Centre Stage: A Novel

by Linda Chapman

  As we walked in I felt a rush of relief that the three of us were all in the same form. There were about twenty people in the room already. Some were sitting on their own, others were in small groups. They all looked at us as we entered.

  I knew about four other people from primary school. I smiled at them and they smiled back.

  ‘Let’s sit there,’ Ally said quickly, pointing out three free seats by the window.

  We went over. The seats were arranged in pairs. Harriet sat by the window. I dumped my bag on the chair next to hers and Ally sat down at a pair of empty desks just behind us. I looked around.

  There was a group of three girls sitting on desks at the back of the room, and near them a large group of boys. On the opposite side of the room to us I could see Saskia Roberts and Julie West, two of Justine Wilcox’s friends.

  Julie caught my eye. ‘Did you hear about Justine?’ she called across the room.

  ‘No, what?’ I asked, going over to her.

  ‘She’s not going to come to school here,’ Julie answered.

  ‘Where’s she going?’ I said in surprise. Justine hadn’t said anything about not coming to Charles Hope when I had last seen her on the film set. In fact, she’d said she’d see me at school.

  ‘She’s going to that stage school on the other side of town.’

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘Clawson Academy of Performing Arts?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s the one,’ Julie replied. ‘She liked being in the film so much that she asked her mum and dad if she could go there and they said yes. She had to have an audition but she got a place and so she’s started there now.’

  I was stunned. Justine Wilcox was going to a theatre school! She’d get to learn all about acting and be in loads of shows.

  ‘So how come you’re not going to a posh stage school, Sophie?’ Julie said. ‘I mean, with you having been in that film and everything, I’d have thought you’d have gone somewhere like that instead of here,’ she said, looking around as if I was mad to want to come to Charles Hope.

  I shrugged. I’d never thought about going to school anywhere else apart from Charles Hope. ‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘I…’

  A voice interrupted me. ‘Hey, are you the girl that was in that film?’

  I looked round. It was one of the three girls at the back who had spoken. She had poker-straight shoulder-length brown hair and was wearing mascara and tinted lipgloss. ‘Well?’ she demanded.

  I nodded. ‘Yeah, I was in the film.’

  Everyone stopped talking — even the boys — and stared at me.

  ‘Cool,’ the girl said, glancing at her two friends who were both looking impressed. ‘I read about you in the paper.’

  I wasn’t sure what to say. I settled for smiling in what I hoped was a friendly but not bigheaded way. It seemed to work. The girl jumped off her desk and came over with her friends.

  ‘I’m Kelly,’ she said, smiling back. ‘This is Leanne,’ she nodded to the girl on her left. Leanne had wavy blonde hair caught back in two butterfly clips, and green eyes like a cat’s. ‘And this is Rachel.’ Rachel’s sleek black hair was cut into a short bob. ‘We were all at Outfields Primary together,’ Kelly informed me.

  ‘I was at Ashton Primary,’ I told her. I was relieved to see that the boys had lost interest in the conversation and had gone back to their oh-so-mature game of pushing each other to see who would fall off their desk first.

  ‘Why don’t you come and sit with us?’ Kelly said.

  ‘It’s OK. I’m sitting with my friends,’ I replied, turning and smiling at Ally and Harriet. Kelly’s eyes swept over them but before she could say anything more the door opened and Mr Davey walked in.

  He was tall and quite young for a teacher. He’d told us he taught Science and PE. He was followed into the room by a girl with long dark hair and a lady who looked like another teacher.

  I quickly hurried to my desk and squeezed in beside Harriet.

  ‘Good morning, class,’ Mr Davey said with a smile.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ we all chorused.

  ‘Sit down,’ he told us. There was scraping of chairs as we all sat down. The girl and the other teacher stood by Mr Davey’s desk. What were they doing there? As far as I could tell every desk in the class was taken.

  ‘Now,’ Mr Davey said, looking around at us all. ‘It seems we have a slight rearrangement to make.’

  What did he mean? I shot a look at Harriet. She looked as confused as me.

