by Holly Webb
For Jon, Ash, Robin and Will – HW
For my supportive hubby, Zhixun, and my sweet boy, Felix – MD
~
CONTENTS
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One: Audition!
Chapter Two: Sara’s Chance to Shine
Chapter Three: The Shortlist
Chapter Four: The Big News
Chapter Five: Lizabeth’s True Colours
Chapter Six: Race Against Time
Extract from Lily’s Secret Audition
Biography
Copyright
For perhaps the first time in the school’s history, the whole of Year Seven at The Shine School for the Performing Arts had arrived early. They’d been told the day before that there was going to be a mass audition next week for a special Christmas run of Mary Poppins at a West End theatre! It was incredibly lucky to get a chance like this in their third week at stage school and all the Year Sevens were desperate to find out more.
Bethany, Chloe and Lily were hanging out by the window in their form room when Sara walked in.
“Wow, you’re all early!” she commented.
“So are you!” Bethany pointed out, grinning.
“I couldn’t wait to get here,” Sara said. “I got the earlier bus! Shove up, then.” She dropped her bag and coat on a table and squeezed in next to Lily. “So, has anyone heard any more about the audition?”
“They’re coming on Monday,” Chloe said shyly. It was only the day before that she’d really made friends with Bethany, Lily and Sara. They hadn’t hit it off at the start of term. She and Sara had been sniping at each other for the last three weeks and she was still a bit unsure whether Sara liked her or not.
“Monday! That’s not long to get ready. How do you know, Chloe?” Sara leaned eagerly around Bethany. She was an easygoing person and she’d only been so upset with Chloe because she had thought Chloe had been mean to Lily. Sara was very protective of her friends. It had turned out it was all a misunderstanding and now that everything was sorted out, she was happy for them all to hang around together. Besides, even if Chloe was a bit wild sometimes, she had a really cool sense of humour.
“I heard Mr Harvey talking about it as I came past the staff room this morning.” Mr Harvey was their singing teacher. “He was saying the same thing – that he wished he’d had more warning. He’d like to get us to learn a couple of songs, he said.”
“Probably most people know them anyway. Everyone knows Mary Poppins, don’t they?” Sara replied.
“Of course,” Bethany agreed. “But do we know them the way Mr Harvey wants us to know them?” She raised one eyebrow at Sara questioningly.
“OK, fair point.” Sara sighed and nodded. Three weeks at Shine was quite enough to realize that no one ever knew a song well enough for Mr Harvey. You could do absolutely everything he asked and he would just take it as proof that you were capable of more… Sara adored singing and she couldn’t imagine how wonderful it would be to get a part in a West End musical. But so far, all Mr Harvey seemed to have done was criticize her singing. Sara chewed her lip. She might as well face it – she had no chance at the audition if her singing was no good.
“What’s the matter?” Bethany asked, spotting her change of mood. “You were over the moon yesterday! I thought being in Mary Poppins was your dream come true!”
“You were humming ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’ all the way down the road,” Lily agreed.
Sara shrugged, trying not to look as though it mattered too much. “I know, but what chance have I got? There’s all of us and the Year Eights. Yesterday it seemed like fate – my favourite musical and everything. But Mr Harvey doesn’t think my singing’s any good. There’s no way they’ll pick me.”
Lily made an odd spluttering noise as she spat half her bottle of water down her front in shock at Sara’s cluelessness.
“What?” Sara asked, looking confused.
“Mr Harvey thinks you’re bound to be a West End princess! You and Bethany are his star pupils! Uuurgh, has anyone got a tissue?”
“He does not! He’s always telling me off! Bethany, too,” Sara complained. She turned to Bethany for back-up. “He is, isn’t he?”
Bethany nodded gloomily. “I can’t do anything right in singing.”
Chloe and Lily exchanged disbelieving looks.
“Would you believe anyone could be that dim?” Lily asked, and Chloe shook her head, giggling. “He’s always picking on you two because you’re so good! He doesn’t bother so much with Little Miss Averages like me and Chloe. Haven’t you worked that out yet?”
Chloe smiled smugly and tossed her red curls. “It’s brilliant. The rest of us go to singing and have a great time, while you two and a couple of others get all the hassle.”
Sara wasn’t sure whether to be delighted or annoyed. Was Lily right? She glanced at Bethany to see if she agreed and couldn’t help smiling. Bethany normally looked so calm and confident but now she looked like someone had just stuffed an ice cube down her back.
“You might have said!” Bethany protested indignantly, and Sara nodded.
“Well, like I told you, I didn’t think you could be stupid enough not to realize!” Lily defended herself, waving the water around dangerously again.
“So if it’s singing they’re looking for, I reckon you two have got a good chance,” Chloe said, seriously now.
Sara glowed. She might have been fighting with Chloe for the past couple of weeks but she did respect her opinion. Was she really that good a singer? It was hard to believe.
“Sara’s definitely got more chance than me.” Bethany smiled at her. “Sara, tell me you don’t already know all the songs from Mary Poppins off by heart?”
Sara felt herself go pink. “I just like the songs… I know they’re really old, but I love them…”
“Exactly. It’s the perfect part for you!”
