Chelsea and Astra

by Mary Hooper

  ‘Of course I won’t say anything,’ I said. I glanced towards school and saw Chelsea coming towards us across the playground. There was loads more I wanted to ask, but it would have to wait.

  ‘Look, I made you something,’ I said quickly, and I fumbled in my bag and pulled out the friendship bracelet I’d been working on all weekend. I’d been waiting for a moment like this, when Chelsea wasn’t around, to give it to him.

  He looked at it and seemed to hesitate so I added, ‘It’s OK, boys do wear them.’

  ‘Yeah, ’course they do,’ he said. He held out his hand and I dropped the bracelet into it.

  He studied it. ‘You’ve made it well,’ he said. ‘Beautiful colours. It’s sweet.’ He looked up at me, ‘like you.’

  I stared at him, stared into those green eyes and felt all swimmy inside. ‘I … I …’ I began, and I don’t really know what I was going to say, or what might have happened next, if Chelsea hadn’t suddenly arrived behind us and given me a great slap on the back.

  ‘Ouch,’ I said irritably, feeling so cross I could hardly look at her. It had been a special moment, our special moment, and she’d ruined it. If she hadn’t come up, anything might have happened. He might have kissed me.

  I looked at Chelsea coldly, feeling guilty again as I did so. Chelsea and I had never fallen out, never been cold with each other before.

  ‘Ask me, then!’ she said.

  ‘Oh yes, sorry,’ I said, remembering. ‘How did you get on?’ I turned to Ben, ‘Chelsea stopped behind to see about being in the school play,’ I explained.

  ‘Well, I’m in!’ she said. ‘Mr Bryant said he can’t promise that I’ll be the star of the next production, but he’ll see what he can do.’ She ran a hand through her hair so that it was all messy and tousled. ‘He said there are some parts that would really suit me …’

  ‘You act then, do you?’ Ben asked her.

  ‘Well, I want to! I’ve always thought I could.’

  He nodded. ‘Great,’ he said. ‘I guess you’re the type, eh?’

  I smiled secretly to myself. Did he mean what I thought he meant: she was the show-off, pushy type?

  Ben and I slid off the wall and the three of us started walking along together, Ben in the middle as usual.

  Chelsea looked at me sideways. ‘So what were you two chatting about?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, this and that.’ I was trying to remember everything, every single thing, to take home and think about later.

  Ben opened his hand and showed her the friendship bracelet. ‘Look what Astra made me.’

  Chelsea stretched out her own arm. ‘Snap!’ she said. ‘Look what Astra made me.’

  But it wasn’t quite snap, because Chelsea’s bracelet was just plain whereas Ben’s was five colours and a complicated Aztec pattern, with tiny little beads woven into it.

  ‘Looks like I’ve got the de-luxe version,’ Ben said, and we all laughed. Or tried to. I guiltily thought that I’d never bothered to make Chelsea such a nice one. I hoped she hadn’t noticed I’d gone red.

  We carried on walking home. Chelsea and I both live about a mile from school; sometimes we get the bus back and sometimes we walk, according to how we feel. This was a real breakthrough, though, because we’d never managed to get Ben walking home with us before.

  We crossed the main road, our paces exactly matching each other’s, chatting all the way. Chelsea was doing most of it, of course; I’ve never realised before how much she likes to talk about herself. A couple of times she turned to Ben and said something that I couldn’t hear, and once I had a horrible suspicion that they were holding hands, so I deliberately dropped something and hung back to pick it up. When I looked, though, they weren’t – I’d just imagined it.

  ‘So, Ben, where do you live exactly?’ Chelsea asked, coming out with it at last. Although we’d dropped lots of hints about it, neither of us had asked him straight out.

  He made a vague gesture off to the right. ‘Around,’ he said. ‘Over there. I don’t know the roads so I’m not exactly sure until I get there.’

  ‘Big House? On the Oakwood estate?’ Chelsea asked. She sounded dead casual but I knew she was as desperate as I was to know.

  Ben shook his head. ‘Not there.’

  There was another silence.

  ‘So where did you live before?’ I asked, because all he’d said was, ‘Up the motorway a bit’ or ‘North from here,’ when we’d asked.

