Ruby
Parker
Film
Star
Rowan Coleman

HarperCollins Children’s Books

For my very own superstat, Lily

Thank you to Stella Paskins, Gillie Russell and all the team atHarperCollins Children’s Books for their support and enthusiasm.

And extra special thanks to my very own focus group—Polly Harris,Laura Day and Emily Fettes—for their excellent opinions and thoughts,and for the gratis promotional work they did on Ruby Parker’s behalfwith all of their school friends. I appreciate it very much.

29 Windhouse Street

Brighton

Sussex

Dear Ruby,

I wanted to write and thank you for the letter you sent me, and anyway you said for me to let you know how I am doing so I thought I would. When I wrote to you I was feeling really low and getting your letter really made me feel better. I took your letter and showed it to my mum and when she read it she looked sort of surprised and cried. I was worried at first but then she gave me a big hug and it was as if she suddenly realised how much her and Dad splitting up was affecting me too. Things are still hard, and I wish it wasn’t happening, but at least they are trying to sort things out in a more friendly way now, and Mum lets me see Dad without getting angry.

I read in Teen Girl Magazine that you have left Kensington Heights. I am sorry you won’t be playing Angel any more, she was my favourite character in Kensington Heights, the only one who seemed really real. I am glad that Angel had only gone to America though. Maybe one day you will come back and be in the show again. I know you used to get loads and loads of letters from Kensington Heights fans. I expect the show’s fan club will get a lot less mail now. I think it will be nice for you to have a break from writing all of those replies! Maybe you should have your own fan club? I wonder what you will be in next. I will definitely watch it whatever it is.

Thanks again.

Lots of love

Naomi Torrence

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Dedication

Dear Ruby

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter four

Chapter five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Also by Rowan Coleman

Copyright

About the Publisher

Chapter One

“If there’s one thing I know about this business we call show business,” Sylvia Lighthouse told me when it was my turn for her inspirational pre-audition pep talk, “it’s that success is never down to good fortune alone—you do realise that, don’t you, Ruby?” I nodded. I did know, mainly because I knew exactly what she was going to say next. She had been seeing all of us girls who were about to audition for a part in the Imogene Grant movie, The Lost Treasure of King Arthur, individually and in alphabetical order. I was last because poor Selena had chicken pox really badly and hadn’t stopped crying since she found out she wouldn’t be allowed to audition. (I don’t blame her, I would cry too if I discovered I was missing out on such an important audition because of chicken pox, even if at that moment a nice warm bed, a pile of DVDs and a bottle of Lucozade did seem like more fun.) Anyway, it meant that I was last, so Nydia, Anne-Marie, Olivia and Scarlett had already told me what she was going to say, complete with dramatic pauses and eye rolling.

“Good,” Sylvia Lighthouse continued, “because success is perhaps ten per cent luck, maybe even ten per cent talent…” She leaned across her desk and fixed me with her steely glare. “…But do you really know what makes a performer successful?”

“Hard work and lots of it,” I answered automatically, before realising that the question was supposed to be rhetorical and I wasn’t supposed to answer at all but let her tell me. “I mean, probably…” I added hastily, “I don’t know really…um…what do you think, Ms Lighthouse?” Sylvia Lighthouse arched an orange pencilled eyebrow at me.

“I do hope you are not too confident, Ruby,” she said, as she examined me. I shook my head energetically. “Acting in a so-called ‘soap opera’ and auditioning for a movie are two entirely different things. Your experience on Kensington Heights means nothing at all here.”

“Um oh, right,” I said, trying to swallow as my throat tightened in fear. “Well, I know that, Ms Lighthouse, and I’m not too confident, not even a bit.” And then I wasn’t sure if that was the right thing to say either so I added, “But I’ll give it my best shot.”

I wanted to tell her that all I could think about was that very soon I’d be standing in front of award-winning film director Art Dubrovnik about to audition for a part in his next movie, quite a big part, with quite a lot of scenes that would be watched in cinemas all over the world. And that every time I thought about it my heart started thumping, my tummy turned to jelly, my mind went completely blank and I started to come out in stress-related blotches. It was almost exactly the same as the first time I had kissed Danny (only without the blotches luckily). Sylvia Lighthouse drew her lips together and looked at me down her very long nose.

“I hope you don’t think you have any advantage over the other girls, Ruby,” she told me sternly, “just because you were once a TV star. It’s a level playing field out there, you know. And, besides, fame is a very fickle thing. I should know.”

“I don’t,” I told her. “Honestly, I don’t, Ms Lighthouse. I’m nervous, I’m really, really nervous—look!” I pulled open the collar of my school shirt and showed the bright red marks that were flowering on my skin. She looked at them and wrinkled her nose slightly.

“Well, that’s good,” she told me a little less harshly. “Fear is good as long as you use it. Don’t let it stifle you, Ruby. Just remember that this is your moment. This is your chance to be the best that you possibly can be.” She stood up as she finished speaking, flourishing her hands and gazing over the top of my head as if she had just performed the last lines of a play.

I blinked at her. That part hadn’t been in everybody else’s pep talk.

“I will, Ms Lighthouse,” I told her steadily. “I promise.”

She smiled at me then, which looked almost as much like a scar as when she frowned.

“Jolly good,” she said. “Well off you go then! You don’t want to be late!”

When I walked down the front steps of the academy everybody else was already in the minibus. I looked at their faces peering out of the windows and I knew that I had exactly the same expression on my face—as if we were about to be driven to our certain doom, and not to take the chance of a lifetime.

“Remember,” my mum had said that morning, “if you don’t get it, it’s not the end of the world. You’re still only a little girl after all.”

“I know,” I said, letting the whole “little girl” thing go, because secretly she was just as nervous as me. But it was still hard not to think of it as the potential end of the world. What would the world be like if I didn’t get the part? Almost exactly the same as it had been before, which was not too bad a world—a world with a mum and a dad that were at least talking to each other and getting on quite well since Dad moved out. A world with good friends and a very nice, funny boyfriend. A world with a big fat cat, dancing and singing lessons in the morning and acting class right after maths. An ideal world for a lot of people.

But it would still be a different world in one important respect. If I didn’t get this part, it would be the first time I had ever failed. Nobody outside the academy had ever really tested my talent before, not even when I was on Kensington Heights. I’d never done another real audition, and I had never expected my first one to be quite so big. So although I did know that it wasn’t the end of the world if I didn’t get the part, it certainly didn’t feel that way.

“All set, girls?” Miss Greenstreet called out, as I climbed on to the bus and slid into the seat next to Nydia. She picked up my hand and squeezed it.

“Yes,” we all chorused weakly, glancing at each other anxiously.

“Excellent,” Miss Greenstreet said. “Off we go, driver!”

None of us really knew what to expect when it came to movie auditions, me least of all. After all, I had only ever auditioned for Kensington Heights when I was six. At the time I thought I was just playing dressing-up, so I didn’t exactly feel any pressure. And I had been in Kensington Heights playing the part of Angel MacFarley, the world’s most average girl, ever since, until last summer. It was then that I decided to leave, because I realised that playing Angel wasn’t really acting, it was just being me in front of a TV camera. I wanted to stretch myself, to experience new challenges and take new chances.

Except that morning on the bus I wasn’t quite sure about any of that. Challenges and chances and all that stuff didn’t seem half so appealing just then. In fact, just then, a career as a librarian seemed much more my sort of thing, as really, out of all the girls on the bus, I was the least experienced in auditions.

Anne-Marie had done quite a few commercials, and just recently Nydia landed her first TV part in Casualty as “girl with food poisoning” (She was completely brilliant by the way.), so they both knew more about what might happen than I did.

I thought we might have to stand on a stage in a theatre a bit like when we did audition practice at school, or maybe even go to Mr Dubrovnik’s suite in some posh hotel. But we didn’t. The minibus stopped on Wardour Street in Soho, and Miss Greenstreet smiled at each of us and patted us one by one on the shoulder as we filed out on to the pavement and then up some dark and narrow stairs to the rehearsal rooms which were above an Italian restaurant.

“I thought it would be more glamorous than this,” Anne-Marie hissed in my ear as she glanced around her.

“Being an actor isn’t about being glamorous,” Nydia said, repeating one of Ms Lighthouse’s favourite phrases, “it’s about creating it.”

“What does that mean?” I asked. Nydia and Anne-Marie shrugged simultaneously. Sometimes Sylvia Lighthouse’s pearls of wisdom could be, well, rather mysterious to say the least.