“You’re a better dancer, though,” Sara pointed out. “You need to be an all-rounder for something like this, we have to be able to sing, act and dance. And you definitely dance better than me.”
“Oh, stop it!” Chloe broke in. “You’re both brilliant, and you know it. Oh, this is going to be such a fab day. My mum was so excited when I told her we had an audition. She even rang my dad at work to tell him!”
Sara laughed with the others but she couldn’t help wishing that her own mum had reacted more like that. She’d gone home buzzing with excitement, and desperate to tell everyone but, as always, her mum only wanted to hear about her academic classes. She was a teacher and was worried that Sara wasn’t going to be properly taught at a stage school. It didn’t help that Sara’s older brother Will had just got brilliant grades in his GCSEs. Her parents were always comparing the two of them and Sara couldn’t get them to see that she was a totally different sort of person. Sometimes she felt like she must have been swapped at birth, and somewhere a really brainy eleven-year-old was trying to convince her parents that she hated dancing…
Luckily, Sara’s gran shared her passion for show business and had always been really supportive. It had been her gran sitting in the front row at all her dance school shows when her mum and her dad had had work stuff to go to. And it was Gran who’d persuaded them to let Sara try out for Shine. Sara suspected that they’d never thought she’d get in, so they hadn’t worried too much about it.
When the letter arrived saying she’d got a place, there had been a huge row. Sara shuddered just remembering it. The letter had come addressed to her, although there was loads of stuff in it for her parents, too. She saw the big Shine logo on the envelope as Will handed it to her at breakfast and she knew at once what it was. She sat paralyzed, not wanting to open it. What if she hadn’t got a place? She’d be
en telling herself for weeks that it was very unlikely she would. After all, about two hundred people had auditioned for thirty places, so she didn’t have much of a chance. It was better to assume she wouldn’t get in and then she wouldn’t be so disappointed. That was the plan, anyway.
Her parents had kept on talking about Sara going to Meadow Park, the local school that her mum taught at and where Will was doing so well. Every time they mentioned it Sara had felt worse and worse. It was like they just assumed she didn’t have a hope of getting into Shine, either. Somehow it was OK for her to tell herself that, but a bit of encouragement from her parents would have been nice!
“What’s that, Sara? Something from the writers’ club?” Her mum had bought her membership in a young writers’ club for her birthday, despite the hints Sara had dropped about new tap shoes.
“It’s from the school,” Sara murmured, staring at the words on the envelope – The Shine School for the Performing Arts.
“What? From Meadow Park? Why on earth are they writing to you? I didn’t know anything about a mailing going out to new students.” Her mum reached across the table to take the envelope. “Let me see.”
“No! It’s addressed to me and it’s not from Meadow Park, it’s from Shine.” Sara snatched the envelope into her lap, glaring at her mother.
“Oh. That.” Her mother sighed and exchanged a glance with her father. “Well, aren’t you going to open it?”
If only the post arrived a little bit later, Sara thought miserably. She really didn’t want to read the letter with Mum, Dad and Will all staring at her. It would be bad enough knowing that she had to go to Meadow Park and spend years with all the staff telling her what a pleasure Will had been to teach and everyone else hating her because her mum was a teacher.
She poked her nail into the corner of the envelope and slowly tore it open across the top. It was quite fat and a couple of leaflets fell out as she opened it. She didn’t see her mum’s face changing as she watched. Sara’s mum knew enough about schools to realize that this wasn’t a “no”.
Sara picked up the white sheet with the embossed red letterhead and scanned it, slowly at first, then faster and faster as she tried to take in what it was saying.
We are delighted to offer you a place in Year Seven, commencing this September…
“I got in!” she whispered, still staring at the letter in her hand. Then she looked up delightedly and shrieked, “I got in! I can go to Shine!” She shoved back her chair and started dancing round the table waving the letter, while her parents sat stunned.
Sara stuffed the letter into her mother’s hand and grabbed Dusty the cat to have someone to dance with.
“Read it! Isn’t it brilliant? I’ve got a place!”
“That’s really great, Sara. Well done!” Will was beaming at her. They might not have much in common – especially as he was five years older than her – but they got on pretty well.
“Sara, slow down,” her mother murmured.
“Dusty doesn’t mind! He likes dancing, don’t you, Dusty? I’ll be teaching him jazz and modern now – they do both at Shine.” Sara twirled round, the cat gazing with resignation over her shoulder.
“That’s not what I meant.” Her mum sighed. “Just because you’ve got a place, it doesn’t necessarily mean—”
Sara stopped mid-twirl and the cat gave a little mew of relief. “What?” she asked breathlessly. “What are you talking about?”
Her mum gave her dad a ‘Help me!’ look. He was pretending to read his post very carefully and was obviously trying not to get involved. “Gavin!” she snapped, and he laid the letters down reluctantly.
“Sara, that school is very expensive. The fees are enormous.” Her father looked at her apologetically.
“We can’t afford it?” Sara’s voice was almost a whimper and her eyes were filling with tears.
