Accidental Superstar

by Marianne Levy

  She nodded.

  ‘And . . . ’ I said, slightly not wanting to know the answer, ‘are there people . . . out there . . . on the internet . . . watching?’

  Jaz nodded again. And as she did so, I heard a chant begin.

  ‘KA-TIE. KA-TIE. KA-TIE.’

  ‘Better go and do the second half,’ said Adrian.

  ‘But . . . I can’t,’ I said. ‘This was supposed to be just us. Now it’s everyone. Everyone except . . .’

  ‘Except who?’ said Mum.

  ‘Except Lacey,’ I whispered.

  ‘I did try to get her here,’ said Jaz, looking surprisingly defensive. ‘Even though she’s an annoying drip with stupid hair. I did try.’

  Which gave me an idea. ‘I’ve got one more chance,’ I said. ‘Give me my phone.’ And then I texted:

  Hey Lace. We’re not friends any more and I get it. I don’t deserve u.

  But look, can u get to Vox Vinyl ASAP? This is the last thing I’ll eva ask, I promise.

  I need u 2 cut me a fringe

  ‘That’ll do it?’ said Jaz, looking over my shoulder.

  ‘KA-TIE. KA-TIE. KA-TIE.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Come on. I’d better finish this.’

  She didn’t come. I sang Cake Boyfriend and Honour Your Waist and London Yeah and Mobility Scooting on the Pavement. Then there was just one song left.

  ‘Just Me!’ shouted Devi. And then they were all at it. ‘JUST ME! JUST ME!’

  And I raised my eyes and looked into the audience to see that . . .

  Adrian and Mands had gone from the front row.

  Walked out.

  Abandoned me.

  Mum was looking at her feet.

  And Lacey still wasn’t there.

  It was just me.

  And I thought, some things you just can’t forgive.

  And they shouldn’t forgive me. Because I’d been stupid to show off like this. Stupid to think that getting up in front of everyone would help.

  My guitar began to slip from my arms.

  ‘’Scuse me.’ It was Adrian, emerging from the stockroom with an armful of drum kit.

  Mands was clambering on to the teeny bit of stage that was left, slinging on one of Adrian’s bass guitars. Jaz was coming up past me, drumsticks in her hands and now – now it was just like my bedroom – only, without . . . without . . .

  It was at that moment that we all heard this rumble, far away at first, then gathering into a roar. Outside the people jumped apart, as something . . . someone . . . came hurtling through the crowd, scattering phones this way and that like glowing Lego bricks.

  And then I saw what it was . . . and it was like . . . it was like . . . it wasn’t like anything I have ever seen or heard or imagined.

  It was Lacey, being carried along above the mass of bodies, half surfing, half flying, while something – someone – charged through, ramming a path to the door.

  Finally, as they broke through to the front, I saw.

  Bleeding from a scratch above the eye, hair crazy, eyes basically feral . . .

  Lacey was riding Nicole from year eleven.

  And it was magnificent.

  Adrian was holding a tambourine.

  And as Lacey reached out her hand, I knew it was going to be all right.

  ‘Yikes,’ said Lacey, staring down at her phone. ‘Have you seen this? You have to see this.’

  COX IN CONCERT

  She shot to fame with her homemade video of the gloriously cheeky Just Me, then vanished from view. But last night Katie Cox made a return to our computer screens with an intimate, live-streamed, one-off concert.

  Cox seemed nervous at first, her hands visibly shaking. But after a few stumbles, she got into her stride with a set so electrifying, so well-crafted and so heartfelt that the early jitters were quickly forgotten. Family matters came up again and again, perhaps most memorably in the plaintively lovely Autocorrect. And then there was a somewhat strange song titled Cake Boyfriend, much appreciated by the audience but somewhat lost on this critic.

  Explaining the recent disappearance of the video that made her name, Cox said that she’d recorded Just Me as a single with the uber-label Top Music (home to the likes of Karamel and Crystal Skye) but that her track had inexplicably been held from release.