  ‘This is Sunita Modi,’ Mr Davey said, smiling at the girl beside him. ‘She and her twin sister have just enrolled at the school and seeing as their parents wish them to be in different forms, she will be coming to join you lot and her sister will be in 7MF — Mrs French’s form,’ he said, looking at the teacher. ‘However, seeing as this form is full, this means one of you lucky things can escape having me as a form tutor and move across to Mrs French’s room.’ He looked down at a note stuck to the top of his register. ‘And the winner is… Alexandra Swannick. Alexandra, would you stand up, please.’

  Ally. My heart seemed to stand still. No, he couldn’t mean Ally. My eyes flew to Ally’s face. She had gone as pale as a ghost. She stared at Harriet and me, her eyes wide with alarm.

  ‘Alexandra?’ Mr Davey said, looking around.

  Shooting Harriet and me a desperate look, Ally slowly got to her feet.

  Mr Davey smiled at her. ‘Well, your luck’s in, Alexandra. Meet Mrs French — your new form tutor.’

  ‘Hello,’ Mrs French said warmly. ‘Pick up your bag and come with me.’

  ‘But… but…’ Ally started to stammer.

  I looked frantically at Harriet. Ally couldn’t move forms! Harriet looked as frantic as me.

  ‘Yes?’ Mrs French said to Ally.

  Ally bit her lip and then shook her head and didn’t say anything more. But then what could she say? No, I’m not going? Somehow I didn’t think that would go down too well.

  ‘Sunita, if you sit where Ally was sitting,’ Mr Davey said.

  Sunita came down the aisle and Ally had no choice but to leave her desk.

  Mrs French smiled at her. ‘Your new formroom is just across the corridor.’

  Ally threw a last desperate look at Harriet and me, and then Mrs French ushered her out of the door and she was gone.

  Chapter Two

  ‘Right, then!’ Mr Davey said, clapping his hands together. ‘Let’s start with the register.’

  My mind was in a whirl. I couldn’t get my brain round what had just happened. Ally was going to be in a different form. Harriet and I would never see her — at least not in lessons.

  ‘What are we going to do, Sophie?’ Harriet whispered in dismay as Mr Davey opened the register.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I whispered back. This was a total nightmare. We’d never been separated — not ever.

  ‘No talking, please,’ Mr Davey said.

  After Mr Davey had finished the register, he gave us out our homework notebook and we had to write our weekly timetable down in the back.

  ‘Look, we get a double Maths lesson on Monday and Thursday,’ Harriet pointed out.

  Harriet loves Maths. Actually she loves all subjects. She’s mega-brainy. She got to do all the extension papers when we did our SATs last term. Seeing Harriet’s eyes positively shining at the idea of double Maths, I suddenly missed Ally. ‘Great,’ I sighed.

  ‘You never know,’ Harriet said optimistically. ‘You might start liking Maths here.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ There was about as much chance of me liking Maths as there was of me demanding maggots for breakfast every day.

  The bell rang.

  ‘OK — class dismissed,’ Mr Davey said as we all began to put our homework books away in our bags. ‘Your first lesson is Maths. Go out of here and turn left. The Maths block is just across the courtyard.’

  Harriet jumped eagerly to her feet. ‘Come on.’

  I followed her slowly.

  It was strange having to
walk to a different classroom for our first lesson. In primary school we’d stayed in one room most of the day with the same teacher, but now we had to take all our books with us and go to see a different teacher for each lesson. I was sure if I didn’t get lost I was going to forget the books I needed.

  ‘Where shall we sit?’ Harriet said when we reached the Maths room.

  ‘Not too near the front,’ I replied. I hate being right under the teacher’s nose.

  ‘All right, but not too near the back either,’ Harriet compromised. ‘We want to be able to see the board clearly.’

  ‘Sophie!’

  Hearing my name called out, I looked round. It was Kelly who had spoken. ‘Do you want to come and sit by us?’ she said, nodding to a spare desk next to Rachel at the back of the room. It was the only desk left in the back row.

  ‘It’s OK, thanks,’ I told her. ‘I’m going to sit with Harriet.’

  ‘Let’s go over here, Sophie,’ Harriet said, heading for two desks in the third row.

  I smiled quickly at Kelly and followed Harriet.

  As I sat down I heard a suppressed snigger from the back of the room. I glanced round. Rachel and Leanne were leaning close to Kelly. All three of them were looking at the gap between Harriet’s trousers and her shoes. Kelly was whispering something and the other two were grinning.

