Ruby Parker: Musical Star

I took the magazine out of her hand and read the part about Danny Harvey and Mick Caruso.

“Yes,” I said. “I went out with Danny for a bit and then he dumped me for another girl.”

“Why did he chuck you?” Adele demanded.

I was learning that although Adele always talked as if she was about to punch you in the face, that in itself didn’t necessarily mean that she would. And while she hadn’t formally withdrawn her threat to “get me”, she hadn’t actually got me yet either. I was hoping that Dakshima was right and that she wasn’t nearly as scary as she seemed. One thing you couldn’t comfortably say to Adele, though, was mind your own business.

“Because he liked the other girl more than me, I suppose,” I said with a shrug.

“Prettier than you?” Adele demanded.

I nodded. “Probably.”

“Stupid cow,” Adele said, and I wasn’t sure if she was talking about me or Melody. I read further down the page, about the auditions that Anne-Marie and Nydia had mentioned. For a split second the thought of trying out for the show made me feel excited inside – and then I read the bit about the choir competition. My stomach dropped ten floors into my toes.

“That’s mine,” Adele said, snatching the magazine back out of my hands.

“Is that what we’re doing?” I asked her.

Adele frowned at the magazine and then at me. “What?”

“Is that why we have to sing for Mr Petrelli? So that he can get a choir together to enter this competition?”

“That’s right. I told you it was a schools competition,” Dakshima said, appearing at my shoulder. “Thanks for saving me a space in the queue, by the way.” She winked at the girls she had just pushed in front of, who grumbled but didn’t say anything because everyone liked Dakshima.

“I’m not going,” I said, picking up my bag.

“Hey, hang on,” Dakshima said. “You can’t just leave. Mr Petrelli’s doing a register for every year group. If you don’t sing with us now, he’ll only make you go back again and sing on your own. What’s your problem, anyway?”

“Nothing, there is no problem, but this is a waste of time. He won’t want me in his choir and I just…I don’t want to be involved with this. I’ve given it up. I left stage school, turned down film roles in Japan and everything. I don’t want to act any more or sing or do any kind of audition. I want to do biology and show an interest in fractions!”

Dakshima frowned at me and tutted, and I worried that I’d blown our fledgling friendship already.

“It’s only singing in the school hall, not The X Factor. If you’re no good, he’ll tap you on the shoulder and you can go, and no one will even care.”

“That’s my point!” I tried to explain. “I don’t want to get tapped on the shoulder any more. That’s why I left the Academy, because I couldn’t take getting tapped on shoulders any more.”

“What are you on about?” Dakshima asked me, but before I could answer, the hall doors burst open and Mr Petrelli appeared, armed with a clipboard and a determined look. It was too late to escape.

“Right, Year 9, it’s your turn now, and let’s hope you’ve got more to offer than Years 10 and 11. At this rate I’ll be entering a choir with only four members and we’ll never get our hands on the money.”

“Are you religious, sir?” Dakshima said as she walked past him into the hall.

“Why do you ask, Dakshima?

“Because you must be hoping for a miracle!” Dakshima said, making the others giggle.

I didn’t laugh because my stomach was in knots and I felt like butterflies had moved into my chest. I felt exactly the same as I had the time I auditioned for Oscar-winning director Art Dubrovnik and that day I threw up on my feet. This was only a school choir, a bad school choir at that, and I still felt the same. What I didn’t understand was why.

As Mr Petrelli called the register, I looked longingly at the door and wished I could escape.

“OK,” Mr Petrelli called from the stage. We all stood in haphazard lines in front of him, the boys messing around at the back and the girls chatting. Some things never change no matter what type of school you go to. “CAN I HAVE SOME QUIET, PLEASE?” he yelled.

The talking lowered to a murmur and Mr Petrelli switched on an overhead projector. A set of words flashed up on the screen at a slight angle. I recognised them.

“This is how it’s going to work,” said Mr Petrelli. “If I tap you on the shoulder, you have to go. If I don’t, you stay – and don’t sneak off because I will hunt you down and I will make you sing.” There was a collective groan. “Now, I thought I’d give you all a song you know so I’ve picked last year’s dreadful Christmas number one, You Take Me To (Kensington Heights).”

