Diamond Star Girl (3 page)

I have decided to have the mumps. Not for real of course, but for the purposes of getting out of being Nick’s friend for the evening of the dance while he makes eyes at Donna who will no doubt be busy being all mature about the situation across the room.

I called Ro and Paul into my room for an intervention.

‘Why can’t he get himself sorted and like me?’ I wailed.

Paul said something about Nick liking me just not in
that
way, which was
so
uncalled for and outrageously too much truth given the situation.
Good thing Ro always has a practical-sounding answer that makes me feel good. She is the most practical person I know, she even has her own screwdriver set and emergency cash, which she doesn’t spend on shoe emergencies the way I would. Very weird for someone so fashionable and cute not to be in the least bit flaky. She doesn’t even get crazy over guys, she just sees one she likes, dates him them dumps him when she feels she’s outgrown him (usually after three weeks or so).

Anyway, when I asked why Nick isn’t into me, she said,

‘It’s because he’s a guy and they are always at least five years behind where they should be. My mum said that Dad is now exactly the man she wanted half a decade ago.’

‘You could be right,’ I sighed, ‘I mean Paul here only stopped wetting the bed last week! Hey! You’re not allowed punch me when I’m depressed! Hit Ro instead, it’s her theory.’

‘Three years from now Nick Collins will be kicking himself,’ Ro continued. ‘And where will you be, Lemony my girl? Off in a private jet with some guy who doesn’t fancy Donna.’

‘Or I’ll be here, with you and Paul and a new
cinnamon candle and the same problems,’ I said.

‘No, Lem. You’ll have
much
better problems by then,’ Ro smiled.

‘We’ll make sure of that,’ Paul added helpfully.

Somehow I didn’t feel that much better. It seems that ever since the summer holidays began I’m either having a bad day or recovering from one.

‘When does it all get good?’ I wondered.

‘Soon, funny girl, very soon,’ Ro reassured me.

‘And when do I get to be one of the beautiful ones?’

‘That happens, dear sister, as soon as you can afford the surgery.’

And with that Ro ordered Paul out of the room. She is the only person who can control him. I think this is because she has three dogs and there are training similarities.

Oh, and the dinner last night was fine. It was made easier by the fact that The Grange is
such
a cool place, and they have a caterer or cook to do the food
and
Stephen has a friend called Alex staying with him who is very easy on the eye and doesn’t speak a word of Chinese. Alex’s dad is a film producer and is shooting a film in town so he’ll be here for the summer. He’s not the kind of guy for me as he has really dark spiky hair and he’s at least five inches
shorter than me, I know that shouldn’t matter, but it does to me so there you go. After dinner Stephen, Alex and I went off to the upstairs library while our parents good-naturedly debated something that you need to be fluent in dull to understand.

I admit to being a complete sucker for a house-library and this is the best I’ve ever seen. It has floor to ceiling mahogany shelves and huge leaded windows, and the books are all over a hundred years old, leather-bound with gilt lettering. It had grown a bit chilly so their housekeeper lit a turf fire in the fireplace, and we sank into these huge leather armchairs. Alex told us about a film he worked on last summer as an extra, while Stephen and I listened, which I think suited all of us just fine. I hope Stephen doesn’t think we’re friends because of being in his company twice in one week. Imagine if he came up to me when I was with the others in town and presumed he could hang out. I don’t want to be mean, but I’m close enough to being an outcast as it is, and a geek like him would hardly make anyone look like a social superstar.

By now all anger over Nick has morphed into complete humiliation and I am hoping that by tomorrow it will have faded to a slight shame. And
that
I can live with because I know it so well. I’d love a life free of feeling like the freak of the universe.

Ro wanted to do the manifesting circle thing again tonight to imagine being a film star and famous artist, but I didn’t have the heart for it. What’s the point of being a film star if the guy you fancy is going out with Donna Henderson?

She also said that flu would be better than mumps so I can recover in time to be back in town looking stunning the day after. Of course she is right.