  My cheeks flushed. OK, they weren’t laughing at me but I felt embarrassed for Harriet. I turned away quickly.

  ‘I wonder what our teacher will be like?’ Harriet said enthusiastically as she got her books out. ‘I hope we don’t get Mr Jenson. Emily had him in Year Eight and she was always going on about how strict he is.’ She began to line up two pencils, a rubber and a ruler very neatly on her desk.

  Just then the door opened and our teacher came in. It wasn’t Mr Jenson; it was an oldish woman called Miss Foster. ‘We’re going to start by looking at types of numbers,’ she said as we all settled down. ‘Who can tell me what a squared number is?’

  Harriet and a few of the others put their hands up.

  ‘Yes?’ Miss Foster said to Harriet.

  ‘A squared number is a number multiplied by itself,’ Harriet said promptly.

  ‘Good. And who can tell me what a cubed number is?’

  A boy at the back answered that question.

  ‘And what about the square root of a number?’

  Harriet’s arm shot out. She was the only person to put her hand up this time.

  Miss Foster smiled. ‘Yes?’

  The words rushed out of Harriet. ‘The square root of a number is the number you start with when you square a number, so the square root of twenty-five is five and the square root of a hundred is ten. You can only find the square root of a positive number and every real number has two square roots.’

  ‘Very good,’ Miss Foster said, looking impressed. She checked her register. ‘Harriet Chase, isn’t it?’

  Harriet beamed. ‘Yes, miss.’

  ‘You got a level six on your SATs, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, miss.’

  ‘Very impressive.’

  Around us I could feel a few people exchanging looks, and from the back I heard an unmistakable snigger. I swung round. Kelly was rolling her eyes mockingly at Leanne and Rachel. I quickly turned back to the front. Harriet grinned at me. I could tell she was really pleased at being noticed by Miss Foster. I forced myself to smile back but inside my tummy felt like it had a hyperactive goldfish squirming round inside it. Something told me that Harriet’s keenness wasn’t going to go down very well at Charles Hope.

  The rest of the lesson passed in a haze of boredom. Square numbers, prime numbers, factors, multiples…

  The words spun round meaninglessly in my head and when we were told to start an exercise in our Maths books, my thoughts drifted to the audition at the weekend. What was it going to be like? I chewed on my pencil. I had prepared a speech to do — it was the start of one of the scenes in the film. Excitement shivered through me as I imagined standing on the big stage at the theatre, looking out at rows and rows of seats and saying my lines…

  The clack of Miss Foster’s heels jerked me out of my daydream. I quickly bent my head over my work and wrote down a number — any number — just so it looked like I was working. School can be so boring at times.

  ‘Sophie! Harriet!’ As we made our way along the crowded corridor that led out of the Maths block we heard a familiar voice behind us.

  ‘Ally!’ I exclaimed, swinging round.

  Ally pushed her way towards us. ‘I thought you were never going to stop. I’ve been calling to you from right the way down the corridor.’

  ‘How are you?’ Harriet asked.

  ‘Miserable. It’s awful I’m not in the same form as you. I don’t like any of the girls in my form.’

  Sympathy swept over me. ‘It’s not fair. Why did they have to pick you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ally moaned.

  ‘We’ll meet up every break and lunch,’ Harriet promised.

  Ally looked relieved. ‘So have you just had Maths too?’ she asked as we all headed outside.

  ‘Yes,’ Harriet said eagerly. ‘It was brilliant. We’ve got a really good teacher and everything we did was really interesting.’

  Ally looked at me. ‘And translated into non-maths-genius speak?’

  ‘Boring,’ I grinned.

  Ally grinned back and I felt a rush of happiness. It was so nice being the three of us again. We sat down on a low wall that bordered a grassy bank. It was sunny and it felt good to be outside instead of stuck in a stuffy classroom.

  ‘So, didn’t you like anyone in your class?’ I said to Ally.

  She shrugged. ‘A couple of the girls seem OK I suppose.’ Her eyes suddenly sparkled and she leant forwards. ‘And some of the boys are quite nice,’ she said, dropping her voice. ‘There’s this one called Nathan. He sat near me in Maths. He’s got brown hair and it’s sort of spiky.’

