Musical Star Read online

  “And there is no way we can get you to audition?” Nydia asked me. “What if we brought you cakes? Double chocolate cookies?”

  I laughed and flopped back on to my bed. “No, I’m not going to audition,” I said firmly, feeling surprisingly happy about saying those words out loud. I ticked the reasons off on my fingers. “Number one, because I’ve given up show business, or hasn’t anyone noticed? Number two, because I can’t sing. And number three, can you imagine the look on Jade’s face if I turned up? Smug-a-rama!”

  “She would be hideously smug, that’s true,” Anne-Marie conceded.

  “We’d never hear the end of it,” Nydia added sighing. “But Ruby, just think – if you auditioned and went through to the live televised final and then got a lead role and then was brilliant and then all the critics loved you, then how smug would Jade be? Hey? Not very, that’s how.”

  “Look, Nyds, thanks for still believing in me and all that – but this is it. This is me now, OK?”

  “OK,” Nydia said, deflating. “If you say so.” Anne-Marie picked up the DVD she’d brought. “So when are we going to watch this then?” She asked me, changing the subject.

  Just then the doorbell sounded.

  “That’ll be Dakshima,” I told her. “Put the DVD in while I go and get her. And be nice to her, she’s the nearest thing I’ve got to a friend at Highgate and it’s a big deal that she’s come over tonight. Don’t freak her out!”

  “Seriously, is that Anne-Marie for real?” Dakshima asked me as I walked out to her dad’s car with her a couple of hours later. “Nydia is cool, but the other chick is just weird. She’s all plastic fantastic. She’s a stage school Barbie.”

  I tried not to laugh as I glanced up at my bedroom window where Anne-Marie was no doubt being just as rude about Dakshima. The first meeting between my old and new friend hadn’t gone as well as I had hoped. Nydia was just Nydia, all lovely and funny. Dakshima made it clear she wasn’t impressed that Nydia had been on TV quite a lot, but soon the two of them were hitting it off just like two girls the same age with a lot in common should do. Anne-Marie was completely different. She was like the old Anne-Marie, before Nydia and I had made friends with her – a girl who always seemed aloof, as if the rest of us weren’t good enough for her. She barely spoke to Dakshima and when she did it came out either rude or stuck up.

  “The thing is,” I tried to explain to Dakshima, “she’s not really like that. I thought she was a total cow too for ages, and she thought I was one, but she’s just shy and when she meets people she doesn’t know she puts on a front. A lot of us actors…a lot of actors are really shy. I know it seems weird that they can jump about on stage in front of hundreds of people, but that’s because they are being someone else, when they have to be themselves it’s completely different. Once you’ve got to know her you’ll see. She’s a really great friend, plus she could take Adele any day of the week.”

  Dakshima looked sceptical. “If you say so,” she said, opening the door of her dad’s car. “Cool DVD though. Do you really know that Hunter kid?”

  For about one tenth of second I remembered Hunter kissing me. “Well, I’ve met him,” I said. “Not really the same thing as knowing him.”

  “Well, tonight was a laugh. We should hang out more after school anyway,” Dakshima said.

  “Great,” I said. “I’d like that.”

  “So are you ready for the choir audition tomorrow?” Dakshima asked.

  “What?” I exclaimed. “Oh, I’m not going to that.”

  “Yeah, you are. Didn’t you read the letter? The head’s making the whole school audition so we can get a choir together for some competition, I’m not sure what it’s for, but it should be a laugh. Everyone has to go and sing for Mr Petrelli tomorrow lunchtime. I want to get into the choir, but don’t worry if you don’t. All you have to do is sing real bad and then you won’t get picked.”

  “Singing badly isn’t a problem,” I said heavily.

  I really didn’t want to go to any kind of audition ever again, not even one I wouldn’t get picked for. Because even though I knew I didn’t want to be in the choir and that I wasn’t good enough to be in it, the thought of not being picked made me feel sick inside. And it was wanting never to feel like that again that made me leave stage school.

