Ruby Parker: Shooting Star

“This place is huge!” Nydia exclaimed as our minibus drew up to the front door.

“It’s amazing,” Anne-Marie said, sliding her sunglasses down her nose so she could get a better look at the house. Back in London Anne-Marie lived, more or less by herself, in one of the biggest, grandest houses I had ever seen, so for her to be impressed by Jeremy’s place was pretty unusual.

“All the houses round here are like this,” I told her. “This is where all the film stars live.”

Looking at Jeremy’s house made me feel a bit funny in the pit of my stomach. The last time I was here it was the most unhappy I’d ever been, even more than when Mum and Dad were splitting up, because at least then I knew they loved me. When I ran away from Hollywood, I didn’t think that anyone did. This time would be different I told myself. This time if I didn’t enjoy it out here, I knew Mum would take me straight home. And anyway I was different now. I was fourteen and I wasn’t a little girl any more.

“Oh my God, what is that!” Anne-Marie shrieked as David raced out of the front door and leapt into my arms. I grimaced as he licked me all over my face with his tiny rough tongue.

“This is David,” I managed to say. “He’s Jeremy’s dog. He look likes a rat, but actually once you get to know him he’s quite nice.”

“He hasn’t forgotten you,” Augusto said as he walked out to greet us, followed by Marie. “I think he sensed you the minute you got off the plane; he’s been waiting by the door for an hour.”

“Augusto!” I said, giving him a big hug that nearly squeezed David to death. “And Marie, it’s so nice to see you two again!”

“We’re very glad to have you and your friends stay with us,” Marie said, smiling at everyone. “Especially you, young lady. You gave us such a fright the last time. Come on, I’ll show you your rooms and then Augusto and I thought some cool drinks and sandwiches by the pool.”

“Woohoo!” Gabe whooped and Nydia laughed as everyone ran off to find which room they would be staying in.

“Coming in, honey?” Sean’s mum watched as Sean crouched down on the drive and made a fuss of David, rolling him on his back and tickling his little tummy.

“Be right there,” Sean said.

I knelt down next to him as he stroked the dog. “Feeling weird?” I asked.

He nodded, but didn’t look at me. “You?”

“Yeah, I am, but I reckon I’ll be OK. I’m not on my own this time, am I?”

Sean smiled at me, his blue eyes twinkling. “I’ll look out for you,” he said.

“So have you worked out how you’re going to give your mum the slip, go and find your dad and see if you can work things out with him, all while somehow managing not to get the lead part in a film that would be perfect for you and getting your picture in every single magazine on the whole planet?” I asked him.

Sean shook his head. “Nope. But I’m working on it.”

“Well, let me know when you do,” I said.

“Don’t you worry, Ruby, you will be the first to know,” Sean told me, standing up and offering me his hand. Somehow that didn’t make me feel any better.

Half an hour later and all of us kids were in the pool, while the adults sat around it eating some of Augusto’s amazing BLTs. David was sitting up on his hind legs and begging for scraps.

“This is the business,” Mr Martinez said. “You get yourself a life like this, son, and I’ll be happy.”

“I will do when I’m playing for Arsenal,” Gabe said, winking at Nydia and making her laugh. I noticed that those two had started to spend quite a lot of time together lately.

“We’ve got an early start tomorrow,” Mum said. “We all have to be at the studios at eight, so you all need an early night tonight.” Everyone groaned. “I’m serious. No midnight feasts or talking after lights out.”

“Mum!” I protested. “We’re not babies any more. We don’t do midnight feasts.”

“Mmm well, good,” Mum said. “Come on, you lot. Out and get ready for bed. It’s a big day tomorrow and you’ve had a long day.”

Moaning, the five of us pulled ourselves out of the pool and wrapped ourselves in bathrobes.

“You can actually see the Hollywood sign from here,” Anne-Marie said, smiling at Sean. “This place is so amazing, aren’t you glad that you’re back?”

Sean looked, his face expressionless. “I don’t know yet,” he said.

“Of course you are,” Anne-Marie said. “It’s going to be great! You’ll get the lead in the film and you’ll be famous again, and the whole town will love you and me, your girlfriend, and I’ll get my big break and nothing will ever be the same.” Anne Marie flung her arms around Sean and hugged him.

“We’ll see,” Sean said, glancing at me over Anne-Marie’s shoulder.

“Don’t be silly,” Anne-Marie said. “When have you ever not got a part that you’ve gone for?”

“There’s always a first time,” Sean said.

Later, while the parents were still downstairs, Anne-Marie, Nydia and I lay on my bed with the balcony doors open, letting the warm night air in as we ate a packet of cookies that I had snaffled from the kitchen when no one was looking. I was feeding crumbs to David who had curled up on my feet as if he was really pleased to see me.

