Drama Queen Page 3

  Maybe it would be best all round if I switched course now, I thought as I took in all the eager faces around me. Liam was right – I wasn’t really a performer and I definitely wasn’t the Next Big Thing like Molly. But then I remembered his taunting expression and I clenched my hands into fists. I wouldn’t let him spoil this for me. I WOULDN’T.

  Molly had been fidgeting all the way through Nick’s speech and now she stuck her hand up in the air.

  “Yes?” he said.

  “What show are we doing?” she asked.

  I knew she was hoping for WICKED – she’d been banging on about it for weeks and telling us what a great Glinda she’d make.

  He smiled. “You’re keen. I like that. I’m pleased to announce that this year’s production will be BUGSY MALONE.”

  Everyone started talking at once. A few people burst into applause and the Pitch Perfect gang started to sing again.

  “BUGS ALONE?” Shenice said, looking puzzled. “What’s it about – ants?”

  “That’s A BUG’S LIFE,” I said but I felt just as confused as she did. I’d never heard of BUGSY MALONE and while I was new to the acting game, surely that was a bad sign? Molly, on the other hand, looked like she might explode with excitement.

  “It is such an amazing show,” she said, her eyes bright. “Auntie Eleni took me to see it in London and we loved it. We’ve got it on DVD too.”

  “What’s it about?” I asked, really hoping she wasn’t about to say spiders.

  She grinned. “It’s a gangster story set in 1920s New York. It’s got a car chase, a love triangle, and loads of people get shot. It’s brilliant.”

  Shenice and I exchanged looks. “It doesn’t sound very green,” Shen said. “In fact, it sounds a bit violent. I don’t think my mum will like it.”

  “But I haven’t explained the best bit,” Molly said. “The cars are all pedal-powered and the guns fire this foam stuff instead of bullets so no one really dies. Well, apart from Knuckles. But trust me, it’s aces. We’re going to have so much fun!”

  “Settle down, everyone,” Nick said, raising his hands. “You’ll get copies of the script later on today. But for now, I’d like you to form a big circle because we’ve got an emergency. You’re all about to die!”

  If he meant of embarrassment I was WAY ahead of him.

  “Relax,” Molly said, grinning at me. “He probably means we’re going to play Wink Murder.”

  Sometimes it’s not so bad having a BFF who’s a drama know-it-all, because Wink Murder was exactly what Nick had in mind. One person was elected the detective and left the room while we agreed who the killer would be. Then the detective came back in and the murderer worked their way around the circle, picking us off one by one with a sneaky wink.

  Needless to say, in a room full of drama wannabes, the deaths got OTT really fast. Molly clutched at her chest, staggered backwards and let out a heart-rending moan as she dropped to the ground. Shenice, on the other hand, stood there like a lamp post until Molly reached up from the grave to tug her down. When it was my turn, I opted for strangulation, choking as I fell first to my knees and then to the floor. Before I closed my eyes, I saw Miss Skelly watching me. She whispered something to Nick and he stared at me too. Maybe I’d overdone it, I thought, as the boy next to me screamed as though he’d been shot. By the time the detective caught the murderer mid-wink, the body count was higher than a game of ZOMBIE CULL.

  “Well done, everyone,” Nick called. “Some gruesome and dramatic deaths there. Get back in the circle and we’re going to play another game.”

  This time we had to catch a ball and say our name, which was easy enough. But then we had to add in the name of the person who’d thrown us the ball and that’s when it got tricky. My head was whirling from all the different names – the dancer in the hot-pink leg warmers was called Tucker, the girl in the trilby hat from the queue was Suzuma, and there was a dark-haired boy of around our age called Harry, who looked like he’d stepped straight out of a boy band. But the truth was I could barely remember my own name after a while. I’m pretty sure I called one of the girls Peter but I think I got away with it.

  “Good work,” Nick said eventually. “Now split into pairs for some role-play work.”

  Oh no. That is definitely the worst thing about having two besties – if you have to form a pair for anything, one of you is always going to be left out. We stared at each other in panic, none of us wanting to volunteer for the embarrassment of going it alone on our first day. Nick bustled past us. “Come on, girls, sort it out.”

