When Bryony finally unwound herself, the postman applauded loudly.
‘You’re going to be a star, Bryony Bell, and no mistake,’ he told her admiringly, handing her back the schoolbag as though it was a gold cup.
‘Thanks,’ said Bryony, giving a little bow. ‘I intend to be.’
And she glided down the street, negotiated her way between the schoolchildren milling around outside the school gates, and made her entrance — backwards — into the playground of Peachtree Primary.
Chapter: Three
For the rest of the week all Bryony thought about was getting home from school to try the Viper 3000s.
Her bedroom carpet was not the best surface for skating, but even on shagpile the Vipers were wonderful. Taking care not to scuff the boots, she worked out a routine in front of the wardrobe mirror and, with one eye on her reflection, practised it to perfection. And every time she took the Vipers off and laid them back in their box, she felt a sharp pang of regret as she thought how little time she had left with them.
On Friday morning she set off sadly for school and, as she always did, scanned the playground for the towering figure of Abid Ashraf. Abid, who was Bryony’s closest friend, was possibly the largest boy of his age anywhere in the universe. He was also one of the most solemn. This morning he looked more than usually miserable.
’What’s wrong, Abid?’ Bryony asked. ‘You do look peaky.’
Abid looked down at Bryony, his brown eyes deeply melancholic. ‘Don’t look so perky yourself, Bryony. Anything wrong?’
Bryony shook her head and grinned. ‘Oh, I’m OK,’ she told Abid. ‘You know me — nothing gets me down for long!’
The line moved towards the door and Abid followed it, trailing his big feet. Bryony skated behind him, pushing, as she did every morning.
Secretly Bryony was sure that, without her steady pressure, Abid would never ever make it to the boys’ cloakroom.
‘It’s my asthma, Bryony,’ he told her gloomily, ‘and my excema. They’re awful just now. I sneeze and itch and wheeze and sneeze and itch and wheeze — and nothing my father gives me does any good!’
‘You’d think having a father who’s a doctor would mean you were never ill, but it doesn’t seem to work in your case,’ Bryony observed. ‘Come to think of it, mine’s a joiner and all our doors squeak.’
‘Well, of course you know what’s causing it, don’t you?’ Abid said pointedly.
Bryony nodded. She knew all right. And when she thought about it, she felt another dark cloud descend to add to the ones that hung over the Viper 3000s and the blue sailor dress.
For what seemed like a lifetime, Bryony and Abid’s class had been practising their end-of-term musical play, The Ugly Duckling. It was to be performed next week and today was the first full dress rehearsal, so as soon as the register had been called they all lined up with their costumes and were marched to the hall. Bryony trailed along at the back, the little dark clouds following her, and Abid trailed even more slowly behind her, looking as though he was going to have all his teeth extracted.
The stage had been transformed into a lakeside scene. There was a vivid blue backdrop with bright green trees and crimson flowers, and a very yellow sun. A blue cloth had been spread on the floor, with larger-than-life bulrushes growing round its edge and big pink waterlilies arranged on its surface. It all looked most effective.
They were given a few minutes to get into their costumes. In the past weeks Bryony had managed to keep an eye on Abid during this procedure, and had pinned his costume on as best she could, but today Mrs Ogilvie, the class teacher, insisted that boys change on one side of the stage and girls on the other. With a grim expression on her face, and a pincushion attached to her wrist, she had led Abid away into the darkness behind the curtains. Abid looked back, managing a brave smile and a ‘thumbs up’ sign. As the lights dimmed, the words ‘lamb to the slaughter’ popped into Bryony’s head.
When Mrs Ogilvie announced that all was ready, Mrs Quigg the music teacher, played three loud notes on the piano and in the semi-darkness two yellow ducklings made their entrances and shuffled about, whispering nervously. Bryony gritted her teeth and pulled her mask over her head.
‘Where is the Ugly Duckling?’ Mrs Quigg shouted, playing the cue music again. ‘Where is Bryony Bell?’
Slowly, Bryony waddled on. Like the two yellow ducklings, she wore a big duck mask and orange tights. Unlike the yellow ducklings, she wore a costume made of grey-brown leathers.
