Generation Next (26 page)

It's the last day of the school holidays, and as I step outside the house to go meet the guys, the sun comes out big time. I'm only a few yards down the street when I get a WhatsApp from Sai informing me that as it's too depressing to be in a room with no windows on the last day of the holidays, he's relocating our scheduled GenNext meeting from HQ to the roof of his flats—excellent idea.

Just as I finish reading the message and turn in the direction of Sai's, the freakiest thing happens. In fact, it's so weird I can't quite believe it.

“Are you Jack Penman? Yeah, course you are.”

A boy of about my age is standing a few feet away, smiling at me. It takes me a few seconds, and then this unnerving sense of recognition rushes through me. It's Dillon Hemingway, one of the kids who made my life a misery at my old school, Charlton Academy. You
remember, the ones who kicked seven bells out of me at the back of the bus, although right now I can't for the life of me remember if he was Dim or Dimmer. Anyway, I freeze on the spot and I don't say anything, but as Dillon comes closer, I realize that he isn't looking to punch my face in—in fact he's holding out his hand.

“I thought it was you,” he says, and before I know it, I'm reaching out to shake his hand. “You've done well, Jack. Really well. My younger sister is a massive fan of yours; she's mad about all the stuff you put up on GenNext.”

I can't get my head around the fact that he's being so friendly, so gushing, like I'm a completely different person to the kid he was so vile to at Charlton.

“Really?”

“Absolutely! Hey, do you know what would be good? If you could sign something for her—that would be amazing.” Dillon sticks his hand in the pocket of his jacket and rummages around for some paper. “I've got a pen somewhere,” he says, like some nervous fan.

I sign the back of a receipt for him,
To Amy, all the best, love Jack Penman
, and as I walk away, it strikes me as weird that neither of us mentioned anything relating to that moment of horrible violence all those months ago. I guess I didn't mention it because it's something I don't want to, or have to, think about any more. It doesn't matter to me—
he
doesn't matter to me. When it comes down to it, Dillon's behavior back then shows that he, like Callum, is just another sad, lonely case whose only
chance of getting noticed is to flex his muscles or bully people. And do you know what? I don't hate Dillon, and I don't hate Callum either. I just pity them.

Before long, I'm up on Sai's roof with my best friends and Ella, and it feels good. This is where I belong. After the rain of the previous weekend, the abandoned sofa is too wet to sit on, so this afternoon we're perched on some old crates and two of Sai's mum's sunloungers that he's hauled up from their flat.

Ava's faded lilac hair drifts around her in the light breeze as she stands up in front of us all, clearly ready to make an announcement.

“OK, you lot, the news, as you can imagine, is pretty good. After Cooper's gig and Jack and Ella's interview in the bathroom, the amount of views we had was incredible, and this morning we officially hit four million subscribers.”

There's a massive cheer and some celebratory dancing from all of us before Ava goes on.

“So, despite Jack Penman almost killing us when he freaked out in front of one of the world's biggest pop stars the other week . . .”

“Oh, you are so hilariously funny, Ava,” I say.

“. . . despite that, I would say that this summer has been a pretty bloody amazing success and, well, basically . . . we rock!”

“Here's to the future of GenNext!” Austin shouts, breaking out the cans of full-fat Coke.

In the midst of the mayhem, AJ steps out on to the roof, looking equally pleased with himself.

“Hey, Uncle AJ, come and join us,” Sai shouts over. “We're just talking about the future of GenNext.”

“Oh yes? And what's the plan?” AJ says, pulling up a crate.

There's a sudden silence and everyone turns to me.

“Yeah, J, what is the plan?” Austin says.

“Well, it's all very nice us being able to pat ourselves on the back and jump up and down about how well we've done, but I think we've still got a lot of work to do,” I say, standing up and taking Ava's place center stage. “Guys, what we've done is great, but we can make it even better.”

“You know there've been a lot of offers coming in for mergers and investment,” AJ says. “It's going through the roof right now.”

“And that's great, AJ,” I say, “but let's see what we can do on our own for a while, huh? Let's make GenNext the best it can be—the six of us. We're the team, right?”

“Agreed, one hundred percent,” Ava says, saluting.

“Agreed!” Austin, Ella and Sai call out in unison.

“Agreed,” AJ smiles.

Sai hits play on his phone, and as Calvin Harris blares out of his Bluetooth speaker, there's more cheering and
more dancing, during which Ella grabs my hand and pulls me in for a kiss.

“Are you happy, Jack Penman?” she says, smiling up at me.

“Yeah, I'm happy, Ella Foster,” I say.

We stay up there for another hour, laughing, dancing, reminiscing and, of course, ripping it out of one another, which is what we seem to do best. But that's good, right? That's what real friends do. You have a laugh together, you have one another's back and you
never
give in to the bullies. If I'm really honest, I have no idea what's going to happen next or where the future is going to take me or Ella or any of us. But right now, up on this roof with all my best friends . . . life feels good.

Where do I even start? I never dreamed I'd be given the opportunity to write a book by the time I was 21. I've poured my heart and soul into it, and although it's a work of fiction there are a lot of my own experiences and real life situations in the story that are very close to my heart.

Firstly, I'd like to thank everyone reading this for supporting me and for buying
Generation Next
; you keep pushing me to create bigger and better things and you've helped me grow up—fast! The last couple of years, developing my channel and posting videos on YouTube, have been the best of my life and none of it would of been possible without you, my amazing viewers.

I would like to thank my mum and dad for always being there for me, encouraging and inspiring me to work hard to achieve my ambitions and dreams and, of course, my awesome brother James who, despite being only 13, is a lot cooler and smarter than I am.

I would like to thank my management James Grant for believing in me and signing me as one of their first Internet talents and for putting up with me for over a year now.

Emily Kitchin and the awesome team at Hodder—you guys know who you are. I couldn't have done any of this without your brilliance.

I would like to say a huge thank you to Terry Ronald, my co-writer—you absolute legend! You managed to help me get all my thoughts and visions onto paper and turn them into a terrific book.

The boys: Caspar, Joe, Josh, Mikey, Conor and Jack for inspiring me to always do better and making my job so much fun.

So yeah, that's just a few of the many people I want to thank for quite literally changing my life and helping me enjoy every step of the way. Thank you!