GIRL, UNPLUGGED
YA Novel Chapter 2 | 10 minute read
Welcome back to GIRL, UNPLUGGED a YA speculative fiction novel. Here’s the pitch:
Sixteen-year-old Natalie Turner never knows what to say. Talia Turner is a popular blogger who’s witty, insightful, and trending. You’d never know they were the same person. When a solar storm causes a catastrophic collapse of power while she’s on a class trip, Natalie is forced to confront a terrifying question: Who is she, really? Natalie, or Talia?
Ready to jump in? If you missed the previous chapters, feel free to head over to the GIRL, UNPLUGGED subsection of Story Hoarder to catch up!
Here is Chapter 2: Noise. It is approximately an 8 minute read.
CHAPTER 2: Noise
Posted to TALIA’S TALES
Oct 6 @7:22AM
In all honesty, I should be out the door already, but I need a moment.My world is noisy. This screen, so quiet. Good morning, peeps. Thank you for your gentle nudge into the day. I did it again — unplugged phone posed as a pillow last night and did a terrible job. The sleep lines on my face this morning carved deep untold stories of the worries I shared with my bestie into the wee hours of the morn via text. It’s going to be a big day here in the big city. Send good vibes.
~Talia
#allthegood #allthestrength #betalia
It was 6:37AM, my head felt like it was full of some thick, oozy syrup, and my pillow felt like heaven on Earth. Lights on, radios blasting, television competing for attention, family bustling in and out of the kitchen for things to nosh on and, in the second room on the right, up on the second floor, I was hitting my snooze button as if that was going to be enough to grant me a couple more precious moments of shut eye. I am not a morning person. I was born into the wrong family.
I knew I didn't have the time to stay in bed any longer, but the only thing that truly lit a fire under my ass was the fact that, as I reached my arm under my pillow to give it another loving, groggy grab, I felt my iPhone lying beneath it — again. "Craaap," I moaned. I have to stop doing this! I dug through my covers and scooped it out in a panic, checked the battery and audibly gasped at the pathetic 4% battery left. Not cool, were the only words that entered my mind. It was imperative that my phone was fully charged for the day ahead of me.
I put the phone on the charger and started tapping on the screen while it sucked what little energy it could in the time it took me to get ready. I found a gif I had saved for just these occasions — it was an animated version of Edvard Munch's painting, The Scream, with a speech bubble proclaiming "My phone is dying!" — and posted it on my Tumblr page. Then I reblogged a bunch of gifs of Danny Tartum from last night's episode of Barista Boys. He was seriously adorable in the scene where Lanie caught him looking at her over his car door. There were at least 15 different creations from that look alone. I shared one with Amy via text. She’d thank me later.
”What the heck are you doing?" It was Roger, my little brother, at my bedroom door. He had the same brown hair as me, but while mine was long and thick enough to stay pretty tame after a night of sleep, his looked like he had been electrocuted in the night. It always made me laugh, but this morning, Rog was the one who looked amused. It hadn't occurred to me how weird I must have looked lying across my bed and nightstand trying to type on my phone.
"Oh Rog! Lemme borrow your iPod for the shower, please?" I needed music to get ready.
He barged into my room, "What's wrong with your phone?" and reached over to my iHome.
"Don't touch it!" I yelled. I didn't mean to, it just came out.
"Wow." He was hurt, I could tell.
"Sorry, Rog," I really was, "it's just that it’s almost dead. I need to charge it, ya know?"
"Yeah... whatever," he handed me his iPod while unplugging his headphones.
"Thanks," I said as I got up and kissed his head.
He called to me as I made my way out of the room, "You're an addict, you know that, right?"
He may have had a point, because all I could think of was how I needed to get myself connected to the world in some other way. I headed into the den which separates my brother's room and my own to get onto the family computer for a virtual wake up to the world that was more my speed. I needed the Internet. Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr were how I greeted my days. None of the morning news programs my mother subscribes to, loud ass rock music my brother has on some maddening loop, or stagnant text that my father pours over in The New York Times can get me to shake off the sandman's damages. Give me backlit screens with gifs, videos and random thoughts from my online peeps, and I'll show you a girl who can conquer anything.
However, the second I stepped out of my room, I was spotted. "The princess has risen!" my mother sang from the kitchen, exuding the same brightness in her voice that every corner of our house (except for my wonderfully draped bedroom) exemplified.
In the morning my house was as loud as the Mall's food court on a Friday afternoon. My mother blasted the Today Show from the second it started so she could hear it over her blow dryer. My brother, who didn't believe in shutting off his speakers even when he was wearing headphones, saw every waking hour as another opportunity to gain experience in who knows how many different MMORPGs that he was involved in. My dad's morning was a symphony of beeps from his e-mail, early morning texts, and phone calls. He added to that with the coffee machine and his incurable addiction to microwave usage. When I finally got up, I contributed to the cacophony with my music in the bathroom, but that wasn't until the rest of these nut cases had been up for at least two hours.
One benefit of my house's morning ritual was the extreme lighting. One drawback was the inability to have any quiet time. I'll admit, most of the time I don't require quiet time that my own headphones can't give to me, but on the morning after Murph's call I was nervous as hell about the day ahead. I felt like a minute of quiet would have been all I needed to get my head straight. A moment to remember that Murph was a normal human being who just wanted to have a nice piece for his college portfolio and I was helping him out.
"The clock is ticking sweetheart, the day waits for no one!" My mother was dancing while she said this last bit. I kid you not. She was right. I headed to the shower to avoid Rog using up all the hot water before me.
