‘Um, no,’ I said. ‘I can get through.’ And I squeezed myself past Jessie, giggling in pink goo, and past Stella, still licking her glossed lips with victory, and put my bag on the hook. I slipped through the classroom and out the back entrance, straight up to the library, where I sat, in shock, until the bell rang.
In class, I stayed quiet and small. I didn’t even put my hand up to answer questions that Mr Smee knew I knew the answers to. He looked at me strangely and when the bell went for recess, he had a quiet word.
‘Anything wrong today, Abby?’
I blinked hard and shook my head. He put his head to the side. ‘You’ll tell me if there’s something going on, yes?’
I nodded and blinked again. ‘Mm-hmm,’ I said. ‘Yep.’
When I got out to the Year Six seats with my snack, Ollie had his tennis racket with him. He also had Buzz sitting on one side of him and Jessie on the other.
‘I’m playing in reps this season,’ he said. ‘And in my last comp I beat a kid in Year Eight. I’ve got a new coach. He’s awesome.’
‘Is that that new guy coaching in town?’ asked Buzz, turning so she faced Ollie fully. ‘The one who can ride a skateboard, even though he’s like old?’ She batted her eyelashes and I nearly dropped my cupcake.
‘I know him,’ said Jessie, pouting her pink lips at Ollie. ‘My brother said he can do 300 tuck jumps in one go.’ She gazed at Ollie’s hair, which looked like it had been done differently. Kind of ... styled? I shook my head at myself.
Get a grip. You’re going crazy today.
‘Anyway, I can show you some shots if you like,’ said Ollie. His eyes moved from Buzz to Jessie back to Buzz again, where they stayed for a few seconds. Jessie’s face went red and her lip started to stick out. Ollie quickly faced back to her again. ‘You can come too.’ Her eyes got bright and her smile practically burst out of her face. I felt ill.
‘You don’t even like tennis,’ I said out loud. But no one took any notice of me. I increased my volume. ‘Jessie, you told me you hated tennis.’
Three heads turned towards me in unison. Buzz rolled her eyes, Ollie looked at me and then at Jessie, like he couldn’t even understand the concept of not liking tennis, and Jessie just looked aghast. And then bright red. Red and aghast.
‘Abby,’ she hissed. ‘Don’t.’
‘Don’t what?’ I said, but it wasn’t to anyone who was listening. Ollie and Buzz had taken off towards the courts, and Jessie was scrambling to catch up. I turned and kicked the brickwork on the school building. ‘I’m just being honest.’
I sat and ate my cupcake on my own. But it was lonely—I didn’t like not having anyone to talk to. Little kids were staring, so I headed across the playground to the girls’ room.
And that was when I saw Sam and Stella sitting together on the classroom steps, their heads bent over something small in Stella’s hand. I didn’t need to go to the bathroom that bad.
‘Hey, you guys,’ I said, in a fake-nice voice. I could be just as charming as Stella when I wanted to be. ‘What are you doing?’
Sam looked up and then looked away again, but Stella met my eye. ‘He’s just telling me his email address, so we can message each other,’ she said. It sounded like a challenge.
‘You guys have email addresses?’ I said. ‘You mean the ones from school they set up for us in Year Four?’
Sam kept his face turned away, but Stella tossed her hair a little like, No, silly. ‘Not school ones. I’m talking about a gmail address. You’ve got one, right?’
I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. ‘Is gmail the same as email?’ I asked.
At that, Stella’s eyes popped out of her head and practically fell on the floor. ‘You’re so cute, Abby,’ she said. ‘Always so old-fashioned. I can’t believe you’ve never heard of gmail.’
‘Well I don’t have one anyway,’ I said, a little bit sullen. ‘Sam, do you?’ I tried to get him to look at me.
‘Sam’s is awesome,’ Stella said. And she held out her little gadget. ‘See?’
‘[email protected].’ I laughed. ‘That’s hilarious. You’re crazy, Sam.’
He turned to me and his face flashed fury. ‘You’re always rude, Abby. Just quit it.’
