by Jean Ure
“I’ve got to meet my gran,” I said. “She’s old! She mightn’t live much longer.”
Darryl has met my gran. “She’s not as old as all that,” he said. “She could live for years!”
“But what would I tell my mum and dad?”
“Dunno,” said Darryl.
He wasn’t being at all helpful.
“Wish I’d never agreed to be in the stupid show,” I said.
“Bit late for that now,” said Darryl.
“I could still drop out! If I wanted to. I think I probably will,” I said.
Darryl gave me this look. Like I was a bit of bird splodge, or something nasty that had crawled out of a bin.
“Not surprised Coral said she wouldn’t speak to you again!”
“Think I care?” I said.
“Not sure I’d want to speak to you again, either,” said Darryl; and he turned, and went running off across the playground to join some of the others in a football game.
I thought that Darryl was being very unfair. It is no way for a person’s best friend to treat them.
When I got in after school my sister was there. She was in a really annoying mood.
She kept snapping her fingers and waggling her hips and singing “GO for it! Just – GO for it!” and giving me these sly looks. I shoved at her and she fell against the corner of the sink and screamed, “Ow! That hurt!” Mum told me crossly to stop behaving like a yob.
“I don’t know what’s come over you these days!”
She must have told Dad about it, because later that evening Dad said he wanted to speak to me, and he gave me this long lecture all about manners.
“I want you to be a tough guy, but I also want you to be a gentleman. Gentlemen do not go round pushing and shoving at their sisters. You got that?”
I nodded.
Dad said, “Right! I don’t want to have to speak to you again.”
Suddenly it just seemed like everyone had it in for me. At school next day, Coral wasn’t talking. I pretended I didn’t care, but I did, really. Coral’s been my second–best friend ever since Reception, when she tried to stuff a marble in my ear.
Miss Pringle asked us all to hand in our slips of paper. I was the only one who hadn’t got a signature …
“Oh, Danny, really!” said Miss Pringle. “How could you forget?”
Coral turned and looked at me. I said, “Sorry, Miss.”
“Well, can you make sure and get it done tonight?” said Miss Pringle.
There was this long silence. Coral was still looking at me. I could feel that Darryl was, too.
“Yes?” said Miss Pringle.
I took a deep breath. I said, “Yes, Miss.”
Darryl patted my shoulder. “It’ll be all right,” he said.
What did he mean, it would be all right? It was all right for him. He wasn’t dancing with six girls. Wearing tights.
I had to ask Carrie to do more of her forging. She said, “Well, I will… but you owe me! Specially after last night.” She said she wouldn’t be at all surprised if I’d broken some of her ribs. She said a person could die of broken ribs, and if she died it would be all my fault. “So you can jolly well do my next six turns at cleaning the car!”
That was bad enough, but then I had to find some excuse for staying on at school and not going to meet Gran. It meant telling more lies, and one thing Gran has always taught us is that telling lies is “a slippery slope”. In the end I decided just to tell half a lie. I mean, at least it was better than telling a whole one. I said that Miss Pringle was having the dress rehearsal and that she wanted me to help out backstage.
Mum said, “Oh, that’s nice! I’m glad you’re involved. Can you go back with Darryl afterwards and we’ll pick you up from his place?”
What really made me mad was that I needn’t have bothered asking Carrie to forge Mum’s signature after all. Mum would have signed it herself. Now I was going to have to clean the car six times without being paid for it!
Chapter Six
Countdown. Four days, three days, two days, one day… lift off!
The morning of the show Mum said to me, “So you’re going to be helping out backstage, then?”
I’d told her that once! I bent my head over my cereal bowl and muttered, “Yeah.”
“You mean, there’s no point us coming along?” said Dad.
I’d told Mum that, as well!
“You couldn’t come, anyway,” I said. “Tickets’ll be all gone.”
“That’s a pity,” said Dad.
Why was it a pity? I looked at Dad, and frowned. He and Mum were behaving in a very odd way.
“I’m not in it,” I said.
“How about Darryl?” said Mum. “Is he in it?”
“Yeah,’ I said. “Darryl’s in it.”
Surely they wouldn’t want to go and see Darryl!
“I thought you said it was all singing and dancing?” said Mum.
“Mm.” I made a mumbling sound, through a mouthful of toasty pops.
“So can Darryl sing and dance?”
I shook my head. “He’s useless.”
“So why is he in it and not you?”
Why do mums always have to ask so many questions? I said, “I dunno,” and stuffed another spoonful of toasty pops into my mouth. Carrie giggled. I zapped her with laser beams across the table, but my sister is totally INSENSITIVE. In this very tuneless voice that she has, she started singing.
“GO for it! Just – GO for it!”
“What is this silly song you keep singing?” said Mum. “Is it the latest hit?”
This time, Carrie giggled so much she nearly fell off her chair. Darryl doesn’t know how lucky he is, not having a sister.
The show didn’t start until seven o’clock that evening, but Miss Pringle wanted us all to be there by half–past five. Darryl and his mum and dad were stopping by to pick me up. They were going to bring me back again, afterwards. As soon as I saw their car pull up, I went racing to the door. I didn’t want Mum getting out there, talking to them.
