Star Struck

by Jenny McLachlan

  ‘I’d forgotten how mad your laugh is, Bea,’ I say.

  ‘Missed it?’

  I nod. ‘Just a bit.’

  After we’ve tidied up, we play Gran Turismo, but when Hoshi’s dad comes in, we go up to her room. She pulls out airbeds and sleeping bags, and her dad brings up the mattress from the futon downstairs and soon her room is basically one giant bed.

  We lie in the dark, talking and laughing. This might be my first sleepover in a while, but nothing’s changed. We talk about school, boys, clothes, and anything that comes into our heads, but gradually our voices become whispers and first Bea falls asleep, followed by the others.

  I lie on my back, staring at the ceiling and listening to the soft breathing all around me.

  ‘Hey,’ a voice whispers, then a cuddly toy bounces off my face. ‘You awake?’

  I roll over. Hoshi is half sitting up, her chin resting in her hands, her hair making a halo round her head. ‘I am now.’ I throw the toy back at her.

  ‘We don’t really have sleepovers in Japan.’ Her voice drifts towards me. ‘I bet you guys have loads.’

  I laugh. ‘They might have had them, but I wasn’t invited.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘When we were little,’ I say, ‘the four of us had sleepovers all the time, mainly at Betty’s. Sometimes I’d stay there the whole weekend … But then we all fell out.’

  She wriggles round in the bed so that she’s closer to me. ‘What made you fall out?’

  I try to think how I can sum up years and years of fights and arguments. What did happen to stop me going round to Betty’s with the others? How did we go from sharing everything to not speaking?

  ‘We had nothing in common,’ I say. ‘I found them boring.’ My words fall into the dark room where my friends are all sleeping. I feel my cheeks flush. ‘No, that wasn’t it. It was my fault. I wasn’t exactly a good friend.’ I feel hot. I unzip the sleeping bag. I don’t want to talk about this any more. It’s been better between me and the girls since we went to London, but Bea’s words on the train unlocked something in my mind and I’m finding I can’t push things away like I used to.

  ‘But now you’re back together,’ says Hoshi.

  ‘Almost,’ I say. ‘Did you know we met at nursery school and we had a secret club?’

  Hoshi laughs. ‘What were you called?’

  ‘The Ladybirds. We’d do this all day across the classroom.’ I tuck in my thumb and wiggle my four fingers at her.

  She wiggles hers back. ‘That’s sweet. I’ve not been friends with anyone for that long.’

  ‘What about your friends in the photo?’

  ‘Oh, them.’ I can just make out her smile. ‘I’ve not seen them for ages.’

  ‘Did you move?’

  In the corner of the room, Bea rolls over, throwing her arms above her head. ‘I stopped going to that school,’ Hoshi says. She sits up. ‘It’s almost been a perfect sleepover, but I did want a pillow fight and a midnight feast.’

  I pull my pillow out and swing it at her head. She tries to duck, but I hit her smack in the face. ‘There,’ I say. ‘You’ve had a pillow fight.’

  She chucks the pillow back at me. ‘I thought it would go on for longer.’

  ‘I’m tired. Go to sleep.’

  She flops back in bed.

  ‘Night, Pearl.’

  ‘Night, Hoshi.’

  I roll over and stare at the shadows on the cupboard door. Gradually, the breathing around me gets deeper and Betty starts to snore. I shift around on my airbed, trying to find a cool spot then I sit up and turn over my pillow. Hoshi is buried under her duvet, just the top of her head sticking out.

  ‘Hoshi?’ I whisper. No reply.

  I wriggle out of the sleeping bag, tiptoe across the room and along the corridor. Hoshi’s dad’s door is shut and his light is off. I stand still. It’s almost totally dark and so quiet. In my house, there’s always a light or TV on; Mum keeps her radio on all night.

  I go downstairs, treading gently on each step, and find the postcard. Moonlight streams in from the window above the door and I see that the cartoon girl has a key ring hanging off her belt – a rainbow rabbit – and the umbrella is covered in flowers.

  A ticking noise makes me look up. I stare into the darkness upstairs until the noise stops, then turn the postcard over. Everything is in Japanese, except the address. ‘Hoshi Kita,’ it says, ‘6 Turney Crescent’. Not Hoshi Lockwood. I store ‘Hoshi Kita’ away with all Hoshi’s other little secrets, then put the postcard back where I found it.

