Diamond Star Girl (4 page)

I’m writing this from my cushioned nook on a wide window-sill in the library room at The Grange. The equipment trucks, actors and crew don’t arrive until the day after tomorrow so we have a little time to settle in. The Professor asked us to come a couple of days early to get accustomed to the place, but I suspect he’s just desperate to provide more company for his awkward son. Also Mum and Dad are preparing for a huge symposium they’ll be off to in a couple of weeks so it suited them to have us out of the way.

This morning I was up first, and was showered, dressed and out walking the grounds before the
others were awake. For an hour I simply wandered up and down the paths and around the orchard and the greenhouse, sitting on a bench every now and then to listen to the birds. God, I hope no one finds this, they will think I am soft in the head. Actually, they’ll already think I’m weird if they’ve read this far, the hanging out on a bench like a spare old-person will only confirm it.

Breakfast was in the formal dining room, a buffet of pancakes, toast, cereal, eggs, kippers (really!), juice, tea, muffins, bagels, and fruit salad. It was strange how we all sat up straighter than usual and watched our language even though there was only the eight of us and no adults around. There is a lovely lady called Miss Higgins who waddled and pottered in and out who wouldn’t even let us help clear away the dishes or stack the dishwasher. Could get used to this. Paul already is.

It reminded me of an old-fashioned boarding-school novel when we arrived last night. The four of us girls – me, Ro, Lorna and Alice – are in one of the two large attic rooms with a double bed each, two large old wardrobes, and a small chest of drawers beside each bed. There’s a gorgeous new soft carpet on the floor that smells the way only new
carpets can, and fresh nets and cream curtains on the windows.

Stephen has moved out of his usual bedroom and into the other attic room with Alex, Paul and Gussy (just my luck!). Apparently the other ten bedrooms (apart from the Professor’s room) are being used as extras’ dressing rooms, production HQ, wardrobe department storage rooms and a props room. Most of our news is filtering in through Ro who pops into the house every couple of hours with lists and speaking into a walkie talkie. It is so completely Ro to look as if she’s been doing it for years, she’s a natural at organising, and not just dogs and other people’s brothers. Bob, the location manager put her onto the job as soon as they met and she’s an old pro already.

It’s their job to make sure that the location where the filming happens has everything they will need, water, power and all that, that people and trucks can get in and out, and that nothing gets damaged. Only two days in and she’s taking photos of walls and stairs, ordering gardeners to move urns and garden furniture and saying things like, ‘Roger that Bob!’ and, ‘Bob, the access gate is four point eight metres wide, but there is the possibility of removing the gates to gain an extra point five. Let me know.’

I am so proud of my little dungareed friend.

Stephen (who actually dresses pretty normal these days in jeans and t-shirts) gave us a tour of the place. It’s all fairly straightforward (if huge); two kitchens, two pantries, a utility room and storage rooms in the basement, a huge entrance hall on the ground floor with two sitting rooms to either side in the front, and a larger reception room behind with a ballroom on one side and an impossibly large dining room on the other. The library, the billiards room and the Professor’s office are on a kind of return up a short staircase at the back of the house, looking out onto the cobbled courtyard.

Then up the central staircase are ten bedrooms, five to each side along the two corridors and an en-suite bathroom off each room, which were put in a few years ago. The whole house smells of wood, furniture-polish and old books, and makes me feel like I’m back living three centuries ago. I wonder if Stephen knows how lucky he is to be brought up here. He was showing off the portraits of his ancestors to Alice when I slipped away to come here.

The best of all (apart from the library) is our part of the house. You have to go up these long, rickety side stairs and then stoop as you go into the landing
where our two attic dorms look out onto the main garden. The grounds extend just as far as you can see, so they are huge, but not like a park or wilderness. Thank God there is a bathroom for each of us across the landing, the thought of sharing a toilet with Gussy would be enough to send me home.

Paul confirmed my prediction that Alex would have more toiletries and products than all the girls put together. Alex is cool, although there’s not much going on in his head except for names of people I’m apparently supposed to know from movies. He definitely has a thing for Lorna, but she’s never in her life had time for his brand of nonsense, so all his singing of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin to her is falling on eaf ears. They look quite alike, loads of teeth, dark hair and dark eyes, not that you should choose each other based on that. Anyway she’d eat him alive, so I guess I admire his courage.

So much for Professor Brown keeping an eye on us, we’ve just had a rock-out party in one of the kitchens. It’s amazing how much fun you can have with a batch of bruschettas, a case of bottled juices and a bunch of people who can’t sing nearly as well
as they think they can. It was the BEST, especially when Ro and Lorna were dancing on a table while Paul and Alex sang some seriously dodgy song that none of us have ever heard, but they insist is a classic.

Stephen doesn’t think much of me either which is a relief as it means I don’t have to push him away or ignore him. There is a civilised stand-off which is perfect. He has gone pretty quiet since we all got here which is perfect too, much better than him being all fake and sucking up to adults. My guess is that he doesn’t have any friends who are girls, because the boarding school abroad that he and Alex go to is for boys only. Gussy couldn’t believe that when he heard it and thought it was in a country where ‘girls are illegal’ – he
actually
said that. The idea that people might choose to be educated with only their own gender was beyond him. Now every time he asks for something, like a phone or a glass of orange juice we tell him it’s illegal. Gussy is good value, but I still wish Nick were staying here instead.

