Laura swept onto the stage, her long skirts rustling. ‘Welcome, my pupils,’ she said, looking and sounding like a middle-aged Russian lady. ‘I will make you all into beautiful dancers, no?’
Before I knew it, we’d reached the end of the scene, and Meg and I stepped off the stage. The next scene had just Laura and Ruby, as Madame Fidolia watched Posy dance. Ruby quickly stripped off the jumper and skirt she’d worn for the first scene – she had her leotard and tights on underneath. I waited until she was ready and then switched on the music. As she’d predicted, Ruby’s nerves disappeared completely when she was dancing, and she looked completely in control.
I sneaked a look at the audience – they were totally engrossed. Some of Maisie’s little friends seemed particularly taken with Ruby’s dancing, swaying along to the music. But I didn’t have too much time to watch them, as I needed to get the next scene organised.
‘Bobby! Zach!’ I whispered. ‘You’re up next.’
The boys grabbed their lightsabers and came to stand at the side of the stage. Bobby started going over his lines in a very loud whisper.
‘Shhhh!’ I said very quickly, just as Madame Fidolia frowned at him. I frowned back at Laura to remind her to stay in character.
‘That was beautiful, Posy!’ Laura exclaimed as Ruby finished her dance. The distraction had made her forget her accent for a minute and she spoke in her normal voice, but she picked it up again with her next line. ‘Next term you will come only to my classes. I am convinced that one day the world will know of Posy Fossil’s dancing.’
Ruby and Laura stepped down from the stage as the audience clapped loudly, and I waited for the applause to die down before introducing the boys. I sat back down, wondering if the change of pace from Ballet Shoes to Star Wars was going to work. One thing that hadn’t needed much rehearsal was getting the boys into character, since they pretty much lived and breathed Star Wars.
I watched anxiously as they said their opening lines and launched into battle. The audience were loving it, and some of Maisie’s friends started taking sides, cheering for either Bobby or Zach.
The final part of their scene had them jumping on top of the garden table to continue the fight. In the dress rehearsal Zach had been practising a dramatic somersault off the table as a finale, but he hadn’t been able to pull it off, and we’d agreed he’d leave it out. Now though I suddenly realised, from the look of grim concentration on his face, that he had made up his mind to do it. I gripped Meg’s arm anxiously. Zach leapt into the air and performed a perfect somersault, landing neatly on both feet. I heard a little gasp from Mum before the audience erupted into cheers. No one looked more surprised than Zach, who stood there in shock for a moment before a grin slowly spread across his face. He and Bobby bowed again and again, thrilled with the audience reaction.
Next up was Pauline’s biggest scene – the necklace scene, as we called it. Ever since Sadie had helped me with my part, I’d been determined to do it as well as I possibly could.
Laura changed into her Nana costume, which meant exchanging Madame Fidolia’s brightly coloured fringed shawl for a faded pink cardigan and putting on a pair of small round glasses. With very little time between scenes and no proper dressing rooms this was the best we could do for a costume change, and she still had the same long black skirt and hairstyle, but it was amazing how effective these small changes were. And Laura herself seemed to switch effortlessly from one role to the other, dropping Madame Fidolia’s dramatic gestures and expressions for Nana’s kind but no-nonsense style.
I got up to announce the scene, explaining to the audience that Pauline had been called for an audition and they were trying to figure out what she should wear. This is it, I told myself. This is my chance to really bring Pauline to life.
‘Miss Jay says I’ve got an audition tomorrow and need to wear my best frock,’ I began. ‘But I don’t have one. That old velvet one is too worn.’
As I started speaking I was very conscious of people I knew watching me – Mum and Dad, Rebecca, Ruby’s parents, and above all Sadie. But suddenly it was as if the audience just faded away, and I was Pauline, trying to make Nana see that I couldn’t possibly go to an audition in ordinary clothes. And when Petrova came up with the plan to sell the necklaces, my sudden sense of hope that we’d found a solution felt very real.
It might have been my imagination, but the applause at the end of the scene seemed like the loudest yet. Sadie was beaming at me, and Mum looked very proud. The rush of adrenalin was like nothing I’d ever experienced before, and I knew there and then that I wanted more than anything to be an actress.
Maisie’s song was next, and she didn’t need anyone to remind her. She strode confidently onto the stage, completely forgetting to let me introduce her first. I sat back down. It was pretty clear Maisie needed no introduction.
‘Raindrops on bones and chasing kittens!’ Maisie began, wiggling her bottom to make her tail move. ‘Yummy treats and chewing Dad’s slippers!’
The song went on like that for quite a while, getting more and more bizarre. I saw some of the grown-ups shifting in their seats and shuffling their feet, but Maisie’s friends were leaning forward eagerly and one or two were even trying to sing along. Dad had been right – this act was just right for the key audience!
Maisie finished at last, then started bowing over and over again, before starting to chase her tail like a real dog – something that definitely wasn’t meant to be part of the act. Finally I had to go up on stage and gently but firmly escort her off, still waving to her fans.
Ruby did her solo dance next, the one she’d been practising for her exam, and it was her mum’s turn to glow with pride. Then it was time for our final scene from Ballet Shoes, where Posy comes to tell her sisters that she wants to go away to train as a ballerina in Czechoslovakia. I was still on a high from the previous scene and Meg seemed in top form too, all our previous nerves forgotten. This was the scene where Ruby had the most lines and I knew she was afraid she was going to forget them, but Meg’s suggestion about dancing her lines worked like magic. Ruby had fitted actions to particular lines, folding her hands in front of her at one bit and turning her feet out a certain way at another bit, so that her lines seemed to flow out as smoothly as the steps in one of her dance routines.
