Katie Cox Goes Viral

by Marianne Levy

  She wasn’t hearing anything I said.

  “If I hadn’t had to catch the bus in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened,” I said. “It’s not my fault we had to move.”

  “Katie, I have a headache coming on, and you’re not helping.”

  “Well, I’m sorry I’m such a pain,” I said. “And I guarantee that from now on, you will hardly notice my existence. It’ll be like I’ve disappeared.”

  “Katie—”

  “You won’t even notice I’m around. Then, one day, you’ll find the Cocoa Krispies box is empty, and you’ll be all, like, ‘Oh, yes, my other daughter,’ and—”

  Mom took off her rubber gloves and stood back in a way that told me this conversation was over. “Katie, knock it off.”

  Which made me completely furious because she’d started out like she cared when really she’d just wanted to take a shot at me.

  That’s the problem with parents. You think you’re talking about one thing, and you’re not. You’re talking about something else entirely.

  • • •

  Since I wasn’t really up for hanging around at home anymore, the next day I got to the bus stop even earlier than I had the day before.

  No one should ever have to wait for a bus without a phone. It’s unnatural. I mean, what are your hands supposed to even do? Why do humans have thumbs if not for messaging?

  I was forced to look at the world around me, and it was not pleasant. Traffic whizzed past. A couple of pigeons fought over something brown. And the plastic wrappers that had been shoved through the wire fence had piled up on the ground to provide an interesting record of the snack choices of the number 53 bus. (If you’re interested, Mars Bars were the most popular, followed by Kit Kat, and then it was a tie between Snickers, Twix, and M&M’s.)

  I spent a second thinking about what archaeologists in five hundred years would think of our litter and whether any of them would understand the gloriousness that is a Snickers, and then I got distracted from my scientific considerations because Finlay had arrived, and he was staring at me.

  I tried a small smile on him to show that I’d forgiven him for destroying my beloved phone. I hadn’t, but I just couldn’t face him destroying anything else.

  He said, “You’re really messy.”

  “I am messy, yes,” I said because I guess I am. My hair was, as usual, a little all over the place, and my eyeliner wasn’t at its best.

  Then he smirked. So I decided he was an idiot, and I decided to ignore him while I dealt with the sixth-graders, who all arrived at the same time, singing the chorus of “Just Me.”

  They had the words and tune down perfectly, which was pretty impressive, given that they’d only heard it that one time on the bus. And they sang it over and over and over and over and over again.

  “That’s great. Thanks,” I said, thinking it would shut them up. Instead it seemed to put them into overdrive.

  “All right, maybe you can stop now,” I tried, which, of course, made it infinitely worse.

  Then Nicole turned up. I wanted to ask her about the video and whether I could watch it, only before I could, she started telling me a long story about her tuberculosis vaccine scab, which ended with her picking it off and eating it.

  “Maybe we could talk about something else?”

  “Maybe you could wash your clothes,” said one of the sixth-graders, and then they all snickered.

  Honestly. In my day, we showed our elders a little more respect.

  I smoothed out my sweatshirt, which, come to think of it, could probably have used a spin in the machine. Then the bus showed up, and we were all thundering on and taking our seats, sixth-graders in the middle, Nicole and Finlay on the backseat, and me floating around somewhere in between.

  No sign of Jaz.

  I spent the entire bus ride trying to keep Finlay from shoving tuna salad down the back of my neck, while Nicole seared her name into the seats with a compass and her lighter. What with having to make a quick trip to the bathroom to de-fish myself, I only just made it to general assembly, and as I sat down, everyone giggled.

  “What?” I said just as McAllister came in and said, “Assembly. All of you. Now.”

  Assembly that day was a lecture on plants, how we are all like plants and should grow toward the light and something about chlorophyll.

  I’m a little hazy on that last part because I’d only been listening vaguely, probably scratching my nose or drooling or feeling around in one of my back teeth for trapped Cocoa Krispies or something similarly embarrassing when I started to notice that things were slightly…off.

  Like how you don’t realize for a little while that you’re running a temperature and instead find the world has gotten a little funny? Well, I could feel the weight of a thing happening. As though I was heating up, only I wasn’t, or like I’d accidentally sat down under a hand dryer, which I hadn’t.

  My eyes slid from the stage, down to my lap, and across to the next row. A bunch of jumbled-up arms and legs, frayed pieces of school uniforms, a few things that definitely weren’t uniforms, a smell of feet and farts and—

  Eyes. Eyes everywhere—all of them looking at me.

  The heat that I’d been feeling was the collective gaze of 950 people. There were 1900 individual eyes looking at me, although really I should say 1899 because there’s a poor kid in seventh grade who has to wear a patch.

  The principal finished her speech, and we all stood up. We’re not allowed to talk in assembly, and on the way in, people are pretty good about it. On the way out though, everyone’s in a hurry, the teachers are distracted, and everything’s a little more chatty.

  Which is when I heard snatches of “Just Me.”

  Not just from my bus crew.

  Not even just from my classmates.

  But from every corner of the hall.

