Musical Star

by Rowan Coleman

  “That happens sometimes,” I said, patting her on the back. “It’s called freezing, and the only thing you can do about it is to cover it – and that’s exactly what we did because Adele saved the day!”

  The rest of the choir all cheered Adele who blushed like a berry.

  “You were amazing, all of you,” Mr Petrelli said. “But Adele, you are my hero. When we get back to school I’ll be recommending you for a commendation.”

  “Me?” Adele said in surprise, smiling and waving at her mum, who was coming across the room with Dakshima’s parents. “I’ve never had one of them.”

  “You deserve it,” I said. “I’m glad you threatened me on my first day at Highgate Comp, otherwise you and I might not have been friends now.”

  “I’m glad I threatened you too,” Adele said, before rushing off to hug her mum.

  “It’s odd,” I said to Dakshima once her parents and brothers and sisters had stopped telling how proud they were of her. “The judges are off deciding who to choose, but I sort of feel like we’ve come so far that we’ve already won.”

  “That is so lame,” Dakshima said. “Or is that a quote from The Underdogs?“

  “OK, I might be soppy,” I teased her, “but at least I didn’t freeze on stage.”

  “Don’t even talk about it!” Dakshima cringed. “If we don’t win it’s because of me.”

  “Don’t be crazy,” I said. “Remember what Sean actually does say in The Underdogs.“

  “If a little person has a big enough heart, then anything is possible,” we chorused.

  I expected some sort of heart pounding music. You know, the kind that goes Dum…Dum…Dummm… but as all eight choirs lined up for the results there was no music at all. I supposed they put it on afterwards. Instead there was near silence, peppered with nervous coughs and shuffling feet.

  “Well,” Simon Taylor said. “May I just say that you have all done yourselves proud today? Every single one of you has given it your best shot. Before we announce who the winners are, we need to tell you that the winning choirs will go straight from here to rehearsal and will be singing on tonight’s live show with the winning leads.”

  There was a gasp and some chatter from the waiting choirs, because even though we had already known that, hearing someone say it out loud made it feel almost close enough to touch.

  “But that’s just the start,” Simon Taylor told us. “If your choir is chosen to be part of the chorus of Spotlight! you will also win £20,000 for your school and go into rehearsal for next month’s televised charity premiere performance of Spotlight! The Musical.”

  I clapped and cheered along with everyone else.

  “So with out further ado,” Simon Taylor said, “let me hand over to your head judge, Miss Lillian Shoreditch!”

  This time there was a ripple of nervous applause.

  “This has been a very hard choice to make and on behalf of all the judges here I just want to say how impressed we are with all of the school choirs…”

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Dakshima said under her breath, as Lillian Shoreditch went on about the bright future for the musical arts in the UK. “Just tell us who’s won already!”

  “But there can only be one winner,” Lillian Shoreditch said. “And I am very pleased to announce that the winning choir, who won because of their obvious commitment and innovation, as well as their considerable talent, is Highgate Comprehensive!”

  The noise that erupted all around me was so loud that for a moment I stood stock still, not really certain of what I had heard at all. We all stared at each other for a split second before leaping about and cheering ourselves.

  “We did it!” Mr Petrelli yelled in a most unteacherly way. “We did it – woohoo!”

  Chapter Eleven

  We spent the next four hours on the set on the live show rehearsing our part, which was to accompany the finalists. But although we sang, the finalists didn’t. They just came and stood on their marks and walked through their choreography.

  Nydia waved at me like crazy when she saw me, now wearing black trousers and a black T-shirt with the Spotlight! logo on it like everyone else in the choir – now the chorus – had been given to wear for the show. When it was Anne-Marie’s turn she ignored me completely, but I didn’t take it personally. She had told me that morning that throughout the entire day she would be staying “in the zone”, which meant that she would be thinking about nothing except for the performance she was going to give that night. Once she was in the zone, she explained, she’d be ignoring pretty much everyone until she had finished her song.

