Find the Girl

by Lucy Connell

  ‘But before that performance,’ Rachel continues, ‘I’m pleased to say that I have just managed to convince Chase Hunter to perform his song “Ghosts” for us tonight! It took a bit of persuading to get him to play without any warning, so let’s give him a very warm welcome. I present Mr Chase Hunter!’

  ‘This is brilliant!’ Nancy gasps, cheering along with everyone before craning her neck to search the crowd. ‘Where’s the rest of the band? Where’s Miles gone? He should get up there and join Chase!’

  ‘Miles isn’t here,’ I say quietly. ‘Chase is doing this on his own.’

  But Nancy doesn’t hear me. My voice is lost in the eruption of noise from the crowd as Chase takes his place in the spotlight, solo.

  ‘You made it!’

  Grace bounds over to me as I walk through the door of the party, but her expression drops when she sees my face.

  ‘Uh oh, what happened?’ she asks, looking worried. ‘Did you fall on your face in front of the photographers or something?’

  ‘No, nothing like that,’ I assure her, taking off my coat and hanging it over the back of a chair, before changing the conversation. ‘How’s this party been?’

  I’m desperate to be distracted from my night so far. I still can’t get Miles’s face out of my head when he overheard that conversation. He looked so shocked and so hurt at the same time. And then when I’d told Nancy halfway through Chase’s solo performance that I was leaving to come back to Guildhall, she’d looked really disappointed. I couldn’t even make myself feel better by saying that she had Miles for company in the knowledge that he had left. I’d had to leave her there on her own filming Chase for her website, making her promise to text me when she was at the station and safely on a train home.

  ‘It’s been so nice getting to know everyone,’ Grace enthuses over the music blaring from speakers that someone has set up on a table. ‘Let me introduce you.’

  She leads me over to a group of students who are sitting on the sofa, chatting. Jordan is on the other side of the room, deep in conversation with someone; when he glances up and spots me, he looks surprised.

  ‘Nina, this is Nico, also known as Flute Two; and this is TJ, Cello One; and this is Florence, aka Oboe Two.’ Grace grins as they all wave at me. ‘Everyone, this is Nina Palmer.’

  ‘Otherwise known as Piano Two,’ I add, coming to sit with them.

  ‘Grace was saying that you were at an Emerald Entertainment party just now,’ Nico says, his eyes wide with awe. ‘That is so cool. There must have been so many amazing musicians there.’

  ‘I’m not sure they’re the type of musicians you’d be impressed by,’ I admit, but he responds with a confused look.

  ‘We don’t all think like Jordan, Nina,’ Grace says. ‘He’s being stupidly pretentious when he says celebrities aren’t real musicians.’

  ‘He said that?’ TJ seems amused.

  ‘Yeah,’ she says, nodding. ‘And he was rude about Chasing Chords.’

  ‘I love Chasing Chords!’ Florence says to my complete surprise. ‘I listen to their first album all the time. Their song “Talk to You” is my favourite. I can’t believe they didn’t release it as a single.’

  ‘Jordan is jealous that he doesn’t have a record deal himself,’ Grace says to me. ‘You shouldn’t listen to anything he says.’

  ‘Yeah, last weekend I overheard him telling someone that the cello was an easy instrument to play compared to everything else,’ TJ says, shaking his head. ‘I stepped into the conversation and offered him my cello, saying that he was very welcome to play it right there in front of everyone, considering it was so easy. He suddenly got very quiet and had to rush off “for a thing” –’ he pauses as we laugh – ‘That guy is all talk. Don’t let him get to you, Nina.’

  I smile gratefully. ‘Thanks, I’ll try not to. I’d find it easier if I wasn’t so behind on this course, on top of everything else. In Caroline Morreau’s eyes, Jordan is leagues above me.’

  Florence snorts. ‘You think you’re behind? You haven’t heard the story about my lesson this morning yet.’

  ‘Why? What happened?’ I ask, already smiling as the others giggle infectiously.

  ‘She turned up to her oboe lesson …’ Nico begins, waiting for her to finish the sentence.

