Rebecca is Always Right (13 page)

Of course, there is nothing wrong with all the activities in these photos and videos, apart from dressing up animals in outfits (and, in fairness, the Yorkshire Terrier didn’t seem to mind much – it wasn’t as if the bonnet was hurting him). As I said, I like most of these things. In fact, now I really wish I could knit my own socks because it not only looks fun – you knit the sock as a sort of tube with five pointy needles – but you get a nice cosy pair of socks at the end of it. But when you
make a big deal of how kooky these activities (and dogs) supposedly are, then they become extremely annoying. I am not sure why this is. It is quite mysterious.

Anyway, Vanessa thinks the photos and videos are all a tribute to her own brilliance, and I suppose they are, depressingly enough. I mean, people do seem to love that ad. But that doesn’t mean I’ve got to encourage her egomania by eating her hand-outs. If she brings in more biscuits, I must stay strong and tell her I’m not hungry. Maybe I could write some song lyrics about the importance of staying true to your beliefs, no matter how difficult it is? It would encourage not just myself but other people too. We were messing around with a possible new song on Saturday – it sort of has a tune, so I could try and work out some lyrics to fit it.

I have written some lyrics. Every time I’m tempted to be a huge hypocrite and take Vanessa’s cookies, I will sing it (just in my head, obviously – I’m not going to start suddenly singing in public).

I think it has potential. I’d like to incorporate a great word I found in my rhyming dictionary to rhyme with ‘do’ – it is ‘smew’ and it is a sort of diving duck. I’ve got some good bird and animal lyrics from the dictionary before, like when I compared John Kowalski to a ‘tercel’, which is a sort of hawk. Though he does have a bird of prey air about him, and I’m not quite sure how I could fit diving ducks into this song. ‘You’re avoiding problems like a smew’? I will think about it some more.

Just three more days until I see Sam again. It’s a bit sad to be thinking about it, but I can’t help it. I hope I don’t act all
weird. Or that he doesn’t march in talking about how he’s just met the love of his life or something. Maybe he’ll suddenly fall for Ellie. Or Cass. Or Alice. Not that he’d have much luck with any of them.

School wasn’t too bad today. Vanessa was no more annoying than usual (which obviously still means she was quite annoying, but we’re used to that), and Miss Kelly was in a surprisingly jovial mood, even though she spent a lot of the class talking about the environmental consequences of urban expansion. And Mrs Harrington was even more cheerful – when we were leaving our English class for lunch, she told me she’s sent her book off to a literary agent. Or at least the first few chapters of it.

‘It’s called
The Road Through the Bluebells
,’ she said proudly. ‘And it’s about a woman in a small Irish town who decides she wants to be a gardener.’

It doesn’t sound very exciting to me, but then neither do my mum’s books and loads of people love them. So maybe Mrs Harrington will actually be a big success. I don’t think it’s very likely, I’m afraid. Though if this does happen, we might get a new English teacher who isn’t obsessed with my mother, which would be a very good thing. Still, even Mrs Harrington doesn’t annoy me as much as she did a year ago. Maybe I have
become a more patient and noble person?

In other news, the lurker has finally burst forth. It looks hideous but is strangely less sore. Now I must just let it take its course (hopefully aided by that posh spot stuff) and make sure I don’t touch it. And I must resist the temptation to squeeze it, because I don’t want to be scarred for life. I’m just hoping it will have passed its peak and started to fade away by Saturday. I don’t want Sam to think I’m covered in boils too.

Oh dear. I was right again. And I sort of wish I wasn’t.

I mean that I was right when I told Rachel I thought Dad was going too far in his attempts to jazz up Henry Higgins. Obviously I am often right about other things too. I’m right about where to end ‘Pistachio’ (sorry, Cass), I was right about Vanessa getting the ad, and then I was right about the ad being the worst thing that has ever been shown on television, and I was right when I dumped John Kowalski. But in all those cases I was glad that I was right. And I am not glad about Dad turning into a sort of deranged show off. It’s one thing seeing him dance around when it’s part of the actual show. It’s quite
another watching him add his own bits.

This is how I found out. The hall hasn’t found a new class to fill that spare slot, so the musical society are still having two rehearsals a week. As usual on
My Fair Lady
nights, I had got my homework done nice and early so I could enjoy the luxury of lying on the couch and watching telly without my parents coming in and insisting on turning over to something boring like the news, or making stupid and unfunny comments about whatever programme I’m trying to enjoy. I had just turned on the TV when my mum rang the landline. Rachel was upstairs on the phone to Jenny (again) so I answered it.

‘Oh Bex, it’s you,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid I need you to do something for me.’

‘What is it?’ I said, suspiciously.

‘I left my dance shoes at home and we’re blocking a scene at the moment so your dad and I really can’t go home and get them. Could you pop down here with them?’

