You Don't Know Me Read online

  So that’s nice.

  Ten minutes. It’s enough time to do your hair, check your hair, realise you’ve overdone your hair, undo your hair, put on some lipgloss, try out the D minor chord again and notice you’re in your oldest, saddest pair of jeans, but not have time to do anything about it. That guy cycles fast, even with a guitar in its case on his back.

  I welcome him in and he comments on the double-locked door thing, but I say nothing. Instead, I offer him a cup of tea and he comments on the your-kitchen-is-full-of-incredible-cake thing. This, I’m happier to talk about. I tell him about Mum and the café. He realises he’s been there a few times with friends from school. I tell him about Mrs Venning next door.

  ‘We get our gig gear from that place,’ he grins. Like we’re two musicians just shooting the breeze about our bands.

  OK, I would like my life to just run on a little loop of this moment for a while. Me and Dan in the kitchen, sampling cake and talking music. Until he takes his guitar upstairs and he shows me the chord progression he was talking about, plus how to tune the guitar properly. That’s all, but it’s so good. If he finds me half as interesting as I find him, he doesn’t show it. Boys at school tend to want to tease you in class or get up close and personal at parties, and there isn’t much in between. That’s been my experience, anyway. A boy who doesn’t tease or fumble within seconds of meeting you is a pleasant change. One who can play guitar like an angel is practically perfect.

  An hour goes by in a moment, and then he has to go.

  ‘That was fun,’ he says, clearly meaning it with his smile. ‘You made great progress. D’you want to come round tomorrow?’

  He means hanging out with Call of Duty at his house. Not that I’ve been picturing Dan often, imagining what he’s up to, including his rehearsals with the band. OK, so I have. A part of me wants to go, but the rest thinks it’s a bad idea. There’s his brother, who’s nasty, and that girl, who’s so perfect. Plus, it’s all about playing music in front of people, and my recent experiences of that – today aside – have been . . . not so wonderful.

  I look up to tell him no. His storm-cloud eyes look straight in to mine.

  ‘Yeah. Sure. Thanks,’ I say

  ‘OK. Great.’ He grins and gathers his guitar.

  Sasha Bayley, what are you getting yourself into?

  Around And Around And Around

  In the evening, as promised, Elliot comes over to check my privacy settings. He sits at my desk, hunched over my computer, and after a minute or two of flicking around my Interface pages, he puts his head in his hands.

  ‘You don’t have any.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Privacy.’

  ‘What?’

  He turns to me and sighs.

  ‘Look here. All your contact info. The stuff you want your friends to see? Everyone can see it. It must have taken that journalist two seconds to find your Interface address. Click this.’ He clicks a button. ‘And go here and click this. And this. Don’t say that. Never say that. God, Sasha!’

  I grin.

  ‘Sorry. Thanks.’

  He starts staring intently at the screen, scrolling up and down, changing Interface pages, examining my user history, sighing and occasionally groaning with exasperation.

  ‘Look at all these trolls.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here. All these people saying rubbish stuff about you. If you’d clicked this,’ he points to a button at the bottom of the screen, ‘you could have blocked them. Sasha, this is terrible. All this stuff . . . You haven’t been reading it, have you?’

  ‘No,’ I say, feeling uncomfortable, because I could pretty much recite every word. ‘Not all of it.’

  ‘Well, don’t.’

  ‘OK.’ I bite my lip. I don’t mean the next bit to come out, but somehow I can’t help it. ‘Except . . . there are some things I have to see. To stay safe.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ He frowns at me.

  I take a deep breath. I have to tell someone, and it can’t be Mum, because she’d worry. Jodie and Nell would freak. There isn’t anyone else.

  ‘I’ve got this . . . stalker,’ I say. ‘Somebody’s watching me.’

  He frowns.

  ‘How do you know? What did they say?’

  My fingers will hardly work but slowly, stiffly, I scroll around to find the latest message.

  Saw you in your big hat today, freak. Don’t worry, I’m still waiting.

  It arrived yesterday, as soon as I got my old phone number working.

  Elliot’s voice is tight and clipped as he hunches over the screen.

  ‘Show me the others.’