  Florence lets out a long sigh before adding the punchline. ‘Without my oboe.’

  ‘Seriously?’ I laugh. ‘Did you have to go back to get it?’

  ‘No, my teacher told me that if my oboe wasn’t the first thing on my brain that day, I didn’t deserve a lesson with him,’ she says, rolling her eyes. ‘I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m an idiot who got on the course by accident. Not that I blame him. I’m starting to think along those lines, too.’

  ‘I feel the same way.’ TJ nods, giving her a comforting pat on the arm. ‘In my lesson this morning, my teacher told me that I played like I’d never seen the piece before, even though I’ve been practising it all week, and that he wasn’t sure I had any rhythm. Which is really comforting, being a musician and everything.’

  ‘Sometimes I wonder why they even offered me a place on this course,’ Nico chimes in. ‘Today in group rehearsal, I was by far the worst and I could see Flute One giving me evils the whole time. Since I started Guildhall, I’ve felt like I can’t get anything right.’

  ‘You know what,’ I say, stunned at what I’m hearing, ‘I feel exactly the same way. I thought I was the only one!’

  ‘So did I,’ Florence says. ‘It’s nice to know I’m not alone.’

  ‘I hate to compliment him, but Jordan’s idea to have a party and get to know each other was brilliant,’ I admit, the others nodding along.

  ‘Yes, we now know something very important that we didn’t before.’ Grace grins. ‘At least we’re all in this mess together.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Nancy

  ‘Excuse me,’ a girl says, sidling up to me with her phone in her hand. I recognize her from Year Nine. ‘But could you tell me how you got your hair like this? I think you look amazing.’

  ‘Have you got the right twin?’ I ask cautiously, slamming my locker shut. ‘I’m Nancy.’

  She glances back nervously at her friends, who are huddled behind, giggling.

  ‘Yes, it’s you I wanted to ask.’ She holds up her phone to show the photo of me and Tyler Hill on my website. ‘I can’t believe you and Tyler are friends. That’s the coolest thing ever.’

  ‘Oh!’ I say, smiling. ‘Yeah, that was a great evening. And, in terms of the hair and outfit, I’m going to be uploading a vlog on to All That Glitters this evening with all the details of how to get that look, so make sure you check it out.’

  ‘Yes!’ she exclaims. ‘Are you going to be doing more stories like this one? Like, do you get to hang out with Chasing Chords and go to all these big parties in London?’

  ‘Kind of,’ I say. ‘I mean, there will definitely be more stories like this one coming soon.’

  ‘Thanks so much, Nancy! You’re amazing!’ she gushes, hopping up and down on the spot. ‘We’re your biggest fans. Have a good half-term!’

  She runs off to tell her friends, who all chatter excitedly as she fills them in on my upcoming vlog. I grin, strolling down the corridor and feeling on top of the world again. My plan is working. I am no longer hopeless, going nowhere, destined to a gloomy existence in my sister’s shadow. I have fans.

  All That Glitters completely exploded with my exclusive from Tyler. Not only did I become the most popular girl in school overnight, but real celebrity publications and newspapers picked up the story and published it too, using the phrase, ‘as reported on All That Glitters by Nancy Palmer’. Some of them even got in touch with me to congratulate me on the exclusive and gave me their details in case I got any other stories like that in the future and wanted to write for them on a freelance basis.

  ‘We’re always looking for new, ambitious talent,’ one editor said in an email. ‘And it would be good to have someone on the ins
ide.’

  New, ambitious talent! Someone on the inside! And she was talking about ME.

  Our website was all anyone could talk about for the last week of school leading up to half-term. It wasn’t just people at school checking it out either; it had got thousands of hits, especially when Tyler put the link on her Instagram page, telling her fans about her new fashion venture. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Layla look happier than the day after the party when she and Sophie turned up at my house and began dancing around the sitting room, chanting, ‘We’re going to win, we’re going to win!’

  All week, I got stopped walking down the corridor on the way to lessons or stared at across the canteen, as my celebrity status got discussed. Suddenly Nina wasn’t the only one with A-list friends. I was a serious music journalist who got invited to Emerald Entertainment parties and given exclusives by global pop stars.