  ‘You fancy him!’ I squealed.

  ‘Well, he is cute.’ Ally grinned. ‘So, what about the boys in your class?’

  I thought back. I hadn’t really taken that much notice. ‘I guess there are one or two who are OK,’ I replied.

  Harriet nodded. ‘There was that one by the door in Maths — Jake, I think he’s called. He’s quite fit.’

  Ally giggled. ‘I wonder who’s going to be the first of us to get a boyfriend?’

  We all exchanged hopeful grins. None of us had ever been out with a boy — not properly. All we’d ever done was hold hands with boys a few times. However, in secondary school things were going to be different. There were loads more boys for a start.

  ‘Whoever gets a boyfriend first has got to tell the others all about it. Agreed?’ Ally said.

  ‘Agreed!’ Harriet and I replied together.

  ‘Particularly if they kiss,’ Ally added.

  ‘Definitely,’ I said.

  ‘One hundred per cent definitely,’ Harriet said.

  ‘One hundred and fifty per cent definitely!’ Ally declared.

  ‘Actually you can’t really have one hundred and fifty per cent, Ally,’ Harriet corrected her. ‘You see one hundred per cent is actually the maximum that…’

  Ally and I glanced at each other and then at precisely the same moment began to tickle Harriet in the ribs.

  ‘No!’ she squealed, gasping with laughter and falling back on the grassy bank. ‘Get off! Get off!’

  I grinned as we released her. It was brilliant to be back together.

  The day flew by in a blur of lessons. History, French, English… By three o’clock it was a relief to collapse on to the bus.

  ‘I can’t believe they gave us homework on our first day,’ I complained as my bag, full of new books, hit the floor of the bus with a dull thunk. ‘I mean, how unfair is that?’

  ‘I know,’ Ally agreed.

  Harriet opened her homework notebook. ‘We didn’t get that much. Finish the exercise in Maths, write a page about our life a
nd our family for English and read a chapter of our History book.’

  ‘And answer the questions at the end of the chapter,’ I groaned. ‘It’s tons!’

  ‘You think you’ve got it bad, Soph,’ Jessica said, turning round in the seat in front. ‘Wait till you’re in Year Ten.’ She looked at Dan, her boyfriend, who was coming back to ours for tea. ‘It’s a nightmare, isn’t it?’

  Dan nodded. ‘Every single teacher we’ve had all day has started the lesson by giving us a lecture on how we’ve really got to start working hard and thinking about the exams this year,’ he told us. ‘I don’t think they expect us to have a life!’

  Jessica sighed. ‘I wish I was back in Year Seven.’

  ‘Me too,’ Dan agreed.

  I couldn’t imagine Dan in Year Seven. He’s really good-looking, sort of like Freddie Prinze Junior, with short dark hair and a really nice smile. For a while in the summer he and Jessica had broken up but now they were back together and they seemed really happy. I wished I could find a boyfriend like Dan.

  I looked hopefully round the bus. A group of Year Seven boys were sitting at the back. They seemed to be having a burping competition. Gross!

  Near to them, my brother Tom was sitting with his mates, their feet propped up on the seats in front. They weren’t much better. A year ago they had all been fairly normal but then they’d started a band called the Blue Lemons and now they were all growing their hair. They looked totally weird.

  What’s the matter with boys? I thought. Why are there so few normal ones?

  When the bus stopped we all piled off. Ally and Harriet had arranged to come back to mine.

  ‘Are you coming home, Tom?’ Jess called as Tom slouched off the bus.

  ‘Nah. Going to Raj’s,’ Tom replied.

  Harriet giggled as we headed for my house with Jess and Dan. ‘Doesn’t Tom’s hair look funny?’

  ‘Just a bit!’ I grinned. It was about level with his nose and thick and bushy. He had to keep pushing it back all the time.

  ‘I think it looks quite cool,’ Ally said.

  ‘It’s got waves like a girl’s,’ I said.

  ‘Tom’s such a poser,’ Jess said, shaking her head. ‘Him and all his mates.’ She smiled soppily at Dan. ‘I’m so glad you’re not like that.’