“Don’t make us sing that rubbish,” one of the boys called out.

“That’s Ruby Parker’s boyfriend’s song,” Adele told everyone at the top of her voice. “Except he chucked her!”

For a second, the whole of Year 9 looked at me. I dropped my chin on to my chest and prayed for a hole to appear in the floor, but God obviously wasn’t listening.

“Well then, Ruby, I expect you to be the best,” Mr Petrelli said. He pressed play on his CD player and the opening bars to Danny’s number one song filled the hall.

“Two, three, four!” Mr Petrelli yelled, waving a baton at us like somehow it was going to make us sing better.

“Before I met you, I was on a dark and dusty shelf.

Oh and I hated myself

Cos I was all alone…“

The whole of Year 9 sang more or less in unison.

“I can’t believe I actually have to do this,” I complained to Dakshima over the singing, as Mr Petrelli walked long the row in front of us, tapping shoulders as he went. “I thought I had been humiliated about as much as possible for a girl of my age – but apparently not.”

“Oh, chill,” Dakshima said. “It’s only a bit of singing, Ruby, not the end of the world.”

It was clear if I was going to be friends with Dakshima then I was going to have to tone down the drama queen thing. But that was one of the things I liked best about her. She made me be me, and not some acted out version of the me I thought I should be to impress other people. Dakshima winked at me and just as Mr Petrelli started to walk down our row and I joined in with the singing. After all, I decided, I might as well get it over with as quickly as I could.

“And now, your love lifts me,

So high and so easily.

And I know I’ll love you

With all of my might,

Because you

Take me to –

Kensington Heights!“

As I sang I watched Mr Petrelli approaching, tapping shoulder after shoulder as he went. Only two other people from our row were still standing by the time he got to me and Dakshima, and Adele wasn’t one of them.

“This is a fix,” she said angrily as she marched off.

It seemed like Mr Petrelli stood there for ages, torturing me as he listened to me trying to sing my ex-boyfriend’s number one single, and it felt like he was never going to tap me on the shoulder. When he nodded and moved on to Dakshima I realised why.

I, me – Ruby who can’t really sing, had somehow made it into the choir without even trying. It was a nightmare!

I stared at Dakshima as he nodded at her too and moved on.

She grinned at me still, singing along to the tune, but inserting her own words now.

“This is going to be so cool,” she sang. “We’ll get totally loads of time off of school rehearsing for the competition.“

“I don’t want to be in the choir,” I sang back. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.“

“Don’t sweat it, Ruby,” Dakshima replied tunefully, making me realise that she actually did have a very nice voice. “There’s no way Highgate Comp will ever get past the first round!“

As she finished on the last note of the song with a flourish, I looked around at the few people from our year group that remained. I couldn’t believe I was one of them.

“Right, children,” Mr Petrelli said, pushing the stop button on his CD player. “Thank you for joining the choir. Rehearsals are every lunchtime and after school starting tomorrow. You can bring a sandwich with you, OK? Now get to class.”

“Oh what?” Dakshima groaned. “What about all the time off, sir?

“This isn’t a game to get you out of your school work, Dakshima,” Mr Petrelli told her seriously. “This school is desperate for a new music and drama lab, and winning that prize money is the only way we can ever afford it.”

“Excuse me, sir,” I said stopping in front of him. “Thank you for picking me to be in the choir, but I don’t think you could have really heard my voice. I’m not a singer, sir.”

Mr Petrelli looked at me with round black eyes that made me feel a little bit like running away. “If I didn’t tap you on the shoulder, then you are a singer,” he said. “I am never wrong.”

“But at the Academy,” I pressed on. “That’s Sylvia Lighthouse’s Academy for the Performing Arts, I didn’t do any singing. I did acting, that was all, and I wasn’t even very good at that as it happens.”

“Look, Ruby,” Mr Petrelli sounded impatient. “Perhaps your last school was filled with budding tenors and sopranos, although not if that dreadful single your friend produced is anything to go by. But in this school your voice is in the top ten per cent. Yes, it needs some work, your tuning is off and you sing like a mouse – but you are the best of a bad lot and you are in the choir.”

