Читать книгу Pumpkin Pie - Jean Ure, Stephen Lee, Jean Ure - Страница 7

IT WAS SAFFY who suggested we should go to acting classes. I was quite surprised as she had never shown any inclination that way. Just the opposite! Once at infant school she was chosen to be an angel in the nativity play, a sweet little red-headed, pointy-nosed angel, all dressed up in a white nightie with a halo on her head and dear little wings sprouting out of her back. Guess what? She tripped over her nightie, forgot her line – she only had the one – and ran off the stage, blubbing. Oh, dear! It is something she will never manage to live down. She gets quite huffy about it.

“I was six,” she says, if ever I chance, just casually, to bring it into the conversation. Which I only do if I feel for some reason she needs putting in her place.

When she is in a really huffy mood she will waspishly remind me that I didn’t get chosen to be anything at all, let alone an angel, which you would have thought I might have done, having fair hair and blue eyes and looking, if I may say so, far more angelic than Saffy. In my opinion, she would have been better cast as a sheep. (Then she wouldn’t have had a nightie to trip over, ha ha!)

The only reason I didn’t get chosen was that I caught chicken pox. If I hadn’t had chicken pox, I bet I’d have been an angel all right! And I bet I wouldn’t have tripped over my nightie and forgotten my line, either. Saffy has absolutely no right to crow. It is hardly a person’s fault if a person gets struck down by illness.

I have said this to her many times, but all she says in reply is, “You picked yourself.”

What she means is, I scratched my spots. She says that is why I wasn’t chosen.

“It was a nativity play, not a horror show!”

It’s true I did make a bit of a mess of myself. Petal, who had chicken pox at the same time as me, didn’t even scrape off one tiny little crust. Even at the age of eight, Petal obviously knew the value of a smooth, unblemished skin. But it is all vanity! What do I care? In any case, as Saffy always hastens to assure me – feeling guilty, no doubt, at her cruel jibe – “It hardly shows at all these days. Honestly! Just one little dent in the middle of your chin… it’s really cute!”

Huh! It doesn’t alter the fact that she had her chance as an angel and she muffed it. It is no use getting ratty with me! What I didn’t understand was why she should want to go to acting classes, all of a sudden.

I put this to her, and earnestly Saffy explained it wasn’t so much the acting she was interested in, though she reckoned by now she could manage to say the odd line or two without bursting into tears. What it was, she said, was boys.

“Ah,” I said. “Aha!”

“Precisely,” said Saffy.

She giggled, and so did I.

“You think it would be a good way to meet them?”

“I do,” said Saffy.

In that case, I was all for it! Meeting boys, in that second term of Year 7, had become very important, not to say crucial. We had to meet boys! There were lots of boys in our class at school, of course, but we had already met them. We met them every day, and we didn’t think much of them. Well, I mean! Kevin Williams and Nathan Corrie. Pur-lease! Not that they were all primeval swamp creatures, but even those that hadn’t crawled out of the mud seemed to come from distant planets. Trying to suss them out was like trying to fathom the workings of an alien mind. Were they plant life? Or were they animal? They probably thought the same about us. But you have to get to grips with them sooner or later because otherwise, for goodness’ sake, the human race would just die out!

I didn’t say this to Saffy, knowing her sensitivity on certain subjects, eg, the rabbit’s reproductive system. I just agreed with her that meeting boys was an essential part of our education, and one which at the moment was being sadly neglected.

“I don’t know how Petal got going,” I said. “She just seemed to do it automatically.”

Saffy said that Petal was a natural.

“People like you and me have to work at it.”

“And you honestly truly think,” I said, “that drama school would be a good place to start?”

Saffy said yes, it would be brilliant! She sounded really keen. At drama school, she said, we would meet boys who were creative and sensitive, and gorgeous with it. All the things that the swamp creatures weren’t. It’s true! You look at a boy like Nathan Corrie and you think, “Is this life as we know it?”

The thought of meeting boys who were both creative and sensitive and gorgeous seemed almost too good to be true.

“Do they really exist?” I said.

“Of course they do!” said Saffy. She said that you had to be all of those things if you wanted to be an actor. You couldn’t have actors that were goofy or geeky or just plain boring.