  Indeed, it was the teen anthem Just Me that finished the set, with the backing of the same rag-tag group that had featured on that bedroom recording. Was it as good as the video watched by two million people?

  No. If they’d rehearsed even once since making the original, then it didn’t show. Endearingly, this did not seem to matter to Cox, whose smile lit up the room even as her song was abandoned before the second verse.

  And perhaps it’s that smile that so appeals to her fans. A number of different recordings of the concert exist, of varying quality, but a rough tally of their views thus far shows that from an initial audience of a few hundred, the show has already been downloaded more than 900,000 times.

  Amid a frenzy of press interest, CEO of Top Music Tony Topper vehemently denied that the single Just Me had been shelved, saying, ‘There must have been some kind of miscommunication. I adore Katie. We had a terrific time in the studio and she’s back in soon to talk about her album. We couldn’t be more excited.’

  So basically, it was the next day and we were at school, sitting around the back of the labs, sharing out a bar of chocolate that Jaz said she’d pinched from Aldi. Only, I found a receipt in the bottom of the bag, so, you know. Jaz says she’s an anarchist who doesn’t live by the rules but someone paid for that Green and Black’s with exact change.

  ‘The best bit was when that girl got arrested for trying to kick the door down,’ said Jaz.

  ‘The best bit was when you said nice stuff about me,’ said Lacey.

  They were both good, although I have to say the girl trying to whack through the back door with steel toe-capped boots while screaming my name was a little worrying until the police got it sorted.

  Anyway, though, they were wrong. The best bit was when I was putting my guitar away and I saw Adrian slip his arm around Mum’s waist and she didn’t shrug him off or anything.

  There were loads of great bits that night, and I hope it doesn’t sound like showing off or anything but I do want to say them because they are important.

  The first was that I barely saw Amanda for the rest of the evening because they kept the shop open after I’d finished and everyone was asking her where they could get my songs, which obviously they couldn’t. Only, Mands didn’t let that worry her in the slightest and was getting people to sign up for her mailing list and promising another concert at the same time next week and recommending albums here, there and everywhere, and best of all, people were actually buying them. I even heard one guy saying that he was pleased that Harltree had finally opened up a music shop because he’d been waiting long enough.

  All while Amanda was rushing around in this happy blur, Mum and Adrian were off talking in the stockroom, and when I put my head around the door to see about maybe going to McDonald’s or something I found them kissing. I screamed, obviously, and said it was the most disgusting thing I’d ever seen, to which Mum gave me the finger. While still mid lip-lock.

  Mum rocks.

  After all that the rest of the night was a bit of an anticlimax, to be honest, as we waited around for the street to empty out and Lacey remembered about the fringe cutting and got stuck in with her scissors.

  Eventually it rained and everyone went off and we got in the car and drove home, where we found that a big new leak had appeared in the roof and part of the hall ceiling was now on the hall floor.

  Weirdly, though, after all that craziness, and the fact that the house really did seem to be doing its best to fall down around our ears, I slept incredibly well that night. And even though I was woken up early by Adrian banging on my bedroom door, which meant he must have stayed over to finish what he and Mum had started in the stockroom, which is revolting
, I felt this amazing sense of peace.

  ‘Katie, can you get up?’ He leaned around the door. ‘We need to have a chat about something. Everything. Up you get, Katie, I’ve put the kettle on.’

  He had also put on Mum’s flowery dressing gown, which was such a crime against humanity that I said I would only come down if he got dressed. I did say it in a nice way, though.

  Well, fairly nice.

  Half an hour later and we were a reasonably OK-looking pair sitting at the kitchen table eating leftover Chinese takeaway, although not the rice, because as I told Adrian, you shouldn’t eat leftover rice. Nicole once half heated up some egg fried special and puked so hard that bits of her stomach came out and she had to go on a drip.

  ‘Right. I –’ He saw my hair. ‘Oh God. I’d forgotten about that.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, feeling around on my forehead. ‘It’ll probably be OK once I’ve styled it. I hope.’

