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  “Are you sure you don’t want to tell your mum?” I suggested. “Tell her it’s a girl thing. Ask her to keep it from everyone else. I bet she’d really like to help, if you let her.”

  Nydia shrugged. “She’d just take over,” she said, shrugging as if it wasn’t important. “I want to do it by myself.”

  “Why?” I asked her uneasily.

  “Because Mum loves cooking,” Nydia said, picking up a cushion and pummelling it as she spoke. “She loves food. She always makes us stay at the table until we clear our plate. She’s always giving me snacks—when I get in from school or before I go to bed. If I ask her to help me she’ll think I’m blaming her for being the way I am.”

  I thought for a moment. “Well…” I said carefully, “maybe she is a bit to blame…”

  “No! She is not!” Nydia said. “No one else in my family is like this, are they? I’m the only fat one! So it can’t be Mum’s food, can it? It must just be me being too greedy. I’m disgusting—always stuffing my face. Well not any more. I’m going to do what this website says and I’ll just throw away the snacks and stuff Mum gives me without her knowing. And when I lose weight, Mum will think it’s just me losing my puppy fat, which she’s always saying I’m going to do, and she won’t be upset.”

  Nydia took a breath and I could see from the set of her face that she was really determined. “I just want to do it on my own, Ruby—OK? I haven’t told anyone, not even Anne-Marie. I’ve told you because you’re supposed to be my best friend. So promise you won’t tell, OK?” I nodded, but Nydia’s secrecy made me feel uneasy. It was just the sort of thing I used to tell girls who wrote to me, to go straight to an adult and tell them about it. But I didn’t think that disagreeing with Nydia right then would help, so I decided I’d just wait and see what happened, for now.

  “OK,” I said, conjuring up a reassuring smile. “I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

  Just at that moment Mum knocked on my bedroom door and came in with some juice and a plate of biscuits.

  “Here you go, girls,” she said, setting the tray down on my dressing table.

  “Thanks, Mum,” I said, looking longingly at the biscuits.

  “Did I hear you singing, Nydia?” Mum said, beaming at us. “You have such a lovely voice. Really wonderful. Maybe you’ll be a pop star one day. Like the Jo-lay!”

  “J Lo, Mum,” I sighed, rolling my eyes at Nydia. “And she’s a person not a band.”

  “Thanks, Mrs Parker,” Nydia said, her usual bright self again. “Maybe I will!”

  When Mum had shut the door Nydia’s smile vanished in an instant. I lifted the juice off the tray and took the plate of biscuits over to my wastepaper bin. Taking one last look at the chocolate digestives I tipped them all in and then stuffed some old magazine on top of them.

  “Thank you,” Nydia said.

  “That’s all right,” I said, sitting next to her on the bed. I handed her a glass of juice and she took a small sip.

  “And you will come to my party next Friday, won’t you, Ruby? Mum will have all these cakes and crisps and stuff, and I know that if you’re there I’ll be good.”

  I put my arm around her. “I promise you I’ll be there,” I said, giving her a little dig in the ribs, “to eat all the cakes and crisps.”

  “It’s not funny,” Nydia said, without cracking a smile. “I need you.”

  Chapter Twelve

  It’s funny how the most important moments of your life—or at least the moments you always imagine will be the most important moments of your life—never turn out like you think they should.

  For example, I had rehearsed and rehearsed the moment I was going to meet Sean Rivers both in my head and out loud when nobody was looking, so that if I did accidentally fancy him—and let’s face it the probability was high—I could come across as being cool and disinterested, polite but not impressed. I had practised my handshake, a neat incline of my head, and had said over and over again in a calm and sophisticated voice, “I’m Ruby Parker, terribly pleased to meet you.”

  I knew that I would be rehearsing my first scene with him on my first morning back at work in the second week of filming. Our first scene was when his character, Catcher, tells my character, Polly, the truth about her life while in the Egyptian section of the British Museum. For once we had a proper set to work on with loads of props and things, mainly about twenty fake Egyptian mummies in glass cases, which were really cool, especially the ones that the special-effects man Pete had made to look exactly like Art Dubrovnik.

