“All right, we’re doing this.” Ree pumps her fists in the air. “Do notpanic or overreact, okay, Mum? Everything is fine. Everything’s under control. And try to remember, when you’re tempted to freak out, that if all this online stuff hadn’t happened, Sarah Sergeant wouldn’t have been able to reach out to us and—”
“All what online stuff?” says Mark.
“Okay, so…” Ree takes a deep breath. “You know Tess Gavey started to post about her terrible bite and how it was this awfulaggressive dog that did it? And you know I didn’t just take that lying down? Right, well… I mean, it’d take too long to explain exactly what happened, but basically we went viral. I did a post with ‘#GoneDog #TheFurryFugitive’ in it—”
“And I shared it on my story,” says Tobes.
“What story?” I feel as if I’m drowning.
“Mum, seriously, don’t bother getting bogged down in all of that,” says Ree. “Focus on the main point, which is: Champ went viral.”
“What?” I wail.
“No, that’s a good thing,” says Tobes. “It doesn’t mean he’s ill. It means he got very famous very quickly, in a way that, I’m not gonna lie, most of us only dream of and have no hope of achieving. So, props to you, Champy.”
Champ stretches out his hind legs.
“Well, and to me for coming up with those amazing hashtags for the campaign,” says Ree.
“Campaign?” I whisper, horrified by each new piece of information I hear. How could they have done this to me?How?My family who claim to love me and care about me, who I thought would help me to protect Champ…and Corinne, who promised to help too. Don’t they get it? I want Champ to be as unknown, as unfamous, as possible; that’s the only way he stays safe. Do these stupid traitors not understand what hiding means?
This isn’t my fault. None of this is down to me failing to make it incredibly clear what I wanted.
“Okay, look,” says Ree. “Mum? Stay with me, please.” She arranges herself on the floor in front of me—cross-legged, handsclasped together, bright smile spread across her face like a net wide enough to catch any possible objections. This is how I try to look when I’m pitching to a potential client at work—Here’s why we’re the very best team to host your wedding.
“I didn’t think of it as a campaign at first,” says Ree. “I had no idea anything I posted would go viral, and even when it started to happen, I assumed it’d be a just-people-my-age-who-know-me-or-have-heard-of-me kind of viral—big enough to ensure Tess Gavey has no friends in the Cambridgeshire region for the rest of her life, but not…what it turned into.”
Another look passes between her and Tobes. The silent debate is easy to follow:Should we tell Mum the full extent? The actual numbers? No. She doesn’t need to know. It would only send her into proper hysterics.
“I only started to think of…what we were dealing with as a potentially useful campaign once I saw how many people believed in Champ’s innocence. It’sthousands, Mum.”
Thousands. That might mean only 2,000 or as many as 50,000, and maybe even more.Must not ask. I can’t believe this is happening, and the worst part is that, unlike the police who are after Champ, this isn’t something I can run away from. Soon there might be millions of people talking about Champ on the internet, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do to stop them.
I feel a blast of pity for my naive former self: the one who wondered how Vicky could have gotten our burner phone numbers, or gotten in touch with Ree and Tobes in the first place. For all I knew, hundreds of thousands of strangers might have messaged my children to ask how they could contact me.
“Now, remember,” says Ree. “None of these people have a clue where we are or where Champ is, so security has not been compromised. All anyone knows is that we’ve left Swaffham Tilney and why. That doesn’t put us at risk of anything. I haven’t told a single person that we’re here… Well, until Sarah Sergeant—”
“—who could have told anybody, couldn’t she?” I finish the sentence in a clipped, tight voice, too scared and angry to worry about upsetting my family for once.
“No, Sally, definitely not,” says Corinne. “You don’t need to worry about that. Sarah’s solid, trust me. We wouldn’t have risked—”
“Corinne devised a whole…security procedure.” Toby talks over her.
“What are people saying about me?” Mark asks. “I don’t want to be viral. I don’t want to be talked about by half the world, thank you very much.”
“Don’t worry, Dad; no one’s interested in you,” says Ree.
“Mum, people are making videos of themselves singing Champ’s night song.” Toby tries to sound solemn but can’t contain his joyful grin. “And posting them on TikTok. It’smentalwhat’s happening.”
“The campaign’s official hashtag is now #InnocentChamp,” Ree tells me. “I had to make a tough decision withverylittle help”—she shoots a savage look at Toby—“and I’ll be honest. I didn’t—”
“Oh, sorry, who stayed up half the night to pick out all the cutest Champ photos?” Tobes protests.
Ree ignores him. After a dignified two-second silence, she goes on: “I wasreallyreluctant to let go of the Furry Fugitive and Gone Dog hashtags that did so well for us at first,but once themomentum was building and it started to feel like an unstoppable force had been unleashed, I just thought, ‘Neither of those is quite right.’ Like, they’re misleading—or they easily could be. ‘Fugitive’ was perfect but ‘Furry’ wasn’t.”
“Furry doesn’t only mean what you think it means, Mum,” says Tobes.
“And Gone Dog was so,soclose to perfect, except that… You’ve readGone Girl, right, Mum?”
