“Will you stop feeling so sorry for yourself, Lyndsey Collins!” Mum scolded me over breakfast. “If your friends said they’d be here, then I have every faith that they will. Now get a wriggle on for goodness sake, or they’ll be waiting for you!”
I hadn’t even thought about what I was going to wear for the audition. I’d turned up in jeans before and they’d still wanted to see me again, so they obviously weren’t too bothered about what I was wearing. Still, I felt that I should make a bit of an effort. The trouble was that I didn’t seem to have anything in my wardrobe that was suitable.
“I bet Fliss has loads of clothes that she could choose from,” I thought to myself, and then I started to feel miserable all over again.
Eventually I chose a black skirt, a pink T-shirt and my black chunky boots. Getting dressed sort of cheered me up. I’m not really big into make-up so I just wore a bit of coloured lip balm, but even putting that on made me feel more confident. By the time I’d finished getting ready I realised that I was quite excited – and a bit nervous. I definitely had more than a few butterflies in my tummy.
“We’d better think about going soon,” Mum called upstairs. “It’s almost twenty-five past nine.”
I hadn’t realised that it was so late. And there was still no sign of the others. I started feeling angry and miserable all over again. We’d never let each other down before.
As I was going downstairs, Tom was just emerging bleary-eyed from his bedroom.
“Off to become a film star, are you?” he yawned. “Well break a leg, or whatever you’re supposed to say!”
Dad was having breakfast with Ben and Spike. “I hope it goes well, love,” he said.
“Thanks Dad,” I said, and gave him a kiss. Ben and Spike were covered in milk and marmalade so I didn’t go anywhere near them, I just waved from the door.
Mum was already outside in the van. I could see that she was looking at her watch and peering up the lane, and I knew that she was looking for my friends.
“I told you they wouldn’t come,” I mumbled.
Mum looked at me kind of sadly and rubbed my arm.
“I see that your friends are as punctual as usual,” said Stuart, who was on his way to the farm.
“Shut up!” I shouted. “There’s no need to be so nasty.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, surprised. “They’re here!”
He pointed up the lane – and there were three figures running towards us.
“Sorry we’re late!” gasped Kenny. “Dad was called out on an emergency just as we were about to leave.”
“And my dad had already gone after dropping me off at Kenny’s so Rosie’s mum had to bring us here,” Frankie explained, all out of breath.
“We didn’t think we’d make it!” added Rosie.
“Well we’re glad you did,” laughed Mum. “We were just about to set off, weren’t we Lyndz? Everybody in? OK, here we go!”
I can’t tell you how great it felt that the others were with me. It didn’t feel quite right without Fliss, but I knew that she wouldn’t be coming.
There’s a gate at the end of the lane that I had to hop out of the van to open. I nearly jumped out of my skin when someone leapt out of a car and ran at me just as I was waiting for Mum to drive through.
“Fliss!” I shrieked. “What are you doing here?”
“I thought I’d come with you to the audition,” she said quietly. “If that’s all right.”
“Course it is, silly!” I laughed, and hugged her.
“Mind my new top!” Fliss squeaked, but she was laughing as she said it.
The journey into Leicester went really fast. Apparently the others had persuaded Fliss to come to the audition with them the day before, which is why I’d seen them all together after school. But they’d been expecting her at Kenny’s in the morning. When she didn’t turn up they thought she must have changed her mind again and didn’t wait for her.
“But Mum’s car wouldn’t start so Andy had to bring me. And when Kenny’s mum told me you’d already left we had to come straight here,” Fliss explained.
“But what changed your mind in the first place?” I asked her.
“The others made me realise how stupid it was to be jealous,” Fliss said, blushing. “I mean, you were the person the advertisers thought was right for their product and I should feel pleased for you. I do feel pleased for you.”
“And I said I’d dye her hair green if she didn’t come!” added Kenny.