“Or even just plain,” I said. And then immediately thought of at least a dozen that were all of those things. I reeled off a list to Saffy.

“What about that one that looks like a frog? That one that was on the other day. And that one that’s all drippy, the one in Scene Stealing, that you said you couldn’t stand. You said it was insulting they ever let him on the screen. And that other one, that Jason person, the one in—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” said Saffy. “But there’s far more who are gorgeous. I mean—” She gave this little nervous trill. Nervous because she knew perfectly well she was being self-indulgent. “Look at Brad!”

By Brad she meant Brad Pitt. (Famous American movie star, in case anyone has been hiding in a hole for the past ten years.) Don’t ask me what Brad Pitt had to do with it. Just don’t ask. Saffy brings Brad Pitt into everything. She can’t help it, poor dear, she is infatuated. I somewhat sternly pointed out (being cruel to be kind) that Brad Pitt is not exactly a boy, in fact he is probably old enough to be her grandfather. Well, father. I might just as well not have bothered! Saffy simply smiled this soppy smile and loftily informed me that she preferred “the mature man”.

“Well, you’re not very likely to meet any mature men at drama classes,” I said. “Not when they’re advertised for 12 to 16 year olds!”

“That’s all right,” said Saffy, still in these lofty tones. “If I can’t have Brad—”

“Which you can’t,” I said.

“I know I can’t!” snapped Saffy. “I just said that, didn’t I? He’s married!”

“On the other hand,” I said, trying to be helpful, “he’s bound to get divorced. Movie stars always do. If you wait around long enough—”

“Oh!” She clasped her hands. “Do you think so?” Heavens! She was taking me seriously. Her cheeks had now turned bright pink.

“Well, no,” I said. “I don’t, actually. By the time you’re old enough, he’ll be practically decrepit.”

Her face fell, and I immediately felt that I had been mean, turning her daydreams into a joke. It’s not kind to trample on people’s daydreams. Specially not when it’s your best friend. But Saffy is actually quite realistic and never stays crushed for long. She is a whole lot tougher than she looks!

“Well, anyway,” she said, “as I was saying, if I can’t have Brad I’ll make do with someone else. Just in the mean time. To practise on.”

“While you’re waiting,” I said.

“Yes.” She giggled. “As long as they’re not geeky!”

“Or swamp creatures.”

“Or aliens.”

But they wouldn’t be. She promised me! They would be creative and sensitive and hunky. She said we must enrol straight away.

“We’ve already missed the first two weeks of term. They’ll all be taken!”

I said, “Who will?”

“All the gorgeous guys!”

“Oh. Right!” An idea suddenly struck me. If all the guys were going to be gorgeous, wouldn’t all the girls be gorgeous, too? I had visions of finding myself among a dozen different versions of Petal. What a nightmare!

I put this to Saffy, but she reassured me. She said that loads of quite ordinary-looking girls (such as for instance her and me) fancied themselves as actresses, but the only boys who went to drama classes were the creative, sensitive, and divinely beautiful ones.

“If they’re not creative and sensitive they go and play with their computers. And if they are creative and sensitive, but not very beautiful—”

I waited.

“They go and do something else,” said Saffy.

“Like what?” I said.

“Oh! I don’t know.” She waved a hand. Saffy can never be bothered with mere detail. She is quite an impatient sort of person. “Probably go and write poetry, or something.”

I thought about the boys in our class. Writing poetry was not an activity I associated with any of them. Ethan Cole had once written a limerick that started “There was a young girl called Jan”, but none of it had scanned and it hadn’t made any sort of sense and what was more it had been downright rude. That was the only sort of poetry that the boys in our class understood. How could you have a class with fourteen boys and every single one an alien?

I said to Saffy that if I could meet a boy that wrote poetry I wouldn’t mind if he wasn’t beautiful, just the fact that he wrote poetry would be enough, but Saffy told me that that made me sound desperate.

“Why settle for a creative geek when you could have a creative hunk? Ask your mum and dad as soon as you get home. Tell them your entire future is at stake! You don’t have to mention boys. Just say that having drama classes will give you poise and – and confidence and – and will be good for your self-esteem.”

“All right,” I said.

