Read Centre Stage: A Novel for Free Online

glass panel at a desk. He smiled. ‘Here for the auditions?’
    So we were in the right place, after all.
    ‘It’s Sophie Tennison,’ Mum said, pointing to the list of names he had in front of him.
    The man ticked my name off the list. ‘Fine. Just go through that door there and straight to the stage.’
    He pressed a button and we walked through a small door and into a high-ceilinged corridor.
    I’d never been backstage at a proper theatre before. There were long black curtains hanging from the ceiling and pieces of scenery stacked by the walls. I felt a thrill of excitement.
    A woman with short dark hair came over. She was carrying a clipboard and looked super-efficient. ‘Hello, I take it you’re here for the auditions?’ she said briskly. ‘I’m Velda Brown, the company manager. Can I take your name, please?’
    ‘Sophie Tennison,’ I told her.
    Velda scanned down her list. ‘Yes, here you are. You’re auditioning to play Lucy?’
    I nodded.
    ‘Well, good luck,’ she told me. ‘Now, Mrs Tennison,’ she said, turning to Mum, ‘the auditions are going to be taking up most of the day. You’re very welcome to stay but, if you’d prefer, you can just leave Sophie here and come back later — about three o’clock.’
    Mum looked at me.
    ‘I don’t mind,’ I said. And to my amazement I realized I actually meant it. Being in the theatre felt somehow right. It sounds weird, I know, but I felt like I belonged there.
    ‘Well, if you’re sure, I’ll go and do some shopping, then,’ Mum said. ‘I’ll come back this afternoon. Good luck!’
    She gave me a hug and left.
    ‘We’ll be starting very shortly,’ Velda informed me. ‘Why don’t you join the others?’
    I walked slowly on to the stage. There were about twenty other people there. A lot of them seemed to know each other and they stood in small groups, talking. None of them took any notice of me.
    I looked out into the auditorium. There were rows and rows of empty red seats. Excitement swept through me as I imagined acting on the stage.
    ‘Sophie!’ Hearing a familiar voice, I swung round.
    ‘Justine!’ I exclaimed.
    Justine Wilcox came hurrying towards me. I hadn’t seen her for over a month but she looked just the same, with her long blonde hair caught up in two slides and her pale-blue eyes shining.
    ‘Are you auditioning too?’ she asked. ‘Sheila, the casting director, came in to my new school and did some auditions last week. She invited those of us she was interested in to come along today. She asked me to try out for Lucy.’
    Justine was auditioning to be Lucy! I stared at her in shock. Of course I’d known that there would be other people auditioning for Lucy but it had never in a million years crossed my mind that Justine might be one of them.
    ‘So are you auditioning for Lucy too?’ Justine asked.
    ‘Yes,’ I managed to say. My mind was racing. Justine was good at acting. In fact, when we’d been doing a school play of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe she’d ended up getting the part of Lucy instead of me.
    ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we both got to be Lucy?’ Justine said.
    Had I heard right? ‘What do you mean?’ I demanded. ‘We can’t both be Lucy.’
    ‘Of course we can.’ Justine looked at me, her blue eyes surprised. ‘You do know there’s going to be two Lucys, don’t you?’
    Er… no. I shook my head.
    Justine seemed to grow a few inches taller. ‘In any big show with children, you have two teams of juveniles — that’s what child actors are called,’ she said importantly. ‘One team does one night and the next team does the other night. It’s to stop us getting too tired or something.’ She smiled. ‘I thought everyone knew that!’
    OK, so now I felt about as big as an ant.
    Velda clapped her hands. ‘Can you all sit down now!’
    As we all plonked ourselves down on the stage, two women and a man joined Velda. One of the women was tiny and slim with very short red hair and a sharp