Before my chin could drop again, Stella stepped in. Kind of saving me really, although I didn’t want to be saved.
‘My address is [email protected],’ she said. ‘You’ll have to get one, Abby. Everyone’s emailing all the time. If you don’t get online, you’ll miss out.’ She turned to Sam. ‘Don’t you think so?’
I opened my mouth to speak, but at that exact second, the bell went.
‘I’m going to class,’ I said, with a pointed, self-righteous, furious look at Stella and Sam. ‘I’ll see you in there.’ And I stamped up the stairs and along the balcony to the classroom door where Mr Smee saw me from his desk. That’s when the only good thing of the whole entire day happened. ‘Oh, there you are, Abby,’ he said. ‘I’ve got some good news for you.’ He smiled. It was the first real smile I’d seen since I got to school. Mouth and eyes.
‘Tomorrow, we’re starting choir practice. And we’re going to have try outs for the solo parts.’
My face went from tight and tense to happy in the tiniest little second. I shut my eyes in relief.
Finally. Something good was about to happen.
Because, unlike everything else, singing was something I could control.
Chapter 17
The whole primary school was in the choir, which meant every kid in Year Three to Year Six. Mrs Nickell, the choir director, said it was because we were all great singers, but I knew it was because we had the smallest school in the district. If we had turned up with only ten kids in our group, we’d have been laughed at by the bigger schools that could gather a choir of 50 kids just by putting a sign outside the library.
While the other schools only took the kids who wanted to sing, our choir—made up of everyone, whether they wanted to sing or not—sounded better than all the others. And I think it was because of Mrs Nickell.
When we filed into her Year Two classroom, I took a breath and shut my eyes. Even just the smell of the room brought back memories of colouring-in, and glue sticks, and doing craft with Buzz and Jessie. I felt safe and secure, like I was a little kid again. Like I was home.
‘Sit down, children,’ said Mrs Nickell. It was a typical Mrs Nickell thing to say and it made me hug myself with delight. Mr Smee treated us like teenagers, which I liked, but it was nice to go back to being little again. To my right I could see Stella raise her eyebrows and look at Buzz. She leaned over to Buzz’s ear and began to whisper something, but Mrs Nickell pounced on her right away.
‘Stella, is it?’ she said. ‘In this classroom, we only talk when our hands are up or if you’ve been given permission. Buzz, if you keep on, I will separate you two.’ Buzz looked down and Stella made a face. I smiled to myself smugly. This was how things were with Mrs Nickell. She was strict but fair.
The words were handed out for the first song. It was easy enough and I was pretty sure I’d heard it before, so I sang up and out with confidence.
‘Nice job, Abby,’ said Mrs Nickell with approval when the song finished. ‘You’ll have to help the smaller children learn it.’
We sang along with two more songs, but halfway through the second one, Mrs Nickell stopped the CD player.
‘Buzz and Stella, you’re still talking. What you should be doing is singing. It’s not fair on the children who want to learn the songs if you two are distracting them. Stella, you can stay there. Buzz, you can come and sit by me.’
Buzz’s face went red and she moved quicker than you could say, ‘choir practice’, sitting by Mrs Nickell and looking at her shoes. Stella rolled her eyes and tried to catch Buzz’s eye, but she wasn’t looking up.
Finally, after we le
arned a third song—something about sparrows and robins and chirp, chirp, chirp—came the part of practice I was waiting for. Actually, I’d been waiting for it for three years, ever since I was in Year Three, and one of the most junior members of the school choir.
It was audition time.
‘As you know, we sing twelve songs with the other schools in a mass choir,’ explained Mrs Nickell. ‘But we get to choose our own songs to sing as special items, separately. This song will have some solo parts in it. As well as that, we get to put forward one child’s name as a feature soloist on the night.’
There it was.
The bit I’d been waiting for.
Soloist.
Since Year Three, I’d imagined myself, Abby Smart, as the soloist for mass choir night. I’d stood in front of the hundreds of parents, under the hot lights on the dark stage, waiting for the music to start, opening my mouth, and transporting them away just on the strength of my voice.
