You Don't Know Me (13 page)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Little White Box

I
catch him first thing the next morning, in the corridor outside the sixth-form common room, where I've been waiting. He looks startled when he sees me. I don't blame him.

‘Elliot, I know about the votes,' I say.

I don't, of course, not really – but one look at his shifty face, which has gone red to the tips of his ears, and I can see I'm on to something.

‘What votes?' he mumbles, trying to move past me.

‘The votes we got for Killer Act.
I
know, and there's a journalist who knows too, and she's going to do an article
on you, so . . .'

‘
What?
'

He stops dead and stares straight at me. Looks like Fiona Kennedy was right.

‘Those votes. You made them happen, didn't you? She's on the case, Elliot. You have to tell me, or else I'll just talk to her and she can talk to you direct.'

‘Look,' he says nervously, ‘not here. Let's go into town after school. I promise I'll tell you there, OK?'

When the final bell rings, I find Elliot waiting for me in the reception area. Outside, the photographers have gone at last, but I wonder who else might be watching me. I try not to think about it.

‘There's a gaming shop that's usually quiet,' Elliot says. ‘We can go in there, if you like.'

‘Sure. Whatever.'

It's a twenty-minute walk into town through the rain, and actually I'm glad of his company. He walks with a sixth-former's confidence, and now, if somebody
is
watching me, they'll see that I'm not alone.

As we get to the edge of town, the rain eases off and the sun pokes through the clouds. Castle Bigelow can look quite pretty, with its old, painted buildings lining the high street, and the grand stone entrance to Castle College crowning the top of the hill. I take off my hat and stuff it in my pocket, enjoying the fresh air on my face.

Inside the gaming shop, Elliot explains everything.

‘I wanted things to be nice for you,' he sighs. ‘That's all. I watched your videos and they were really funny. But that one – ‘Sunglasses' – was special. I thought it was fantastic. I kept humming the song to myself. You
looked . . .' he coughs and his voice fades to a nervous grunt, ‘gorgeous doing your . . . dancing. I thought people should see.'

‘We wanted to keep it secret. It was
our
video.'

He hangs his head and grunts some more. I think it's some form of geek apology.

‘OK, so you were trying to be nice,' I say, frustrated that an act of so-called kindness could end up doing so much damage. ‘But why did you rig the votes?'

‘Because I could,' he says, meeting my eyes again.

So he did it. He really did it.

He perks up a little and looks proud of himself.

‘I knew more people would pay attention if you had votes. And Interface have the most pathetic internal security. I mean . . . for an operation their size. It's astounding they're so easy to hack. They were kind of asking for it really.'

‘How did you do it?'

I breathe carefully and try to keep the tears out of my voice. The one time I thought the four of us had done something good together – something we could be proud of, before we spoiled it all – it was all a mirage, faked by this boy in front of me. It was just a dream. Elliot doesn't notice. He carries on eagerly.

‘Well, Interface voting's all anonymous, so I created some new accounts to vote. I kind of automated the system so it could create multiple accounts to speed things up. It wasn't quite that simple, but that's the basic idea. I did it at school, so they couldn't ever trace it back to me directly. But they could if you tell them, Sasha.' He frowns anxiously.

I close my eyes for a moment, defeated.

‘So you're a hacker,' I say.

‘Yeah,' he grins. ‘And I'm brilliant. Not to blow my own trumpet or anything, but . . . I'm pretty special on computers. I'm thinking of working for NASA one day. Or Interface. There's so much I could teach them.'

‘If you don't get jailed first.'

His grin fades slightly.

‘Yeah, well, about that . . . please don't tell on me, Sasha. Please?'

‘OK,' I sigh. I wasn't going to tell on him anyway. I just wanted to understand.

‘Look, if you want to know,' he says, ‘I only did it until you did that gig at George's. After that, I didn't need to.'

‘So those last votes . . . when it went into the thousands . . . they were real?'

‘Yeah, they were. Honestly. People really liked you. Once they knew about you, it went viral. And I owe you, Sasha. If there's ever anything I can do . . . just call me. I mean it. OK?'

I smile wryly.

I would . . . but I don't have a phone.

Next day, Mum offers to meet me in Castle Bigelow after school to replace my iPhone with the cheapest thing we can find. I didn't completely explain how my precious phone got broken. Actually, I said it fell out of my pocket while I was walking and I lost it. Mum didn't have the heart to be totally angry with me, given the whole ‘being talked about as a teen bully on the evening news' scenario.

It will be torture to be out in public, watching out all the time to see who's watching me, and waiting. But it went OK yesterday, and this trip has to be done: I
need
a phone.

We go into West Country Mobile and ask for the cheapest pay-as-you-go smartphone they do. I can't believe I'm going to have to pay for my old contract
and
my new calls. The whole thing is so unfair it makes me want to scream. And it all goes back to Elliot. Elliot and Dan Matthews. I mean . . . boys. Honestly, what is the point of them? All they do is make life unnecessarily complicated and mess things up.

The new phone is disgusting and I don't really understand how it works. But I don't really care. It also means I have a new phone number, which is a nightmare, but I still haven't got round to sorting things out with my provider yet about my old phone. Dealing with hate mail can be pretty exhausting, even if all you're doing is trying to ignore it. On top of that, just getting to school and back and keeping on top of my homework is about as much as I can do right now.

I'm busy checking out the new screen and keypad, and thinking about the practicalities, as I trail after Mum down the street towards the car park. Ahead of me, a group of three school kids, not much younger than me, are walking down the pavement, laughing. They've just been to the chip shop and they're sharing a bag of chips and a large Coke. I lift my head. The chips smell delicious – all hot and vinegary. I give the trio a friendly smile.