“Yeah, right!” laughed Fliss. “Besides, I knew that you’d need help with your make-up!”
We all screamed with laughter as Fliss took out this amazing palette of eyeshadows and lipsticks.
“What are you like?” shrieked Kenny.
I didn’t have the heart to tell Fliss that I was happy as I was, so I let her make me up. I actually looked quite good when she’d finished. So by the time Mum had parked near the rehearsal rooms, I felt as ready for the audition as I would ever be.
When we walked into the building this time, there was no-one else around at all. It felt a bit spooky really because everywhere echoed as we walked down the corridors. We followed signs which read: SPOT AWAY AUDITIONS THIS WAY. And we ended up in a small room which felt like an old-fashioned classroom.
“Ah Lyndsey, lovely to see you!” It was the woman who had overheard me in the cloakroom last time. “And you’ve brought along all your friends too – what a nice idea!”
She crossed my name off a list. It seemed to be a very long list. I started to feel nervous all over again.
“You’ll be auditioning at eleven o’clock,” the woman told me. “There’s nothing to be nervous about. It’s just going to be the same as last time except that Alice, the older girl who will be appearing in the commercial, will be filmed with you. That way the director can see how you look together and if there’s a chemistry between you.”
She showed us all into a room where another couple of girls were waiting with their mothers. They looked dead nervous. They all kept staring at us, and you could tell that they couldn’t really work out which of us was going for the audition. That made us all laugh.
“Can you remember your line?” asked Frankie. “Do you want to practise?”
In truth I didn’t want to practise. I didn’t even want to be there. I wanted to be at home – in bed!
“I guess I’d better,” I mumbled, so we all huddled in a corner, saying the words together.
“Lucinda Ashby!” called a woman from a doorway in the corner of the room. In the room beyond, you could see people milling about and the bright lights of the cameras.
One of the girls got up and went out with her mother. The door closed behind them.
“I don’t want to do this!” I whispered to the others in sudden panic.
“Well darlings, what does Angel always say?” Kenny suddenly boomed in a loud voice. “Enjoy! It’s time you lightened up, Miss Collins. Come on, shoes off everyone, let’s go skating!”
The floor was wooden and so well-polished that you could see your face in it. We took off our shoes and went whizzing about all over. It was brill! The girl who was still sitting there looked as though she wanted to join in, but her mum kept scowling at us and glaring at my mum. Mum’s pretty cool, not like Fliss’s mum thank goodness, so she just ignored us and got on with the knitting she’d brought with her.
You know what Kenny’s like – she’s a real dare-devil. So she was skidding faster and faster… and before we could stop her, she’d crashed right into a cross-looking girl coming out of the other room and knocked her to the ground. Unfortunately the rest of us couldn’t stop ourselves either, and soon there was this enormous pile-up of bodies on the floor.
“Looks like there’s been a bit of an accident!” boomed a voice. Angel had appeared from nowhere and was now untangling us all. Mum had rushed over too, and picked up the girl who was crumpled at the bottom of the heap.
“Are you all right, Alice?” Angel asked, fl
apping her hands around.
“Amazingly, yes I am, no thanks to those stupid girls!” growled the girl, brushing down her clothes. “I was just going to the lavatory. I didn’t expect it to be a war zone out here!” She tossed her hair and marched out of the room.
“You just stay here, girls,” Angel mouthed to us, and went into the room where the audition was going to take place.
“That was Alice!” squeaked Fliss. “You know, the other girl in the Spot Away advert!”
“Well, that’s my chance gone,” I decided. “I might as well go home now.”
The others obviously agreed with me because they didn’t say anything.
Angel came over to join us. “No harm done,” she said brightly. “I’ve just explained about the little accident. It won’t count against you, Lyndsey.”
I didn’t believe that for a minute.
When it was my turn to audition, I’d got myself into such a panic that I started to hiccup.