“What will it be like tomorrow?” Nydia asked me.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t done this before either. Every single audition I’ve ever been to has been different. I have no idea what they ask you to do at a screen test.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Anne-Marie said. “Because we are prepared, aren’t we?”

Nydia and I looked at each other. For the last month Anne-Marie had made us meet at her house three times a week to learn the lines from the play and rehearse all the songs over and over again. “No one knows Spotlight! better than us. They’ll have to choose us, they’ll just have to.”

“But they might not,” I said carefully. I had the feeling that getting a part in the film meant more to Anne-Marie than anyone else. “They might want American kids and I heard that Sunny Dale might be up for Arial.”

“She’s rubbish,” Anne-Marie said. “I can knock spots off her any day of the week, and if they think I’m going to have that girl screen-kissing my boyfriend then they’ve got another think coming.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Nydia said. “If you or me got the lead we might have to kiss Sean too, Ruby. How disgusting would that be!”

“Yuck!” I said, and I pulled a suitable face. But worryingly, the second Nydia mentioned it I realised I didn’t think it would be too awful to kiss Sean Rivers at all. I thought of that twinkly, blue-eyed smile he’d given me earlier that day and for the first time since I’d known him it made my tummy lurch. But not in bad way.

“Oh no, that’s a terrible, terrible idea!” I said out loud before I realised it. “That would be really, really bad.”

“He’s not that bad a kisser,” Anne-Marie giggled, whacking me with one of my pillows.

“Well, he’s been kissing you for nearly a year so he can’t be that good,” I teased her, keen to get the stupid feeling out of my tummy.

“Attack!” Nydia yelled, launching herself at me with the final cushion.

There were feathers all over the floor by the time my mum caught us.

SPOTLIGHT! THE MOVIE MUSICAL

SCREEN TEST SCENE SCREENPLAY BY JOSETTE HUGHES AND SIMION HUGHES based on LYRICS AND MUSIC BY MICK CARUSO and BOOK BY DEN FELTON

Scene 37

Ext. Evening. Fire escape at the back of the drama school. ARIAL is sitting on her own, crying. A figure appears at the window. It’s SEBASTIAN. He hesitates and then climbs out of the window and sits beside her. He considers putting a hand on her shoulder, but in the end is not brave enough.

SEBASTIAN

Arial, why are you crying?

ARIAL looks up at him, as if she’s only just realised that he is there. Hastily she wipes her tears away and tries to smile.

ARIAL

I’m not crying, I just have…um hay fever. That’s all – it makes my eyes run.

SEBASTIAN hesitates again. He knows that ARIAL is lying, but he doesn’t want to embarrass her.

SEBASTIAN

Look, I know you haven’t got very many friends here yet, and that some of the girls are giving you a hard time – but that’s only because they are jealous.

Only because you are more talented than they are. Kinder, nicer, funnier and more beautiful…

ARIAL looks up sharply at SEBASTIAN.

ARIAL

Pardon?

SEBASTIAN looks scared and then his face changes as he makes a decision to say what he’s really thinking.

SEBASTIAN

I said I think you are really beautiful.

They look at each other for a moment longer and then SEBASTIAN loses his courage. He climbs back in through the window, leaving ARIAL sitting alone once again.

Cue production number four SEBASTIAN and ARIAL’S 1ST DUET “I’m in Love!” Sung as a duet but shot in two separate locations: SEBASTIAN’S room and the fire escape.

“I’m in Love!”

ARIAL: I’ve never felt this way before. I see your face and my heart hits the floor. SEB: I don’t understand what’s going on, Only that I miss you whenever you’re gone. BOTH: I feel crazy and happy and sad. I feel lazy and zappy and mad! I want to sing, I want to run, to fly in the sky above! What’s happening to me? Could it be that I’m in love? SEB: None of the guys have ever felt the way I do. ARIAL: All of the girls would laugh if they ever knew. BOTH: But I’d do anything to spend a few minutes with you Because only you can make me feel the way I do. I feel funny and stupid and fine! And Honey I wish that Cupid would make you mine! I want to sing, I want to run, to soar in the sky above! What’s happening to me? Could it be I’m in love?

DANCE INTERLUDE

SEB: None of the guys have ever felt the way I do. ARIAL: All of the girls would laugh if they ever knew. BOTH: But I’d do anything to spend a few minutes with you Because only you can make me feel the way I do. I feel funny and stupid and fine! And Honey I wish that Cupid would make you mine! I want to sing, I want to run, to soar in the sky above! What’s happening to me? Could it be I’m in love? Music fades. SEBASTIAN looks wistfully out of his bedroom window at the moon and then draws down his blind as his roommates enter. ARIAL takes one more look at the moon and then climbs back in through the window, pulling it down behind her. Scene closes.