Ro got all sensible with us about an hour ago and said we had to start to get used to getting up early as we’ll have six am starts in a day or so. Gussy thinks she is joking so we played along and told him that
he’d be allowed sleep in until eleven, that the early starts were for the less important people, not for stars like him.

I almost wish the film crew wasn’t coming tomorrow, I’m loving being here without them. It’s now early afternoon and we are all (except Ro) sprawled around the huge sitting room, which is like three sitting rooms all under one very moulded ceiling, hiding out from a rain shower. Stephen and Paul are playing chess in one section, the girls and their magazines are with me here on the other side of the room, Alex is lying on the middle sofa telling some hellishly long story to Gussy about a commercial he once appeared in, and Gussy is pretending to follow.

Even in such a short time we have become a little family with Ro like the efficient working mother, Paul like the fun dad always having ideas for games and parties, Stephen like the gangly, distant old uncle, Lorna like the stroppy older daughter, Alice the sweet little girl, Gussy and Alex like the troublesome little boys. I don’t know what that makes
me
though.

I just ran this notion past Lorna and Alice who both said, ‘The Governess’, at the exact same time. Scary!

It’s been pretty interesting so far today. This morning Ro and I were up first and she raced off on her bike to the current location to help Bob organise the move to this one, which left me wandering the grounds alone again.

Determined not to turn into The Bird Lady Of The Grange, I went exploring. There’s a tiny one-room cottage with two cobwebbed windows sitting behind the rose bushes, which you can’t see from the main house thanks to the tall hedge. An idea came to me that maybe it would be a good place to go and write my journal once the hordes arrive tomorrow. Just as I was tugging away at the latch, a hand appeared from out of nowhere and landed on mine. I nearly jumped out of my body with fright as I’d been so lost
in thought that I hadn’t heard a soul. It was Stephen, looking extra geeky as he had bed-head to beat the band and glasses on that are even worse than mine, (
his
Dad probably didn’t see reports about possible blindness through contact lens abuse the way mine did).

At first I was furious, assuming he was trying to stop me looking inside the cottage, but then I realised he wanted to help. The door was wedged closed by a bent-over nail, which puzzled Stephen as he insisted that he’d stored a broken chair inside the cottage only last week. I suggested that maybe Bob had asked Ro to do it for safety. After five minutes of trying to wrench it free using stones, bits of wood, and even the arm of his glasses and my fountain pen, we gave up and headed away from the cottage.

Stephen didn’t say anything at all as we walked back towards the hedge. The silence thing is getting a bit creepy. I suppose he doesn’t think I’m worth talking to, which is nuts because he talks to Paul and my brother is certainly no conversational prize. And it can’t be that he’s nervous of me because he’s known me for years, since I ran around dressed head-to-toe in yellow and purple. I even used to have a pencil-sharpener collection that he knows about.
That could account for it, actually.

Not that I mind, it’s just annoying when someone who isn’t as cool as you are doesn’t like you. And there are precious few people less cool than me so it feels like a bit of a waste.

As we walked closer to the main house we started to hear loud noises like a clunking of metal. We stopped a moment to listen and then we heard people screaming and both started running back there as fast as we could. Luckily it wasn’t a case of ‘murder by metal things’, they were shrieks of excitement from Lorna and Alice (and I suspect Alex) when several large rails of costumes arrived with one of the wardrobe attendants and some lifting-guys.

Until that moment I hadn’t wondered or worried about the costumes, but now I realized that this was what people would see me in, what NICK would see me in, for days on end.

OK, Alice has just fled from the sitting room with Lorna right after her. My guess is she saw people arrive.

I was right. Amber, Bonnie, Hanna and my cousin Sophie all landed here together for the fitting and all
of us girls ran upstairs to the new female extras’ wardrobe room (one of the first-floor bedrooms) where the wardrobe girl was still working away arranging things. There are so many rails of costumes, all labelled and being ironed with some kind of high-pressure steam-jet thingy, which I’m sure has a proper name.

The dresses looked stunning, all silk and chiffon, empire-line and floor-length. We hoped we could try on everything in sight, but Lizzy had given them our photos, heights and shoe sizes from the other day so a costume had already chosen for each of us.

I was resigned to looking the worst, as usual, but because of my height I was wearing a dress from the women’s section of the wardrobe department and not the girl’s section and it looked way better than any of the others. It fitted perfectly. I was told by Wendy (the wardrobe girl who is only about twenty), that it was originally made for a lead actress in a TV movie a couple of years ago and they just spruced it up a bit with an underskirt and dyed it lilac. Apparently they always recycle costumes from movie to movie, altering pieces as they go.

Lorna looks really odd in a dress, as if it’s one big itch for her, but Hanna looked amazing – very
different, but very lovely, and I think she knew it as she was grinning even as the heavy make-up came off and the newly dark-brown hair was uncovered from under her beanie. Sophie, Alice, Amber and Bonnie all look good, but their costumes are a bit ordinary compared to the others so Wendy says she’ll fix that by tomorrow.

