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- Herausgeber: Knights Of
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
'Sheppard brilliantly captures all the awkwardness and insecurities of being in your early teens in this hopeful, heart-filled paean to friendship and girlhood.' Observer When you're figuring it all out, there are some friendships that mean the most. Meet Sunita, Gifty, Dawn and May. They're each about to have a summer they'll never forget, but does growing up have to mean growing apart? Funny, relatable and heart-warming, get ready to laugh, cringe and cry with these four besties! 'A gorgeous ode to teen friendship with all the hallmarks of classic teen literature' Lizzie Huxley-Jones
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For Michael, my bestie for life
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
SUNITA
When we found out that Holly Dalton in Year Ten was throwing an epic end-of-year house party with a ‘90s fancy dress theme, the girls and I knew we had to go all out. The only reason I even got an invite was because Holly has a mega-crush on my big bro Anand (gag). So, as lowly Year Nines, we had to really earn our spot at the party. And we’d do that by creating the greatest fancy dress costumes that Northstone Academy had ever seen.
We spent weeks planning our outfit. Gifty made mood boards of different themes, the group chat was flooded with ideas, and our little foursome nearly had our first ever argument when it came to deciding what we’d finally do. We didn’t actually fall 2out, though. Like May’s mum says, we’re as ‘thick as thieves.’ I thought she was insulting our intelligence until May explained it means we are super close.
Then, inspiration struck in the bath. Just call me Archimedes, or whichever dead white dude it was who jumped out of the tub yelling “Eureka!”.
“I’ve got the best costume idea for Holly’s party!” I yelled into a voice note in our group chat.
It. Was. Perfect. I had thought of something creative, original, and iconically ‘90s. Even better, there were exactly four of them in the group! No one else in our boring school would think of anything so brilliant. It was totally unique.
Luckily, my friends agreed. Our outfit wouldn’t come cheap and it would take some serious arts and crafts know-how to bring it to life, but it would be worth it when we saw the look on everyone’s faces at the party. We spent the last month of Year Nine buying brightly coloured felt, tin foil and thread. Gifty must’ve spent hours on her mum’s sewing machine but the time spent was worth it: when we saw ourselves in the mirror for the first time, Dawn laughed so hard that she busted a seam and Gifty had to re-stitch it.
3The first inkling that we’d maybe, possibly, taken our fancy dress idea too far was when I showed Mum. I heard her come back from the office; her keys jangling as she placed them on the counter, and the kettle flicking on as she made her usual cup of peppermint tea to wind down from her day at the law firm.
“Boo!” I yelled, jumping into the kitchen doorway.
She screamed so loud that it made me scream. And for three full seconds we just stood there, screaming at each other.
“Sunita, are you trying to give me a heart attack?” Mum said, clutching her chest.
“It’s my fancy dress outfit for tonight’s party. You like? It’s a ‘90s theme, we’re going as–”
“Yes, I can see what you’re dressed up as. I take it you and the girls are going as the set?” Mum asked.
“Abso-tutely! Don’t forget we’re having a sleepover at Gifty’s tonight. It’s our last night out before you drag me to France for the summer.”
Mum rolled her eyes. “You know, most girls would be thrilled to be spending the summer in a genuine chateau.”
Maybe if it was just us, I thought. There was no point 4saying it out loud – we’d had that argument before.
This summer was a big one. It was our first time, since our friendship began, that all four of us weren’t spending the summer holidays together. No pooling our money together for the bowling alley, no sneaking into 15-rated movies at the cinema, and no horror movie sleepovers.
I was going to some tiny French village for several weeks with Mum, Anand and Bryan the Bore. It’s not the first time we’ve been on holiday with Mum’s boyfriend, but it’ll be the first time he’s bringing his son and daughter. We’ve never met them before, because they’re usually banished to some boarding school in the Surrey countryside.