  It took a while to calm us all down because we were so excited, but after four hours’ hard rehearsal with the legendary choreographer and singing coach Carmen Baptista, a scarily strict lady, we soon settled down. Especially after she told us that competition winners or not, if we didn’t come up to scratch she’d be booting our behinds out of the door faster than we could say “Spotlight”.

  “It feels a bit odd,” Mr Petrelli said, when we took a break from rehearsal. “Handing you over to someone else to put you through your paces.”

  “We’ll still need a ton of practice,” Talitha said.

  “Yeah, we’re only allowed to rehearse twice a week,” Gabe added. “I think we should still come to choir practice on Wednesday lunchtimes.”

  Mr Petrelli spent quite a long time trying not to look too pleased. “Well, I should think so too,” he said eventually. “I expect nothing less of you.”

  Just before the show was due to go live, we were sat in a section of the audience, ready to file out and take our places when the finalists came out. There were twelve of them including Danny, Jade, Anne-Marie, Nydia – three more girls and five more boys. There were four lead roles in the show – Arial, Sebastian, Serena and Jake and as I knew that two of those had already been cast I wondered which of the others would win. I really hoped that at least one of my friends would get the other female lead – but which one? And how would the one who got left out feel about not making it through? I was so confused about what I knew, it made my head hurt thinking about it. I just had to wait and see what happened. For now that was only thing that I could do.

  Then the show’s theme tune – a medley of songs from the show – was played in the studio and one of the production team gave the audience the signal to start cheering and clapping.

  I found myself clutching on to Dakshima’s hand, I was more nervous now than I had been when we were competing. I was nervous for Anne-Marie and Nydia – and especially Danny. What if something did go wrong? What if he was caught out on live TV as a cheat and I never did anything to prevent it, just because of that silly argument we’d had at his house?

  “Lay off, Ruby, you’re cutting off my circulation,” Dakshima whispered, prising my fingers off of hers.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Nerves.”

  “It’s not you who’s got to be nervous though,” Dakshima reminded me.

  The presenter, Brianna McCloud, came on in a sparkly gold dress and waited for the applause to die down.

  “Well, this is it,” she told the TV audience at home as she smiled into the camera lens like it was her best friend. “The moment we’ve all been waiting for, when we will find out who will be playing the leads in Spotlight! the new musical for young people. We’ve searched the country far and wide looking for the nation’s best talent under the age of sixteen, and after seeing more than eleven thousand hopefuls, we’ve picked out twelve finalists for you to choose from. It wasn’t an easy choice…here are just some of the stars of tomorrow that we met along the way.”

  The video package of auditions came up on a big screen in the studio and we watched as some of the best and worst people who’d tried out for the final were shown. Towards the end they flashed up a few seconds of Danny’s audition, and Dakshima and I looked at each other. He didn’t sound anything like he had on the actual day.

  “Wonderful,” Brianna said, looking up at the big screen before tu
rning back to the camera and giving it a twinkly smile. “So now let me introduce you to our panel of judges. First, the creator of all of those wonderful songs we know so well, now featuring in his amazing new show Spotlight! – it’s rock legend and musical genius, Mick Caruso!”

  Brianna waited for the applause to finish. “And at Mick’s side, as always, his best friend, successful theatre producer and recording breaking show impresario, Kevin Hillson!”

  “Kevin Hillson isn’t a very impresario type name, is it?” Dakshima whispered.

  “Takes all sorts,” I whispered back. “I wonder if he knows about the Auto-tune Miracle Microphone too?”

  “Bound to,” Dakshima said, before feeling heat from the glare that Carmen Baptista was sending our way. We pressed our lips together and looked straight ahead. We didn’t want to get into trouble with Carmen.

  “And finally, West End leading lady and worldwide recording star, Elaine Emmerson!”

  Dakshima and I looked at each other but we didn’t say a word. Carmen was still watching us.

