Radio Silence by Alice Oseman

Author:Alice Oseman [Alice Oseman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers
Published: 2016-02-12T05:00:00+00:00

YOUTUBE FAMOUS

“Do you eat the same thing for lunch every day?”

I looked up from my cheese and ham panini. Raine Sengupta sat down next to me at our usual table in the sixth-form cafeteria. She had a bright orange rucksack hanging off one arm and her phone in the opposite hand. The rest of our friends hadn’t arrived yet.

“I’m very unimaginative,” I said, “and I don’t like change.”

She gave a little nod as if this were a reasonable explanation.

“How did you know that anyway?” I asked.

“You sort of stick out, mate. Sitting here at a table by yourself for like ten minutes before the rest of us get here.”

“Oh.” Great. “That’s completely the opposite of what I was going for.”

“Not your desired lunchtime aesthetic?”

“I was going more for ‘invisible girl just wants to eat her sandwich in peace’.”

She laughed. “The ultimate dream for us all!”

I laughed a little too, and she lifted her bag on to the stool opposite me. It made a noise that suggested it weighed at least half of my body weight.

I’d been trying not to think about the message about Aled. I hadn’t checked Tumblr since break.

Raine leaned on the table with one hand. “Just thought I’d better let you know, there’s some shit happening outside the school gate involving Aled Last.”

“What?”

“Yeah … I think he came to meet Daniel for lunch and he’s been, like … bombarded by children.”

I put down my panini.

“What?” I said.

“They’re asking him Universe City questions. You might wanna skip over there and see what’s up. Like, before they crush him.”

I stood up immediately. “God, yeah, okay— Yeah.”

“I didn’t know you were such good mates,” she said, pulling a lunchbox out of her bag. “It’s surprising.”

“Why’s that?” I asked, but she just shrugged at me.

The Year 7–11 uniform is black and yellow so it looked a bit like Aled was being attacked by a swarm of large bees.

Around fifteen teenagers had cornered him just outside the main school gate and were firing questions at him like he was an actual and legitimate celebrity. An older boy was taking pictures of him on his phone. A group of Year 7 girls were giggling every time he said something. A Year 7 boy was shouting out questions repeatedly without stopping, such as “How d’you get YouTube famous?”, “How do I get more followers on Instagram?” and “Would you follow me on Twitter?”

I stopped a few paces away from the back of the crowd.

How did they know?

How did they know he was Radio Silence?

This wasn’t what we’d wanted to happen.

This wasn’t what he’d wanted to happen.

Aled finally saw us.

He’d had a haircut. It looked kind of normal, now.

He was back in a jumper and jeans too.

He looked miserable.

“Did you do this?” he said to me, except I couldn’t hear him at all, I could just see his lips move. I couldn’t hear him and I felt so annoyed about it that I wanted to push into the crowd and shout at all the people and make them leave him alone.

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