‘Me?’ My mouth dropped open. ‘In a real concert?’
‘On a real stage,’ said Francesca, beaming.
‘But when will it be on?’ I said, impatient before I remembered to use my manners. ‘I mean, of course, I’d love to do it. Thank you.’ I smiled and looked hopeful.
Francesca shook her head. ‘The date is not set. It will depend on many things. But I will tell you, of course.’
On the ride home, I sprint-raced up the long gravel driveway like I had a rocket booster on my back. Mum was home and was glad to see me happy. ‘That’s more like you,’ she said. ‘Good lesson?’
‘You’re not going to believe it,’ I said. ‘I’m going to be in a concert. And on a real stage. Francesca’s friends are organising it. It’s going to be amazing.’
In bed that night, all I could think about was singing in the concert, and then my mind ran back to the time I saw Annie. I imagined myself playing her on stage, and I could hear myself singing and then getting applause from the audience. I felt the red curly wig on my head and looked down at the little checked orphan dress and apron. There were lights and the tuning sounds of an orchestra warming up. In front of the audience, who only looked at me, I sang my songs, my voice the only thing any of them could hear.
And I loved it. Loved it. Loved it.
I sat up in bed with a flash of energy. Ziggy whimpered and stirred but I ignored him. Instead, I spoke to the audience in my head, the people out there in the dark in front of me, the ones waiting for me to sing, the ones wanting me to fill their lives with my music.
I said, ‘I am going to be a singer.’
My voice echoed out into the dark of my bedroom and my words hung there on the dust particles, not moving in the stillness.
‘I am going to be a singer,’ I said to the universe. And I knew it would be true.
In the morning, the practical side of me kicked in. It’s the bit that figured things out. In some people, their practical side said, Hey, your dream is too big and difficult. You should give up now. But my practical side wasn’t like that. It said, Hey, you have a big, difficult dream. And I know just how it’s going to happen.
My practical side woke me up at 6 a.m., long before anyone else was stirring, turfed me out of bed and told me to go study. If you want to be a singer, it said, loud and direct into my head, you’re going to have to get into Baker to be in their music program. And because no one is going to pay your fees, you’re going to have to be a ‘real’ Smart Girl and win that scholarship. Which means study. At 6 a.m. today, and at 6 a.m. every day.
If I wanted to grab hold of my dream, I was going to have to work hard.
Come Monday afternoon, I got home from school to see an envelope on my bed. Big, fat and yellow. It read ‘Abigail Smart’ on the front address and in the top corner was the name, ‘Baker College’.
Something in my chest popped up through my throat and right into my mouth and before I even knew it, I was tearing out the door and down into the study.
‘Mum! There’s a letter on my bed!’ I yelled, waving the envelope in front of her face. She pushed back her chair.
‘Well, of course. I put it there,’ she said. But she was smiling. ‘I think it must be the stuff about the scholarship test.’
Before she’d gotten the words out, I tore off the envelope flap, dragging out the papers and running my finger down them to find out everything I could.
‘It says there’s a test on the twenty-first. When’s that?’ I asked.
‘I don’t even know what day it is today,’ Mum said, in the voice she put on when she was complaining about how busy she was. But she clicked a button on her computer and a calendar popped up. ‘Oh. It’s not long. It’s in, let’s see, just less than three weeks.’ Her face was shocked. ‘That’s not much time to study, really.’
She took the pile of papers from my hands and looked through it. ‘Oh, and the audition for the music scholarship is on the same day.’ She looked up at me. ‘Are you sure you want to do this? It’s going to be a huge day for you. Maybe you should just try for one.’
‘Are you kidding?’ I said. ‘I want to get into the music program at this school, so I need all the chances I can get to win the scholarship.’
Mum raised her eyebrows. ‘If that’s what you really want. But you’d better start practising. Here. These are the kinds of questions that will be in the test.’
She opened a booklet and thrust it into my hands. In front of me were ten different maths questions. I read the first one, all about perimeter and area and a super complicated shaped farm owned by a farmer called Max.
