Chloe Centre Stage Read online

  “Excuse me!” The tall woman had spotted a member of staff and was summoning her over. And as soon as Chloe heard her voice, she realized who she was. Well, she couldn’t remember her name exactly, but she was an actress. One of those people who was always on TV in a murder mystery series, or doing an ad for cream cheese. Chloe watched interestedly, thinking that she must remember to tell her dad. He loved that sort of detective stuff.

  “This is my daughter, Lily Ferrars. You know who I am, of course?” The woman gave a very artificial laugh – “Marina Ferrars.” She said it as though she expected the teacher to whip out an autograph book. “Lily is starting at Shine this term – following in her mother’s footsteps.” She clasped the girl to her in a dramatic hug and Lily looked as though she wanted to die. “I gather we have to sign in.” She made it sound like this was totally beneath her, as though famous actresses really shouldn’t have to do this sort of thing.

  The teacher was looking decidedly unimpressed. She just smiled at Lily and then pointed out the big pink arrows with “new students” written on them. “You just need to follow those. I’ll see you later on, Lily. I’m Ms Driver, I’ll be teaching you tap.” Then she whisked off as fast as she could, obviously wanting to get well out of Marina Ferrars’ way.

  Chloe watched, fascinated, as Marina Ferrars staged a dramatic goodbye scene with her daughter in the middle of the hall, going on and on about how wonderful it was for Lily to be here, where her mother’s career had started, and how she was “taking her first steps on the road to stardom”. She actually said that! Lily just stood there, staring at the floor, but her mother didn’t seem to care – the little act wasn’t for her benefit at all. Unfortunately, nobody really seemed to be appreciating it that much, although there were quite a few whispers along the lines of “What was that stupid thing about a murder she was in last year?”

  Chloe suddenly realized that she’d better get on and find where she was meant to be. “Follow the pink arrows,” Ms Driver had said. She set off down the corridor, feeling guilty. After watching that great drama, Chloe suddenly felt she shouldn’t have sent her own mum off so quickly, it was mean of her. She was so lucky to have normal parents who didn’t do awful things like that! Even Dad’s obsession with filming her didn’t seem so embarrassing now.

  Chloe stopped short. Thinking about Mum she hadn’t been concentrating. Now she’d gone round a corner without looking for a pink arrow. Where was she? Chloe gulped as a sudden tide of panic rushed over her. She would give anything to have Mum with her now – they’d still be lost, because Mum had a worse sense of direction than a hamster, but at least she wouldn’t be on her own…

  A friendly looking man in track pants and a Shine fleece came round the corner the other way and stopped just before he bumped into Chloe. “I told them they needed another arrow on this corner. Lost, aren’t you? Don’t worry, you’re about the fifth lost Year Seven I’ve found this morning. Back round the corner and straight on.” Chloe was still standing there looking gormless, so he grinned at her and pointed in the right direction, and she scurried off.

  The same secretary who’d been organizing the auditions was now signing in the new students. Chloe had obviously got more lost than she’d realized, because Lily was there registering in front of her, now without her embarrassing mother. She still looked upset though. Chloe decided that she’d go and say hello to her once she’d been ticked off the list.

  “Right, you need one of these.” The secretary handed her a folder. “List of staff, the school rules, map of the school – very important.”

  Chloe blushed. Did everyone know she’d got lost?

  “Everything you need should be in there. Now you need to go up these stairs to your classroom. Just keep following the pink arrows.”

  That’s what they said last time, Chloe thought to herself as she set off. She looked around for Lily, but she seemed to have already met up with some friends. At least, three older girls were certainly talking to her, huddled round her at the bottom of the stairs – although Lily looked a bit confused and was clutching her bag nervously. Chloe could hear them talking about Lily’s mother as she went past. Maybe they were impressed by her being an actress? One of the girls had startling blue eyes, with hair as long as Lily’s own, but a real golden blond. She kept tossing it around as she spoke. Chloe decided to try and catch up with Lily later instead, and headed on up the stairs.

