by Holly Webb
For all my family – HW
To Felix, my son, I will always believe in you and your dreams! – MD
~
CONTENTS
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One: Like Mother, Like Daughter?
Chapter Two: The Most Unfair Thing Ever
Chapter Three: A Change of Heart
Chapter Four: Breaking the News
Chapter Five: The Perfect Part
Chapter Six: Lily’s Secret
Chapter Seven: The Audition
Extract from Bethany Sings Out
Biography
Copyright
Lily Ferrars raced into school, looking forward to meeting up with her mates. She hadn’t seen them for a whole sixteen hours after all – chatting to Chloe on WhatsApp last night definitely didn’t count. She galloped up the stairs to the Year Seven form room, grinning to herself. It seemed so weird that she’d fought against going to this school for ages and now she was desperate to get here!
Lily had planned to hate being at Shine and to spend this year of exile not talking to anyone, but it hadn’t quite worked out that way. She hadn’t bargained on making three fantastic new friends in the first few weeks, and the atmosphere of the school was difficult to resist.
“Lily!” Sara bounded up behind her, with her face glowing, and Lily felt a teensy stab of jealousy. Sara had found out the day before that she’d got a part in a special Christmas run of Mary Poppins at a West End theatre. There was no doubt that Sara deserved to be at a stage school. Just looking at her now, star quality simply oozed out of her. Sara gave Lily a hug and the jealousy disappeared – Lily simply couldn’t be anything but happy for such a good friend.
“Don’t need to ask how you’re feeling today!” she giggled. “Did you sleep at all last night?”
“Not much.” Sara grinned. “It’s so exciting. I can’t wait for the letter to come from the theatre. Then it’ll all be official. Contracts and everything.”
They strolled into their classroom and loads of people called out their congratulations to Sara, who blushed but grinned even wider. Chloe and Bethany were sitting on the windowsill the four of them had claimed as their own.
“Yay, Sara!” Chloe called. “Sing ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’. I want to hear how the professionals do it!”
Sara dumped her bag and scrambled up next to them, making a face. “That’s the one bad thing about this part – I’ve sung that song so many times. It used to be one of my favourites but now I have to make it look as though I’ve never heard it before. On stage! Every day for weeks!”
“My mum said—” Lily started and then stopped, feeling embarrassed. Who wanted to hear what her mum said? But it seemed like the others did – they were all looking at her eagerly. Lily’s mum was an actress, not a really famous one, but the kind that everyone recognizes from somewhere. Marina Ferrars was always on TV and she was hardly ever not working. Lily’s dad was a lawyer who worked mostly with people in show business, so the Ferrars’ house was always full of actor-types – what Lily’s grandad always called ‘luvvies’. Lily hated it. Or she always had done, anyway. Her mum was certain that Lily was going to be an actress as well and so she’d started her in dance classes at two and a half, drama at three and singing at four. At first Lily had loved it, especially the acting, but for the last few years it hadn’t been that much fun.
“You’re so lucky having a mum who knows about all this stuff. What were you going to say?” Sara asked hopefully.
“Well, just that she was doing this play years ago, before I was born, and it was a really long run, so she knew the play backwards. One night she was tired – I think she’d been to a party or something the night before – and she suddenly realized she was on stage in the middle of the second act, and she had absolutely no idea how she’d got there. She couldn’t remember saying any of the lines, what she’d done in the interval, anything.”
“What happened? Was she OK?” Chloe asked. The others were all leaning in, half-excited, half-terrified.
“She was so scared she froze up, but she was in the middle of a scene with the guy who was playing her husband and he sort of twisted some of the lines around so she could get back in without it being really obvious. She bought him a massive bar of chocolate the next day, she was so grateful.”
“Wow.” Sara shuddered. “I hope that doesn’t happen to me.”
“It won’t,” Lily said comfortingly. “She’d been doing that part for months. Mary Poppins isn’t that long a run, is it? And you’re alternating casts for the children. That’s really good – you won’t have a chance to get stale.”
Bethany shook her head. “You know more about this stuff than anybody, Lily. You should set up an advice line for our year.”
Lily flushed, wishing she’d never mentioned it. “Don’t be silly,” she said lightly. “I’ve never even had an audition.” It wasn’t exactly true, but then that was one of Lily’s deepest, darkest secrets. “What about Chloe? You’ve had loads of work.”
Chloe shook her head. “A whole lot of modelling and adverts and one tiny part in a TV series. I don’t know anything about theatre stuff.”
Lily shrugged. “Well, I only know gossip from my mum and I’m sure she makes half of it up. In a few weeks’ time Sara will be our theatre expert anyway!”
Lily felt a bit of a fraud when the others treated her like some sort of guru because of her mum. She hadn’t even wanted to come to stage school! In Lily’s last year at her smart primary school, her mum had brought home the prospectus for The Shine School for the Performing Arts. Everyone at her dance class was really jealous but Lily was furious. She wanted to go on to the same school as all her friends, not spend the next five years training for a job she was never going to do.
