Musical Star

by Rowan Coleman

  “You’re right,” I said, feeling more nervous about talking to Danny than I did singing solo. “I have to tell him. There’s only one problem.”

  “What’s that?” Dakshima asked me as we filed into the class.

  “If I tell him that means I’ll actually have to talk to him,” I said. “And I’m not entirely sure I can do that.”

  Standing outside Danny’s house later that day, I looked up at his bedroom window. The curtains were drawn and the light was on, so he was in.

  I suppose I could have phoned or texted him first, but I didn’t want him to know that I still had his number programmed into my phone, and that anyway, even if I didn’t, I knew it off by heart. Besides, I got the feeling that if he knew I was coming then he wouldn’t be in – after all, why would he want to see me?

  Still, now I was here, the thought of knocking on the door and going through with it, never mind actually having to talk to him with actual words, made me feel queasy. He could be in there with Melody, or even Jade. He could be plotting his next evil master plan to conquer to the world of musicals despite his total lack of singing talent at that very moment…and then I stopped.

  This was Danny, I reminded myself. He always stood up for what he believed in, even when he was completely wrong. That was one of the best and most annoying things about him. I rang the doorbell and had to glue my feet to the step to stop myself from running away in the twenty or so seconds it took for someone to come and open the door.

  Danny’s mum appeared, her tense expression melting when she saw it was me.

  “Hello, Ruby,” she said, her voice warm and friendly. “We haven’t seen you in such a long time. Come on in. Danny’s upstairs going over his audition piece again and I’m sure he’d appreciate a break from all that noise…singing, I mean, and an expert opinion like yours.” She lowered her voice. “I must be tone deaf, Ruby. I can’t hear what everyone else can when he’s practising here at home. But don’t tell him I said that, OK? He’s nervous enough as it is.”

  I nodded and stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at them as if at the top was a very high precipice I was about to throw myself off.

  “Well, go up then,” Danny’s mum prompted me, wincing as Danny missed a particularly high note.

  Desperately wishing that I hadn’t come round at all and wondering what had ever possessed me to have such a bad idea, I started heavily up the stairs. It was the longest walk of my life, longer than any red carpet or corridor leading to an audition. After briefly considering climbing out through the bathroom window and shinning down a drainpipe, I took a breath, steeled myself, knocked on his door and waited.

  “Come in,” Danny said. And when I appeared, he dropped the sheet music he was holding. “Oh, Ruby! Ruby – um, hi, hello…I didn’t expect to see you.”

  “I can go…” I began backing away.

  “No, no, don’t. Not if you don’t want to…either way – whatever,” Danny said, and then, “Come in and sit down.”

  I sat down at his paper strewn desk and swivelled the chair to look at him.

  The trouble with Danny was that he was still really cute. If the world was a fair place, the moment he dumped me he should have grown enormous ears, had all his hair fall out and got terrible acne. But he didn’t. He was just as fit as he had been when I first realised I liked him. The world, I knew now, was not a fair place.

  “So,” Danny said stiffly. “How can I help you?”

  “Help me?” I asked him. “You make it sound like I’ve come to buy a pair of shoes or something.”

  “Did I?” Danny said. “I didn’t mean to. I just didn’t expect to see you. Like you and I were still friends. I mean, are we?”

  “I…I don’t know, Danny,” I said. “I’ve never tried being friends with an ex-boyfriend before.”

  Danny gave me a hint of a smile that made my heart feel as if someone was squeezing it really hard. “I’d really like to have you around again, Ruby,” he said. I was silent for what seemed like forever until Danny added, “As a friend, of course.”

  “OK, well…” I had no idea how to steer the conversation around to what I wanted to tell him and now he had brought up the whole “liking me as a friend thing” it seemed even harder.

  “Are you nervous about Saturday?” I asked. “Singing live in front of millions of people must be scary. Then again, I suppose you’ve done it before so you’ll be fine.”

  “I haven’t actually sung live on TV before,” Danny said, looking worried. “When I did live performances of ‘You Take Me To…’ I always mimed along to the recording. I am nervous about it. Mum says when I practise my song here that my voice doesn’t sound anything like it does on the recording and I agree with her. In my head it sounds terrible. But I went to the dress rehearsal last night and they wired me up to the mike and I sounded completely different, really good. I guess that what I hear in my head isn’t what everyone else hears – do you find that?”

  “Um,” I said. “Look, Danny, the thing is—”

  “Ruby,” Danny interrupted me, “I know what you’re going to say…”

  “You do?” I asked. “When? How did you find out?”

  “Well, you coming round made it pretty obvious,” Danny said. “The thing is, I don’t know if now it’s the right time. I mean, I’ve got the live final coming up and Melody is already really upset about not getting through. I do feel the same way, but maybe we should wait a while.”

  I blinked at him. “Wait – what’s obvious?”

  “You want to go out with me again,” Danny said, smiling and taking my hand.

  “What? You thought I came round here for that?” I said, standing up and snatching my hand back, swooshing a few of his papers to the floor.

  “Well, didn’t you?” Danny asked me, frowning deeply.