  Thankfully, the classroom was easy to find – all Chloe had to do was follow the noise. It sounded as though everyone else in the class had already arrived and they were all trying to be as loud as possible. She took a deep breath and walked through the door, trying to look confident. Chloe hadn’t really thought that much about the scarier parts of starting a new school – having to make new friends and maybe new enemies as well. For a start, she’d been hoping that Bethany would be there. She’d liked her so much at the audition and thought they’d get on well.

  Chloe had been at her old school – which had been both infants and juniors – since she was four, so she knew everyone and everyone knew her. In fact, Chloe had been one of those people that everyone was desperate to be friends with. She wasn’t the prettiest girl in the school, though her red hair was very striking, but she was funny and outgoing and always had a good idea for something mad to do. It was going to be very weird starting all over again. And here at Shine she wasn’t going to be the only person who was confident and funny and talented…

  The classroom was about half full, with boys and girls standing around, sitting at the tables, on the tables, even on the windowsill. Everyone was in the Shine uniform but it certainly didn’t make them all look the same. No one was sitting shyly in the corner, or pretending to read a book because they were too scared to talk. Chloe slung her bags down on an unoccupied table and wondered where to start. Luckily, a couple of girls sitting at the table behind hers gave her friendly smiles, so Chloe introduced herself.

  “Hi, I’m Chloe. Did you two know each other before you came?” Something about the two of them suggested that they were old friends.

  One of the girls – they were both blond, although one had short hair and the other one had plaits – said, “Well, you could say that!”

  “We’re sisters,” the short-haired one added. “Twins! I’m Carmen and this is Ella.”

  “Wow! Yes, I can see it now. You sort of look alike, but not that much.”

  Chloe looked from Carmen to Ella and back again, confused. The two girls had identical features, but somehow they didn’t look the same.

  “We looked more like each other when we both had long hair,” Ella agreed. “We tossed a coin for who had to have it cut off. We decided we weren’t starting a new school and having people get us mixed up all the time. It gets really annoying.”

  “Yeah, I lost. You can’t do anything with short hair,” complained Carmen, “it’s really boring.”

  “Couldn’t you grow it to shoulder length?” asked Chloe thoughtfully. “Then it’d still look different. And by the time your hair’s that long, everyone would know you apart anyway.”

  “That’s kind of what we were thinking.” Carmen nodded. “We got into real trouble. Mum didn’t want us to do it – we’d asked if one of us could have it cut and she said no way, so Ella did it for me. Then my mum had to take me to the hairdresser ’cos she said she wouldn’t be seen dead with me looking like that.”

  “Why did she mind so much? Did she like you looking the same? Put you in the same clothes all the time, that sort of thing?” Chloe asked, intrigued. She’d never actually met twins before.

  The twins grinned at each other. “No, it was because she knew she was going to have to tell our agent,” Ella explained. “We get lots of parts because you can’t really tell us apart. It’s because of the rules on children working – we were in a film when we were two months old – because you can only have a baby working for a really short time. Most babies in films are actually twins, you know.”

  �
�It wasn’t as bad as Mum made out, anyway,” Carmen put in. “We were leaving our agent because we were coming here – you know, you aren’t allowed to have any other representation than The Shine Agency while you’re at the school.”

  “Yeah, I had to stop being on my agent’s books,” agreed Chloe, feeling glad she was able to say this. It made her feel not quite such an amateur next to the hugely experienced twins.

  “Oh, have you worked before too?” asked Ella. “What sort of stuff have you been in?”

  Chloe had the sense not to exaggerate. She had a feeling the twins knew enough about show business to catch her out.

