Read Centre Stage: A Novel for Free Online Page B

floorboards, the tiny hard bed…
    At the end of the speech I blinked as the theatre came flooding back. There was the sound of applause. I stood up. All the adults in the auditorium were clapping.
    ‘Thanks, Sophie. That was really great,’ Claire called, standing up. ‘Go and take a break and I’ll see you for the improvisations and script readings in about an hour.’
    I smiled. ‘Thank you.’
    Waiting for everyone to have their audition seemed to take ages. After Justine had been for her audition she came and sat with me. She seemed pleased with how her audition had gone.
    ‘Just the dancing and singing to do now,’ I said. ‘I’m not looking forward to the dancing.’
    ‘Really?’ Justine said, looking just the tiniest bit pleased. ‘I’ve been going to ballet, tap and modern dance lessons after school at Clawson’s since I was four.’
    ‘So what’s it like — going to school there properly?’ I asked curiously.
    ‘Brilliant,’ Justine replied. ‘I mean, there’s all the normal boring lessons but you get to do loads of acting and dance and music. I love it!’
    She told me about the lessons they did — improvisation, character development, lots of singing and dancing, and then we talked about Charles Hope. Justine wanted to know all the gossip about people we’d been to primary school with. We only stopped talking when Velda came into the green room with some scenes from the play for us to prepare.
    She put us into pairs. I was with an older girl called Samantha. She read Susan and I read Lucy.
    Samantha was quite bossy but our scene seemed to go well. After all the pairs had been, everyone had to go on stage and Claire split us into two groups. She asked us first to improvise exploring an old house and then to improvise being lost in some woods. It was great fun. It was also interesting watching the other girls who were auditioning for Lucy. They all seemed very good at acting. I wondered which of us would be chosen. Me, I prayed. Please, let it be me .
    When we had all finished, Claire announced that it was lunchtime. ‘There’s food set out in the green room for you. You will have an hour’s break now and then you’ll be going with Dizzy and Stefan to do the dancing and singing auditions. OK?’
    We all nodded.
    ‘Come on,’ Justine said. ‘I’m starving!’
    I followed her back down to the green room. The acting audition had seemed to go well but would the dancing and singing go as smoothly?
    The music from the CD player blasted out. ‘OK, guys!’ Dizzy called above it. ‘One last practice and then I’ll watch you. Here we go!’ Her voice echoed around the large rehearsal room with its wooden floor. ‘Five, six, seven, eight!’
    Standing in front of us, she began the dance she had spent the last half hour teaching us.
    And spin, step forward and to the side and cut … The instructions raced through my head as I tried to keep up with her.
    It wasn’t too bad. The steps were all quite easy.
    Arms out, windmill and hands up…
    I could do it. A thrill raced through me. I was dancing and doing just fine.
    And round and to the side and back and spin…
    At last the piece of music came to an end and Dizzy pressed the stop button on the CD player. ‘Right, two minutes, then I’ll watch you. This half of the room first,’ she said, indicating my half of the line.
    I pushed my hair back from my damp forehead. I can do this , I thought determinedly.
    ‘First group!’ Dizzy called.
    I walked over to the centre of the room with five of the other girls, Justine included.
    Standing by the CD player, Dizzy turned the music on and counted us in again. ‘Five, six, seven, eight!’
    The music blasted out. Concentrating hard but remembering to smile and look as if I was enjoying it, I spun and stepped and twirled. As I finished the final spin I felt a huge rush of relief. I’d done it! OK, I probably hadn’t been as perfect as some of the others but at least I hadn’t gone majorly