  He stopped walking. He looked from Chelsea to me and back again, then he said, ‘One thing you ought to know about me: I’m a very private person and I’ve got certain reasons for not letting anyone know my business.’

  ‘Sure!’ Chelsea said quickly.

  ‘We didn’t mean to pry,’ I added. ‘We were just interested.’

  ‘I might tell you the whole story sometime,’ he said, ‘when we know each other a little better.’ As he said this his fingers brushed against mine and I shivered with excitement. It was obvious he’d meant that remark for me, not for Chelsea. It was me he wanted to know better.

  We carried on walking, talking about the party and other things, Chelsea and I both careful not to pry.

  In spite of what he’d said, in spite of being almost sure that it was me he fancied, I began to feel worried. I had to turn off to the left, soon, go round the crescent and into the close where I lived. Chelsea, though, had to go further – in the direction Ben had indicated. This meant, of course, that she’d be on her own with him.

  ‘Shall I come home with you?’ I said to her as we neared my turn-off. ‘Or d’you want to come round to my house?’

  She shook her head. ‘Mr Bryant said we’ve all got to read through the play we’re going to do. I want to be ready for next week.’

  ‘Only I thought we could work on our history project together,’ I said casually. ‘Just for an hour or so.’

  ‘Keen, aren’t you?’ Chelsea said. ‘I thought you hated that project?”

  ‘I do,’ I said lamely. ‘I just thought …’

  Chelsea looked at me. She knew exactly what I thought.

  ‘No can do!’ she said all jauntily, while I thought to myself how much I hated that expression. ‘See you in the morning, OK?’

  I nodded and stared at Ben miserably. How come the one time – the first time – in my life I’d found a boy I liked, my best friend liked him, too?

  ‘See you!’ Ben said as they went off, and Chelsea smiled and waved.

  ‘Bye!’ I called, as if I didn’t have a care in the world.

  When I got to the corner I looked back, and Ben waved his hand. With that wave he seemed to be saying that it was all right, it was me he liked, not her.

  Chapter Six

  Tuesday, 18th October

  CHELSEA

  ‘Wake up, Chelsea!’ Mr Bryant shouted across the hall. ‘That was your cue.’

  I jumped up. ‘Sorry!’ I said. My mind had been on other things.

  I glanced down at the script and then, very slowly, I walked across the stage, trying to look as if I was broken-hearted. I flung my arms out imploringly. ‘Don’t go!’ I begged Sarah, who was pretending to play my daughter. ‘Don’t leave me!’

  There was a long silence, and then Sarah gave me an if-looks-could-kill stare. ‘You are no longer my mother!’ she said, and turned on her heel and walked off.

  ‘OK!’ Mr Bryant said. ‘Good. You’ve each had a chance to read a few lines. Next week I want you here for a couple of hours so we can get through the entire play.’

  ‘Will you be giving out the parts, then?’ I asked. ‘I’d really like to play the part of …’

  ‘All in good time, Chelsea,’ Mr Bryant said. He clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention. ‘You can get off home now – but I want you all to have read through the play by next week.’

  There were murmurings of protest from some of the boys.

  ‘Never mind about football,’ Mr Bryant said. ‘Anyone who wants a part in the play has to put that first. Be
fore anything else.’

  I was half-way to the door by then.

  ‘That goes for you too, Chelsea. The play comes first. “The play’s the thing” as Shakespeare so aptly said. So whatever’s been on your mind while you’ve been with us today has got to take second place.’

  ‘Right,’ I mumbled. ‘See you next week.’ And then I ran for the door. OK, I wanted to be in the school play, but I wouldn’t have arranged to go along to the hall to enrol if I’d known that Ben was going to be around. When Astra or I had suggested walking home together before, he’d always said he had something else on – either that or he just wasn’t there at the end of the day. Today, though, I knew for a fact that he’d been sitting outside the school, with Astra, for fifteen whole minutes. She’d had all that time on her own with him. Anything could have happened.

  I pushed open the double doors and looked across the playground. Sure enough, they were sitting together on the wall. Sitting much too close. I slung my bag over my shoulder; I’d put a stop to that straight away.