‘You have missed your cue again, Bryony,’ Mrs Quigg told her angrily. ‘Remember, you are the star of the show. Now, sing!’
Bryony flapped her grey-brown wings gloomily as the music began, and hung her head down so low that her chin was on her chest.
‘That’s right,’ said Mrs Quigg happily. ‘Look miserable.’
‘Oh I’m an Ugly Duckling,’ sang Bryony, in a gravelly monotone,
‘And no one wants me near.
My drab and dowdy feathers
Make all the ducklings sneer!’
The yellow ducklings waddled round the lake, making spitting noises and pointing rudely at Bryony. At the edge of the pond was a log which had been made by covering two benches with painted corrugated paper and artificial flowers. On it sat a line of six children dressed as frogs in green lycra costumes, flippers, and wide-mouthed, large-eyed masks. At this point in the play they all had to nudge one another and laugh at Bryony, which they always did extremely enthusiastically — so much so that, more often than not, one of them fell off the log. Mrs Quigg had high hopes that as long as they didn’t overdo it, this part of the show would bring the house down.
Suddenly something inside Bryony snapped. She pushed her mask to the back of her head, put her hands on her hips, marched to the front of the stage, and glared down at the music teacher.
‘The Ugly Duckling isn’t the star part, Mrs Quigg,’ she said firmly. ‘The swan is the star part. Please, Mrs Quigg, can’t I please be the swan?’ And under her breath she muttered, ‘Ducks suck.’
Mrs Quigg sighed. ‘Look, Bryony,’ she said, ‘I’ve told you a dozen times — Abid is the swan. Abid has a lovely big swan voice, Abid knows all the words of The Swan Song and sings it so sweetly it brings tears to the eyes, and Abid never, ever misses his cues.’
She sat down on the piano stool heavily. ‘Furthermore,’ she added wearily, ‘Abid is the only person big enough for the swan costume. Now let that be an end to it.’ And she played three ferocious chords, just to make the point.
Bryony stood her ground, wondering whether to fall to her knees and plead for the part, which was the only tactic she had not yet used. Everyone knew that Mrs Quigg, unlike Mrs Ogilvie, was open to wheedling, but so far all Bryony’s attempts to wrest the swan part from Abid had failed. Finally, as Mrs Quigg continued to thump the piano keys ever more violently, Bryony admitted defeat.
She moved slowly back into her position centre stage and glanced over into the wings where, in the gloom, the huge, white, feathery shape of Abid stood waiting for his entrance. To her horror, she noticed that he had his legs tightly crossed.
‘Cue The Frogs’ Chorus!’ Mrs Quigg yelled. ‘And pick Jeremy up this instant!’ She thumped the first bars and the six frogs began to croak in unison. Bryony edged closer to the side of the stage and hissed at Abid, ‘What’s the matter?’
Abid sneezed twice, wheezed painfully, and muttered miserably, ‘I need the toilet Bryony — and she’s sewn me in!’
Bryony looked desperately around, but Mrs Ogilvie had temporarily vanished. Below the stage she could see Mrs Quigg’s grey curls, bouncing gaily in time to the music. The frogs were well into their stride, bobbing up and down as they croaked.
‘Mrs Quigg!’ she called, flapping her stubby little brown wings.
Mrs Quigg, however, was soaring on the wings of song and remained oblivious.
‘Mrs Quigg!’ Bryony yelled again. ‘Nature calls! The swan can not make his entrance!’
‘YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO GO BEFORE YOU COME!’ she shrieked as she made her exit. ‘I can not work with all these interruptions. It’s simply ruining my creative flow!’
And she disappeared, leaving the rehearsal in the stouter hands of Mrs Ogilvie who had appeared in the very nick of time.
Chapter: Four
As soon as Mrs Quigg had gone, the atmosphere on stage eased as Mrs Ogilvie took charge.
‘Take five!’ she told them, brandishing the pinking shears in the direction of Abid’s seams.
Five minutes later, Bryony and a muchrelieved Abid were sitting together on the frogs’ log, waiting to be told what to do next. Abid’s abandoned downy-white costume lay at their feet.