“The thing is,” I tried to explain, “I’ve given up show business, so thanks for the offer but…”

“Ruby,” Mr Petrelli said firmly, “I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. At this school a lot of kids would do anything to have a tenth of what you’ve just thrown away. And as preposterous as it seems right now, this choir is the nearest thing we’ve got to making that happen. As long as you can carry a tune, you are in it. Understood?”

“Understood, sir,” I said, in a small voice. For a music teacher Mr Petrelli could be quite scary, although no where near Sylvia Lighthouse levels.

“Good. Get along to class then,” Mr Petrelli told me. “You’ll be late for biology.”

Adele was waiting for me when I came out of the hall. The corridors were empty except for her. She was standing there, her arms crossed, her brow pulled together in the middle.

“Hi,” I said hesitantly.

“You got picked for the choir,” she said accusingly.

“Yes…”

“I didn’t get picked,” she growled. I bit my lip. At the very least, Adele and I were now going to be several minutes late for biology and I would be getting detained after school. On the bright side, I wouldn’t be able to do detention because Adele would have broken my legs for getting in the school choir I didn’t want to be in and I would be in A&E.

Funny, I thought to myself, life as a normal kid isn’t nearly as uncomplicated as I hoped.

“I wanted to be in the choir.” Adele took two or three menacing steps towards me. I found myself thinking about the letters girls used to write to me when I was in Kensington Heights, telling me about being bullied at school and how awful it was and how every single night they went to bed feeling sick with dread and would find whatever reason they could not to go to school. But although Adele had threatened to get me on my very first day, I hadn’t been nearly as scared of her as I was of Adrienne Charles at Beaumont High in Hollywood. Until now, that is.

“Look,” I said, holding up my hands, “I don’t want to be in the choir, Adele. I’ll get out of it…I’ll fake a sore throat or something – I’m quite good at acting, so I think I can pull it off. Then maybe you’ll get my place.”

“I won’t,” Adele said, her face get redder and redder. “I never get anything. Always last to be picked in netball, I never have a lab partner in biology and now this. I…I’m…gonna…”

I squeezed my bag tightly to my chest and closed my eyes, certain that I was about to find out exactly how much it hurt to be punched.

After a second or two minus any pain, I realised that instead of hitting me, Adele was making a snuffly, gurgling sort of noise. I opened one eye and, unable to believe what I was seeing, I opened the other just to double-check.

Adele was crying.

“Er…” I had no idea how to deal with this. It was like seeing my mum with artificially inflated fish lips in Hollywood – so bizarre I couldn’t quite believe it was real. “Oh dear. Um…don’t cry, Adele, it’s not that bad. I mean, if I’m in the choir then we don’t stand a chance of winning anyway, so you’re not really missing out on anything. Dakshima says we won’t get past the first round.”

“It’s not that,” Adele said, wiping her sleeve under her nose and sniffing.

“Isn’t it?” I asked her.

“I’m never included in anything,” Adele said. “And I actually can sing pretty well – not like those people on The X Factor who think they can sing but can’t. I’m in the choir at church. But when I got in the hall with everybody there I couldn’t do it. I thought if everybody saw me trying they’d think I was even more stupid than they already do and I got all scared and my voice came out all squeaky and off key.”

“You know what a key is?” I asked her, taking a step closer to her. “Cos I don’t.”

“Yes,” Adele said. “But no one at at school knows anything about me really, not even the teachers.”

“Adele, you should ask Mr Petrelli for another audition, just you on your own. Then you wouldn’t have to be so nervous. Trust me, I know what that’s like. Once I threw up on my shoes during an audition.”

“Serious?” Adele asked me. “That’s rank.”

“I know! Look, if you wanted…maybe I could help you? At the Academy we used to do breathing techniques and stuff for when you’re nervous.”

“You’d help me?” Adele asked me. “You, the famous rich kid?”

“I’m not a…” I paused. The fact of the matter was that I had been on TV for years and years, and in one film that a lot of people went to see, even though it was voted one of the top three worst films of the year. And even though I didn’t see a penny of it, apart from my pocket money, the chances were that I did have quite a lot of money in the bank. Compared to a lot of other Highgate comp kids, I was rich.