  “Not nearly as much as you. I did quite a lot of modelling from when I was little. It’s because of having red hair. It looks different and magazines like it. But I was in a TV series last year. A Jane Austen thing, and that was because of my hair as well. The casting director saw me in a magazine ad – for raisins!” Chloe giggled. She’d been teased a lot at school about that ad, which showed her with her hands in a bowl of raisins, looking as though her dream had come true. For weeks people had shoved raisins in her bag and boys kept offering to buy them for her in the lunch hall. She hadn’t minded much though. The raisin people paid quite a lot and Mum had let her buy a laptop. Most of her work money went into an account to be saved for when she was older, but she was allowed the occasional treat.

  “Ooh, nice. Did you get a cool costume?” Ella asked enthusiastically. “I love clothes and everything. I was so relieved when it was Carmen who had to cut her hair.”

  “Yeah, I had a couple of nice dresses. But you wouldn’t believe how long it took them to do my hair every day. It had to be in perfect ringlets. It was so boring!”

  “Tell me about it!” groaned Carmen. “Everyone thinks show business is so glamorous, but no one knows about hours and hours being fitted for costumes—”

  “And then they don’t use them,” Ella put in.

  “Oh, I know,” Chloe agreed.

  Chloe could see the rest of the class quite well from her table and she’d been keeping an eye out for Bethany, really hoping that she’d be coming. Just then she spotted Bethany at the door to the classroom.

  “Oh, that’s Bethany. I met her at the auditions,” she said to the twins in a pleased voice.

  But Bethany wasn’t alone. She and another blond girl were with Lily – actually, they were pretty much pushing her through the door, as she was in a real state. Her pale skin was blotchy and red now and her eyes were swollen. She looked as though she’d been crying for ages. Bethany and the other girl steered her towards a table and sat her down.

  “Wow, she looks really upset,” Chloe murmured.

  “Do you think she’s homesick or something?” Carmen asked, obviously finding it hard to believe that anyone wasn’t over the moon about being at Shine.

  Chloe shook her head guiltily. “I’ve got a horrible feeling – I saw her talking to some older girls downstairs. I think they must have been really mean to her. I thought they were friends, or something…” She trailed off lamely, wishing she’d stopped at the stairs after all. She couldn’t tear her eyes from Lily, still crying quietly.

  Bethany and the blond girl were trying to calm her down. “Lily, honestly, they were just jealous,” Bethany said firmly. “You can’t let people like that get to you. I bet that Lizabeth girl is mean to everyone.”

  “Yeah, we need to keep an eye on her, definitely,” the blond girl agreed.

  “Sara’s right. People like that just pick on whoever’s nearest!” Bethany put an arm round Lily’s trembling shoulders.

  Lily took a deep breath, obviously trying to get a hold of herself. “But the awful thing is, they’re right,” she whispered. Chloe and the twins couldn’t help leaning a little closer to catch what she said.

  “How come?” Sara asked, frowning.

  “Well,” Lily gulped, “they said I’d obviously only got in because of my mum, and it’s true! She wrote a letter with my application form, reminding them who I was and how she’d been one of Shine’s most successful ever students and all sorts of stuff like that. She said there was no way they’d ever turn me down once they read it. The audition was just a formality.” She sniffed miserably.

  Sara and Bethany exchanged glances over Lily’s head. Then Sara took a deep breath. “I’m sorry to be rude about your mum, Lily, but I think she’s mad!”

  Lily looked up, her dark brown eyes wide with surprise, but Bethany was nodding in agreement. “I don’t think they’d ever take someone just because of who their mum is. You saw the other people at your audition, didn’t you? Do you seriously think you didn’t deserve to get in?”

  Lily shrugged. “My dancing’s not very good. I mean, it’s OK, but it’s nothing special. Everyone else was way better than me.”

  “Well then, it must have been your acting that impressed them,” Bethany said decidedly. “It says all over the place in the prospectus that Shine concentrates on dancing, singing and acting. So acting’s your thing – that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be here just as much as everybody else.”

  By this time, Chloe and the twins were practically horizontal they were leaning over so far, and Sara suddenly noticed. She stood up and folded her arms. “Ahem. Were we saying something interesting?” she asked sweetly.