‘I can’t bear being the swan,’ Abid sighed, shaking his head in abject misery. ‘I’m scared I’ll forget the words of the song, and I’m scared I’ll need the toilet, and I’m scared I’ll start to sneeze. They can say what they like Bryony,’ he went on miserably, ‘I’m not cut out for show business. I want to be an accountant or a brain surgeon. I just hate people looking at me, you know?’
‘Ironic, isn’t it,’ Bryony said, nodding sympathetically. ‘I’d just love to be the swan, as you well know. Makes shivers run down my spine just thinking about making that entrance and singing The Swan Song. Except I can’t sing.’ She sighed deeply. ‘You know, Abid — sometimes it seems to me that you don’t get anywhere in this life if you can’t sing.’
She gave the grey-brown feathers of her duck costume a swipe. ‘And I just hate this costume,’ she growled. ‘Not one ounce of star quality!’ Then she ran her fingers through the bright silvery-white swan feathers and gave a shiver of delight. ‘It must be wonderful to wear your one — like being inside a wedding cake!’
Abid shuddered. ‘It’s not. It’s awful! I can’t breathe in the mask, and bits of feather keep wafting up and making me sneeze. That’s what’s going for my tubes, Bryony — I know it. That and nerves.’
‘Then tell her,’ said Bryony, giving Abid’s orange knee a little thump with her wing. ‘Tell her you can’t be a swan on medical grounds. Tell her you’re more suited to a frog part. I would.’
Abid shook his head in misery. ‘I can’t, Bryony. She’s got her heart set on having a great big swan soprano, and I just can’t let her down.’
He gazed down at his huge orange feet. ‘It has to be faced, Bryony — there’s no one who can step into my shoes.’
They sat in silence for a while, meditating on the unfairness of life. Then, in an attempt to cheer Abid up, Bryony said brightly, ‘What are you wearing for the party?’
It had the opposite effect. Abid’s head sunk further on to his chest.
‘A green salwar kameez with gold and silver trim,’ he told her gloomily, adding by way of explanation. ‘Mum’s made it.’
‘Oh,’ Bryony said. She couldn’t think of anything better than having a mother who sewed beautiful silky clothes with glittery trimmings. ‘Sounds cool to me. Better than last season’s sailor dress that smelly Angelina’s worn, anyway!’
Abid considered this for a moment. ‘Just between ourselves, Bryony,’ he said confidentially, ‘I think it’s a bit ostentatious. I’d rather wear a plain grey one, or jeans and a t-shirt. But you know how it is — you can’t hurt their feelings, can you?’
Bryony nodded. For a while they sat in silence, watching Jeremy peel off his green lycra. Jeremy was a rather small child and his ‘one-size-fits-all’ costume did not cling like the other frogs’ did, but hung in wrinkles round his waist and knees. The costumes fastened down the back with velcro and each frog was supposed to help another out and in, but Jeremy had been abandoned and was lying on his back with his legs in the air, rocking helplessly. Bryony wandered over and ripped him free.
‘You wouldn’t get me in jeans for any money,’ she said as she rejoined Abid. ‘I’m just a sucker for silk. Bright pink silk—’ she went on dreamily, ‘—all wafty and floaty, with lace and bows and sequins …’
Mrs Quigg, blotchy-faced and swollen-eyed, had returned and was dabbing her nose with a lacy handkerchief and banging the lid of the piano up and down.
‘Places, please, for Scene Three!’ she shouted, and everyone sighed and moved into position again. Neither Abid nor Bryony were on stage till the very end, so they prepared to shuffle off.
‘Guess what, Abid,’ Bryony whispered as she helped Abid scoop up his feathers. ‘I’m not really supposed to tell a living soul, but that doesn’t include you, of course: I’ve got new rollerskates. White ones. Viper 3000s — the best rollerskates in the world!’
Abid tried to look cheerful.
‘Oh, that’s wonderful, Bryony,’ he said. ‘Will they make you skate even better?’
‘Not half,’ said Bryony, holding the curtain aside to let Abid into the wings. ‘They’ve got extra ball-bearings for really smooth wheel action, and fibreglass composite uppers, combining lightness with strength. Imagine — they even go on shagpile!