I have no idea what we’ll talk about. I don’t know anything about skiing and caviar or whatever it is posh people like to spend their money on. If Holiday Anand is just like At Home Anand, then he’ll spend the entire trip with his nose in some pretentious book pondering the meaning of life. And getting annoyed with me for breathing.
Dawn was going to performing arts summer school in London, Gifty was visiting her grandparents in Scotland, and May was staying right here in Kent. 5That’s why it was so important to have a brilliant night at Holly’s party. It might be the last laugh we had for the entire summer.
We got changed at Gifty’s house and walked to Holly’s party. Gifty’s dad offered to give us a lift, but our costumes couldn’t fit into the car. Sure, we got a few funny looks as we walked down the street. One kid cried in his pram so hard that his dad had to walk on the other side of the road.
“Is it just me, or are we getting quite a few stares?” Gifty asked nervously.
“Mate, we’re dressed as the most iconic foursome of the twentieth century,” I said. “Of course we’re getting stares!”
We turned a corner. The houses morphed from rows of neat terraces to mini mansions with sprawling driveways and sculptured hedges.
“Wow,” May said. “So Holly is rich rich.”
“I heard that she has a jacuzzi and a swimming pool,” Dawn said.
We found Holly’s house (it was the biggest one in the street, just like she’d described it in her invite) and crunched down the gravelled driveway.
“Ready, girls?” I asked.
6Dawn nodded. Gifty looked like she was gonna throw up and May pursed her lips so tight they disappeared, but they both sort of look like that most of the time anyway.
We walked down the driveway arm-in-arm and I reached for the buzzer. Holly opened the front door.
“EH-OH!” We said in unison. Well, Dawn and I said it with our chests. Gifty and May stopped after the first “eh.”
Silence. I swear you could hear our eyes blink. Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, Holly said something.
“Jesus, who are you?” she frowned.
“I’m Tinky-Winky, this is Laa-Laa–” Dawn began.
“Yeah, I know who you’re meant to be,” Holly said. “But, like, who are you? Do I even know you?”
“It’s me, Sunita!” Holly’s face was still blank, so I added, “Anand’s younger sister.”
That seemed to jog her memory. She actually fluffed her hair and looked around for him. “Oh, is Anand coming tonight then?”
I flashbacked to when I’d told Anand about Holly’s party a few weeks ago: he muttered something about parties being “an exercise in narcissism” and shut the 7bedroom door in my face. He’d gotten so moody since starting Year Eleven.
“Erm, sure. He’ll be here later,” I lied.
She reluctantly opened the front door wider, and we stepped in. “Who are you meant to be dressed as?” Dawn asked.
Holly spun around on her platform heels and looked at Dawn like she’d asked why she was wearing clothes. She gestured to her black mini dress. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m Posh Spice, duh!”
She led us through her mansion of a house and we followed, being extra-careful not to accidentally knock anything over with our cushion-stuffed bellies.
“You know, the fancy dress idea was more of a suggestion,” Holly said, as she led us to the kitchen.
Trays of party food lined the counter in silver platters. The massive French doors led to the garden, where a DJ played 90s R&B and bartenders were mixing drinks behind a stainless-steel bar. People danced on the lawn and posed for selfies under a giant neon sign with the words ‘Party Like It’s 1999’.
Not one of them was wearing fancy dress. They all looked super glam, like they were dressed for a night out in London.
8“Help yourself to food. Martin behind the bar will make whatever drink you like,” Holly said. “Oh, and Sonia, tell Anand to come find me when he arrives.”
“It’s Sunita,” I said, but I shouldn’t have bothered. Holly had already started talking to someone else.
“We are literally the only people in costume. I want to crawl into a ditch and die,” May muttered.
“We’re already dead and this is hell,” Gifty said.
Dawn rolled her eyes. “Come on, girls! Think of the hilarious story this will make in a few years,” she said.
I was so grateful for her optimism in that moment.
“Not all of us dream of being stand-up comics or stage stars, you know,” May said. “I’d quite like to get through my GCSEs without further humiliation.”
