Читать книгу Ruby Parker: Shooting Star - Rowan Coleman - Страница 15

On the way back to Jeremy’s house we were all silent. Finally Anne-Marie spoke up.

“I can’t believe how awful I was!” she moaned miserably, staring out of the car window.

“You weren’t that bad,” Gabe told her. “At least you remembered the words. I forgot every other line. I’m sorry, Anne-Marie. I messed up and I know it means a lot more to you than it does to me.”

Gabe and Anne-Marie had been paired together for their screen test, whereas Nydia and I had two total strangers as our Sebastians.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Anne-Marie said, smiling wanly at Gabe. “At least when you said your lines you were brilliant. I remembered all of mine, but I might as well have been reading them off the back of a packet of cornflakes for all the feeling that I managed to get in them. And the song!” She clutched suddenly at her throat. “Maybe I’m catching Sean’s sore throat. Maybe that’s why my singing was so off.”

“At least you two knew each other,” said Nydia. “My Sebastian was a metre taller than me and he couldn’t look me in the eye. There’s nothing more off-putting than a boy telling you he thinks you’re beautiful when he’s gazing at your left ear.”

“You’ve been very quiet, Ruby,” Anne-Marie said. “What was your Sebastian like?”

I had been standing looking up with some trepidation at the fire escape where I was soon to be sitting when I had been introduced to my Sebastian.

“Ruby, isn’t it?” A lady with headphones and a clipboard approached me. “You have about twenty minutes before we start filming your scene. Now would be a good time for you to meet Henry Dufault. He’ll be your Sebastian today.”

She’d stood aside to reveal a boy of about fifteen with a distinct look that wasn’t like any other boy I knew. Henry had long dark hair that reached down to his shoulders and fell across his brown eyes, which looked as if they were lined with eyeliner. He wore a red T-shirt featuring a band I was not nearly cool enough to have heard of, skinny black jeans and a pair of bright green cowboy boots. He was not at all how I imagined Sebastian. Or anyone, for that matter.

“Oh, hello,” I said, suddenly sounding very English and proper.

“Hey,” Henry nodded and smiled.

“Do you want to talk the scene through before we start?” I asked him as the lady with the headphones and clipboard headed off. “Work out any moves or anything?”

Henry raised one amused brow as if he thought the suggestion was a completely silly one. “Let’s wing it,” he said with a grin. “It’ll be a buzz.”

“Wing it?” I asked him, sounding a bit squeaky. “A buzz? Do you mean improvise?”

“Winging is always best,” Henry told me. “Keeps it fresh, real. Let’s just follow each other, cool?”

I’d nodded.

“This is going to be terrible,” I’d whispered to myself as I took my seat on the fire escape.

But weirdly enough it wasn’t and neither was Henry. He could act as well as any boy I knew, even Sean, and he had a better singing voice than all of them. Even though I couldn’t see him when we sang our duet I could sort of feel his voice; it was so strong that it gave me confidence to push my voice further. I had never enjoyed singing a song so much before and I realised that whether I got a part in Spotlight! The Movie Musical or not, I had enjoyed my screen test when none of my friends had. And that was why I was quiet.

“So?” Nydia prompted me as the car pulled into Jeremy’s driveway. “How did it go?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly, looking at my friends. “I think it went OK. But we’ll soon find out because if they still want us they will be calling us back tomorrow.”

“I just want you to know,” Anne Marie said suddenly, grabbing mine and Nydia’s hands, “if I don’t get called back and you two do there will be no hard feelings at all.”

“Yeah, right,” me and Nydia said at once, rolling our eyes. All three of us laughed and the tension in the car disappeared in an instant.

“Whatever happens, best friends forever,” Nydia said.

“Best friends forever,” Anne-Marie and I agreed.

But as we walked into the house I saw Sean watching us from an upstairs window. He was waving a piece of paper at me, grinning exactly like a boy who had just found out what he needed to know.

