Generation Next

by Oli White

  Denim Shirt is talking again, only now he’s really animated.

  “Folks, it’s finally time for the main event of the evening. Please welcome our special guest, Harriet Rushworth!”

  As the room erupts in cheering and applause, I look down to find AJ right in front of the stage, looking like he’s lost his mind and is about to kill someone. Actually, not someone . . . me.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he hisses, but all I can do is shrug my shoulders and shake my head, wiping the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand as Harriet appears, striding regally through the parting crowd and stepping up on to the stage. Austin is looking at me like his life depends on it, but as hard as I try, I cannot for the life of me remember what I’m supposed to be asking Harriet, or what we’re even doing here. I mean, this isn’t what GenNext is about, is it? Sitting on stools and interviewing people like Graham Bloody Norton or Jonathan Ross. Surely we should be doing this on a roller coaster or something. That’s what we do, right? My mind is wandering wildly, and I can see Denim Shirt’s lips moving as Harriet sits down opposite me, but the only sound I can hear is my own heart, thumping in my ears. It occurs to me that I haven’t taken a breath for several seconds, and suddenly I feel like I’m gasping for air. Is this what a panic attack feels like? Am I going to faint in front of half the world’s teenagers?

  Harriet gives the crowd a little wave and settles down, ready for the interview.

  “It’s so good to be here. Thank y’all for coming out today.”

  The audience gives another cheer, and now it’s over to us. Duke waves madly at me to start, and I sit up and clear my throat, trying to push the rising feeling of panic back down, but it’s not working.

  “Hi. Hi, I, er . . . I . . .”

  Harriet clearly senses that all is not well—maybe she thinks I’ve got stage fright or something—and she jumps in to fill the void like the professional she is.

  “So, Jack, I’m thrilled to be here with you GenNext boys.” She smiles that wonderful smile, but her eyes are flashing panic. “I hope you’re not going to ask me anything too embarrassing; I know how you boys operate.”

  I stare her dead in the eye for a moment and finally I manage to speak. “How . . . how was the ice cream?”

  “I’m sorry?” Harriet looks at Austin, then at Denim Shirt and then at the audience.

  “You know, when you took your dress off the other night; the Caramel Chew Chew, remember?”

  Yeah, I’m totally babbling, I know, but by now my mind is sludge. It’s pretty much all over for me up there. Apart from the nervous giggling from the audience, I can see the glimmer of a hundred smartphones as people try to capture the moment.

  Austin jumps in with a desperate question. “We were going to ask you about the new video, right, Jack? The video?”

  The video, the video. All I can think about is the video I saw less than ten minutes ago, that horrible video of Ella, and then I think about what it will do to her, and I know I have to do something right then and there . . . I just have to . . .

  Before I realize what’s happening, I’m jumping off my stool and stepping down off the stage.

  “I’m sorry, I have to go.” There’s a squeal of feedback as I crash into a nearby microphone, knocking it flying. “Sorry, sorry, I have to get out of here.”

  AJ grabs me as I climb down off the stage, frogmarching me through the audience and into a small room off to the side. Once the door is closed behind us, he lets rip, but I can’t really hear what he’s yelling because I’m too busy concentrating on trying to breathe; to slow my heart rate down. We’re quickly joined by Duke, who’s accompanying a beetroot-faced Austin, and I can hear one of Harriet’s tracks blaring out of the speakers in the main room.

  “You guys just wait here,” Duke says icily. “We’re going to reset and get our guy to do the interview. He’s a professional.”

  I find a chair and sit down, finally managing to catch my breath.

  “Can I get some water, please?”

  “J, what the hell happened out there?” Austin says, waving his arms in front of my face. “You were totally fine up in the room earlier and then you just fell apart. God, you were going on about Harriet taking her dress off, and Caramel Chew Chew, whatever the hell that is—you sounded insane. What’s going on?”

  “Is it the food poisoning—are you feeling ill?” AJ says, sounding more concerned than angry now.

  Austin looks both furious and confused. “What food poisoning?”