“Oh, cheer up, May. You’re always complaining about only being known as the girl whose parents run Golden Lotus takeaway. Now you’re known as the girl who dressed as Po!” I said. “These costumes are the result of weeks of creative ingenuity. Gifty, you could totally put these designs in your art school portfolio.”
Gifty blushed. “They did turn out pretty well.”
“Yeah! We can’t back out now, or else I sacrificed Mum’s scatter cushions for nothing,” Dawn said, patting her belly.
9Even though we tried to make the best of it, the party went downhill from there. Holly glowered at us every time we caught her eye, as it became more obvious that Anand was a no-show.
I can’t lie, I was a little upset. No one else seemed to see the funny side of our costume. No one appreciated the hard work that went into hand-stitching the felt or making the antennae out of papier-mâché. We were the pariahs of the party.
There were some real lowlights: when the DJ played the Teletubbies theme tune as we walked into the garden, when Gifty overheated and nearly fainted inside her Dipsy costume, and when we realised that going to the loo was impossible in our costumes and we’d just have to hold it in.
But the worst bit was when a few boys from our year (the only other Year Nines there, and that’s because they were our school’s football champions) spotted us.
“Don’t I recognise you from somewhere?” Scott said. He was looking at May.
The rest of the party fell quiet. Scott Mallory was the best-looking guy in our year and had never once acknowledged our existence. Why now?
May flushed bright red, matching her costume. 10“We’re in the same Geography class,” she mumbled.
“Nah, that’s not it. You work at Golden Lotus, right? I almost didn’t recognise you without the hairnet. How quickly can you get me a sweet ‘n’ sour chicken?” He turned to yell at his friends. “Oi, it looks like the Chinese takeaway is doing deliveries. What do you want?”
His friends laughed like hyenas. May pursed her lips and looked down at the floor.
My blood boiled. “Shut up!” I spat. It wasn’t my wittiest retort but I was too angry to think of anything smarter.
“What are you gonna do? Thump me with your handbag?” Scott sneered, before walking back to his cackling friends.
“Are you alright, May?” Dawn asked.
May sighed wearily. “I guess. It’s nothing I haven’t heard before.”
“It’s nearly ten o’clock,” Gifty said. “You know Mum and Dad are strict about curfews.”
We left the party, ignoring the sniggers as we walked sideways through the back gate.
“That’s another great thing about this costume,” Dawn said, as we walked to Gifty’s house. “It’s nice 11and warm. We don’t even need a jacket!”
Gifty smiled weakly. “That’s sweet of you to say, Dawn. But we all know the costumes were an utter disaster.”
We got to Gifty’s house, immediately raced to the loo (we were bursting), and settled our sleeping bags into the living room. As we scrolled through Instagram and Snapchat it became clear that we weren’t quite as ignored as we thought. In fact, we were infamous.
We were in the background of every single video and photo. They were captioned with things like:
“Who brought the toddlers?”
“Top entertainment at @hollyc’s 90s party!”
Most of them just had loads of cry-laughing emojis.
My stomach twinged as I scrolled through the videos and photos. I couldn’t stop scrolling even though it made me feel terrible.
“No wonder Holly was fuming,” I said. “We made her grown-up party look like a CBeebies special.”
“Do you think everyone will have forgotten about it by September? I can’t deal with being Golden Lotus girl AND Teletubbies girl,” May sulked.
“If they haven’t, I’ll be changing schools,” Gifty said. “I hear Silverhill Secondary has a decent Arts 12department.”
“Guys, don’t you think we’re being a bit dramatic?” Dawn asked. “I’m sure there will be fifty scandalous stories coming out of that party by tomorrow morning. We’ll be old news.”
“I’m sorry, girls. I thought it would be a laugh to do something unique,” I said.
Dawn patted me on the shoulder. “Hey, it was a sick idea! It’s not your fault that everyone in our school is so dull.”
“We’re going to be in Year Ten soon,” May said. “Don’t you think it’s time we … grew up a little? I’m not saying we morph into a wannabe influencer like Holly Carter, but wouldn’t it make our lives a little easier if we just blended in?”