  “No I did not!” I yelled at him. “Honestly, Danny Harvey, since you started on Kensington Heights and had a Christmas number one, you think the world revolves around you!”

  “Really?” Danny said, waving his rolled up sheet music at me. “And what about you? You think you are the centre of the universe—”

  “I don’t!” I protested.

  “Disappear off to Hollywood, start up a career, and when that all goes wrong, stick your head in the sand and expect us all to feel sorry for you while you pretend you aren’t who you are. You said you wanted to give up acting, Ruby, but dropping out of the Academy has to be one of the most drama queen things you’ve ever done!”

  “You…I…grrrrrrr.”

  Yes, I actually growled at Danny Harvey. I was so furious with him for being so right and so wrong about me at exactly the same time.

  “I don’t know why I even bother, Danny!” I shouted at him. “You make a fool of yourself in front of eight million people. I don’t care, and you know what else?”

  “What?” Danny said crossing his arms.

  “I’d rather nail my hand to the floor than go out with you again,” I told him.

  “Good,” he said.

  “Good,” I said.

  And then I ran down the stairs and out of the front door as fast as I could.

  “Not staying for tea, Ruby?” I heard his mum call out after me as I fled.

  “Love Gets it Wrong Every Time“

  Words and music by Mick Caruso

  I’ve had my heart broken a hundred times

  Trampled by a thousand cruel crimes

  But when I saw you I thought my luck had finally changed

  You smiled at me and my life rearranged

  I thought you were the one who would finally be mine!

  But now I know…

  Love gets it wrong every time.

  Love gets it wrong!

  I made a mistake when I trusted you with my heart

  Love gets it wrong!

  I should have known that you lied from the start!

  Love gets it wrong!

  But now I understand that you’ll never be mine

 
Because love gets it wrong every time.

  You lured me in with your smile

  Planning how you’d hurt me all the while

  I really believed every single word that you said

  But you lied, and now I can’t get you out of my head.

  I was so wrong when I thought that you would be mine

  Because now I know…

  Love gets it wrong every time.

  Love gets it wrong!

  I made a mistake when I trusted you with my heart

  Love gets it wrong!

  I should have known that you lied from the start!

  Love gets it wrong!

  But now I understand that you’ll never be mine

  Because love gets it wrong every time.

  Chapter Ten

  “He said what?” Dakshima asked me as we climbed into the minibus that was taking us to the studio for the choir competition finals.

  “That he thought I went round there to ask him back out,” I exclaimed still outraged.

  “And did you?”

  “No, I did not…” I replied with some consternation, before glancing over my shoulder and lowering my voice. “You know why I went round there.”

  “Oh, OK,” Dakshima said. “I just thought that might have been cover for you wanting to ask him back out.”

  “It was your idea for me to go round!” I exclaimed loudly enough to make Mr Petrelli look at me.

  “Focus please, Ruby,” he said. “Today is one of the most important days of our lives. It’s up to us to use the hard work we’ve put in to the best possible advantage and show the judges that we’ve got what they are looking for. It will be an incredible achievement if we beat all the other choirs to become part of the chorus on

  Spotlight! but I really think we can do it. We’ve already shown them that we are more than a choir, we’re performers!” We all whooped and cheered. “So let’s go and show them what we can do!” Mr Petrelli shouted quite loudly.

  “OK!” we all yelled in response, clapping and cheering as the minibus pulled out of the school car park. I waved at Mum and Dad who had decided to go to the competition together and were going to meet me at the TV studios.

  “So, what did he say?” Dakshima asked me, as we turned the corner on to the High Road.

  “Who?” I asked her, chewing my thumbnail and thinking about my solo.

  “Danny. What did Danny say?” Dakshima asked me.

  “I told you,” I said with exasperation. “He thought I’d gone round to get back with him—”

  “No, what did he say when you told him about the Auto-tune Miracle thingummy,” Dakshima interrupted me before I could tell her the whole story again.

  “Oh, I…sort of…didn’t exactly tell him,” I said staring nonchalantly out of the window.

  “You didn’t tell him?” Dakshima repeated, looking far more surprised than I thought was appropriate.

  “Well, I got so mad,” I explained. “I was so mad that I actually growled like an angry dog, and I thought, well, fine, if he thinks he is so great, then what can I do to change that? Nothing, so why tell him?”

  “Okey-dokey,” Dakshima said slowly. “Well…I guess it’s too late now.”

  “Yes, it is,” I said, desperate to justify what I’d done, or rather hadn’t done. “And anyway, he’s better off not knowing. He’ll go on stage tonight and everyone will think he’s wonderful and he’ll get the lead in the show and he’ll be happy. Deluded, but happy, and why should I even care?”

  “Unless…” Dakshima said.

  “Unless what?”

  “Sometimes equipment has a habit of going wrong,” she said menacingly.

  “Dakshima! You wouldn’t sabotage Danny’s microphone, would you?” I asked, scandalised. “I mean, I know he’s a pig and everything, but if something happened while he was singing in front of all of those people, that would just be awful. I’d never do that to him!”