  So I had prepared and prepared for the moment that Art would introduce me to America’s hottest teen sensation Sean Rivers, the real-life poster boy of a nation of girls’ romantic hopes, until I thought I was ready. In fact, I thought I was so ready that if there had been an Oscar category for “Best display of the least amount of excitement when meeting your favourite heart-throb in a supporting role” I would definitely have won it.

  It was more important than ever that I didn’t go all silly and have a stupid crush on Sean Rivers because, first of all, Art Dubrovnik thought I was going to and that was just embarrassing. And second of all, even though Danny and I spent Sunday together and Mum cooked us lunch and Dad came over in the afternoon and Danny was as sweet and as funny as he ever was, it felt like things were different between us. Our goodbye under the streetlamp wasn’t nearly as comfortable and as happy as it usually was, and when I watched him walk off into the evening, this time without turning round once, I had the feeling that I wanted to call him back, that there was something I had to tell him but just couldn’t quite find the words to say.

  But I didn’t.

  I just watched him disappear into the shadows feeling as if, with each moment that passed, our lives were changing a little bit more and the spaces between us were getting bigger.

  There are plenty of people ready to line up and say that a thirteen-year-old girl’s feelings about her boyfriend aren’t remotely important, probably not real and will be forgotten within six months. But I disagree. Whatever happens in six months or six years or sixty, whether I’m married to Danny or on my fifth husband like Brett Summers, I’ll always remember one thing—the way I felt on that evening as I said goodbye to Danny for another week. The emotions that were churning around inside my thirteen-year-old skin were as real and as important as anything I will ever feel in my life. And I didn’t want Danny to stop being my boyfriend just because I couldn’t make him understand how much I care about him.

  So I had to show him I wasn’t in the least bit bothered about Sean Rivers, even if he was the most famous and best-looking fifteen-year-old in the world. And after a whole night of rehearsing and a long morning of practising not being in the least bit bothered, I thought I was ready at last.

  I knew when I was going to meet him; Art had called us for a read-through and rehearsal before we shot the museum scene that afternoon. Normally all that kind of thing would have been done weeks before, but they had cast Polly’s part so late that I hadn’t got to do any of it.

  I had twenty minutes or so before the rehearsal was due to start, so I left Mum and Jeremy talking enthusiastically about some old relic of a movie called Brief Encounter and wandered off to find a quiet place to have a final how-to-react-when-meeting-Sean-Rivers rehearsal.

  Wardrobe was empty; all of the staff must have gone for a quick coffee in the lull before the storm, when their boss and chief wardrobe mistress Tallulah Banks would be frightening them all into action.

  I looked at my costume rack and the thirty-two sets of the same outfit hanging all the way along it, except for the very last scene of the film—a beach party where I got to wear a swimsuit and a sarong. (The thought of which made me feel more afraid than really hanging off a ledge hundreds of metres in the sky.)

  I walked past Imogene’s rack, which was more or less the same as mine: a row of identical cut-off jeans and a row of white T-shirts, each progressive number a little more dirty and ripped up than the last. Ex
cept that Imogene had one other costume for a scene she hadn’t shot yet, right at the beginning of the film. It’s when her character Flame is at a ball held in the Louvre in Paris, and she’s wearing this amazing gold Chanel gown and is acting like a really beautiful librarian, when suddenly art terrorists storm the gallery and try to steal the Mona Lisa. Flame goes all woman-action-hero and fights them off single-handed in her gold dress. It’s a really great scene and a really, really great dress.

  I ran my hand over the clear cellophane that protected it and wished that I got to wear a dress like that instead of just an increasingly grubby school uniform. I glanced over my shoulder. There was no one around and the corridor was quiet and I still had a few moments left before I was due at rehearsal, so I lifted the hanger off the rail and held the dress up against me. I walked over to the full-length mirror that was screwed to the wall and looked at my reflection. It was hard to get the full effect through the cellophane, but as I never have been very good at breaking rules, I was too scared to take the dress out of its wrapper, let alone actually try it on. As I swished and swirled in front of the mirror the cellophane creaked and crackled.