There was a massive family row about it. Lily was totally expecting her dad to be on her side – he’d always backed her up when her mum tried to persuade her to go for parts before. So it was a huge shock when he said she should take the school’s entrance audition.
“I won’t do it!” Lily had snapped, feeling betrayed.
“I went to this school, Lily. You’ll love it, honestly,” her mother pleaded.
“You don’t understand!” Lily howled. “I don’t want what you want! I don’t want to be an actress – ever! And I’d hate stage school!”
“Lily, don’t be like that,” her father said in a tired voice. “You love your drama classes and I’ve seen you in your dance shows having a fantastic time. Why’s this so different?”
“Because it’s not doing it for fun,” Lily tried to explain. “It means I’m trying to be a professional, and I don’t want to.”
Her mum was crying by now and Lily didn’t feel far off herself. She glared at her parents, hoping they’d back down, expecting that they would, like they normally did. It wasn’t that she was exactly spoilt, but her mum and dad were both so busy all the time that she did tend to get what she wanted.
“You’re not being fair.” Her dad got up and pulled her on to his knee.
“Da-ad! I’m not five, you know!” Lily protested, pretending to struggle.
“That’s exactly my point, sweetheart. You’re old enough now for me to say this, Lily. You’ve got a lot of talent and you’d be wasting it at a normal school. Shine is a great place. Do the audition and see what they say. It’s one of the hardest schools in the country to get into. If they think you should be there, then I do too.”
Lily slipped off his knee, hardly knowing what to say. Her dad didn’t give out compliments lightly – he was always complaining about actors who needed to be told how wonderful they were every five minutes. He’d never said anything like that before.
“Try
it for a year, Lils,” her mother suggested hopefully. “See if you get in, then just give it a go. Please?”
And so Lily had agreed – reluctantly. She was certain she’d never get through the audition anyway, so why worry? She’d be able to go to school with her friends after all.
She was surprised when she actually enjoyed the Shine audition, especially the speech and drama part. She almost felt sorry that she wouldn’t be going there, though only for a moment. Her dad made an effort and phoned her from his office when she got home afterwards. He seemed really excited. And her mum was over the moon when Lily grudgingly admitted the audition had been fun.
“But there were hundreds of people there – there’s no way I’ll get in, Mum, not when all the others have been sweating blood practising. Everyone at ballet says you need to have a killer instinct to get in somewhere like Shine.”
Her mum beamed. “I know what you mean, sweetie, but you’re forgetting – the audition panel knew who you were. I added a letter with your application, explaining. There’s no way they won’t give you a place when they know you’re my daughter. I’m one of their most famous ex-pupils.”
Lily stared at her in shock. It sounded like the whole thing had been a fix!
“You mean it has nothing to do with me at all?” she asked slowly. A strange feeling was creeping over her – almost as though she’d been cheated of something.
“Oh, not quite, darling.” Her mum laughed – a very professional, actressy laugh that somehow set Lily’s teeth on edge. “You’d have had to be good, but I’m sure your connections gave you an edge. You’ll learn, I’m afraid. In this business, it’s all about who you know.”
“But what Dad said … about how if they gave me a place it would mean I was supposed to be there. He-he said I was talented. That was why I agreed!”
“Oh, Lily, don’t be such a silly little girl!” Her mother sounded impatient. “You know you’re meant to be at a stage school – you said yourself you enjoyed the audition! You’re following in my footsteps, that’s all.”
“I still might not get a place,” Lily muttered defiantly. She was seething and her mother just didn’t seem to get it. “And even if I do, you and Dad said I only had to go for a year. Then I’ll leave!” She marched out of the room, her fingers clenched furiously, not noticing that back in the kitchen her mother was standing in the exact same pose, her nails digging into her palms.
Lily’s relationship with her mother had always been up and down. Most of the time Lily adored her – she was such fun to be with – but she could be really pushy and difficult as well. Her dad said sometimes that they were just too similar to get on but Lily didn’t see it. OK, so she looked like her mum, but that was it.
When she’d started at Shine at the beginning of term, they’d hit an all-time low. Marina Ferrars had insisted on taking Lily to school in full actress mode, expecting star treatment. She hadn’t got it and the whole thing had been a disaster.
But the real nightmare started after Lily had finally managed to get rid of her mum. It was something she’d never told either of her parents about. A group of Year Eight girls who’d heard Marina Ferrars’s little performance had ganged up on Lily, telling her she didn’t deserve to be at Shine – that in fact she’d only got her place because her mum was famous.
The worst of it was that Lily knew they were right. Her mum had said so, after all. If she’d been completely rubbish at the audition, she wouldn’t have got a place – her mum wasn’t that important – but if it was down to a decision between her and someone else, Lily’s mum’s letter would have clinched it for her.
Only meeting Bethany and Sara had saved Lily from turning round and going straight home. She might have promised her dad a year but not if the whole school was going to treat her like an impostor. He’d understand, especially if she told him what her mum had said about the letter after the audition. She’d been too angry, and somehow too ashamed, to talk to him about it at the time.