“Well, not easily—”
“You said if I got into Queen Charlotte’s, that you’d do anything to find the fees. I heard you. Why can’t you do that for Shine?”
Sara’s mum gave a dismissive snort. “That’s totally different, Sara. Queen Charlotte’s is one of the best girls’ schools in the area. Obviously if you’d got in there—”
“But I didn’t! I got into one of the best theatre schools in the country and you’re not even pleased for me! You haven’t even said ‘Well done!’”
“Darling, of course we’re pleased…” Her dad was looking upset and Sara noticed Will making a quick getaway, casting her an apologetic look as he gathered up his school stuff.
“We don’t really want you to go to a theatre school,” her mother said through gritted teeth.
“Then why did you let me audition?” Sara wailed. “Because you thought I was useless and I’d never get a place! That’s it, isn’t it? I didn’t get into stupid Queen Charlotte’s and you can’t boast about how clever I am to all your friends like you do with Will, so you just think I’m no good at anything!”
“This has nothing to do with Will or how clever you are!” Her mum was getting really angry now. “I don’t agree with specialist schools like Shine and I don’t want you turning into some horrible little child star who shows off all the time. You won’t get a properly rounded education at a school like that.”
Sara sniffed back her tears and prepared to do battle. “It says in the prospectus that Shine is at the top of the local league table for exam results. You might know that if you’d ever bothered to look at it!”
“Sara, I am not having this argument with you now. I’m very pleased that you’ve got a place but you’re hardly behaving in a way that’s going to encourage us to support you—”
“Because you’re saying I can’t go! How do you expect me to behave?” Sara put the cat down on the table and grabbed her rucksack. “I hate you!” she hissed as she stalked past her mother. It was childish but she couldn’t think of anything better. And anyway, just then, she really did.
“What are you looking like that for?” Lily nudged her. “Are you panicking about the audition? I’ve never seen you look so miserable!”
Sara laughed and tried to shrug it off. “Just daydreaming,” she said, but the other three didn’t look convinced.
“You’re not that good an actress – yet,” Bethany said, grinning. “What’s wrong?” Then she added hurriedly, “I mean, you don’t have to say if it’s private or anything!”
“No, it’s OK,” Sara said. She felt it might help to tell them. After all, these were her friends.
“I was just wishing my parents were more excited about the audition. My mum hardly even listened when I told her about it.” Sara tried to sound as though she didn’t care but the shocked looks on the others’ faces made it hard.
“She’s – she’s a teacher and she’s just not into that sort of thing,” she muttered. It felt so awful admitting that her mum wasn’t interested. “My parents didn’t really want me to come here. My gran had to persuade them. She’s paying half my fees as well. But if I don’t get a really good report in all my classwork at the end of term, I have to go to a normal school.”
“Wow,” Chloe said. “No wonder you weren’t keen on me messing around in class.”
Bethany looked totally disbelieving. “How can they not be proud of you for getting in here? It’s one of the best schools ever. I mean, that sounds like I’m boasting but we’re so lucky! Don’t they get that?”
“They want me to be a genius like my brother,” Sara said sadly. “I’m really not.”
Lily put an arm round her shoulders. “Yeah, you don’t need to tell us that. We heard what Miss James said about your maths homework.”
Sara chuckled, feeling a little bit better. “Mmm.”
“When my brother was in Year Seven, the school had to get him a different maths textbook because he’d done everything in the normal one in about a week.”
“Bet he can’t sing though,” Chloe put in, leaning round to look at her.
“Our cat’s bett
er,” Sara agreed, thinking of Will humming tunelessly along to his music while he worked.
“So if the rest of your family don’t do anything like singing or dancing, where do you get it from?” Bethany asked curiously. “I mean, my mum’s never done anything professional but she sings all the time. And my sister’s in this really great band at school.”
“My gran used to be a dancer,” Sara explained. “She’s my mum’s mum. My grandad fell in love with her when he saw her on stage. He sent her flowers to the stage door for weeks. Gran hoped Mum would want to dance but she never liked it much. So she was really pleased when I took to it. My parents used to say she was just encouraging me to show off, but it was Gran who took me to dancing and she arranged for me to come and audition here. My mum reckoned that she wanted me to be her all over again but that’s just not true,” she added quickly. “Gran was even happier when it turned out I was a good singer because that was different to her. She got a friend of hers to teach me, someone she knew from her time in the theatre.”
“Well, when you get the part in Mary Poppins, your mum and dad will have to admit you’re a star,” Chloe said firmly. “We’re all going to kill ourselves trying on Monday, don’t get me wrong, but I reckon you’re bound to get a callback. Then they’ll see.”
Sara nodded, forcing herself to smile. She hoped so, too. This was her big chance to prove herself to her parents but she had a horrible suspicion that a part in a West End show wasn’t going to be her parents’ dream come true…
At morning break Sara and the others headed to the cafeteria. Sara usually enjoyed science classes, but she’d spent the double lesson obsessing about the audition, and so had the others. They needed sugar.
“I swear, she could make how to – I don’t know – explode a frog boring,” moaned Chloe, who really didn’t like Mrs Taylor. “Do you think it’s something teachers have special lessons in?”