  I broke into a run, charged up behind Astra and slapped her on the back.

  She turned on me, really fuming, but from the look Ben flashed at me, I got the distinct impression that he was pleased I’d come along when I had; that I’d appeared just in time.

  The three of us began to walk home together and I told them about the play: The Face in the Mirror, and said that I was expecting to get a good part. Ben said he was quite interested in the stage, and he also said that he thought I was the right type to make an actress. I took that to mean that he thought I had presence – star quality.

  Even better: when I told him that I was thinking about doing a modelling course if the acting didn’t work out, he squeezed my hand briefly and said that I had great legs. Astra didn’t hear him say that, but I’m going to make sure she finds out soon.

  And as for Astra – well, I don’t think I’ve ever realised before that when it comes down to it, as far as boys are concerned, she really hasn’t got much going for her. All right, she can talk about her soppy stars and do the Magic Meg bit, but she can’t chat to boys properly, not how they like to be chatted to. Another thing: she’s got a nice face and lovely hair and everything, but she’s not what you’d call exciting.

  She asked Ben about where he lived, and where he came from before that, but she didn’t get much out of him. I didn’t question him too much – especially after he said something about being a private person. Anyway, I’d decided that I was going to ask the things I wanted to know when Astra wasn’t around. And as she had to turn off for home before I did, that was going to be pretty soon. She was going to have to leave me on my own with him …

  She really didn’t want to do it. She thought of all sorts of reasons why she should come to my house. And when those didn’t work, a few more reasons why I should go round to hers. As if I’d fall for that!

  In the end, though, she had to go off, and Ben and I went on our way. On our own at last!

  ‘I hope you didn’t mind us asking about where you lived and everything,’ I said once she’d disappeared.

  ‘Girls can’t help being nosy,’ he said.

  I grinned. ‘Interested, I call it. Not nosy.’

  ‘It’s not that I’m being unfriendly or anything. I mean, I do want us to be friends, don’t get me wrong …’

  I nodded encouragingly.

  ‘But I’ve got some reasons why …’

  I touched his arm. ‘I won’t tell a soul anything you say. Honestly. I won’t even tell Astra if you don’t want me to.’ I especially won’t tell Astra, I thought. I struck a pose. ‘Your dreadful secret will be safe with me!’

  ‘Well,’ he said slowly, ‘it’s not so much my secret, as my dad’s.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘He’s an actor, you see.’

  My jaw dropped. ‘No! Is he famous? Would I know him? What’s he been in?’

  ‘Oh, in loads of TV plays,’ Ben said casually. ‘He was a surgeon in that medical series last year. And he played a murderer in the prison six-parter before that. Yeah, he’s quite famous.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘His stage name is Mike McGovern.’

  I thought hard. ‘I think I’ve heard of him!’ I said excitedly. ‘I’m sure I have. Was he in that police series?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s him. Good looking bloke. About forty.’

  ‘How fantastic!’ I could hardly believe my luck! Here was I, all set for an acting career, about to get off with someone whose dad was a famous actor!

  ‘It’s really difficult for me, because he’s paranoid about people finding out where he lives. He doesn’t even like my friends coming to the house.’

  ‘God!’ I breathed. ‘It must be great to be famous!’

  ‘The house we lived in before got really well known, you see,’ he went on, ‘and we had people hanging round the house all day. My mum couldn’t put the milk bottles out without finding someone camped on the doorstep.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘We even found a newspaper man going through our rubbish.’

  ‘Wow!’ I said. ‘Fancy that. And do you get to go to any premieres and events and stuff?’

  ‘A few,’ he said. ‘It’s no big deal to me now, though. I’ve grown up with all that.’

  ‘I suppose you have,’ I said, and I immediately pictured myself, dressed up to the nines in something plunging, hanging on Ben’s arm at the première of a film in Cannes. Oh wow …

  He suddenly stopped walking. ‘Look, Chelsea, can I trust you not to say anything about this?’

  ‘Of course you can,’ I breathed. ‘I won’t say a word to anyone. But it must be wonderful to be in that sort of world. So glamorous.’ A thought suddenly struck me. ‘Hey, is that why you didn’t really go and see Stormy?’

