You Don't Know Me by Sophia Bennett Read Free Book Online Page A

friends. When we pose for photos, he drapes his arms round me and Rose. And now it’s OK: I’m not just a girl – I’m a singer in a band.
    This, I think, is what it must be like to be a rock star. The buzz lasts for the rest of the party. It even survives the journey home, in the back of Nell’s dad’s ancient Volvo,squashed up against our costume bags.
    There’s hardly any talking. Nell quickly falls asleep, but the rest of us are busy reliving our moment in the spotlight. It’s not until we’re nearly back in Castle Bigelow that I remember to tell Jodie and Rose about my big discovery.
    Jodie yelps so loudly it wakes Nell up.
    â€˜What? What?’
    â€˜Elliot Harrison is a weirdo phone stalker!’ Jodie yells at her.
    â€˜Who? How?’
    â€˜Sam’s friend. Sasha just worked it out.’
    Nell still looks pretty woozy. It takes a while to bring her up to speed.
    â€˜So what shall we do about it?’ she asks, when she’s eventually awake enough to wonder.
    â€˜Confront him,’ Jodie says. ‘At break time tomorrow. Together.’
    â€˜Are you sure?’ Nell’s dad asks. ‘Is he a boy at school? He sounds a bit . . . alarming.’
    â€˜Oh no, he isn’t really,’ I assure him. ‘It’s just the way Jodie describes him. We’ll be fine.’
    First thing next morning, I check our fan page. Someone has uploaded another video of us singing last night, and that person must have been standing exactly where Elliot was standing. It was totally him.
    At break time, we meet in the main corridor to track him down. However, on the way to the sixth form common room we have to stop to sign three autographs, pose for photos with people who were at the party last night and couldn’t make it to us through the crowd, and record aquick a cappella duet of ‘Sunglasses’ for another person’s ringtone. It slows us down quite a bit, but we find him with five minutes to spare.
    He’s standing near the vending machines, looking at something on his phone. He doesn’t see us coming until it’s much too late to escape. We crowd round him, Rose and me on one side, Jodie and Nell on the other.
    â€˜Elliot Harrison, you have some explaining to do,’ I begin.
    He looks panicked. He may be a sixth-former, but it’s four to one and we can be pretty intimidating if we’re angry. He tries to deny it, but with four of us challenging him, he can’t hold out for long. The evidence of the second video is the final straw. He turns to Jodie, with as much defiance in his face as he can manage.
    â€˜I was doing World of Warcraft with Sam and we heard you talking to her’ – he indicates Nell – ‘about these videos. They sounded funny. We wanted to see them. That’s all.’
    â€˜So you stole Sasha’s phone to watch our videos?’
    He looks super uncomfortable. ‘Not stole. Borrowed.’
    â€˜And then you thought you’d just put them on the internet?’
    Jodie is marginally taller than Elliot, and infinitely scarier. He cowers down.
    â€˜Not all of them,’ he says defensively. ‘Look, we weren’t going to do anything. But the Sunglasses one . . .’
    â€˜What about it?’ Jodie demands.
    â€˜It was good, OK? Special.’
    â€˜Thanks,’ Nell smiles. Jodie glares at her.
    â€˜We liked the song,’ Elliot mutters. ‘Well, I liked the song. I thought people ought to see it so I put it up foryou. As a favour. OK?’
    â€˜No! Not OK!’ Jodie yells.
    â€˜A favour? You stole our video as a favour? ’ I storm at him.
    He sighs as if I’m being stupid. ‘Not stole. Shared. I gave your phone back, didn’t I?’
    â€˜But what if everyone had hated it?’ Rose asks, quietly, from beside me.
    â€˜They wouldn’t.’ He looks at us with that same steady stare as last night. ‘They just . . .