At the top of the stairs there was a small waiting room with five orange plastic chairs that were probably older than each one of us who were lined up against the wall. The fluorescent lighting flickered every now and then, and hummed loudly. A lady with wiry orange hair, and with thick black-rimmed glasses perched on top of a long pointy nose, magnifying a pair of scarily pale blue fish-like eyes, was waiting for us. She was wearing a very short tartan kilt and green holey tights, and was armed with a clipboard and a scowl that knitted her thick brows into one.

“Hi, I’m Lisa Wells, assistant director on The Lost Treasure of King Arthur,” she said briskly in an American accent, leading me to guess that she must be American. “This is how it’s going to be. I hope you are all properly prepared and that you know your lines because I’m going to be sending you in one at a time in alphabetical order.” I sighed inwardly. That meant I would be the last to go in again. And the one with the longest time to get nervous and blotchy and forget my lines.

“You go in,” Lisa continued, “stand on your mark, and deliver your lines to the camera. Don’t worry, I’ll be in there to read with you.” Somehow knowing that didn’t make me worry any less. “And that’s all you do, OK? I don’t want any procrastination, no preamble, and certainly none of that chit-chat you Brits are so fond of. No one here cares whether or not you can do ballet or tap, or recite Juliet’s soliloquy, OK? You do your lines, you move on. Anything that might waste Mr Dubrovnik’s very precious time will result in you being automatically disqualified.” Lisa Wells paused for a moment to eye each one of us closely, just to make sure she knew we understood her. “Once you’ve done, I’ll show you the way back out to your teacher. I don’t want any discussions or giggling going on out here, OK? I want total silence from all of you, except the one who’s reading. Any questions?” We all looked at each other, but nobody spoke. Probably because if the others felt anything like I did, they had all lost the power of speech entirely, too.

“Don’t worry, girls,” Miss Greenstreet said kindly, “I’ll be in the café just across the road with a hot chocolate waiting for you when you come out.” She shot Lisa Wells her best attempt at a cross look, which wasn’t very good because Miss Greenstreet is one of those people who is never actually cross with you, just disappointed. “I’m sure it’s not going to be as frightening as you think it is,” she said, trying to reassure us.

“Oh, it is,” Lisa Wells said, her voice as sharp as her nose.

She scanned her clipboard. “Now, who’s first? “Nydia? Which one of you is Nydia?”

Nydia sat perfectly still for a moment as if she hoped that she might blend unnoticed into the orange chair.

“Go on, Nyds,” I told her. “You can do—”

“No talking!” Lisa Wells interrupted me. “Nydia, go in now or go home!” Nydia took a deep breath, winked at me and disappeared through the door into the audition room. I scowled surreptitiously at Lisa Wells and wished that I was more like the character I was auditioning to play, Polly Harris aka Ember Buchanen—initially prim and proper, when faced with danger, her character became fearless, cool, calm and collected, even after she finds out that she’s not really who she thought she was. In fact, her father isn’t her father at all, but an evil historian who kidnapped her as a baby and is planning to murder her on her fourteenth birthday. Polly/Ember was a brave-sassy-no-nonsense-adventurer. She would have just gone up to Lisa Wells and told her what she thought, and quite possibly even kicked her in the shins…

But I, plain old Ruby Parker, did not do any of that, because I never have been any good at rebelling. I just sat on my plastic chair and waited quietly. I watched Nydia, Anne-Marie and the others go in and come out again without even looking at me, until I was the only one left.

“Ruby Parker,” Lisa Wells said inevitably. “It’s your turn. Go!”

Chapter Two

“I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as you think it was,” my mum said kindly, putting a steaming bowl of risotto in front of me. It was my favourite comfort food. My mum only ever made it for me on special occasions, or when I was feeling really fed up. I stared at it, feeling the heat coming from it brush against my already flaming cheeks.

“The only way it could have been worse,” I told her in a small thin voice, “was if I had actually thrown up on Mr Dubrovnik.” I screwed up my eyes and felt every internal part of me curl up and shrivel too. I just couldn’t believe what had happened. I couldn’t believe I had actually been literally sick with nerves. In public.

“But you read the lines, didn’t you?” Mum said, sitting next to me at the kitchen table. “It’s not as if you didn’t deliver the scene, and I bet you were fabulous.”

“I was terrible,” I groaned, banging my forehead with the heel of my hands. “Like a five-year-old in a nativity play.”

My cat Everest had hauled himself up on to the table top and was eyeing my risotto hopefully. Normally Mum would have shooed him off the table, but he was taking advantage of her concern over me and edged a little bit closer.

“Well, you finished the scene and that’s the main thing,” my mum said unconvincingly. “And remember, we said it wasn’t the end of the world if you didn’t get the part. All we have to do is work out what made you feel so terrible and make sure it doesn’t happen again next time.” I closed my eyes and forced myself to replay the scene one more time.

I had walked into the room, which was much bigger than I had expected, with many more people in it. It was a large room with whitewashed brick walls and a dusty wooden floor. Three sides of the room were lined with floor to ceiling mirrors and ballet bars. Maybe that was what made my nerves worse. Maybe because it seemed like there were thirty people there instead of just ten. Maybe because I could see myself from all of my not-so-brilliant angles.

Or it could have been the camera. After all those years on a soap I didn’t think the camera would freak me out at all, but I was wrong. It wasn’t the same kind of camera I was used to working with on Kensington Heights: big and clunky and friendly. It was just a digital camcorder on a spindly tripod. I knew exactly how I looked and sounded on a digital camcorder from when my dad sent a home videotape into Before They Were Famous a couple of years earlier. I was furious because I looked terrible—dumpy and awkward—and my voice sounded all stupid and high and not at all like it sounded in my head.

I had made myself look at Mr Dubrovnik, who was sitting in the middle of a row of four people, a man who was a bit older than my dad but with longish sandy hair and the kind of clothes I would have thought were far too young and trendy for my dad. And he was wearing a baseball cap, indoors, so I couldn’t really see his eyes. But his face was pointed in my direction and he seemed to be the only one of them looking actually at me. All the others were looking at a monitor that was showing them how I looked on digital camcorder. Which was rubbish.

I stood on my mark and waited for what seemed like ages before I remembered that Lisa had told us just to read without waiting to be cued.

“I don’t know who…” I began my first line just as Mr Dubrovnik spoke.

“You may begin,” he said at exactly the same time.

“Er, s…sorry,” I told him, stumbling over my words. “It’s just that she said that I…” I trailed off as I remembered what else Lisa had said about “chit-chat”. I took a deep breath and looked right down the barrel of the camera.

“I don’t know who you think you are!” I more or less shouted my first line.

“I’m your sister, Ember. Don’t you remember me at all?” Lisa replied, reading from the script completely deadpan without a trace of emotion. I struggled to stay in character, which was hard, as I felt like I was trying to have a heated argument with someone who expressed about as much emotion as a pre-recorded answerphone message.

“You!” I exclaimed haughtily. “You’re not my sister! I’m Polly Harris, daughter of Professor Darkly Harris—the chief curator of the British Museum.”

“No. No, you’re not,” Lisa continued as if she were reading the back of a packet of cornflakes. “You’re my little sister and you were stolen from our parents when you were just a baby. I’ve been searching for you all these years and now at last I’ve found you.”

The flatter and more disinterested Lisa’s voice seemed, the more over-the-top and loud my acting became. I knew I was bad, but it was like being at the top of a rollercoaster: I couldn’t stop myself from plunging further and further down into over-the-top acting.

“You’re lying!” I cried out so loudly my voice rang in my ears and echoed off the painted brick walls.

I did get to the end of my scene without forgetting any lines, that was true. I felt my legs shaking and my stomach wobbling and I delivered the last line with everything I had.

“GET AWAY FROM ME!” I shrieked so loudly I think the mirrors shook.

The sound of my own voice ringing in my ears gradually died away, and when it was gone there was complete silence.

And that was when I threw up. On my feet. On digital camcorder. In front of Hollywood’s hottest and most influential director and his entourage. I was as sick as Everest choking up a mammoth-sized hairball.

I don’t even know where it came from; it wasn’t as if I’d had anything to eat that morning. But suddenly, without any warning, I was bent over double and my stomach was heaving, and I heard this horrible rasping sound and realised it was coming from me.