In the end I gave myself a better offer instead of an infectious disease and contacted Nick with the news that I’d been invited to dinner with an important family friend and wouldn’t be able to go to the dance.

Mum needed help with tidying away all the things we took out of storage for the party so that has taken up most of today. It’s now early in the evening so I think I might try that visualising and speaking the word about being an actress, just because it hurts too much to think about Nick and he keeps creeping back into my head. At least this way if he does sneak back in he’ll have competition from hunky leading men.

I have written it out on a piece of paper, everything that I intend to have happen, and Ro has done the same over at her place and we’re going to hang onto them until we can organise to float them out to sea or burn them in a ceremonial … er … ceremony I guess.

Mine is written in the dark purple ink I use for journalling, and it fills a page that I ripped from the back of this. It says:

I was doing all this meditating, laundry, reading difficult books and clearing out of cupboards, checking out stuff on the computer in the sitting room (one computer and fifty million books – what a house!) and just about anything to get my mind off
the fact that I was NOT snogging Nick behind the stage at the junior M&D dance, when the freakiest thing happened! This could make the summer interesting after all and not the marshland of self-pity it was panning out to be. This very minute I’ve just returned from meeting with the girls and it’s still sinking in. You’d think I’d be used to surprises by now, taking into account all the practice I’ve been given this week.

HERE IT IS!

Boring Brown Stephen phoned (must start calling him Stephen in case that slips out some time) and Mum refused to pretend I wasn’t in like I asked her to. I was
praying
he wasn’t going to ask me on a date or anything, but in fact his dad made him phone me, a point which was made
very
clear in the first minute of the conversation. He explained that Alex’s dad, the film producer, has arranged to shoot part of his movie at The Grange, because it’s a historical drama and they need a huge old house with grounds. AND film-producer-dad wanted Alex and Stephen to find teenagers to audition for sixteen teen extra parts in the film, eight guys and eight girls. At first I thought he wanted me to introduce him to some teenagers who might be good, but in fact he wants ME to
audition too! I so heavily hinted about how perfect Ro and the others would be that by the end of the conversation he asked would I mind choosing loads of other girls to audition because he doesn’t know any in town anymore apart from me. The job of an extra is pretty easy from what Alex told us the other night, you’re just in a costume in the background pretending to speak and eat or whatever is going on in the scene.

Stephen said to gather up as many girls as possible and be in his house tomorrow after lunch to meet the assistant director who will make the final decision. I then passed him over to Paul who he asked to audition too and bring loads of guys (Alex and Stephen have already been cast as extras, nepotism rules!).

I chose Ro, Lorna and Alice, Hanna, Dairne, Amber and Bonnie. My thinking was that if there are only just enough of us, then we’ll all get chosen. Mum made me invite my cousin Sophie even though she is only twelve and we have enough girls already. I’m now scared that they won’t choose me because there will be one too many and I’m too tall. If that happens I will never forgive Mum, but she’s talking about it like it’s a kid’s birthday party and everyone’s invited.
I keep going from thrilled to annoyed and back again in the space of two seconds.

Even though it was late, within an hour all us girls met in Hanna’s den, which is cool, with computers and music systems and speakers all over the place, and three huge couches that she and her brothers liberated from skips in the middle of the night.

We have decided that when we go there we’re not going to dress up too much, we’re just going to wear what we would normally wear on a Saturday in town, jeans and that, and to take it easy on the make-up. We’ll meet back at Hanna’s for a pasta lunch tomorrow and then all go straight to Professor Brown’s house from there.

It was hilarious. We all showed up in our best party outfits and wearing
way
more make-up than usual and enough accessories to stock a medium-sized department store.

It didn’t matter anyway because when we got there and our pictures were taken they were barely glanced at by the Assistant Director, Lizzy (she’s called the Third AD as apparently there are two others more senior to her). She told us that we were all hired! Alex later explained that casting extras on a movie isn’t a big deal and as long as you don’t have a third arm or a terribly obvious hump then you’re in. It still felt great to be chosen though.

