Rose stared at the monitor. The top banner screamed, Beckinfield Perspectives! Her stomach twisted at the sight of it. She’d spent so much time imagining this moment, talking it over with Martin and Ms. Evans, and now…it was real. Having already created her account under the screen name of “BloomingRose,” she now studied the black home page with a bit of scattered no-frills text.

The late afternoon light in the library made everything feel surreal, casting long shadows on the empty desks. Martin slumped next to her. He probably hadn’t slept since they first discussed this with Ms. Evans two days ago, she thought. Then again, neither had she.

“It’s all blank,” Rose said.

“’Cause there are no videos posted.”

“When will there be?”

“When it goes live. This is simply for you to Beta-test.”

“What do I do?”

“Try it. You’ll figure it out. That’s the point.” He put his elbow on the table and rested his head in his hand, watching her with a mix of exhaustion and curiosity.

Figure it out. Right. Rose bit her lip, feeling the pressure boiling inside her chest. What if she couldn’t? What if she could and no one cared? What if this all crashed and burned, and she was left standing in the rubble of her idea? And in the rubble of her town, according to her vision. But her hand moved anyway.

To the side of the screen, a button said, “Add Your Story.” Rose clicked, and a box popped up, giving her two options. “Upload or Create?”

She hit “Create.”

The red light at the top of the laptop came on and the monitor filled with a live image. Her face stared back at her, looking as terrified as she felt. She hated it. The way her hair hung around her face, the tiredness in her eyes—a big red “Record” button at the bottom. She cringed at the sight.

But her right hand reached for the button anyway. Then her breath shallowed, her left hand gripped the arm of her chair, and her mouth went dry. Fighting through the sickening feeling. It was just a test. No one would ever see it. Her fingers trembling, she clicked.

As the timer counted down, her panic worsened...three, two, one, BEEP.

She cleared her throat, but it came out like a croak. Then she did it again before speaking as rapidly as she could, her voice quaking.

“Hi. My name is, um . . . Rose Branter. Welcome to the Beckinfield Perspectives project. If you live in Beckinfield, please post videos about your life. Thank you.”

She cringed as the words left her mouth—too fast, too awkward. She stared at the camera, her heart racing. It was a disaster. What had she just said?

She blew out some air. This one was just for practice anyway, so she punched the red button again, cutting off the recording. A message appeared: “Title your video.”

She slammed her eyes closed and let her breaths steady before opening them. Then she read the screen and reached for the keyboard.

“Can I change this later?”

“Yuppers.”

She typed, Welcome to Perspectives.

More options popped up. “Post. Delete. Re-record.” She hit “Post.” More text appeared.

Add your perspective to the story of Beckinfield. Click Confirm.

She hit “Confirm.” The website sent her back to the home page. A one-inch unsmiling thumbnail image of a frame from her video, with the title underneath, sat toward the top left of the screen, leaving room for dozens more. There it was. Her first video.

“That was fast,” she muttered. A rush of both relief and dread hit her at the same moment.

“When you actually create the video on the site, there is no processing time. If you upload something you shot earlier, though, it goes through a conversion process.”

“All the videos will show up here?”

“Yuppers. And you can filter the most recent, most popular, or just about any other keywords you want so you can view them however you’d like. And you can search for any particular user to see all the content he or she posted.”

Rose’s eyes swept over the screen again. “This is good, Martin. Really good.” It felt real. A piece of her vision, finally out there, even if just a sliver.

“Well, it’s still no-frills simple. Exactly like your design. I only programmed it.”

“We’re going to launch tomorrow at eleven a.m.”

“You’re kidding.” Martin swung his head to her. “It’s not ready.”

“It’s perfect. Let’s push it out there. We’ll go at eleven.”

“So...” He looked back at the screen as if the concept sunk in. “People will be talking about it by lunch?” He nodded, then added, “Let me spruce it up a bit.”

Rose shrugged. “So you’ve got until eleven tomorrow.”

“I assume you know who is going to use it?” Martin asked with skepticism.

“We’ll find out.” Rose stood. “Starting tomorrow at eleven.”

“Okay.” Martin’s eyes swept over the screen and let out a sigh. “You know, I can see a lot of people getting into this.”

Rose threw her backpack strap over her shoulder and picked up her notebooks. She headed toward the door but turned.

“Martin, this is fantastic…You’re amazing.”

Through his exhaustion, Martin smiled.

“You’re not right for me,” Rose said. “But you will be for someone special.”

#

The flickering lantern on the nightstand next to her, Rose lay on her bed, jotting in her notebook.