“But the whole reason we’re friends in the first place is because we never blended in,” I protested. “Don’t you remember our Year One class with Miss Faversham?”
Our primary school was a sea of white faces. The first moment I spotted May, Gifty, and Dawn, I felt a crashing sense of relief. Even though we all come from completely different ethnic backgrounds (Indian, Jamaican, Chinese and Scottish-Ghanaian – we’re 13basically the United Nations), we bonded over the fact that we felt so out of place. From then on, we were each other’s home and we’ve been besties ever since.
Gifty sighed. “Maybe blending in is the wrong phrase,” she said diplomatically. “But we could make an effort to be a little more grown-up.”
“What, like Anand and Holly? No thanks,” I crossed my arms.
Then I remembered the looks on everyone’s faces at the party. How uncomfortable it made me feel. Did I really want to feel like that for the rest of the summer with Bryan and his snobby kids?
“I think it’s a good idea,” Dawn said. “It might be fun to try being grown-up for the summer, especially in London.”
“I’m not sure how much I can reinvent myself whilst staying here,” May pondered. “I desperately need to live vicariously through you guys. Do something BIG, won’t you? Fall in love, get a dramatic new haircut … something!”
I sighed. “Well, it’s not like me to refuse a challenge. I’ll try to be a bit more mature over the summer and report back. But don’t expect me to start watching films with subtitles or eating olives, or whatever it is 14grown-ups do.”
“We can FaceTime every day, right?” May asked.
Gifty shook her head. “Not me. Granny and Grandad’s village has rubbish Wi-Fi. Apparently it only works in the kitchen and that’s if you stand on a stool.”
“Yeah, it’s the same with my chateau. The walls are too thick,” I said.
“I can, but only in the evening. My summer school schedule is pretty tight,” Dawn said.
May plunged her face into a pillow. Very dramatic for her. “This is awful. I’m gonna have to talk to Jenny the entire summer. Mum will make me babysit her every day!”
“I have an idea!” Gifty said and left the room. She emerged with a stack of white cards and dropped them on the carpet. “We’ll write each other postcards! Mum bought them for me so I could stay in touch over the summer. They’re blank so we can illustrate them with whatever we like.”
We divided the postcards between us evenly.
“We’ll write each other every few days,” Gifty said. “Bonus points if they’re illustrated.”
Dawn threw a pillow playfully at Gifty. “Hey, no fair! You’re literally Picasso. I can barely draw stick-men.”
15Being without my best friends throughout the summer feels scarier than I want to admit. They’re literally the only people I know who get me. And for the next month, the only thing connecting us all is a stack of postcards.
CHAPTER TWO
DAWN
“Are you sure you have your train ticket, darlin’?” Mum asked for the gazillionth time.
And for the gazillionth time I resisted rolling my eyes. “They’re on an app, Mum,” I said, holding up my phone. “It’s one of the wonders of the modern age.”
I was getting ready for my trip and Mum was in full over-thinking mode. Even more than usual. She’d packed me three different types of sandwiches, a flask of tea, and a multipack of crisps for the one-hour train journey. She made me promise to text her at fifteen-minute intervals until Auntie Pat met me at the train station (after that I only had to text her every hour).
I was heading to London for performing arts 17summer school. Luckily, my dad’s sister has a flat that’s only a bus ride away from the school, so I was staying there for the next month. Mum had been saving up for ages so she could afford to send me to Bright Stars Academy but paying for accommodation too would’ve been a stretch too far. She’d worked so hard to give me this opportunity.
“And did you pack your homework? Just because you’re at stage school, doesn’t mean you get to ignore your other subjects,” Mum said.
“Yes, Mum. I simply can’t wait to submerge myself in algebra and physics!” I said sarcastically.
Mum leaned in to give me a hug, like she’d been doing randomly over the last few weeks. “I’ll even miss your cheekiness. This house is going to feel so strange without you here, sweetness,” she said. “Dad would be so proud of you.”