  “I’m Ruby Parker,” I said to the mirror in my haughty meeting-Sean-Rivers voice. “Terribly pleased to meet you.” I smiled my practice smile and did a little bow, making the plastic rustle like a bag of crisps.

  “I beg your pardon?” I asked my reflection in the mirror, imagining I was looking at Sean himself. “What did you say your name was? Sean Rivers? Never heard of you, I’m afraid.” I was like a little girl playing dressing-up, twirling around so that the cellophane-covered material swished around my legs, forgetting to listen for the sound of Tallulah’s metal-tipped high heels clicking up the corridor, or anyone else approaching.

  “Ah yes, Sean Rivers,” I told the mirror in my poshest voice as I did a cellophane-covered curtsey. “It is an honour for you to meet me, Ruby Parker.”

  “Hey and I believe you,” the real Sean Rivers said from behind me. “And by the way—nice twirl.”

  I sort of yelped in surprise, and as I whirled around the long hem of the dress got caught under the heel of my trainer. Even as it happened, even as I tumbled on to the floor and heard the horrible sound of gold silk ripping and collapsed in a heap at Sean Rivers’ feet looking like a total idiot, I was thinking, Of course this is how you are going to meet Sean Rivers. You are Ruby Parker after all. Things never go the way you think they will.

  He smiled down at me.

  “Need a hand?” he asked me, crouching down and cocking his head to one side to look at me as if I were a curious museum exhibit. “Are you OK, Ruby Parker?”

  I braced myself for heart failure, but somehow it seemed that Sean Rivers’ smile, though extremely nice and very handsome, wasn’t as fatal as I had feared. It was more likely the humiliation would kill me, I decided, red in the face and tangled up in a gown worth thousands of pounds, which I had probably ruined.

  And then it struck me: it wouldn’t be the embarrassment that finished me off—it would be Tallulah Banks who would murder me as soon as she found out what I’d done.

  “I think I’m going to get the sack,” I told Sean Rivers, marvelling at the fact that my voice came out normal and that I could string a sentence together. It had to be the shock, I decided. As soon as I got back to normal I’d go all silly and flappy over him just as expected.

  Sean laughed and took my hand. Anne-Marie would have been interested to know that there was no surge of electricity at his touch. He helped me up on to my knees and between us we carefully eased the gown out from around my legs. In the distance I heard metal-tipped footsteps clacking down the corridor.

  “Oh no!” I whispered urgently. “It’s Tallulah Banks! She’s going to kill me!” Sean grinned and his blue eyes twinkled, but I was sure that the only reason my heart was beating so quickly was the fear of getting caught by Tallulah Banks.

  “It’ll be cool, Ruby Parker,” Sean said. “Trust me.”

  We stood up and brushed ourselves down. Sean hung the dress back on the rack.

  “Just act natural,” he whispered. “When she comes we act natural, and no one knows anything about any ripped dress—right? It could be weeks before that costume is used and by then there’ll be no evidence to pin it on you.”

  “You sound like you get into these situations a lot,” I said to Sean. He winked at me.

  “Let’s just say I like to liven up a shoot wherever I can, otherwise I’d go crazy.” Sean crossed his eyes as he said the last word, forcing me to clap my hand over my mouth to stifle a laugh as Tallulahs steps got ever closer.

  “Compared to the trouble I’ve seen, Ruby Parker,” Sean told me, “you are an amateur. Ready?”

  “Ready,” I said as Tallulah the wardrobe mistress turned into the room.

  “What are you two doing in here?” she asked us smartly, flaring her nostrils so that her nose ring quivered. For a relatively young woman she was exceptionally scary. I thought of Lisa telling me how Tallulah never forgets and never forgives someone messing up her carefully-run wardrobe department, and I think my knees actually knocked.

  “Hi! Sean Rivers.” Sean reached out to shake Tallulah’s limp, cold hand. “Very pleased to meet you, I’ve been—”

  “I know who you are,” Tallulah said, withdrawing her hand from his, utterly unimpressed. “What I want to know is what you are doing in here…”

  “Oh, nothing really. I’m new on set so Ruby was just showing me—” Sean started.