  Even Mrs Smithson noticed the change and told me she was really pleased I’d decided to enter the competition and to ‘keep up the good work’.

  Which, by the way, is easier said than done. The only problem with having a massive hit on our website was that everyone expected more, something that Layla wouldn’t stop going on about. She kept talking about keeping up the momentum, but the only way to do that was to get more exclusive stories from pop stars and, despite what everyone thought, I didn’t exactly spend my evenings in such company.

  ‘Nancy, wait up,’ Layla says, falling into step with me.

  I’m still basking in the fact that the girl from Year Nine and her friends are my self-proclaimed biggest fans.

  ‘Hey, Layla, how excited are you for half-term? I can’t wait to have a week off.’

  ‘Yeah, but we have a lot to do on the website. Have you got any new ideas for another post?’

  ‘I’m going to do the vlog on how to get that make-up and hair extensions look from last Saturday. I’ll make sure that’s up tonight.’

  ‘Great. We’ve had a lot of messages from PRs in the music industry sending us press releases now that we’re on their radar. Are you able to go through those tonight? You said you would this week.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll read them this weekend.’

  ‘You really need to stay on top of stuff like that, Nancy,’ she scolds, as I hold open the door and we head outside, down the school steps. ‘By the time you read through it, it’s probably old news and not worth publishing. And content should really be uploaded daily, otherwise our audience will start getting their content from somewhere else. We could really do with some more news.’

  ‘You did that really good vlog on the best way to decorate a scrapbook, and your denim jackets article only went up this week. And I thought Sophie uploaded that hilarious video of her attempting to prank you this morning,’ I point out. ‘That’s quite a lot of new stuff in a week.’

  Layla looks at me like I’m mad. ‘Are you joking? That’s nothing. Most lifestyle websites have new content twice a day at least!’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  Layla holds out her arm in front of me, bringing me to a sharp halt.

  ‘Do you know, though, Nancy? Do you really?’ she asks rhetorically, coming to stand face-to-face with me. ‘Haven’t you noticed the difference at school? How people respond to us? All That Glitters has come to mean something to them and we can’t let them down. We have to keep it up. Otherwise no one will be talking about us and everyone will be talking about Jimmy and his half-term protest at the town hall.’ She rolls her eyes.

  ‘I think the protest is actually a really good idea. Did you know that they’ve closed down two libraries in the town centre? Jimmy was a member of one of them and he was telling me that Doris Lessing once visited there.’

  ‘Nancy, can you please FOCUS!’ Layla cries in frustration. ‘I’m not talking about Jimmy and his protest; I’m talking about us and our project. You need to get some more music news and pronto, otherwise everything we’ve done so far will be forgotten! Nancy, think what we can do if our website goes big time!’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean,’ she begins, her eyes sparkling, ‘we could actually be talking about our future careers here, and not just a school project for the Disney Channel internship. Nancy, if our website takes off, like, really takes off, we’ll have our own brand. And when you have your own brand, you can do anything. Fashion lines, make-up ranges, sponsored YouTube videos and Instagram posts. You need to think about the big picture!’

  ‘Wow! You really think we could do that?’

  ‘Hello, look at the difference in one week alone! The photo of you and Tyler has put us firmly on the map. People are looking to us for inspiration and our website is officially a big deal.’ She grins at me encouragingly. ‘We need to keep it that way.’

  ‘I’ll try and get some music news this week,’ I say, filled with fresh determination. ‘I could call the PRs and try to get some news out of them before they send press releases to everyone else.’

  ‘Or, you could call Miles?’ she says, stepping aside and allowing me to continue walking towards the school gates. ‘He might have something.’

  ‘Yeah, good idea,’ I lie.

  There is NO chance I’m phoning Miles.

  I don’t know what happened at the party but he disappeared without even saying goodbye. I know he’s famous and everything, and doesn’t exactly have time to worry about saying goodbye to people like me when he decides to leave a party, but I thought we were having fun together and he made out like he was happy to stay with me for the night. Once I’d uploaded my story to the website, I came back into the party and couldn’t find him anywhere. He missed out on all the good bits, too, like Chase’s amazing performance. If he had stayed, then we might have been able to persuade Chasing Chords to take to the stage, which would have been amazing.