The only bad bit was that it’s a historical costume drama and Hanna would have to get the blue-black dye taken out of her hair and lose the goth make-up (which she’s cool with) and Ro was told that she’d need to un-dread her hair. She said she would never do that and would prefer not to be involved in the film at all. I was totally panicking about her not being in it with me when Lizzy, I think seeing Ro’s eyes well up with tears (as well as Alice’s of course!), said that there was a job going as assistant to the location manager and would Ro like to talk to him about it.

So Ro went off with Lizzy to meet the location manager while the rest of us went home. Dairne can’t do it as she’s going on holiday halfway through, but she doesn’t seem to mind.

I am SO excited! I know it’s about as far from being a film star as a burger-flipper is from being a Michelin-star chef, but at least we’ll be busy for the next month and they’ll be paying us so I won’t need to bug Mum and Dad for money any more.

Lizzy is meeting the guys tomorrow so I’m off to ask Paul who’s auditioning.

I nearly fell off my feet when Paul told me that he asked Nick to audition. I yelled at him for a good two minutes until I had to breathe and he smartly pointed out that if Nick and I are working on set, and Donna isn’t, then it’s the perfect situation. I had to admit he had a point, and then I had to go and calm myself down with several cups of tea. It’s all very trying this love business. He’ll get chosen for sure as Paul only bothered to ask five guys.

The book
The Game Of Life
, talks about acting on hunches, and I have a weird feeling that I am supposed to go talk to Lorna and Alice, although I only saw them two hours ago and we’ve said all there is to say and then some.

The hunch about calling around to Lorna’s last night was a good one. I found her stomping around like a woodsman, with Alice crouched in a ball on a chair all pale and puffy-faced from crying even more than usual. Apparently their parents phoned each other and agreed that show business was not an inspirational or nurturing environment for young women, and they are not allowed to even the
visit
the set, let alone work there! Alice’s father believes that she’ll be running off to Hollywood and destroying her chances of becoming a quantum physicist. He must be the only person on the planet who doesn’t know that when she’s older she wants to make hats.

I managed to calm down the hysterics, and get them in a state where they could start to find solutions. I handled Lorna by telling her that stomping is a sign of weakness, and Alice by giving her my back-up bar of chocolate. Both agreed to persuade their parents to come over to my house this afternoon.

Once I got back I explained the whole scenario to Dad who phoned Professor Brown to come over today to meet Alice and Lorna’s parents. Luckily they all know each other because Alice’s mum lectures in the maths department and Lorna’s parents are both head librarians. I asked Dad would he rather I was hanging out with girls we’ve known since I was born, or unknown new girls who might be into weirdness. I believe he’s now putting on his fix-it cap.

Even better than I imagined! Not only are they allowed to be in the film, but the whole group of us, well half of us anyway, are going to stay at The Grange during filming. Me, Ro, Paul, Alice (who has decided not to throw herself from the top of the bell tower after all), and Lorna (who is no longer looking at serving life in prison for killing someone with a
hard stare). The parental logic (ha!) is that we can get in less trouble if we are all under one roof where Professor Brown can keep an eye on us. I have no clue why they think that might mean
less
trouble, but I’m certainly not going to argue against it. Also it solves the problem of how to get us all to the set on time every day. The downer is that the teen extras who live on the other side of town (including Nick) won’t be staying at The Grange due to lack of room and the fact that there is a bus that will be picking them up and dropping them back. They all live within a couple of streets of each other so I guess it makes sense.

It feels weird packing a suitcase to go fifteen minutes up the road. At least I can leave all my books behind because the library at The Grange has enough to last even me for a lifetime. I’m sort of glad that so much less happens during the school year, I’d be a wreck if life always barrelled along at this speed.

Right, as soon as Ro gets here we’re off.