Drama at Silver Spires Read Free Page B

role, apart from what she said about Miss Pritchard. And I felt a stab of anxiety in case she thought it wasn’t worth saying anything as I’m only Year Seven, and not likely to get a main part.
    I knew really that it was only one of those silly night-time thoughts, because Matron would hardly start chatting when it was time for bed, and anyway, it was a good thing that she’d not made a comment because that showed she thought it was perfectly natural for me to audition for a main part. After all, Cara got a main part when she was only Year Seven, didn’t she? So why shouldn’t I? Yes, I would just shock everyone by being absolutely stunningly fantastic at the auditions.
    There was a nasty scratchy niggle at the back of my tired mind trying to point out that I had to be better than Cara if I wanted to get the part of Amy, and that maybe I ought to think of another part. But I had set my heart on Amy and nothing else would do, so I ignored the nasty niggle and instead went into a beautiful daydream about Mum and Dad and Roxanne sitting proudly in the audience with Grandma, and everyone clapping their heads off, or maybe that should be clapping their hands off…
    I was practically asleep but something made me snap on my little night light and pull my script out from under my pillow.
    â€œDon’t suppose anyone wants to test me on my speech?” I whispered into the gloom, but they must have all been in the land of snooze, so I tested myself and finished up by reading through the whole script again. It was nearly eleven o’clock when I finally switched off the light.
    The next morning I felt so full of happiness about the auditions being one day nearer that I shot out of bed and off to the bathroom in about two seconds flat, which earned me a round of applause from the others as I’m usually the last up. When we were on the point of setting off for breakfast I suddenly had the urge to get hold of a copy of Little Women so I could have that lovely feeling I always get when I read the book and find myself in the world of the four sisters, imagining myself as Amy. I also wanted to recall every single bit of the story, because the mini-scripts that Miss Pritchard gave us were a short version of the whole play, just for learning parts for the auditions.
    There’s a small library in one of the common rooms, which consists of a few shelves of books that no one ever looks at. At least I don’t. But right then I felt like the biggest bookworm in the world, because I was so dying to read Little Women. It was the one and only book I’d ever actually noticed in the common room, because I remember thinking that the front cover was quite plain compared to the cover of the version that I’d got at home.
    In the common room I scanned the books on all three shelves as fast as I could, expecting to see Little Women immediately, but it wasn’t there, which made me panic slightly because I’d set my heart on reading it before Thursday. So then I decided to slow down and look carefully because I must have missed it. No one ever takes these books out. Do they? I crossed my fingers as I examined every title on the top shelf. Please let it be here somewhere. Please let it… But it wasn’t, so I started on the second shelf, still praying hard, and it wasn’t there either. By the time I’d done the last shelf my spirits had sunk down to Australia.
    I walked over to breakfast in a bad mood, but by the time I joined the queue for hot meals, I’d had an inspirational idea. I could go to the library in the English block straight after breakfast. There would most likely be a copy in there. I’d be a bit late for double maths, which was the first lesson, but I could probably get Jess to give some excuse to Mr. Ledbetter for me. I knew she wouldn’t be over the moon about that idea though, because it wasn’t the first time I’d asked her, as I don’t like being