Rebecca is Always Right (18 page)

‘Hi girls!’ said Dad, looking very cheerful.

‘How was rehearsal?’ said Rachel.

‘It went pretty well, I think,’ said Dad. He picked up an apple that was sitting on the counter and took a bite. ‘I think I’m really getting somewhere with Henry Higgins.’

I looked at Mum. She hadn’t said anything since she got in.

‘How was it for you, Mother dear?’ I said.

‘Oh, fine,’ she said. ‘The director’s pretty happy with how things are going.’

Rachel and Dad went into the sitting room, but I stayed with Mum in the kitchen.

‘Is Henry Higgins really going somewhere?’ I said.

Mum looked slightly stressed. ‘Well, Laura’s happy with it. And it really is very imaginative. But I’m not sure what the rest of the cast think. Tonight he suggested that he should appear as a sort of dancing dream figure when Eliza sings “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly”.’

‘Wow,’ I said.

Mum sighed.

‘I know some of the cast think he’s trying to steal the show,’ she said. ‘But it’s really not that at all. It’s just that he loves
dancing so much. And he really doesn’t get to do enough of it in the usual Henry Higgins part. So he’s just trying to find opportunities, and maybe he’s finding too many of them …’

Then she seemed to pull herself together. ‘But I’m sure it’ll all work out,’ she said briskly. ‘And your dad is a total professional!’

I am not so sure about that. A dancing dream figure! He has definitely lost the run of himself. If the rest of the cast haven’t risen up in protest against him in a week I will be very surprised. But sad too. Poor Dad, why didn’t they just give him the part of Alfred in the first place?

In the past I got very bored on the few occasions when Miss Kelly confined herself to the bare facts and didn’t bother terrifying us with environmental disasters, but as the exams grow nearer I am genuinely starting to worry about her unique approach. I mean, I’m not a huge fan of geography, but I do want to at least get an honour in it. Today she just talked about climate-fuelled migration and how huge chunks of the earth will be uninhabitable and that we’ll be lucky if Dublin
isn’t under water by the time we’re forty. It is all very scary and is definitely making me very conscious of recycling things and unplugging things when they’re not being used, but will it be any use in the actual exams?

Also, I’m starting to worry that I am a sociopath because, as the week goes on, it’s becoming easier and easier not to say anything to Rachel about what I saw on Saturday. I didn’t even think about it all evening. And apart from when I was in the front room doing my homework and she was in her room doing hers, we were around each other most of the time, what with dinner and telly watching and just sitting around talking rubbish with our parents. But eventually Rachel said something about going out with Jenny on Saturday and that reminded me of her so-called friend’s behaviour. And then I felt so angry I was sure it would show on my face, so I went off to bed. Well, to my room, where I am writing this.

Oh, why did I have to see them on Saturday? It would be so much easier if I didn’t know anything.

Today is Cass’s birthday. She is now fifteen, same as me (Alice
won’t be fifteen until next month). We’re going to have the proper birthday celebration in the Milk Bar, that cool retro place that sells nice burgers and milkshakes and stuff, after practice on Saturday, but at lunchtime today Alice, Ellie, Emma and I presented her with our presents because if you have to go to school on your birthday, you might as well have some presents to cheer you up. I only gave her half of her present so I have something to give her on Saturday. She was delighted.

‘I think all birthdays should be spread out over a few days,’ she said. ‘Much better than getting all the good stuff in one go.’

Ellie had made Cass a really cool birthday card and also gave her a little case for her phone which she had made out of a great fabric with owls on it. It was an excellent present, not least because it’s totally unique – no one else will have a phone case like it. This is the good thing about making things rather than buying them. Maybe I should teach myself how to sew? I bet Ellie would teach me; she said her session with Lucy went very well. Although with the sweet-making and the songwriting and the poem and story writing AND the band practising I’m not sure when I’d find the time.

Teachers are not very sympathetic about birthdays. Cass
and I got a tiny bit giddy during history because I passed her a picture of herself as an oppressed peasant being booted out of a cottage by an evil landlord. We were only laughing a little bit but Mrs O’Reilly separated us again, even though I told her it was Cass’s birthday and I was just giving her birthday greetings. It was so unfair.

