Ruby Parker: Shooting Star

“Mum!” I protested. “We’re not babies any more. We don’t do midnight feasts.”

“Mmm well, good,” Mum said. “Come on, you lot. Out and get ready for bed. It’s a big day tomorrow and you’ve had a long day.”

Moaning, the five of us pulled ourselves out of the pool and wrapped ourselves in bathrobes.

“You can actually see the Hollywood sign from here,” Anne-Marie said, smiling at Sean. “This place is so amazing, aren’t you glad that you’re back?”

Sean looked, his face expressionless. “I don’t know yet,” he said.

“Of course you are,” Anne-Marie said. “It’s going to be great! You’ll get the lead in the film and you’ll be famous again, and the whole town will love you and me, your girlfriend, and I’ll get my big break and nothing will ever be the same.” Anne Marie flung her arms around Sean and hugged him.

“We’ll see,” Sean said, glancing at me over Anne-Marie’s shoulder.

“Don’t be silly,” Anne-Marie said. “When have you ever not got a part that you’ve gone for?”

“There’s always a first time,” Sean said.

Later, while the parents were still downstairs, Anne-Marie, Nydia and I lay on my bed with the balcony doors open, letting the warm night air in as we ate a packet of cookies that I had snaffled from the kitchen when no one was looking. I was feeding crumbs to David who had curled up on my feet as if he was really pleased to see me.

“What will it be like tomorrow?” Nydia asked me.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t done this before either. Every single audition I’ve ever been to has been different. I have no idea what they ask you to do at a screen test.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Anne-Marie said. “Because we are prepared, aren’t we?”

Nydia and I looked at each other. For the last month Anne-Marie had made us meet at her house three times a week to learn the lines from the play and rehearse all the songs over and over again. “No one knows Spotlight! better than us. They’ll have to choose us, they’ll just have to.”

“But they might not,” I said carefully. I had the feeling that getting a part in the film meant more to Anne-Marie than anyone else. “They might want American kids and I heard that Sunny Dale might be up for Arial.”

“She’s rubbish,” Anne-Marie said. “I can knock spots off her any day of the week, and if they think I’m going to have that girl screen-kissing my boyfriend then they’ve got another think coming.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Nydia said. “If you or me got the lead we might have to kiss Sean too, Ruby. How disgusting would that be!”

“Yuck!” I said, and I pulled a suitable face. But worryingly, the second Nydia mentioned it I realised I didn’t think it would be too awful to kiss Sean Rivers at all. I thought of that twinkly, blue-eyed smile he’d given me earlier that day and for the first time since I’d known him it made my tummy lurch. But not in bad way.

“Oh no, that’s a terrible, terrible idea!” I said out loud before I realised it. “That would be really, really bad.”

“He’s not that bad a kisser,” Anne-Marie giggled, whacking me with one of my pillows.

“Well, he’s been kissing you for nearly a year so he can’t be that good,” I teased her, keen to get the stupid feeling out of my tummy.

“Attack!” Nydia yelled, launching herself at me with the final cushion.

There were feathers all over the floor by the time my mum caught us.

SPOTLIGHT! THE MOVIE MUSICAL

SCREEN TEST SCENE SCREENPLAY BY JOSETTE HUGHES AND SIMION HUGHES based on LYRICS AND MUSIC BY MICK CARUSO and BOOK BY DEN FELTON

Scene 37

Ext. Evening. Fire escape at the back of the drama school. ARIAL is sitting on her own, crying. A figure appears at the window. It’s SEBASTIAN. He hesitates and then climbs out of the window and sits beside her. He considers putting a hand on her shoulder, but in the end is not brave enough.

SEBASTIAN

Arial, why are you crying?

ARIAL looks up at him, as if she’s only just realised that he is there. Hastily she wipes her tears away and tries to smile.

ARIAL

I’m not crying, I just have…um hay fever. That’s all – it makes my eyes run.

SEBASTIAN hesitates again. He knows that ARIAL is lying, but he doesn’t want to embarrass her.

SEBASTIAN

Look, I know you haven’t got very many friends here yet, and that some of the girls are giving you a hard time – but that’s only because they are jealous.

Only because you are more talented than they are. Kinder, nicer, funnier and more beautiful…

ARIAL looks up sharply at SEBASTIAN.

ARIAL

Pardon?

SEBASTIAN looks scared and then his face changes as he makes a decision to say what he’s really thinking.

SEBASTIAN

I said I think you are really beautiful.

They look at each other for a moment longer and then SEBASTIAN loses his courage. He climbs back in through the window, leaving ARIAL sitting alone once again.

Cue production number four SEBASTIAN and ARIAL’S 1ST DUET “I’m in Love!” Sung as a duet but shot in two separate locations: SEBASTIAN’S room and the fire escape.

“I’m in Love!”

DANCE INTERLUDE

Chapter Three (#ulink_fb1d5df7-f44b-5b36-8cee-f1453ca70a9f)

“Right,” I said to everyone as we sat in the waiting room right outside where the screen testing was, with a slight note of panic in my voice. “All we have to do is act, sing and dance. It will be fine.”

“It won’t be fine,” Nydia said anxiously. “This isn’t a scene, it’s a whole act! I thought they’d give us less to do and more time to prepare. I thought we’d get the scene and then at least have a chance to rehearse. I didn’t think they’d hand us a huge script and then tell us we’ll be seen on set in about five minutes. And that was four minutes ago!”

“Don’t panic,” Gabe said, taking her hand. “This is your role. You’ve played Arial on TV in front of millions. OK, so this is a new song and a new scene that none of us have ever seen before, written especially for the film. But it’s still Arial, and you still know how to play Arial better than anyone.”