by Holly Webb
“Well, you’re not even sure if Julia’s been cast, so it doesn’t matter.” Her dad sighed. “I just think that you should leave Lily alone to get on with it. Interfering didn’t really help before, did it?”
Lily listened, her heart thudding. Wild thoughts of running away and starting a new life rushed through her head. She wanted to be somewhere a very long way away where no one had ever heard of her mother. She was never going to get a chance to do this for herself!
“Mmm.” It was a non-committal murmur. Lily got the feeling her mum wasn’t really listening to what her dad was saying. “I’ll keep thinking.”
Lily shoved the rest of her stuff into her bag – she no longer cared if she got told off for having the wrong tights – and stomped down the rest of the stairs very obviously, so they’d know she was coming and stop talking about her. Luckily, eating her breakfast while silently staring into space was normal for Lily, so no one commented, and she disappeared to school as soon as she reasonably could. She just wished she didn’t have to go back home that night.
Lily arrived at school feeling exhausted. So much for weekends being restful! It would be so much better if she could talk to someone about all this – well, preferably three someones.
She knew her friends would be sympathetic and it would be good to get their different points of view. Bethany was sensible and helpful so she’d be reassuring, and Sara was really strong-willed and she had her own mum problems. Chloe was doing the audition too, so it would be good to see what she thought about Lily’s mum’s coaching. But it was just too embarrassing! Lily wasn’t the sort of person who offloaded all her problems on to her friends. She was quite reserved, and she just couldn’t imagine walking into class and telling them all that her mother was driving her crazy – and had been for the last seven years.
Lily had made friends with Bethany, Sara and Chloe because of a moment of openness after Lizabeth’s cruel bullying, but it didn’t mean she told them everything. And besides, if she spilled the whole story, she would feel so stupid. Chloe had been to loads of professional castings for modelling and ads, and Sara had faced a gruelling audition for her brilliant part in Mary Poppins. Lily’s history with auditions was not so good…
Still glumly trying to work out whether stewing over it on her own was better than totally humiliating herself, Lily went to find Mr Lessing for her coaching session. She was really hoping that concentrating on work would help her snap out of it.
Unfortunately, it was the other way round. Despite Mr Lessing’s helpful comments, Lily just couldn’t get her mother’s voice out of her mind. She totally lost her way in Beth’s lines as she desperately tried to claw back the extra feeling she’d been putting into them originally. After ten minutes of struggling she was almost in tears. Mr Lessing would think she just hadn’t bothered! He’d think he’d been right after all and she wouldn’t be allowed to do the audition!
Luckily, he didn’t seem to see it that way. “Did you work on it really hard over the weekend?” he asked sympathetically.
“Mmm,” Lily sniffed.
“You’ve probably just overdone it. Try to relax – it’ll come back. You really were doing it brilliantly on Friday, Lily, you’ve just let yourself get stressed. Now, the audition’s after school tomorrow. Don’t panic!” He grinned at her horrified face. “It’s loads of time. We’ll work on it again tomorrow morning – maybe you need to forget about Little Women today and come to it fresh, OK?”
Mr Lessing seemed really calm but Lily couldn’t help feeling that he must be staring worriedly after her as she headed for the door. If she was no good tomorrow either, would they stop her doing the audition? No one would want her showing up the school.
When she got to the Year Seven form room, the others were there already. Sara was telling Chloe and Bethany about her weekend of rehearsals. It sounded amazing.
“Did you meet all the rest of the cast?” Bethany asked.
“Yes, they were really nice to us. We met the other Jane and Michael as well. I’m so glad I’m acting with Nathan – I didn’t like the other boy at all!”
“There’s a surprise!” Chloe giggled.
Sara gave her a look and then she giggled too.
“OK, I know, maybe I am just a teensy bit biased.”
“Has he actually asked you out yet?” Lily asked interestedly, dumping her bag and sitting on one of the tables. She was relieved to have something else to think about and this was good gossip.
