Tuesday & Max

6

WE'LL SIT FOR DAYS

AND TALK ABOUT THINGS

IMPORTANT TO US LIKE WHATEVER

WE'LL DEFUSE BOMBS

WALK MARATHONS

AND TAKE HOME WHATEVER TOGETHER

Tuesday finds the battered sign on the door that reads 120 and turns the handle quickly. She slips inside, hoping to go unnoticed, but she's twenty minutes early for the lesson. It makes her one of about six people in the big classroom, and the blue hair tends to draw eyes.

The room is large and laid out with four long rows of tables, with computers in each space and a wheelie chair. There's a touchscreen board at the front, a desk for the teacher, and a bin. Tuesday remembers the layout vaguely from her meagre attendance at the beginning of September.

Max sits on his own at a computer right near the front of the room, on the far-left side. She senses, for some reason, that his isolation is self-decided; but before she can talk herself out of going over, he notices her and smiles.

She approaches, intending to just chat, maybe, and then sit somewhere else; but he pulls out an earbud with one hand and the chair next to him with the other and indicates for her to sit down.

In front of him, he has the desktop computer loaded up already with texts for the module, but his laptop sits in front of that, with Lost World open. Tuesday babbles uncontrollably about the new base she's building in the game, still thrilled to have found someone else who plays, until the teacher enters and lesson begins.

They're studying some Youtuber that Tuesday knows nothing about, analysing marketing and branding and the use of online media to build an audience. Max closes his laptop and plugs his earphones back in, giving her the clear message that he plans on concentrating and not chatting, so Tuesday puts her own in and watches a couple of videos.

Vapid. That's the first word that comes to mind. The Youtuber is rich, pretty and thin. Her life consists of shopping, talking about shopping, and probably thinking about shopping. Tuesday wonders if she's ever had a bad thing happen to her in her entire life.

She scrolls down and peruses the comments on an outfit haul video. People verbally applaud her like she's some sort of hero for correctly pairing red pinstripe flares with the right kind of shoe.

On second thought, maybe she is. Who wears red pinstripe flares?

A profile image on one of the comments suddenly sticks out. It's Candice Cooke.

You cheered me up today, she's written. I really needed it. Thank you! And the pink bag is SO nice. :)

Out of curiosity, Tuesday clicks on her profile image, expecting to see nothing but saved videos, maybe playlists, and is surprised at the numbers that pop up.

Subscribers: 281.

Candice's videos are a collage across the huge computer screen. They're mostly unedited captures of school performances, but there are a few videos of her singing, too. Acoustic covers, alone in her room. She has a good voice. Tuesday imagines them singing together, for a moment; a private daydream of them meeting by coincidence, becoming friends, singing perfect harmonies in The Doe.

But that'll never happen. Performers are born, Tuesday thinks. And she isn't one. Candice is.

Tuesday clicks on her Liked Videos tab. The sixth one along surprises her. Why I Haven't Uploaded, by the Youtuber they're studying in class. For the first time, Tuesday looks at her username. It's vague, a string of Beautuber nouns she likely hopes sounds catchy, or captures her aesthetic. It's a different account, with a similar name to the first one; this one has 'vlogs' tagged onto the end. She clicks on the video, scrolls down to the description.