  Nina said she didn’t know where he was, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that she knew more than she was letting on and she just wasn’t telling me. Maybe she was trying to protect me from something, like Miles went to meet a girl for a date or maybe he met someone he liked at the party.

  When I got on my train back to Norwich, I’d thought about texting Miles to make sure he was OK and to check I hadn’t done anything wrong. I started typing my message, but then I’d realized how embarrassing it would be if he really was out with someone else. I didn’t want it to look as though I was expecting him to stay at the party with me. It’s not like I was there as his date. He’d invited me as a friend.

  So I’d left it and then woken up the next morning to a message from him apologizing for rushing off. ‘Something came up,’ was all he said on the matter. We’ve been texting a bit since, but he seems distracted and I know that he’s busy but I thought …

  I don’t know. It’s stupid. But I thought that MAYBE there was something there. Between me and Miles, I mean. I feel so comfortable around him and he makes me laugh a lot, and I got the feeling that he liked spending time with me and then there was that smile of his when he saw me all dressed up. It seemed like he maybe didn’t smile that way at anyone else.

  But, as I’ve told myself a hundred times this week, if there was, I don’t know, some kind of actual spark or whatever, wouldn’t he have noticed it, too? Wouldn’t he have stayed with me at the party rather than leaving without a word? Wouldn’t he have asked to see me again sometime soon?

  I must have been wrong. About the spark.

  ‘Hey,’ Jimmy says, running up to me as I open the front door of Mum’s car. ‘My dad is stuck at work – can I come to yours for a bit?’

  ‘You know you never need to ask,’ Mum says out of the window.

  He smiles, sliding into the backseat. ‘Is Nina at music practice?’

  ‘Actually, she’s not,’ Mum says, looking round me to nod at Nina walking towards us from the front steps. ‘I’ve persuaded her to practise at home this evening instead. As it’s officially the start of half-term, I thought she could do an hour upstairs and then come join us for a movie night. You�
��re welcome to join in too, Jimmy.’

  ‘Good idea, Mum,’ I say, waving at my sister as she hops in the back. ‘I’ve missed our movie nights. Nina, are you game for a Disney classic?’

  ‘We’ll see how my practice goes,’ she says cautiously. ‘I have a lot to do for tomorrow. I’m trying a new piece to show Caroline as a potential for the showcase.’

  ‘I thought you showed her the new piece last week,’ Mum says, as she pulls out into the school traffic.

  ‘This is a different one.’

  ‘Don’t you need to pick one quite soon?’ Jimmy asks. ‘The showcase is in a few weeks, right?’

  ‘Don’t remind me. I pick a new one every week and none of them seem to be working for me.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I say, fiddling with the radio. ‘You have so many pieces that you’re amazing at. Why don’t you pick one of those? Like the one you played for the school talent show last year.’

  ‘I can’t just play something I like; it has to be something that blows them away. It has to be something different.’ She lets out a long sigh. ‘Except I need to find what it is and that is proving VERY difficult.’

  ‘Doesn’t Caroline have any suggestions?’ Mum asks.

  ‘She’s said that it has to come from me,’ Nina explains. ‘She can’t choose for me. I have to connect with a piece and then pick that one. So far, I haven’t connected with any.’

  ‘You’ll find something,’ Mum says, shooting her a smile in the rear-view mirror. ‘And how is your website coming along, Jimmy? Nancy took me through it the other day and I was extremely impressed.’

  ‘It’s going OK,’ Jimmy says, before adding, ‘although it’s been a bit overshadowed this week by Nancy’s latest post.’

  ‘Everything’s been overshadowed by that article,’ Nina agrees. ‘It’s all anyone can talk about. I didn’t even know who Tyler Hill was when Chase introduced us at the party, but everyone else at school seems to.’

  ‘That is a very Nina thing to say.’ I laugh. ‘She’s ever so slightly majorly famous.’