Strawberry Sisters (6 page)

‘There must be some things,’ she said.

I put a cushion behind my back. ‘What things?’

‘Things that boys can do that girls can’t.’

I rested my feet on the coffee table. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘What about grow a beard?’

‘Remember Mrs Russell?’ Mrs Russell used to babysit for us; she had more facial hair than Mr Russell.

‘Oh, yeah. She had a beard didn’t she?’

‘And a moustache.’ I took out my phone to see if Lauren had replied to my text about Josh, but she hadn’t. Lucy got out her pens to draw Mrs Russell, only she got carried away
with the hair and our old babysitter ended up more like that furry one from
Star Wars
. Chloe stayed in the kitchen with Suvi for a long time. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but
they both looked a lot more cheerful when they came out.

After tea, I called Lauren to ask her when our biology homework was supposed to be in, but her mum said she was already in bed. Weird. It was only eight o’clock. I crossed my fingers that
she wasn’t getting ill again.

I ended up going to bed pretty early myself. Lucy barged into the bathroom while I was cleaning my teeth.

‘Gor’ ’posed to be ’sleep,’ I said through the toothpaste foam.

‘I nearly am,’ she said, balancing on the edge of the bath in a very unsleepy way. ‘But I thought of something boys can do that girls can’t.’

I spat and rinsed. ‘What?’

‘Pee standing up.’

I pushed her out of the bathroom door. ‘You can get a special adaptor to do that.’

‘Really?’ Her eyes bulged. ‘I think I know what I want for Christmas.’

I probably wouldn’t admit it, because everybody knows how much I hate school, but I actually like staying late for rehearsals. Once most pupils have gone home, the whole
atmosphere of the building changes and I feel sort of special because I’m here working on something important.

I’d given Lauren the booklet of music and lyrics, and talked her through most of Mr Garcia’s ramblings from last week, so, as long as Milly kept her big mouth shut, there was no
reason for anyone to know that she’d missed the first rehearsal. Except Lauren didn’t exactly do a good job of looking like an enthusiastic participant. She was slumped down in her
chair, looking thoroughly bored. When Mr Garcia started the warm-up, I had to poke her to get her on her feet.

‘Right,’ said Mr Garcia, picking up a sheaf of papers. ‘Time is moving on and we need to start working on solos, so this afternoon I would like to try out a few different
voices.’

Mr Garcia always talks about ‘voices’ rather than the people they belong to. Sometimes he makes me feel like my voice is something separate from me. And more important.

‘I’ll leave you in Mr O’Brien’s capable hands while I audition in the big practice room those of you looking for the responsibility of a larger role.’ He looked
down at his list. ‘First on my list is . . . Bartek Tarasewicz.’

Bartek stood up. He shook his long dark fringe out of his eyes and grinned. He didn’t seem nervous at all. He only joined our school this year, but even on his very first day I remember
him looking totally at home. He definitely had the confidence to be a good performer. I’d never heard him sing, but Milly told me that Olivia told her that he’s got a great singing
voice.

The rest of us started work on ‘Walking in a Winter Wonderland’ with Mr O’Brien. Even though I was standing right next to Lauren, I couldn’t hear her singing. I stole a
sideways glance at her. She was barely even moving her lips.

‘What’s the matter?’ I whispered, but she just jerked her head in Mr O’Brien’s direction; he was staring right at us over the top of the piano. I didn’t get
it. Normally, she was so keen on singing. I looked at Lauren again; her face was tense and I wondered if she was in pain.

‘Do you feel all right?’ I asked.

‘It’s just a bit of a headache,’ she muttered.

I was sorry she was hurting, but at least it explained her lack of enthusiasm. I’d been starting to think that she didn’t want to do the concert at all.

Before I could ask her if she wanted to go home, Mr Garcia came back into the hall followed by Bartek. When Mr Garcia walks, his whole body is pulled up tight like a violin string whereas Bartek
strolls along, smiling into the distance, like he’s beside the sea on a sunny day. They looked so funny together that I nearly laughed. Then Mr Garcia called me to audition and my laugh
turned to ice in my throat.

I wove my way between the other singers and followed Mr Garcia out of the hall and down the corridor to the practice room.

‘I hope you don’t mind an audience,’ he said. ‘I’ve got my sixth-form music group in, just so that they can give me the benefit of their opinions.’ He opened
the door and I was faced with five Year Thirteens sitting at a long table like an interview panel.

I wondered what Mr Garcia would say if I told him I did mind, but he clearly wasn’t expecting any sort of reply. Almost all of the time that Mr Garcia talks, he just wants you to take in
what he’s saying without coming back with any thoughts of your own.

I don’t normally mind singing in front of people; in fact, I love it. But, because I’d been thinking about this concert for so long and because I really, really wanted a solo, my
heart started pumping hard and I could feel my face getting hot. I bit my lip; I had to control my nerves or I’d make mistakes and then there would be no chance of a good part.

Mr Garcia sat down at the piano. ‘Let’s hear what you’ve just been doing with Mr O’Brien,’ he said, launching into the intro before I’d had a chance to nod in
reply.

I pulled my spine up straight: it’s important to be able to get as much air into your lungs as possible when you’re singing. I listened to Mr Garcia carefully to make sure I came in
at exactly the right moment. Halfway through the first line, I saw one of the Year Thirteens writing something down and I panicked; my voice wobbled and Mr Garcia looked up sharply, but I pulled it
back and after that my body sort of went into automatic mode. When I was finished, Mr Garcia had me try a verse from two of the other songs. I didn’t make any more really obvious mistakes but
once he stopped to tell me how he would like the line and made me sing it again. I hoped I’d done that OK because it’s really important that he knows that I can take direction.