  I drift around the kitchen, opening and shutting drawers until I find a packet of Kit Kats. I sit on the worktop and snap off one stick, eating it in a couple of bites and washing it down with some water.

  Back upstairs, I put the other half of the Kit Kat on Hoshi Kita’s pillow and climb into my sleeping bag. I wrapped it back up in its silver foil so it won’t melt on her face. Now she’s got a midnight feast.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  On Saturday I hang out with Tiann for a couple of hours and Sunday is spent dipping my hands into the freezing carp tank at World of Water. ‘Frozen fish fingers,’ I say to Jane, holding up my blue fingers. She collapses with laughter – it’s so easy to make my boss laugh. Then she starts telling me about her night out in Hastings at a wine bar called Jailhouse Rock.

  ‘As soon as you’re eighteen, I’ll take you,’ she says, plunging her arms back into the water. She pulls up a handful of slimy black stuff from the bottom of the tank and drops it in the bucket. ‘The owner was dressed as Elvis. He sang “Love Me Tender” to me.’ She smiles at the memory and I flick fishy water at her. ‘Come on,’ she says. ‘Let’s tidy up, then I’ll drop you home.’

  When I get in, the house is empty, so I go straight to my room and start to clean out my tank. I hate doing it when Mum and Alfie are around because they don’t understand about the water – it needs to stay sterile. I take some of the old stuff out, making sure I don’t suck any fish up through the suction tube, and then I go to the kitchen and start to fill the bucket with fresh water, sprinkling salt mix in as I go.

  Alfie comes in as I’m running the hot tap and staring at the digital thermometer. ‘Alright?’ I say, glancing up.

  ‘Yep,’ he says, and Callum walks in behind him. He’s the only friend either of us ever has back.

  ‘Hey,’ says Callum with a quick nod. I got off with him once. Big mistake. I can’t stand even looking at him now. He’s got eyes that bulge like a blenny’s.

  ‘Where’s Mum?’ asks Alfie.

  ‘Stables.’ I check my bucket.

  ‘I need twenty quid,’ he says to my back. I look at the thermometer. Nearly there. I turn off the hot tap and add some cold. ‘Can you lend it to me?’

  ‘No,’ I say, swirling the thermometer round and round in the black bucket. ‘Sorry.’

  He goes over to the fridge and looks inside. ‘You know Bobby in your year?’

  ‘Everyone knows Bobby,’ I say.

  ‘His brother’s got a bike that he’s scrapping. Says I can have the engine parts, but I need to get him the money today.’

  ‘Mum’s definitely up at the stables.’

  ‘If you lend it to me, you can get it back off her. Do you want a Coke?’ he asks Callum, then he chucks a can to him. Callum, like an idiot, opens it straight away and the drink sprays in his face.

  Alfie laughs and Callum shakes the can in his direction. ‘Nice, mate. Tesco Value!’

  ‘Don’t drink it if you don’t want it,’ says Alfie. Coke hits the back of my neck and I lean over my bucket, trying to stop any from going in the water.

  ‘Sorry, Pearl,’ says Alfie, still laughing. He must really want that money. He knows I get paid in cash every Sunday, but that would be half my money gone. No way would Mum pay me back.

  ‘C’mon,’ says Callum, heading through to the lounge. ‘Let’s play FIFA.’

  ‘Set it up,’ says Alfie. I turn the tap on a bit more. Alfie is somewhere
behind me, but all I can hear is the whirring of the fridge and the water hitting the bucket. Hairs on the back of my neck prickle. ‘Go on. Lend us the twenty.’ He’s crept closer.

  ‘Just go and ask Mum,’ I say. ‘She’s five minutes away.’

  Twenty-six degrees. I turn off the tap. Alfie is totally silent. I get ready to haul the bucket out of the sink, then a thin trickle of brown liquid comes down in front of my face and into the water. Alfie moves the can of Coke slightly so that it trickles over my hair and sleeve.

  I freeze and hold my breath. ‘Whoops,’ he says. Then he drops the can into the sink with a clatter.

  I want to pick up the can and throw it in his face, but I know it would be a mistake. ‘Alfie!’ shouts Callum from the lounge. ‘I’m Villa.’

  ‘Coming,’ he says, walking away, and I release my grip on the bucket, tip the water out and start all over again.

  Back in my room, water changed and pH and salinity levels checked, I turn on my laptop and put on Sub FM. The bang of the front door tells me Alfie and Callum have gone out. My shoulders relax.