“Look, I’ve been famous, but I was rubbish at it. And I don’t want to be famous any more. People say things about you and they don’t care how it might make you feel. They think they know what you are like without really knowing you at all.”

“Sounds a lot like school,” Adele said.

“Maybe it is,” I said thoughtfully. “Look, maybe, what with you threatening to get me and everything, I did judge you a little bit. But if you are saying that you are not, after all, a homicidal maniac, then I would be very glad to help you.”

“I wouldn’t have actually ever got you,” Adele said. “I don’t even know why I said it. I was coming over to say hello, but then I thought there’s no way that famous rich kid is ever going to be friends with me and before I knew it I was saying what I said. That’s how everyone expects me to be.”

I smiled tentatively at her and she returned my smile.

“We should get to class,” I said. “We’re definitely going to get killed by Mrs Moreton.”

“No we won’t,” Adele said. “I’ll say I had to take you to the loos because you felt sick, but you’re better now.”

“OK,” I said, looking at Adele’s tear streaked face. “Or we could say you were sick and I was helping you?”

“That would never work,” Adele said, putting her arm heavily around me in preparation for our roles. “No one would ever believe it.”

Dear Ruby

You are invited to Anne-Marie’s

fourteenth birthday party!

When? March 15th

Where? Chance Heights, Highgate, London

Wear? Anything fabulous.

Bring? Presents!

RSVP Anne-Marie

Chapter Four

“So who’s coming?” I asked Anne-Marie. Her invitation had arrived in the post just before I was due to leave for school, even though I was going to see her that evening.

“Well, of course I posted the invitations,” she’d explained when I’d phoned her on her mobile to ask her why she hadn’t just given it to me. “It’s so much more glamorous – I didn’t want to hand then out at school like some little kid. This is the dress rehearsal for my sweet sixteen – it’s got to be perfect!”

“But you’ve got another birthday to go before then,” I’d reminded her as I headed for the corner where I was going to meet Dakshima. Today was our first choir rehearsal, one of a handful before the regional finals due to be held in only a few days. It didn’t exactly leave Mr Petrelli much time to hone us into a “well oiled singing machine” as he put it, but he was determined to give it a go.

I hadn’t told Anne-Marie and Nydia about the choir yet. I don’t know why. I suppose that compared to what they were doing, auditioning for the lead roles while I was toiling away in the back row of a third-rate choir, it seemed a bit…well, I’m ashamed to admit, I was embarrassed by it.

“I know I’ve got another birthday to go before then,” Anne-Marie said in my ear, probably while putting her lip gloss on because she sounded as if she was trying to talk without moving her mouth. “But this is the dress rehearsal for the dress rehearsal. Plus this is the first time Daddy has ever let me have a proper party with a DJ and everything. He said as he’s working in LA on my birthday and Mummy will be in Thailand, I could have what ever I wanted, I just had to tell Pilar. I want it to be the best party the Academy has ever seen. Jade might have a rock star father who’ll stage a musical for her to be in, but mine says I can have a Chinese buffet and that’s real class.”

“I’ve always thought so,” I said. “So who’s coming then? You make it sound like you’re inviting the whole school.”

“I am inviting the whole school,” Anne-Marie said. “Oh, and you, of course. I keep forgetting you’ve left. I still think you should come back here, me and Nydia both do. We miss you.”

“You’re even inviting Jade and Menakshi and that lot?” I asked her, ignoring the last bit.

“Yes, I’m especially inviting Jade and Menakshi and that lot,” Anne-Marie told me. “This isn’t about friendship, Ruby, this is about getting as many people as I can to my party. Jade and Menakshi and that lot will come because everybody else is, and everybody else will come because they are. It’s very complicated.”

“Sounds it,” I said, waving at Dakshima as I saw her turn the corner. She nodded at me and then waited, looking in the other direction as if she was keen to be going. “Can I bring Dakshima?” I asked.

“Do you have to?” Anne-Marie sighed heavily. “Only I wasn’t really planning on inviting the public.”