  “It’s not that,” I said. “It’s, it’s . . . Oh, I don’t know anymore . . . Can you just leave me alone for a minute, please?”

  I can’t tell them. I just can’t. This situation . . . this blackmail is something I have to deal with in my own way—that’s all there is to it.

  When the door to the small room opens again, Harriet stalks in looking utterly bemused.

  “What the hell happened out there, boys?”

  “We’re really very sorry, Ms. Rushworth,” AJ says. “Jack isn’t feeling too well.”

  “Well I’m sorry too, but he shouldn’t have gotten up there if he wasn’t up to it,” Harriet says. Then she looks over at Austin and me, her eyes full of disappointment. “You blew it, boys. I gave you a big opportunity and you totally screwed it up. We all looked like idiots up there and now I’m going to have to go fix it—thanks a bunch, GenNext.”

  I want to tell her that it’s OK now, that I can get back up there and do it. I want to tell her I’m all right, but that’s just not the case. I feel like something very scary is happening to me and all I want to do is get to my room and crawl into bed.

  The door opens again and a very stressed-out Millie pops her head around it.

  “They need you back on, Harriet. We’re going again in less than five—we can’t afford to lose the live audience.”

  Harriet takes a couple of deep breaths and looks me in the eye, her face softening.

  “You’re a nice kid, Jack, you’re just out of your depth.”

  I watch her disappear through the door, back out into the main room, and then I stand, slightly wobbly for a moment, and head back to my room. I don’t look back but I assume Austin and AJ are following, silently. I guess there’s really nothing more to say.

  THE HOMECOMING

  I’m awake, but my eyes are still closed, and for the first thirty seconds of consciousness I’m not entirely sure where I am. It takes a while for my brain to click into gear, and then I remember. I open my eyes and take in the familiar surroundings of my own room in Mum and Dad’s house and I breathe a massive sigh of relief. Thank God. I’m not in LA anymore. I’m home, and I’ve slept for fourteen hours. For a second, just a second, everything else—the ruined interview, the blackmail, flying home from LA in disgrace—feels like it might have happened to someone else, but that isn’t the case. As I slowly wake up, it all becomes real again.

  I’m barely sitting up in bed when Mum taps on the door and comes in with a cup of tea, smiling and setting it down on the bedside table.

  “You OK, Jack?”

  “I think so,” I say. “What about you, Mum, are you all right?”

  She sits down on the end of my bed.

  “Oh, you know, I’ll get there. I’m still in shock, I suppose, and I don’t know what to expect with all this treatment they’ve got in store for me. Half the time when the doctors talk, you need a bloody interpreter, it’s all so complicated.”

  I nod sympathetically, taking a sip of tea.

  “How are you feeling about the op on Thursday?”

  “Oh, all right, I suppose,” she says, and then she pulls this goofy face, putting her hands around her throat and sticking her tongue out, which makes me laugh. I know deep down that she’s frightened, but, just like Mum always does, she’s trying to make me feel better about it.

  “Look, I’ve got some egg and bacon on the go if you fancy it,” she says. “A good old English breakfast; you could probably do with that, eh?”
>
  “Yeah, I’m sick of pancakes and syrup,” I say, running my hands through my hair. “I’ll have a quick wash and come down.”

  Mum stands up and heads for the door and I watch for any telltale signs of her illness. There aren’t any—she looks as healthy and sturdy as ever. It makes what’s happening—the fact that she has to have this major operation—feel even more surreal and awful than it already does.

  “I’ll put some of that nice coffee on that you like,” she says. “Then we can have a proper chat, OK?”

  “OK, Mum.” I try to smile, but my facial muscles don’t seem to be doing what I want them to.

  Once she’s gone, I go to pick up my phone but then think better of it. I can’t face the horror of the blackmail situation just yet. And do I really need to plow through another ten pages of vicious tweets and bitchy blogs reminding me how badly I screwed up in LA and that GenNext is probably dead in the water? I feel sick to my stomach just thinking about it. I’ll have to deal with it all sooner or later, but not five minutes after I’ve opened my eyes, you know?