As soon as Petrova said her final line, ‘I wonder if other girls had to be one of us, which of us they’d choose to be?’ all the grown-ups in the audience rose to their feet, clapping and cheering. Maisie’s friends started cheering too, and we had to take one bow after another. I glanced up again and saw that Tracey was now looking distinctly jealous. I smiled to myself, but I knew this moment was too precious to waste on thinking about Tracey. Instead I held hands with Meg and Laura, while Laura gripped Ruby’s hand on the other side, and we bowed again. We kept looking at each other and grinning, hardly able to believe our first show had gone off so well.
Two hours later we had said goodbye to all of Maisie’s party guests. The last of the paper cups and popcorn wrappers had been cleared up, along with all the Pass the Parcel layers. Emma was napping, Bobby and Maisie were opening Maisie’s presents and giving them marks out of ten, and Zach had disappeared upstairs. Mum and Dad had invited Meg’s parents to stay for coffee, and all four were inside talking. The four members of Star Club had the garden to ourselves at last. Ruby and I were lying flat on our backs on a rug, exhausted. Laura had a mirror propped up in front of her and was taking all the grips out of her hair, and Meg was sitting in the grass making a daisy chain.
‘So are you going to tell us the rest of the story then Meg?’ I asked her at last. ‘Do you miss Hollywood?’
‘No.’ Meg sounded very definite. ‘Hollywood isn’t for me. And Mum hates it. She’s really a stage actress, but she got a part in a film and we moved out there. Then Dad got some work there too as a director. He had done some TV work in Ireland and the UK before, and a chance came up for him to direct a film. But Mum didn’t like film work –
she much prefers acting in front of a live audience. She comes from a theatrical family, you see. Sadie was an actress – she still gets parts sometimes, actually – and Grandad was a classical Shakespearean actor. They both did lots of behind the scenes work too – you have to sometimes because there isn’t always enough acting work.’
‘So that’s why Sadie has all that stuff in her attic!’ I said. ‘I did wonder why she had such a huge collection of clothes and random stuff.’
Meg looked embarrassed. ‘I know. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth. I just knew if I started talking about it the family background would all come out, and Mum didn’t want me to say anything. All of those costumes and props come from different productions Sadie and Grandad were involved in over the years.’
‘So did your mum want to come back to Ireland to work in theatre again?’ Laura asked.
‘Actually she really just wanted to have an ordinary life for a while,’ Meg said. ‘Get a job in an office and be home every evening to make dinner! She started saying I needed a normal upbringing and that it wasn’t good for me to be dragged from one place to another all the time and that the Hollywood lifestyle wasn’t good for a twelve-year-old. But Dad was just starting to get regular work and he didn’t want to move, so they kept rowing about it. Then after, well, other stuff happened, Mum just flipped and said that was it, she was taking me home to Carrickbeg to have a break from all the craziness.’
‘And then the first thing you do is make friends with me and join a drama club,’ I said, suddenly understanding just how Cordelia must have felt.
Meg laughed. ‘I know. Now you know why Mum was so weird about it!’
I felt like I was watching Meg transform before my eyes as she told us more about her former life in the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. I still felt like she was holding something back, but it looked like we were going to have to wait to find out what that was.
I looked around at the scattered remains of our show – Ruby’s ballet bag, the boys’ lightsabers, Maisie’s dog ears, a programme someone had left behind on a chair. ‘I can’t believe it’s all over,’ I said.
‘I know! It feels like we’ve been building up to it for so long,’ Ruby said. ‘I can’t believe I’m not going to be Posy any more.’
‘I’m really going to miss Petrova,’ Meg said sadly.
‘I’m NOT going to miss Madame Fidolia’s hair,’ Laura said, removing the final hair grip and flinging it onto the grass.
I grinned at her. I’d used so much hairspray that her hair still stayed plastered back to her head in a sticky blob.
‘There’s only one thing for it,’ I said suddenly, scrambling to my feet. ‘We’re going to have to start planning our next show!’
About the Author
When Natasha was young her absolute favourite thing was reading everything she could get her hands on. Her second favourite thing was persuading her sister, brothers and neighbours to sing, dance and act with her in different shows that they performed for their parents and anyone else who would watch. Natasha loved her speech and drama classes (way more than school) and studied it right up to diploma level, taking part in various musicals and pantomimes along the way. One of her favourite books was Ballet Shoes, and she has read it so many times her copy is almost falling apart. As Natasha’s siblings are now too old to be made take part in performances, she decided to create Star Club instead, and she is really enjoying writing about the kind of club she would have loved to join herself.
Also by this author, Missing Ellen.
Photograph by Helen Williams
Copyright
This eBook edition first published 2016 by
The O’Brien Press Ltd,
12 Terenure Road East, Rathgar,
Dublin 6, D06 HD27 Ireland.
Tel: +353 1 4923333; Fax: +353 1 4922777
E-mail: [email protected]. Website: www.obrien.ie
First published 2016.
eBook ISBN: 978–1–84717–902–9
Text © copyright Natasha Mac a’ Bháird
Copyright for typesetting, layout, editing, design
© The O’Brien Press Ltd
All rights reserved.
Quotations from Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild first published by J.M. Dent, 1936 (publisher); permission granted by A.M. Heath & Co. Ltd.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or in any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
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