  ‘You think?’ said Adrian.

  ‘No,’ I admitted. ‘But it was worth it to have Lacey back. Anyway, what’s the drama?’

  ‘I’ve had a message from Tony,’ said Adrian. ‘Quite a few, actually.’

  Bear in mind that it was still eight thirty in the morning.

  He held out his phone. ‘Want to listen?’

  ‘Not really,’ I said.

  ‘Sure?’ said Adrian. When he saw that I wasn’t going to take it, he carried on talking. ‘He was calling to say that he was sorry if you and he had a bit of a misunderstanding in his office the other day . . .’

  Which made me sit right up, I can tell you. ‘There was nothing to misunderstand! He was very clear.’

  ‘Well,’ said Adrian, sticking his fork into a sweet and sour chicken ball that I’d had my eye on, ‘Tony was very clear to me, too. Your single is out.’

  My mouth went slack, so it’s probably just as well I hadn’t eaten it.

  ‘Out out? As in, for people to buy?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘But . . . why?’

  ‘Doesn’t look good, big music man bullying a teenager. I don’t think he had any choice. Especially not once Karamel came out in your support.’

  ‘Karamel?’ Savannah would freak.

  ‘There’s been a bit of interest in your concert, too. In fact, there’s been a bit of interest altogether. Online petitions, people calling from the papers . . . You should probably take a look.’

  ‘I’m going to have a break from the internet for a few days,’ I told him, at which he nodded and said that was probably a good idea and he could see why I would want to but maybe not these few days.

  Then the front door went and it was a delivery bloke with an enormous bunch of flowers. Not to sound ungrateful, because no one had ever sent me flowers before so it was really pretty excellent, but they looked a bit too big and exotic for our house. As if we’d pinched them from a hotel. There were handmade chocolate truffles, too (and I’m never going to be down on truffles), plus a card which said:

  To Katie

  With love from all at Top Music

  It was signed by a load of people I didn’t know and there, in the bottom corner, Tony. The nerve!

  I almost admired him.

  Almost.

  ‘So what are you going to do?’ said Lacey, who was attempting to make a daisy chain and, I have to say, failing.

  ‘Well, I’ve got detention every night for the next week for skiving. Even though McAllister said she liked the concert. Can’t have liked it that much, can she?’

  ‘I meant about the music stuff,’ said Lacey.

  ‘Oh. That.’ Somehow, I was finding it all a bit difficult to say. ‘They want me to go back and talk about doing an album.’

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘Do you want to be on it, Lace?’

  ‘Seriously?’ said Lacey.

  ‘Seriously,’ I said, and I meant it, too.

  ‘Then, no, not really. Those music people sound horrible. But –’ she gave my knee a squeeze – ‘thanks for asking.’

  ‘We’re having this big fight with them because they are saying it has to be in school time and we’re not going to take any days off.’

  ‘You have the option to miss school and you’re not even taking it? You are mad,’ said Mad Jaz.

  ‘Adrian’s probably right,’ I admitted. ‘He was bang on about all the other stuff.’

  ‘So he’s your manager again? I thought you hated him.’

  ‘He’s fine,’ I said.

  At which point I got a bit embarrassed and ducked my head, because I really don’t like going back on myself like that. Luckily, I don’t think anyone noticed.

  We all sat there for a while, and I heard the people talking in the dining hall and the seagulls that hang out on the playing field and some year sevens having a fight, and I felt, sort of, happy. Like I was in the right place, for a change. That the people I was with were the right people, and more than that, I was the right person. Which I hadn’t experienced since the divorce. In fact, not for months and months.

  ‘Give us a quid, babes,’ said Savannah.

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘I’m downloading your single, but I’m not paying for it.’

  It would have been nice for her to have made this clear before she’d hit BUY, which I was about to tell her, when she gasped.

  ‘What? Actually, don’t tell me. I’m thinking I need a few days screen-free . . .’

  ‘Number two.’