  But it seemed my old life kept on finding me, even if it was only trying out for the school choir. I’d just have to be as bad as I could possibly be. And I am good at that. It’s one of my best things.

  Chapter Three

  “You knew him, didn’t you?” Adele said, thrusting her copy of Hiya! Bye-a! under my nose as we queued up outside the hall. “Didn’t he chuck you?”

  I took the magazine out of her hand and read the part about Danny Harvey and Mick Caruso.

  “Yes,” I said. “I went out with Danny for a bit and then he dumped me for another girl.”

  “Why did he chuck you?” Adele demanded.

  I was learning that although Adele always talked as if she was about to punch you in the face, that in itself didn’t necessarily mean that she would. And while she hadn’t formally withdrawn her threat to “get me”, she hadn’t actually got me yet either. I was hoping that Dakshima was right and that she wasn’t nearly as scary as she seemed. One thing you couldn’t comfortably say to Adele, though, was mind your own business.

  “Because he liked the other girl more than me, I suppose,” I said with a shrug.

  “Prettier than you?” Adele demanded.

  I nodded. “Probably.”

  “Stupid cow,” Adele said, and I wasn’t sure if she was talking about me or Melody. I read further down the page, about the auditions that Anne-Marie and Nydia had mentioned. For a split second the thought of trying out for the show made me feel excited inside – and then I read the bit about the choir competition. My stomach dropped ten floors into my toes.

  “That’s mine,” Adele said, snatching the magazine back out of my hands.

  “Is that what we’re doing?” I asked her.

  Adele frowned at the magazine and then at me. “What?”

  “Is that why we have to sing for Mr Petrelli? So that he can get a choir together to enter this competition?”

  “That’s right. I told you it was a schools competition,” Dakshima said, appearing at my shoulder. “Thanks for saving me a space in the queue, by the way.” She winked at the girls she had just pushed in front of, who grumbled but didn’t say anything because everyone liked Dakshima.

  “I’m not going,” I said, picking up my bag.

  “Hey, hang on,” Dakshima said. “You can’t just leave. Mr Petrelli’s doing a register for every year group. If you don’t sing with us now, he’ll only make you go back again and sing on your own. What’s your problem, anyway?”

  “Nothing, there is no problem, but this is a waste of time. He won’t want me in his choir and I just…I don’t want to be involved with this. I’ve given it up. I left stage school, turned down film roles in Japan and everything. I don’t want to act any more or sing or do any kind of audition. I want to do biology and show an interest in fractions!”

  Dakshima frowned at me and tutted, and I worried that I’d blown our fledgling friendship already.

  “It’s only singing in the school hall, not The X Factor. If you’re no good, he’ll tap you on the shoulder and you can go, and no one will even care.”

  “That’s my point!” I tried to explain. “I don’t want to get tapped on the shoulder any more. That’s why I left the Academy, because I couldn’t take getting tapped on shoulders any more.”

  “What are you on about?” Dakshima asked me, but before I could answer, the hall doors burst open and Mr Petrelli appeared, armed with a clipboard and a determined look. It was too late to escape.

  “Right, Year 9, it’s your turn now, and let’s hope you’ve got more to offer than Years 10 and 11. At this rate I’ll be entering a choir with only four members and we’ll never get our hands on the money.”

&
nbsp; “Are you religious, sir?” Dakshima said as she walked past him into the hall.

  “Why do you ask, Dakshima?

  “Because you must be hoping for a miracle!” Dakshima said, making the others giggle.

  I didn’t laugh because my stomach was in knots and I felt like butterflies had moved into my chest. I felt exactly the same as I had the time I auditioned for Oscar-winning director Art Dubrovnik and that day I threw up on my feet. This was only a school choir, a bad school choir at that, and I still felt the same. What I didn’t understand was why.

  As Mr Petrelli called the register, I looked longingly at the door and wished I could escape.

  “OK,” Mr Petrelli called from the stage. We all stood in haphazard lines in front of him, the boys messing around at the back and the girls chatting. Some things never change no matter what type of school you go to. “CAN I HAVE SOME QUIET, PLEASE?” he yelled.

