#famous(5)

But how would he have convinced about a zillion girls to mess with me at the Burger Barn? Did Dave even know that many girls? Not likely.

Sighing, I opened the locker and chucked my hat inside. I checked the pile of T-shirts on the shelf. Only one clean shirt left. I’d have to take the rest home and do laundry tonight. Weak.

I jogged back to the register to grab a plastic bag to put them in.

CLICK, CLICK, CLICK, CLICK.

Two girls had been lying in wait. By the time I yelled “What is going on?” they were already halfway across the food court, dodging and weaving around customers holding trays. If they had any stick skills they might have been good at lacrosse. One was making this wheezing sound of excitement, like she might faint. Or pop. This day: definitely getting weird.

I walked as fast as I could back to my locker, stopping to check my reflection in the mirror alongside Jim’s office for pulsing zits, or, like, a full-on snot mustache. Something worth lying in wait to photograph. Maybe something mangled and evil had started growing out of my neck. What were those things called? Parasitic twins?

But there was nothing out of the ordinary. I looked exactly the same as always, except I was still in my grease-splattered Burger Barn shirt. I headed to the locker and started stuffing dirty shirts into the bag. I needed to get out of here. Like now.

After I’d changed and checked the schedule to see when I was on next, I grabbed my phone from the back of the locker shelf. We weren’t allowed to have them when we worked the register.

I pressed the on button.

10 notifications . . .

The little refresh wheel at the top kept spinning.

36 notifications . . .

And spinning.

492 notifications . . .

Dang.

Then it just totally died. Turned itself off. Blip.

Seriously, what the heck was going on?

I turned the phone back on and set it on the shelf. It convulsed with notifications. Finally it chimed loudly, buzzed one last time, and came to a stop. Cautiously, I picked it up.





13,178 notifications


It buzzed again.





14,256 notifications


My eyes went out of focus for a second. This made no sense. I clicked my texts.

It looked like I’d gotten one from everyone in my phone book, plus a few numbers I didn’t recognize. The top one was from Ollie, my best friend on the team. I liked Ollie. He was quieter than the other guys, and he never tried to prank people or anything, but he wasn’t all judgmental when other people did. He just didn’t seem to care. It drove Dave nuts how unconcerned Ollie could be. That was flipping hilarious.

(From Ollie): Dude, you’re a trend topic



What was he talking about? I scrolled back through his messages.

(From Ollie): Did you see this picture of you? Some junior chick has a crush



(From Ollie): Everyone is sharing it, you need to check this out



(From Ollie): You’re blowing up Flit



I opened my Flit app.

@jenDintheHEE and 15,822 other users reflitted

a flit you were mentioned in.

I looked. It was from Erin Rothstein, this girl on dance team that sometimes hung out with my girlfriend, Emma. Actually, Emma: technically my ex. Anyway, it was just someone else’s flit that Erin had added “OMG that’s @YourBoyKyle_B” to.

I opened the original.





62,414 reflits


My legs kinda went out from under me then, until I was sitting on the peeling linoleum floor in front of the lockers.

It was a photo of me behind the register, looking like a dork in my uniform. The hashtag said #idlikefrieswithTHAT.

It looked like it was taken today. And it already had how many reflits? I frowned, trying to make this make sense. That was what all the middle schoolers were saying all afternoon. “I’d like fries with that.” So clearly they’d all seen the picture . . . since my shift started. At four.

I took a deep breath, closing my eyes as I exhaled. Coach Laughton said it helped you focus, but it just made me feel dizzier.

First things first: who had taken the picture? The original flit seemed to have come from “attackoftherach_face.” That could have been anyone. The name on the account was “oh RHEally” so that didn’t help. I peered at the tiny thumbnail picture. It was mostly an explosion of curly, dark-brown hair.

I squinted.

It was totally that Rachel girl, the strange, quiet one from writing class. We’d talked at the start of my shift. I smiled a little. She had a crush on me? She seemed like the type that would be dating a twenty-year-old who smoked cigarettes end-to-end and wore skinny jeans and played bass in, like, some punk band.

Huh. Rachel: unexpected.

Without thinking, I clicked to follow her. It brought her count to twenty-nine. She only followed fourteen accounts herself, and one of them was Alec Baldwin, who had to be older than my parents. Who was this girl?

Oh, wait a second.

I clicked back to my notifications.

11K new followers.

K. As in thousand.

This morning I had 289, as in 289. I had checked.

I could feel my heart beating too fast, thumping against my rib cage. What was happening? Why would anyone even want to share a picture of me? I’d always figured I was decent looking. I never could have landed Emma otherwise. But I wasn’t anything special. My brother, Carter, was the handsome one. Or Ollie, he had that brooding movie star thing going on. I could see this happening to Ollie. But me? Seriously?