  And it just didn’t make sense. No one knew about that song except for me and Lace and Amanda and Adrian. And Nicole and Jaz and Jaz’s phone…

  Oh, God.

  Oh, God.

  The sixth-graders singing on the bus.

  Finlay calling me messy.

  The whole entire assembly hall.

  OHGODOHGODOHGOD.

  It was Savannah’s butt all over again.

  Only this time, the butt was me.

  According to the clock, I had eight minutes until the start of math. So I tore through the crowds and up the stairs into the tech lab. I logged in with shaking fingers and hammered my name into Google. And there was the video. Jaz had tagged it “Katie Cox sings ‘Just Me’ Quirky Kooky Feisty SO REAL,” and there’d been 757 views, and it was—

  Blocked.

  Stupid school computer!

  I tried again, and it came up and just as quickly went away again.

  But it was there. It was definitely there…like an escaped animal from the zoo.

  And everyone had seen it.

  I raced back down the stairs, and there was Dominic Preston by the lockers, watching me with his gorgeous eyes—eyes that must have seen the video because then he actually smiled at me.

  Aaaaaargh!

  I raced all the way into homeroom. I was panting now, and I didn’t even care because there was Savannah with her gold-plated phone.

  “Can I please borrow that?” I said, making a grab for it.

  She gave me a Savannah look, one of the particularly withering ones, and said, “Er, you do not touch my phone. Thanks, babes.”

  “But the video…” I said.

  “It’s my phone,” said Savannah. “Get off.”

  I went in for another swipe. “Please?!”

  “Do not touch my phone,” said Savannah, with Paige and Sofie sliding in on either side of her as backup.

  The bell was ringing for math. I couldn’t go back out into the hallway—not w
ith the whole school laughing at me. Maybe I should go to the office and tell them I was feeling sick. Or I could skip that step, do a Mad Jaz, and just walk out.

  Even I could see, though, that trying to skip out after the entire school had spent assembly staring at me probably wasn’t my finest idea.

  So instead, I took a few deep breaths.

  “Savannah, I don’t want to touch your phone. I promise. I just want to watch the video because I haven’t seen it. Apparently, I’m the only one.”

  She rolled her eyes, and then amazingly, she unlocked it and let me lean in.

  There I was, singing away, everyone else playing in the background, while in real life, Savannah hovered beside me in her nonuniform heels, smelling of Gucci eau de toilette.

  I looked at the screen, trying to make sense of it. Something odd was going on. Perhaps my eyes had gone funny. Or maybe the shock of it all had given me brain damage.

  Because just a few minutes ago, there’d definitely been 757 views.

  But now, there were ten and a half thousand.

  I thought I might pass out. Everything went hot and cold and then hot and then kind of swirly.

  “Ten and a half thousand,” I said. “Ten and a half thousand. Ten and a half thousand.”

  Voices, faraway.

  “Why does she keep saying ten and a half thousand?”

  “Maybe she’s sick.”

  “She looks sick.”

  “No, that’s just her face.”

  “Katie? Katie!”

  “Put your head between your knees…”

  “Er, can I have my phone back first? OMG. Paige. She has eleven thousand hits.”

  “Maybe that’s why she’s passing out. Katie!”

  It was the most intense moment of my existence. I’d never felt so… Well, I couldn’t put a name to the feeling. Should have worked harder in English, I guess.

  First, there was embarrassment—huge and monstrous like I was being stomped on by the Godzilla of cringe.

  Then there was shame. On so many levels. The shame of my hideous room, which wasn’t even unpacked and also wasn’t even in the right house and was a complete and revolting disgrace. And that’s before we even got anywhere near my clothes, my hairstyle (or lack of), and my face…

  Yes, that was the worst. That I was just singing away into the camera as though it was totally normal. As though no one was watching me.

  And I’d have probably died of the cringe right there on the spot only here’s the thing: we—I—sounded all right.

  But still though. But still.

  I opened my eyes to see Savannah’s face entirely filling my vision. Interestingly, her cheeks had this microscopic coating of white, fuzzy down on them like a peach. I examined the fuzz for a while until I noticed that her mouth was moving.

  “Babes. Babes! You need to focus. You have eleven”—she glanced down at her phone—“fourteen thousand hits. Also, you need to go to math.”

  My legs somehow began working again and lifted me up and into an approximation of a normal-type person.

  “Fourteen thousand?”

  “It’s going up again,” said Sofie.

  And Savannah said, “Can people please stop touching my phone?”

  I made my way over to math, and the world seemed to be crackling with electricity. Walking through the hallway and up the stairs, all I could think was, Who are all these people?

  And why are they listening to me?

  • • •

  I plunked down into my seat next to Lacey. Whatever craziness was going on in my life right then, she would rescue me. I wouldn’t be facing it alone.

  “I cannot believe this is happening,” said Lacey.

  “I know,” I said.

  “Everyone in the school has seen it. Like, everyone.”

  “And—”

  “Everyone,” said Lacey.

  “I know. I just saw. Fourteen thousand people! Probably more by now. I don’t think I can even imagine what that looks like!” I thought about it for a moment. “Nope. I can’t.”

