Celebrity

1

When I grow up, I want to be famous. Proper famous too. Not like those B-listers who go on big brother. Famous for a little while then never heard of again. I’m not going to be one of those who are famous for something crazy too. Like that girl who said she fell asleep after asking for one star and the tattooist gave her like fifty odd. I’m going to be beloved. A national treasure. Or, at least, I’ll be talked about enough. I won’t even be able to go down the street without some form of disguise because people will just keep bothering me. At fourteen years old, I’m already beginning to work on what my brand will be like. I scroll through the Kardashians feed for inspiration and I think I could create better products than they do. I practice my speeches for all the major brands that will want me as their ambassador. I record it and play it back. I sound perfect!

My mother thinks my dream is ridiculous and calls my dreams a dangerous phase that she hopes will pass before I sit my GCSE’s. She’s expecting me to go to college and then University but, what is the point? That will not aid me in achieving my inevitable stardom. Although, could be a good way to network. I currently only have two-thousand followers on Instagram.

 I started posted at least twice a day in order to get more. I also delegate at least half an hour in the evening following worthy accounts in order to get followers back. I make sure afterwards to delete a number of these so I’m not following too many. This is usually ruined by my mother yelling at me to put the phone down and do my homework or clean my room blah blah blah. She often compares me to my two sisters. Prudence and Georgia. Us three girls could not be more different. Prudence is the “brains” in the family, as our Mothers is constantly reminding us and everyone else whom she comes into contact with. “Prudence aced her exams again, best score in her year”. Urgh! She is smart, no doubt about that, but, she’s sooooo boring! We’re only a year apart and she often tries to talk to me into school, but I shove her away. She majorly cramps my style and she dresses like a loser too. How can someone with so much brain power lack any sense of fashion? On the plus side, at home, she just sits in her room reading books or whatever. She doesn’t irritate the hell out of me like Georgia, or “Georgie” as she prefers to be named. Little tomboy who’s constantly in trouble at school for fighting but barely gets in any serious trouble because she’s one of the only few students who has any talent when it comes to sport. She loves football and athletics and all that rubbish. Frequently coming home with tacky looking trophies. And at home, she won’t leave me alone! Always trying to steal things from my room, throwing food at me at the dinner table! Nightmare. She doesn’t annoy Prudence. She says it’s because Prudence will sometimes agree to play “footie” in the garden with her. Pfft. I’m not doing that.

Me, Jasmine, I am the pretty one. The popular one. The one who gets invited to parties. The one who is destined for a bright and exciting future. I have beautiful, glossy black hair and startlingly blue eyes. My legs are to die for and I can pull of any kind of outfit there is like a super-model. I have this gorgeous skin that tans really easy so I constantly look like I’ve been somewhere exotic. My lashes are to die for. I could go on. I am our Mothers’ least favourite but, I suspect this stems from jealousy. Mother is not fashionable or popular either. She just doesn’t understand or appreciate the kind of lifestyle I’m destined for.

2

I went to a career’s counsellor at school today. He asked me what I wanted to be, I told him I was going to be a celebrity. He sort of sighed and gave me a funny look.

“What are you going to do in order to achieve this celebrity?”

“I have loads to talents, I can sing, dance, I’m already been in touch with some modelling agencies.”

“So which are you going to use?”

“I reckon I’ll start off in the modelling industry, break through, then I’ll release some music or get into the film industry or something, y’know?”

He just sat there and stared at me for a bit, it was super weird.

“Loads of people have gone that route, like Paris Hilton and I bet I could write better songs.”

“Have you written any yet?”

“No.”

“Right.” He started jotting down some notes. “I think Paris was brought up in a famous family, are you from a famous family Jasmine?”

“No, but I will be.”

He gave a small laugh then said; “Well, I admire your conviction. For now, though, shall we have something as a backup?”

“Like what?”

“Well, it says here you are a top performer in English Literature. We could do something with that.”

“I don’t want to be a teacher.” I do like English but I would never work with little brats.

“You could a be writer or a researcher.”

“What would I write?”

“A novel maybe or-“

“Hmm” There a few novelists who are quite famous. Not quite as glamorous and exciting as I’m expecting for myself. Could be a good idea to have a backup as Mr Counsellor is suggesting. Maybe I’ll just agree to satisfy him for now. “Could be a good idea to have as a backup I guess.”

“Perfect. I’ll have a word with your English teacher, put together some ideas and see if we can get a career plan together for you to think about.”

“As a backup?”

“Of course.”

3

I’m at a party thrown by Tiffany Ellis tonight. The second most popular girl in school, (Behind me). She’s my best friend but we argue all the time. Her parent’s have bought her a load of alcohol and they’ve locked themselves upstairs and told her not to bother them. I wish my Mother would buy us alcohol but she’s so stingy!

Tiffany is playing perfect host and making sure everyone has their cups filled at all times. She’s making conversation with everyone whilst she’s doing it. As the night gets on, she forgets about hosting as she’s now fairly drunk. “fucking help yourself lads there’s plenty going!” She slurs and laughs.

I’m getting fairly drunk myself now and Tiffany walks over to me. She grabs my arm and drags me across the room. “Come meet Fin, he’s a total nut.” She makes me spill my drink so I call her a bitch. She shushes me then pushes me into a guest room. There’s a handsome looking boy who she introduces to me as Fin.