  “Of course I wouldn’t,” Dakshima said. “I am not an evil genius. Anyway, I only said that to check how you reacted and it’s exactly as I thought – you are so not over Danny Harvey.”

  “I so am,” I protested. “And anyway, what’s done is done. Now is the time to focus on today. We’ll forget about the microphone, Danny and Jade and everything. All we should think about is giving the best performance we possibly can.”

  “And winning,” Dakshima added.

  “And maybe even winning,” I agreed, feeling the nerves bunching in my tummy. “Just maybe.”

  There were eight choirs in the competition final, which was going to be filmed in the TV studio next door to where the live TV show would be broadcast later on in the day. The choir competition was to be cut and edited into the main show later. That meant that the studio lights were bright and hot and there were TV cameras everywhere.

  As I felt the warmth of the lights on my face I realised what was different between me and the other kids from Highgate Comprehensive. Here in the TV studio I felt at home, with the lights, the equipment, crew and even the smell. More than that, I hadn’t realised how much I missed the sense of anticipation that something exciting was about to happen.

  The others behaved very differently. The boys, led by Gabe and Rohan, started acting the fool in front of the unmanned cameras, and a few of the girls – Adele in particular – were frightened of the whole set up. It was the cameras that freaked them out, and the thought of being on the other end of what they usually saw beamed into their the sitting rooms at home.

  “Just try to ignore them,” I told Adele as she stared at one that was right in front of the stage we’d be singing on.

  “How can I ignore that?” Adele asked. “It’s massive and it’s looking right at me with one evil eye.”

  “It’s just a machine,” I said. “And behind it is just the cameraman, the director, the editor – that’s all.”

  “That many?” Adele asked me, wide eyed.

  “That’s a lot less than we sang in front of in the first round,” I said. “Come on, Adele, just think of them all as a bit of equipment, nothing more.”

  “I suppose,” Adele said uncertainly.

  “That’s the spirit,” I said, clapping her on the back.

  I looked around at the studio. There were school choirs from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the South West, the South East, the Midlands, the North and us. We were the London choir.

  The choir from Northern Ireland had had the same costume idea as ours, except theirs all matched. I thought our variations were more authentic. Plus, since we won the London heat, we’d been working on a few more dance steps to make us seem even more like a proper chorus. Nydia and Anne-Marie, who were real dancers, had helped us with that. Since we got through the heat I really started to believe that we actually could win the place in the chorus line of the show and I’d even let myself start to be excited by the thought. It would be perfect, because I’d be there, on stage and in a show, part of something that I love so much and yet nobody would be looking especially at me. Nobody would notice if I got it wrong or if I wasn’t good enough. No one would be able to judge me like they had done so cruelly in Hollywood.

  “This is what’s going to happen,” the director, Sam Taylor, told all of us. “We’ll be running the competition as live and filming all of it. That means no stopping, no second takes or second chances. You all have to do your best the first time, OK? You will perform your songs in the allocated order, the judges will comment and then you’ll be moved into the holding area to await the results. Any questions?”

  Adele’s hand hovered hesitantly in the air.

  “Yes?”

  “Can I go to the toilet, please?”

  Click…click…click, five, six, seven, eight and reach, and reach. I wasn’t thinking about anything else except for the steps that we had worked out to go with ‘Alone in a Crowd.’ Step and step and step and pivot.

  I assumed my position at the front right-hand of the stage area while I waited for Talitha, Hann
ah and Dakshima to sing their parts. Talitha went first, and then took one, two, three steps, touching Hannah on the arm. Hannah started to sing and then came forward and tapped Dakshima on the arm.

  Dakshima did not move.

  There was a split second when everything nearly went horribly wrong. I looked at Dakshima and I realised that despite all of her tough talking and confidence, she was caught in the glare of the spotlight and somehow it had frozen her solid.

  Oh no, I began to think, but before I could even frame the words in my mind I heard another voice singing. Adele walked forward into Dakshima’s light like she was born to be the centre of attention, and put all the power and passion she had into the lines that were supposed to be Dakshima’s. And as she sang, she put her arm around Dakshima, breaking the spell of the spotlight, and the two of them sang together as they walked over to me. Only seconds had passed and yet I had felt I had been on a rollercoaster ride, my heart was beating so hard – and now it was my turn to sing solo.

  Well, after that I knew I couldn’t let them down.

  And then suddenly it was over. The performance that would either win the school the prize and get us into the show, or send us home tonight, was finished and there was nothing else we could do to change it now.

  I was surprised by how much I cared about what happened next, because if I was honest it wasn’t just the choir and the school I wanted to win it for, it was for me too. I wanted to be a part of my dream again. Even if it was just a very little and unimportant part. I knew it would fill the gap that had been there ever since I had given up acting. Even if it was only for a while.

  “You were so good,” my mum said, coming over and hugging me.

  “You were all fantastic,” Dad said, giving the rest of the choir a thumbs-up.

  “I wasn’t,” Dakshima said flatly. “I nearly ruined it for all of us. I don’t know what happened. I was ready and confident, and then my moment came and nothing happened. I forgot the words, the steps, the tune. I forgot what my name was for a second!”