So…
Spotlight, spotlight
Come and find me.
Spotlight, spotlight
You can’t blind me.
If anyone was ever meant to be
bathed in your golden light – it’s me!
If anyone was ever meant to be.
“Right now, this time let’s try it with some feeling,” Mr Petrelli said. “Come on, people, we’ve only got twenty minutes left. This is it our chance to be in the spotlight – excuse the pun.” The choir groaned as one.
“This,” Mr Petrelli went on, “is the central song of the musical, this is what – if you win a place in the chorus – you’ll be singing on TV in front of millions of people and you can’t tell me you don’t like the sound of that!”
The choir blinked at him, somehow Mr Petrelli wasn’t quite selling the being on TV bit to them…us, I mean. Only I’d been live on TV in front of millions and millions of people before and it never seemed to work out so well. Last time had been on the Carl Vine Show in America, when I’d accidentally blown Sean’s UK location to the world’s media, lumbering him with a paparazzi army on his doorstep the very next morning.
“Look,” Mr Petrelli tried again. “You’ve picked up the tune pretty quickly, and amazingly the harmonies actually don’t sound too awful. But what I need from you, from all of you, is oomph. Some razzle dazzle, some…” Mr Petrelli trailed off as he looked at all of us, the best singers Highgate Comp had to offer, staring blankly at him.
When I first met Mr Petrelli I’d thought he was a bit like Sylvia Lighthouse, passionate about his subject and a bit scary. But if he were anything like Ms Lighthouse then he could have frightened us all into performing. But once you got to know him you could tell that he just loved music and singing, and he couldn’t understand why everyone else didn’t feel the same way. It didn’t help that only two of the choir really wanted to be here. One of them was Dakshima, the other was Adele and even she still didn’t seem to be able to let herself sing as wonderfully again, a fact that Mr Petrelli was tactfully ignoring.
“We’ve got one shot at this, people,” Mr Petrelli told us. “One shot to get through the regional finals and get our chance to be on TV and win that prize. And maybe we aren’t the best choir, but I’ve heard all of you sing, and whether you believe me or not I know that you all have good voices. Some of them, when I get a chance to work with you, might be truly great. So, come on! I know you can do it!”
If there had been any tumbleweed in the music room it would have blown across the room just then. I think Mr Petrelli was hoping for some whoops, maybe a couple of excited jumps, but all he got back from his pep talk was silence.
“Plus,” I piped up from the third row, “if we win, we’re bound to meet a ton of celebrities.”
“Celebrities?” Gabe Martinez asked me. “Any footballers?”
“Yes, totally,” I said, twisting to look at him. “There are always a couple of WAGS and a footballer or two in any celebrity audience. They love the whole TV charity performance thing.”
“When I try and think of millions of people seeing us on TV, it doesn’t feel real,” Talitha Penny said thoughtfully. Talitha was in the year above me and one of Dakshima’s best friends. Her younger sister Hannah was in our year and also in the choir – obviously a talent for singing ran in her family. “I suppose it would be cool though. We’d be famous!”
“Yeah,” I said, trying to sound all casual. “Completely.”
“You’ve been on telly loads of times, Ruby,” Dakshima said. “I remember seeing you and that Sean Rivers at the soap awards last year. Before he went mental. You tripped up and fell flat on your face, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I did,” I said, feeling my cheeks colour. I had been trying to chase Danny in a pair of shoes that were far too high for me, because I wanted to tell him that there was no truth in the rumour that Sean and I were dating. What a waste of time that had been. I embarrassed myself on national TV for nothing because Danny chucked me anyway while I was in Hollywood. “Live TV can be…unpredictable. It’s different from filming or taping because you know you’ve only got one shot to get it right…or get it wrong and fall flat on your face.” Everyone laughed and I smiled too because it was friendly laughter. “There are millions of people watching you so it does feel pretty weird, but in a good way – you know – exciting.”
“I’d like to be, like, famous,” Talitha said after a moment.
“And telly famous too,” Gabe said. “That’s properly famous that is.”
“Well, that’s good, I think,” Mr Petrelli said slowly. “That’s a reason to stop messing around and start giving it your all. Because if you people want to stand even the smallest chance of making it on TV as part of the chorus for Spotlight! you have to mean every single word you sing. You have to act it, feel it, be it, love it. God knows they are awful lyrics, but they’re what we’ve got to work with.”
“We’ve got her, Ruby Parker,” Hannah said, pointing at me. “She’s been in films. The judges will love that.” A few other people murmured in agreement.
“No, I mean, yes,” I said, flustered. “I mean, you have got me, but this isn’t about me, it’s about the school and all of us. In fact I’d really rather we played down what I used to do as much as possible because a chorus is like a team. We all have to work together. There can’t be any individual that stands out. We’re the glue that holds everything else together. If we do that, then we might, just might, be in with a shot of winning.”
“And there is one other thing,” Mr Petrelli added. “I wasn’t going to tell you this, but as it seems fame and celebrity are what motivate you the most, I can tell you that Danny Harvey is going to be auditioning for the lead at the same time you are taking part in the competition. You might even be able to get some autographs.”
“Cool,” Hannah said.
“He’s the one that chucked Ruby,” Adele reminded everyone.
“Oh, right,” Hannah said, looking at me. “Never really liked him myself.”
My heart was sinking, but not because of Danny. If the choir competition and the auditions for the leads were going to be on the same day, I’d have to tell Nydia and Anne-Marie about joining the choir because I was bound to see them, not to mention Jade, Menakshi and the rest. And although I knew Anne-Marie and Nydia would be fine about it, even pleased for me, Jade and Menakshi would find the whole thing hilarious. Failed star, Ruby Parker, tagging along with some manky school choir when she told everyone she didn’t want to do anything to do with show business any more. They’d think I’d given up – not because I chose to, but because I wasn’t good enough.
And the worst thing, the deepest darkest worst thing was, that I had given up because I wasn’t good enough. But I didn’t want them or anyone else to know that.
I glanced around at the choir and decided to take my own advice. I couldn’t get out of this so now I was part of the team, part of what might one day be a chorus. I would do the only thing I could do, blend myself into the background and do my best to help make the choir as good as it could be.
“Right,” Mr Petrelli said, gesturing for silence. “Now we’ve got our motivation – let’s sing!”
It took some persuading to get Dakshima to come to Anne-Marie’s party.
“I’m