Hollywood Star (19 page)

I glanced over and found that Danny was watching me, his face covered in stormy clouds. Although what he had to be cross about I couldn’t imagine. He had dumped me, after all.

“Typical,” Anne-Marie said, rolling her eyes. “It’s fine for him to swan off with Me-Iod-y, but when you turn up with a handsome hunk of a boy he’s all moody and Jealous on you.”

I looked at Danny for a moment longer and then, shrugging my shoulders, turned my back on him. What was the point in worrying about him now?

“You two were in on it, weren’t you?” I asked Anne-Marie and Nydia who had come over to join us. “You knew all the time that Hunter was planning to come to the school dance – but how? How did he even know about it?”

“We thought you needed something
big
to cheer you up, so that you’d feel OK about coming back to school,” Anne Marie said. “When you got back and told us about everything that happened over there,
including
Hunter asking you out, it got us thinking – what could we do?”

“And then,” Nydia joined in, “I saw in
Teen Girl!
that the cast of
Hollywood High
were coming over at the end of February to do promos with T4, including Hunter.”

“We remembered that you’d e-mailed us from school and that you had a Beaumont e-mail address, so we tried working out Hunter’s e-mail address from that, but it was harder than it seemed. It took four goes,” Anne-Marie said. “Well, four goes until the e-mail didn’t bounce back to us as unknown. We still didn’t know if we had the right address or, if we did, if he’d even reply to us.”

“But we called the e-mail ‘Want to Take Ruby Parker to the Dance?’ and funnily that made Hunter read it!”

Nydia giggled and I blushed of course. “We told Hunter about the disco and how we thought it would really cheer you up, and once we managed to persuade him that you actually would be happy to see him, he organised the rest.”

Anne-Marie put an arm around me and kissed me on the cheek. “So now you don’t have to worry about all the stuff that happened over there any more because you’re the girl with the secret hot boyfriend!”

“You can thank us now if you like,” Nydia said happily.

“Thank you,” I said, feeling suddenly nervous and sad about what I had to tell them. “You two are the best friends in the world! I really mean that!”

The three of us hugged and I realised that this was the moment. I had to tell them now.

“It really would have been the coolest way to make a comeback here,” I said.

“I know,” Nydia said. “Now after half term it will be all ‘Oooh, Ruby, who
was
that mysterious boy you were kissing…?’”

“I haven’t kissed him!” I exclaimed, glancing over at Hunter as he Joked around with Sean and Greg.

“Yet,” Anne-Marie said, rolling her eyes. “And then
Hollywood High
will be on TV over here and he’ll be famous and everybody will be talking about you for the right reasons again.”

“They won’t,” I said steadily.

“Yes, they will. They will die of jealousy because—”

“They won’t,” I said, a little more firmly so that my friends stopped talking and started listening. “Look, I have to tell you something.”

“What?” Nydia asked me cautiously.

“I’m not coming back to the Academy after half term,” I told them. “I’m starting at the comprehensive instead.”

“You…”

“What?”
Nydia exclaimed. “But, Ruby, why?” “Is it your parents?” Anne-Marie asked me intently. “Are they forcing you?”

“No!” I exclaimed. “No. Look, something dawned on
me while all the horrible stuff was going on. I like acting, I love acting and I’ve been lucky. So lucky that I started to believe I was good enough at it to be a real star – like Imogene or Jeremy. But I’m not. I’m just a girl who likes to play-act. The last few weeks have proved that. I’m not good enough to be at the Academy, I don’t deserve my place. So I’m leaving. I’m starting at Highgate Comp.”

Nydia and Anne-Marie stared at me open mouthed.

“But you can’t…” Nydia said.

“It won’t make any difference to us,” I went on, determined not to waver. “I’ll see you all the time after school and at weekends, just not here.” I stopped and looked around the school hall where I had had so many great, boring, important and fun times.

My friends were both silent.

“Look,” I went on smiling at them so they would know I was happy, “remember that speech that Ms Lighthouse gives us at the beginning of every term? The one when she says that to be an actor you need grit and determination and the will to never give up, unless you know that you must give up because you aren’t good enough?”

They both nodded, glancing at each other.

“Well I know that now,” I said. “I’m not good enough
to act professionally. I want to be like Sean. If I do any acting
again,
I want it to be for fun without any of the pressure or the worry. And seriously, if Mum and Dad and Sylvia Lighthouse herself can’t talk me out of it, then neither can you.”

“But you are good enough to be a star. You’re brilliant,” Nydia said. “The best out of all of us.”

I shook my head. “But don’t you see, Nydia, even if I am, I don’t want it any more. They have a good drama club at Highgate. Who knows, I might even get the lead in the school play for once and you can all come and see me!”

There was silence as my friends tried to take in what I had said.

“Look,” I said, hugging them both as Hunter returned and handed me a drink, “let’s not be sad. We’re at a party and this is a new beginning! It’s going to be fantastic!”