“Oh no Lyndz, not now!” groaned Frankie. She grabbed hold of my hand and started rubbing it really hard. Fortunately, it seemed to work.
We all trooped into the room with all the cameras.
“I’m not sure that there’s enough room for so many people,” said one of the assistants. “Some of you will have to wait outside.”
“We’ll all squash together and be very quiet,” Angel assured him.
“Well, OK,” he agreed. I think he was a bit frightened of her actually.
I took my place beside Alice, and Greg the director started to set up the lighting.
“You’d better not make a fool of me again!” hissed Alice in my ear. All the time she was smiling so that everyone thought she was being friendly to me. “And don’t think you’ll get this part either. I’ll make sure that you don’t!”
Charming!
I remembered Greg from last time – he was really nice. He ran through everything again, and then he shouted “Action!” and started filming. The first couple of takes were perfect. I was really pleased with myself, but old Alice Misery-Chops kept moaning and saying that I was mumbling my lines. So we had to try it again. I was just getting into the swing of it when she stood on my toe.
“So that’s why you AARRGGHH!” I screamed.
“I’m so sorry, Lesley!” smiled Alice sweetly, “but you were standing in my space. I didn’t expect your foot to be there. I hope I haven’t hurt you at all!”
My foot hurt like crazy, but I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of knowing that.
“Not at all,” I smiled at her through gritted teeth. “And my name’s Lyndsey.”
“OK, let’s have a break shall we?” Greg suggested.
I went over to the others.
“She did that on purpose, you could tell!” said Frankie crossly.
“We’ll get her Lyndz, don’t worry!” Kenny assured me.
Whenever Kenny says anything like that, I do worry. And I was very worried indeed when Greg said that he wanted to run through the commercial again. Especially as Kenny had wandered off and seemed to be doing something behind Alice’s back…
I took my place in front of the cameras. A few minutes later I was joined by Alice. She was tossing and stroking her hair, but she completely ignored me. Kenny, Frankie, Fliss and Rosie were standing behind Greg, and I could tell just by the way they were smirking that they had something awful up their sleeves.
“Action!”
I tried to concentrate on my lines, but all the time Alice was twitching about beside me.
“Cut! Are you all right, Alice?” asked Greg. “Do you have a problem?”
“No I’m fine!” she smiled, and started twitching again.
Kenny and Frankie were pulling faces at me, and it took me all my time to keep my face straight. At last Alice looked composed again.
“Action!”
This time, before I’d even begun my line, Alice started scratching her neck.
“Cut!”
I heard Fliss mutter very loudly, “How unprofessional!”
“Alice darling, what is going on?” asked Greg. He looked a bit irritated.
Alice had gone quite red in the face and looked as though she was about to cry.
“We’ll give it one more try,” said Greg, sighing. “And… Action!”
I was just about to start my line when Alice let out an almighty scream.
“A spider!” she yelled. “Get it off me!”
A spider was dangling in front of her face. I tried to pull it off her, but she pushed me away.
“Not YOU!” she yelled. “This is all your fault!”
I could see Kenny and Rosie creased up at the back of the room. Frankie was looking a bit alarmed because she hates spiders herself, and Fliss was telling anyone who would listen what a bad actress Alice was anyway. Bad actress or not, everyone was crowded round her – and the cameras were still rolling. It was hysterical. I laughed so much I thought I was going to wet myself. I didn’t of course, but my hiccups came back again. I got them so badly that I just couldn’t get rid of them. Poor Greg looked horrified. There was no way that we could do any more filming.
“I think we’d better call that a day for you, Lyndsey,” said the woman I had seen earlier. She ushered us all out of the room. “You’ll be hearing from us in a few days’ time. Your mum’s given us your address. Thank you for coming.”
Angel called “Goodbye” to us, but Mum couldn’t get us out of that building fast enough. I thought she was going to be really angry with us, but as soon as we were outside she exploded with laughter.
