you mine! I want to sing, I want to run, to soar in the sky above! What’s happening to me? Could it be I’m in love? Music fades. SEBASTIAN looks wistfully out of his bedroom window at the moon and then draws down his blind as his roommates enter. ARIAL takes one more look at the moon and then climbs back in through the window, pulling it down behind her. Scene closes.
Chapter Three
“Right,” I said to everyone as we sat in the waiting room right outside where the screen testing was, with a slight note of panic in my voice. “All we have to do is act, sing and dance. It will be fine.”
“It won’t be fine,” Nydia said anxiously. “This isn’t a scene, it’s a whole act! I thought they’d give us less to do and more time to prepare. I thought we’d get the scene and then at least have a chance to rehearse. I didn’t think they’d hand us a huge script and then tell us we’ll be seen on set in about five minutes. And that was four minutes ago!”
“Don’t panic,” Gabe said, taking her hand. “This is your role. You’ve played Arial on TV in front of millions. OK, so this is a new song and a new scene that none of us have ever seen before, written especially for the film. But it’s still Arial, and you still know how to play Arial better than anyone.”
Nydia smiled at him and I thought that I really had toget her on her own soon and ask exactly what was happening between those two. But now wasn’t the time.
“Gabe’s right,” I said. “We’ve prepared as much as anyone could. Now we just have to do our best.”
“How can you be so calm?” Nydia asked, dropping Gabe’s hand as if she’d only just realised that she was holding it.
“By pretending mostly,” I said. “Look, if you don’t want to do it, just say. Nothing bad will happen, except that you definitely won’t get a part in the film and will have to spend the summer in London.”
“I want to do it,” Nydia said, biting her lip. “Only in about two weeks , not two minutes!”
“I really wanted to do my scene with Sean.” Anne-Marie spoke for the first time since she’d been handed the script. “We’d be so good together in this scene. I can’t believe that he’s not here.”
That morning Sean had woken up with a temperature and a sore throat. He’d told, or rather croaked to, his mum that he wouldn’t be able to screen test-after all. His mum had phoned the studio to tell them and they said they had to go ahead and start the casting process today, but that they’d be happy to wait for Sean to get better before they made the final decision on male roles. By which they meant the part of Sebastian, because therewould never be any way that Sean Rivers would get any part in any film that wasn’t the lead.
I’d found Sean lying on the sofa watching TV just before we left.
“Well, there are no radiators on in here, it’s much too hot,” I said, crossing my arms and tipping my head on one side. “So tell me – how did you fake your temperature?”
“Dipped the thermometer in a mug of tea,” he confessed in his normal voice. I shook my head. It was hard to be cross with Sean, but I wanted to give it a go.
“OK, so you’ve managed to get out of it today, but how long are you going to be able to keep it up? You can’t have a sore throat forever, you know.”
“I know,” Sean said, grinning at me. “I was thinking it could progress to a chesty cough, maybe a rash and then, oh, I don’t know – the bubonic plague. That would do it.”
I tired hard not to laugh, but failed.
“Have you worked out how you are going to reach your dad yet?” I asked, glancing at the door to make sure we weren’t being overheard.
“No,” Sean admitted. “But I will. The first thing I have to do is find out his address, because he’s moved. I need to find out where he is living or working. I’m going to do that today.”
“Your mum is staying home with you,” I reminded him in a whisper as I heard voices in