  In the bathroom, while I’m cleaning my teeth, my mind traitorously flips back to the aftermath of that horrendous non-interview with Harriet Rushworth. I try to blink it away, but it’s like my memory is on rewind, and flashes and moments from those final forty-eight hours in LA start speeding through my brain . . .

  It wasn’t pretty, the fall-out from the Harriet interview. Austin hardly spoke to me the following day, especially after it all went viral. God, there must have been forty different phone-filmed videos of me going wacko on that stage, all from different angles. Even I couldn’t believe it was me up there when I watched some of them back. I looked like the biggest idiot of all time. Now I knew what “going viral” truly meant as the videos were shared again and again all over the world. I was so mortified, I just stayed in my room until it was time to catch the flight home. It seemed easier to stay out of everyone’s way and stress over the threat from Herald—and my public meltdown—on my own.

  When AJ popped up later to see how I was doing, I found that I didn’t have much to say for myself.

  “Have you spoken to Sai and Ava?” I asked him sheepishly.

  He nodded and wrung his hands together nervously. “They’re pretty furious with you, Jack. They feel like everything was going so well with GenNext and that you’ve thrown it away. Even more so after they supported you over the whole Herald Media thing. They feel like all their chances have been blown in just a couple of days and that it’s . . . well, they feel like it’s down to you.”

  “Of course,” I said. What else could I say?

  I’d had a couple of texts from Ava already, the last of which left me in no doubt as to how she was feeling.

  As terrible as I felt about letting Austin, Sai and Ava down, there was still something far more urgent to deal with. As soon as AJ left my room that afternoon, I steeled myself to phone Hunter. The thought of speaking to him made my stomach turn, but I didn’t see what choice I had. Since the disastrous interview, I’d had another threatening message from the blocked number. Reading it made my blood run cold. Herald still wanted us—and they were still prepared to leak the video if we said no—only since the Harriet fiasco had gone down, they’d knocked a couple of zeros off their original offer. In screwing everything up so badly, I’d put us in an even worse position; one where the price of GenNext was devalued massively.

  To my surprise, Hunter picked up his mobile on the first ring. He didn’t sound like his usual cocky self; more of a nervous wreck than a blackmailer.

  “Penman, what took you so long?” he hissed. “Do you know how bloody serious this is?”

  “What do you think, Hunter? Of course I know,” I said through gritted teeth. “What I can’t get my head around is how you can do this to Ella. I know you hate me, but Ella? So she broke up with you . . . but a bloody sex tape? Really?”

  “Shut up, Penman.”

  I could hear the stress in his voice. I pushed him further, desperate to put the brakes on it all.

  “Ella’s seventeen years old, for God’s sake. You’ve known her your whole life. You don’t have to do this, Hunter. You can stop this now if you want.”

  “I couldn’t stop it even if I wanted to,” he spat. “Once I gave Callum the leverage, he was going to use it no matter what. He decided he wanted GenNext right after you did the interview with The Gloves, and he’ll do whatever he has to to get what he wants. So far it’s always worked for him.” He paused, and then his voice turned bitter. “Look, I know it was stupid of me to give him the video, but I was angry and I wanted revenge. Things got out of hand and now Callum won’t listen to anything I say, so just do what he wants and sign the deal and that’ll be the end of it for all of us. Do it, Penman.”

  I scrambled desperately for a stalling tactic.

  “Look, Hunter, I can’t do anything while I’m here in LA,” I said, my mind racing. “I need time to talk the others into it because it’s not just me, you know that. Tell Callum to give me a couple of days. I need to get home and convince the others face to face. Can you do that?” I hated having to beg, hated him knowing how desperate I was. “Don’t let him release the video until I’ve talked to the others, please?”

  Hunter sighed, long and loud. “Fine. I’ll persuade him to give you another couple of days, but he isn’t going to wait much longer, all right? Call Angela Linford and get it done the minute you’ve spoken to the others. Otherwise you know what’ll happen.”