Over dinner the parents talked and talked about the screen tests, and the other kids they had seen there, and what our chances were of getting called back for a second round of auditions, and whether or not we had a chance of getting any part in the film, never mind the leads. But us kids just ate our food and tried to talk about something else.

“You seem to be much better, Sean,” I said, looking across at him. He had been trying to get me on my own since we’d got back and so far I’d managed to avoid him.

I had decided it was no good. I couldn’t be Anne-Marie’s best friend forever and keep a secret about her boyfriend from her. Worse still, I couldn’t be her best friend and start having weird feelings about Sean. The only thing to do was to try and avoid him as much as possible. If he wanted to track his dad down then that was fine, but he’d have to do it without me until these funny feelings went away and Anne-Marie knew about the real reason he’d come to Hollywood. That was proper best friend behaviour.

“I’m not sure,” Sean said. “I think I’m getting a cough.”

After dinner we decided to watch a film in Jeremy’s huge screening room. It was a bit like a mini cinema, only it had ten great big comfy chairs that you could swivel round on. We’d been watching the film for about twenty minutes when I went to get us some more microwave popcorn, because we’d eaten the first lot before the film had even started. I was standing in the empty kitchen holding David in my arms, waiting for the microwave to beep, when Sean crept up on me.

“Boo!” he said, chuckling away as if he were hilarious. I was so surprised that I nearly dropped David, who went into a frenzy of barking and general guarding which might have been scary if he had been slightly bigger than a large mouse.

“Sean!” I hissed as I calmed David. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve got it,” he said, handing me a page he had torn out of the local directory. He’d obviously looked his father up in the Yellow Pages after all. “You were right – I didn’t need superspy skills to track Dad down. He’s here, Pat Rivers Talent Agency. I’m going to go and see him.”

“When?” I asked anxiously. I had been hoping that it would take ages for Sean to find his dad. It hadn’t occurred to me that it would really be as simple as looking him up in a phone book.

“Tonight,” Sean said, watching me intently.

“Tonight? But it’s his office address. Even if you could sneak out he won’t be there at this hour.”

Sean shook his head. “Ruby, you met my dad – when did he ever stop working?”

I thought for a second. “Never.”

“Exactly. He’s famous for his crazy working hours. Of course he’ll be there. He probably lives there, knowing Dad.”

“Well, if he does then it doesn’t sound like he’s changed much, does it?” I reminded Sean.

“Maybe not, but if I don’t speak to him I won’t know.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “Anyway I’ve worked out how we are going to get there.”

“We?” I squeaked. “As in you and me? I am not coming with you, Sean. It’s not fair of you to make me. Anne-Marie’s your girlfriend – don’t you think you should be inviting her on stupid trips across LA in the middle of the night?”

Sean pressed his lips together for a second. “She wouldn’t understand,” he said, his voice low. “You do.”

“I can’t come, Sean,” I said. “Imagine if my mum found out. I’d be grounded for the rest of my natural life.”

“Please, Ruby,” Sean begged. “I know I shouldn’t ask you, but I…I don’t have the nerve to go on my own. I need you to come with me. Please.”

The microwave pinged and we all jumped, including the dog in my arms.

“There’s a phone number on that page,” I said hopefully. “Couldn’t you just call him?” Sean said nothing as he watched me and waited. I sighed. Maybe the quicker we got this out of the way, the quicker things would go back to normal.

“What’s your plan then?” I asked him. “That address is on the other side of LA.”

“Remember when you and I were all dressed up at the film premiere and we got a cab across London to Nydia’s party?”

“Yes, it’s quite hard to forget, what with the swat team they sent after the jewellery I was wearing,” I said.

“It’s pretty much the same plan. We dress up, we sneak out, we catch a cab.”

“You call that a plan?” I asked.

“Sorry, Rubes,” Sean said, stuffing a handful of buttered popcorn into his mouth and tossing David a kernel. “Haven’t you worked out by now that I’ve only ever got one plan?”

101

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