When I finished the last song, the Year Thirteens clapped politely, but it was hard to tell what Mr Garcia thought. He just said, ‘Thank you, Amelia,’ and walked with me back to the
hall to call out another name.

‘How did it go?’ Lauren asked as I slipped back into my place beside her.

‘OK-ish.’

She gave me a big smile and held up crossed fingers, which made me think that at least she seemed to care about me being in the concert.

We had to sit through another hour of rehearsing the group numbers before Mr Garcia had finished all the auditions. He stood in front of us, holding his clipboard, and everyone was so keen to
hear who had the solos that he didn’t even have to ask for silence.

‘Before I read out the names of the chosen few, I would like to remind you that in taking on a featured part you are also taking on a responsibility,’ he began. ‘I expect
commitment and one hundred per cent attendance at the extra rehearsals. If you can’t manage that then you will lose your part.’ He cleared his throat. ‘The solo in “Jingle
Bell Rock” will be sung by Nathan Weisgard . . .’

Nathan did an air-guitar solo and tossed his long hair about like an eighties rock star, but I could hardly process the names being read out. Every part of me was focused in on hearing my own
name. My heart had started to gallop again. I was jiggling my foot like I do when I’ve got a stomach ache. The further Mr Garcia got down the list, the more convinced I was that I
wasn’t going to have a special part. Lauren reached out and took my hand.

‘“Baby, It’s Cold Outside” – Bartek Tarasewicz and Amelia Strawberry.’

I couldn’t help a small gasp. Lauren squeezed my hand hard as I smiled at her. I looked across at Bartek and he grinned back at me. I was so pleased. It was definitely my favourite song in
the whole concert and, unlike some of the other solos where people only got a verse to themselves before the chorus came crashing in, Bartek and I were going to sing the whole thing by
ourselves.

Mr Garcia reached the end of his list and dismissed us with more dire warnings about not missing rehearsals.

As we started to gather our stuff together, I turned to Lauren. ‘How’s your head?’ I asked.

‘It’s better,’ she said.

I didn’t mean to go on about her not auditioning, but I couldn’t help saying, ‘I’m really sad you’re not doing a solo too.’

She picked up her bag and stood up slowly. ‘I really don’t mind,’ she said. But there was something brittle about her voice that made me think that perhaps she did. I tried to
get a really good look at her face, but she was half turned away from me, staring down at the floor. ‘In fact,’ she said really quietly, ‘I’m not sure that I’m going
to bother with the concert this year.’

I sucked in my breath. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t think I want to be in it.’ She finally looked up at me and it was as if she was begging me to understand. But I didn’t understand at all.

‘I thought you liked doing concerts,’ I said.

She twisted her bag strap in her hands. ‘I do. But you heard what Mr Garcia said about having to attend all the rehearsals. I think I’ve got an orthodontist appointment coming up and
my mum said she might let me have a day off school to go Christmas shopping in London.’

I blinked. Lauren’s mum didn’t seem the type to let you miss school to go shopping. She always seems quite uptight about schoolwork.

‘Couldn’t you do that stuff on days when there aren’t rehearsals?’

Lauren looked away again. ‘I just think I’m going to give it a miss this year.’

It still didn’t make any sense to me. ‘We’ve been looking forward to doing this for ages.’

‘You can still do it.’

‘I wanted to do it with you!’ I hadn’t meant to say that quite so sharply but I couldn’t believe that this was happening. ‘Look,’ I said trying to sound
gentle, ‘you’ve got a headache; it’ll be more fun next week when you’re better. Why don’t you wait and see how you feel about it then?’

To my horror, Lauren clenched her jaw and stared fiercely out of the window. I was afraid she was going to cry.

‘I’m not going to do this concert,’ she said eventually. ‘Please stop going on about it.’

And she looked so upset that I said, ‘OK. If that’s what you really want.’ Even though I was totally confused about what was going on.

She took a long, shuddery breath and tried to smile. ‘I’ll still come and watch you,’ she said. ‘You’re going to be brilliant. I can’t wait to see you
onstage.’

That was the first thing that she’d said all afternoon that sounded like she really meant it.

I thought about Lauren all that evening. I decided that there were only two possible explanations for her dropping out of the concert. Either she’d decided that she
didn’t like singing any more or she was feeling so ill that she didn’t really know what she was saying. Since she’d looked so upset about the whole thing, I thought it was more
likely that her headache had been messing with her. The most sensible and mature thing I could do would be not to push her on it until she was feeling better and then, just before next week’s
rehearsal, I could check that she was really sure about her decision. So the next morning I was super careful to keep the conversation completely away from singing.

We had a great day. Cute Josh sat in front of us in chemistry and we sketched the back of his head. (He’s got a very nice neck.) Then we had French and Madame told us
that it’s possible to say a great deal with your eyes so Lauren and I spent the rest of the lesson trying to communicate by blinking and staring and rolling our eyes.

‘Guess what this means,’ I whispered, and I used my eyes to mime my powerful attraction to Cute Josh.

‘Do you need something to be sick in?’ Lauren asked.

We cracked up.

Our last lesson was biology and Lauren made a countdown of the minutes until we were free for the weekend. We took it in turns to strike the minutes off.