Shooting Star Read Online Free Page B

the hall. “You won’t just be able to look him up in Yellow Pages. ”
    “I know,” Sean said. “I wasn’t in the movie Kid: Super Spy for nothing, you know. I picked up a few tricks of the trade.” He smiled at me again, that same but new smile that suddenly seemed to unsettle me the way it did every other girl in the entire world. I didn’t like it.
    “Don’t smile at me,” I said without thinking, as my tummy did a backflip.
    “What? Why not?” Sean asked me.
    I stared at him for a second or two trying to think of something to say that didn’t involve the words “because I think I’m getting a bit of a crush on you for some bizarre reason and you smiling at me only makes it worse”.
    “I…um…because I am in the zone. If you smile at me I’ll want to smile at you and then I’ll be out of the, er, zone thingy and um…It’s like Anne-Marie, your girlfriend and my best friend, is always saying, you have to stay in the zone.”
    Sean’s smile widened. “You are crazy, Ruby Parker,” he told me. “But that’s what I’ve always liked about you.”
    “Sean!” Anne-Marie rushed into the room wearing a paper mask over her face, presumably to protect her from his germs. “Are you sure you can’t come? Because when you get out there in front of the camera, the adrenaline will kick in and I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
    “Can’t talk,” Sean croaked, shrugging apologetically.
    “But I really want you to come,” Anne-Marie said miserably.
    “Break a leg,” Sean had managed, and I dragged Anne-Marie out to the car.
    And now we were in a room waiting to be called for a screen test. The funny thing was that on the other side of the door was a full-size movie set of a building, complete with a life-size fire escape that each of us was supposed to perform a “dance interlude” on. For the first time ever in my acting career, it was quite likely that I actually would break a leg.

Chapter Four
    On the way back to Jeremy’s house we were all silent. Finally Anne-Marie spoke up.
    “I can’t believe how awful I was!” she moaned miserably, staring out of the car window.
    “You weren’t that bad,” Gabe told her. “At least you remembered the words. I forgot every other line. I’m sorry, Anne-Marie. I messed up and I know it means a lot more to you than it does to me.”
    Gabe and Anne-Marie had been paired together for their screen test, whereas Nydia and I had two total strangers as our Sebastians.
    “It wasn’t your fault,” Anne-Marie said, smiling wanly at Gabe. “At least when you said your lines you were brilliant. I remembered all of mine, but I might as well have been reading them off the back of a packet of cornflakes for all the feeling that I managed to get in them. And the song!” She clutched suddenly at her throat. “Maybe I’m catching Sean’ssore throat. Maybe that’s why my singing was so off.”
    “At least you two knew each other,” said Nydia. “My Sebastian was a metre taller than me and he couldn’t look me in the eye. There’s nothing more off-putting than a boy telling you he thinks you’re beautiful when he’s gazing at your left ear.”
    “You’ve been very quiet, Ruby,” Anne-Marie said. “What was your Sebastian like?”
    I had been standing looking up with some trepidation at the fire escape where I was soon to be sitting when I had been introduced to my Sebastian.
    “Ruby, isn’t it?” A lady with headphones and a clipboard approached me. “You have about twenty minutes before we start filming your scene. Now would be a good time for you to meet Henry Dufault. He’ll be your Sebastian today.”
    She’d stood aside to reveal a boy of about fifteen with a distinct look that wasn’t like any other boy I knew. Henry had long dark hair that reached down to his shoulders and fell across his brown eyes, which looked as if they were lined with eyeliner. He wore a red T-shirt featuring a band I was not nearly cool enough to have heard of, skinny