The new piece loads and hearts start blinking almost immediately. A couple of comments stack underneath.
@PixelQueen: teach meee
@NeonInk: how did you do the glow?
They’re always the first to react. I have almost a thousand followers now, but only twenty or so interact regularly. I’m smiling at the screen when a DM slides in.
A thrill zips through me before I even read it. I know the avatar as well as my own – a boy in rich velvet from another era, spray-can raised, blastingpaint at the viewer so we only see half his face.
@RenaissanceRebel: Totally blank the way you’ve blanked the blank on your latest blank.
My snort-laugh turns a few heads.Blankhas become our code word for how annoying it is to talk on the app. Anything remotely personal morphs into a string of black boxes.
This trip, for example. I was dying to tell him about it. Not just because it’s art stuff, but because I’ve had to keep it from everybody. Even my friends. Mum works at the tiny Spar on our estate and everything gets back to her.
I’d just typedI got on to an art course in Venice, it’s— when the words started vanishing, and long black boxes blanked everything out.
I got a virtual wrist-slap and a three-day ban forsharing personal info and/or location details.
Three whole days of not talking to Rebel. It was agony.
@RenaissanceRebel: Scared to ask in case the SWAT team crashes through my screen but … is today your blank trip?
@TotallySketchy: Yeah.
I’m thinking about a reply that won’t trigger the mods when another message appears.
@RenaissanceRebel: Hope you’ll have Wi-Fi … or I’m going to miss this.
My insides go all toasty.Thiscould mean my sketches. Or it could mean our chats. I hope it’s both, but compliments about my art are hard to believe now it’s just me, my iPad and whatever I can teach myself. If it weren’t for Rebel, I’m not sure I’d have stuck at it, what with school and exams and my cinema job.
It’s mad, really. My own family doesn’t get it, but he does. I don’t even know his real name or where he lives, only that he’s somewhere in Europe, because the app only links European schools. His English is perfect if a bit formal, which makes me think Germany or the Netherlands. Sometimes clues from his posts back that up, too. A mural beside a road with a Volkswagen driving on the right. Another on a concrete wall next to a tulip-lined cycle path. But even if I’m right, he might not be there any more. He’s already had to switch schools this year.
@TotallySketchy: You haven’t posted anything new in ages.
@RenaissanceRebel: I know. School’s been intense because of family stuff. Promise I’ll make it up to you. Keep the masterpieces coming.
With the app in the way, all I can do is guess at his problems. Maybe it’s the same thing my friend’s going through. Her parents split before Christmas and everything unravelled fast. Less money. A move. A new school. She’s still getting used to it all.
The tannoy announces my flight is boarding.
@TotallySketchy: Got to go.
@RenaissanceRebel: OK. Blank you.
@TotallySketchy: Blank you too.
We’ve been signing off like this for two months now, and it still makes me giddy. We used to sayblank you later– butlaterhas fallen away, leaving something bigger in its place.
Ithought flying would be way more exciting, but it was mostly clouds and noisy recycled air. I trail the selkie woman to Arrivals, my legs still waking up after being wedged into the middle seat. Someone from the programme’s supposed to be meeting me – meaning I’m about to speak actual Italian. I hover just outside the sliding doors, pretending to check my phone while waiting for someone to spot me. It shouldn’t be hard. I wore half my wardrobe to dodge baggage fees, but I’ve shed a few layers, and my multicoloured cardigan screams for attention in the muted sea of cashmere coats and leather weekender bags. I scan for anyone holding a sign, and my eyes snag on a boy my age.
He’s standing by a potted tree, lit by the skylight above like he’s on a stage. I itch to grab my stylus and capture him in a collage – the warm, textured bark for his slightly long brown curls, the golden light filtering down for his skin. I’d add touches of a faerie prince straight out of an enchanted forest – and he’d bearguing with a dragon.
Or, as is happening right now, an older woman – his mum, maybe. But honestly, with her long hennared hair, chunky cat-eye glasses and the sculptural angles of her belted coat, she’d make a brilliant dragon. I can practically see the smoke curling from her nose as sharp bursts of Italian spark between them. My Nat 5 vocabulary doesn’t stand a chance.
Until it does. Only it’s not Italian. It’s my name on the boy’s lips, in a clipped, angry snarl. ‘Evie Douglas.’ Like I’m the reason for their spat.
I shrink back into my phone, not wanting them to know I’ve overheard. My fingers automatically find the Art Exchange app.