  “I was looking at the gold dress and I ripped it,” I blurted out before he could finish. Sean raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

  “I can’t help it,” I told him with a shrug. “I’m really bad at rebelling. Always have been.”

  Tallulah narrowed her black-lined eyes at me before sweeping up to where the dress hung and dragging the cellophane into a bunch around the hanger. Her appraisal was swift and deadly.

  “It’s a rip in the hem,” she told me, pulling the cellophane down over the gown with a sharp, whip-like crack. “Fortunately for you I can repair it and no one will notice. But I have no choice but to tell Mr Dubrovnik all about this. This dress is worth thousands of pounds. We’re supposed to be giving it back! My department is the essential core of this production, not a glorified dress-up box for you little movie brats!” Tallulah spat the words out like an angry cat. “Without me, without my costumes, you have nothing. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Tallulah,” I said meekly. Sean was not so meek. He crossed his arms and raised one eyebrow.

  “So tell me…” he asked her with casual insolence. “What would you do with your costumes if you didn’t have actors to put them on?” Tallulah Banks opened and shut her mouth in indignation.

  “Don’t you cheek me, young man,” she told Sean. “I don’t care who you are, I don’t care if you’re Prime Minister. When you’re in my wardrobe department you follow my rules, and you don’t mess with me. And another thing—”

  “Boring, boring, boring,” Sean interrupted her.

  I stared at him and held my breath waiting for Tallulah’s tirade to gather speed. But before she could utter a word Sean grabbed my hand.

  “Run!” he yelled, yanking me towards the door. “Run for it, Ruby, she’s gonna blow!”

  So me and Sean Rivers ran, laughing like lunatics, through the corridors towards the rehearsal room as fast as we could until we couldn’t hear Tallulah Banks shouting, “Come back here RIGHT NOW!” at us any more. We stopped a few metres from the rehearsal room to catch our breath.

  “Ruby Parker,” Sean said between breaths. “It really is an honour to meet you. I can tell you are going to be fun to know.” I laughed and held out my hand for Sean to shake.

  “Terribly pleased to meet you,” I said, and we both laughed again.

  Art Dubrovnik came around the corner, followed by Lisa and the clipboard which seemed to be a permanent part of her anatomy.

  “I see you two have met,”
he said as he swept past us. “Remember what I said, Ruby? No falling in love.”

  He and Lisa walked into the room leaving Sean and I standing in the corridor looking at each other.

  “He’s joking,” I told Sean hurriedly. “I’m not going to fall in love with you at all. How ridiculous. It’s just his little joke.” And as I said it I realised that it was true. As tall and as good-looking and as fun as Sean Rivers definitely was, I hadn’t gone all stupid over him just like I, and everybody else in the world apparently, had expected me to.

  It was funny, but it never occurred to me that the way I felt about Danny might actually withstand meeting the world’s best-looking boy, or that my relationship with Danny was stronger than a silly crush. But now that I realised it was, now I realised I could work with Sean Rivers and like him without it being compulsory to fall in love with him, I felt incredible relief. My life was going to be a lot less complicated than I had predicted—for once.

  Sean shrugged.

  “Of course you’re not in love with me. And you know what?” Sean clapped a hand on my shoulder as we walked into the room behind Art. “I like that about you, Ruby Parker. You have no idea how boring it is to have girls falling in love with you at first sight.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sean Rivers was fantastic.

  I had the best fun I have had since I started working on the film the moment that he arrived. The other main actors, Imogene and Jeremy and Harry, were all really nice but there are two essential differences between them and Sean Rivers: they are properly old and Sean is fifteen. Which is old enough to be cooler than me, but—in Sean’s case anyway—not so old as to be too cool to hang out with thirteen-year-old me. And while Imogene and the other adult actors take acting really, really seriously, Sean just wants to have fun. And somehow, while he’s having fun, he acts really, really well. And it’s as effortless as a dolphin in water; it’s his natural environment. At least that’s what I thought at first.