‘I don’t even understand the question,’ I said. ‘Is this for real?’
‘Looks like it,’ said Mum, shrugging. ‘It’s going to be a lot of pressure. Are you up for it?’
I grimaced. This was going to be harder than I’d thought. But there was no point in being a Smart Girl unless you were prepared to show the world, right?
‘Yes,’ I said to Mum. ‘Of course.’
She sat back in her chair and thought. ‘I’m sure I’ve got some advanced maths practice sheets somewhere, kept from when I was in Year Seven. Maybe under the house? I can picture the box they’re in. I’ll just have to find it and then I’ll drag them out for you.’
It took about three hours for Mum to dig her way through the clutter in the storage room under the house, but after she’d shifted about fifteen different boxes and looked through at least eight, she came out, triumphant, with a bunch of maths sheets in her hand. I cleared off my desk and put away my art stuff in the cupboard. There would be time to paint after I had gotten myself a scholarship.
In the meantime, I had work to do.
By the end of the evening I understood perimeter, area and was working on the probability of Suzy picking up three cards of the same kind in a row. I had the forms ready for Buzz and Jessie to do the test as well.
‘You guys are still in, right? I copied the application forms for you to take home to your parents,’ I said excitedly, the next morning at school. ‘How cool would it be if we all got to go to Baker?’
‘It would be cool, I guess,’ said Buzz. She looked at the application form and then at me. ‘But I’m not going to study for it. If they want me, they’ll just have to take me as I am.’ She made a face. ‘I’m just not in the mood to do heaps of extra work right now.’
‘Is it hard?’ asked Jessie, anxiously. ‘When is it? Do you think my dad would even sign the form? I just don’t know.’
I let out a deep breath and smiled at my friends. ‘You guys. Just look over your maths. Try to study a bit. You have to. We want to all be together, right? It’ll be awful if we have to go to different schools after we’ve been together for all these years. Come on. At least try, okay?’
They nodded. Jessie, quickly and Buzz, slowly. ‘I know you aren’t super keen,’ I said. ‘But you know my ideas always work out in the end.’
That was pretty much the end of my do fun things at lunch days. For the next three weeks I spent every lunch in the library, practising maths problems, writing out answers to comprehension questions and nagging Jessie to do more spelling. Buzz refused to study at lunchtime. She said she was doing her practise at home, but I knew Jessie didn’t have the time with all the farm work she was expected to do, so I dragged her along with me. If the two of us weren’t in the library, we were in the school hall, practising our choir night singing item with Buzz and Stella.
I’d read books about girls who had to work hard or practise or study or train for hours every day. I loved stories like that—where people do amazing things to save the world or win a gold medal or whatever—but I never knew the reason I loved them so much.
Now I had it figured out.
Working every minute of every day made me feel super-alive. It was like every nerve in my body was firing all the time. I felt
like I was on a balance beam, with every thought and every muscle in total focus. My whole future was depending on it. And I loved the feeling of going to bed tired both in my brain and my body. I even dreamed of maths and auditions and judges. It made me feel important, like I was doing something special and crucial to the future of the world.
I studied and worked every minute of every day, but eventually I started waking up tired still, and panicky, as if I’d forgotten something. Not to mention that everything and everyone were really starting to get on my nerves.
One night when I was telling Miles again not to annoy me, Mum jumped in.
‘I’m a bit tired of this, Abby,’ she said. ‘You’ve been mean to Miles for two weeks straight now.’
‘She’s always mean to me,’ complained Miles. ‘It’s not just two weeks.’
I made a face at him to tell him to be quiet but Mum got in first. ‘Miles. Is that really necessary? Go work on your epic volcano that never seems to be finished. I’m talking to Abby.’
‘I’m fine,’ I said, but I could hear the edge of a complaint in my voice. ‘I’m just being normal.’