  I show him.

  I know where you live, Sasha Bayley. And I’m waiting.

  I’m still watching you, freak. You can’t get away from me now.

  The time is getting closer, freak. And when I see you, you are going to die.

  He turns to look at me again.

  ‘They threatened to kill you, Sasha.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘That’s criminal. Even you must know that. They taught it in school in, like, Year 8. You should go to the police.’

  I shrug. ‘What’s the point?’

  It all sounded so simple and straightforward when they explained it in school. When it’s a message sitting on your screen, it’s different. It’s just between you and the person who hates you so much they want to kill you. But they’re a total stranger. It could be any one of the 327,000 people who’ve signed the Manic Pixie Dream Girls’ hate page up to now. What could anybody do?

  ‘They could find out who did this,’ Elliot says.

  Oh. Actually that sounds quite useful.

  ‘Mind you,’ he adds, ‘so could I.’

  ‘Really?’

  He nods. ‘But don’t ask how.’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘Sure. Give me a couple of days.’

  ‘Thanks, Elliot.’

  He pulls back the chair and shakes his head at me.

  ‘Sasha, can I just say something?’ he asks.

  I nod.

  ‘You are mega hot, just so’s you know. But you are really, incredibly stupid about the internet.’

  I would mind, except that from what he said just now, he possibly has a point.

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ I grin.

  He looks at the time in the corner of my screen.

  ‘Oh. Nine o’clock. Not so late on the weekend.’ He turns round to give me a carefully practised, casual smile. ‘I don’t suppose you feel like, er . . . going anywhere?’

  I shake my head. My cheeks are still burning from the ‘mega hot’ thing.

  ‘Sorry, Elliot. Busy. Revision. You know.’

  He smiles regretfully. ‘Sure. Yeah, of course.’

  ‘But thank you. For everything.’

  ‘No problem.’

  Quickly, without another word, Elliot shoulders his backpack and heads for the door.

  *

  On Sunday morning I wake up early and work like a mad thing. My exam timetable is stuck to the wall above my desk. Only a few weeks to go. Days with one paper are shaded in purple, and days with two are harshly outlined in red. I wonder how Rose is coping. Is she even doing her GCSEs any more? Will she fit them in between interviews and dress fittings? She was on track to get very good grades, but I suppose she won’t really need them now.

  I check her fan page again. There’s a picture of her in another belted dress, and she’s started sharing her diet tips. That’s a bit weird. Rose never had any diet tips. She just lost weight when she was miserable and put it on when she was happy. She hated people obsessing about their weight, because that’s what she used to do, she said, at her old school, and all it did was stress her out. The new Rose seems to be very concerned about her figure, though.

  Perhaps it’s because she’s a proper celebrity now. Her fan page has half a million members, who call themselves ‘Rosebuds’. So many people – girls and boys alike – write on it to say how much s
he’s inspired them. Teenstar247, for example, says she has been bullied for her size since she was ten, and she’d lost all her confidence. Now, thanks to Rose, she knows she can fulfil her ambition to be an artist:

  We can do whatever we want to do. You’ve shown it’s what’s inside that counts. It’s our hearts that matter.

  I love you, Rose.

  I imagine Rose reading every message. Has she worked out how to use whatever top-of-the-range laptop they’ve given her? Perhaps not, because she never seems to reply, and she clearly doesn’t write the so-called updates herself. Rose would never say something like, ‘Back to the studio today. So exited!’ She can spell, for a start.

  Even so, she must know about these people. What is it like, having them tell you that you’ve turned their lives around? Some of them write songs and poems for her. Others take pictures of roses and decorate them with glitter, paint and even makeup. They post them on her page and it looks beautiful.

  At 2.15 the muddy Land Rover pulls up on the verge opposite the cottage, with Ed Matthews driving. He largely ignores me, but Dan leaps out to help me up the step, into the back. I’m already glad I said yes to the practice session today. Having it there, shimmering like a prize, gave me the incentive to get masses of work done this morning.

  Ed steers the Land Rover confidently down the winding lanes, his right elbow resting on the open window beside him. The old radio blares classic rock and both brothers sing along. From my seat in the back, I join in.