Performing runs in my blood. Mum and Dad met in a lovers’ rock band (he was guitar, she was vocals) and it was their life. I was even named after Dawn Penn, their musical idol. When other kids went to see Peppa Pig Live, I was in the front row of reggae gigs in tiny South London cafes watching Dad play and Mum sing. They took turns on stage so one of them 18could hold me. It was our dream to sing on stage together when I was older. A dream Dad talked about for so long that I wasn’t sure if it was his or mine.
Then, cancer happened. I was six so I don’t remember much. It felt like one day he was here, jammin’ on his guitar in the back garden and annoying our uptight neighbours. The next. he was gone. There was a whirl of friends and relatives in our tiny house, packing it out with delicious Jamaican food and fond memories. Then it was just me and Mum.
That’s when she decided to leave the music gigs behind and train as an accountant. I think a part of her dreams died when we lost Dad. It’s why she’s so keen for me to pick up the family’s musical legacy, to succeed where they failed.
“I was looking through your timetable for the next month,” Mum said, cupping her mug of tea. “Street Dance, Pop Singing, Musical Theatre … You are going to have the best time! I already circled the classes I think you’ll like the most. I think you should focus on the singing lessons, really master how to project your voice.”
As Mum continued talking about how I needed 19to work on my vocal range, my heart sank. I love performing. I love singing and acting and being on stage. Above all, I love making my family proud. So why am I dreading this summer?
Mum waved me off at the train station and that’s when it hit me. I was on my way to London by myself! I found my seat on the packed train, unwrapped sandwich number one (tuna mayo and cucumber – a classic) and put on my Disney Musicals playlist. It was like my comfort blanket in audio form. The opening bars of The Lion King’s Circle of Life blared through my phone, and that’s when I realised my earphones weren’t connected.
“Oh crap!” I hissed.
I dropped my sandwich and scrabbled to turn down the music, but it was too late. The entire carriage silently stared at the gangly fourteen-year-old girl playing Disney songs. The older girls on the table seat next to mine giggled to themselves, then went back to their phones.
Why is it that everyone but me thinks musicals are silly? Even Mum doesn’t understand why I begged for Hamilton tickets for last Christmas. There’s a Musical Theatre class at the academy but it clashes with the 20singing lessons Mum thinks will be good for me. Maybe next year.
*
Forty-five minutes. That’s how long I waited on the train platform for Auntie Pat. I sat on my suitcase and scanned the crowd for any sign of her face. I rang her phone countless times.
Then, finally, she answered. Apparently, my cousin Kiana was meant to pick me up because Auntie Pat’s shift at the hospital had run over.
“I’ll text you the address and you can meet me at home, sweetheart. It’s an easy tube journey from King’s Cross,” she said over the phone.
I gulped. I’d never taken the tube alone – or navigated using a map for that matter. Mum wouldn’t like it, either.
“Sure thing, Auntie Pat,” I croaked.
I hung up and began my adventure.
It turned out that navigating the tube with a giant suitcase in the summer heat was nearly enough to make me jump on the next train back home. If this is what being a grown-up is, then I don’t want it. On the walk from Camden tube station to Auntie Pat’s 21house, I silently cursed Kiana for leaving me stranded. When I finally found their flat, I was sweat-drenched and close to tears. I felt like I’d run an obstacle course with a wheelbarrow.
But my frustration melted away the second Auntie Pat opened the door. The woman standing in front of me was shorter than me (not difficult, I was the tallest girl in my year), and the ghost of my dad’s smile danced on her face. It felt so familiar.
I was always closest to Mum’s side of the family and so I spent Christmas and Easter with them. I hadn’t seen Auntie Pat in years, not since Dad died. Yet somehow those years apart just drifted away.
“Look at my superstar niece, all grown!” Auntie Pat said before bundling me into a hug. She came up to my shoulders. “When did you get so tall, Miss?”
“About a year ago,” I said.
