Shooting Star

by Rowan Coleman

  FICTION: However TGM! can’t find any truth to the rumour that Ruby and Sean are dating! As we know, Sean has been seeing model and actress Mary-Anne Chase for some time, but we hear that the sixteen-year-old has kissed that romance goodbye. Come on, Sean and Ruby, surely you must be more than JUST GOOD FRIENDS??????!!

  FACT: Danny Harvey and Hollywood High hunk Hunter Blake are bezzie mates! I know – we’re as shocked as you are! We thought that when the two brooding boys got together on the set of The Young Robin Hood, they were bound to clash, but we have photographic evidence that they have been hanging out, playing football and getting on like a house on fire! Now there’s a double date we’d like to go on with our BF!

  FICTION: Rumour has it that Danny Harvey is spending a lot of time with another cast member, US teen telly star Kirsty O’Brien. You may not know her yet, but you wait until the release of The Young Robin Hood in the autumn. That girl’s going places.

  FACT: It’s true – brave studio bosses have given famous boy rebel and eye-lined hottie Henry Dufault a role in Spotlight! The Movie Musical. We’re really pleased; there’s nothing we like more than the hard-living rock-and-roll type and Henry’s certainly that – but will he stay the course or will he get himself kicked off this film too?

  Keep watching this space for more news on the Ruby and Sean romance, Horrendous Henry, Spotlight! The Movie Musical, mean girl Adrienne Charles and much, much more…

  Chapter Thirteen

  I got the ripped-out pages of Teen Girl! Magazine a week later and scrawled across the bottom in thick black pen were the words, “Finally I get a mention and they don’t even get my name right!!!!” It was Anne-Marie’s (or Mary-Anne’s) handwriting of course, but I knew that she had to be feeling a bit better otherwise she wouldn’t have sent the article in the first place. With it came a letter describing how her holidays were going much better than she’d thought; her dad had delayed his next trip and stayed home for a whole week, even taking her out to buy a whole new wardrobe. She’d also bumped into the girls from Highgate Comp – Dakshima and Hannah and Talitha Penny in the park, and had been hanging out with them and flirting with the boys playing football. (She was careful at this point to tell Nydia that Gabe Martinez hadn’t flirted at all and just looked a bit miserable because he was missing her.)

  “I’ve even got quite friendly with Adele Adebayor,” Anne-Marie wrote. “She’s quite a laugh. I got her to walk past Jade Caruso and Menakshi Shah and look menacing. Maybe your school isn’t so bad after all, Ruby. Anyway, miss you and Nydia loads – keep me posted on THE BIG DATE.

  The big date was with Henry and it was happening that very night. It hadn’t happened at any point in the previous week because the last seven days had been a tiny bit of a whirlwind.

  After Mum had said I had been picked to play Arial, Nydia and I had looked at each other, not sure about what to say or do. There had been tears in Nydia’s eyes and I felt really worried. But then she’d smiled and put her arms around me and hugged me really tightly.

  “I love you, Ruby,” she’d said with a shaky voice. “If it’s not me, then I’m glad it’s you. You deserve it.”

  “There’s some good news for you too, Nydia,” Mum said tentatively. “I know that Christina Darcy said you would only be considered for one role, but they were so impressed with you that they want you in the cast – in the role of Lena. It’s not a main character, but she has a lot of scenes and—”

  “A really big solo!” Nydia exclaimed. “‘Dance Until Your Feet Bleed.’ Lena gets the best song in the show – it’s a huge dance number!”

  “Exactly,” Mum said. “Christina said she hoped you’d stick around over the summer and be part of the production and perform that song for them.”

  “Oh my God, that’s amazing!” Nydia said.

  “We’re working together on a movie!” I said.

  “A Hollywood movie!” she said.

  And then we said something like, “ARRRRRRRRRRRRRR-GHHHHHHHHHH!” Because we were really excited.

  A few days later when I had slightly come down from cloud nine, to around cloud eight and a half, the date came up.

  “So when are you going to go out with Henry?” Nydia asked me over breakfast.

