Dead Famous

DAY FOURTEEN. 7.30 p.m.

“People under House Arrest, this is Chloe. Can you hear me? The first person to leave the house will be,” Chloe left a suitably dramatic pause, “… Layla.”

Layla looked like she had been hit in the face with a cricket bat, but nevertheless managed to enact the time-honoured ritual required from people in such situations.

“Yes!” she squeaked, punching the air as if she was pleased. “Now I can get back to my cat!”

“Layla, you have two hours to pack and say your goodbyes,” Chloe shouted, “when we will be back live for House Arrest’s first eviction! See you then!”

Layla was stunned.

They were all stunned.

Even Woggle beneath his blanket was stunned. He had presumed like everyone else in the house (except Dervla) that his presence there had been evenly reported and, although he considered his conduct to be exemplary, he had not expected public sympathy. Years of sneers and contempt from almost everybody he met for almost everything he said and did had led Woggle to presume that the viewing public’s attitude to him would be the same as that of the four fascists who had stripped him in the garden and attacked him without any provocation.

But the public’s attitude wasn’t the same at all, they loved their little goblin, the traumatized troll. He was their pet, and although Woggle could have no idea of the dizzy heights to which his popularity had risen, he was astonished and thrilled enough simply to have avoided eviction.

He poked his head out of his blanket briefly. “Fuck you,” he said to the assembled inmates and then submerged himself once more beneath his cover.

Then Layla howled with anguish. She actually howled. The injustice of it all was clearly nearly unbearable. The tears streamed down her face as she rocked back and forth on the purple couch in an agony of self-pity. She could obviously not believe that the public had chosen Woggle over her! Woggle!

Layla went to the confession box to vent her spleen.

“You bastards!” she stormed. “It’s fucking obvious what you’ve done! Somehow you’ve made him the victim, haven’t you? You’ve been having a laugh and we’re the joke, aren’t we? I’m the joke! You know what Woggle’s like! What we’ve had to put up with! He doesn’t clean up, he doesn’t help out, he stinks like the rotting corpse of a dead dog’s arse! Everyone wanted him out, but you haven’t shown all that, have you? No! You can’t have done or he’d be going, not me!”