radio silence bot 🌆🎙️

Tweets lines from the YA novel RADIO SILENCE by @AliceOseman every 3 hours. Icon art by Alice Oseman.

Made with the help of @gimmickbots & run by @grimmpitches

[radio silence bot 🌆🎙️ @radiosilencebot]

"in distress. stuck in universe city. send help."
—RADIO

[radio silence bot 🌆🎙️ @radiosilencebot]

A: (laughs) Hello. I hope somebody is listening. . . . He hung up. I felt my stomach drop at his final words. "Hello. I hope somebody is listening," I said, under my breath.

[radio silence bot 🌆🎙️ @radiosilencebot]

We stood still and listened, and I remember every single thing I heard in that moment.

[radio silence bot 🌆🎙️ @radiosilencebot]

I didn't do any homework when I was with him. He didn't do any uni reading when he was with me.

[radio silence bot 🌆🎙️ @radiosilencebot]

Aled was staring at me like he didn’t even know me.

[radio silence bot 🌆🎙️ @radiosilencebot]

"Thank you for what you said about Universe City," he said, not quite looking me in the eye. "I just... that really, erm, means a lot to me."

[radio silence bot 🌆🎙️ @radiosilencebot]

I stopped speaking. There was no point trying to argue. There was no way she was going to even attempt to listen to me. They never do, do they? They never even try to listen to you.

[radio silence bot 🌆🎙️ @radiosilencebot]

I'm well-practiced in the art of bullshitting.

[radio silence bot 🌆🎙️ @radiosilencebot]

I can take a little beating now and then, old sport, believe me. I’ve been in this City for as long as I can remember, it seems. This hardly qualifies as a distress call anymore—by gods, if anyone was listening, I would have heard from you by now.

[radio silence bot 🌆🎙️ @radiosilencebot]

Aled’s room was dark apart from the glare of his laptop screen and the fairy lights wrapped around his bed.

[radio silence bot 🌆🎙️ @radiosilencebot]

It didn’t take a lot for me to believe that I was disappointing, even though I hadn’t done it. I wasn’t the one who’d outed his biggest secret.

[radio silence bot 🌆🎙️ @radiosilencebot]

I do wish February Friday was here. I haven't seen them in . . . in, well, years upon years.

[radio silence bot 🌆🎙️ @radiosilencebot]

I didn’t really know why Aled wanted to keep Universe City a secret. I assumed it was just because he liked his privacy; he didn’t want his face on the internet. It felt a bit invasive to ask.

[radio silence bot 🌆🎙️ @radiosilencebot]

Aled opened his present—it was a radio shaped like a skyscraper. The windows lit up in time with the audio that was playing. He told me that it was the best thing he'd ever seen in his whole life, which was probably a lie, but I was glad he liked it.

[radio silence bot 🌆🎙️ @radiosilencebot]

Somehow I knew this wouldn't be the only time we would talk. God, I didn't have a clue what was going to happen.

[radio silence bot 🌆🎙️ @radiosilencebot]

They were sitting at the dining table, Aled with his head on his arm, Daniel with his chin in one hand, looking at each other.

[radio silence bot 🌆🎙️ @radiosilencebot]

"If you're feeling crap," I said, quoting exactly what he'd said to me the night he taught me an entire maths topic in two hours, "it's always better to talk about it."

[radio silence bot 🌆🎙️ @radiosilencebot]

I walked back into my room to find Aled crouching next to the bed, holding a coat hanger like it was a machete.

[radio silence bot 🌆🎙️ @radiosilencebot]

I guess I wanted to know whether there was someone like me out there in the world.

[radio silence bot 🌆🎙️ @radiosilencebot]

But at the heart of it was Universe City. We started sketching things for the video art and sticking all our ideas on my bedroom wall, but there were so many ideas that it took us ages to decide on anything.

[radio silence bot 🌆🎙️ @radiosilencebot]

"All the Universe City stuff?" "Yeah. It’s just . . . it’s just a lot. Online. And now people in real life know . . . it’s stressful."