  It seemed to take an age for Brianna to go through her chat with the judges, and then we had to watch another video package of the first hopeful. While that was being screened, Carmen gave the signal and we all filed past her (Dakshima and I keeping our eyes down) and on to our spots at the back of the set.

  The first finalist out was a girl from Stoke on Trent called Michaela Mathews and she was singing a song I had only learnt that afternoon, called ‘Starlight Dreams’.

  I sang along with the rest of the chorus as Michaela did her stuff, but I wasn’t really listening. I was trying to work out how long it would be until Danny came on. The line up went girl, boy, girl, boy, and Jade and Danny were the last two on, probably because the producers would have to adjust the sound equipment to allow for their ‘special’ microphones.

  The next boy, Callum Murphy, was really good and got loads of whoops and cheers from audience. Elaine Emmerson told him she could see him commanding the stage with no problem, despite the fact he was only fourteen.

  And then it was Nydia.

  This time she didn’t smile and wave at me as she walked out to take her place. I could tell she was nervous because as she picked up the microphone there was a slight tremor in her hand. But as soon as she started singing ‘Alone in a Crowd’ she was wonderful. As she finished the last line, the audience stood up and the cheering seemed to go on for so long that Brianna had to stop everyone in case the show ran over time and made Match of the Day late.

  Mick Caruso told Nydia that it lifted his heart to see such a versatile young actress. He hoped the audience at home would see it wasn’t Nydia’s TV profile that got her a place in the final, it was her amazing voice.

  Hypocrite, I thought, as Nydia walked off beaming.

  Another boy, David Rubenfeld, and then the next girl, Elizabeth Ashley, went on, and the more I waited for Danny’s turn, the less real it seemed that I was standing in a TV studio that millions of people were viewing live. I tried to imagine being at home and watching me on TV, but it made my head hurt. Besides, as Danny’s turn got nearer I began to feel a little queasy.

  Looking amazing with her blonde curls bouncing and in a wonderful pair of jeans that glittered with sequins, Anne-Marie came on to sing. She’d been given ‘Spotlight’ and as it was the number that Mick Caruso was planning to release as a single, she knew she had to give it everything.

  She was fantastic, moving around the stage, dancing as she sang with total confidence and flair, something that none of the other finalists had done, not even Nydia. Although Nyds had a stronger voice than Anne-Marie, she wasn’t quite as much of a performer as my other best friend. Finally out of her zone, Anne-Marie grinned and winked at me as she walked off, and I knew she was pleased with how she’d done.

  Just before Jade’s turn there was a video package of the choir’s competition. We all watched ourselves on the big screen as they showed clips of our audition, including Dakshima’s stone cold terrified face as she realised she’d forgotten everything and Adele stepping in, which made the crowd laugh and then cheer, and Dakshima blush under Carmen Baptista’s scrutiny.

  Then Mick introduced Jade, telling everyone that although he’d offered her the lead role of Arial from the very start, and even though he’d really created the musical for her and to give young people like her a chance to shine, she had wanted to prove that she deserved the part and not have it handed to her on a plate like everyone would expect.

  Jade came out and performed the simplest song for the show, ‘Only a Girl’.

  Her voice came out of the sound system clear and strong, soaring through the high notes and powerful in the emotional bits, yet soft and sweet right at the very end. Jade seemed to sing brilliantly, and there was no doubt that she had talent as an actress. But that voice wasn’t her real voice, and as people were judging her on it, that wasn’t fair. Did Jade know about the microphone, I wondered? I was sure that she did, because I knew Jade was as ruthless as she was ambitious. She wouldn’t have the same kind of standards that Danny would have if he found out about how he was being manipulated. The microphone was probably even her idea.

  When Danny finally came on the audience erupted. Banners were produced, fan clubs chanted and it took Brianna a long time to calm them down.

  They played a video package of an interview with Danny where he talked about working on Kensington Heights and his brush with pop stardom. He talked about how he didn’t think he stood a better chance than any of the other kids in the competition just because he was already well known and had had a number one single. I watched Danny on the big screen, his dark hair flopping into his eyes as he explained that talent was all that really counted in the end, and that either you had it or you didn’t, and it was impossible to fake. He really meant that, I knew that he did.