  The talking lowered to a murmur and Mr Petrelli switched on an overhead projector. A set of words flashed up on the screen at a slight angle. I recognised them.

  “This is how it’s going to work,” said Mr Petrelli. “If I tap you on the shoulder, you have to go. If I don’t, you stay – and don’t sneak off because I will hunt you down and I will make you sing.” There was a collective groan. “Now, I thought I’d give you all a song you know so I’ve picked last year’s dreadful Christmas number one, You Take Me To (Kensington Heights).”

  “Don’t make us sing that rubbish,” one of the boys called out.

  “That’s Ruby Parker’s boyfriend’s song,” Adele told everyone at the top of her voice. “Except he chucked her!”

  For a second, the whole of Year 9 looked at me. I dropped my chin on to my chest and prayed for a hole to appear in the floor, but God obviously wasn’t listening.

  “Well then, Ruby, I expect you to be the best,” Mr Petrelli said. He pressed play on his CD player and the opening bars to Danny’s number one song filled the hall.

  “Two, three, four!” Mr Petrelli yelled, waving a baton at us like somehow it was going to make us sing better.

  “Before I met you, I was on a dark and dusty shelf.

  Oh and I hated myself

  Cos I was all alone…“

  The whole of Year 9 sang more or less in unison.

  “I can’t believe I actually have to do this,” I complained to Dakshima over the singing, as Mr Petrelli walked long the row in front of us, tapping shoulders as he went. “I thought I had been humiliated about as much as possible for a girl of my age – but apparently not.”

  “Oh, chill,” Dakshima said. “It’s only a bit of singing, Ruby, not the end of the world.”

  It was clear if I was going to be friends with Dakshima then I was going to have to tone down the drama queen thing. But that was one of the things I liked best about her. She made me be me, and not some acted out version of the me I thought I should be to impress other people. Dakshima winked at me and just as Mr Petrelli started to walk down our row and I joined in with the singing. After all, I decided, I might as well get it over with as quickly as I could.

  “And now, your love lifts me,

  So high and so easily.

  And I know I’ll love you

  With all of my might,

  Because you

  Take me to –

  Kensington Heights!“

  As I sang I watched Mr Petrelli approaching, tapping shoulder after shoulder as he went. Only two other people from our row were still standing by the time he got to me and Dakshima, and Adele wasn’t one of them.

  “This is a fix,” she said angrily as she marched off.

  It seemed like Mr Petrelli stood there for ages, torturing me as he listened to me trying to sing my ex-boyfriend’s number one single, and it felt like he was never going to tap me on the shoulder. When he nodded and moved on to Dakshima I realised why.

  I, me – Ruby who can’t really sing, had somehow made it into the choir without even trying. It was a nightmare!

  I stared at Dakshima as he nodded at her too and moved on.

  She grinned at me still, singing along to the tune, but inserting her own words now.

  “This is going to be so cool,” she sang. “We’ll get totally loads of time off of school rehearsing for the competition.“

  “I don’t want to be in the choir,” I sang back. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.“

  “Don’t sweat it, Ruby,” Dakshima replied tunefully, making me realise that she actually did have a very nice voice. “There’s no way Highgate Comp will ever get past the first round!“

  As she finished on the last note of the song with a flourish, I looked around at the few people from our year group that remained. I couldn’t believe I was one of them.

  “Right, children,” Mr Petrelli said, pushing the stop button on his CD player. “Thank you for joining the choir. Rehearsals are every lunchtime and after school starting tomorrow. You can bring a sandwich with you, OK? Now get to class.”

  “Oh what?” Dakshima groaned. “What about all the time off, sir?

  “This isn’t a game to get you out of your school work, Dakshima,” Mr Petrelli told her seriously. “This school is desperate for a new music and drama lab, and winning that prize money is the only way we can ever afford it.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” I said stopping in front of him. “Thank you for picking me to be in the choir, but I don’t think you could have really heard my voice. I’m not a singer, sir.”