Chapter Three

“Right,” I said to everyone as we sat in the waiting room right outside where the screen testing was, with a slight note of panic in my voice. “All we have to do is act, sing and dance. It will be fine.”

“It won’t be fine,” Nydia said anxiously. “This isn’t a scene, it’s a whole act! I thought they’d give us less to do and more time to prepare. I thought we’d get the scene and then at least have a chance to rehearse. I didn’t think they’d hand us a huge script and then tell us we’ll be seen on set in about five minutes. And that was four minutes ago!”

“Don’t panic,” Gabe said, taking her hand. “This is your role. You’ve played Arial on TV in front of millions. OK, so this is a new song and a new scene that none of us have ever seen before, written especially for the film. But it’s still Arial, and you still know how to play Arial better than anyone.”

Nydia smiled at him and I thought that I really had to get her on her own soon and ask exactly what was happening between those two. But now wasn’t the time.

“Gabe’s right,” I said. “We’ve prepared as much as anyone could. Now we just have to do our best.”

“How can you be so calm?” Nydia asked, dropping Gabe’s hand as if she’d only just realised that she was holding it.

“By pretending mostly,” I said. “Look, if you don’t want to do it, just say. Nothing bad will happen, except that you definitely won’t get a part in the film and will have to spend the summer in London.”

“I want to do it,” Nydia said, biting her lip. “Only in about two weeks, not two minutes!”

“I really wanted to do my scene with Sean.” Anne-Marie spoke for the first time since she’d been handed the script. “We’d be so good together in this scene. I can’t believe that he’s not here.”

That morning Sean had woken up with a temperature and a sore throat. He’d told, or rather croaked to, his mum that he wouldn’t be able to screen test-after all. His mum had phoned the studio to tell them and they said they had to go ahead and start the casting process today, but that they’d be happy to wait for Sean to get better before they made the final decision on male roles. By which they meant the part of Sebastian, because there would never be any way that Sean Rivers would get any part in any film that wasn’t the lead.

I’d found Sean lying on the sofa watching TV just before we left.

“Well, there are no radiators on in here, it’s much too hot,” I said, crossing my arms and tipping my head on one side. “So tell me – how did you fake your temperature?”

“Dipped the thermometer in a mug of tea,” he confessed in his normal voice. I shook my head. It was hard to be cross with Sean, but I wanted to give it a go.

“OK, so you’ve managed to get out of it today, but how long are you going to be able to keep it up? You can’t have a sore throat forever, you know.”

“I know,” Sean said, grinning at me. “I was thinking it could progress to a chesty cough, maybe a rash and then, oh, I don’t know – the bubonic plague. That would do it.”

I tired hard not to laugh, but failed.

“Have you worked out how you are going to reach your dad yet?” I asked, glancing at the door to make sure we weren’t being overheard.

“No,” Sean admitted. “But I will. The first thing I have to do is find out his address, because he’s moved. I need to find out where he is living or working. I’m going to do that today.”

“Your mum is staying home with you,” I reminded him in a whisper as I heard voices in the hall. “You won’t just be able to look him up in Yellow Pages.”

“I know,” Sean said. “I wasn’t in the movie Kid: Super Spy for nothing, you know. I picked up a few tricks of the trade.” He smiled at me again, that same but new smile that suddenly seemed to unsettle me the way it did every other girl in the entire world. I didn’t like it.

“Don’t smile at me,” I said without thinking, as my tummy did a backflip.

“What? Why not?” Sean asked me.

I stared at him for a second or two trying to think of something to say that didn’t involve the words “because I think I’m getting a bit of a crush on you for some bizarre reason and you smiling at me only makes it worse”.

“I…um…because I am in the zone. If you smile at me I’ll want to smile at you and then I’ll be out of the, er, zone thingy and um…It’s like Anne-Marie, your girlfriend and my best friend, is always saying, you have to stay in the zone.”

Sean’s smile widened. “You are crazy, Ruby Parker,” he told me. “But that’s what I’ve always liked about you.”

“Sean!” Anne-Marie rushed into the room wearing a paper mask over her face, presumably to protect her from his germs. “Are you sure you can’t come? Because when you get out there in front of the camera, the adrenaline will kick in and I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“Can’t talk,” Sean croaked, shrugging apologetically.

“But I really want you to come,” Anne-Marie said miserably.

“Break a leg,” Sean had managed, and I dragged Anne-Marie out to the car.

And now we were in a room waiting to be called for a screen test. The funny thing was that on the other side of the door was a full-size movie set of a building, complete with a life-size fire escape that each of us was supposed to perform a “dance interlude” on. For the first time ever in my acting career, it was quite likely that I actually would break a leg.

Chapter Four

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.