“No.” Sara bit her lip thoughtfully. “I think he would if we weren’t seeing each other so often at rehearsals though. You see what I mean? Anyway, it’s probably not a good idea at the moment – we need to get our heads around what we’re doing. It’s just nice having someone I really like around, that’s all.” She blushed slightly.
“How can you be so sensible?” Chloe wailed.
Sara grinned. “And I don’t fancy telling my mum either!”
Lily almost flinched – so far the conversation had been mercifully mum-free.
“So how was everyone else’s weekend?” Sara asked, smiling happily to herself.
“Oh, OK,” Bethany said. “Didn’t do much really. I went with my sister to one of her band rehearsals, that’s all.”
“I spent the whole weekend going over that script,” Chloe said, serious for once. “I reckon I know the lines now but it’s difficult that we’re auditioning for Amy and Beth – I’m worried I’m going to say the wrong ones.”
“I don’t think you will once you’re feeling in character,” Lily said. “I know what you mean though.”
“Do you reckon you know the lines?” Chloe asked. “We could go over it together at break. Hey, I forgot to ask, how was your session with Mr Lessing? Mine’s not till lunch.”
Lily shrugged. “It was all right.” Again, something inside was pushing her to tell them everything but she couldn’t quite do it.
Bethany grinned. “I bet you don’t need Mr Lessing anyway – you’ve got your mum to help. You’re so lucky. Hey, Chloe, I think you should complain. Lily’s got an unfair advantage!” Bethany was only kidding and, really, Lily knew that. But after her nightmare weekend, and the terrible coaching session, the teasing was just too much.
“Lucky!” she snarled, jumping up. “Are you out of your mind? I would have thought that my so-called friend would actually have a clue about what it was like…” She tailed off, realizing that the others were staring at her as though she’d just sprouted horns. She looked down, her eyes filling with tears. Apart from the first day of term, the others had never really seen her being anything but laid-back – maybe the horns would have been less of a shock.
“Hey!” Lily flinched as Bethany got up too, expecting her friend to have a go at her. But Bethany put an arm round her shoulders. “That was meant to be a joke – I mean, obviously it was a rubbish one. I’m really sorry, Lils. I wasn’t trying to get at you. Hey, don’t cry!” She looked anxiously at the other two, who were still staring at Lily in amazement.
“Sorry,” Lily muttered, trying desperately to sniff back her tears.
“Not good enough.” Sara’s voice was gentle but decided. “You can’t go off on one like that and then not tell us what’s going on. Talk.” She patted the table beside her. “Come on, sit down, both of you.”
Guided by Bethany, Lily perched herself on the table again and the other three drew close around her. It felt nice being looked after like this. She looked around at their worried faces and realized that she’d been stupid. If she’d told them about everything ages ago, she’d have been saved so much stress.
“My coaching session with Mr Lessing was awful,” she admitted. “I’ve got this horrible feeling he’s going to withdraw me from the audition. And it’s all my mum’s fault,” she added bitterly.
“How come?” Sara asked sympathetically.
“She spent ages making me work on the scene with her over the weekend. She’s got a totally different take on it and it’s so confusing! N
ow I feel like I don’t have a clue. It’s like she just wants me to do it her way and it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.” Her shoulders slumped. “It’s the same with everything. She’s always done this. Ever since—” She paused. Oh, who cared if she sounded babyish? She had to offload. “You see, I’ve only ever had one professional audition—”
“Hey, I thought you said you’d never auditioned for anything?” Chloe interrupted.
“Yeah, I know. That wasn’t true.” Lily gazed at the floor. No one said anything but the curious silence deepened. She glanced up. All three of them were watching her intently.
“Go on,” Bethany prompted, squeezing her shoulders.
And so Lily told them.
She had been five when she had her first audition – her mum would have started her much younger but her dad thought she needed to understand more of what was going on before she started working. Mum and Dad were both at work that day, so Lily went to the audition with her au pair. She was used to her parents not being around though, and she really liked Celeste. Lots more than some of the other au pairs she’d had.