I asked Dad the minute he got back from picking up Pip from school. I followed him round the kitchen as he chopped and sliced and tossed things into pans.

“Dad,” I said.

“Yes? Out of the way, there’s a good girl!”

I hastily skipped round the other side of the table. Dad hates to be crowded when he’s in the kitchen. Mum says he’s a bit of a prima donna.

“Do you think I could go to acting classes?” I said.

Dad said, “What sort of acting classes? Hand me the salt, would you?”

“Acting classes,” I said. “Drama. At a drama school.”

“Pepper!”

“It would give me poise,” I said.

“Poise, eh? Taste this!” Dad thrust a spoon in my face. “How is it? Not too hot?”

“It’s scrummy,” I said. “The thing is, if I went to acting classes—”

“Bit more salt, I reckon.”

“It would give me confidence, Dad!”

“Didn’t know you lacked it,” said Dad.

“I do,” I said. “That’s why I want to go. So could I, Dad? Please?”

“It’s not up to me,” said Dad. “Ask your mum.”

I should have known! It’s what he always says. Dad and me are really great mates, and he is wonderful for having cuddles with, but whenever it’s anything serious he always, always says ask your mum. It’s like Mum is the career woman, she is the big breadwinner, so she has to make all the decisions.

Well, of course, Mum didn’t get in till late, and as usual she was worn to a frazzle and just wanted to go and soak in the bath.

“Darling, I’m exhausted!” she said. “It’s been the most ghastly day. Let’s talk at the weekend. We’ll sit down and have a long chat, I promise.”

“But, Mum,” I said, “I need to talk now.” Saffy would be cross if I didn’t have an answer for her. She wanted us to be enrolled by the weekend. “All it is,” I said, “I just want to know if I could go to drama classes.”

It is easy to see how Mum has got ahead in business. In spite of being exhausted, she immediately wanted all the details, such as where, and who with, and how much. Fortunately Saffy can be quite efficient when she puts her mind to it. She had told me where to find the advert in the Yellow Pages, plus she had written down all the things that Mum would want to know.

“It’s right near where Saffy lives,” I said. “I could go back with her after school on Fridays, and I thought perhaps you could come and pick me up afterwards. Maybe. I mean, if you weren’t too busy. If you didn’t have to work late. And then on Saturdays—”

“We could manage Saturdays between us,” said Mum. “If you’ve really set your heart on it.”

One of the best things about my mum is, when you do get to talk to her she doesn’t keep you on tenterhooks while she hums and hahs and thinks things over. She makes up her mind right there and then. It’s something I really like about her. Especially when she makes up her mind the way I want her to! Though considering Pip has his own computer and about nine million computer games, and Petal has her own TV and her own CD player, and I don’t have any of these things (mainly because I don’t particularly want them) Mum probably thought that a few drama classes weren’t so very much to ask. She is quite fair, on the whole, except for spoiling Pip rotten on account of him being the youngest. And of course a boy. I really do think boys get treated better than girls! Petal doesn’t necessarily agree. She says that if Mum spoils Pip, then Dad spoils me. But he only spoils me with food. He’d spoil Petal with food if she’d let him, but she won’t, so she only has herself to blame.

Anyway, Mum said that on Friday she would leave work early and come with me so that I could get myself enrolled. When she said that, I just nearly burst at the seams! I thought that for Mum to actually come with me was worth far more than if she’d bought me a dozen computers or TV sets. Mum works so hard and such long hours, she almost never gets to do anything with us. I couldn’t resist a bit of boasting, on the phone to Saffy.

“Mum is going to come with me,” I said.

“Yes, well, she’d have to,” said Saffy. “Mine’s coming, too. You have to have your parents’ permission.” I couldn’t really expect Saffy to understand how momentous it was, Mum leaving work early just for me. Saffy’s mum only works part-time, and then all she does is answer someone’s telephone. She’s not high-powered like my mum! She is very nice, though. The sort of mum you read about in books. The sort that cooks and sews and all that stuff. Kind of… old-fashioned. Though I don’t think Saffy sees it that way. She thinks it’s quite normal to have a mum who’s there in the morning when she leaves for school and there again in the afternoon when she gets back. She once told me that she found it a bit peculiar, me having a dad who stayed home to look after us.