Beads, Boys and Bangles by Sophia Bennett

Harry’s in his bedroom, trying out the playlist for his next set. He can only really get into the mood if he plays it EXTREMELY LOUD, so the whole house is shaking. The next-door neighbours hate us. Edie tries a few dance steps. Something very strange is happening.
    Then suddenly I remember. The ethical bloggingawards. They must be happening around now. Are they tonight? Does she need me to hold her hand while we watch radioactive kid win a prize?
    ‘Er, is your website going OK?’ I ask. I sense she’s in too strange a mood for direct questions.
    ‘Fine,’ Edie says. But in a ‘please ask me more’ sort of way.
    ‘The awards must be soon,’ I prompt.
    ‘Oh, they’ve happened,’ she sighs. She runs her fingers over a pile of unframed photos that must ON NO ACCOUNT BE TOUCHED.
    ‘Why don’t we go to my room?’ I suggest. ‘And what happened? Did radioactive kid win?’
    We start to head upstairs.
    ‘No,’ she shouts, over the sound of some Icelandic pop group that Harry’s recently discovered.
    She’s not making it easy for me. Then I realise the obvious. We’re at the door of my room. I turn to look at her.
    ‘Did you win?’
    ‘Yes!’ she squeaks. ‘Yes, I did!’
    And we both do a jig round the landing. Or as much of a jig as you can do to Icelandic pop. More of a pogo.
    I turn on my laptop and make her show me the ethical blogging website, where it says ‘Winner’ in flashing letters next to Edie’s name, and there’s a whole page about her website, and how much the ethical blogging people admire it for being ‘informative and committed, but alsofun and in tune with teen culture’. You can tell they haven’t actually met Edie.
    ‘And there’s this,’ she says. Now that she’s finally admitted winning, she’s desperate to show me more.
    She does some rapid typing on my keyboard and up comes the most boring webpage I’ve seen in my life. It’s a series of graphs. It’s like homework. Ew. But apparently it’s her ‘web stats’ – how many people actually look at her site – and on the biggest chart is a line that’s just taken off, showing that she’s suddenly got hundreds of new readers. And the number’s growing by the minute.
    ‘The ethical blogging people warned me this might happen if I won,’ she said. ‘But I was so sure I wouldn’t.’
    ‘ Warned you? Isn’t this a good thing?’
    ‘I suppose so. But my site wasn’t designed to cope with this many readers at once. It’s in danger of crashing. I need to talk to my hosting service in the morning.’
    There she goes, the internet whizz kid again. You wouldn’t normally think that the idea of your site crashing would make you grin from ear to ear like a crazy person, but that’s what Edie’s doing right now. She’s really proud of this award. And what’s so sweet is, I really don’t think she would ever have told me if I hadn’t asked. Or rather, if she hadn’t made me ask.
    Edie just stands there, next to my desk, jiggling about and looking happy in a shocked sort of way.
    ‘Come on,’ I say, grabbing her hand. ‘Party.’
    Mum’s back on the phone upstairs, but we hear thefront door opening and go down to find Crow in the hall. She instantly puts her satchel down and starts boogieing around the room in an ‘Edie victory’ dance.
    ‘What about Harry?’ she asks breathlessly, midboogie. ‘Does he know?’
    She’s right, of course I may still be cross with him for sniggering at me, but it’s time for a brief ceasefire. We all pile into his room and he grins at us as if nothing’s wrong anyway. He’s in the middle of some Memphis Soul by now and once he hears the news he turns his speakers up as loud as they’ll go, which is very.
    Memphis Soul, it turns out, is perfect for dancing around the room with your brother and two of your best friends, to celebrate their total amazingness.
    ‘You’re famous now!’ I shout to Edie over King Curtis and his band.
    ‘Only to ethical bloggers,’ she