I didn’t wait for Lisa Wells to show me out. I clamped my hand over my mouth and ran out of there as fast as I could, and when I was finally outside I collapsed against the first bit of wall I could find. I stood there for a moment, my forehead grazing the brick, and I waited until I could breathe steadily and the pavement stopped shifting beneath my feet.

I would have liked to have stayed there all day but I knew I had to go back to the café where the others were waiting. Laughing probably, and talking excitedly without a care in the world because none of them, I was fairly certain, had finished their audition in the same way I had. With retching.

“How did it go?” Nydia exclaimed when she saw me. The whole table stared at me, and I realised that the stricken look on my face might be giving the overall picture of how it went but had failed to fill in the necessary details.

“Bad,” I managed to say as I scraped back the remaining empty chair they had been saving for me. “Really bad.”

“No, it didn’t! I’m sure it didn’t,” Miss Greenstreet said kindly, patting the back of my hand. “I’m sure you were wonderful. I’m sure that all of you girls were just wonderful.”

It was then that I burst into tears.

“So remember what we said?” Mum said, picking up my fork, piling it high with risotto and then aiming it at my mouth. She did this, my mum, sometimes: when things were especially difficult, she’d forget the intervening twelve years and ten months since my birth and treat me like a baby again, even down to spoon-feeding me. I looked at the fork and then at her, and she laid it back in the bowl.

“What did we say?” she said gently, refusing to let go of babying me completely.

“That it’s not the end of the world,” I recited, seriously unconvinced.

“Because you did your best, didn’t you? And that’s all you can do, isn’t it?” Mum added in the slow, soft voice she used to comfort me with when I grazed my knees.

“I know,” I said darkly.

“And there will be other chances,” Mum said. “Lots of them.”

“Yes,” I said heavily. “There will be other chances.”

“And after all,” Mum seemed determined to wade on through her pep talk despite my total failure to be pepped up by it, “you have to get used to lows as well as highs if you want to be an…”

“An actor!” I snapped. “Yes, I do know, Mum!” I sighed and slumped in my chair, pushing my bowl of risotto away from me so that it slid to a stop by Everest’s neat little paws. He licked his lips.

There was no point in being angry with Mum. She wasn’t the one who had messed up the audition so badly that it could well go into the number one slot of the Top Ten All-Time Most Messed-up Auditions Chart.

“I’m sorry, Mum,” I said. “It’s just, well, I know all about taking rejection and getting used to it and picking myself up and dusting myself off and getting ready for the next challenge; we have classes on it at school. After all, one of the reasons I left Kensington Heights was so that I could experience all of that—stretch myself, find new challenges. But, well…I suppose I didn’t expect it to happen to me. Not really.” I chewed at my bottom lip. “Maybe it means that I can’t act. Maybe I’m really rubbish, after all. I only ever really played myself in Kensington Heights.”

It was true. When I left the show, my character Angel was a quite shy, not very popular and ever-so-slightly-dumpy thirteen-year-old—and so was I. I thought that if I played another character, one like Polly Harris, I might change too. I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.

“Ruby, you are not rubbish,” Mum said, using her old no-nonsense voice again. “You are wonderful! Look, you had one bad audition—it’s not…”

“The end of the world,” I finished for her, suddenly wishing more than anything that it was because anything—even an apocalypse—would be preferable to having to go to school in the morning.

Chapter Three

“Oh, shut up, Menakshi,” Anne-Marie said as we walked back in from netball practice the next day, dogged by Menakshi Shah and Jade Caruso, who had been compulsively teasing me since news got round about my terrible audition. “What do you know anyway?” Anne-Marie snapped at them. “Neither of you two were even good enough to get into the first audition.”

“Well, we should have been,” Menakshi said sharply. “At least I wouldn’t have chucked up everywhere—in front of Art Dubrovnik! Not quite as professional as you think, are you, Ruby? What’s it like being one of the crowd again now you’ve had your fifteen minutes of fame? Ready for a lifetime of lame?” She and Jade cackled like a pair of witches.

“Well, at least her fifteen minutes was in a top-rated soap and not in a nit commercial, Jade,” Nydia said, joining us from the bench where she had been first sub again. “And it was much longer than fifteen minutes that Ruby was famous for.”

Jade laughed. “Peaked too soon, that’s your trouble,” she teased me. “For the rest of us things can only get better; for you it’s downhill all the way. Career over at thirteen—what a shame.”

“Jade.” Anne-Marie stepped in front of the other girl so that her pretty little nose was about two millimetres from Jade’s, and she snarled at her like a tiger. “I told you to shut up, all right?” For a moment Anne-Marie showed all her old qualities that Nydia and I had known and feared last school year, back when she had been our mortal enemy. I never thought we would end up being friends, but it was just before I decided to leave Kensington Heights, and I had just found out I had this kiss scene with Justin de Souza, who I used to really, really fancy. I had never kissed anybody before in my life, so I sort of panicked, and Nydia said the only thing to do was to get training from someone who definitely had kissing experience. And the only person we knew who definitely had kissing experience was Anne-Marie. We had to bribe her to help us, and even then it was extremely scary, very emotional and rather dramatic. And somehow at the end of all that the three of us ended up as best friends. Which meant it was easy to forget that Anne-Marie could still be totally ruthless, completely hard and the fastest insult-hurler in the school when she wanted to be. I was relieved that she was our friend now instead of our mortal enemy. They seemed like much more appealing characteristics to have in a friend, especially when I had Menakshi and Jade crowing in my face.

“One more word and…” Anne-Marie said in a low, soft voice. She didn’t have to add anything else to the sentence. Just her tone made Jade and Menakshi fall back into their pack to carry out further bitching at a safe distance, while the three of us stalked across the fields towards the academy.

“Thanks,” I said to Anne-Marie.

“No worries,” Anne-Marie said, all sunshine and smiles again. “Look, everybody will stop talking about it soon, won’t they, Nyds?”

“Yes,” Nydia said, dropping her arm round my shoulders and giving me a squeeze. “Soon no one will be interested in you at all. I mean they will,” she added hastily. “But in a good way.” I lifted my chin and made myself smile at my two friends.

“It’s OK anyway,” I lied. “I’m fine about it now, really I am. I don’t care any more at all. Not a bit. And I’m the one that messed up. There’s a really good chance that you two might get called back for a second audition. So I’m rooting for you two now. As long as one of us three gets it then it will be brilliant!”

I didn’t feel as upbeat as I sounded but I didn’t want to spoil it for Anne-Marie and Nydia, making them walk on egg shells around me, pretending that they didn’t mind either way if they got a part in a Hollywood movie.

“Really?” Anne-Marie asked me, jumping on my words. “Oh, good, because I’ve been dying to show you two this.” She dug into the pocket of her gym skirt and brought out a folded-up clipping. “It’s from Hiya! Bye-a!” she said, referring to her favourite celebrity magazine. “It’s about the film, Ruby. I didn’t want to make you feel bad by looking at it in front of you and it felt wrong to look at it behind your back, but if you really are OK…You sure you don’t mind us looking at it?”

I made myself laugh happily. If only I had been this good at acting during the audition.

“Of course not!” I said cheerily.

She handed me the clipping and I unfolded it. The title read: “Imogene shouts ‘Action!’ for her next big role.”

“You read it out,” I said, handing the piece of paper to Nydia. She took it eagerly and scanned the text.

“Casting is almost complete for the new Imogene Grant blockbuster The Lost Treasure of King Arthur.” Anne-Marie and Nydia looked at each other with bright eyes. “Veteran action hero Harry McLean is confirmed as the male lead, and also starring will be…Oh my gosh!” Nydia said, sounding suddenly breathless.

“I know,” Anne-Marie squealed. “Read it out! Read it out!”

I looked from one girl to the other. They both looked like they might explode.

“And also starring will be Hollywood’s hottest teen heart-throb Sean Rivers!”

“Arrrrrrgh!” the two girls screamed in unison and danced around me in a little circle.

“Sean Rivers, Ruby! Only Sean Rivers!” Nydia exclaimed. “Oh my gosh!”

I smiled at both of them. It was starting to hurt.

“Wow,” I said, the edge in my voice floating over the tops of the heads of my two friends. “Sean Rivers. The Sean Rivers. We totally love him.”

“Just think…” Anne-Marie said, hooking her arm though mine as we approached the changing rooms. “One of us could be working with Sean Rivers, the very same Sean Rivers we all went to see in A Cheerleader’s Destiny.”

“And Last Summer’s Love,” Nydia added wistfully.