‘And as you also know,’ Mrs Nickell continued, ‘the soloist is traditionally a Year Six child.’
I hugged myself tight. Mostly to stop an eeeeek escaping from my mouth.
‘So let’s do the main soloist first. Who would like to try out this year?’
My hand wanted to shoot up but my brain told me to hold on, so I looked around first. None of the boys were keen. I could see boredom on Ollie’s face and fear on Sam’s. I sent him a raised-eyebrows look, like, You should try out, but he ignored me and looked away. Jessie looked pale, Stella was rolling her eyes yet again and Buzz was still looking at her shoes. The competition was mine for the taking, so I slid my hand up, in an oh-well-I’ll-give-it-a-go-if-you-think-I-should kind of way.
‘Well done, Abby,’ said Mrs Nickell. ‘Good job. It’s always good to give everything a go. I’ll write down your name and they’ll let me know when the auditions are.’ She wrote something on a piece of paper, shuffled through some other books and then looked up.
‘Now, children, for our school’s item, we’re going to be singing something that will need a small group of vocalists on the first verse. Everyone else will join in after that. Is there anyone who’d like to try out? Remember, Year Six children get priority.’
Again, I looked around the room. Ollie had his hands in his pockets and Sam still looked terrified. None of the boys were moving, for fear they might get picked. I reached my hand up again. ‘Mrs Nickell, Jessie, Buzz and I are used to singing together. We could do it.’
Mrs Nickell’s eyes lit up. ‘Yes, you do sound good together,’ she said. ‘I was at the Show. Jessie, Buzz? Do you want to?’
I went to my knees so I could see over everyone’s heads and made an imploring face at Jessie. ‘Pleeease?’ I said and her face went from totally no way to okay, but only because you want me to.
‘Buzz?’ I asked. ‘Will you?’
She shook her hair back. ‘Okay. I guess.’
My smile took over my face. ‘See, Mrs Nickell? We’ll do it, the three of us.’
A frown came across the teacher’s forehead. ‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘But there are four girls in Year Six. We don’t want to leave anyone out, do we?’ She looked up at Stella. ‘Would you like to give it a go too?’
I jerked my head back around, trying not to show my look of horror at the thought. Stella? As well? Surely she’d say no. Surely she’d think it was too daggy. I swung back to see what Buzz thought about it, but she was eager. She was nodding, mouthing, ‘Come on, let’s do it’. In terror, I swung back around to see how Stella was reacting, and it was even worse than I thought. Stella’s face was all big eyes and sweetness and light. And she was nodding. And looking shy!
‘Oh, if you don’t mind, Mrs Nickell,’ she said, with a happy, breathy smile. ‘I’d love to sing with the other girls. We are all friends, after all.’
‘Alright then. The Year Six girls. Altogether. Lovely.’ Mrs Nickell smiled at her.
I wanted to scream. Couldn’t she see that Stella didn’t really want to sing, that she was just putting on the charming act?
I gritted my teeth so tightly that they made little squeaky noises. The Year Three girl next to me looked alarmed so I patted her knee. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Just weird noises.’ She seemed relieved.
But Mrs Nickell was speaking again. ‘I guess you’d all like to know what the song is that we’ll be singing.’ She held up some papers with the blank side to us, as if to tease.
‘Well. This will be very exciting. And, girls, you are going to love it.’ She looked at me as she said it. I sat up straighter, curious.
‘After I saw you three sing at the Show, I went back through all my music and found this song. It’s from the musical, Annie! It’s the song “Maybe”.’
My chin dropped practically to the floor and all my angry feelings flew off my shoulders. ‘Maybe’? From Annie? Seriously, this is awesome, I thought.
‘That’s amazing, Mrs Nickell.’ The words shot out of my mouth before I could even get my hand up. Mrs Nickell gave me a disapproving look, but she let me continue. ‘I’m learning that song with my singing teacher.’
‘Even better,’ she said. ‘I’m sure we’re going to do a terrific job of it.’
I was happy all that day and all through the next morning, right up until lunchtime, when we started to practise the song.