  When none of us moved, he sighed and tapped Molly on the shoulder. “Okay, how about you work with Harry over here?”

  Biting her lip, Molly nodded and followed Nick over to Boy-Band-Boy.

  “I don’t know why she’s looking so miserable,” Shenice muttered under her breath. “He’s a lot cuter than you are.”

  “Rude,” I sniffed, but I glanced over at Molly’s partner with renewed interest. I had to admit Shenice was right – he was pretty cute. I watched as he smiled at Molly and began chatting like he’d known her for ever.

  Nick cleared his throat and everyone quietened down. “One of you is going to play the parent and the other is going to play a child with a mysterious illness. The parent has to try to catch the child fibbing about how sick they are. You have two minutes starting now!”

  Shenice is the world’s worst liar and it didn’t take me long to catch her out. We spent the rest of the time pretending to act while really studying Molly and Harry. It soon became obvious they were on a mission to outdo each other.

  “Wow,” Shenice said, her expression even more admiring. “He’s really good.”

  He was, but Molly was totally holding her own and we weren’t the only ones who noticed – Miss Skelly was hovering nearby, listening in. Then Nick told us to swap roles and I tried my hardest to convince Shen that I was suffering from a terrible disease that made my eyes cross. She was too busy laughing to catch me out and I declared myself the winner at the end. And then I realized something amazing: all my nerves had faded away and I was actually enjoying myself.

  “You know, this isn’t so bad,” I told Shenice as Nick made us form a big circle again. “Liam almost had me convinced I’d do something stupid within seconds but so far, so good.”

  “One last exercise before we give out the scripts,” Nick told us. “One by one you have to stand up and share an interesting fact about yourself. If you can’t think of a fact, you can make something up and we’ll try to guess whether it’s true. For example, my name is Nick and I am married to Beyoncé.”

  Everyone laughed. “You wish!” someone shouted.

  Nick held up his hands. “Okay, you got me. Let’s start over here.”

  He pointed to a boy on the opposite side of the circle. “My name is Nitheran and I am a chess champion.”

  That was a tough one – he totally looked like he could be king of the most boring game known to mankind.

  “True?” the girl next to him said and he nodded, looking pretty proud of himself.

  We worked our way around the circle. Harry made everyone laugh by revealing he’d rugby-tackled one of Snow White’s dwarfs in Disneyland when he was six. When it got to Molly, my stomach began to flip-flop with nerves. What was I going to say? “Hello, I’m Cassidy and my dog has a thing about my knickers”? Or “Hello, I’m Cassidy and my dad thinks he’s Elvis”? Hmmm, maybe not either of those. Molly didn’t have the same problem, though.

  “My name is Molly,” she said, her voice ringing with confidence, “and I once played keepy-uppy with David Beckham.”

  Both Shenice and I knew this was true – he’d been opening the new sports stadium in Windsor and Molly had only been around four or five at the time – so we kept quiet. But I knew looking at Molly’s ringlets and heart-shaped face that hardly anyone would believe she’d played football with such a superstar.

  “No way!” one boy shouted and his mates jeered in agreement.<
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  Most of the other kids looked doubtful but Harry grinned. “I reckon that happened.”

  Molly nodded and sat down. Shenice was next but she didn’t stand up. I glanced at her to see she was staring at Harry with a dreamy expression on her face. Uh oh…

  “Shen,” I nudged her as discreetly as I could. “Shen, it’s your turn.”

  Her eyes widened suddenly and her cheeks went pink. She stood up. “Um…my name is Shenice and I – erm – I…”

  Everyone waited. The silence got louder and louder. Just say anything, I thought to myself, cringing on her behalf. Tell them you’re a lion tamer. Say your dad is President of the United States. ANYTHING.

  When we reached 9.5 on the SHAME-O-METER, I couldn’t bear it any more and jumped to my feet, intending to rescue Shenice. But the movement seemed to jolt her from her trance. She stared at me with panicky eyes for a heartbeat, then reached out and grabbed my arm. “I’m Shenice and this is Cassidy and we’re starring in the West End production of MATILDA this September.”