“And The Underdogs,” Anne-Marie said. “Oh, he was so lovely in The Underdogs—that bit when he thought he might not be able to play in the final because of his leg and he cried…?”

“Oh my gosh, I love him,” Nydia added sincerely.

“I love him,” Anne-Marie said.

“I love him more,” Nydia said with a giggle.

“Who loves who more?” Danny said, jogging up to us in his football kit. He had a big smear of mud across his nose, and I have never been so pleased to see my normal lovely real-life boyfriend before in my life. My smile for him was a real one as he dropped his arm around my shoulders and raised a dark eyebrow at the girls.

“Don’t tell me you’re going out with Michael Henderson again?” he asked Anne-Marie, who made a sour face at the mention of her ex-boyfriend’s name.

“Read this.” Nydia handed Danny the now grubby clipping and he read it quickly.

“And?” he asked, looking mystified.

“Sean Rivers!” Nydia exclaimed. “We all love him.” She gestured at the three of us.

“I don’t,” I said, looking at Danny fondly.

“Oh yeah, so why has she got that poster of him over her bed then, hey, Danny?” Anne-Marie said, teasing me gently.

Danny shrugged.

“Has she?” he said. “I hadn’t noticed.” He neglected to mention that in fact he’d never been in my bedroom because my mum wouldn’t let him go in there with me unless we were accompanied by at least three adult chaperones.

Still, Danny was determined to be unimpressed by Sean Rivers, and I knew it was partly because he was worrying about how I was feeling after blowing my chances of ever meeting him, let alone working with him. Knowing that made me feel a lot better. Even almost happy.

“These two are going all gooey at the thought of actually possibly meeting him,” I said with a laugh, to show him that I didn’t mind talking about the film.

“Over Sean Rivers?” Danny mocked them. “He’s just a bloke, you know. Like me.”

Nydia and Anne-Marie screeched with overexcited laughter, and Danny’s face coloured a little.

“A bloke who’s got millions of fans all round the world!” Anne-Marie said.

“Yeah,” Danny said a little defensively. “Like me.”

“Like you!” Anne-Marie hooted, and even I couldn’t hide my smile.

“Yeah, like me,” Danny said. “I am on Britain’s favourite soap, you know. Last month I got as many fan letters as Justin.”

That shut us all up. None of us had known that before.

“You got as many letters as Justin de Souza?” I stared hard at Danny. Yes, he was still the same normal lovely real-life boyfriend I had five minutes ago. But Justin? Everybody knew that Justin got hundreds of fan letters nearly every month.

“Hang on,” I said. “You mean problem letters like I used to get, don’t you?”

Danny seemed to consider his answer for a moment, but then he looked at Nydia and Anne-Marie’s bright laughing faces and said, with a hint of pride, “No, I mean I get actual ‘I love you, Danny’ fan letters. Not that they mean anything at all,” he added quickly.

“Of course,” I said, checking back on my mum’s criteria for what constituted the end of the world. If stupendously fluffing the most important audition I would probably ever have didn’t count, would finding out that my normal lovely real-life boyfriend was now the object of affection for thousands—maybe millions—of girls, sixty per cent of whom at least would be thinner and prettier than me, qualify?

“We’ll be late for English,” I said, shrugging Danny’s arm off my shoulders and heading for the refuge of the girls’ changing room.

I didn’t want to react that way. I wanted to laugh it off and say something witty and funny about how of course he had loads of fans, he was my boyfriend, wasn’t he? But I couldn’t. I suddenly felt cross and jealous all over, and I just wanted to go somewhere Danny wasn’t until I could feel normal again.

“Ruby!” Danny called out after me as I marched off.

“Don’t worry,” I heard Nydia say as I went through the door. “She’s just having a bad day, that’s all.”

By the time we had filed into the classroom, I had given myself a good talking to, washed the frown off my face and brushed the irritation out of my hair. It wasn’t my friends’ fault that they did well at the audition and I didn’t. It wasn’t Danny’s fault that he was really good in Kensington Heights and very photogenic, causing swathes of young girls to dream about him. I shouldn’t be jealous, I should feel lucky. Lucky I have such talented friends and such a great boyfriend. If a year ago, when I was so unpopular I only had one friend and I was officially the least likely girl in the academy and quite possibly the world to ever have a boyfriend, I could have seen myself now—in with the in-crowd (mostly) and with Danny on my arm—I would have thought I had reached the pinnacle of happiness. But I knew it wasn’t really those three that I was angry with—it was myself; I was furious with myself.

Try as I might I couldn’t help going back over and over my twenty minutes in front of Mr Dubrovnik, replaying and replaying them until I finally got it right, until I was brilliant and triumphant and he jumped up from his seat and offered me the part on the spot. And for a few short moments I would feel enormous relief, until I remembered it was only a daydream. A lot of things have happened over the past year, things that I would rather hadn’t happened. Mainly Mum and Dad deciding to separate. But even then, even when it came down to my parents splitting up, I sort of knew deep down, through all the anger and the hurt, that it had to happen; that that was the way it had to be. Mum said so often enough since it had happened. I can’t say it doesn’t hurt at all any more; it does. But I feel like I can live with it.

But what happened at the audition was not scripted. It wasn’t supposed to be like that at all, and the only person I could blame for it going wrong was me. And there was nothing I could do to change it.

That moment had been for real and not just a rehearsal. It was a chance that had gone for ever, and knowing that stung, like a hard cold slap. Mum was right; I hoped there would be other auditions, other chances, but that one would never come round again.

Danny was already sitting at his desk as I walked in. I offered him a small apologetic shrug.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“It’s all right,” he said, pulling out a chair so I could sit next to him. “You’re having a bad day. I know you feel bad about that audition, but you’re brilliant, Ruby. If you don’t get it, it’s because something bigger and better is waiting for you.” I smiled at him as I sat down, and he picked up my hand. “And look, those fan letters are really nothing. Look, here’s one I got this morning. I haven’t even opened it yet. You open it.” I knew I should have said, “Oh, don’t be so silly,” but I nodded and took the letter and opened it. The handwriting was large and round and some of the words weren’t exactly spelt right.

Dear Danny from the TV,

I think you are really brilyant and good in kensinton heights. You are my favourite and mummy lets me stay up until nine o clock when its on to see you because you are so good. She said I could write in and join a fan club if I wanted because you are really good. Please can I have a signed photo. I have a rabbit called Danny too.

Thank you very much

Love from

Kirsty Green aged six and a half and a bit

“Oh bless!” I said, handing the letter to Danny. “That’s so cute that little girls like you!”

“Yeah, well,” Danny said, “I told you. I mean not all of them are from six-year-olds, obviously, and even if some of them do go on about fancying me, it doesn’t make a difference to us. You do know that, don’t you?”

I nodded. “Of course I do,” I said.

“Because it would be stupid to get jealous over a load of letters,” Danny said.

“I know,” I said. “And I’m not jealous any more.”

“Before we begin…” Miss Greenstreet stood at the front of the class in her long gypsy skirt, bouncing on the balls of her feet. That meant only one thing—Shakespeare. She only ever bounced when we read Shakespeare. She said once that she loved teaching English at the academy because at least when students read aloud in class they sounded like they meant it. Once Menakshi and Michael read the death scene in Romeo and Juliet and Miss Greenstreet actually cried. I don’t know why—it wasn’t that good.

“Class!” Miss Greenstreet raised her voice a little, and the chattering settled and quietened. “Two of you will be excused from class today because Ms Lighthouse wants to see you in her office immediately.”

“It wasn’t me!” Michael Henderson shouted from the back of the class. A few of the boys sniggered and laughed.

“Actually, Michael, it’s not because of something someone’s done wrong. It’s because of something two other people have done right.” Miss Greenstreet lowered her voice a little and smiled. “I’m not supposed to say anything, but I think it’s about the auditions for Mr Dubrovnik.” Anne-Marie and Nydia looked at each other and gripped hands tightly. “So,” Miss Greenstreet said, smiling broadly, “can Anne-Marie and Ruby go to Ms Lighthouse’s office right away, please?”

Anne-Marie, who had jumped up at the sound of her name, sat down heavily again.

“It’s the brush-off,” Menakshi called from behind me. “She’s telling the losers first that they haven’t got through. Hey, Nydia, you might be getting a call back!”

Nydia said nothing, but looked from me to Anne-Marie. Anne-Marie stood up again, the sparkle and smile gone from her face. She knew that to be called with me meant rejection.

