lifted one eyebrow and pursed his lips, making a mockingly serious face. “Bow down, oh minion, before you enter the room of the Vine King!”

“You’re so weird.” Despite his apparent irritation, Paul did enter the room and peered over his brother’s shoulder at the computer. “That doesn’t look like Chemistry homework.”

“If you read the comments,” Brent responded without a moment’s hesitation, “you’ll see a whole lot of chemistry going on there.”

Paul stifled a laugh and, pointing at the computer screen, shot back, “That kind of chemistry isn’t taught at our school. Maybe the public schools, though.”

“Dude, really,” Brent said, a more serious tone in his voice. “There’s like five hundred comments here! Did you read some of these?” He didn’t wait for Paul to answer. Instead, he shook his head. “It’s just so weird. All of these girls are starting to follow me! And they want more videos, too.”

“Better you than me,” Paul countered with a leery face. 

It was true, though. As much as Brent liked being in the limelight, Paul totally despised it. He preferred studying during the week and just hanging out with his guy friends on the weekends. Brent, however, focused on the three Ss’: social media, sports, and stage. He wasn’t certain in which order of importance they fell, either. 

“You know,” Brent said, swiveling his chair around and tapping his finger against the side of his head. “This could be something.”

This time, Paul laughed out loud. “Something? Like what?” Clearly he was amused. Always the conservative member in the family, Paul’s conventional approach to life contrasted sharply with Brent’s. Living life outside of the box was not something that Paul considered as practical. “A six-second video?”

“No seriously, bro. Think about it.”

Paul shook his head, still laughing. 

Brent, however, insisted. “This morning, I started thinking that, if I improve my videos, do more like that fire bomb one--the one with the tennis ball, remember?--I could attract a larger following, right?” 

“What? Like ten thousand?”

Brent rolled his eyes at his brother’s sarcasm. “It’s possible!” He swiveled in the chair, thinking out loud. “I just have to spend more time planning the videos and editing them. Coming up with better ideas.” He paused as an idea began to form. “Like today, at school. I forgot we had an English test. I bailed by going to the nurse. Totally the perfect Vine.”

“It’s an app, Brent. It’s just an app.”

Paul’s lack of enthusiasm only caused Brent to become more adamant. He glanced back at the computer screen. His screen was flooded with more notifications of new followers and comments on both Vine and Twitter. He pointed at the screen. “Look! They’re even finding me on Twitter!”

“Weird.” Paul leaned over once again for a final look. “Ha! That chick wants to marry you!” He pointed at one of the comments and laughed. “That’s funny.” Standing up, he ruffled Brent’s bleach blond hair.

“Don’t touch my hair, dude!” 

“Go answer Sophie Bancroft’s marriage proposal,” he teased, avoiding Brent’s hand swatting at him. “But then you better hit the books. You only have four weeks!” 

“That’s a lifetime, man!”

Laughing, Paul started to walk out of the room. “You flunk Chemistry, you’ll be worried about more than your hair getting messed up!” He turned back facing the door and pointed down the hallway toward their parents’ bedroom. 

“Whatev!” Brent returned his attention to the computer, deliberately ignoring his brother’s ominous warning. Chemistry could wait, he told himself. Vines, however, couldn’t.