Girl Online(18)

“Where are the others?” I ask, looking around the empty hall.

“They’ve gone up to the drama studio to do a final run-through while we—you—sort out the set.”

I look up at the stage. “What’s wrong with the set?”

“I’m afraid my graffiti-artist friend has let me down, so I need your help.”

For weeks now Mr. Beaconsfield has been making a big song and dance about how he’s got this street-artist friend who was going to come in and decorate our set to make it look more “ghetto.” I should have known nothing would come of it. The closest Mr. Beaconsfield probably gets to the street is watching Corrie.

“What do you want me to do?” I ask as he hands me a carrier bag.

“Do some graffiti on the trailer and the back wall,” Mr. Beaconsfield says as casually as if he’s just asked me to sweep the floor. “I’ve got to get back to the others. Poor Megan is having terrible trouble remembering her final speech.”

“Do some graffiti on them?” I look inside the bag. It’s full of cans of spray paint. “What kind of graffiti?”

Mr. Beaconsfield looks even more stressed. “I don’t know. Just do a few tags or something. You are supposed to be the set design assistant.”

I frown. It’s true that I’m supposed to be helping with the set design as well as be the official photographer but I never would have volunteered if I’d known it meant becoming some kind of Banksy. I mean, I did write I LUV 1 D on a park bench three years ago . . . but I don’t think that really counts.

“OK, I’m going to head up to the drama studio,” Mr. Beaconsfield says, grabbing his clipboard from one of the chairs. “I’ll come down to see how you’re getting on at first break.” And before I can say a single word he’s scuttled off.

I look at the blank back wall of the set. This is crazy! If I go anywhere near it with a can of spray paint I’m going to wreck it and one thing I’m absolutely determined about today is that I’m not going to mess anything up. So I do what I always do in an emergency and I text Elliot. We know each other’s timetables by heart so I know that he’s in Latin. Elliot says his teacher is so old he actually spoke Latin when it was still a living language so hopefully he’ll be able to text me back without being spotted.

HEEEEEEEELP!!! MY DRAMA TEACHER WANTS ME TO GRAFFITI THE SET—LIKE PROPER GRAFFITI!!! I THINK HE MIGHT HAVE LOST HIS MIND. PLEASE HELP ME BEFORE I LOSE MINE!!! WHAT SHALL I DO?!!!



I send the text and go up onto the stage and over to the pretend trailer. Maybe I could practice doing a “tag” behind it. Then if I mess it up no one in the audience will ever know and if I do discover that I miraculously have a latent talent for graffiti art, I can save the day—and the play.

I take one of the cans from the bag and flip off the lid. What would my tag be if I were a graffiti artist? I have no idea, so I decide to try drawing something instead. But what? What would people draw in a New York ghetto—that would go really well with Romeo and Juliet?? Maybe some kind of broken love heart?

I cautiously press on the button at the top of the can. Nothing happens. I press a lot harder and a jet of bright purple paint shoots out. I try painting a heart but it looks just like a pair of butt cheeks. Thankfully, at that precise moment, my phone goes off. It’s a text from Elliot.

STEP AWAY FROM THE SPRAY CANS!!! You are a girl of many talents but painting isn’t one of them ;) Don’t you remember the picture you did of the Easter Bunny that time we were babysitting little Jennifer from down the road and how it gave her nightmares for months? Why don’t you ask the lighting person if they can project one of your photos of street art onto the set? Remember the ones you took in Hastings? One of them would look great. PS my Latin teacher has just broken his false teeth biting on an apple!



As I read Elliot’s text, I breathe a massive sigh of relief. I have a solution for the seemingly unsolvable and this fills me with hope. Maybe today won’t be so bad after all . . .

And I’m right—the rest of the day goes surprisingly smoothly. The actors stay holed up in the drama studio with Mr. Beaconsfield, frantically rehearsing, while Tony, the boy from Year Eleven who’s doing the lighting, turns up to do a tech rehearsal and he’s able to project one of my street-art photos onto the backdrop no problem. It looks amazing.

When I do finally see Megan, midway through the afternoon, everything’s fine. Yet again, writing my blog seems to have helped me sort things out in my mind and now that I’ve accepted that I’ve outgrown her friendship, I feel under a lot less pressure. Even seeing Ollie again isn’t too awkward. He and Megan are so nervous about the play, they’re totally preoccupied going through their lines.

Just before curtain up, Mr. Beaconsfield calls us all together backstage. “You guys are going to be awesome,” he says. “And, as my hero Jay-Z says, don’t live life uptight—live up in the sky.”

We all look at Mr. Beaconsfield blankly.

“Break a leg,” he mutters. “Oh and, Pen, I’ll need you to take one more photo for me at the end of the show, when the cast comes out to take their bow. Can you just nip onstage and grab a few shots?”

I feel a sudden flash of fear. This will mean going up onstage in front of a whole hall full of people, aka MY WORST NIGHTMARE. But then Mr. Beaconsfield races off to check that the videographer is ready to begin filming and the others all take their places backstage.