  “Henry Dufault?” Sean looked up, wide-eyed at the sound of that name. We had barely spoken two words to each other lately. I’d guessed that he’d seen his dad at least twice in the last week because he disappeared off, talking about meeting up with Danny. But he hadn’t spent any time with me at all. He’d been pleased about the news and given me and Nydia a hug, but he’d kept his distance ever since. I wondered how we were going to get through a summer of preproduction rehearsals together – but then I remembered that whoever did play Sebastian to my Arial, it wasn’t going to be Sean. And the fact that I knew that secretly made me cross.

  “Yes, Henry Dufault,” I said.

  “Henry who?” Mum’s head snapped up from the contract she was reading.

  “The Henry Dufault?” Mrs Rivers asked me, in exactly the kind of tone that was bound to get a girl’s mother anxious.

  “Yes, that Henry,” I said breezily. “He asked me if I’d like to go out for pizza with him sometime, that’s all.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Mum frowned. “We’re talking about the same Henry Dufault who’s just been given the part of Max in Spotlight! The boy who got thrown out of his last school for setting off the fire alarm twenty-seven times in one day?”

  “He was going for a record…” I began before I realised that justifying some of Henry’s bad behaviour was probably not the best plan if I really wanted to go on a date with him, even though up until this point I still hadn’t really been sure about it. “Anyway, Mum, that stuff you read in the gossip magazines isn’t real. Practically all of it is made up; you of all people should know that!”

  “I don’t think you should go on a date with Henry,” Sean said.

  “And what’s it got to do with you?” I snapped back, making Nydia’s eyes widen and the mums exchange glances.

  “I’m just saying. Henry’s a great kid, but he’s trouble.”

  “Yes, well,” I said stiffly. “At least he’s honest. At least he says what he thinks and does what he says. At least he’s not on the point of letting down hundreds and hundreds of people because of a stupid lie.”

  Sean held my gaze for a second longer, then dropped it.

  “Who is going to do all of those horrible things?” Nydia asked.

  “No one, no one,” I said, looking away from Sean. “I’m just saying that at least Henry isn’t going to do them.”

  “Oh,” Nydia said, looking confused. “Right, well, that is good, I suppose.”

  “Perhaps Henry could come to tea,” Mum suggested.

  “Or perhaps we could go out for pizza like I said?” I countered. Up until this point I had been quite happy for there to be some unplanned date that Henry and I may or may not go on, but now that everyone was getting so flustered, I was determined to go.

  “I don’t know, Ruby,” Mum said slowly. “All on your own in a big city in a foreign country with a boy I haven’t met properly? I’m not sure.”

  “You’d let me go with Nydia and Sean,” I protested.

  “What a good idea,” Mum said. “That’s sorted then.”

  “What is? What’s sorted?” I asked, getting the distinct feeling that I’d just been outmanoeuvred by my mother.

  “You can double date,” Mum said. “You can take Nydia and Sean with you. I’d feel much better about it. I’ll drive you to the pizza place and pick you up after. Now give me Henry’s mother’s number and I’ll arrange it for tomorrow night.”

  “If I haven’t died of mortification before then,” I said, hanging my head in my hands as Nydia giggled.

  “Sounds like a good idea to me,” Sean said. Which meant it must be the worst idea in the history of the world EVER.

  Henry texted me early next morning to tell me he was looking forward to ou
r date. “Shame you have to bring half of LA too,” he joked. At least I hoped he was joking. It was hard to tell with a text.

  It took me and Nydia most of the afternoon to decide what I should wear. In the end I chose a pink cotton dress with a red cherry pattern on it. It took us about four hours to make it look casual, as if I had just slung it on at the last minute and didn’t really care about how I looked at all.

  It was nearly time to go and I was toying with putting on eyeshadow when Sean appeared in my open doorway, looking really gorgeous in a white shirt and jeans.

  “You don’t need make-up to look pretty,” Sean said, noticing my finger hovering over a pot of light gold powder.

  “I know,” I said, patting some on my lids anyway, just to annoy him.

