Drama Queen Read Free Page B

and slammed shut again. I estimated he must have got out on around the third or fourth floor.
    It hadn’t really been possible to assess his potential from six floors up but I texted Clare straightaway.
    stop press!
rosemount news!
talent spotted
love j
    I started on my homework with a good feeling inside. I had an essay to do on
Romeo and Juliet
. Halfway through the first page, however, I started to run out of steam. I raided the biscuit barrel three times and ate two packets of crisps but I still felt positively hollow from hunger.
    Where was Mum? She usually had some good tips on English essays. She was doing this Open University course. That had been one of the problems with her and Dad. She’d get all excited about some essay that she was doing and totally forget to cook dinner. It had driven Dad mad. And it drove her crazy that it drove him mad because she thought herOU course was really important. More important than the dinner or the loo paper that she’d forgotten to buy or all the other things that went by the board.
    Hang on a minute. It was Friday. I’d forgotten she had a rehearsal. Why had I ever had that totally irrational idea that ‘amateur dramatics’ would cheer her up? When I’d given her that: ‘Why don’t you get out and meet people’ pep talk I hadn’t realised that it would entail a stupidly late dinner twice a week. I stomped into the kitchen and opened the deep freeze compartment. A small pack of fish fingers and a bag of frozen peas met my gaze.
    The over-microwaved fish fingers weren’t too bad swamped in ketchup. Bag rejected the really tomatoey bits. I thought, grudgingly, of how all around me in the building, people were sitting down to meals together. ‘
Pass the roast potatoes, darling … Could you manage just one more slice of chicken breast? More gravy?’
(Gravy! Sigh … When did we last have gravy?)
‘What’s for pudding, Mum? Oh, homemade apple pie and cream! Yumm. How was your day? …
’
    This reverie was interrupted by the sound of the lift arriving with a clunk just below. Mum let herself in carrying a jumbo size take-away pizza.
    â€˜Oh, you haven’t eaten, have you?’ she asked,spotting my knife, fork and plate lying in the washing-up bowl.
    â€˜I was starving.’
    â€˜Sorry, traffic was a nightmare. Stop-start all the way. Friday night.’
    â€˜Doesn’t matter. I’ll have some pizza anyway. How was the rehearsal?’
    â€˜Total disaster. First run-through without scripts. Nobody’d learned their lines. George went ballistic. We’ve all got to be word-perfect by Tuesday. You wouldn’t have time to test me, would you?’
    â€˜I’ve still got loads of homework to do.’
    â€˜Thirty pages to memorise. Goodness knows how I’m going to do it in time.’
    â€˜Honestly, it’s only an amateur performance.’
    â€˜That’s not the point.’
    â€˜I reckon he’s a control freak. You’re grown people, he treats you all like he does us at school.’
    â€˜He’s the director. That’s what he’s there for.’
    George, i.e. Mr Williams, was my English teacher. That’s how Mum had come to join The Lansdowne Players. He’d put up a notice on the Arts Activities noticeboard announcing the auditions. When I caught sight of it I’d suddenly thought of Mum. She used to boast about all the acting she’d done atcollege. I gave the Players a big build-up to sell her the idea.
    â€˜If you’re so keen, why don’t you audition?’ was her first reaction.
    â€˜I don’t think I’ve got time. You know, coursework and everything. I’ve got so much homework this year.’
    â€˜You could manage it.’
    I didn’t dare admit the real reason. Frankly, I didn’t think I could endure the collective scorn of Year 11. You know, being in Mr Williams’s amateur dramatics