“Come on,” she said. “We might as well go and get it over with.”

Miss Greenstreet smiled at us as we headed for the door.

“You never know, girls, it might be good news,” she said. But neither one of us replied.

“I really thought I was good,” Anne-Marie said as we trudged towards Ms Lighthouse’s office.

“You were good,” I said. “I was the terrible one.”

“Exactly,” Anne-Marie said.

Ms Lighthouse’s office door was open and her assistant Mrs Moore nodded for us to go in. It was hard to tell what kind of news we were going to get from Mrs Moore’s expression, as never once had anyone ever seen her smile, frown or have any kind of expression at all. She was permanently in neutral, with a face like a mask that might hide thousands of raging thoughts and emotions.

“Sit,” Sylvia Lighthouse commanded us as we walked into her office, and we obeyed promptly. She leaned forward across her desk on her elbows and examined each one of us carefully before sitting back in her chair.

“Well, well,” she said, more to herself than to us. “Cometh the hour, cometh the girls.”

“Huh?” Anne-Marie and I said together.

Chapter four

“But—are you sure?” I said, quite unable to believe what Sylvia Lighthouse had just told Anne-Marie and me. “Because I was really terrible.”

“I wasn’t,” Anne-Marie said. “I was great.”

Sylvia read aloud again the fax she had in her hand.

“‘Dear Ms Lighthouse,’” she read, affecting a gruff New York accent. “‘Thank you for sending your young ladies to audition for the part of Polly Harris in The Lost Treasure of King Arthur. There are two that interested me and whom I’d like to see again this Friday: Ruby Parker and Anne-Marie Chance. Details to follow.’” Sylvia Lighthouse put the fax down on the table and looked at us.

“He wants to see you two again,” she said. “This time it will be a longer audition. You’ll read through a scene chosen by Mr Dubrovnik that you won’t get to rehearse before you arrive, and I know he sometimes likes to get actors doing improvisation work, to see who has the right ‘chemistry’. You might have to do some of that.”

Anne-Marie and I looked at each other.

“Um…” I said, not quite able to believe what I was about to say, “Ms Lighthouse, I think he’s got me mixed up with someone else—Nydia maybe? Because I…threw up in my audition. In front of him.” Ms Lighthouse raised her eyebrows and wrinkled her long nose.

“Well, Ruby, he doesn’t say he thought you were good. He says he thought you were interesting. He has not made a mistake. Mr Dubrovnik is not the sort of man to make mistakes.” She tapped her nails on the desk and looked at us. “Now, as I understand, there are three other girls from other ‘sources’ also going to this second call-back, so the chances of you progressing further are slim. Nevertheless, shooting is due to begin within the month, so we need to assume the impossible and talk practicalities with your parents.”

“Mine are in South Africa,” Anne-Marie said, and then, after a moment, “and Canada. Dad’s in Canada.”

I glanced at Anne-Marie. Usually the fact that her movie-producer dad and fashionista mum were more often abroad on business than at home didn’t seem to bother her too much. But sometimes, like just at that moment, you could see her bravado drop a little, and you got a tiny glimpse of sadness. Most of the school thought she had the best time ever, living in her big posh house with only her older brother and their housekeeper Pilar to look after her. But I knew that sometimes, just sometimes, Anne-Marie would like nothing more than to be grounded by one or preferably both of her parents, just as long as they were at home.

“Very well. I’ll need contact numbers then—and, Ruby, I’ll phone your mother and father separately. They will both need to consent.”

“OK,” I said. It still felt strange that they had separate home phone numbers.

“For whoever gets the part of Polly Harris it will be an intensive six-week shoot. Child working laws still apply, of course, so it does mean that if either of you two get the part, you would be taken out of school for the remainder of this term and taught on set by a specially provided tutor, who will know your curriculum and will make sure you do not fall behind with your school work.” Ms Lighthouse gave us one of her brief twitches of a smile. “You will also need an adult guardian with you at all times.”

“I don’t think either of my parents will be able to do that,” Anne-Marie said, looking a little downcast. “I don’t think we’ve spent six weeks in one place together ever in my life.”

“Well,” Ms Lighthouse said. “If needs be, Anne-Marie, I’ll chaperone you myself. I won’t have you missing out on a chance like this. So don’t you worry about that.” She gave Anne-Marie one of her brief, rare, full-length smiles.

“Now, you two must focus on Friday. Ruby, you suffered terribly from nerves the last time. I want you to harness those nerves; make them work for you. Don’t let anything knock you off course again. Mr Dubrovnik must have seen something in you to make him want to see you again. Try and think what that might have been and give it a chance to really shine. Anne-Marie, you are a lovely-looking girl, but don’t rely on good looks to get you through this. Mr Dubrovnik may be shooting an action film, but he wants actors in it, not mannequins. He hasn’t won two Oscars just for casting pretty faces. You have talent, make sure you use it.” Anne-Marie and I nodded, and then I thought of Nydia sitting in English class still thinking that she might have got called back.

“Excuse me, Ms Lighthouse,” I asked her. “Does that mean no one else from the academy is going back?”

“I’m afraid so,” she said, looking at her watch. “I want you to go to the library for the remainder of your lesson until lunch break. I’ll be seeing those other girls now.” She studied mine and Anne-Marie’s faces for a moment and I could guess what she saw there. I hardly knew myself how I felt.

“Don’t feel bad about it, girls,” she said, her voice unexpectedly softened. “This is what acting is about. Sometimes seeing your friends fail means that you have succeeded.”

Mrs Moore watched us as we filed out of Sylvia Lighthouse’s office and turned right towards the library. Then she left her desk and began walking steadily to fetch the other girls who hadn’t made it through. The other girls including Nydia.

“Poor Nydia,” I whispered to Anne-Marie as we sat over open books that we had plucked from the shelves without even reading the title. I wanted to run about and scream and laugh, but given that we had been sent to the library all of those things were impossible. So instead we had to sit and wait until we could tell everyone else—tell Nydia.

“I know,” Anne-Marie said. “But you heard what she said, she said don’t feel bad because—”

“I know,” I said. “But I don’t want it to be like that, do you? I don’t want to be that competitive. And friends you count on, friends like Nydia and you, are really important. I don’t ever want to see a friend fail so that I can succeed.”

“But did you honestly feel like that this morning before you knew you had been called back?” Anne-Marie asked me. I shrugged, but said nothing. She was right, though. If I was really, really honest, this morning a part of me had hoped that none of us would get the part so we could all go back to being normal again. It was only now that I knew I was getting called back that I truly wished Nydia was coming too.

“Look, Ruby,” Anne-Marie whispered, “acting is one big competition. And somehow, by some amazing miracle, you—Ruby Parker—are one of the winners at the moment. And that’s all you’ve got to think about right now. I know that’s all I’m thinking about. And Nydia will be happy for us; like you said, she is a good friend.”

I stared blankly at the pages of words in front of me without reading them.

Somehow the impossible had happened. Somehow I had done something right, something that meant I was going to get another chance to impress Mr Dubrovnik, to get the part of Polly Harris. I didn’t know what I had done or how I had done it, but I did know one thing: I was going to give the best performance of my life.

This time, I was going to be brilliant.

Chapter five

The Waldorf Hotel in London was the poshest place I had ever been to in my life. OK, I haven’t been to that many posh places unless you count award ceremonies, and they are usually held in a theatre or TV studio, which aren’t nearly as posh as they look on TV.

“This is the life, hey, Ruby?” Dad said, winking as we waited in the foyer for Mr Dubrovnik to call us up, with my mum, Anne-Marie and Sylvia Lighthouse herself, who had decided to replace Miss Greenstreet on this occasion as it was “a matter of academy honour”.

“Totally,” I said, looking around me at the gold and the mirrors and the soft chair and posh orange ladies with big hair and big sunglasses and heavy-looking jewellery.

“Frank!” My mum looked as nervous as I felt. “Try not to look like a tourist.”

“It’s a hotel,” Dad said, shrugging and grinning at me. “It’s built for tourists, hey, Rube?” I laughed because I knew he was trying to make me laugh, thinking it would take my mind off my nerves. And in a way it did, because the two of them being here together reassured me and made me feel safe again in a way that just one of them, try as they might, could not.

It was great that Mum and Dad had decided that both of them were coming with me to this important audition. And I was glad that they’d had a long phone conversation about it, a conversation during which no one had raised their voice or slammed down the receiver (or in our case pressed the “End Call” button really firmly). And I was really glad when Mum had come into the living room where I had been earwigging and said, “I suppose you heard, Dad’s coming too on Friday. So that’ll be nice, won’t it?”