  Willing my face not to turn red, I tried to look like a CHILD PRODIGY when actually all I wanted to do was goggle at Shenice. Where had that come from? One minute she was a total SPACE CADET and the next she sounded so confident that even I half believed her. And from the looks of things, our fellow students were struggling to work out whether it was fact or fib too. Some of them were watching us with narrowed eyes, others were arguing among themselves, but not even the kids who went to St Jude’s seemed to know whether we were telling the truth.

  Harry was watching Shenice, his expression thoughtful. “You’d make an amazing Lavender,” he told her, before turning his gaze on me. “And you…maybe Hortensia?”

  Well, this was AWKWARD – Harry obviously believed we were capable of winning big roles in a huge musical and now Shenice had to admit that she’d lied. It wasn’t the best way to create a first impression. Then again, the whole point of the game was to fool people.

  “Nope,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m playing Bruce Bogtrotter, actually.”

  Shenice threw me a grateful look. “And I’m playing his cake.”

  Everyone laughed, Harry included and the next person stood up to speak. Harry leaned past Molly to tap Shenice on the shoulder. “I still think you’d be a brilliant Lavender.”

  Shenice blushed. “Thanks.”

  I swear something flashed between them then, just like it does in the movies when boy meets girl. Molly must have caught it too because she winked at me over the top of Shen’s head. At least I think that’s what she was getting at – she might have been trying to murder me, I suppose. But whatever she meant, it’s safe to say that Shenice seems wild about Harry.

  It was kind of a buzz making everyone laugh. Maybe I won’t swap courses just yet.

  Chapter Five

  The rest of the day whizzed by in a blur of songs and acting lessons. I was a bit nervous when Nick announced he was going to give each of us a SCORE but it turns out that’s just a fancy word for the music to go with the show. And there was a minor panic when Miss Skelly told us we had to PROJECT but that just means talk loudly so that the audience can hear. The only homework we were given was to watch the film version of BUGSY MALONE, so Molly phoned her mum to arrange an emergency sleepover that night and we piled into her bedroom, brimming over with popcorn and excitement.

  Molly is so LUCKY. She’s an only child for a start, so there are no annoying brothers or sisters to compete for her parents’ attention. The rest of her family is huge – I don’t think even she knows how many cousins she has but she gets loads of presents at Christmas and on her birthday. She’s been a bridesmaid nine times already and is always going back to Greece for family weddings. The only bridesmaid-potential in my family is if Uncle Ian proposes to Auntie Jane but Dad says there is more chance of the Pope getting married than of Uncle Ian popping the question. Does the Pope even have a girlfriend?

  Anyway, Molly’s house is practically the size of WINDSOR CASTLE but without the parapets and you don’t have to climb over a mountain of baby equipment to get past the front door. She’s got a flat-screen TV on the wall of her bedroom and the latest games console plugged into it and her mum is allergic to dogs so I can’t imagine that anyone has ever puked grass-filled slime on her rose-covered duvet cover. I could probably live in her wardrobe and she would never notice. In fact, the only thing Molly’s room has in common with mine is THE DROIDS posters on the wall and even those have mostly been replaced by WOLF BRETHREN photos now, which just proves my theory that she is also a teensy bit insane. Did I mention that Molly is the LUCKIEST GIRL ALIVE?

  So we watched BUGSY MALONE and sat with our scores open to sing along to the songs. Fat Sam has some great insults and I made a mental note to call Liam a DUMB SALAMI as soon as I could. I couldn’t wait to see how Miss Skelly planned to transform the stage into FAT SAM’S GRAND SLAM SPEAKEASY – she’d need a bar and tables and chairs, at least, plus a huge dollop of gangster glamour. And how would she manage the splurge guns? Foam? Custard, maybe?

  “Which part are you going to audition for?” I asked Molly when the end credits started to roll. “Blousey or Tallulah?”

  She stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t know. Tallulah’s song is better than Blousey’s, but Blousey does get Bugsy at the end. Maybe I’ll see what Miss Skelly suggests.”

  Molly came third in the ST JUDE’S HAS GOT TALENT contest the school held last year and I’m pretty sure she’ll be a professional singer some day, so it was no surprise she had her eye on one of the big roles.