‘Mum!’ I said. ‘It’s miles away!’ Which is only a tiny little bit of an exaggeration.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Rebecca,’ said Mum. ‘It’s a ten-minute walk. Fifteen at the very most. Please!’

‘Why can’t Rachel do it?’ I said.

‘Because she’s had a very hard time recently,’ said Mum.
‘And by the time I persuade her to do it the rehearsal will be over. Come on, Rebecca!’

‘Will you give me money so I can get a nice sandwich after band practice on Saturday?’ I said, cunningly exploiting this rare moment of weakness.

‘Oh, you’ve resorted to demanding bribes, have you?’ said Mum. ‘Alright, you win. I will give you sandwich money. Now, get down here with those shoes! They’re in a bag in the hall.’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’ll see you down there.’

I yelled up the stairs to tell Rachel I was leaving, grabbed the shoes and headed down to the hall where the musical society practise. It actually is just about a kilometre away, but it feels longer when you were planning to spend the evening sitting on a sofa watching telly instead of walking along Gracepark Road.

When I arrived at the hall, the cast were in the middle of a scene so I didn’t want to interrupt. I just slipped in and took a seat at the back of the room. The cast were just starting the scene in which Alfred Dolittle, the dustman and father of the heroine, Eliza, is singing down the pub with all his dustman pals about getting married in the morning. Of course, Henry Higgins is not meant to be in this scene because he is a posh person who is trying to turn Eliza into a fancy lady and he
doesn’t hang around in pubs with Edwardian bin men. But as the actor playing Alfred strutted about the stage with his pub pals (including my mother, who was waving around a bunch of paper flowers in a very suggestive manner), suddenly Dad appeared at the side of the stage.

He strolled on casually, holding a notebook, looking intrigued by the dancing Cockneys before him. At first, he just stood there and pretended to take some notes in his notebook. And then slowly he began to sort of dance around in the background. When the main performers in the scene sang a particularly cheerful or funny line, he pretended to laugh. When all the people in the pub were dancing around arm in arm, he gave a few twirls on his own. Every so often, he’d incorporate the note-taking into his moves – he’d sort of wave around his pen in time to the music and then pretend to write in the book.

At one stage, he jumped up on a chair in order to observe the main performers more closely and did a little dance on it. His dancing was pretty skillful and he moved in perfect time to the music, but it was all a bit, well, weird. Very weird. The longer it went on, the more insane it looked. And yet I couldn’t look away.

When Alfred Dolittle had sung his final line and the scene
was over at last, a small woman with red hair who was clearly Laura, the director, said, ‘Very good, everyone, especially for a first run-through of a scene! Joe, you really captured Alfred’s cheekiness, but maybe we could have some more energy in the dancing?’

Joe, who looked quite breathless after all his leaping around, nodded and said, ‘Okay, Laura.’

‘Now, chorus,’ said Laura. ‘I think we need to be a bit more expressive. Do you know what I mean?’

I certainly did. I don’t want to boast, but even the director of
Mary Poppins
acknowledged that I was very good at acting-while-singing when I was a member of the chorus. But some of these chorus members were barely sing-acting at all. They might as well just have been in a choir. Not my mother, I might add. She’s pretty good. In fact, I think she should have got a better part in the show. Maybe the woman playing Henry Higgins’s housekeeper will have a heart attack like the man who was playing the Beadle in the last show and Mum will have to step in and take over her part? Not that I actually want the poor woman to have a heart attack, of course. But if she’s ever going to have one, she might as well have it now.

Anyway, after Laura had given a few more notes to the cast she turned to Dad and I found myself feeling very nervous. It
was one thing me thinking he’d gone too far with his dancing, but it was another to hear the director giving out to him. But that didn’t happen.

‘Now, Ed,’ she said. ‘That was … very original. Can you tell me a bit more about your, um, motivation?’

‘Well,’ said Dad. ‘Henry is an observer of society. He’s always on the outside, looking in. And by having him enter this scene we show how he can observe the world that Eliza comes from, but never really join it.’

He looked very pleased. The rest of the cast looked a little less pleased.

‘Oh, okay,’ said Laura. She looked a bit unsure of herself. ‘Well, your dancing was very good.’

And that was it! I remembered what Mum had said about the old director, Dearbhla, being a lot more tough. I bet she’d have told him to calm down. But it looks like Laura is too scared to stand up to him!

‘Right, we’ll take a few minutes’ break,’ said Laura. ‘Then let’s have a run-through of Eliza’s first song, okay?’

Dad immediately went off to what looked like the loo at the far end of the hall before I had a chance to get his attention, but Mum had noticed and waved at me, while Laura was giving her notes, and came straight over to me.

‘Here are your shoes,’ I said, handing over the bag.

‘Thanks, love,’ said Mum. ‘Did you see much of the scene?’

‘Pretty much all of it,’ I said. ‘Um, it was very good.’