“Lanky just like your father,” Auntie Pat said. “And I hear that’s not all you inherited from him. Where’s your guitar?”
Ah. The infamous guitar. Even though I have a pretty decent voice, just like Mum and Dad, I didn’t inherit the same passion for musical instruments. Mum tried and tried, going through every guitar 22tutor in a ten-mile radius. But I just didn’t have the aptitude for it. Mum said she didn’t mind, but I could tell that I disappointed her by being rubbish at it.
“Oh, I don’t play that any more. I prefer the singing,” I said.
Auntie Pat helped me to squeeze my suitcase through the narrow corridor. The smell of something delicious wafted from the kitchen and made my mouth water, despite my trio of train sandwiches.
“You’ll be sleeping on the sofa bed, dearest, but you can put your clothes in Kiana’s room. I asked her to make space in her wardrobe for you, but she has more outfits than Camden Market,” Auntie Pat muttered. “I’m sorry she didn’t meet you at the station as planned. That girl is a law unto herself.”
I sat with Auntie Pat in the kitchen as she finished cooking dinner. She rolled and fried dumplings, her kind eyes flashing while she brought me up to date with the family gossip. Then we heard the front door slam, followed by another door slamming. A few seconds later, loud drill music vibrated through the walls.
Auntie Pat rolled her eyes and wiped her hands on a tea towel. “Excuse me, darlin’.”
The music turned off and Auntie Pat came back to 23the kitchen, trailed by an older girl: my cousin Kiana. I vaguely remembered meeting her at dad’s Nine-Nights before his funeral. But the mature sixteen-year-old with a waist-length weave and perfectly manicured nails was nothing like the little girl I’d met all those years ago. My fave comfy pink tracksuit and simple afro puff suddenly felt babyish in comparison.
“I think you owe your cousin an apology,” Auntie Pat said.
“Mum, I already told you that I was working at the shoe shop today,” Kiana said. “I asked for extra shifts over the summer, remember?”
Auntie Pat said nothing, only fixing her with The Stare that all Caribbean mums seem to have inherited.
Kiana sighed and finally looked at me. “Listen, I’m sorry yeah, but we live like two stops from the train station. I thought you were old enough to manage that alone.”
“I am,” I said. For some reason my voice came out all squeaky and high.
Later that evening, we ate dinner on the small kitchen table. Kiana and I were silent, but Auntie Pat chatted enough for the both of us. Which was fine with me, as I wanted to focus on the food; I had 24seconds and thirds of the delicious curry chicken.
“I bet you haven’t heard this in years!” Auntie Pat said and came back with a small CD in her hands. “It’s one of your dad’s early demos. I found it when I was doing a clear-out.”
“Oh mum, no one wants to hear that dead music,” Kiana said.
Dead.
Kiana’s brown skin turned red at the cheeks. “Sorry … I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I’m sure Dawn would love to hear this,” Auntie Pat said. She slipped the CD into an ancient-looking stereo on the kitchen counter and pressed play.
It was definitely an early demo. The recording quality was poor, and the melody sounded like it was played on a toy keyboard. But my dad’s voice sang soulful and true; my earliest audio memory.
I didn’t miss him most of the time. I know that sounds harsh, but I was so used to it being just Mum and me. But in that moment, the love I had for him flooded like a burst dam. I had to hold the tears back. Suddenly I understood why Mum wanted me to keep his legacy alive – so she could hold on to a piece of Dad forever.
25Surely honouring that dream was the least I could do?
“You don’t actually like that ancient music, do you?” Kiana asked me.
Weird. No one had ever asked me that before. It was always assumed I did. That I’d follow in Mum and Dad’s footsteps.
“Of course she does!” Auntie Pat said. “The girl is a star in the making.”
Kiana shrugged. “I didn’t think people our age were into that.”
It warmed me that she described us in the same age bracket. I sat up a little straighter. “Actually, I really like–”
My phone rang. It was Mum. I hadn’t text her in about three hours.
“Sorry, I should take this,” I said. But Kiana had already stopped listening.