  What I wasn’t ready for was the determined gleam that suddenly appeared in Shenice’s eye. “I think I’m going to go for Tallulah.”

  Molly and I stared at her in astonishment. “Okay,” I demanded in a shocked voice, “who are you and what have you done with Shenice?”

  She frowned at me. “Why? Don’t you think I can do it?”

  My BFF loyalty kicked in. “Of course I do,” I gushed. “You’d be a great Tallulah. It’s just…well, it’s a pretty big part and your last big role was the angel in the school nativity play in Year Three. We’re just a bit surprised, that’s all.”

  Molly nodded. “Yeah, there’ll be a lot of girls auditioning for Tallulah. Competition will be fierce.” She paused and I got the feeling she was picking her words with great care. “Wouldn’t you rather go for something a bit smaller? What about one of Fat Sam’s dancers – Bangles is a great role? Or Lena Marelli, the showgirl who interrupts Blousey’s first audition. She’s a great character and a real scene stealer.”

  “No,” Shenice said with a stubborn shake of her head. “It’s got to be Tallulah. You saw the film – whoever plays her gets to kiss Bugsy.”

  She’d lost me – what did that have to do with anything? Molly looked just as confused. Picking up my script, I flicked through it until I found the scene she meant, the one where Tallulah kisses Bugsy on the forehead to make Blousey jealous. And then I noticed the dreamy look in Shen’s eyes, the same look she’d had when she’d been staring at Harry pretty much the whole day, and the penny dropped: in her head, Shenice had already cast herself as the kisser and Harry as the kissed.

  “Oh…” I said. “Got you.”

  “OH!” Molly exclaimed, her eyes on the script. “I get it too.”

  Shenice’s expression clouded over as though she’d suddenly been hit by the DOUBT FAIRIES. “Unless…you don’t think I’m good enough?”

  I thought of all the times Molly and Shenice had encouraged me – like when I’d been sure that Nathan never wanted to speak to me again or when I’d worried I wasn’t clever enough for the quiz team. How would I have felt if they’d been negative instead of super-supportive? And then I remembered Miss Skelly’s Pee Em Aiee talk. Maybe Shenice had the right idea after all – to step out of her comfort zone and reach for her dreams. Maybe all she needed was a chance to shine. My eyes met Molly’s and she smiled.

  “Of course you’re good enough,” Molly said
. “And big dreams are much better than small ones.”

  “She’s right,” I agreed, thinking of a poster I’d seen once. “If you shoot for the moon you might land among the stars.”

  Shenice looked a little bit happier. “That’s what I thought. So – uh – have you got any tips, Molly?”

  “Loads!” Molly said, her voice bubbly with enthusiasm. “Why don’t we all learn the song and we can help each other?”

  It was a sweet idea but I was fairly sure there was NOTHING I could teach Molly about singing. Shenice looked down. “Oh. I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t audition for her too. Didn’t you say Blousey was a better role?”

  EEK. This was a huge favour, one I would never have dared to ask. Molly is a born performer and it seemed really unfair of Shenice to ask her to give up Tallulah. Then again, I wouldn’t want to audition against Molly – she was bound to have her pick of the girls’ roles. I glanced back and forth between them, my stomach tense. Molly’s face had gone all pink and I thought she might be about to cry. Then she sucked in a deep breath. “Okay. I’ll audition for Blousey.”

  Shenice squealed and threw herself across the room to hug Molly. I piled on too and we tumbled into a big giggling heap. That’s the great thing about Molly – she might be used to being the star of the show most of the time but she hasn’t let it go to her head – she’d never ditch a BFF for a few minutes of fame.

  Molly also loves being in charge and sure enough about ten seconds later, she pushed her way out of the huddle and picked up her pen like it was a conductor’s baton.

  “There’s an old saying in show business: ‘Fame costs’ and you have to work your butt off if you want to succeed,” she said, pointing the pen at Shenice. “Miss Skelly wants sweat and tears and Pee Oh Oh.”

  I couldn’t help myself – I sniggered. Molly narrowed her eyes. “Don’t think I’m letting you off the hook, Cassie. Who are you auditioning for?”