  “Fourteen thousand?” said Lacey. “This is crazy, Katie. This is bananas.”

  “Isn’t it?” I laughed semihysterically.

  “Why are you laughing?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “When you’ve made me look so stupid!”

  Hold on. What?

  I thought back to my bedroom floor and my blackhead cream and my school uniform and the boxes and the way my eyes closed when I sang the hard parts and the fish and chip wrappers, and I said, “I’ve made you look stupid?”

  “People keep telling me to cheer up. And asking me what I’ve done with my tambourine.”

  “It’s Adrian’s tambourine.”

  “Katie!”

  “What? I’m just saying.”

  In films, you have major dramas on the tops of buildings or cliffs or jumping between spaceships. Not in math class, third row back.

  “You have to take it down.”

  “I didn’t put it up! Jaz did! Lace, I’m as embarrassed about it as you are!”

  “Are you?”

  “Of course I am! It wasn’t like I planned for this to happen.”

  “I never gave you my permission. I know you sound nice, and it’s catchy and everything, but I’m not going to be a part of this.”

  “I’m sure it’ll fizzle out pretty soon,” I said. “I mean, that’s what happens with these things, right? They come, they go, they—”

  “Good morning, everyone.” Miss Allen swept in, all big jewelry and scarves. “Katie, stop talking. Now.”

  “I’ll ask Jaz,” I whispered after the teacher scolded me. “I’ll get her to take it down.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  • • •

  But it wasn’t that simple tracking Jaz down, what with her not behaving like any kind of normal person. For example, if I’d wanted to find Lacey, I’d have tried the vending machine. Or the top hallway radiators, because Lace is one of those people who is always cold, even in the middle of summer. I called her Elsa for a while, but it didn’t go over well, so I stopped.

  To find Jaz, I’d have to think outside the box. I’d have to use all my cleverness and cunning. I’d have to investigate places I’d never been to before, really get into the underbelly of the school, all the dark corners I’d never normally visit.

  Or I could get Nicole to text her, which is what I did.

  And it turned out she wasn’t in school anyway. She was spending the day in town.

  That worked for me since my need for a new phone had gone from dire to extra-super extremely desperate. All those zillions of people watching me, and I couldn’t even get online.

  They could use it as a form of torture. I figure it would break anyone. Even James Bond.

  After the slowest, strangest day in the history of time, where every classroom echoed with verses of “Just Me” and even the teachers were looking at me funny, I finally got myself to town.

  According to the tourist information leaflets, Harltree’s downtown is one of the two main attractions of Harltree. The second one is the train station, and I’m not completely sure that counts as a Harltree attraction because if you’re going there, it’s because you’re trying to leave.

  I looked all around, my Mad Jaz radar on full alert. The usual suspects were out in full force—mothers and their tank-sized strollers, some kid screaming over a dropped ice cream cone, a group of scary-looking men and their scary-looking dog. And—

  “Katie!”

  She was standing right next to me.

  “Hey, Jaz. I was just looking for you!”

  “Want some body lotion?” Jaz opened her bag and showed me about ten bottles. “I’ve just been to Superdrug.”

 
; “Why did you buy so much body lotion? Oh, you didn’t buy it. I see. No, thanks. I mean, it’s kind of you to offer, but I’m okay for lotion just now.” I walked her around the corner in case a security guard was about to come running out and throw us into prison for the next hundred years. “Um, about the video.”

  “I know. Have you seen?”

  “Not recently,” I said. “Because of Finlay breaking my phone. I was just on my way to get another one.”

  “Great,” said Jaz, striding off toward the phone store. “I need some new headphones.”

  Trying not to think about whether Jaz was planning on paying for the headphones, I followed her inside. The salesclerks were all busy, mostly talking to each other, so I went and stood as far from the headphones as possible.

  “Here’s the thing about the video,” I began. “You need to take it down.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s really embarrassing.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yes!” I said. “I know you put it up for a joke and everything but—”

  Jaz was contemplating an iPad, which, thankfully, was bolted to the wall. “I thought you liked writing songs.”

  “I do.”

  “And you sang for everyone on the bus.”

  “But this is different.”

  “Is it?” said Jaz. “Or is it the same but better?”

  “The whole thing has been humiliating,” I said.

  “I thought you sounded fine,” said Jaz, which was the sweetest thing she’d ever said to me, period.

  I decided to try something different. “Look, Jaz, everyone’s seen it now.”

  “If everyone’s seen it,” said Jaz, “then why take it down?”

  I didn’t have a good answer, which was a shame.

  “And anyway,” said Jaz, “not everyone has seen it. Two hundred thousand, seven hundred twenty-one people have seen it. That still leaves the rest of the world that hasn’t.”

  “Two hundred thousand?”

  “You’re smiling,” said Jaz.

  “I’m in shock.”

  “You’re pleased,” said Jaz.

  She was looking at me, hard, and I thought all over again how strange it is that someone can be making a complete mess of her life and yet still be incredibly clever. Jaz could see exactly what I was thinking even before I’d quite realized it myself, and yet she hadn’t noticed that she was a disaster area who terrified everyone around her and was probably about to get expelled.