  Mr Petrelli looked at me with round black eyes that made me feel a little bit like running away. “If I didn’t tap you on the shoulder, then you are a singer,” he said. “I am never wrong.”

  “But at the Academy,” I pressed on. “That’s Sylvia Lighthouse’s Academy for the Performing Arts, I didn’t do any singing. I did acting, that was all, and I wasn’t even very good at that as it happens.”

  “Look, Ruby,” Mr Petrelli sounded impatient. “Perhaps your last school was filled with budding tenors and sopranos, although not if that dreadful single your friend produced is anything to go by. But in this school your voice is in the top ten per cent. Yes, it needs some work, your tuning is off and you sing like a mouse – but you are the best of a bad lot and you are in the choir.”

  “The thing is,” I tried to explain, “I’ve given up show business, so thanks for the offer but…”

  “Ruby,” Mr Petrelli said firmly, “I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. At this school a lot of kids would do anything to have a tenth of what you’ve just thrown away. And as preposterous as it seems right now, this choir is the nearest thing we’ve got to making that happen. As long as you can carry a tune, you are in it. Understood?”

  “Understood, sir,” I said, in a small voice. For a music teacher Mr Petrelli could be quite scary, although no where near Sylvia Lighthouse levels.

  “Good. Get along to class then,” Mr Petrelli told me. “You’ll be late for biology.”

  Adele was waiting for me when I came out of the hall. The corridors were empty except for her. She was standing there, her arms crossed, her brow pulled together in the middle.

  “Hi,” I said hesitantly.

  “You got picked for the choir,” she said accusingly.

  “Yes…”

  “I didn’t get picked,” she growled. I bit my lip. At the very least, Adele and I were now going to be several minutes late for biology and I would be getting detained after school. On the bright side, I wouldn’t be able to do detention because Adele would have broken my legs for getting in the school choir I didn’t want to be in and I would be in A&E.

  Funny, I thought to myself, life as a normal kid isn’t nearly as uncomplicated as I hoped.

  “I wanted to be in the choir.” Adele took two or three menacing steps towards me. I found myself thinking about the letters girls used to write to me when I was in Kensington Heights, telling me about being bullied at school and how awful it was and how every single night they went to bed feeling sick with dread an
d would find whatever reason they could not to go to school. But although Adele had threatened to get me on my very first day, I hadn’t been nearly as scared of her as I was of Adrienne Charles at Beaumont High in Hollywood. Until now, that is.

  “Look,” I said, holding up my hands, “I don’t want to be in the choir, Adele. I’ll get out of it…I’ll fake a sore throat or something – I’m quite good at acting, so I think I can pull it off. Then maybe you’ll get my place.”

  “I won’t,” Adele said, her face get redder and redder. “I never get anything. Always last to be picked in netball, I never have a lab partner in biology and now this. I…I’m…gonna…”

  I squeezed my bag tightly to my chest and closed my eyes, certain that I was about to find out exactly how much it hurt to be punched.

  After a second or two minus any pain, I realised that instead of hitting me, Adele was making a snuffly, gurgling sort of noise. I opened one eye and, unable to believe what I was seeing, I opened the other just to double-check.

  Adele was crying.

  “Er…” I had no idea how to deal with this. It was like seeing my mum with artificially inflated fish lips in Hollywood – so bizarre I couldn’t quite believe it was real. “Oh dear. Um…don’t cry, Adele, it’s not that bad. I mean, if I’m in the choir then we don’t stand a chance of winning anyway, so you’re not really missing out on anything. Dakshima says we won’t get past the first round.”

  “It’s not that,” Adele said, wiping her sleeve under her nose and sniffing.

  “Isn’t it?” I asked her.

  “I’m never included in anything,” Adele said. “And I actually can sing pretty well – not like those people on The X Factor who think they can sing but can’t. I’m in the choir at church. But when I got in the hall with everybody there I couldn’t do it. I thought if everybody saw me trying they’d think I was even more stupid than they already do and I got all scared and my voice came out all squeaky and off key.”