  ‘What?’ he asked, confused.

  ‘Stormy Waters – the school secretary. Did you just pretend to see her because you didn’t even want her to know who your father is?”

  His face cleared. ‘Yeah. That’s right. These things spread like wildfire. She’d only have to make one call to the local paper and that’d be it.’ He looked at me closely, ‘But how did you know I didn’t really see her?’

  I giggled. ‘Because she passed us in the corridor about a minute after you came out of her office!’

  ‘Oh, right.’

  I stopped at the end of my road. ‘I go down here.’

  Ben looked up and down the road. ‘Nice houses.’

  I nodded. I live in a fairly OK part of town, but I could see at once that Ben was used to that sort of area and that it was no big deal to him. God, he probably lived in a mansion!

  ‘These houses are OK,’ I said, ‘but Mum really wants to move. She’s desperate to have a pool in the garden.’

  He nodded. ‘Yeah, we’ve got a pool in our garden,’ he said, ‘and a gym.’

  ‘Fantastic!’ I said. ‘God, you must lead such a glamorous life.’

  ‘You get used to it. As a matter of fact there’s drawbacks.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like because we’re rich, my dad keeps me short of money.’

  ‘What?!’ I screwed up my face in amazement. ‘Why?’

  He shrugged. ‘He’s got some bee in his bonnet about his kids not coming by things too easily.’

  ‘I see,’ I said. ‘I suppose he just doesn’t want you to become a Hollywood brat.’

  Ben laughed. He had the most gorgeous teeth, straight and even. I hesitated, then nodded towards my house. ‘D’you want to come in and have a drink or something?’ I asked.

  What I was suggesting was strictly against my mum’s rules. I was allowed to have Astra back, of course, if there was no one in the house, but boys were strictly forbidden. Who cared about that, though?

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I’m going off to meet some mates from where I used to live.’ He picked up my hand, swung it briefly in the air. ‘Another time, OK?’ he said. And he smiled at me meaningfully.
>
  ‘Another time,’ I said. And then I went home absolutely on cloud nine. Astra? She didn’t stand a chance.

  Chapter Seven

  Sunday, 23rd October

  ASTRA

  I’m sure Chelsea knows something. I’m sure she and Ben had some sort of secret conversation when we left each other on Tuesday. I bet she even knows where he lives, knows and she’s not telling me.

  I usually see her on Saturdays; we nearly always go for a mooch around the shops. Since Tuesday, though, when she went off with Ben, things have been really odd between us and nothing got arranged. Usually we take it in turns to call for each other on school mornings, but one day she didn’t call for me, and once I didn’t call for her – and then neither of us said anything about shopping today. We’ve both been pretending to be busy-busy-busy at school when we see each other – and I just couldn’t bring myself to ring her when I got home last night. Well, I thought, if she was that bothered she could have rung me.

  Seeing as we didn’t see each other yesterday, I wasn’t sure if she’d turn up today, either – we’ve got this long-term arrangement that she always comes over on Sunday afternoons. Sunday is my mum’s big bake-up day, when she does what she calls a cook-in: scones and banana loaves and her own bread – stuff like that. Chelsea can’t get enough of it, her mum isn’t exactly what you’d call homely.

  I didn’t know whether I wanted Chelsea to come round or not. One part of me wanted her to, because I wished for things to be right and normal between us, but another part knew that it couldn’t be right and normal any more, only strained and horrible …

  I suppose she must have felt the same. Anyway, she turned up about three o’clock, and for a little while we were both made an effort to be normal and it was all perfectly all right, just like we were before Ben. Mum gave us a plate of stuff: apple sponge, treacle tart and a slice of shortbread, and we went to sit at the bottom of the garden and eat them.

  Away from Mum, though, we both dropped the best friends’ act, and Chelsea got dead funny. She kept smiling secret smiles and dropping things into the conversation I didn’t really understand: ‘I guess best friends should be prepared to take a back seat if someone special comes along’ and ‘I hope I’d be unselfish enough to stand down if ever I was in the way’ – things like that.