Even though Lily’s mum had to go to work (a murder mystery series), she made a big fuss of her at breakfast, calling her a little star and telling her how exciting the day would be. Lily couldn’t wait. From everything her mum had said she had expected to be treated like a princess at the audition, so it was a big shock when there were loads of other little girls there and no one was much interested in her.
She didn’t get the part and she was gutted when she overheard one of the directors saying something about her being nothing like her mother. She came home in tears and didn’t stop crying until her mum got home from her shoot. Celeste couldn’t get her to go to bed and so she was sitting on the stairs in her Minnie Mouse pyjamas, still crying, when her mum finally walked in.
Marina Ferrars was disappointed too, but she couldn’t understand why Lily was so upset – everyone got knock-backs. When Lily’s dad got home, he found them both crying. Sitting on the stairs, with Lily sobbing into his office suit and his wife pacing up and down the hall, he tried to work out what was going on. Eventually, he managed to get the story of the day out of Lily, who’d practically lost her voice from crying. His five-year-old daughter told him that she was useless – and she never wanted to go to another audition again.
And that was it. Lily kept doing her classes and she shone in the shows her drama teacher organized, but even though her mum found loads of parts for her, Lily refused to try again. Even when Marina Ferrars got her daughter a walk-on part in a film that she was in herself, Lily wouldn’t do it. Eventually her mum gave up trying to get Lily to audition again, but she was still determined that Lily was going to stage school when she was old enough. And what Lily’s mum wanted, she tended to get.
Lily stopped and sighed. Maybe she’d made herself sound like a whiny baby but she felt better anyway. Like she’d finally managed to take off some horrible grimy old clothes. She looked around at the others, hoping not to see any amused little smiles, but they just looked sympathetic.
“And that’s why your mum made such a fuss about you getting in here, sending that letter and everything?” Bethany mused. Then she added, “Lily, has all of this got something to do with you asking Mr Lessing for the audition in the first place? That did seem a bit weird.”
Lily nodded. “Yeah. I didn’t tell you what he actually said – I was too ashamed.” It felt good to be admitting it finally. “He said why should he give me the chance when I’d not bothered all term – he was right. I’d been deliberately not trying.” She glanced up at the others, who looked as shocked as she expected. “My mum kind of tricked me into auditioning for a place here. It’s complicated.” She sighed and explained about the bargain with her dad.
“And then she sent the letter, Bethany, like you said. It seemed as if the whole thing was nothing to do with me after all.”
“Yeah, and we said then that there was no way it made any difference!” Sara burst out.
“My mum really thinks it did.” Lily shrugged. “I don’t know. I was just so angry. I was going to stay for a year like I promised and then go somewhere else. But things turned out differently. I mean…” She flushed. “I met all of you, and everyone’s so dedicated and the classes are so good. I felt stupid, like I was missing this big opportunity because I was in some pathetic sulk. And then when this part came along, I just couldn’t pretend it didn’t matter any more.” Tears trickled down her face. “And now my mum’s stuffed it up again.”
A sudden beeping noise interrupted her and she took her phone out of her pocket to read the text.
“Oh, no!” Lily laughed miserably. “Guess who this is from. ‘Lily, find out audition date so I can arrange to come with you.’ She can’t even let me go to the audition on my own! Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter. At this rate there’s not even going to be an audition.”
Sara, Bethany and Chloe looked at each other rather helplessly. They were automatically murmuring soothing nothings about it all being fine but Lily was right. She wouldn’t be allowed to do the audition if Mr Lessing thought she wasn’t good enough. And even if she did, there was no way she’d get the part if she was this stressed out!
“It’ll be OK, I’m sure it will,” Bethany said. “Look, Sara, you take Lily down to the loos so she can wash her face. It’ll be registration in a minute. You can’t sit through the morning looking like that, can you?” She was giving Sara a ‘do as you’re told, I’ve got a plan’ look. Sara raised her eyebrows but shepherded Lily out anyway.