Bethany and Sara had done their best to convince her that the letter wouldn’t have made any difference, and that Lizabeth, the Year Eight girl who’d really been picking on her, was just jealous. Well, Lily knew by now that they were totally right about Lizabeth, but she still wasn’t sure she deserved to be at Shine and somehow that had stopped her from giving school everything she’d got.
Lily was starting to wonder if she was making a mistake. The rest of the Year Sevens were desperate to pull out all the stops in every class, because who knew when the staff were on the lookout for someone to send to an audition? But Lily just couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. Oh, occasionally a class would go brilliantly and she’d come out buzzing, but most of the time she was holding something back.
What was the point, after all? She was only there because of her mum. Lily wasn’t sure whether any of the staff had noticed that she wasn’t really trying. It was funny though – being with Sara, Bethany and Chloe all the time, and seeing how much they loved Shine, was changing Lily almost without her realizing it. She was beginning to feel as if she might be passing up the best chance she’d ever been given – just to get back at her mum. The atmosphere at Shine was seeping under her skin and with the buzz about Sara’s amazing part, how could Lily not feel excited? It seemed as though the whole school had heard the news, and all through the day whispers followed Sara and her friends wherever they went. Everyone thought that Sara’s part in Mary Poppins was as good as settled – it was just a matter of her parents signing the contract.
Unfortunately, Sara’s parents didn’t see it that way and the next morning Sara wasn’t waltzing into school. When Lily arrived, she found her curled up on the windowsill on her own, looking as though she’d been there forever.
“Wow! You’re early. Dad dropped me off on his way to a meeting and I wasn’t expecting anyone else to be here.”
Sara didn’t look up. She just muttered at her knees. “Yeah, well, I had to get out of the house. Couldn’t stand it.”
“What’s the matter?” Lily asked anxiously, sitting next to Sara. Now she was closer, she could see that Sara looked dreadful, really pale and red-eyed. “What’s happened?”
Sara uncurled slightly but still didn’t look at Lily.
“I can’t do the part. My parents won’t let me.”
“Wha-at?” Lily was amazed. Her mum was desperate for her to act. After five years of her subtly and then not-so-subtly trying to get Lily to audition for anything, parents who wouldn’t let their daughter take a brilliant part seemed impossible. Lily’s mum would have been turning cartwheels.
“Apparently,” Sara spat bitterly, “it might have an unfortunate effect on my school work. I’ve got a letter to give Ms Purcell. Look.” She drew an envelope out of her blazer pocket and stared at it with loathing.
“You can’t actually be serious.” Lily’s eyes were huge and black with horror. “They can’t mean it.”
“Yes, they can,” Sara said grimly. “Well, it’s not so much my dad, it’s my mum. She’s a teacher and she’s obsessed with me doing well at school.”
Lily nodded slowly. “I remember you saying you had to get a really good school report or they were going to move you at the end of term. But I never thought they’d do anything like this!”
“Neither did I. S’pose I should have expected it though. My mum wasn’t exactly over the moon when she heard about the callback.”
Bethany and Chloe walked in just then, and broke off chatting when they saw Sara and Lily’s faces.
“What’s up?” Chloe asked worriedly.
Lily glanced quickly at Sara. It was her news, but she didn’t look as though she could face telling it again so Lily gave the other two a quick rundown. They found it as hard to believe as she did.
Chloe got right to the point. “You mean you’ve actually got to go and tell Ms Purcell you don’t want the most fantastic part ever?”
“Yes.” Sara sounded snappish but the others didn’t mind – she had plenty of rea
son. “Thanks, Chloe. Got it in one.”
“You could just give the letter to her secretary,” Bethany suggested. “Then you wouldn’t have to actually – you know – say it.”
Sara shook her head. “No, that would be worse. I’d just be waiting all day for a message to go and see her. She’ll probably be in by now, won’t she? I’ll go and get it over with.”
“Want us to come with you?” Bethany asked.
Sara shook her head. “No, it’s OK. I’m not exactly good company. See you in a bit.” She slid down from the windowsill and mooched out of the room, shoulders slumped.
The others watched her go, feeling shell-shocked.
“I just can’t believe her parents would do that,” Lily murmured, still staring at the door.
“It ought to be illegal,” Chloe said furiously. “What if they give the part to Lizabeth instead?” Lizabeth had been up for the part as well and had sneakily tried to sabotage Sara’s audition.
Chloe and Bethany kept discussing Sara’s parents and how unbelievably awful they were, but Lily had zoned out. She couldn’t help comparing Sara’s mum with her own. They were both trying to control their daughters’ lives but in different ways. It was as if she and Sara were opposites – Sara had desperately wanted to be at Shine and was fighting to stay, and Lily had never even wanted to be here.
Somehow, thinking that and remembering Sara’s miserable face made her feel really guilty. The thoughts that had been niggling at the back of her mind for the last couple of weeks suddenly jumped into focus. She had no right to be at this school and not do her absolute best. Lily was beginning to realize how hard it would be to give up Shine after a year, with all her friends and the fantastic teaching. How could she go back to an everyday school and just do ballet and drama once a week? Even after only a few weeks at stage school, the idea was horrible.