“If it’s really what you want…” Nydia said sadly.

“Then we’ll have to put up with it,” Anne-Marie added. “Even if we think you are wrong.”

“Friends forever?” I asked them. The three of us hugged tightly.

“Friends forever,” we chorused.

Then the music slowed down again and couples began to pair off around us.

Just as Hunter picked up my hand to lead me to the dance floor, Danny suddenly appeared. “Ruby,” he said, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

“Have you?” I said stiffly. “Well, why don’t you write me a letter? You’re good at those.”

“I’m sorry,” Danny persisted, “about how everything happened. I—”

“Danny,” I said making myself sound much harder and cooler than I felt, “do you mind? I’m dancing with my boyfriend.”

I led Hunter on to the dance floor and made myself not look at where I could still feel Danny was standing.

“Sorry I said you were my boyfriend,” I told Hunter when we were out of earshot.

“Don’t apologise,” Hunter said, with half a smile. “Do you think that I came all this way to dance with just any old girl? I was kind of hoping you would be my girlfriend before I left.”

I stopped dancing and looked up at Hunter. “I can’t,” I said.

“What?” he looked surprised. “But why?”

“Because you’re here for one weekend, and because you’re a megastar and I’m not even an actor any more. I’m leaving this school and going to a normal one. No more trips to Hollywood, no more
auditions or scripts to learn ever again. And you can’t go out with some nobody from nowhere. Your publicist would die.”

“I could actually” Hunter said. “But I wouldn’t have to because you aren’t a nobody, you’re you. And it’s you I like, Ruby.”

I smiled at him and for a second I let myself imagine that everything could be different, I could date Hunter and go back to the Academy and have my old life back. But I knew it wasn’t possible because I had changed too much. Hollywood had changed me.

“Hunter, you are so lovely and having you here tonight is wonderful. But trust me, our lives are not only going to be continents apart, they are going to be worlds apart.”

Hunter watched me for a long moment. “OK, Ruby,” he said a little sadly. “I can’t make you be my girl. So I have Just one last question to ask you.”

“What’s that?”

“How do you feel about kissing a guy who’s not your boyfriend?”

“I think that would be fine,” I said in a small, squeaky voice. I caught my breath and felt my cheeks glow.

And Hunter kissed me there under the twinkling disco lights with everybody watching us, and for a few seconds I thought that my toes were floating just above the
ground. Anne-Marie and Nydia were right. What better way could there be to leave Sylvia Lighthouse’s Academy for the Performing Arts?

This was my curtain call.

I looked at myself in the mirror. I was wearing my new school uniform. It wasn’t any more flattering than the one I used to wear at the Academy, but I liked it more because it meant a new day and a new start. A clean page.

Downstairs, Mum was waiting for me with toast and tea. “Nervous?” she asked as I sat down and Everest positioned himself on the table, hopeful that he’d be able to swipe himself some toast.

I thought for a moment. “I’m not actually,” I told her. “I probably should be. I mean, it’s a massive school full of kids and I don’t know any of them. But, well, starting a new school is what loads of girls my age do all the time. It’s a scary thing to do, but at least it’s normal. And I think I’m really going to like Just being a normal nearly fourteen-year-old girl thinking about maths and history and home time.”

“Some of the other children might tease you a bit because they’ll know who you are,” Mum warned me.

“I know,” I said. “But once you’ve stood up to Adrienne Charles, you can stand up to anyone, so I’m not worried about that. I’ll make friends.”

“Of course you will,” Mum said, sitting down and patting me on the back of the hand. “Ruby, I wanted to say that I’m sorry. I’m sorry if I let you down while we were away. If I got carried away and confused and forgot what my priorities are. I hope you know that all I want is for you to be happy.”

“I do know that,” I said. “And, well, um – I don’t know what’s going to happen next, I don’t know what Highgate Comp will be like, the kind of people I’ll meet there or anything like that. But I’ve got this funny feeling in my tummy, a feeling I’ve never had before, and it’s telling me that whatever happens to me next, it’s going to be pretty exciting. It’s telling me that my hopes and dreams aren’t over. They’re only just beginning to come true.”

I stood in the middle of the stage and looked out across the empty theatre, gold and ornate, beautiful and frightening all at the same time. But it didn’t feel empty. It was as if all the plays and musicals had left something behind, like energy that vibrated in the air. It felt as if I was plugged into it and it was filling me with electricity.

Someone switched on a spotlight. It dazzled me for a minute and I had to shield my eyes for a second. Then I dropped my hand and tipped my face to the beam, feeling its warmth on my cheeks.

I’ve given up, I reminded myself sternly. I’m only here because I have to be, not because I’m good enough.

But there was something else that made me feel I might, just might, truly belong on that stage…

Coming soon

Ruby Parker

Stage star

ROWAN GOLEMAN

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins
Children’s Books
2007
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FIRST EDITION

Text copyright © Rowan Coleman 2007

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