  ‘You know Queen?’ Ed says, whipping his head round.

  ‘Er, yes.’

  I spent my first few years with a dad who played old-fashioned rock, pop and country on every radio in the house, and then there was Rose. If there was a GCSE on twentieth-century lyrics, I’d be heading for an A-star, no problem.

  ‘Cool,’ Ed says, nodding his surprised approval. We spend the rest of the journey headbanging to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.

  The boys’ house is a tall, square stone building set into the side of a hill. The front drive is full of cars: a smart BMW that I’m guessing belongs to their dad, a zippy little hatchback that must be their mum’s, and now the Land Rover. There’s a large double garage beside the house, and I’m idly wondering why none of the cars are in it when Ed takes a key from his pocket and opens up the doors. All is explained: the dark interior contains Call of Duty’s drum kit, along with a couple of mic stands and several large amps. There’s even a pool table at the back.

  ‘A proper rehearsal space!’ I whistle.

  ‘Yup,’ Ed says proudly. ‘Cars can get wet. Drum kits can’t. And we annoy the old guys less out here than we did in the house. Dan, go and get us something to eat. The others’ll be here in a minute.’

  Dan shrugs and walks off. He’s obviously used to being told what to do by his older brother. That leaves Ed and me alone together, which is less than ideal. I haven’t forgotten ‘the Massive Pixie Dreamboats’, and the way he laughed at our ‘one video’. Nor has he, it seems. The mood is tense while he secures the garage doors open and starts plugging things in and switching them on inside.

  ‘So, er, well done for making the finals,’ he offers, eventually.

  I nod silently. He knows what happened once we got there.

  ‘You’re kind of famous now,’ he continues.

  I can’t help a bit of a shudder. He takes pity on me.

  ‘Dan says you’re teaching yourself guitar. See much of that friend of yours?’

  ‘Rose?’ I shake my head.

  ‘Oh. Right.’

  ‘She’s not my friend any more,’ I sigh.

  He looks at me with a lot more sympathy than I was expecting.

  ‘You did what they asked. I bet people don’t know the whole story.’

  ‘No,’ I say, looking at him properly for the first time, amazed at that he, of all people, should understand. I also happen to notice that when he’s not sneering – and he isn’t any more – he’s still got that Abercrombie model thing going on. When he smiles, it’s hard not to smile back. By the time Dan returns, armed with crisps, snacks and biscuits for later, the tricky atmosphere has passed.

  Soon Cat, the rock-chick bassist, arrives, in skin-tight denim leggings with studs down the edges, tucked into high-heeled ankle boots that make her legs look extra long. Her blonde hair is artfully messy, her denim jacket has been perfectly and expensively graffitied, and her eyes are quickly narrowed in my direction.

  ‘Ed?’ she asks with her sweetest smile. ‘Are we auditioning or something?’

  ‘No,’ Ed says. ‘We don’t need to. Sasha’s a friend of Dan’s. Dan said she could join us for a practice session.’

  Cat’s eyes narrow still further, until they are slits of thick mascara. ‘Really?’

  Her voice is cold. The brothers ignore her. They set up their instruments and I help where I can with mics, stands and leads. Cat hovers in the garage doorway, making sure her legs are shown off to their best advantage, and watches Dan. Her face clouds to scowl at me whenever his head is turned. It only takes five minutes of studying her to know for certain that she fancies him, that for some reason he’s not interested, and that both brothers are fed up with her attitude. They ignore her as much as they can.

  Raj, the drummer, arrives on his bike.

  ‘Hiya Pops. Hiya Brian. Oh, hello,’ (to me). ‘Sorry I’m late.’

  It turns out that all the boys have a nickname. Ed is ‘Pops’ – I assume because he’s the oldest. Raj is ‘Sticks’. Dan is ‘Brian’ after Brian May, the guitarist from Queen, and also Brian Cox, the scientist. The boys explain it’s because both Brians are interested in the stars (space ones, not celebrities), and of course Dan is too. I remember the telescope. I think the name’s funny. Cat rolls her eyes whenever it’s used.

  ‘Don’t join in with them,’ she drawls at me. ‘It only encourages them. I don’t play their game.’

  She says so with a confident smirk, but Ed glances across at her, annoyed.

  ‘You don’t need to, when Cat suits you so well,’ he says sharply.

  She flashes her eyes at him.

  ‘Anyway, Sasha already has a nickname,’ he continues. ‘Hotlegs, as I remember. That’s what the paper said.’

  I instantly go pink. Cat examines my legs. So do the boys. My jeans aren’t as figure-hugging as her leggings, and I’m wearing old trainers, not high-heeled boots. I doubt I provide much competition, but Cat seems to think so.

  ‘How gross,’ she says, rearranging her gorgeous tawny hair with her fingers and leaving the word ‘gross’ hanging in the air.

  A few weeks ago, she would have crushed me. I know I’m not in Cat’s league in the glamour stakes. But she so underestimates what I’ve been through these last few weeks, and her classic mean-girl attempts to cut me out are clearly backfiring with the rest of the band.

  I bet Dan hasn’t bought her a phone, I think to myself, flashing her a friendly smile. She flicks her hair angrily and saunters away from me to set up her bass.

  ‘Right, guys,’ Ed announces. ‘I think we’re ready. I’m in the mood for some Arcade Fire. Raj, can you do the intro to ‘Month of May’?

  Raj gathers himself for a moment, then launches into a tight, well-rehearsed beat. Cat joins him on bass, sounding as super-cool as she looks. Ed and Dan are soon adding guitar and vocals. I come in where I can. All around me, people are smiling, as they concentrate on the music. Even Cat: she can’t stop herself when the tune gets going and she nails a riff. The garage thrums to the rhythm. I spin to the words ‘Around and around and around and around’, and I find myself laughing. We end that song and Ed announces the next one. If I don’t know the words, I look them up on my phone. No worries about harmonies this time – just belting out the lyrics in time to the music.

  I have a rock voice. Bert, the musical director at Killer Act, spotted it, but the Manic Pixie Dream Girls sang pop, so I adjusted. Now I don’t have to. My gravelly alto perfectly suits the post-punk/indie rock direction Call of D
uty are heading in. This is not like singing with the Pixies: it’s harsher and louder and, for me, loads more fun. If I could accompany myself on guitar too, it would be perfect.

  Dan seems to read my thoughts. When we stop for biscuits, crisps and anything else he could scrounge from the kitchen, he offers to do a quick catch-up on where we got to yesterday.

  He hands me his guitar, and I do a run-through of one of the songs I’m working on, ‘Between the Lines’. I’ve been practising every night and having listened to Rose for so long, I know how the thing’s supposed to sound. It’s starting to feel natural, too. The transitions from major to minor keys send a shiver down my spine.

  Cat notices what we’re doing, and strops off into a corner to practise some advanced riffs on her bass. She’s much better than me, of course, and she really doesn’t need to try so hard. Dan ignores her. If anything, he gets closer to me. But he seems to hesitate before putting his hands near mine on the fretboard, to show me what he means.

  I am determined not to seem like a groupie, so I pretend not to notice the warmth of his skin, or how well his biceps fit his T-shirt, or the low, sexy hum of his voice as he speaks.

  Later I catch him looking at me with the same sort of wonder that George Drury had in his eyes before the disaster kiss at the music festival. This time, I’m not sure the kiss would be such a disaster. But, Dan’s such a gentleman that he accompanies me home with nothing more than a smile.

  Geeks And Nerds And Freaks

  ‘Breathless’, recorded in about two days flat, enters the charts at number one. Not surprising, given that the video of Rose playing it for the first time on Killer Act has now reached eighty million hits worldwide. Interface News releases an interview with her to accompany the launch. There she is, in yet another slim, belted dress, sitting on a sofa in what seems to be a posh hotel.

  I watch the video on my laptop, sitting in bed and wondering slightly who this famous girl is, the one I hardly seem to recognise. She looks sophisticated in her signature half-up, half-down hairdo and dark, dark eyes to contrast with her pale skin. She seems tired, though, and not as excited as I would expect for a teenager with a song at number one.