“He’s got pills for us”, Tiffany says and giggles.

Fin catches my eye and winks.

“What kind of pills?”

“Special kind” he says. His voice is deep and mysterious. Maybe because I’m drunk but this makes me laugh. The voice sounded a lot older than the face which makes me wonder if he’s putting it on. I laugh at him. “Special kind eh?”

“Oh yeah. These babies will let you see your future.”

“Piss off prick!” I down my vodka and coke. “I’m off to get another drink.”

“You scared?” He teases. He holds out his hand and shows me a small round tablet that is a deep lilac colour.

“Pfft. Fine, loser.” I snatch the pill and chuck it down my throat. “When I do see my future?”

“When you go to sleep.”

“Brilliant.”

I leave the party at about 4am and sneak in the house. I try to quietly creep up the stairs but I’m too drunk to be stealthy and I’m stumbling and falling up the stairs. I’m sure I’ll get told off in the morning but for now, I don’t care.

4



I wake up inside a small room that’s not my own. The walls a dirty cream colour and the only decorative item I can see is a Pulp Fiction poster. My head hurts, I must be hungover. But where am I? I can hear a noise outside, someone laughing. I walk out of the bedroom and see two women sat on the sofa.

“Hiya Jas” one of them says. “wild night yesterday eh? You were slaughtered mate!” They both cackle at this comment.

“Who are you?” I ask. This causes them to break into more laughter.

“Man you were bad, what did you take?”

“Whose flat is this?”

“Are you taking the piss?”

“Do you live here?”

“We all live here you bloody piss head. I think you need a shower and a coffee.”

I think this is some practical joke so I don’t say anything else. Besides, a like her suggestion of a shower and coffee. I ask her where the bathroom is and she shakes her head and points.

The shower is not particularly good. The jets are really weak and it’s too difficult to get the temperature right. I hop out and look it in the mirror. I almost scream at the reflection. I’m older. I look at least 35. I have aged other night and not at all gracefully. My hair has lost its sheen and my eyes are entrenched within dark circles. My skin looks flaky and dry. I look like I’ve stopped putting in the effort in. This is some kind of trick. This is impossible! Then I remember that stupid pill that boy gave me! It can’t have worked. Can it?

I walk back into the living room. “I need to call my Mother, does anyone have a phone?”

“Your mother?” One of the women says. She looks concerned now. “You must have been on the hard stuff yesterday love. Your mum died about seven years ago.”

“Died? What? How?”

“No idea, you didn’t even go to the funeral. Not sure you even knew how she died. One of your sisters rung you and told you. Do you really not remember?”

“Which sister?”

“What?”

“Which sister called me?”

“No idea love, the one who writes books.”

“Excuse me?”

“The one who writes books. You know, married to the other guy who writes books too. Live up in that fancy New York apartment.”

“She’s-she’s successful?”

“Successful! She created Miraculous Melanie or whatever her bloody name was. I dunno I’ve never read it myself but it’s a bestselling series. Started watching the film when you were out but then you came home early so I had to turn it off pronto..”

I suddenly felt dizzy and I ran out of the room back to the strange bedroom that was apparently my own. I had never even seen Pulp Fiction! Or maybe I had in the past twenty years. There’s a laptop on the desk. I open it up. No password. Cool. I plan to google my own name and see how big I am in the future. Maybe I just look this rough because of the pill and I’m mega hungover. This must be my friend’s apartment I stay over at sometimes. When I open up my browser, I can spot tabs that are already open. These include; “Georgie winning gold at the Olympics”, “Georgia the Olympian marriage”, “Prudence releases final instalment of book series”, “Prudence donates large sum to aid starving children in Ethiopia.” There are loads of tabs open on that display loads of information on the two of my sisters. Whoever owns this laptop is obsessed with the pair of them. So, Georgia is a famous athlete. There are loads of photos of her on the internet. She has impeccable abs. Too masculine for me, I wouldn’t want them on myself, but I can’t deny that they’re impressive. She is married to a dashingly handsome man who has some high-flying job for some large tech company. They do not have to children yet. Apparently, they are both too invested in their careers for now, but they plan to have some in the future.

Prudence, as the lady in the room said, appears to be a successful novelist. So far, she has released a series that consists of seven books. She has also written two other novels and one non-fiction book and a vegetarian cookbook! She describes Mother as being an inspiration who fostered her creativity and blah blah blah. In one article, she mentions how close she is to her sister Georgie, and that they still contact each other regularly. She even mentioned her in the acknowledgements section in several of her books. I scan the articles for mention for me. Nothing. The articles only mention that they have one sister! They never speak about me. I google “Prudence family”. The search results come up with Georgie and our mother. Our mother doesn’t have an image on the page which provides me with some solace.

I google my own name. I expect the internet to be littered with glamorous images of me wearing luxurious dresses which I am flouting on the cat-walk or at some celebrity weddings. I can’t see any of this. I can see my name several times but none of these are even me. There’s a Jasmine Fischer at a high school in Ontario, there’s one living in Leicester who has an Instagram dedicated to baking. Nothing for me. I’ve been forgotten by my family and no one knows who I am. I am seething with rage. How did I fail? What went wrong? Well, maybe I should take the counsellors advice and write a novel. Seemed to work for Prudence and she’s a bore. I open up a word document and type in my title:

“Celebrity”