For the site to explode out of the gate, she needed only a few students whose reach spanned deeply into the high school’s student body. She had to find the remarkable ones—four should be enough. They would become her trendsetters, and the rest of the seniors would follow. If she got the seniors, the FOMO would trickle down to the lower classmen. So, to start, she needed to find four trendy kids by eleven a.m. She would call them her Beckinfield Beatles.

Martin would play her Ringo. Earlier in the afternoon, he explained to her that FOMO stood for “fear of missing out.” She always trailed a few years behind on trends. She laughed. Hell, she still used Beatles references.

Martin covered the geeks because he towered among them. As the outcast of the outcasts, being invisible to her own tribe didn’t bother her at all. A strong percentage of science and math nerds roamed the halls of Gothic High, but the site couldn’t launch with only that demographic. The popular kids would mock the whole concept.

She needed a John, Paul, and George—the trendy gang. If the hot kids in school participated, they would bring others. And yet, if the popular clicks started it, and the geeks waited too long to join, the ruling class would feel as if their domain were being invaded, like their parents showing up to prom. It all had to happen at once in a cooperative co-existence to remain harmonious.

Earlier in the day, she had gone into the library and brought up all the famous social media sites. She searched X, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and every other one she could think of, scouring each for Beckinfield High School students, and made charts to score the ones that had the most friends and followers.

In the end, she realized she wasted three hours of her life, as her work confirmed the obvious suspects. Star athlete Lisa Sibbisson topped the list. No surprise there. The drama major, Jasper Cantrell, came in second. From purely an analytical perspective, that made sense too. Jasper played the leading roles in all the theater productions and acted as the presumptive salutatorian to her valedictorian. Both Black and part of the LBGTQ community, he mixed between circles, and everyone knew him and liked him. Diversity ran deep in modern Beckinfield and was one of the few things that made her transition into this tiny town a tad smoother when she arrived at age eight. Her John and Paul now became apparent.

Alexa-call-me-Siri dominated the number three spot on the popularity graph. Not just because she led the cheerleaders and boys considered her the top model, but her kindness and non-judgmental attitude translated into simply a nice and good person. Having a plethora of friends, she gave as good as she got. Yes, Alexa equaled George—or John or Paul, depending on the day. But Martin was her forever Ringo.

Rose, of course, would post as well—maybe that made her akin to The Fifth Beatle, producer George Martin. But only because she had to. No one would look at her stuff anyway. As new videos went up, her original awful and painful “Welcome” message would thankfully slide off the first page and onto the next. More motivation to get a lot of people to post quickly. To push her video as far away as possible.

She glanced through her notes. Yes, her four Beckinfield Beatles covered the high school. But staying within the school would be too closed and wouldn’t broadcast loud enough for them to notice. She needed most of the town residents to participate as well. Martin connected her to the press, but did he know anyone at The Beckinfield Chronicle? And even if he did, would they care?

She would need an event. Once one of the crazy sightings, or earthquakes, or possessions, or mystical phenomena occurred, the project would explode with activity. Feeling the need to hop on, everyone would post about the experience from his or her perspective. But those happenings lacked reliability. No one knew when one would occur.

Instead of waiting, could she fake one? No, the site needed authenticity; otherwise, no one would believe anything that went up. So, she had to find another way to bring attention to the enterprise and make it louder. They wouldn’t hear her tomorrow. But soon. She would make sure of that.

Something gnawed at her. Hadn’t Becca said something about trying to be louder? She grabbed the stapled photocopies of Becca Beckin’s journal from her nightstand drawer. Starting from the back, Rose flipped through the pages. The last eighteen pages were scribbled with symbols and letters in Primbobi—a few of the words she translated in pencil flashed by.

When she reached the English section, she slowed her search and ran her eyes down the pages, then flipped forward to the next, then the next. The passage was toward the back, she remembered. There!

“He had warned me. To succeed, the result must be loud enough. It took the Primbobi generations to be loud enough. How can I make them hear?”

#

Backpack over her shoulder, Rose leaned against the bank of lockers catching her breath. She had darted through the halls right after the bell rang. Voices echoed around her as the chaotic sea of students shuffled, ran, and pushed past, chatting their way to the second class of the morning. Then Rose spotted her target.

Lisa Sibbison brushed her blonde hair over her ear as she navigated the crowded hallway.

“Lisa, can I talk to you a moment?” Rose’s meek voice barely rose over the din.

But Lisa turned to her and cocked her head. “Rose?” She stepped closer to the lockers, out of the flow of traffic. “Sure. Sup?”

“Um…It’s kinda hard to explain in the hallway, but I could use your help on a project.”

“I’m down. Chat me at lunch?”

“Uh, no, that’ll be too late.”

Rose squatted, pulled a laptop out of her knapsack, and plopped down on the floor, leaning against the lockers with her legs stretched out.