‘They’re wonderful,’ she said, then sighed. ‘But they’ve got to go back in a week. Every penny has to go to getting The Singing Bells their glitzy costumes for the telly. I’m trying to look on the bright side, but it’s not easy.’
To Abid’s surprise Bryony took off her duck mask, threw back her head, and balanced on one leg. She stretched the other one out behind her as high as she could, clasping both hands to her chest.
‘Doesn’t this look elegant, Abid?’ she shouted over the noise of the Farmyard Chorus on stage. ‘And just imagine how much more elegant it looks with sparkling-white roller boots …’
Abid opened his mouth to assure Bryony that it looked extremely elegant, and sneezed instead. But Bryony wasn’t listening. She had had the most incredible flash of inspiration.
‘There’s no-one can step into my shoes,’ Abid had said. All of a sudden, Bryony wasn’t so sure. She peeked through the curtain to make sure she wasn’t missing her next cue, then moved closer to Abid.
‘Know what, Abid,’ she whispered mysteriously, tapping the side of her nose. ‘I think your troubles may be over.
‘I have hit on the most breathtakingly-brilliant, scintillating-surefire gem of an idea …’
Chapter: Five
All the way home Bryony thought about the idea. Abid had smiled as enthusiastically as he ever did when he heard it, and had said politely that it really was a breathtakingly-brilliant, scintillatingly-surefire gem of an idea and that he would be eternally grateful to her. She was, he had added, the very best and cleverest friend anyone could ever have.
She skated slowly, pausing every so often to do a thoughtful little pirouette. Abid’s gratitude put a lot of pressure on her to make the gem-of-an-idea work, and now, in the clear light of day, she realised it was not going to be all that easy. There was very little time left, and a great deal of work to do. And it was fraught with risks and complications — but then, she told herself as she neared the house, weren’t all breathtakingly-brilliant, scintillatingly-surefire plans?
Today’s practice was already under way, and through the open window drifted the strains of the song that Angelina, Melody, Melissa and Emmy-Lou did on their own. It was called Devoted Sisters.
At the end of that song, Angelina would announce, ‘And now, ladies and gentlemen, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Please welcome …’
And each sister in turn would wheel round to face stage left, go down on one knee, and sing a syllable — each syllable higher than the one before so they formed a chord:
‘Cla …’
‘Ris …’
‘Sa …’
‘Bell!’
As they held the notes, Clarissa would make her entrance, swaying luxuriously from side to side, and in a voice husky with emotion and deep with mystery, would sing …
‘Th
e minute you walked in the joint…’
and the little ’uns would chorus, ‘Boom! Boom!’ Then Clarissa would heave her hips to right and left, and when the last line rang out,
‘Hey! Big Spender… s-p-e-n-d a little time with me!’ they would all join in and swing their little hips in time with hers.
When they sang the Devoted Sisters song, the little ‘uns did a special dance, which Bryony had helped to choreograph and which involved a lot of arm-linking and leg-kicking, and they tried very hard to sway exactly in time with the music. It had been coming along very nicely, and every time they finished Big Bob had to take out his handkerchief and say, ‘Bring a tear to a glass eye, that would’, and dab his, just to prove it.
Bryony smiled as she made out the first words:
Who’s always there when you’re feeling blue?
When life gets tough, who sees you through?
Who is the one who’s d-e-v-o-t-e-d to you?
Your sister — that’s who!
Melody and Melissa were about to go into the chorus, which listed the many ways they had of showing their sisterly devotion, when Bryony opened the front door. As soon as it clicked shut the singing stopped, and the twins thundered through into the hall, followed by the other two devoted sisters. When they saw Bryony they all stopped and glared malevolently at her.
Bryony stopped in her tracks. What now?
Angelina stepped forward, her hands on her hips. ‘We can’t get nice glitzy stage costumes for TV Family Star Turns and it’s all because of you!’ she shrieked. She was shaking with anger, and the beads on her long braids flew about and clinked together, making her look like a snake-headed gorgon.
‘It’s just not fair!’ screamed Melody, linking arms with Melissa.
‘And another thing — Melody and me need hair extensions,’ Melissa added, in a particularly whiney voice. ‘Now that’s down the tube too!’
Bryony Bell Tops the Bill Page 2