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.
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