  The twins pretended to be staring at something on the other side of the classroom, and Chloe flushed scarlet. “I’m— I’m sorry,” she muttered. “It’s just – I saw you with those girls downstairs, Lily. I didn’t realize—”

  “You saw them picking on her and you didn’t do anything!” Sara interrupted disgustedly, and Chloe saw Bethany looking at her in disappointment, obviously remembering her from the auditions.

  “It wasn’t like that!” Chloe gasped.

  “Yeah, right,” snapped Sara. “First you leave those Year Eights to torture Lily and now you can’t resist sticking your big nose in where it’s not wanted. Well, thank you so much for your interest, but this is a private conversation, if you don’t mind.” And she swung back round and sat down, with her back very meaningfully pointed at Chloe.

  Bethany glared at Chloe and turned round as well, and Chloe was left gaping. She couldn’t believe what had just happened. OK, so she realized now that she should have stopped to check Lily was all right, and yes, maybe she shouldn’t have been listening like that but she hadn’t meant to hurt anyone. Now she’d not only upset Bethany, who she’d really hoped would be her friend, but two other girls in her class hated her too.

  Red-faced, Chloe turned back to the twins, who were looking equally embarrassed.

  Ella made a sympathetic face. “I don’t think she needed to be quite that mean about it,” she commented. “And sorry, we were listening too.”

  Carmen nodded apologetically. “I should think half the class was, to be honest.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Chloe smiled, though she felt awful. She couldn’t bear to think that she’d lost out on being friends with Bethany over something so stupid. She’d liked her so much at their audition. She told herself it didn’t matter, that there were loads of other people to make friends with, but inside she felt really disappointed. She could hear Sara, Lily and Bethany muttering to each other about how nosy she was, and even though she was pretty thick-skinned, it was very hard not to feel hurt.

  Just then someone dumped their bag on the table next to Chloe, startling her out of her dark thoughts. “Hi! Do you mind if I sit here for the moment? All the other tables are full.” Chloe looked round – the classroom had filled up during her spat with Sara. But there were quite a few other spaces, something the owner of the bag seemed to be ignoring. Still, she wasn’t going to complain, particularly as the bag belonged to a very good-looking boy, with dark blue eyes and hair as red as her own.

  He grinned at her. “Don’t you think us gingers should stick together?”

  “Sure. Less of the ginger though, if you don’t mind.” Chloe noted that Carmen and Ella were looking quite jeal
ous, and cheered up slightly. “I’m Chloe. What’s your name – or do you prefer just being called Ginger? ’Cos that would be no problem. Would it?” she asked the twins, smirking. “This is Carmen and Ella, by the way,” she added.

  “Hey.” The boy nodded to the twins and then turned back to Chloe. “Sam Porter. I got called Ginger all the time at my last school and I’m going to kill anyone who starts it up here. I guess no one dares mention your hair then?”

  “Not if they know what’s good for them.” Chloe chuckled and cracked her knuckles threateningly. “I have my methods…”

  “That must be our form tutor,” murmured Ella, who was looking at the door.

  A smartly dressed woman lugging a load of books had just struggled through the door. She dumped the books on her desk and smiled round the class. Most people had noticed her and were watching with interest, but some were still deep in conversation.

  “OK! Everyone sit down please! Find a seat somewhere – don’t worry, you can change around later.” They slid into seats without too much fuss, keen to find out what their timetable was like.

  “I’m Miss James, your form tutor, and I’ll also be teaching you maths.” She grinned as she heard the low moan that ran round the room. “Sorry, but we do have to do the other stuff at Shine, as well as all your dancing and drama. In fact, I’ll give you a quick rundown on how it all works as soon as I’ve taken the register. I know you’ve already signed in downstairs, but it gives me a chance to put names to faces.” She went through the list on her tablet, pausing to smile as everyone answered. Her smile faded slightly when she got to Lily Ferrars, seeing her red eyes, but she didn’t say anything. It was clear that Bethany and Sara were looking after her, anyway, squashed protectively on either side.