I’d go and see Liz because she’s really nice normally. I knew that Liz was upstairs in some kind of emergency script meeting, and because one day I want to write my own screenplay and direct my own film (an independent one with Justin in it because we’d be married by then), I thought they’d let me sit in on the meeting, because they have done before.
I got there and the door was open a bit, and so I thought I’d just wait for a lull in the conversation before going in, but then I heard my name! I heard Liz talking about me, Ruby. So I thought, Excellent – new story lines! I crept up a bit closer and put my ear next to the crack in the door, and that’s when I found out.
“It’s just that Ruby seems to be going through a bit of a…difficult stage right now. That certainly is true,” Liz said, sort of sadly.
“Yes, she is a bit, she’s just sort of stuck between being a girl and being a woman. She does look a bit awkward, poor old thing,” I heard Simon Jenkins, the (I now know to be evil) script editor say.
“I don’t think it’s that big a deal,” Trudy, the show’s main writer, said. “She’s just a normal girl. She gets loads of fan mail from girls just like her. She appeals to her demographic. I know that KH is partially about glamour, but not everyone can be glamorous all the time, and I thought we wanted a balance. Otherwise we’ll end up like Crossroads and look what happened to that! It’s not as if she’s the star of the show: I think we should let her grow a bit and then decide.”
At first it felt sort of strange listening to them talk about me, like they were talking about some other girl, like it wasn’t about me at all.
“I agree with you up to a point, Trudy,” Simon said. “But, say what you like, it does matter what people look like on TV. The public likes looking at pretty faces. It is important and, well, if you-know-who is worried about it then we have to be too. That’s just the way it is: for a lot of people out there, she is the show.”
I heard Trudy sigh and someone shuffled some papers. It felt like a dream, like one of those nightmares when you walk into class in your knickers and nothing else and everyone laughs and you think it’s real. And just for a second when you wake up you feel sick and terrible. Except it wasn’t a dream. And I wasn’t going to wake up. I wanted to leave, to run away, but I couldn’t. I was sort of glued there.
“So,” Liz said, after a pause, “what are our options?”
“Well,” Trudy said, sort of crossly, “bearing in mind we’re talking about a child here – option one: we send Angel away to America or something and she comes back a different actress, a more ‘photogenic’ one.” I felt my stomach turn over and my mouth go dry. I felt this wave of panic in my tummy like just when a roller coaster starts going down really fast.
“Option two,” Trudy continued, “and my favourite – a bit of a cliché, but always a hit – we give Angel a makeover. Maybe put a few highlights in her hair, get her some coloured contacts and let her wear a bit of lip gloss.”
I remembered wearing lip gloss at the British Soap Awards and feeling like I had raspberry pudding glued to my lips, but before I could get used to the idea Simon chimed in:
“But do you think Ruby’s got anything to work with? I’m not sure a makeover will cut it.” There was a short silence and it was like I was watching a live link on satellite telly. Like there was a two-second delay between him talking and me hearing what he was saying.
“Option three is that we kill her,” Trudy said. just like that. Bang. My knees went and I had to grip on to the wall to stop myself falling off the world. It was just like someone really had told me I was going to die; it was almost just like that, because in that second it all caught up with me and I realised that if I go from the show, everything else that was just about holding things together in my life would go to.
I’d never get to see Justin again, which meant he’d never get to know me properly and then realise one day that it was me he loved and not his stupid girlfriend. And worse, worst of all, Mum and Dad would be so disappointed in me. So angry with me that…that they might stop trying altogether, and then…
And then I had to stop thinking about it. I had to stop being there before I started crying and they heard me or something.
“Oh, yes,” Simon said. “I like that option. Let’s kill her: some sort of disease or something. We could tie it in with national kids dying week or something like that.”
“Oh, Simon, you are such a—” I think Trudy was going to swear, but Liz stepped in before she could.
“Ruby is such a great little actress. I know she’d give that story line everything, but well…”
I couldn’t listen to any more after that because suddenly I felt sick. My head was throbbing and I could feel my cheeks burning; I ran out of the building and on to the lot and tried to get as far away from everyone as I could. I ran into one of the Portaloos and locked the door. My face was all hot and I felt like I should cry, but my eyes were dry and prickly. I get letters from girls who are picked on at school because they’re fat, because they wear glasses, or sometimes just because they are different. And I write back to them and say I know how they feel, because everyone feels isolated sometimes in life and it’s best to be true to yourself and talk to a parent or teacher. But I didn’t know, not really, not until then. It wasn’t until then that I knew how they felt. So alone and so wrong in the world that there was nothing they could do to fit in, because it wasn’t anything they did that was wrong. It was everything they were.
It took me ages to be able to go back on the set and act like everything was fine. Actually it took until one of the runners came and banged on the door and shouted my name. A part of me wanted to just walk out there and then and leave them in the lurch. But I’m not very good at rebelling, so I just went back and I did my scene. Luckily I was filming reaction shots for a scene when Angel accidentally finds a robber in her house and I had to scream and look scared. It was pretty easy – after all, it’s not every day you find you’re going to get killed, is it?
Flat 32
Mandela Tower
Freedom Estate
Luton Beds
Dear Ruby,
I hope you don’t mind me writing to you – I’m sorry to be taking up your time. It’s funny though, because I’m thirteen like you, and I feel like you know me really and that talking to you is like talking to a friend.
The thing is, Ruby, I don’t know what to do at the moment, I really don’t. My best friend Becky stopped talking to me a couple of weeks ago. She got in with the in-crowd and then just stopped talking to me, and it wasn’t just her it was everyone. Nobody talks to me any more. No ones calls me names or hits me or anything, but all day long at school I’m on my own. At break time I just go to the library and read a book. I told my mum about it and she said it wouldn’t be for ever and that Becky would talk to me again one day, but I don’t think she will.
I tried to talk to her before English yesterday and one of the other girls said, “Don’t you realise she hates you?” I didn’t know what to say after that. Becky looked sort of upset but she still didn’t talk to me. I know that when Angel and Julia fell out, Angel felt like that too for a while, but then she found out just in time that Julia was going to be kidnapped by Armenians and they made up. I don’t think anything like that will happen to me. On Sunday nights I feel so terrible that I’m sick. It’s the holidays soon and that’s good, but even then I know that I won’t have anyone to talk to and that I’ll have to go out on my own so my mum doesn’t worry about me being lonely.
What would Angel do?
Love
Shamilla Choudary
xx
Ruby Parker