And then I was angry all over again.
We learned the tune (obviously, I knew it already) and hummed it through with Mrs Nickell, and then she left us to practise on our own. That’s when it got bad. Because Stella was singing it like it was a happy song.
And that was not the way it was supposed to be.
‘It’s got to be sadder,’ I said, trying to be nice about it.
‘Sadder?’ said Jessie. ‘Like, we have to pretend we’re crying?’
‘Not crying,’ I said. ‘But just sadder in the voice. Less chirpy, you know?’
We tried it again. I was mournful. Jessie was sad. Buzz was neutral, and Stella was cheerful.
‘No offence, Stella,’ I said, ‘but I’ve learned this song with a professional singing teacher. You’re too happy. You have to feel sad when you sing it. It has to be from the heart.’
Stella took a step back and looked at me. ‘It’s just a song,’ she said. ‘We’re not acting. We’re singing.’ She rolled her eyes at Buzz. I ignored her.
‘Yeah, well, you’ve still got to get the mood right. Singing is acting, kind of.’
‘It’s just a stupid stage musical song, for a stupid choir night. Does it really matter? If we were singing a Beyoncé song, or some classic pop, I might care a bit more.’
I took a breath in. I felt like I’d been slapped. Beside me, Jessie was frozen, not breathing at all. I hardly knew what to say. ‘You wanted to do it. You should care.’
Stella collapsed in a disgusted heap on the floor and then lay stretched out like she wanted to relax. ‘I did not want to do it. Buzz talked me into it.’
Now I was shocked. ‘If you don’t want to do it, you shouldn’t do it.’
‘Well, you shouldn’t be so fussy. Or bossy.’ She stretched her hands out above her head. Her voice was relaxed. Kind of like she was laughing at me. ‘You’re so stressed out the whole time. Just chill. And anyway, Mrs Nickell’s the one in charge. If she says I should change the way I sing, then I will.’
Buzz sat down on the floor next to Stella, all relaxed as well.
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Calm down, Ab.’ And out of her pocket she pulled a tube of lip gloss. She smothered it all over her lips and made a fake kissing noise. ‘You don’t own singing, you know.’
Chapter 18
Everything was getting worse, and no one at all seemed to understand. Buzz, obviously, wasn’t on my side. Jessie hardly counted, given that she just followed along with Stella’s every word. Sam still wasn’t talking to me; I hadn’t seen him down at the
river for ages. And Miles was, well, just Miles.
The only people to talk to were Mum and Dad. And they didn’t get it.
‘Oh,’ said Mum, after I told her about how Stella was singing the song too cheerfully and I wished she wasn’t in the group. ‘But Annie’s a cheerful musical, isn’t it?’ Her eyebrows were folded in, like she was trying to put a puzzle together in her mind but couldn’t quite find the missing piece.
‘Is she singing flat?’ asked Dad, between bites of curry and rice. ‘If she’s flat, maybe Mrs Nickell could help her learn the notes. But she shouldn’t put her out of the group. It’s good for everyone to get a go.’
Mum smiled kindly at me, which just made me more annoyed. ‘Well, everyone’s going to enjoy it, anyway, Abby. We’ll be there. And we’ll clap at the end. It’ll be a great night.’
I let out a breath. They didn’t get it. No one did. The only person who would really understand what I was talking about was Francesca.
But when I went down to Francesca’s place the next day after school, climbed the stairs, sniffed the roses and knocked on the white door, even she wasn’t listening properly.
‘Oh, Abby, we will talk about this later,’ she said, with an enormous smile stretching from one side of her rosy face to the other. ‘I have some news. And you are going to love it!’
She did. And I did. Possibly even more than she thought.
The news, as Francesca explained to me, was this: her musician friends were trying to start some kind of musical society in the Highlands, just half-an-hour drive up the mountain from the Valley. They wanted to put on a concert.
‘… They’re looking for performers of every age,’ she said, her face shining. ‘All different voices and talent. It will be beautiful.’ She held her hands up to her heart. ‘And I tell them that you must be in it.’
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