  “You don’t really like Henry, do you?” Sean said. “I mean, sure, he’s an OK kid when you get to know him. Not nearly as crazy as the papers make out, but you don’t like him the way you like me, do you?”

  I turned around and looked at Sean. “He’s uncomplicated…for a complicated person,” I said. “He hasn’t got a secret life with a secret dad that will get him into all sorts of trouble, and especially when his secret life comes out.”

  “I wish you’d stop doing that,” Sean sighed. “I know I’m a mess. I really miss talking to you about it. You were the only person I could talk to.” He looked a bit sad and anxious which made me feel a bit twisty in my tummy and worried for him.

  “So, is it still going OK with your dad?” I asked him, my voice a bit softer. “You still think all of this is worth it?”

  “Sort of,” Sean said hesitantly. “Dad thinks that I’ve come so far in the process of playing Sebastian that I might as well go through with it now. He says it would be the best thing that I could ever do and that he’d manage me every step of the way. He says I’d be working for the rest of my life.”

  “Sean, you’re sixteen years old. It seems a bit much to have your diary booked up until you’re…oh, I don’t know – seventy-eight!”

  “That’s kind of what I thought,” Sean said. “But Dad really wants me to take the part.”

  “Do you think he wants that because it will be the best thing you can do for you or for him?” I asked. I knew Sean knew the answer, but I also knew that he wanted it to be different from what it was, and that sometimes you can want something so much that it’s easier to believe it will happen than face the truth.

  “I want to think that he wants what’s best for me,” Sean said. “And the funny thing is, since I’ve been back on set I have felt differently about acting again. After The Lost Treasure of King Arthur I never wanted to see another film set again. But I really like this film. I really like the script, the music and the other actors in it – some of them more than others.” He smiled at me and I felt a lot of tiny little fireworks go off in my chest. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to go through with it.”

  “It would be great if you did the film,” I told him warmly. “But only if that’s what you want, not anybody else. You have to be sure that you’d be doing it for you. And you have to be sure soon, because your mum’s had your contract for a few days now and as soon as she’s had it checked by her lawyers, you’ll be signed up and it will be much harder for everyone when you leave.”

  “I know,” Sean said. “I’m going to work it out, Ruby. One way or another.”

  We stood there looking at each other for quite a long time until I heard my mum shouting up the stairs that it was time to go.

  “You look really pretty,” Sean said with a sad smile.

  I couldn’t help but feel as if I were walking on air as I went down the steps to meet Mum. It really was horribly inconvenient being in love with Sean Rivers.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Hey, Ruby, hey, everyone.” Henry was already at the pizza place when Mum dropped us off. He looked really nice, in a red shirt over black jeans and his cowboy boots.

  “Hey, Henry,” Sean said, with half a smile.

  “Hi!” Nydia beamed.

  “Hello, young man,” my mum said. It turned out that she’d decided to follow us in. “I’ll be back at 10.30 to pick you all up. Ruby, you have my number so call me if you need me to come sooner.” She did her best motherly frown at Sean and Henry. “I’m depending on you boys to keep these girls safe, OK?”

  “Yes, Mrs Parker,” Sean said.

  “I’ll give it my best shot,” Henry said, winking at me which made me laugh.

  Mum didn’t laugh though. “Hmmm,” was the last thing she said before she went. And as it turned out she was right to be worried.

  The pizza place was called Bella Fortuna and it was really more of an Italian restaurant, but it was famous for serving the best pizzas for miles around. The waitress sat us at a round table in the centre of the restaurant and made a big deal about treating us as adults. It was really nice of her to make the effort, but it was quite embarrassing too and none of us really knew what to say. But things improved when our pizzas arrived. Food usually makes things better, I find.

  “So, Ruby, what bands do you like?” Henry asked just as I took a huge bite out of my pepperoni feast.

  “Bands?” I was taken aback. I liked music, but I had been so busy recently that I hadn’t really heard of anyone cool or new. I was a rubbish teenager; most of my life was taken up with choir practice or rehearsal. I could tell him my top five musical numbers of all time, but when it came to bands, I realised that I was officially uncool.