  I looked at Dakshima and crossed the fingers on both hands as Danny came out.

  His song was ‘Love Gets it Wrong Every Time’.

  As he opened his mouth to sing the opening line, I held my breath. But I needn’t have worried because the sound that came out of the speakers was wonderful, even better than the voice on his number one single. Apart from anything else you could hardly hear him because the moment he started his fans leapt to their feet and started screaming and cheering. A few of them even cried!

  At the end, Mick Caruso looked Danny right in the eye and said, “You were on the money there, son. You can never hide true talent – and you’ve proved that.”

  Brianna turned to the camera and listed the numbers that the people at home had to call to register their votes, and then suddenly the credits were rolling and the studio relaxed. We had a forty-five minute break until the results show.

  “You may go to the bathroom,” Miss Baptista informed the chorus. “And then straight back. As you know, in the results show you will be singing with the winning leads, so I want you in your places looking bright as buttons in good time.”

  Most of us didn’t move for a second. “Go! Go!” Carmen told us. “And no lingering!”

  “No lingering?” Dakshima said, as we hurried to the toilets even though we didn’t really want to go. “Who’d want to linger in a bog?”

  As we stood in the queue Anne-Marie and Nydia raced up to me and hugged me – both at once, almost knocking me off of my feet.

  “You won!” Nydia exclaimed happily.

  “And now we’re going to work together again,” Anne-Marie said, kissing me and then Dakshima on the cheek. Wrinkling her nose, Dakshima wiped her hand across her cheek. She wasn’t really a kissy-kissy sort of girl, but Anne-Marie was on such a high I was sure she didn’t notice.

  “Not for sure,” Nydia reminded Anne-Marie, grimacing and crossing her fingers. “We might not both get through – and Jade was actually pretty good.”

  “Jade was rubbish – no sensible person would vote for her. So of course we’ll get through,” Anne-Marie said happily. “I was brilliant and so were you. I won
der what boys we’ll get to play opposite us? Even Danny was really good tonight. All those singing lessons he’s had have really paid off.”

  “Annie!” Nydia warned. “You’re tempting fate.”

  “Nonsense,” Anne-Marie said, spotting Sean at the end of the corridor. “I’m making fate. Positive thinking works every time. That’s how come I’ve got the Sean Rivers as a boyfriend.”

  “Hey,” Sean said, looking rather embarrassed to be greeting us in the line to the loo. “Well done, you guys!”

  “Thanks, Sean,” I said. “I still actually can’t believe it – yay us!”

  “And I was brilliant, wasn’t I?” Anne-Marie told Sean happily.

  “Yes, you were,” Sean told Anne-Marie, winking at me so that Anne-Marie dug him playfully in the ribs.

  “Everyone was really good. Danny and Jade have really been working hard.”

  “It could have been you, you know,” Anne-Marie said, smiling at Sean. “You could have wiped the floor with those boys out there, even Danny.”

  “Me?” Sean laughed. “Have you ever heard me sing?”

  “Well, no,” Anne-Marie said. “I suppose not.”

  “And there’s reason for that. I am a dreadful singer.”

  Sean’s laugh echoed down the corridor and an entire queue of girls who had been trying really hard to act cool nearly melted into one massive puddle on the floor.

  “Come on,” Anne-Marie said, taking Sean’s hand. “Let’s go and get something to drink. I’m parched. And by the way, I bet you could sing if you tried…” Anne-Marie blew us a kiss as she towed her boyfriend away, watched by a dozen wistful girls.

  “That was Sean Rivers,” Talitha said, dreamy eyed.

  “He is soooo cute,” Hannah sighed.

  “Pull it together, girls,” Dakshima said. “He’s only a guy, after all!”

  “A guy your bedroom walls are a shrine to,” Talitha said.