That seemed to be like a big step to me, part of the general air of friendship that had gradually begun to build between them since that horrible night when Dad left us and it had seemed as if nothing would be right in our family again. OK, they were living apart and Dad had his so-called “girlfriend”. And yes, Mum had cut her hair and started wearing make-up to go to the supermarket. Not to mention arranging sleepovers for me so she could go to salsa classes with her friends, who as it turned out she had a lot more of than I realised. But, I decided, as strange and as uncomfortable as some of that made me feel, it didn’t matter as long as they were talking to each other and not hating each other, and sometimes when it was really important I could have both of them together again looking after me. I couldn’t have them back together again but I knew this was the next best thing.

Anne-Marie crossed the polished marble floor to my side and grinned at me.

“Well,” she said, “how are you feeling?” I paused to listen for any early-warning gurgle from my tummy.

“Strangely OK,” I said, sounding slightly surprised. “You?”

“I’m OK,” she said, biting her glossy lip. “It was sweet of Nydia to call us this morning and wish us good luck, wasn’t it?” she said. “Good old Nydia, she’s been really great about this, hasn’t she?”

“Yes,” I said, although I hadn’t spoken to Nydia that morning or the night before. Perhaps she had called home just after I’d left. Or maybe she’d been trying my mobile, which Sylvia had made us turn off before we came into the hotel.

“You can come up now.” Lisa Wells appeared as if from nowhere and spoke so loudly that the posh orange people stopped to look at her from over the tops of their morning papers. At the sound of her voice I felt my stomach tighten and gurgle.

“You can do this, love,” Dad said. “You’re the best, remember that!” I nodded as our little group headed for the lift.

“We have two suites reserved—one for waiting in, the other for a brief rehearsal with a member of the cast and then the screen test. Ruby, you’re going in first, so less chance for you to inflate the hotel’s extra cleaning charges, and Anne-Marie, you’ll be waiting in the second suite. There will be refreshments while you wait. It won’t take long—a little over half an hour, I think. Then you’ll go in, Anne-Marie, and Ruby can wait. Is that OK, girls?”

“That will be perfectly fine,” Ms Lighthouse said before either of us could open our mouths.

At first I sort of wished I had been in a suite at the Waldorf Hotel for some reason other than auditioning for a part in the new film of world-famous movie director Art Dubrovnik. Then I could have enjoyed it even more.

The waiting suite was amazing: the biggest bedroom I have ever seen in my life. In fact, you couldn’t really call it a bedroom, it was more like an apartment, with a huge living room, bathroom and even an upstairs. Of course, Anne-Marie swanked around like she spent her whole life in hotel rooms like this one, and given that her mum and dad were in the top fifty richest people in the country, she probably had. I on the other hand was awestruck and so were my parents, although my mum didn’t look around the room open-mouthed with awe like my dad did, she sat still on the edge of the blue silk sofa and looked afraid to touch anything.

“I’ll be right back,” Lisa said, her eye raking over Anne-Marie and me again. “There’s tea and fresh coffee over there, or take what you like from the minibar as long as it’s legal.” As Sylvia Lighthouse busied herself pouring coffee and tea for my parents, Anne-Marie crossed straight to a part of the wall that I had thought was just white-painted wooden panelling and opened it to reveal a tiny but well-stocked fridge.

She handed me a Coke and took one for herself.

“How did you know that was there?” I asked her, impressed.

“It was obvious,” she said. “Minibars are always in the same place, aren’t they?” I said nothing and went and sat next to my mum and sipped my drink. Sylvia Lighthouse was talking but I wasn’t listening. All I could think about was that it was me who would be going to audition first. I knew that it was going to happen, but I couldn’t quite believe it. Somehow it didn’t seem real. It felt like I was already playing a part in a film.

“OK.” Lisa Wells opened the door. “Ruby, come this way, please.”

I looked at my mum, who smiled at me and nodded, and then at my dad, who pumped his fist in the air in a way that would have ordinarily mortified me if I hadn’t been so nervous, and then finally at Sylvia Lighthouse, who was standing straight-backed against the window.

“Remember everything I’ve taught you and you will excel,” she told me with quiet dignity.

“I will, Ms Lighthouse,” I said solemnly, though to be perfectly honest at that point I couldn’t remember a single word she had ever said about anything ever. I could hardly even remember my name.

“We are working to a schedule here, you know,” Lisa Wells said, rolling her eyes. I stood up and I followed her into the second suite.

Mr Dubrovnik was sitting on a fat, cream sort of half-sofa half-chair, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees as if at any moment he might want to suddenly get up and leave. He watched me as I walked in through the door and pointed at the chair opposite him.

“Hello, Ruby,” he said. His voice was soft and low and quite friendly really.

“Hello,” I said. My voice was high and squeaky and sounded quite a lot like a strangulated mouse.

“Well, I’m glad to see you again,” Mr Dubrovnik said. “I bet you didn’t think you’d be asked back, did you?” I shook my head. It seemed like a better alternative than squeaky-voiced talking. Mr Dubrovnik smiled. He had a very nice fatherly sort of smile that wrinkled his face up around his eyes and made him look about a hundred times less scary.

“And so, Ruby, why do you think I’ve asked you to come to this second audition today?” he asked. I thought about it for a moment and realised that this time I’d have to speak, so I concentrated on making my voice come out as normal as possible.

“Well,” I said, and this time I still sounded like a mouse but not one who had been breathing the helium from party balloons, “I thought you might have got me mixed up with another Ruby.” It was a terrible answer, but the only one I had, and I was rewarded with another one of Mr Dubrovnik’s friendly smiles. He laughed and shook his head.

“So you thought you did pretty badly, right?” he said, twinkling at me. I found myself smiling back at him as I nodded.

“Well, I’ll tell you,” he said. “You did. You were terrible. You let the situation rule you, and an actor can never, never allow that to happen. You have to rule the situation at all times. No matter how difficult it is. You have to own it. You’ll learn that if you ever work in live theatre.” I nodded.

“I have done live theatre,” I said quickly. “School plays.” Mr Dubrovnik laughed again and this time so did I. I had no idea that I was so hilarious. His face settled into a smile again and he leaned even further forward in his chair as if he were about to tell me a secret.

“I’ll tell you why you’re here, Ruby, and I won’t lie,” he told me. “You’ve got something none of the other girls going for this part have got.” I held my breath, hoping he was about to say something like “real talent”, but instead he said, “You’ve got history and years of experience. I’ve seen the show you were in, Kensington Lofts, or whatever.” I nodded. “I asked Sylvia to send me over some tapes after your first audition because I couldn’t believe that the performance you gave was really your best.” I shook my head with emphasis. “Thought not, so I watched about four episodes and—you were really good in it. Really good considering those scripts.” He smiled again; it was a smile that seemed to reach right up to his forehead. “Also, you might like to know that Miss Grant liked your audition. She said she thought you had something about you that might be right for the part.” I thought how nice that this Miss Grant, whoever she might be, liked me, and then I realised who he was talking about! Not just a Miss Grant, but the Miss Grant—Imogene Grant!

“Imogene Grant thought that from seeing the tape of my audition?” I said, sounding incredulous. “Did she see that last bit?” I asked him, mortified. He smiled.

“Afraid so,” he said. I clapped my hands over my eyes and he laughed again.

“Yeah, I know,” Art Dubrovnik said. “But even with the last bit, she wanted me to see you again and I’m not in the habit of saying no to my leading lady. So are you all set?”

I took a deep breath.

“As I’ll ever be,” I said.

Mr Dubrovnik nodded.

“Jeremy!” he called out to another room most politely. “Would you mind coming through now, please?” And my jaw dropped as Britain’s leading thespian and one of the world’s top film actors walked into the room. It was Jeremy Fort.

“Hello,” he said to me, giving me a little bow.

“My mum so loves you,” I said to him without thinking, and then they were both laughing. I felt myself flush red to the roots of my hair, which may have been a blessing in disguise because at least then they couldn’t see the blotches I was coming out in.

“I can see you know who Jeremy is,” Art Dubrovnik said. “He will be playing Polly’s ‘father’—the evil scientist who kidnaps her.” He handed me a script bound in a dark blue cover. “Here’s a short scene for you to learn. I want you to spend a few minutes learning your lines with Jeremy and then I’ll come back into the room and you give me your best shot, OK?”