“See you later,” said Mum. “Hope it goes well!”
Dad then came to the door and called after me: “Break a leg!” I thought this was a strange sort of thing to say, until Darryl’s dad explained that break a leg was a theatrical way of wishing someone good luck. But why should Dad think that I needed good luck? I was only helping out backstage!
When we reached school, I almost wished that I was just helping out. I felt like a big wobbly jelly, trembling on a plate. And I couldn’t remember a single one of my steps! I’d been practising them all day in my bedroom; and now, suddenly, they’d gone.
“You nervous?” I said to Darryl, as we made our way to the boys’ changing room.
“What’s to be nervous about?” said Darryl.
“Might forget your lines,” I said.
“Only got two,” said Darryl.
He meant that he only had two that he spoke by himself. It wouldn’t matter if he forgot the rest, because they were spoken by everybody. Even I could remember two lines! But I had whole long sequences of steps. Coral would never forgive me if I went and messed things up!
Clint was in the changing room. He’d already had a good laugh at me at the dress rehearsal, but he couldn’t resist starting up again. He said, “Hallo, girly!” in this silly squeaky voice. “Sure you’re in the right room? This one’s for boys!”
Darryl snarled, “Shut your cakehole, dummy, or I’ll shove your teeth down your throat!”
A bad moment! I couldn’t let Darryl fight my battles for me, but I really didn’t want a scrap. Not right then. Maybe later, but not before I’d done Miss Pringle’s dancing for her. I didn’t reckon she’d be very pleased if I went on stage with a black eye. Not that I’d have been the only one. Clint would have had one, too; you could count on that. Fortunately it didn’t happen, because Clint backed down. Just as well! I would have thrashed him.
Lots of people had been sent Good Luck cards, which they st
uck on the wall. To my surprise, my mum and dad had sent me one. They’d sent it to the school, and Mr Hubbard gave it to me when he came round to check we were all getting changed. I thought that was quite nice of them, though it did make me feel bad about all the lies I’d told. In spite of that, I was still glad they weren’t there! If Mum and Dad had been in the audience, I would have been too embarrassed to dance.
I was embarrassed enough as it was. The thought of going out there, in front of all those people, wearing tights and dancing – with six girls! Plus I still wasn’t sure I could remember any of the steps. My head felt like a big ball of cotton wool. My legs felt like strips of spaghetti. And I couldn’t remember what I had to do.
It was Coral who rescued me. As I stood there shaking in the wings, waiting to go on, she whispered, “Just do what your feet tell you!”
She said afterwards that it was what her dance teacher had once said to her when she was in a panic. And it worked! I stopped trying to think and just let my feet do their own thing. My feet were brilliant! They did it all by themselves.
“Told you so,” hissed Coral.
She was rather cocky about it, but I forgave her. Her and me got the biggest round of applause of anyone! At the end, we had to take a bow all by ourselves.
“Man,” said Darryl, clapping me on the back, “that was great! I bet you’re glad, now, that your mum and dad came.”
I looked at him, in horror. I said, “What?”
“Your mum and dad” said Darryl. “They’re out there… didn’t you see them? Sitting in the front row, next to mine.”
Mum and Dad – and Carrie – had been there all the time! It was my sister’s fault.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “They got it out of me.”
Mum and Dad couldn’t understand why I’d tried to keep it from them.
“What do you think we are?” said Mum.
“Monsters?” said Dad.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“We’re proud of you!”
I didn’t believe them. I thought they were just saying it, to make me feel better. I still didn’t believe them even when my gran rang up and said, “What’s all this I hear? My grandson the dancer? Stealing the show?”
“It wasn’t me,” I muttered. “It was Coral!”
“That’s not what I heard,” said Gran. “I heard it was both of you. My! Wouldn’t your granddad have been proud!”
Next day, the local newspaper came through the letterbox. And there, right on the front page where you couldn’t help seeing it, was a big colour picture of me and Coral! Over the picture, in huge great capital letters, it said:
But it wasn’t until Dad got a copy of the original photograph and had it framed and hung on the wall that I finally believed him. He and Mum were really proud of me! Just as proud as if I’d won the junior athletics trophy.
I got my sister to pay me back for all those times I’d cleaned the car for her. And I got her to do my share of the washing–up, the wiping-up and the vacuuming for the next two weeks.
I also bashed Clint the next time he called me girly. You have to stick up for yourself.
Now they all call me Dazzling Danny, but like I said, it doesn’t really bother me. Danny the Dazzle… I can live with that!
Also by the Author
Daisy May
Monster in the Mirror
Big Tom
Other Roaring Good Reads from Collins
Witch-in-Training: Flying Lessons by Maeve Friel
Mister Skip by Michael Morpurgo
The Witch’s Tears by Jenny Nimmo
Spider McDrew by Alan Durant
Copyright
First published in Great Britain by CollinsChildren’sBooks in 2003
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Text © Jean Ure 2003
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