Mum made a face. ‘I don’t think you are. Ever since you started studying for that test, you’ve been very stressed. You’re just not yourself.’
‘I am,’ I said. It came out like, I aaaaaaaaam. ‘I’m just studying. That’s all.’
‘Well, your study shouldn’t be taking over so much that you can’t even have a normal conversation with your brother.’
‘Well, he shouldn’t be so annoying.’
‘I really don’t think he is.’
‘He’s not annoying to you. You’re not his sister. He’s annoying to me.’
‘Well, you need to be nicer.’
‘Okaaaay.’ I growled it out and stood up. ‘I’ll try. I’ll go and calm down in my room.’
‘Just relax, Abby,’ Mum called after me. ‘Take a break.’
But I couldn’t take a break. I had to study as hard as I could right up until the morning of the test, and practise singing as much as I could right up until the time of the audition. I had to get into Baker. I just had to. Also, working took my mind off the fact that Stella still wasn’t singing our group song properly. I’d tried everything to get her to see how she needed to change, but she just refused to even listen to me. Also, Jessie wasn’t doing well with her study and Buzz was avoiding all my questions about hers. Not to mention that it was now two and a half weeks since Francesca had told me about the concert and I hadn’t heard a thing about it since. She didn’t know what was going on either.
‘Are they still doing it?’ I asked her at my lesson that week for about the tenth time. ‘Did they tell you anything?’
‘Yes, they are still doing it,’ she laughed. ‘I have told you this.’
‘So when do you think we’ll hear anything?’ I gave Francesca my sad puppy eyes, like puhleeeze.
‘They keep saying it will be soon,’ she said. ‘Soon, soon, soon. Nothing but soon.’ She shrugged. ‘But if you want to be singer, you have to get used to waiting. Waiting a long time. This is normal.’
‘I don’t like waiting,’ I said, and I made a face.
Francesca laughed. ‘No one likes this. But when you get older, you get more practise.’
‘I just feel like I’m stuck in a stretching machine right now,’ I said. ‘Like, I just have to wait and wait and wait until I nearly burst waiting for something good to happen.’ I rested my chin in my hands, glum. ‘And maybe nothing good will happen at all.’
‘Something good will happen,’ said Francesca. ‘You will see. And now, a song.’
She pulled out some more music with a grin. ‘What about this?’
‘Oh!’ I said with a sudden smile. ‘It’s “I think I’m gonna like it here” from Annie. Will you do the part by Grace?’
‘Of course,’ said Francesca, with a wink.
We started singing and I realised with amazement that Francesca was not only a really awesome singer, but also a great actress. The way she pretended to be the housekeeper and maids made me laugh so much I almost missed my lines a few times. When I sang my part—where Annie got more and more excited about staying at Daddy Warbucks’ house—Francesca had a huge smile on her face and I felt so happy that I almost couldn’t bear it. A huge rush of something came up from my stomach and I could feel the beginning of what seemed to be tears. When I’m happy? That’s nuts. I pushed them back down again and let a gush of words come out instead.
‘You know, you’re probably the nicest adult I’ve ever met,’ I said to Francesca. ‘I mean, I can tell my best friends everything, but I think I can tell you most things too.’
Francesca turned around from her music stack, with her eyebrows raised. ‘You are sweet, Abby. How kind to say. Thank you.’ She paused, and then kept speaking. ‘Now I can ask you: are you alright? You seem ... I don’t know ... a little tense?’
The tears prickled again but I fought them hard.
‘I’m kind of busy,’ I said. ‘I’m studying for a scholarship. And practising for the choir night.’
Francesca sat down at the piano again, her hands on her linen pants.‘You are a good listener, Abby. Already you prove this in our lessons. So, I know I can say something and you listen, yes?’
I nodded. ‘Yeah.’
‘See your breathing? It’s very high and shallow. I see you are tense. Everyone can see it, but maybe you can’t yet. You must relax, you know. Let it go. This is the life of an artist. There are always the questions like “Will I get to be onstage?” and “Will I be good enough?’’’