  ‘Number two what?’

  ‘Just Me is at number two.’

  ‘You are literally making no sense right now.’

  ‘You’re at number two. In the iTunes chart. Between Karamel and Taylor Swift.’

  ‘Show me.’

  She did.

  There was Just Me, with my name underneath in those neat grey letters, looking so incredibly proper. And there was a little picture of my face, a still from the video, with my mouth open.

  Huh.

  Was I ready? No. Not even slightly.

  Was it what I wanted?

  Not any more than I had to start with.

  Probably, in some ways, quite a lot less.

  There was only one way to deal with this.

  ‘Lacey,’ I said, ‘can I come over to yours tonight? I quite want to watch Mean Girls.’

  ‘Mean Girls! I’ll be there,’ said Jaz.

  To which Lacey folded her arms and said, ‘Er, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Please?’ said Jaz.

  ‘Why?’ said Lacey.

  Jaz looked away and said, ‘You two seem like you have fun together.’

  I thought: It must be pretty lonely being Jaz. Having to be mad all the time, when occasionally you just want to hang out and eat chips.

  And then I thought how lucky I was to have Lacey back as my BFF, and I gave her a look that said, Let’s open up the arms of friendship to someone less fortunate than we are, even though she is a bit mental sometimes.

  ‘All right, you can come,’ said Lacey.

  Which must be the first time one of my faces has worked. Ever.

  ‘But don’t steal anything,’ said Lacey. ‘And don’t record us on your phone and stick it online, and don’t wind up my mum because I’ve already had my allowance suspended for the last two weeks in a row and there are things I need to buy.’

  Jaz said she wouldn’t.

  Savannah flicked her hair.

  Nicole was attempting to remove her cuticles with a vegetable peeler.

  And I tried to imagine all those people listening to my song, and watching the concert, all those pairs of eyes in bedrooms and on buses and maybe sitting out behind the labs at their schools too, the millions of invisible connections between me and them, between my words and their ears, and for a second, just a second, I thought maybe I could.

  And then the whole thing dissolved and it was just me, and Lacey, and Jaz and Nicole and Sofie and Savannah and Paige. And Amanda, over at the shop, sending out the first message to her new mailing list, and Mum and Adrian
ringing the builders and probably doing something disgusting too.

  I suppose I knew that things were about to change, but in my head, just for that second, I pressed PAUSE on the moment, so I could enjoy it. Come back and live in it, sometimes, when things got difficult, which I knew they would. But having one moment where everything was in balance, maybe that would make it OK.

  And then I thought: Wow.

  That’s a great idea for a song.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Marianne Levy spent her twenties as an actor. She was in various TV shows, did some comedy on Radio 4 and made a brief appearance in the film Ali G Indahouse, where she managed to forget both her lines. She then worked as a continuity announcer for Living TV, introducing, and getting obsessed with, America’s Next Top Model. She’s been the voice of a leading brand of make-up, a shopping centre and a yogurt. Marianne is the author of the Ellie May young-fiction series for Egmont and a regular contributor to the Independent on Sunday. She lives in London with her husband, daughter and a bad-tempered cat. Accidental Superstar is her first novel for older readers and she is working on the sequel.

  www.mariannelevy.com

  If you can’t wait to read the sequel,

  ACCIDENTAL SUPERSTAR: IN CONCERT,

  here’s a taster . . .

  So there I was, standing in the wings, ready to do my first major concert. I mean, seriously major, with masses of people watching and goodness knows how many more online.

  Even though I’d practised and practised, I was shaking so badly I could barely hold my guitar. My hands were dripping sweat, and there was a fair chance that when I opened my mouth I’d barf all over the stage.

  It was no use telling myself that everyone gets nervous. Because this was no ordinary concert.

  I was about to sing live to twelve and a half thousand people.

  And each and every one of them wanted to kill me.

  First published 2016 by Macmillan Children’s Books

  This electronic edition published 2016 by Macmillan Children’s Books

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan

  20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR