“Hey, look it this!” A girl standing next to a locker down the hall showed her smart phone to another girl. “I heard it’s a band made up of people from our school.”
Though faint from distance and tinny from the phone’s speaker, Emma could tell for sure it was her band, her song, and her video being shared.
Next to her, Kate giggled knowingly.
“Hah! It’s already working.” Kate fished her phone out of her bag. She pulled up the video on youtube. “Look! Over a thousand hits already. And it’s just begun.”
“What… what did you do?” Emma hadn’t had the nerve to ask before. Kate had been a little vague about it. Everyone else had just kind of shrugged and let her run with it.
“It’s Kaitlin and Alisha. I bet them they couldn’t get more than ten-thousand views on the video of my choice.” She stuffed her phone into her pack, then switched out textbooks in their locker. “They were bragging that they were so popular on Facebook now that they could do it. So… I picked ours!”
“But don’t they know… I mean…. They know it’s… us.” How could her former buddies not notice?
“They don’t care. A bet is a bet.”
“What… what did you bet?” Emma was half afraid to ask. She couldn’t imagine what they would want. Considering her imagination, that was saying something.
“Don’t worry about it. They only have a month to do it. It’ll never happen.”
If she’d had more confidence, Emma would have pointed out the quality of their video. It might have done that well even without the “help” of their so called friends. It wasn’t like Kate was likely to listen anyway.
Kate and Emma walked right past the two girls, who were starting to watch the video all over again, from the beginning.
“What I want to know is who this girl in the mask is,” one of the girls said to the other.
“I know, right? It could be – like – anyone!”
Emma stumbled.
“I….I…. me?”
“Shhhh!” Kate helped her along with a hand on her elbow. “I told them to keep your identity a secret.”
“B-b-but….” Emma wanted to be proud of her part in the video and in the band.
“Of course I did. Otherwise what’s the point of wearing a mask? We have to keep you a mystery long as we can. That’ll bring even more fans. Right?”
“I… Uh… Y-yeah, I guess.” Emma got her feet under her, but wasn’t happy. It felt weird now. Maybe she should have never worn one right from the beginning. Hadn’t they mostly been about her brother? And now he wasn’t much of a problem. Was he? Even if he showed up, Emma knew what to do now.
Then again the masks had helped her get into character. Plus it made Bruce happy to give them to her. So…
“Well? What else are all those masks for?” Kate arched an eyebrow.
“I don’t even know,” Emma muttered.
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