Lisa looked at her with smiling eyes. “You wore jeans today. That’s new.” She glanced at the bustle around her, then lowered to sit next to Rose. “That a new computer?”

“It’s Martin’s.” Rose flipped open the computer and eyed the clock on the screen. They only had four minutes until class. Beckinfield Perspectives blazed across the top, and the thumbnail of the video of Rose sat under the title to the left. Rose took a deep breath to stave off the wave of self-consciousness about her own severe-looking thumbnail on the page. It was a truthful, if not flattering, depiction of her. The rest of the page now consisted of a stunning background image of the town square.

“I’m creating a new website, with the backing of Principal Curlow and Ms. Evans. The idea is for all the residents of Beckinfield to video-blog about their lives.” Rose swallowed hard. Here it comes…and she’s gotta say yes. “And I want you to be one of the first.”

“Why?”

“Because I think people would like to know what it’s like to be Lisa Sibbisson.”

Lisa laughed. “I’m already doing Insta, Facebook, all of them.”

“Yeah, but this is not like that. This is about telling deeper stories about the people of our town. Seriously. Who knows what it’s like to put in all the work that you do. The training. The success, the failure. How it feels to win. How it feels to lose. And just…what it’s like for you to live in Beckinfield.”

“Like a sports doc?”

“Well…kinda. Yeah. I’m trying to get everyone to create documentaries about themselves. And you’re one of the first people I want to start with.”

“I’m flattered and all, but…Why? I mean, what’s it about?”

“To show the world that Beckinfield is full of special people. To tell them our stories. Loudly. Boldly. And, Lisa, you could bring a whole lot to this, and it might just bring a whole lot to you.”

Lisa smiled. “A whole lot of what?”

Rose shrugged and sighed. “I only wish I knew.”

Lisa eyed the home page. Clearly, she was considering it.

“Hm. Lemme ruminate on it.”

Done. She’s in. Rose closed the laptop and stood.

“Not for long. We’re launching in two hours.” Rose stuffed the computer in her backpack and zipped it up.

Still sitting on the floor, Lisa looked up at Rose. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

“One of the cool things about this is you tell your story in pieces. Start by simply saying hello. Introduce yourself. Then later today or tomorrow, or whenever, post another one about your day. Eventually, your narrative will build.”

The overhead bell rang. Rose hurried toward a classroom door but called over her shoulder, “Beckinfield Perspectives dot com. Right at eleven o’clock.”

That should do it.

Lisa was always supportive and curious. And now she would probably tell her friends too. And even Kicker would probably bring in his posse of Cro-Magnons. Next.

#

Rose watched Jasper from the doorway of the high school theater's greenroom, her mind buzzing with thoughts and anxieties about her project. Immersed in his script, he read aloud, embodying Stanley from A Streetcar Named Desire with a passion that resonated through the empty space. Jasper, always in his element on stage or preparing for it, seemed like a different species compared to her. His dream roles in Shakespeare's plays, his musings on roles he felt appropriate for his age and ethnicity, it was like he lived in a different world, a world where words and expressions flowed freely.

She noted his careful consideration of the roles he chose, his desire to avoid typecasting while remaining true to his heritage by exploring the richness of Black playwrights like August Wilson. Jasper's dedication to his craft was evident in every word he read aloud, every gesture he made, even when he thought he was alone.

Rose felt a flutter of nervousness as Jasper's gaze briefly met hers. There was something about being observed that changed the dynamics of any room. Jasper, the ever-observant actor, must have felt her presence. His quick glance her way confirmed it. She wondered if he could sense her apprehension, her need for his help with her project.

Finally, gathering her courage, she stepped into the room. "Jasper, can I talk to you?" she asked, her voice a mere whisper compared to his robust recitations.

As she rushed over and plopped down beside him, pulling out Martin's laptop from her knapsack, she couldn't help but feel out of place. This was Jasper's realm, a place of drama and expression, so different from her world of numbers, patterns, and quiet contemplation.

"There’s a project that I could use your help on," she began, launching into her pitch with a mix of excitement and trepidation. She could feel Jasper's eyes on her, attentive, as she spoke about Beckinfield Perspectives, her vision for a community-wide project that would bring the town's stories to life.

“Beckinfield Perspectives—BeckSpecks is better,” Jasper said.

“BeckSpecks? Sounds like you’re selling eyeglasses.”

“No, it’s perfect, actually. It’s a video version of a George Seurat painting.”

“Who?”

“A painter from the 1800s whom the God of musical theater, Stephen Sondheim—though don’t tell Lord Andrew Lloyd Weber I called him that, because I’m going to play the Phantom someday—anyway, Sondheim won the Pulitzer in 1986—only the fourth ever awarded to a musical at the time—about the painter, George Seurat. The play is called Sunday in the Park with George.”