I couldn’t speak; I was too busy praying my breakfast wouldn’t want to make another cameo appearance.

“Ruby,” Mr Dubrovnik said, gently but firmly, his smile settling in the bottom half of his face only. “If you want to act, you can’t be star-struck. You have to act like you’re just as important as anyone else in this room; you have to own this room, OK?” I nodded, and tried not to think about the fact that I barely had enough pocket money to own a box of complimentary matches, let alone anything else in this room.

“OK, I’ll try,” I managed to say, and then as I looked at Mr Dubrovnik’s encouraging smile spreading back past his eyebrows, I remembered what I had forgotten the first time. That this was my chance, my one chance to get it right and to at least do the best I could do, so that this afternoon and tomorrow and next week I wouldn’t be kicking myself, wishing again and again that I’d done things differently. This was my moment. I had to give it everything I could.

“I’ll give it my best shot, Mr Dubrovnik,” I said, my voice sounding clear and even again. Mr Dubrovnik looked pleased.

“I look forward to it,” he said.

When he had left the room Jeremy Fort looked at me and said, “Now then, Ruby, shall we begin?”

THE LOST TREASURE OF
KING ARTHUR©
A WIDE OPEN UNIVERSE
PRODUCTION
DIRECTED BY ART DUBROVNIK WRITTEN BY ART DUBROVNIK AND ADRIENNE SCOTT
STARRING: IMOGENE GRANT, HARRYMCLEAN AND SEAN RIVERS

INT. DAYTIME—PROFESSOR DARKLY’SOFFICE AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM

The office is lined with shelves of very old-looking books. There is a huge ancient-looking round table covered in scrolls and manuscripts. There is a mummified head on the table. It looks like it died in terrible agony. PROFESSOR DARKLY HARRIS stands with his back to camera, looking out of the window. POLLY HARRIS runs into the room to tell him what CATCHER SMITH has just told her. She is anxious and out of breath.

POLLY

Daddy! Daddy! Oh, thank goodness, there you are. You have to come quickly. There’s this American boy downstairs saying terrible things about you, Daddy! Terrible lies. He must be quite mad!

Professor Darkly turns around slowly and smiles at his “daughter”. It’s the dark, deadly smile of a monster who is preparing to finish off his prey.

PROFESSOR DARKLY

Now, now, Polly dear. Do calm down. I’m sure it’s just another tourist playing some kind of joke. You know what these Americans are like. They have no appreciation of any real history. Just sit down and tell me calmly what he said to you.

POLLY sits reluctantly at the table on the only free chair. She looks unhappily at the mummified head. It seems to be staring right at her.

POLLY

Well, this one knew a lot about Arthurian legend, Daddy. He said…he said that—that you weren’t my father at all! That you had kidnapped me because I was a child born on the seventh hour of the seventh day of the seventh month, which made me perfect for your evil purposes. He said that you were an evil scientist and worse still the direct descendant of the evil sorcerer Mordred. And that you were planning to resurrect the sleeping body of King Arthur and enslave him with a powerful spell, so that he would show you where the sword Excalibur was hidden, thus giving you the power to conquer the world and bring about an apocalypse!

PROFESSOR DARKLY laughs. It is a dark and menacing laugh, one that POLLY has never heard before from her beloved and kindly father. She starts to feel afraid of him but is still disbelieving. Professor Darkly leans menacingly over the table.

PROFESSOR DARKLY

And was there anybody else with this boy, my dear?

POLLY leans back in her chair.

POLLY

He said…he said he had come with my sister. My real sister who had been looking for me since the day you took me. He said her name was Flame Buchanen.

PROFESSOR DARKLY howls in rage and sweeps the papers off the round table. The mummified head falls into POLLY’S lap. She jumps up and screams.

PROFESSOR DARKLY

That cursed woman will ruin everything!

Polly creeps gradually further away from her father back towards the open door. She is very afraid and confused.

POLLY

Daddy? What do you mean it will ruin everything? What do you mean?

PROFESSOR DARKLY narrows his eyes and looks at his retreating daughter. Slowly, slowly he begins to stalk towards her, a terrible smile on his face.

PROFESSOR DARKLY

My dear, I had hoped to keep all this from you until the last moment. But I suppose it is almost the last moment. Everything that boy told you is true. I have raised you and pretended to love you. But our entire life has been a lie—a lie waiting for this day, this very night! For tonight is the night when the ancient prophecy shall come true at last and King Arthur will walk this earth again, but not as a hero to save the world from destruction. Oh, no, he will be my slave. And to make him my slave I need to make a sacrifice to my forefather Mordred. A human sacrifice, my dear. A child born on the seventh hour of the seventh day of the seventh month. A girl descended from Guinevere herself. I think you’ll find that’s you!

In tears of disbelief and fear POLLY runs towards the open door, but PROFESSOR DARKLY gets there first and slams it shut in her face.

Chapter Six

As we waited for Anne-Marie to come back from the audition suite, I went over and over the last half an hour again and again, just like I had with the first audition.

After about five minutes I had forgotten that Jeremy Fort was Jeremy Fort, and started to think of him as my fellow actor, just in the same way I would have thought of Nydia in the school play or Brett on the show. As we looked at the short but emotional scene, I started to feel just as I used to at work: I felt like I knew what I was doing.

I was wrong though—at least partly.

Jeremy told me that the first read-through of a scene should be to get the rhythm of the words, so as we read our lines to each other I tried my best to do what he said. But he stopped me and reminded me.

“Listen for the rhythm, Ruby; don’t turn it into a musical!” I looked at him. I had no time to bluff my way through.

“I don’t think I understand you,” I said, intently wanting to be able to. Jeremy thought for a moment.

“Ruby,” he said eventually. “If you want a career as an actor, you have to be the best of the best. You have to remember that whatever job you are doing, from a toothpaste commercial to a blockbuster movie, you have to treat it as if it were the role of a lifetime—a work of genius that the bard could have written himself. Remember that without your script you are literally nothing. Pay it respect and don’t just read it—listen to it. Listening to the rhythm of the lines and—even more crucially—to your fellow actors is the single most important skill you will ever learn as an actor. Because whether you and I have read this scene once or a thousand times, when our audience sees it, it must be absolutely fresh and spontaneous. Every single time you hear me say my lines to you, you have to listen to them as if it’s for the very first time.” Jeremy gave me a small tight smile. “If you can do that—you can do anything.”

And when he said that, it was as if I suddenly understood a really long and really difficult maths equation that I had been staring and staring at for hours and hours and was unable to make sense of. It was as if at last I understood this great big secret that everyone else had been in on except for me. In the space of five minutes, Jeremy Fort had given me knowledge that would make me a better actor no matter how this audition turned out. And that all by itself nearly made it worth coming here today, whatever the result.

But only nearly, because suddenly—knowing the kind of actors that I would be working with and learning from—I wanted the part even more badly.

“Wow,” I said, which wasn’t quite the wise and scholarly response I had been aiming for but it was all that came out.

“Good,” Jeremy said, his smile warming as he looked at his watch. “Right—well, we have twenty minutes left, so let’s read again.”

The second time he told me I was being too large. I took offence initially and said that I was only thirteen and that it wasn’t actually healthy to diet at my age. When he pointed out that he was not referring to my size but my acting, I was only a bit less offended.

“Large?” I asked him.

He nodded.

“Yes—look, you’ve done TV work, haven’t you?” I nodded. “Well, imagine your face on a screen that’s a thousand times bigger than a TV screen. Every tiny little twitch, every tiny little hair magnified to giant proportions.” I thought of the spot that Mum and I had spent several minutes trying to cover up this morning.

“Ew,” I said.

“Exactly—well the same goes for your acting. In film you don’t need to act large. Keep it small, but precise.” He looked at his watch again. “Well, Ruby, our time is up, I’m afraid.” I felt a wave of panic well up in my chest.

“But—I haven’t done it small yet! Can’t we do it quickly being small like you said?” I pleaded, my voice high and stupid again. “I’m too large!”

Jeremy smiled.

“Just remember everything we’ve talked about and—if you can—I promise you that you will do splendidly. Come on, we have to read for Art and Lisa now.”

There was something about the way he said Lisa’s name that made my stomach contract, because I knew that Lisa didn’t like me.

“Are assistant directors’ opinions very important?” I asked him in a very small voice. Jeremy gave me a sympathetic look and squeezed my shoulder as we walked to where Art and Lisa would be waiting.