  So that was that. Besides pleading for more time, there was nothing I could do to stop Callum other than falling in line with his demands.

  “Jack! Breakfast is on the table!”

  Mum’s call from downstairs shakes me out of the miserable memories of the past couple of days and brings me back to the here and now. I rinse the last of the toothpaste out of my mouth, pull on a T-shirt and head downstairs to the kitchen. When I get there, Mum is sitting at the breakfast bar opposite the most magnificent fry-up, arms folded and smiling.

  “That looks really good,” I grin, pulling out a stool and tucking in.

  “Yes, well your dad’s out doing the weekly shop on his own this morning, so Lord knows what we’ll end up eating next week,” she laughs. “Now you demolish that and then you can tell me everything that’s been going on, and I don’t mean the edited version or what you think might be suitable for my ears—I mean everything.”

  I flick my eyes upward sheepishly, mouth full of bacon, and nod. Her face is kind but firm, so I know she’s not messing.

  After eating, I stand up and start pacing while Mum’s eyes follow me around the kitchen. Where do I even start? What should I tell her? I know she says she wants to know everything, but I’m thinking even after I tell her she might not believe half of it.

  “Jack, you know your dad and I try to follow everything you do, and believe it or not I do know how to work a computer,” she says softly. “I’ve seen what’s out there online but I want to hear your side of things, that’s all.”

  “Mum, the last thing you need is to be worrying about all this—”

  “Look, Jack, my illness doesn’t stop me worrying about you,” she interrupts. “You’re my son and I need to know that you’re OK.”

  I sit back down at the table and take a breath, and then it all comes tumbling out: the dodgy offer from Herald Media, the blackmail leading to the disastrous interview, the fact that I seem to have pissed off virtually everyone in my life, and the reason for almost all of it . . . Ella. I talk and talk, hardly stopping for breath, and Mum just sits there listening, nodding and smiling supportively in all the right places. Now that the words are out of my mouth, I feel relieved—like a great weight has been lifted off my shoulders—but I’m not done yet.

  “The worst thing about it all is that I’ve been so scared,” I admit. “I’ve been so worried about what’s going to happen to you, with the operation and the chemo, I’ve not been able to think straight. Now these people have
backed me into a corner, and I feel like I’ve let it happen; like I’ve let everything get the better of me.”

  Seeing how upset I am, Mum comes around to my side of the table and puts her arms around my neck, pressing her cheek into the top of my head while I blink back tears. “At the end of the day, Mum, I’m no better than the kid who was bullied back at my old school. I’m the same. I’ve learned nothing and now I’ve probably ruined Ella’s life as well as my own.”

  Mum stands up straight and puts her hands firmly on my shoulders, spinning me around on the stool to face her.

  “OK, this needs to stop,” she says firmly. “Jack, you are one of the smartest, most savvy kids a mum could wish for. You’ve done such clever, wonderful things for someone your age and your dad and I are chuffed to bits for you. But that’s not the only reason I’m proud of you.” She lifts my chin up so I’m looking her directly in the eye. “I’m proud of you because you’re a kind, considerate and loving person and at the end of the day that’s what’s most important. It’s all that really matters. You’re a good boy, Jack, and I wouldn’t swap that for all the other stuff: fame, money, none of it.”

  I do my best to smile. “What do you mean, ‘boy’?”

  “You’re right; I suppose you’re not a boy anymore,” she says seriously. “That’s why you have to face this ridiculous blackmail thing head on. You’ve got to be honest with your friends, because however angry they are, they’ll be on your side once they know the truth, and you’ve got to tell Ella as soon as possible because she has a right to know, however bad it makes you feel. After that, I think you should go to the police—your dad and I will go with you. You have to fight this for Ella’s sake, Jack, and you have to fight for GenNext, too. You’ve worked so hard to build it up—all of you.”

  “I know you’re right, Mum, but you’re what’s most important right now,” I say. “Maybe we should just let Herald Media take over GenNext. Then the video will go away and we can all start again, and I can focus on making sure you get better.”