Centre Stage: A Novel

Harriet asked.
    ‘What did you do at the weekend?’ Ally said.
    I smiled at them both. I knew they were trying to stop me feeling embarrassed. I was very glad they — and Jess — were there.
    ‘I am so going to get lost!’ Harriet fretted as we headed through the throng of people down a maze of corridors to our formroom. ‘I just know I’m going to get lost.’
    ‘Me too,’ Ally moaned.
    ‘Jessica told me she once missed a whole Maths lesson because she couldn’t find the classroom she was supposed to be in,’ I told them.
    The noise in the corridor was deafening as everyone all around us discussed their summer holidays. There seemed to be so many people and they all seemed so tall. Bags bumped against me and people pushed past.
    ‘Here we are,’ Ally announced as we stopped outside a classroom with a nameplate saying 7GD on the door. GD were the initials of our form tutor, Mr Davey.
    As we walked in I felt a rush of relief that the three of us were all in the same form. There were about twenty people in the room already. Some were sitting on their own, others were in small groups. They all looked at us as we entered.
    I knew about four other people from primary school. I smiled at them and they smiled back.
    ‘Let’s sit there,’ Ally said quickly, pointing out three free seats by the window.
    We went over. The seats were arranged in pairs. Harriet sat by the window. I dumped my bag on the chair next to hers and Ally sat down at a pair of empty desks just behind us. I looked around.
    There was a group of three girls sitting on desks at the back of the room, and near them a large group of boys. On the opposite side of the room to us I could see Saskia Roberts and Julie West, two of Justine Wilcox’s friends.
    Julie caught my eye. ‘Did you hear about Justine?’ she called across the room.
    ‘No, what?’ I asked, going over to her.
    ‘She’s not going to come to school here,’ Julie answered.
    ‘Where’s she going?’ I said in surprise. Justine hadn’t said anything about not coming to Charles Hope when I had last seen her on the film set. In fact, she’d said she’d see me at school.
    ‘She’s going to that stage school on the other side of town.’
    ‘What?’ I said. ‘Clawson Academy of Performing Arts?’
    ‘Yeah, that’s the one,’ Julie replied. ‘She liked being in the film so much that she asked her mum and dad if she could go there and they said yes. She had to have an audition but she got a place and so she’s started there now.’
    I was stunned. Justine Wilcox was going to a theatre school! She’d get to learn all about acting and be in loads of shows.
    ‘So how come you’re not going to a posh stage school, Sophie?’ Julie said. ‘I mean, with you having been in that film and everything, I’d have thought you’d have gone somewhere like that instead of here,’ she said, looking around as if I was mad to want to come to Charles Hope.
    I shrugged. I’d never thought about going to school anywhere else apart from Charles Hope. ‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘I…’
    A voice interrupted me. ‘Hey, are you the girl that was in that film?’
    I looked round. It was one of the three girls at the back who had spoken. She had poker-straight shoulder-length brown hair and was wearing mascara and tinted lipgloss. ‘Well?’ she demanded.
    I nodded. ‘Yeah, I was in the film.’
    Everyone stopped talking — even the boys — and stared at me.
    ‘Cool,’ the girl said, glancing at her two friends who were both looking impressed. ‘I read about you in the paper.’
    I wasn’t sure what to say. I settled for smiling in what I hoped was a friendly but not bigheaded way. It seemed to work. The girl jumped off her desk and came over with her friends.
    ‘I’m Kelly,’ she said, smiling back. ‘This is Leanne,’ she nodded to the girl on her left. Leanne had wavy blonde hair caught back in two butterfly clips, and green eyes like a cat’s. ‘And this is Rachel.’ Rachel’s sleek black hair was cut into a short bob. ‘We were all at Outfields Primary together,’ Kelly informed me.
    ‘I was at Ashton Primary,’ I told her. I was relieved to see that the boys had lost interest in the conversation and had gone back to their oh-so-mature game of pushing each other to see who would fall off their desk first.
    ‘Why don’t you come and sit with us?’ Kelly said.
    ‘It’s OK. I’m sitting with my friends,’ I replied, turning and smiling at Ally and