“Because I read the stuff about me.” Oh. Well, of course they’re going to say bad things about Jasmine. She’s a stripper. Well, a stripper turned Hooters girl. I mean, hello. People hear “stripper” and make a snap judgment about her sluttiness, whether or not it’s true. Not to mention the fact that Jasmine’s beautiful, and so people are going to hate her just on principle.

“Um, hello, guys?” Simone asks softly, reminding us that the conversation was originally about her.

“Oh, right.” I consider pointing out the fact that Sam the cameraman is recording this whole conversation, so it’s very likely James will hear about it from one of his friends that watches the show, making all this obsessing obsolete. I don’t want to scare Simone, though, so I keep my mouth shut. “Well, the fact that you found out online settles it. He will inevitably ask you how you knew they were his favorite, and then you will have to tell him, and he’ll think you’re a stalker.”

I look to Jasmine for confirmation. She nods her head. “Agreed.”

That settled, I grab one last handful of chocolate chips, grab my milk, and head to the computer to find out what the world is saying about me.

NOW

Ignorance is bliss. That’s all I’m saying.

THEN

I settle into the computer chair in the living room, thankful no one’s using it. We have one computer for everyone in the house to use and we weren’t allowed to bring our own computers from home. Just another way the show controls every single aspect of our lives.

I decide to check my email before stalking myself online. Two new emails! Yay! Oh. Busty sluts stripping and a Viagra advertisement. Great. I was hoping I’d have an email from Corey, but I should have known better. Corey doesn’t believe in emailing. He thinks that if you have time to sit down and write an email, you might as well just call the person. I guess it makes some sense. But it would have been nice.

I type Google.com into the Internet address bar and then do a search for “In the House message boards.” The first link site that pops up is the official YTV site, where apparently there’s cast bios, applications, photos, links to fan sites, and message boards.

I click on the link to the message board, which prompts me to create a screen name and enter a valid email address. Great. Now I have to think up an alias. I chose Natalie19, since I’ve always wanted my name to be Natalie. I was going to be Natalie18, since that’s my age, but I figured 19 would throw people off the track. You know, like, this can definitely not be Ally pretending to be Natalie, because Ally is eighteen and Natalie is obviously nineteen. Whatever, it makes sense.