‘I think that all the time,’ I said, grimacing.
‘If you can relax, you’ll be happier,’ said Francesca. ‘You are good. Just believe it. Practise, sure. But when you finish practise, let it go.’
Chapter 19
I took Francesca’s advice to heart on the day before the big scholarship test. I’d studied hard all week, with Mum hovering around the door of my room trying to get me to go outside, take a break, eat a cookie or take a shower—whatever she could think of. She must have thought I was going to study myself into some kind of coma, or just explode in a puff of smoke from internal combustion. Finally, on Friday morning, she got her wish. I took one last look at my books and the practice test papers, and then I put them in a pile on my desk, chucked a jumper over them, caught the bus and went to school.
‘You guys ready for tomorrow?’ I asked Buzz and Jessie, quietly, just when the bell went. Jessie nodded and Buzz said something I couldn’t make out because she turned away. I smiled at Jessie and gave her the thumbs up, and then pretended that nothing unusual was going on at lunch when we had our singing practice with Mrs Nickell.
‘Do they know who’s doing the individual solo yet?’ asked Buzz. ‘Out of all the schools, I mean?’
‘Not yet,’ said Mrs Nickell. ‘I’ve sent in all your video clips, so they should make the decision soon.’
After school, when I swung my bag in through the front door and landed it on the kitchen bench, Mum opened her mouth and got that slightly concerned look on it.
‘What’s to eat? I’m going down to the river for a bit,’ I said.
Straight away she perked up and actually smiled at me.
‘Great idea,’ she said. ‘I bought coconut slice from the general store.’
I cut off a huge piece and ran down to the river. Sam wasn’t there, of course. He’d been avoiding me. But it didn’t matter—just like the water temperature, which had gotten a lot colder, didn’t matter. I swung my legs in, off the rock and looked up at the canopy of trees above me.
‘This is it,’ I told the birds. ‘I’m going to do the test. And I’m going to win it. And I’m going to go to Baker, do their music program and be a star.’
There was a carrrooo back to me from a magpie. A kookaburra started to lau
gh, but I didn’t mind. ‘You think it’s funny, but you’ll see.’ I laughed back. ‘Smart Girls succeed. And I’m the original Smart Girl.’
That evening, just like Francesca said, I relaxed with a replay of Annie and let the exam go from my mind and body. And then I got up the next morning, ready for the day that would change everything.
I stepped from the car, slightly shivering, outside the hall of Baker College. I always forgot that it was warmer in Kangaroo Valley than it was on the Highlands.
‘I’m freezing, Dad,’ I said.
‘Did you bring a jumper?’
‘Forgot. Oops.’ I gave him a face. ‘Do you think I can borrow yours?’
He sighed. ‘Okay.’
His jumper was too big for me and smelt like sweat and engine oil, but it was warm. Who was going to care about what I looked like at an exam? I pulled it down over my jeans, grabbed my pencil case and got out of the car. ‘See you soon.’
‘Good luck.’
I smiled at him. ‘I’ve got this.’
He raised his eyebrows and looked like he was about to say something before he changed his mind and smiled.
‘Be smart then!’
I grinned back and turned towards the hall—and the competition.
For the first time in days I felt nervous. Milling around me were 50 other kids with their mums or dads—or both. Some were looking at books and papers. Others were reciting things to themselves or talking seriously with their parent. Some looked terrified. Others looked like they owned the world, with pursed mouths and up-tilted chins.
And every single one looked—there was no other word for it—shiny. Brushed and combed. Ironed and flattened and straightened and polished. It was like I was suddenly facing a tidal wave of neatness.
And I didn’t match up.
I ran my fingers through my hair. Had I even brushed it? I couldn’t quite remember. I looked down at my dad’s jumper, hanging past my bottom, and the sleeves dangling over my hands. It made me nervous. And then it made me mad. I wasn’t here to show anyone how tidy I could look. I was here to show them how smart I was. And how well I could sing.
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