The trip to school was even noisier than my house. On the bus everyone is staring at their hands — whether they're grasping iPods, smart phones, DSes, or, believe it or not, books — but, at the same time, they are all still talking. If there was a mute button for life, this scene would look like it should be silent, but it isn't. It's loud. Just like home. Everything is loud. Everything except detention and the night.
Amy and I discovered the silence of the night during the hurricane. We were out in my backyard when the entire neighborhood lost power. The whole city was out for at least an hour. The sky came alive and my neighbors came out to see, but no one spoke. It was amazing. Ever since then, whenever the weather is right, I sneak out into my backyard to capture whatever quiet I can. The night before the trip to the museum was one of those nights. At around two in the morning, after hours of texting with Amy (Skype was a no-go — Amy claimed she did not have Skype-appropriate hair — what.ever.), I snuck outside. I wanted to shut the street light off so I could really see the stars and recapture that stillness so I could think.
Heading to school, my mind spun with possibilities. Amy was going full-blown virtual cheerleader on me. She started by resending an edited form of the gif I sent her that morning. I don’t know how she did it so quickly, but she cut out Murph’s face from the photo I sent her the day before and superimposed it on the Danny Tartum gif I sent her and wrote, “You could be his Lanie.” I deleted that so fast. Can you imagine if someone was looking over my shoulder? The sentiment was great, but that just wouldn’t do. I texted back “IN PUBLIC!!!!!!!!!!” and added the angry devil emoticon to drive my seriousness home. I think she got the point. While she didn’t stop texting me for the rest of my trip to school, the rest of her well-wishes were generic enough that in the event I were horribly maimed in an accident and someone found my phone, they’d just think my bestie really wanted me to have a good day. Still, for me, it was all too much. My brain was as noisy as my daytime surroundings. I tried to spill out the distractions into my palm — typing, typing, typing — wondering if everyone could see how excited I was about a tiny conversation I had with a boy yesterday.
Mrs. Krimble waited in the front of the auditorium for all juniors going on the trip to the New School Museum. I wasn't happy to have to see her so soon after my detention, but if I wanted to go on the trip, I had to check in before homeroom.
"Hey Miss Turner, let's hope those solar flares don't interrupt our trip this afternoon, huh?" she gave me a joking jab in my side. She was all smiles.
Oh my God, I thought, she thinks we have an inside joke because of my damn detention! The punishment was finally being dealt. I can only imagine the horror on my face. I stammered a response while darting my eyes to see who was around for this teacher-student chummy behavior. I was grateful that I had at least some clue what she was talking about, though. If not for Muph sketching me, I would've been sure she was talking about some impending exam I was doomed to fail.
Murph. All roads lead back to him. Even when I had no reason to think of him, that's what I was doing.
"Do you have a MetroCard?" Mrs. Krimble interrupted my daydreaming. It was probably for the best.
"What?" I asked.
"Do you use a student MetroCard to get to school, or do you need one for the trip?" she elucidated as I noticed Murph walking into the auditorium.
All SI Prep trips used the mass transit system in NYC. If we couldn't get there with a MetroCard, then the school wouldn't schedule a trip there. Since I took the city bus to school every morning and home every afternoon, I had a MetroCard, so I didn't need a temporary one for the trip. It was a simple question for me to answer. It's a shame I didn't see it that way at the moment. "Uh — no. I mean. No, I take the bus. I have one. I'm good," said the babbling idiot (in other words, me).
"Okay, then I'll see you back here after homeroom!" Mrs. Krimble waved me off with a smile, calling out as I started to walk away, "Just as long as the sun doesn't stop us!"
I turned back to see her cracking herself up when I walked right into the chest of the one and only Matthew Murphy. He smelled like soap, and it was wonderful.
"Ohmygosh," I breathed, mortified that I walked right into someone because I was joking around with a teacher. I am still waiting for my acceptance letter to the Dork Hall of Fame, it should be here any day now.
"Whoa, girl!" Murph said putting his hands on my shoulders. They were warmer than I expected. Actually, scratch that. I never really expected anything. I never thought about his hands touching me before that moment and then, suddenly I could think of nothing else. How my shoulders fit perfectly in his palms, how he used those hands to create such perfect drawings, what it might feel like to hold hands with him... I was lost in a flurry of thought in a moment. Time travel has to be possible, or else how could I be able to think so much in the time that elapses within a single breath?
“Oh—” I looked at him. "I'm sorry..." and then I was stunned silent.
"No big,” he said letting go of me with a smile, "you okay?"
"Yep," I responded, suddenly at a loss for syllables.
"See ya later?" he asked leaning over to look in my eyes.
"Yep," I said again. I couldn't believe it, so I added, "Yeah, I better go. I don't want to be late for homeroom." At which point I bolted for the auditorium door. I was mortified and terrified of the the ferry trip in less than an hour. I missed the silence of detention.
Posted to TALIA’S TALES
Oct 6 @8:39AM
Here’s something I’m fiddling with. Let me know what you think.
BE TALIA
Do you know this girl Talia?
Sometimes I pretend to be her.
Talia knows how to talk
Talia knows how to walk
She’s cool as a cube in a crowd
Get her going and she’s super loud
Talia tells jokes to friends
Talia never pretends
Her words are her power
She can spill them for hours
And hours
And hours…
#amwriting #poetry #betalia
Leave a Comment
First, thank you for reading this part of my novel GIRL, UNPLUGGED. A new chapter will be posted tomorrow, are you looking forward to it? Does the GIRL, UNPLUGGED pitch intrigue you? Do you, like Natalie have a different sort of persona online than you do IRL? Head to the comments to let me know and chat it up.
If this is your first time here…
Don’t forget to subscribe so you get all of my story hoard delivered to your inbox every time a new piece is released!
I do love all the foreshadowing!