As soon as they’d gone, Bethany turned to Chloe. “Did you say you had your coaching session at lunch?”
“Yes?” Chloe sounded unsure why Bethany wanted to know.
“Well, do you mind if I come too? Just for a couple of minutes? I think we need to tell Mr Lessing what’s going on. He might be able to help. He at least ought to know why Lily’s in such a state. It’s so unfair. She’s obviously got the worst history with auditions. It would be awful if this one got messed up too.”
“I suppose so,” Chloe said thoughtfully. “Do you think Lily’ll be OK with that though? She’s really private about this thing with her mum. She had a hard time even telling us.”
Bethany made a face. “No, I think she’d hate it. Which is why I sent her off with Sara and why we’re not going to tell her until we’ve done it.”
“Ohhh.” Chloe nibbled her thumbnail. “Um, OK.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll do it,” Bethany said quickly. “I was the one who made that stupid comment about her mum.”
“Mmm – that didn’t really make any difference though. It just got her so cross she told us. And I think you’re right. I’m just worried she’s not going to like it.”
“It can’t be worse than missing the audition. Mr Lessing must be able to do something,” Bethany said hopefully.
Bethany whispered her plan to Sara while they were supposed to be drawing map symbols in geography, and she agreed to distract Lily at lunch while Bethany sneaked off with Chloe. So now they just had to make Mr Lessing understand.
He seemed rather surprised to see Bethany as well as Chloe when they walked nervously into the drama studio, but all he did was raise his eyebrows at them.
“Er, Bethany wants to ask you something,” Chloe muttered.
Bethany gave her a ‘thanks very much’ glare and then gave the drama teacher her sweetest smile. “We’re a bit worried about Lily,” she started, hoping he might break in and say that he was too. But his eyebrows just went up fractionally further.
“You probably noticed she wasn’t very good this morning,” Bethany struggled on.
Mr Lessing now proved himself to be one of those people who can raise one eyebrow higher than the other.
Bethany glared at him – he could be a bit more helpful. “Her mum is an actress and she spent all weekend making her rehearse the scene, and she wanted Lily to do it differently from how you wanted, and now Lily�
�s all confused and stressed,” she said. Mr Lessing was looking a bit more sympathetic now, so she added, “Can’t you do something about it? Her mum even wants to go to the audition with her!”
The eyebrows again.
At this point Chloe decided she ought to join in. “She’s very, very good as Beth. It would be awful if she messed up the audition.”
“Couldn’t you talk to Lily’s mum?” Bethany asked hopefully.
This time Mr Lessing actually got as far as speaking. “How do you think Lily would feel about that?”
“She’d hate it but she really wants this part. She’s got a – a feeling about it.” Bethany sighed helplessly. She could tell they were sounding stupid. “Don’t worry, it was a silly idea. Sorry. Sorry to have interrupted.” She headed for the door.
“Hang on, Bethany.” Mr Lessing’s voice had got about fifty degrees warmer. “That wasn’t a no. I was considering giving Lily’s parents a call anyway to see what was wrong.”
“Oh.” Bethany wondered why in that case he hadn’t been more helpful but she decided not to say so. “When are you going to phone them?” she asked instead.
“Let’s put it this way,” purred Mr Lessing. “The sooner I get this coaching started, the sooner I get to a phone.”
“Oh, right!” Bethany blushed scarlet and left in a hurry, leaving Chloe staring after her.
Bethany, Sara and Chloe spent the afternoon feeling very jittery – especially as they had no idea what to expect. Luckily, Lily was still too upset to notice. When Ms Purcell’s secretary interrupted their singing lesson to ask Lily to come to the office, they couldn’t help exchanging meaningful glances. But Lily looked stricken.
“They’re going to tell me I can’t do the audition,” she said in a heartbroken whisper.