*
It was my first day at Bright Stars Academy. Luckily, I didn’t have to agonise over my outfit: the uniform was black trousers and a black t-shirt emblazoned with the school’s logo. As I showered and dressed, 26I thought of all the grown-up things I’d already done in the last twenty-four hours. I’d never taken the train or tube by myself before. I got the feeling that Auntie Pat was considerably more chill than Mum. The weird thing was, I wasn’t sure if I liked that. I had gotten so used to Mum’s over-protectiveness that being without it felt like sleeping without a duvet.
Auntie Pat helped me find the school on Google Maps the night before, so all I had to do was follow the directions to the bus stop and go from there. It sounded easy but the nerves had my stomach in knots. I couldn’t eat the cornmeal porridge Auntie Pat left for me on the stove.
I suddenly realised that I was about to start singing, acting, and dancing in front of complete strangers. It was one thing doing it in Mr Arnett’s Drama class at school, where I had known everyone for years (and, let’s face it, was the best singer by far), but now I was going to a place where people had trained. Some of them went to stage school every day, not just during the holidays. I was no longer the big fish in the little pond that was Northstone Academy.
I left the empty flat (Auntie Pat was at work and Kiana 27was … who knows) and wandered through the streets of Camden towards the bus stop. Even though it was early, the sun was high in the sky and the market traders were setting up for the day. In my bad mood yesterday, I hadn’t noticed how much there was to take in. I spotted half a dozen different food stalls I needed to try and interesting shops I wanted to browse. It was May’s birthday later that month and I decided right then that her birthday present would be something uniquely London from this market.
A notebook stall caught my eye and I stopped to browse. No one I knew loved stationery more than May. Maybe I could get her a new notebook for her collection?
My phone buzzed. It was a good luck text from Mum, but I didn’t reply because I caught the time.
Registration started in ten minutes. Yikes!
I dropped the notebook and ran towards the bus stop, my rucksack slapping against my back. This was not the cool and collected start to my Bright Stars career that I’d envisioned for myself.
I arrived at the Academy a hot mess. The school was located down some weird side-street in a neighbourhood called Soho. It was impossible to find. I tried 28asking for directions, but people either shrugged at me or gave me overly complicated instructions. When I saw the street sign and ran down the alleyway, I nearly cried with relief when I saw the school’s sign above the door.
I checked the time. I was more than an hour late. How on earth did that happen?! Did time run differently in London or something?
The receptionist directed me to the room for my singing lesson. I walked down the winding corridors, the sound of singing and tuning instruments jostling with one another. Just as I found the room for my singing lessons, something else caught my ear. I turned around and moved towards the source of the sound, down a dark corridor.
The sound grew louder. I recognised it immediately: it was the opening bars of my favourite song from my favourite musical. Mum took me to see The Lion King for Christmas a few years ago and, no word of a lie, it was the best day of my life. When I tried to sleep that night it was impossible. I kept on replaying my favourite scenes from the show in my head.
At the end of the corridor was a door, that opened to a small auditorium. About two dozen teens were 29on the stage dressed in black and they were singing the song I loved so much. I walked down the aisle as if in a trance. The song finished and I had to stop myself from clapping.
A man standing below the stage, dressed in a Bright Stars Academy t-shirt, looked up from his notes. “Needs work,” he said bluntly.
I gawped at him. It was the most sublime thing I’d ever heard, and it was from people my age. How could he not have been impressed?!
The man must have sensed my stare because he turned to look at me. “You’re late,” he said in the same nonchalant tone.
“Sorry!” I blurted out. “I’m not meant to be–”
“What, forty minutes late to my class? I should think not. But I’ll overlook it on the first day. Join the others, please.”
My heart jumped to my throat. Was I really joining a Musical Theatre class? Was I really skipping the singing lessons that Mum so badly wanted me to take? Before I had a chance to think about the implications of what I was doing, I dumped my rucksack on the floor and stepped onto the stage.30
Dear May,
