Page 27 of The Life and (Medieval) Times of Kit Sweetly

“Me too,” Mom had said. “But life is different for everybody. We’ve got enough.”

I went home that day—at eight years old—and wrote out my first version of the Big Plan. Item number one was “Buy a Nice House.”

I left the list on my bed, so my mom could see it. If she did, she never said anything, but a few months later, right around my ninth birthday, my dad inherited some money from his grandfather. My parents used part of that money to buy the split-level house we still live in today. It’s not paid off, but the first time I walked into it, I felt like a queen, entering her castle.

“Whatcha thinking about?” says Layla, stopping as she opens the back door.

I hadn’t realized that I was staring out over the yard, lost in my memories.

I shrug. “The first time I came here.”

Layla laughs. “Oh yeah. That was the sleepover when you first rode a horse, and then we had the roller-skating party in the basement and ate so many Cheetos we almost threw up!”

Layla’s basement has an indoor pool, a roller rink, three bedrooms, and a home theater. It’s preposterous and miraculous.

“I’d forgotten about the Cheetos,” I say, smiling. We’ve had so many sleepovers, and I’ve spent most of them in some sort of “stunned poor girl who’s slack-jawed at how rich people live” frame of mind.

“Let’s go,” says Layla. “I’ve got a good evening planned.”

Layla’s room is like a mini-apartment. She has a separate sitting area with couches and a big-screen TV; her own bathroom with a waterfall shower and whirlpool tub; and a closet that’s as big as my bedroom. Total stereotypical rich girl’s room, except it’s messy as hell, since she won’t let the cleaning staff into it, and she’s decorated it with her own art. Dragons, elves, horses, robots, cartoon characters, and caricatures cover the walls and ceiling. In one corner a drop cloth protects the carpet. She’s working on a mural that looks like it’s out of the pages of a book about Japan.

“Oh my God, this is gorgeous,” I say, walking over to the painting. There’s a giant swath of cherry blossom trees, mountains, and temples. Pencil outlines of Hokusai-like waves and then kids in jeans and T-shirts who look like people we go to school with are below the trees.

“I’m having fun with that one. Did you see this yet?”

Layla goes to her closet and flicks on the light. A huge mural of Roller Derby girls with manga-style faces fills one wall. “I’ve started going to some of the matches lately and had to draw it.” Her fingers linger on a pretty girl with short pink hair.

“Nice,” I say, stepping back to admire. Her talent really is unbelievable, and the years of art lessons have only refined her style. What will make her famous, however, is her sense of humor in the art. There are little playful touches throughout the murals. “When I make a million dollars, I’ll hire you to paint the inside of my house like this.”

“I’ll do it for free. Anytime.” She blows me a kiss.

She’s been offering to paint my bedroom for years, but I think a huge mural might kill my mom. Plus, it means that Layla would have to see the inside of my house. Which I’ve managed to not have her do since my dad left and things got really tough.

“Movie and phase one?” I ask. “I need to use your Internet to look up stuff about going viral. Ours at home is acting up again.”

It’s a little lie. Not a big deal between friends, right?

Layla nods. “I was thinking A Knight’s Tale.”

“Perfect.” I plug my phone in, since it’s nearly dead again, and Layla turns on the movie.

Although we’ve seen A Knight’s Tale dozens of times, it’s endlessly impeccable in all its cheesiness.

We sing along to all the songs—like Queen’s “We Will Rock You” at the beginning—which are super anachronistic and that’s why it’s funny. The plot is dorky and yet painfully familiar. Poor peasant Heath Ledger wants to change his stars, so he fakes his way into being a knight. But he’s handsome and pretty good at jousting, so he fights, gets a princess—who’s both fierce and fickle, like they almost wanted to make her a feminist but couldn’t quite get there, and dressed like she’s ready for a rave in 1497—and then lo! Heath is knighted for real. Also, it features Chaucer, who spends the movie dressed like he’s going to an Ibiza beach festival, and the always sinister glower of Rufus Sewell.

I love it so much, as does Layla.

Basic takeaways here: You can change your stars, ensemble casts are the best, and all of life should be set to as many Queen songs as possible.

As we watch, I skim articles about going viral. According to them, “going viral” generally means your content spreads across the Internet and social media superfast. To be officially viral, it’s got to touch millions of people in a few days. Kind of like the Black Death did in medieval Europe, but—thankfully—without the Hieronymus Bosch horror-scape.

“So, according to this, we need like five million views in three days to technically be considered viral,” I say to Layla. “Though there is disagreement. Generally, I think if we could get a million views of the video and then really get people talking about it, we’d see some change. I mean, look at this story.”

I show her an article about a teen guy who worked at Target. Somebody thought he was cute, so they took his picture and posted it on Twitter, and by the end of the day he had three hundred thousand new followers. His fame exploded from there.

Layla shrugs. “He’s okay, but Internet-sensation hot? I don’t think so.”

“He got onto Ellen for this photo.”