You Don't Know Me

Zero Mean Comments

"This" is a video. Of us. From that day. And on a website everyone can see. 

As soon as Jodie clicks "Play", my heart starts to pound. There's my bedroom, with my white wrought- iron bed frame in the background, my ancient fairy lights, my old High School Musical duvet and my poster of a beach in Malibu. My bedroom: on the internet. Oh no oh no oh no.

There's a sound of giggling in the background. And "Are you doing it, Nell?"

Please let it not be Abba. Let it not be the leotard.

Real-life Nell abandons the phone search and comes over to join us, slipping her arm through mine.

On the screen, Rose enters first, wearing a green crushed-velvet maxi-dress over her purple boots, and her hair in rivers of ringlets around her face.(This was her 'Irish folk singer' look, I remember.) She's carrying her guitar and sits on my bed and starts to play. But it's not the folk song, it's bright and breezy. In fact, it's the intro to 'Sunglasses'. And, oh my god, it sounds like the proper audio version we did, not the tinny soundtrack that comes with the video.

Somebody worked on this.Somebody went through my phone and edited stuff together. This is perverted and bizarre.

While video-Rose plays, video-Nell and video-Jodie arrive to stand near her, moving to the music and beckoning me to join them. Jodie's still in her Katy Perry outfit of a pink satin top and leopard-print leggings, which is totally opposite of what she normally wears. Nell's in sequin shorts and hoddie- and no, that's not her typical day-wear either. Funnily enough, Rose does like to hang around in maxi-dresses and purple boots. Only the ringlets were unusual for her. I desperately try to remember what I ended up wearing. Was it the leotard? 

Just before we start to sing, I arrive in shot, looking out of breath and laughing. I am half-changed for bed, with my pyjama top on over my mini-kilt, and a feather boa quickly flung around my neck for panache. My hair's ultra-backcombed from my Beyoncé moment and I've ended up with the yellow plastic sunglasses. Apart from that, I look totally normal.

Oh God.

On-screen we grin like maniacs and start to sing.

'I put my sunglasses on

My yellow sunglasses on...'

Video-me gets carried away, skipping around to the music, making funny faces and doing some of my Beyoncé moves. We look so silly. But, I can't help feeling the song sounds OK. We have definitely done a lot worse.

Real-life Rose finishes brushing out her hair with her fingers and comes over,

"Is it horrendous? Is it Abba?" 

We shake our heads. Jodie holds her phone out still further so everyone can see.

What's strange is that someone would use 'Sunglasses' of all things to try and humiliate us. Why not, as Rose said, Abba? Or, the 'seminal' leotard moment? Costumes aside, this one is relatively normal. In fact, of all songs we did, it's my favourite, and it actually sounds quite good. 

Am I the problem? Is that why they chose it? It's the only thing I can think of. The others have all got beautiful voices. I still love singing more than anything, but in Year 8 I was told in choir that my voice sounds like 'a truckful of gravel being poured down a hole'. Plus the whole skipping thing.

"Is it me?" I ask.

Jodie looks doubtful. "Could be. Look at that wiggle you did there."

"Was it terrible? Should I have just stood there?'

"I don't think so," Rose disagrees, peering at the screen curiously.

I still don't get it.

"What?" I am almost wailing by now.

"Look," Nell says, pointing to the titles above the video. I hadn't noticed there were any. I was too busy checking out my legs for previously unknown deformities, or my dance style for embarrassing dad-at-a-disco moves I didn't know I had. 

But now I see it more clearly. Whoever uploaded this video only did it this morning. And whoever they were, they decided to enter it into a competition. Not just any competition, buy Killer Act- the battle of the bands on Interface. It's the biggest online music competition in the country and it feels like half the school had already entered.

Oh help. And there I go, bouncing around my bedroom in a feather boa and half my pyjamas. 

I drag my eyes away from myself and look where the others are looking: at the information underneath. So far there have been, zero mean comments about us. And 24 votes.

Call of Duty- who go to Castle College, and are the best band in the area by miles- have been on Killer Act for weeks and they only had about 300 votes the last time I looked. We have nearly a tenth of that in a few hours. There re two comments but they're both OK. 

The blonde in the glitter shorts is awesome.

Loving those dance moves! lol 

"I don't get it," I say, sinking into the beanbag, confused.

Nell, bright pink after that comment about her shorts, startes at the screen hard, as if daring it to change. It does. 25 votes. 26.

"I thinks it's OK," She whispers in wonderment. "I think poeple like it."

But then I remind myself: Nell is cute, fluffy kitten in human form. i look to Jodie for a second opinion. Was that comment about my dance moves ironic, or not?

"It's possible..." Jodie announces, sounding as if she can't quite believe what she's saying, "... that we don't totally suck on video." 

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EARLY UPDATE!!! yay! :)

Ok, so wattpad changed my profile.... again! I tried using the same old trick. Changing the username... It didn't work... I HATE WATTPAD. 

I didn't mean it :p