“Annie,” I said, using the nickname that normally only Sean Rivers was allowed to. “Dakshima is the coolest and most popular girl in my year and I want to be friends with her. Inviting her to your party will be a really big step in the right direction. Besides, you might go to a stage school and you might have modelled a bit for H&M, but you are still the public. You haven’t won one of the leads in Spotlight yet, you know, so don’t be such a snob.”

“But I am going to get this part,” Anne-Marie said. “I just know that I am – this is my year, Ruby. I can feel it!”

“OK,” I said. “But don’t the public vote for the ultimate winners?”

“Yes,” Anne-Marie said impatiently, as if the fact was incidental.

“So…” I grinned at Dakshima as I fell into step with her. “Don’t you think you should start being nice to them?”

“Oh,” Anne-Marie said. “Well, yes, you have a point. OK you can bring Dakshima, but tell her she has to wear a dress and she’s not allowed to be rude to anyone.”

“OK then.” I said, grinning. “I will tell her exactly that. See you later.”

“Ciao, Baby!” Anne-Marie said, and was gone.

“So?” Dakshima asked me.

“So,” I replied. “Want to go to a party?”

Dakshima, Adele and I stood outside the music room a good ten minutes before rehearsals were due to start. Mr Petrelli had given everyone a chance to get some food from the canteen, but we didn’t go. Now was Adele’s chance to sing for Mr Petrelli again. I’d told Dakshima all about how Adele wanted another chance to be in the choir and after laughing in my face because she simply didn’t believe me, Dakshima decided she wanted to come along and see if it was really true.

“You didn’t say she was coming,” Adele growled at me as Dakshima and I approached.

“She’s come to support you too,” I said, peering in through the glass door, where Mr Petrelli was scowling at some sheet music. “Now, remember what I told you?”

We had secretly being doing breathing exercises at her house after school for three nights in a row. It was funny, Adele’s family weren’t at all like I expected them to be (frightening) and when she was at home she was almost a completely different person. She laughed and didn’t look so angry all the time. I couldn’t get her to sing for me even though her granny said she had a voice like an angel. Every time I asked her to sing, Adele would blush and tell me she was saving herself for today. It did make me slightly worried that it meant she was like those people on The X Factor after all – the ones whose mums or grannies said they could sing, but then it turned out they’d been lying and a dead cat could carry a tune better. I didn’t say anything about my fears though. I liked smiling Adele; she was much more preferable to scary Adele.

“I remember the exercises,” Adele said, putting her hands flat on her tummy and breathing in and out deeply.

“Go on then,” I said, glancing at my watch. “The others will be here really soon. It’s now or never.”

Adele stared at the door handle that led into the music room as if it might be red hot. “Never,” she said flatly, turning on her heel.

“Told you,” Dakshima said, leaning against the doorframe with her arms crossed. “Like she can sing.”

“She can!” I said. “Probably.” I reached out and grabbed Adele’s arm quite firmly. Dakshima’s jaw dropped.

“Adele,” I said, keeping my voice steady and calm. “Just go in and give it a go. You know how much you want to be in the choir, but you’ll never be in it if you don’t try.” I glanced at Dakshima. “We’ll come in with you if you like.”

Adele scowled at Dakshima. “You can,” she said, nodding at me. “Not her.”

“Fine by me,” Dakshima said, raising a brow.

“Let’s go then,” I said, still holding her arm. “Now – before you change your mind again.”

Mr Petrelli glanced up at us as we entered. “You’re early, Ruby,” he said, looking back down at the sheet music. “While I commend your eagerness, I’d prefer it if you waited outside until I call you in.” He squinted at Adele over the top of his glasses. “And why are you here, Adele?”

“Whatever,” Adel mumbled. “I’m going.”

“The thing is,” I said, putting my hand on Adele’s shoulder, “Adele would really, really like to be in the choir. She didn’t do very well in the hall because she was nervous, but she sings in a gospel choir every Sunday so she can’t be that bad. We wondered, would you give her another chance, Mr Petrelli, please? Just let her sing a little bit, before the others get here. After all, we need all the singers we can get, right?”