Centre Stage: A Novel

different teacher for each lesson. I was sure if I didn’t get lost I was going to forget the books I needed.
    ‘Where shall we sit?’ Harriet said when we reached the Maths room.
    ‘Not too near the front,’ I replied. I hate being right under the teacher’s nose.
    ‘All right, but not too near the back either,’ Harriet compromised. ‘We want to be able to see the board clearly.’
    ‘Sophie!’
    Hearing my name called out, I looked round. It was Kelly who had spoken. ‘Do you want to come and sit by us?’ she said, nodding to a spare desk next to Rachel at the back of the room. It was the only desk left in the back row.
    ‘It’s OK, thanks,’ I told her. ‘I’m going to sit with Harriet.’
    ‘Let’s go over here, Sophie,’ Harriet said, heading for two desks in the third row.
    I smiled quickly at Kelly and followed Harriet.
    As I sat down I heard a suppressed snigger from the back of the room. I glanced round. Rachel and Leanne were leaning close to Kelly. All three of them were looking at the gap between Harriet’s trousers and her shoes. Kelly was whispering something and the other two were grinning.
    My cheeks flushed. OK, they weren’t laughing at me but I felt embarrassed for Harriet. I turned away quickly.
    ‘I wonder what our teacher will be like?’ Harriet said enthusiastically as she got her books out. ‘I hope we don’t get Mr Jenson. Emily had him in Year Eight and she was always going on about how strict he is.’ She began to line up two pencils, a rubber and a ruler very neatly on her desk.
    Just then the door opened and our teacher came in. It wasn’t Mr Jenson; it was an oldish woman called Miss Foster. ‘We’re going to start by looking at types of numbers,’ she said as we all settled down. ‘Who can tell me what a squared number is?’
    Harriet and a few of the others put their hands up.
    ‘Yes?’ Miss Foster said to Harriet.
    ‘A squared number is a number multiplied by itself,’ Harriet said promptly.
    ‘Good. And who can tell me what a cubed number is?’
    A boy at the back answered that question.
    ‘And what about the square root of a number?’
    Harriet’s arm shot out. She was the only person to put her hand up this time.
    Miss Foster smiled. ‘Yes?’
    The words rushed out of Harriet. ‘The square root of a number is the number you start with when you square a number, so the square root of twenty-five is five and the square root of a hundred is ten. You can only find the square root of a positive number and every real number has two square roots.’
    ‘Very good,’ Miss Foster said, looking impressed. She checked her register. ‘Harriet Chase, isn’t it?’
    Harriet beamed. ‘Yes, miss.’
    ‘You got a level six on your SATs, didn’t you?’
    ‘Yes, miss.’
    ‘Very impressive.’
    Around us I could feel a few people exchanging looks, and from the back I heard an unmistakable snigger. I swung round. Kelly was rolling her eyes mockingly at Leanne and Rachel. I quickly turned back to the front. Harriet grinned at me. I could tell she was really pleased at being noticed by Miss Foster. I forced myself to smile back but inside my tummy felt like it had a hyperactive goldfish squirming round inside it. Something told me that Harriet’s keenness wasn’t going to go down very well at Charles Hope.
    The rest of the lesson passed in a haze of boredom. Square numbers, prime numbers, factors, multiples …
    The words spun round meaninglessly in my head and when we were told to start an exercise in our Maths books, my thoughts drifted to the audition at the weekend. What was it going to be like? I chewed on my pencil. I had prepared a speech to do — it was the start of one of the scenes in the film. Excitement shivered through me as I imagined standing on the big stage at the theatre, looking out at rows and rows of seats and saying my lines…
    The clack of Miss Foster’s heels jerked me out of my daydream. I quickly bent my head over my work and wrote down a number — any number — just so it looked like I was working. School can be so boring at times.
    ‘Sophie! Harriet!’ As we made our way along the crowded corridor that led out of the Maths block we heard a familiar voice behind us.
    ‘Ally!’ I exclaimed, swinging round.
    Ally pushed her way towards us. ‘I thought you were never going to stop. I’ve been calling to you from right the way down the corridor.’
    ‘How are you?’ Harriet asked.
    ‘Miserable. It’s awful I’m not