Rose desperately tried to follow the threads of the unwieldy sentence, but the unfair, random theater references made her head spin.

Jasper went on. “Seurat would create entire artworks with specks of paint. By the time he finished, each little dot blended with the others in the eye of the viewer to create spectacular, vivid, and complete works of art. That’s what you’re doing here—using each video as a speck of life to create the picture of the whole of Beckinfield.”

It clicked in Rose's mind. It was a metaphor that bridged their two worlds—her analytical mind and his artistic soul. Each video, a story, a life, coming together to form a complete image of their town. It was a beautiful idea, and Jasper had captured the essence of her project in a way she hadn't even realized was possible.

For a moment, Rose felt a connection to Jasper, an understanding that transcended their different interests and personalities. In his analogy, she found a new appreciation for her project and for the unexpected insights that collaboration could bring.

Oh, yeah, and it might just prevent the town from blowing up.

#

Between classes, Kicker sat alone on the manicured lawn in the shadow of the Bradford Beckin statue. A slight whiff of dandelions lingered in the air.

He promised Lisa he would post to Rose’s website. King Arthur always kept his promises…Especially to someone as special as Lisa. But what the hell should he talk about? Something sappy…make something up that girls will like…That way, his posse would want to best him and post their own videos…and that would make Lisa happy.

A lightning bug landed on his arm. He raised it in front of his face and waited. It flashed in the shade. He smiled.

Of course! Perfect! Even if it’s true.

He pulled his phone from his pocket and turned on the video to catch the bug’s flickering lantern.

“Fireflies love me...” he began, then aimed the camera at his face. “Almost as much as the football fans in the stands—well, maybe not quite as loud, but close. I don’t know why, but for some reason, fireflies seem to follow me around and have been a big part of my life. Maybe because I grew up on Hidden Star Lake, and they glow brighter there than anywhere else in town. I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone. And if anyone makes fun of me for this, I’ll kick your ass. I always wanted a dog, but my stepfather wouldn’t let me have one. One day, when I was a kid, I sat on our pier behind my house late at night and told that secret to a swarm of fireflies. Ever since, they have all but adopted me. They’re around me all the time. I can’t decide if they’re my pets or I belong to them.”

#

Rose sat in the library at the computer at 10:55 a.m. By then, she had convinced Martin to buy the Beckspecks.com domain and direct it to the Beckinfield Perspectives site. They had already begun running with that branding and changed things like “followers” to “spectators” and “videos” to “specks.”

The top banner now read: BeckSpecks - Beckinfield Perspectives.

“Why didn’t you come to me about this?”

Rose looked up at her friend Alexa scowling in her cheerleading uniform in the doorway.

It worked! “Why, if it isn’t my very own George Harrison,” Rose said with a smile.

“What?” Alexa stormed over to her. “You’re smiling. You never smile. What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“I didn’t come to you as sort of an experiment. Actually, you topped my list, but I wanted to see if word of the site would get to you first.” Beaming, Rose held up her palm, waiting for the high five. “And it did!”

Alexa glared at her. “You all right?”

“I’m great. And I’m so happy you’re here for this!”

Martin dashed in the door. He hurried over to Rose, slapped her hand to complete the high five, and grabbed the seat next to her.

Alexa crossed her arms, shaking her head.

Rose leaned into Martin and mock whispered, “FOMO.”

They both laughed.

Martin pointed to the computer clock. “One minute.”

“You’re launching the site right now?” Alexa pulled up a seat behind them.

Martin studied the open laptop in front of Rose. “All looks good.”

Rose put her hands on the arms of her chair and gave them a nervous squeeze. Alexa leaned in over her shoulder and giggled, pointing to the thumbnail of Rose’s “welcome” video.

“Is that you?”

“Yeah, probably will be the only one up for, I dunno, a few days until people start propagating it…That means adding more videos.”

Martin grinned. “Stanford, did you just cheer-splain?”

Alexa bopped him on the head.

Rose wrote down a few words on a pad and slid it to Martin.

“And I need you to add this to the bottom of the home page.”

Martin squinted at the writing. “Who’s that?”

“He’s the whole reason me and Sheriff Mom are in Beckinfield.”

Martin shrugged and programmed the words onto the bottom of the home page— Dedicated to the Immortal Ambrose. He swiveled the computer to Rose. “All right, here we go. Ten, nine, eight...”

Rose turned to the screen. A box said: LAUNCH BECKINFIELD PERSPECTIVES - Press Return.

“I’m only the sperm donor. This site is your baby,” Martin said. “Four, three...”

People are going to have a blast using this. They will discover and learn about others and maybe even themselves. It will be a journey like no other. Yet…

Will it work? Will they hear? How will they respond?

Rose hovered her forefinger over the button.