by Geoff Rodkey
CLAUDIA
Don’t worry about it. My dad’s a lawyer, so he’s used to having people get mad at him.
PARVATI
And I am SO SORRY Ed. Note: NOT sarcasm (Parvati felt v. bad about this) you had to leave the Meet and Greet line before you had a chance to give the thumb drive to Marcel!
CLAUDIA
It’s fine. I’m pretty sure Marcel never even came out of the Meet and Greet tent anyway.
By the time Parvati got the all clear from the doctor/college kid in the medical tent, it was just five minutes before Marcel Mourlot was due on stage. So we ran to the stage area, then wormed our way through the crowd to get as close as we possibly could to the front.
Which, again, was not very close at all.
So when Marcel came on stage, I knew there was no chance I was ever going to get close enough to hand him the thumb drive with the “Windmill” video on it.
PARVATI
You were freaking out because we were so far away from Marcel.
But then I pointed out that even though you were too far away to HAND the thumb drive to him, you were definitely close enough to THROW it to him.
CLAUDIA
This was true.
Probably. I actually wasn’t sure. Because even though the thumb drive was very easy to throw, I am not exactly the world’s greatest thrower.
But it wasn’t like I had a choice. If I didn’t throw it, I had zero chance of ever getting it to Marcel.
And when Marcel said to the crowd, “OKAAAY, NOW I AM GOING TO SING ZEE FUNNY ZEBRA SONG.…” I realized it was now or never. Because once he started the zebra song (whatever that was), I’d never get his attention.
So I screamed “MARCEL, CATCH THIS!” as loud as I could.
Then I threw the thumb drive at the stage.
Like I said, I’m not a great thrower. So I didn’t even think I’d get it close to Marcel.
And I absolutely, positively DID NOT MEAN TO HIT HIM IN THE EYE.
If I’d had ANY idea that might happen, I NEVER would’ve used a thumb drive with pointy Batman ears.
PARVATI
OMG, it was terrifying. Marcel, like, fell to his knees and started holding his eye and screaming in French.
And right away, all his fans started looking around like, “WHO DID THAT? AND HOW CAN WE KILL THEM?”
CLAUDIA
Parvati said, “We need to get out of here STAT.”
I agreed. So we grabbed my dad and ran for the subway.
I was so scared we were going to get chased down by angry Marcel fans that my heart didn’t stop pounding until we were on the 7 train heading back into Manhattan.
Which was when Mom texted Dad that Reese was in serious trouble.
DAD AND MOM (text messages)
(DAD) Heading home now. Girls wanted to leave early. Acting very strange
Also BlurtUp itself very strange
But Parvati seems fine now
(MOM) Reese under attack from group of angry hackers
Huh??
Started when my mother called
Wanting to know why her grandson emailed her photo of a dog pooping on his head
Are you sure R didn’t do that?
Dog pooping photo went to his entire address book
Including Principal Spooner and all his teachers
OMG calling you now
Reese can’t log in to his email
Hackers in control of it
Also his Blurt and ClickChat accts
Why won’t you answer phone?
On other line trying to fix pizza problem
Pizza problem?
Someone keeps sending us pizzas
From 9 different pizza places so far
Wait doorman just buzzed
Make that 10
Coming home ASAP
And now the police are here
CHAPTER 20
REESE GETS CRUSHED BY THE BEWBEE ARMY
CLAUDIA
By the time we got home from BlurtUp, the police had left. Mom said they were very polite, but it was still extremely scary to have them show up at the door because an anonymous caller had tipped them off that Reese was behind a whole bunch of armed robberies.
REESE
It was totally cray! I mean, I knew the Bewbees were coming at me hard by then. But I didn’t think it was gonna be “the cops are here” hard.
CLAUDIA
When did you first realize the Bewbees were attacking you?
REESE
I guess at the soccer game that morning. We were warming up, and Xander was like, “Yo, why’d you change your Blurt password?”
And I was like, “I didn’t.”
And he was like, “SOMEBODY did.”
So I knew something was up. And after the game, I asked Mom if I could have my phone back for a couple minutes to make sure there wasn’t anything wrong with my Blurt account.
When I turned the phone on, the first thing I saw was a text from Wyatt.
WYATT AND REESE (Text messages copied from Reese’s phone)
(WYATT) OMG I CANT BELEVE YOU POSTED THAT!!!
(REESE) Posted what
THE DOG POOPING ON YOUR HEAD
What r u talking about
YOUR CLICKCHAT POST
Y DID U EMAIL IT, TOO??????
REESE
I tried to open ClickChat, but the app was like, “Incorrect password.”
Which was scary. I couldn’t get into my own account! And the Blurt app was the same way.