  Outside it’s pitch-black, but I don’t bother turning on any lights. I like it dark.

  I think about going on YouTube, but instead I type ‘dancing Japan’ into Google. I feel like I’m spying on Hoshi, but I want to see if I can make sense of some of her secrets. All the results are in Japanese, so I switch to images, and photos of ladies in kimonos and white tights fill the screen. Next I try searching for ‘street dance Japan’ and then ‘dancing singing Japan’.

  I spend half an hour scrolling through pictures of dancing teenagers and watching a few films, but I’ve not found what I’m looking for. A moving shadow on the screen makes me swing round and stare hard at the window. I know the shifting shapes are only trees, but I still have to get up and pull the curtains shut.

  I settle back on the floor in front of my laptop. ‘Hoshi Kita’ I type. It’s what I should have tried straight away.

  A list of results written in Japanese appear, but at the bottom of the page I see one written in English. It’s a Wattpad profile of teenager called Hoshi Kita. ‘Likes: Piano, touring, people, bunnies. Dislikes: Dead things, hospital, mean people.’ There’s a thumbnail picture of a Japanese girl, but it’s definitely not Hoshi.

  I switch back to images and suddenly the screen is filled with tiny photos of Japanese girls. None of them have messy pink bobs. Then a girl clutching a sunflower catches my eye. She has copper ringlets and almond eyes. I enlarge the picture and suddenly Hoshi is staring straight at me, head tilted to one side. I hold my breath. The girl is covered in make-up, but it’s definitely Hoshi. She’s even got a dimple in her left cheek.

  Now I know to look for a girl with copper curls, I realise Hoshi is in lots of the pictures. Sometimes she’s alone – blowing a kiss, laughing, peeking out from behind her fingers – but in most of the photos she’s posing with a group of other girls. I click on one of them at random. Some girls are lined up against a brick wall, wearing a mix of cheerleading skirts, vests, shorts and stripy knee-high socks. Hoshi is in the centre, arms folded, leaning against another girl. Her socks are purple and pink striped. Betty was wearing those socks on Friday night!

  Every girl in the photo has ‘Baby Girlz’ written across her chest. A quick check on Wikipedia tells me that the Baby Girlz are a Japanese idol group – a huge pop group made up of sixty girls who perform in different teams. I stare at the screen and blink: Hoshi is a pop star!

  Even though the idea is bizarre – and pop star Hoshi looks so different to the one I know – it also explains so much. Not just her amazing singing and dancing, but also her confidence. One photo, taken from the back of the stage, shows Hoshi and her group smiling at the camera. Behind them is a mass of people and they’re all clapping and screaming. No wonder she just accepts attention.

  ‘Fish and chips!’ comes a shout from outside my door. I didn’t even hear Mum come in.

  ‘Coming!’ I call, my eyes running over the Baby Girlz videos I’ve found on YouTube. I click on one and Hoshi springs to life, dancing with her group. It’s so carefully synchronised that the girls seem to form a single moving shape.

  ‘They’re getting cold,’ says Mum. ‘I’ll leave yours on the table.’ Then I hear her clumping upstairs followed by Ozzie’s padding feet.

  I don’t get up. I need to know more.

  I type Hoshi’s name into YouTube along with Baby Girlz. The same videos appear, but one of them looks different. It’s weird. Hoshi’s head is shaved and her head is bowed forward. ‘Shamed idol’ says the caption. I press play.

  Hoshi looks up at the camera, eyes wide. She’s sitting in front of a blue wall wearing a bright white sweatshirt. With her shaved head she looks like she’s sick. Her ears stick out from her head and tufts of hair show what a bad job someone’s made with the razor. She whispers to the camera in Japanese and, as she speaks, tears start to roll down her cheeks. I feel my cheeks flush because I don’t think she’s acting and I hate hearing her shaking voice. She bows deeply, once, twice, then her face crumples and she’s crying so hard that she can’t even talk.

  I snap the laptop shut.

  My music is still playing and I can hear the wind outside. A branch taps on my window. That trembling person wasn’t Hoshi. Someone must have made her do it!

  For weeks, I wanted to see her smile wiped off her face, but now it’s happened … Just the thought of her whispering voice makes me feel sick.

