Chapter Ten – Facebook account
It and my “alarm clock app” reminded me of my important dates, exams and my birthday. “Its 15th October” I returned the phone to Charles. Having a Facebook account was adding to my workload.
What could I possibly promote there? Myself? No. Mom? Big no. Charles as a model? Well, not quite…
I moved closer to Charles and watched him finish up the account process. “Your password is “blockhead”, okay?” Charles said with a smirk. I felt like hitting him but I didn’t. Not like I’d remember the password for long. Wait, doesn’t it make me really a blockhead? I stared hard at Charles, “Hey, you, make a page now!”. His eyes left my phone.
“Its name should be: “Stop Bullying”. Make it now” I continued. He scoffed at me but went ahead to create the page.
I didn’t know what I wanted it for. Just as reminder. It would be one of the numerous dormant pages that the Facebook app will be having.
I thought of something. Could my father be able to track me on Facebook? The number I was using was actually my mom’s old line. She switched her numbers to a new sim and gave me the old one.
Probably, my dad has my mom’s old line and might try “importing contacts” to see me. If he hadn’t already. How would I escape that?
“What should be it’s cover photo, profile picture and description?” Charles asked. I nodded absentmindedly. “What pictures should I use and what should be your description?” Charles repeated again for clarity. I just looked up to him. I didn’t understand a word he was saying.
Why should I describe my page? It’s name is self-explanatory. Why are they stressing my brain? “Hey, is the owner of the Facebook app a bully too?” I blurted.
Charles gave me his “tired-mixed-with-frustration” look. I really wanted to know. What if I upload something about school violence and he deletes my page? I don’t know how those things really work but I didn’t want to patronize a bully.
“The owner doesn’t matter. This is a public app. Post whatever!” Charles finally spoke up. I mimicked him. He seemed amused but didn’t show it.
My questions were childish, I knew it. “Why are you here though? Shouldn’t you be modelling or something?” I enquired trying to change the topic.
He ignored me but when he noticed I was frowning, he shook his head and answered “I can’t go there. The “little missy” you brought is being coached by the “big missy”. It would be too tough for me.
“Little missy?” I asked.
“Yup” he nodded, “the Samantha girl”.
I nodded back. She was a little missy indeed but I preferred calling her “pigtails”. And the big missy? It should be Clara.
She was originally modelling at Europe but she moved over to the States because she was having too much competitors. She would be glad to have someone to coach.
Samantha could become popular like her or even more. How could she cope in school though? I didn’t even think.
Well…how did…I turned to Charles, “How did you cope with your modeling? Aren’t you supposed to be in high school?” my eyebrows cocked to give a questioning look. “At” he said. At? Was that the name of his school?
I never even asked his school or grade before? What kinds of a best friend am I? But “At” couldn’t be a name of a school, could it? Well, I didn’t want to ask embarrassing questions and act like a child again so I didn’t enquire more about the “At”. It might be a popular school around.
“Did you ever have to deal with bullies at your school?” It was a genuine question. I wondered if I was the only one who ever suffered bully mixed with racial threats. I notice he was just smiling – not at me but maybe at a thought. “Why? Was it funny?” I asked again. He shook his head.
“It’s a long story. I suffered bullying with a friend of mine – a Chinese”. I blinked. Charles have had a foreign friend before? I had never! Well that wasn’t the point now.
“Tell me about it, Charles” my curiosity was rising. “Well, bullying is normal. But there’s a stronger case, I have an audio tape of my Chinese friend’s racial ordeal. He sent it to a radio station but it got denied” Charles said sadly.Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.
Of course, they would deny it. It must have been a White’s radio station. Well, I wasn’t in the mood for any tragedies so I declined. “I don’t have much racism or bullying problems. I’m cute anyway. Some people just didn’t want to hang out with me”. I stared at Charles. He made it sound so casual. Bullying and racism wasn’t fair.
And the part he said “I’m cute anyway”, made me want to laugh. He is cute though. He had a call. “Yup, on my way.” He responded on his phone. “Your boss?” I asked. “Nope. No way. It’s Clara. My boss is always rude” and he gave me back my phone and left.
“Hey, won’t you walk your visitor” he shouted at me when I just sat back on my chair. I smiled, I wasn’t a good host, that I know. Also, Charles wasn’t a visitor. It’s not like I invited him here anyway.
I hopped off to him and waved. Charles just smiled, he began staring at me. Well, I stared to him back. What did he want? I walked my visitor, didn’t I? “Bye” he finally said and he left. I went back to my phone and had a look at my new page since it was to be about racial violence.
I had to try bringing in some stones of some racial ordeals of some personal. I’d help eradicate racism in the small way I can. Many had had traumatic experience just because someone thought they were born bad, I’d try to correct that.
I began sending friend requests to random people. I joined many groups promoting black lives. A very popular one was “Black Lives Matter”.