The shoes were another matter. They hurt. No wonder people died sooner in those days, they wanted to leave the planet to get away from the constant foot pain they were in. Wendy says that the trick is to bring sneakers onto the set, have your shoes in a draw-string bag and then change into them at the last minute, and that I could put my glasses in there at the last minute too. She wanted to have me wear this hat thing, but I begged her with just my eyes and she put it away with a smile, and replaced it with this large hair-ornament that she came across in some box. It looked like a plain, silver, spidery shape with lots of glass blobs, but she bent it so two of the prongs could fasten in my hair and spruced it up with a ribbon covering the glass bits so it’s not so shiny, and added two feathers and now it looks amazing. She then tied a similar piece of ribbon around my wrist and it really works. Wendy
in wardrobe is going to be a very cool person to have around.

Once we were sorted Wendy disappeared next door to fit out the guys.

As we reluctantly, and not so reluctantly (Lorna), got changed back into our usual clothes everyone was telling me that mine was the best and I was trying to tell them great things about theirs, but I couldn’t help smiling all the same.

Pretty soon we could hear Gussy at the top of his voice going, ‘You have GOT to be joking! I play football you know, give that to Alex!’ and Paul who was obviously dancing about the room la-la-ing the tune to an old-fashioned waltz.

Lorna and Hanna suggested we peep in at the keyhole, but the rest of us didn’t think we could ever recover from such a thing in our own lifetimes. Good thing we nixed that plan as we met Nick and the other three guys coming up the stairs, but they didn’t have time to talk as they were late for the fitting. I think the others are called Owen and Pete and Fraser, but I might have that wrong because they are from Paul’s class in school and don’t come round to the house much. Nick avoided eye-contact with me completely when he said ‘Hi’.

Stephen invited the others to hang out here after the fittings and they’re around until tonight so the place has that summer camp feel. I am now hiding out in my window-sill nook in the library and can hear the guys and Lorna, Hanna and Alice next door in the billiards room. I am determined not to go and find Nick, he can come and find me. I think he still owes me an apology for the dance thing. And a social life. And a year or two.

It’s about eleven at night and I know this means I’m going to be exhausted in the morning, but I don’t think I’ll sleep until I get it all out.

I thought this was going to be one of the best days ever and it turned out to be awful. It was
exactly
like that Christmas when I wanted a puppy and got pyjamas and a lamp. Of course I waited
endlessly
for Nick, or anyone, to come looking for me, and they all just left me alone reading in the library. Soon my leg fell asleep from sitting in an appealing-looking position. Honestly! I could have slipped down a well or been knocked unconscious by a falling jar of goose grease in one of the pantries, but they wouldn’t have found me until I was inches from death and then
they’d have had to sit quietly around the billiards room with Alice crying and all of them saying lovely things about me. OK Lemony, reel it in! Point being, they
totally
didn’t miss me or want me around.

I was pretty miserable by the time the gong sounded in the hallway for dinner. Because there were so many of us Miss Higgins had pizzas delivered. I tried to get in a good mood again, but you know what it’s like when you’ve been sulking for ages, it’s hard to just snap out of it because it feels like someone owes you something first.

Before long the sixteen of us were in the large basement kitchen with veggie pizzas, a sound system and a real party going. Professor Brown looked in and seemed surprised to find anyone in his house, but soon remembered and, nodding and smiling, went back upstairs to his more civilised existence. My dark mood lifted slightly, but not enough that I was talking or dancing much. Ro and Alice both came over and gave me a hug, I know they think it’s because of Nick and Donna, but really it’s just that I feel like I never really fit in. It’s fine when it’s just a handful of people, but as soon as there are loads I feel as if I am all wrong somehow, a lemon hanging from an apple tree.

The eight who aren’t sleeping here left a couple of hours ago and we ‘Grangers’ as Ro says the rest of the film crew has started calling us, went up to bed. Before undressing I suddenly remembered that I’d left this in the window nook in the library and considering how I’d go into a spontaneous coma if anyone found and read the terrible truth that is my life right now, it needed rescuing.

My plan was to fetch it and get straight back to bed, but while I was there in the library I heard a noise in the courtyard outside. The lights were off so I could pull back the velvet curtain and see a woman with blonde hair and a man’s coat wrapped almost double around her as she ran across the courtyard to where a small, thin man (much smaller than the Professor) was standing with a flashlight in his hand. They crept off together towards the grounds and for some reason I ran downstairs, out the ballroom door at the side and followed them into the night. I could see the light from the torch, but lost my nerve when I saw them disappear around the side of the large hedge. Going back inside and telling myself it was probably Bob and a member of the crew checking things out for tomorrow, I ran as quietly as I could back upstairs and am now in the girls’ bathroom
writing this and getting a grip. That’s the problem with an over-active imagination, you turn a bog-standard person with a flashlight into a murderous fiend with fiendishly murderous plans. Drama is so my thing. Say, goodnight, Lemony.