“Let’s just say that this one’s is,” he said.

Something had happened when Jeremy and I acted the scene for Mr Dubrovnik and Lisa Wells, something that had never happened to me before.

For those ten minutes I forgot myself entirely. I forgot I was acting, forgot that I was reading lines, because for those few minutes I was Polly Harris, just discovering the truth about the father she loved. On the brink of understanding that in fact he was an evil historian who had kidnapped her at birth and was planning to sacrifice her at the precise moment the nine planets aligned, in an insane bid to bring about the end of the world. I felt Polly’s pain and confusion, her shock and fear, all mixed up with the feelings I had and could still remember from the night that Dad left us. Polly’s feelings and my feelings ran together likes two colours of paint mixing until we were one new shade and until I believed in her, I really believed in her. And whatever happened, I knew I had done my very best; I knew I could be proud of myself.

There had been a few moments’ silence as Jeremy and I had finished the scene and I saw Art Dubrovnik and Lisa Wells exchange looks.

“Well, thank you, Ruby,” Mr Dubrovnik said. “As you probably know our schedule for casting the part of Polly is very tight. We start filming really soon, so we’ll make a decision by the end of the day.”

I nodded, feeling a little dreamy as the hotel suite came back into focus around me. I was still half in Polly’s world.

“OK,” I managed to say. I looked at Jeremy. “Thank you for today,” I said. “It was amazing to have the chance to meet you and learn from you. Maybe if one day you didn’t have anything on you could come and do a masterclass at the academy. I’m sure Ms Lighthouse would love it. We’ve had a few famous actors—we had Brett Summers last year, who used to play my mum in Kensington Heights, although that was before the rehab. But I bet you’d be much better than her, all she talked about was herself and her new revised biography.”

Jeremy smiled and shook my hand.

“Well, if I happen to find myself one day with ‘nothing on’, I’ll pop by,” he said. “And well done—you really listened.”

That was an hour ago. I looked at my watch. Anne-Marie had been in there for nearly fifteen minutes longer than I had. They had been so strict about time in my audition, why were they letting hers run over the allocated slot? Perhaps they loved her so much they had offered her the part on the spot and were talking contracts.

I thought about how I would feel if Anne-Marie came out of there with the part already hers. I rehearsed it like Oscar nominees practise their loser’s face just as much as they practise their acceptance speeches. Gracious, happy and excited for her. Dignified. No, not bothered. That’s how I would be or at least that’s how I would act.

Suddenly the door opened and Mr Dubrovnik, Lisa Wells and Jeremy Fort followed a beaming and rosy-cheeked Anne-Marie into the room. With her skin glowing and her eyes sparkling, Anne-Marie looked really lovely, and I thought that that was it; they’d given her the part just because she was so beautiful.

“Ooooh!” A little stifled scream came from over my left shoulder, and I realised it was because Mum had spotted Jeremy Fort, who she fancied in an embarrassingly immature way.

“Mum!” I growled at her through my teeth.

“Janice!” Dad growled too, simultaneously, and both Mum and I looked sharply at him.

“Sorry. Force of habit,” he muttered, and Mum rolled her eyes.

“Well, Sylvia,” Art Dubrovnik said, “you certainly have brought me two very fine students today. You can be proud of them—and your academy.”

“Of course,” Sylvia Lighthouse said, as if she had expected the world’s leading film director to compliment her exactly as he had.

“I have two other girls to see after lunch,” Mr Dubrovnik told all of us, “and then I’ll call Ms Lighthouse at the academy to let you know either way. But I want you to know that you were both great, really great. If you don’t get this part it’s not because you’re not brilliant young actresses.”

Anne-Marie and I smiled, and she reached out her fingers and caught my hand and squeezed it.

“Good luck,” Mr Dubrovnik said.

And that was it.

It was over.

Chapter Seven

The afternoon felt sort of like walking through clear jelly: I could see everything and hear everything that was going on around me, but I felt separated from the real world as if I were floating alongside it rather than being part of it.

We discussed it at length over lunch, all of us—Anne-Marie, Danny, Nydia and I, and even Menakshi, Jade and Michael Henderson, about how we might find out the news.

“If it’s bad news,” Anne-Marie said, “she’ll call us into her office. She’ll give us a speech on taking rejection on the chin and keeping our chins up. A lot of her speeches are about chins—have you noticed?”

“But if it’s good,” Menakshi said, “she might make an announcement to the whole school in a special assembly, like when Wade Jackson two years above us got that record contract.” Menakshi looked thoughtful. “Whatever happened to Wade Jackson?”

“The fickle finger of fame moved on,” Danny said, doing a passable impersonation of Sylvia Lighthouse delivering the catchphrase that seemed to be closest to her heart.

Anne-Marie and I looked at each other.

“But if it’s bad news for both of us, it will definitely be in her office,” I said.

“What if it’s only good news for one of you?” Nydia, who had been quiet until that moment, asked me. “What then?”

“She’ll call us into her office and tell us together,” Anne-Marie said before I could answer. “And there won’t be any hard feelings, will there, Ruby? I’ll be as happy if Ruby gets the part as if I do.”

There were a few muttered “Yeah, rights”, groans and giggles at that.

“I will!” Anne-Marie protested.

“Well it might be neither of us,” I said simply. “Those other girls they saw this afternoon might be exactly what they were looking for.”

I thought about what it would mean to get the part of Polly Harris in The Lost Treasure of King Arthur and my insides did a series of complicated Olympic-gold-medal-winning gymnastics. I took a breath and steadied my voice.

“And anyway, if one of us does get it, it means really big changes. Going away from school and home for ages. Getting an on-set tutor! It will all be really different. Maybe it would be better not to get it,” I said, feeling suddenly anxious.

Nydia looked at me sharply.

“You don’t mean that,” she said darkly. I half-smiled.

“I don’t suppose I do,” I said, “but it is a scary thought!” Normally Nydia would have caught my half-smile and stretched it into a full-sized one as she returned it to me. But this time she didn’t smile back at me.

As everyone else filed back to class, I had fallen into step with Nydia, letting Anne-Marie and the others walk ahead.

“Nydia,” I said. “You’re cross with me.”

“I’m not.” Nydia was terrible at lying.

“You so are,” I said reproachfully. “You didn’t call me to wish me good luck like you did Anne-Marie.”

Nydia rolled her eyes.

“Because I know that you don’t need any luck,” she said sharply.

I stopped walking.

“What do you mean I don’t need any luck?” I asked her. Nydia stopped too and turned round to look at me.

“Well,” she said, “you got called back. You got called back when you did the worst audition in the history of the world! Why? Because you are Ruby Parker. I don’t think you even had to audition really; I think they would have given you the part whatever. This whole thing was probably just one big publicity stunt for the film.”

I stared at her and thought about what Art Dubrovnik had said to me that morning, and my heart sank. You’ve got history, Ruby, you’ve worked in TV. But then I remembered what else he had said.

“I got called back because Imogene Grant liked my audition,” I said. “She said I had something about me that might be right for the part. That’s why I got called back. Because what the star says goes.” Nydia raised an eyebrow.

“So not because you were any good then?” she asked me, turning on her heel and walking off down the corridor.

“Nydia!” I called after her. “I can’t believe you are being like this!”

“I was better than you,” she said as I caught up with her. “I was better than you, but I didn’t get called back because I’m big and ugly and nobody in the world would believe that a big fat girl was Imogene Grant’s sister!”

“Nydia, I…” I didn’t know what to say. I remembered how I felt when I looked at Anne-Marie, so tall and pretty and blonde, sparkling like a diamond when she came out of the audition. I felt like the ugly duckling then, and I suppose Nydia must have felt the same since the moment she didn’t get called back.

“Nydia,” I said, “maybe you’re right. Maybe it isn’t fair. You probably were better than me. And it probably does have something to do with Kensington Heights. But—what could I have done about that? Not gone to the audition? Said, ‘No thanks very much, I’ll pass’?”

Nydia shook her head and looked at her feet, sighing heavily.

“I’ve got an audition,” she said in a quiet voice. “Ms Lighthouse put me forward for it. It’s for three episodes of Holby City. It’s a proper part, with lines and everything. A lot of lines actually.”

“Nydia! Your first ever speaking part. I bet you’re excited!” I hugged her impulsively, but she didn’t hug me back. “That’s wonderful,” I said, a little less enthusiastically.

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