So I was already starting to freak out when Grandma called. And all of a sudden, Mom was like, “REESE! WHY DID YOU EMAIL AN OBSCENE PHOTO TO YOUR GRANDMOTHER???”
Then Mom checked HER email and was like, “I GOT IT, TOO!!”
CLAUDIA
Which photo was it? The dog?
REESE
One of the dogs, yeah. I mean, eventually, there were, like, ten different dog photos flying around the Internet. But all of them used the exact same pic of my head from that soccer photo the Bewbees got off my ClickChat feed.
CLAUDIA
And the dogs were all pooping on your head?
REESE
Not exactly. My head WAS the poop. So they weren’t pooping ON me. They were just… pooping me.
And it wasn’t just dogs. They used a bunch of other animals. Cows, horses, elephants… that rhinoceros…
Hey, wait a minute—you’re not putting those pics in the book, are you?
CLAUDIA
I kind of have to.
REESE
NO, YOU DON’T!
CLAUDIA
Yes, I do! This book’s all about the bad things that can happen if you’re not careful about what you do online. So I think people need to see the actual photos to really understand the dangers here.
REESE
Can’t you just SAY they were crazy bad? Do you have to show them, too?
CLAUDIA
How about I draw a picture of your head and Photoshop it over the actual heads so the dogs are just pooping a cartoon head?
REESE
I guess that’s okay. Just don’t make the cartoon look too much like me.
CLAUDIA
Deal. Where were we?
REESE
Let’s see… locked out of my accounts… the pics of dogs pooping out my head got sent to everybody on earth… the pizzas started showing up… then the cops came.
But honestly? The cops weren’t THAT bad. ’Cause once they figured out they’d been pranked by hackers, they put me on some list Ed. Note: also now we are on “do-not-deliver” list with every pizza place on Upper West Side so they wouldn’t have to keep showing up whenever the hackers called in a fake tip.
I think the worst part was what happened to me on MetaWorld. The Bewbees took over my account, and by the time I got it back, they’d stolen all my goldz, Ed. Note: goldz = MetaWorld money killed all my soldiers, and burned down my castle.
Plus they figured out what servers I like to play on and started
stalking me. So whenever I’d log on to play a deathmatch, I’d get gang-murdered in the first five seconds.
That was definitely the worst.
CLAUDIA
I think Mom and Dad would disagree. They’d probably say the worst part was the hours and hours they had to spend trying to get all your accounts back.
Plus the fact that now when you google “Reese Tapper,” all that comes up are pictures of animals pooping out your head.
That’s not going to look good when you grow up and try to get a job.
REESE
I guess not. But I feel like I’ve got a few years to turn it around.
CLAUDIA
All in all, the Bewbees’ attack on Reese was devastating. Even weeks later, Mom, Dad, and Reese were STILL trying to fix all the problems it caused.
On a personal level, I spent the whole rest of that weekend freaking out. This was partly because Reese is my brother. And even though he can be seriously annoying, it’s very scary to see bad things happen to him.
But it was also because I was terrified that an angry mob of Marcel Mourlot fans were about to launch EXACTLY the same kind of attack on me.
CHAPTER 21
MARKED FOR DEATH BY THE LOVEFIGHTERS
CLAUDIA
Even though the major issue in our apartment for pretty much the whole 24 hours after we got home from BlurtUp was the attack on Reese, I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that I’d accidentally hit Marcel Mourlot in the eye with an extremely pointy thumb drive.
I was VERY worried he might be badly hurt. And I was equally worried I might have committed a crime, and the cops were going to put out a warrant for my arrest.
So the first thing I did when the Reese-related insanity settled down was to go online and check Marcel’s Blurt page.
Fortunately, he’d already Blurted that he was fine. Or at least not permanently injured.
This was a huge relief. But it was also confusing. For one thing, I had no idea what “Lovefighters” were.
PARVATI
OMG, Claude—how could you follow Marcel on Blurt and not know what Lovefighters are?! They’re his superfans! They call themselves Lovefighters because Marcel says love is the most important thing in the world. And if you want it, you have to fight for it.
Or something like that.
CLAUDIA
So Lovefighters are like the Marcel Mourlot version of Bewbees?
PARVATI
Eeew! What’s a Bewbee? That sounds totally gross.
CLAUDIA
Never mind.
When I first saw Marcel’s Blurt, I thought I was in the clear. Because not only was he only a little bit hurt, but it seemed like he wasn’t going to press charges.
But then I started reading the comment section. And that’s when I realized the Lovefighters were out for blood.
Specifically, MY blood.
BLURT COMMENT SECTION
2,743 comments [load more]
@AnnieGrz OMG MARCEL U R SO BRAVE
@luvfitr100 WE HAVE TO FIND WHO DID THIS
@emilyhenk Marcel must be avanged!!!!!!!