  “I like…all sorts of music really,” I said. “What about you?” Henry reeled off the names of three or four bands that I’d never heard of, but I nodded along and occasionally said, “Oh, yeah, they are cool.”

  Henry leant back in his chair and sort of half smiled at me. I wondered if he knew that I was just pretending to know these bands and that maybe he was making them up to catch me out.

  “You should be in a band, Henry,” Nydia said. “You look like a rock star.”

  “I was in one for a while, until I got sacked,” Henry said. “The lead guitarist was jealous of me. I might start my own band after this film though – want to be in it, Ruby?”

  “Oh, no thanks,” I said. “I’ve got exams next year.” Everyone laughed and I belatedly realised why.

  “You’re quite a geek, aren’t you?” Henry said, grinning at me.

  I tried to be offended, but he was smiling as he said it and I think he sort of meant it as a compliment.

  “Finally you’ve realised,” Nydia joked. “The thing that Ruby used to be most famous for was that she was really terrible at rebelling.”

  “I kinda like that,” Henry told me. “You’re not trying to fit in or please anyone. You’re just you – and you are pretty cool, geek or not.”

  I found myself smiling at Henry. I realised that I hadn’t been annoyed by him so far that evening and we’d been together for over an hour now. Maybe I could date him after all. Then I noticed Sean rolling his eyes across the table and looking moody.

  “Thank you, Henry,” I said to annoy Sean. “That’s a nice thing to say.”

  “Plus you’re way pretty,” Henry said. I blushed and looked down at my hands. “I’d have told you that even if your mom hadn’t made you bring the chaperones,” he grinned. “But really I’m kinda hoping you’ll wind up being my girlfriend.”

  At that moment a bright light went off in our faces. For a split second I thought that it was my brain finally exploding from boy-related confusion, but then I realised that it was a photographer. Even though we’d chosen Bella Fortuna because it was out of the way and on a block that the paparazzi hardly ever stalk, there must have been one walking past who looked in, spotted Sean Rivers and took his chance. Not only that, he’d marched right up to us and shoved his camera in Sean’s face.

  “C’mon, Sean, gimme a smile,” the man said. Two or three more flashes went off as we shielded our eyes with our hands and everyone else in the restaurant turned and stared at us.

  “Leave us a
lone,” Henry said, standing up. “You can’t photograph a group of minors against their will. Keep this up and I’ll call the cops.”

  The photographer hesitated, then shrugged and took more frames. “I said back off!” Henry yelled, pushing the man back so hard that he crashed into the food-laden table behind. It tipped right over, leaving him flat on his back with his legs in the air.

  “Where’s the manager?” I said, standing up. I couldn’t see a single waiter or waitress to ask for help.

  “Maybe the waiting staff called the papers for publicity,” Henry said quickly. “We need to get out of here…”

  And then I noticed another commotion outside. A crowd jostled at the plate-glass window and I realised that there was now an army of photographers outside. A bank of flashes went off in my face and I couldn’t see anything.

  “We can get out the back way,” Nydia said. She grabbed hold of Sean who had frozen, looking like a deer trapped in the headlights. “Come on, Sean, quickly.”

  “Don’t worry, son, I’m here.” Mr Rivers appeared almost out of nowhere, from somewhere at the rear of the restaurant. It seemed strange, but everything was happening so quickly I didn’t really have time to think about it.

  “Dad!” Sean snapped into life, a look of relief on his face. “I’m so glad you’re here. Get us out!”

  “Now take a breath, son,” Mr Rivers said, putting his arm around Sean. “The best way to deal with these guys is to give them what they want. Stand tall and give them one of your million-dollar smiles.”

  Henry, Nydia and I watched uncertainly as Pat Rivers turned Sean in the direction of the photographers, igniting another barrage of flashes that made Sean wince and blink. As he stood there next to Sean, a fixed grin on his face, Pat Rivers began talking to the other people in the restaurant, who were staring with open mouths.

  “Sean Rivers is back and I can confirm to you right now that my son will be playing Sebastian in Spotlight! The Movie Musical. Go tell your husbands, wives, children and friends! Tell the whole world that you heard it here first.”