They look at me and stop dead.

‘Oh, my God, it's her!'

‘Who?'

‘The one from the show. The one who dropped Rose. Look!'

Before I know it, the youngest and smallest of the group has stepped forward, grabbed the Coke from her
friends and thrown it all over me.

The shock makes me shriek. For a second, I can't feel anything, and then a cold, wet sensation penetrates through my hair, down my neck, into my clothes. I drop the phone and stand there, gasping. The boy reaches into his pocket and gets his phone out, laughing gleefully.

‘Smile for the camera!'

The older girl's already filming me on hers. Then they both take several pictures of me gasping, before casually moving on.

Mum hasn't noticed. She's still walking away down the street. It's only taken a few seconds, but a crowd is starting to form. More people. More phones. I stoop to pick up my new, damaged one from the pavement and get up to find more screens in my face, more flashes. Now Mum turns round. She runs towards me, gathers me up and hurries me along.

‘Don't worry, darling. It's over. It's over.'

But it's not over. How can it ever be over? Sitting in Mum's car, driving back home, I have to fight hard to stop myself from breaking down. I am Sasha Bayley. I am not a bad person. I don't deserve this, even though so many people think I do.

When we get home, there's a Land Rover parked on the verge outside the cottage. Instantly, I struggle to fight a new wave of panic. Do paparazzi drive muddy Land Rovers? So far they've all been in low, fast saloons. Oh
no
. I can't bear for them to see me like this.

Mum notices the Land Rover too, and watches it suspiciously while she parks.

As I open the car door, ready to run to the house, the passenger door of the Land Rover opens too. Two legs
swing out. I catch my breath. A tall male figure steps out and starts to cross the road.

Dan Matthews.

The second time he's nearly given me a heart attack.

‘What the hell are you doing here?' I shout furiously, as my heart rate starts to subside. ‘How did you even know where I live?'

He gives me a nervous smile.

‘You're quite famous now, you know. I asked a few people and someone knew your address. Oh my goodness. What happened?'

I put my hand to my sodden, dripping hair.

‘Coke.'

He peers at me for a second, and works out roughly what must have been. ‘I'm so sorry.'

‘Don't be.'

He looks uncomfortable. ‘Well, anyway . . .' He approaches me, holding out a package. ‘I just came to give you this.'

It's a white box. I recognise the packaging instantly. I've seen it before.

‘What?' I ask, wonderingly. Not angry now, but very, very confused.

‘It's an iPhone. A new one. You said about your contract. You'll need the same thing. I noticed you had the latest version . . .'

Oh my God. The boy has just bought me a new iPhone. A proper one, all wrapped up. And now he's standing there, looking at me like a lost puppy.

‘Wow.' I pause to swallow. ‘Er, thanks.'

‘It's OK.'

‘My God!' Mum calls out, skirting round the Nissan to
join us. ‘Is that what I think it is? Sasha? Sorry, I'm Sasha's mum. Hello.'

She stands there, waiting for an explanation, while I make awkward introductions and Dan describes briefly what happened on the railway bridge. And Mum glares at me, because I've obviously been lying to her.

‘Don't be ridiculous,' she says to Dan. ‘Sasha can't possibly keep it.'

‘No, honestly,' he insists, ‘it's fine.'

‘She doesn't need it,' Mum declares, still overwhelmed by the generosity of the gift. ‘We've just got her a new one.'

‘It's a bit ruined,' I point out with a sigh. I bring it out, dripping, from my pocket.

‘I'm sure we can get it fixed,' Mum says, flailing a little, not sure at all.

Dan looks at me. He and I both know that even if we could get it to work, it simply doesn't bear any comparison to my wonderful, wonderful iPhone, with its contract that I'm paying for anyway. Whereas this new one would solve all my problems. All my technical problems, anyway.

‘It's OK,' I say to Mum. ‘He's, like, a millionaire.'

I mean, he must be, right? He goes to the posh school and plays gigs in a smart jacket. He sounds posh. He
looks
posh, with his quiff of curly hair and his glowing just-played-rugby skin. Embarrassed, yes, but definitely loaded.

‘That makes no difference,' Mum says grimly. And I know she's probably right, but the little white box alone is
so lovely . . .

‘I can't take it back,' Dan says, shrugging and backing away towards the Land Rover.

‘Why?' she asks.

‘Just . . . keep it. Really. Keep it.'

He jerks his head back towards the vehicle, where I can now see his brother Ed poking his head out of the window.

‘Come
on!
' he calls. ‘You're taking a million years, bro'.'

‘Sorry. Got to go.' Dan shrugs again.

He dashes off, before we can do anything else. Wow. Imagine being able to spend that much on a piece of technology and not really have to think about it.

But I'm wrong.

Later, after a long, hot shower to remove any trace of Coke – and humiliation – I'm on Interface on my computer, when I can't help looking up Dan. On his page, there's an open message from Call of Duty's drummer, saying:

Oh, OK. Maybe he did have to think about it.

Reluctantly, I re-evaluate a lot of my earlier opinions about boys. Particularly guitar-playing boys . . . or
ex
-guitar-playing boys. It's the most romantic gesture I can think of – for a boy who's not even going out with the girl in question. I can feel the tingle right down to my shoes.

Before I can think about it too much, I risk a message on Dan's page. He probably won't notice. He may think
I'm a sad stalker, but then – seriously – the boy tracked me down to my home address. So far he wins the stalking prize. I type quickly:

Almost instantly, a message pings back.

I can't help myself. I start typing again.

I click ‘Send'. His reply is super-fast.

He says ‘authentically'. It's such a Rose word.

Well, Call of Duty didn't exactly look idiotic at
George's party. Nu-uh.