  ‘Pearl!’ shouts Mum from the top of the stairs. ‘Food. Now!’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  I sit in French waiting for Hoshi to turn up. She wasn’t on the bus. Instead, I got Tiann telling me about Tynan’s worms, and a little bit more time to work out what I’m going to say to Hoshi.

  All last night, my laptop sat in the corner of my room, but I didn’t touch it. Instead, I ate cold fish and chips, listened to music and read a book Mum left lying around. But I couldn’t stop seeing Hoshi’s bowing head.

  ‘Hey!’ Hoshi says, making me jump.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ I ask as she slips into the seat next to me.

  ‘Dad dropped me off, but I couldn’t get him ready on time.’ She pulls off her cardi and I see a fake tattoo of an owl on her wrist. ‘He’s hopeless. He was actually going to go to work with Weetabix in his beard.’

  A worksheet is put on the desk in front of us. ‘Jobs de Rêve,’ I say, reading out the title. ‘Dream jobs … What’s yours, Hoshi? I’ve got to write it in this box.’ I tap the pen on the sheet. ‘Magician … actor … pop star?’

  She looks up from her bag. ‘I don’t know … designer?’ She pulls out her pencil case. ‘What’s your dream job?’

  ‘Detective,’ I say.

  That’s how it is all day. I ask Hoshi about music in Japan, her favourite bands, what she listens to, and she just looks me in the eye and answers all my questions. By the time we go to our rehearsal, I’ve realised that she isn’t going to tell me about the Baby Girlz. I don’t know why it’s such a secret, but I think it must have something to do with that video. And that kind of makes me feel bad for pushing her.

  We’re just singing today, going over the songs. We’ve learnt them all now and we’re sorting out the harmonies. Hoshi and I sit in the back row with the girls and Jake. He loves it, especially as he’s next to Hoshi.

  To start with, we’re well behaved, but while the tenors are working on their part in ‘Capulet It Go’, Bea puts a photo of us on Facebook. It was taken at her seventh birthday and I’m wearing a pink leotard and I’ve got something stuck to my forehead. I’m supposed to be a unicorn, but Gran really screwed up the horn. Betty doesn’t look much better. She’s wearing beige tights and nothing else. Her hair is bright green and backcombed into a twist on top of her head.

  ‘What was the theme?’ whispers Kat.

  ‘Magical creatures,’ says Bea. ‘I’m a fairy.’

  ‘What’s Betty supposed to be?’ I ask. ‘A naked freak?’


  ‘Like you can talk,’ Betty says. ‘What’s that on your head?’

  ‘A horn! I was a unicorn.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t look like a horn, and you don’t look like a unicorn,’ says Betty. ‘Obviously, I was a troll.’

  Soon we’re laughing so much that Mr Simms separates us and I end up at the front, right under his nose. I still manage to text, You da naked freak to Betty before he snatches my phone off me.

  As usual, Hoshi and I walk home together. We cut across the park. It’s dark, but lamp posts line the path and we walk in and out of their circles of light. A dog with long skinny legs runs up and sniffs my hand. I give its ears a stroke, but a whistle from the trees makes it bound away.

  I smoke a cigarette while we walk. To begin with we chat about the show – we’ve reached the point where all the scenes are slotting together and we can almost see how good it’s going to be – then a woman walks past in a fluffy coat and Hoshi goes off on one about snow monkeys. ‘Dad took me to see them when he was visiting,’ she says, doing a few extra steps to keep up with me. ‘We travelled into the mountains to a monkey park and there they were, grey monkeys all chillaxing in the hot pools, lounging about, eyes half shut, looking like my Japanese granddad. You’d love them, Pearl.’

  ‘Monkeys are cool,’ I say.

  ‘And they play in the snow. Did I tell you about the squirrel fighting the carp?’

  ‘Yes … and the massive spider crab.’ I grind my fag into the top of a bin. ‘Enough nature, Hoshi.’ I stop walking. ‘Tell me about something else.’

  She turns to face me. She’s all bundled up in a puffy silver coat. ‘What?’ she says.

  ‘Idol groups. They’re big in Japan, aren’t they?’

  She spins round and walks towards the playground. ‘Coming?’ she calls over her shoulder as she jumps the fence.

  When I get to the swings, she’s already swinging up and down, leaning right back and staring at the dark, cloudy sky. I stand in front of her, arms folded. ‘Aren’t you going to swing?’ she says. Then she takes a deep breath through her nose. ‘It smells like snow!’