@NJLoveFighter I WAS THERE I GOT A PIC OF IT
@emilyhenk Pic of what I don’t see anything
@NJLoveFighter IF U BLOW IT UP U CAN SEE SOMETHING FLYING THRU THE AIR TOWARD STAGE
@MarcelLoveFighter This is brilliant!! We can track down the evil scum w our selfies!
@lil.neenzas everybody who was there post ur pics!!!!!
@MarcelLoveFighter GO LOVEFIGHTERS We r going to crowdsource this hatr and destroy him
CLAUDIA
When I saw this, I practically had a heart attack. Seeing as how EVERY SINGLE PERSON at BlurtUp was holding a camera phone and pointing it at the stage when I threw the thumb drive, it seemed like it was only a matter of time before somebody posted a pic that totally busted me.
I spent all of Sunday refreshing the comment section every two minutes and watching the Lovefighters get closer and closer to revealing my true identity.
BLURT COMMENT SECTION
2,743 comments [load more]
@FlorisDiz u guys I think this is her
@luvfitr100 omg I cant believe its a girl
@NJLoveFighter EVERYBODY SEARCH YOUR PICS FOR DARK HAIRED GIRL AT BLURTUP NYC
@FormrBlbr Ummmmm… Thats most girls at BlurtUp NYC
@FlorisDiz she has navy blue shirt long sleeve
@FlorisDiz also wearing skirt w black n white pattern:
@NJLoveFighter LOVEFIGHTERS LETS DO THIS!!!!!
@MarcelLoveFighter Yes!!!!! We r going to make her pay!!!
CLAUDIA
I was so scared about the Lovefighters coming after me that when Carmen messaged me on Sunday afternoon, I’d almost forgotten about my bet with Athena.
CARMEN AND CLAUDIA (ClickChat Direct Messenger)
CONGRATS!!! Ed. Note: Carmen
On what Ed. Note: me
REESES BLURT ACCOUNT GOT DELETED
SO U WIN THE BET RIGHT???
CHAPTER 22
I SNATCH VICTORY FROM THE JAWS OF DEFEAT
CLAUDIA
First of all, it was news to me that Reese’s Blurt account had been completely deleted.
REESE
Me too. The Bewbees must’ve posted a bunch of really skeezy stuff on my page because Blurt shut my whole account down. The same thing happened to my ClickChat account, and it took Dad a CRAZY amount of time to get ClickChat to reopen it.
After that, he was like, “How bad do you want your Blurt account back? ’Cause I’m REALLY getting sick of waiting on hold for two hours to talk to tech support.”
And I was like, “You know what? Just forget about it.”
Because by then, I was kind of wishing I’d never even heard of Blurt.
CLAUDIA
When I found out Reese’s account was gone, the first thing I did was take a very close look at the original bet that Athena and I had agreed to.
All it said was this:
… and this:
What it did NOT say was ANYTHING about what would happen if Blurt deleted Reese’s account because hackers had taken it over and Blurted a bunch of incredibly inappropriate clips. Ed. Note: (not sure what the clips were, but prob totally filthy)
So I spent the rest of Sunday doing two things: A) constantly refreshing the comment section of Marcel’s Blurt to see if the Lovefighters had figured out who I was, and B) getting ready for a MAJOR argument in the cafeteria on Monday morning.
Because I knew Athena wasn’t going to give up without a fight.
SOPHIE
It was actually an interesting question. “If an account gets deleted, how many followers does it have?”
It’s kind of like, “If a tree falls in the forest and nobody’s around, does it make a sound?”
PARVATI
Hello? OF COURSE it makes a sound!
And OF COURSE Claudia won the bet! If your account disappears, so do your followers!
CLAUDIA
In the end, Reese’s friend Wyatt came up with the key piece of evidence for my argument.
WYATT
I didn’t get on Blurt until after the bet started. So I was only following six people.
And after Reese’s account got deleted, my home page said I was only following FIVE people. And Reese wasn’t one of them.
CLAUDIA
In other words, Wyatt and all the other 19,000 people who were following Reese had automatically UN-followed him when Blurt deleted his account.
So if his account was reactivated, it would have zero followers.
Which meant I won.
ATHENA, the bride of Satan
I’m sorry, but that is the dumbest, lamest thing I have EVER heard.
CLAUDIA
The rest of the sixth grade didn’t think so.
ATHENA
Because they are idiots.
CARMEN
That whole scene in the cafeteria was SO great. Like, when Athena claimed Reese got Blurt to delete h
is account on purpose?
REESE
I was like, “Do you seriously think I sent a picture of myself getting pooped out by a dog to EVERYBODY ON EARTH just to help my sister? I don’t even like her that much!!”
No offense, Claudia.
CLAUDIA
It’s fine. It was actually very helpful that you said that.