“That was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen!” she gasped. “I’d love to see that on film. They ought to send it to one of those television outtakes programmes!”
She was laughing so much that tears were streaming down her face, and that set us all off again. It was only when Mum realised that people were staring at us that she managed to calm down.
“Come on, we’d better get out of here!” she spluttered, and we ran giggling back to the van.
When we were on our way home I said to Kenny, “It was you, hic, who put that spider in Alice’s, hic, hair wasn’t it?”
“Course it was!” she laughed. “I saw it by the door as we went in, and when she was so awful to you, I thought that I’d make use of it if I got the chance.”
“Cool!”
We chatted about how awful Alice was all the way back to Cuddington. The others tried various methods of making me lose my hiccups too, but none of them worked.
“Bye, Lyndz! You were a star!” they all yelled as we dropped them off at their homes.
I wondered what Dad would say about the audition when we got back, and Ben. He’d thought it was really cool that I might be on the telly. Now I’d just go back to being his boring sister.
Everyone was in the kitchen when we got in – even Stuart.
“At least I’ll get all their stupid comments over with at once!” I thought to myself.
Mum started telling them what had happened, but she couldn’t stop laughing so I carried on. But because I was laughing and hiccuping they couldn’t understand a word I was saying. By the time we’d finished, everyone was rolling about on the floor.
“Fantastic!” gasped Tom. “I wish I’d been there!”
“Me too!” shouted Stuart, holding his sides.
And I knew that Ben thought it was funny because he wouldn’t leave me alone all the rest of the day. He kept following me around wanting to play at ‘televisions’! Spike just kept saying ‘pider’ and laughing his head off. The only rotten thing about that afternoon was that Mum made me swallow a teaspoon of vinegar to get rid of my hiccups – and it worked! I don’t think I’ll be trying that again in a hurry though!
I got the letter about the commercial on the following Wednesday. I knew that I hadn’t got the part, but I still had butterflies as I opened the envelope. It was just a standard letter saying that they were very sorry but after much consideration they felt that I wasn’
t the right person for the part.
“Well, you wouldn’t want to work with Miss Sniffy Knickers, would you?” said Kenny when I showed her the letter.
“Nah, that would be awful!” agreed Rosie.
“What did the woman say? They’d have to see if the chemistry was right between you?” asked Frankie. “There was so much bad chemistry you’d probably have blown each other up!”
We all roared with laughter at the memory.
“Well, I thought that you were far too good for that advert anyway!” grinned Fliss.
At least we were all still friends, Fliss might not have been so generous if I had got the part.
The sad thing about all this is that Angel no longer teaches us drama. She told us at our class that evening that the Production Company had been so impressed with her that they’d offered her a job coaching actors for its commercials. She’ll be so good at that, but it means that we’re going to miss out on our classes. She promised to try to find us another teacher, but we haven’t heard anything yet.
But hey, at least we’ve got our own play to work on. Which reminds me, we’d better get our skates on. The others will be here in a minute and we want to rehearse one last time before our parents show up. Dad keeps threatening to video the whole thing just in case we have one of our famous mishaps. And the chances are that we will.
Fliss said she’d do all our make-up, so I hope she won’t be late. We won’t get Kenny to wear any though, not unless it’s some of that gory fake blood or something. Frankie said she’d do a plan on the computer saying which scene follows which. We haven’t got a script or anything – we just sort of improvise, like Angel taught us – but we do need to know which scene to move on to. You can be a sort of prompter if you like, and look at Frankie’s plan. Rosie’s organised most of the scenery too, so maybe you should have a word with her to see if she needs a hand. It’s a good thing you came, isn’t it?!
I can tell by all that shrieking that the others have arrived. And what do you know, Fliss has washed the dye out of her hair and she’s back to blonde! Kenny’s teasing her about it so I’d better try to calm things down. I don’t know about the play, but we seem to create enough drama just hanging out together for a feature length film!
TV Stars! Page 6