Mrs Harrington, on the other hand, wished Cass a happy birthday when she saw the card from Ellie sticking out of her folder. She isn’t so bad, really, especially now she’s not going on about Mum’s books all the time. I suppose she has enough to think about, writing a book of her own. I wonder if she’s heard back from any agents yet? I can’t imagine anything will happen, to be honest. I think she’s just got her hopes up for nothing.

Speaking of my mother, she and my dad are still at rehearsal. I wonder if the cast has risen up against Dad yet? I am afraid it is only a matter of time now.

Well, the great
My Fair Lady
uprising hasn’t taken place yet, but it’s definitely coming. Dad wasn’t his usual exuberant self when he and Mum got home from rehearsal.

‘How did it go tonight?’ asked Rachel.

‘Oh, fine,’ said Dad. ‘But … I don’t know. Everything felt a bit flat. I’m just not feeling the energy from some of the cast.’

‘What do you mean?’ said Rachel.

‘Well, I just had a few ideas, and some of the others weren’t really keen,’ said Dad. ‘I’m not sure they really get what I’m trying to do.’

Oh dear. I bet he was going on about the dancing dream figure.

‘What did you think, Mum?’ I said, giving her a meaningful look.

‘Oh, you know what rehearsals are like,’ she said briskly. ‘Some go better than others.’

Someone is going to have to talk some sense into Dad before he alienates the entire cast. They are obviously getting annoyed by his suggestions. I thought Mum would say something, but clearly she doesn’t want to burst his bubble. So maybe it will be up to me, as I seem to be the only person who knows what needs to be done. I wish I wasn’t, though. Sometimes being right about stuff is a heavy burden.

Just realised that because of Cass’s birthday bash (ahem) I won’t be able to talk for long with Sam after practice on Saturday. Not that he will definitely want to talk to me for ages, of
course. Still, I’ll be hanging out with some of my best friends in a cool café, so it’s not like I’ll be suffering. And I’ll still get to chat with him for a few minutes in the Knitting Factory. Even a small chat warms my heart. I only get to see him once a week, after all.

This morning Mum insisted on changing the radio station in the kitchen because there was an interview with a really right-wing campaigner who she can’t stand.

‘If I have to listen to that man go on about how women are responsible for everything that’s wrong in society for one more minute, I’ll start throwing plates,’ she said, hitting one of the radio’s preset buttons. I had no problem with this at all, because I didn’t particularly want to listen to him either. But as soon as she switched stations, a horribly familiar voice came out of the radio.

‘Oh God, Vanessa’s ad,’ I said. ‘Ugh.’

‘It’s going on for a bit longer than usual, isn’t it?’ said Rachel, looking up from her toast. And we realised it wasn’t just the ad. It was the single! Three whole minutes of Vanessa going
on about how kooky she is. I know we could have just turned the radio to another station, but it was like we were frozen in horror. Unsurprisingly, the extra lyrics were just as bad as the ones we’d already heard in the ad. Poor Handsome Dan even got brought into the whole sorry mess!

How unfair! Handsome Dan is not ugly at all; he’s lovely. And needless to say, ‘cuddly’ does not rhyme with ‘ugly’. There was an extra middle eight in the song too, as if the normal tune wasn’t enough.

I wish Vanessa would go sky high. In a rocket, and never come down again. Of course, when I got to school it seemed like everyone had heard the song on some station or another. Vanessa managed to reach new heights of smugness, which I
actually hadn’t thought would be physically possible. But it appears it is.

‘It’s all for a good cause,’ she was saying when we went into Irish, our first class of the day. ‘I’m happy to do my bit.’

‘What’s the charity again?’ asked Karen.

Vanessa’s face froze for a second.

‘It’s for children,’ she said. ‘Like, children who need help.’

And then our teacher came in, so she didn’t have to say anything else. I knew she doesn’t care about doing her bit for society, but not even knowing the name of the charity is a bit much, even for her. She’d better remember it before she does all her promotional work this weekend. Anyway, I wish the single’s proceeds weren’t going to a charity, whatever that charity might be. If it was just going to make Vanessa and whoever wrote the song rich, I could wish it would be an enormous flop without feeling guilty at all.

Speaking of feeling guilty, I still keep forgetting about the whole Tom and Jenny thing and then I’m reminded of it and feel awful. I just keep thinking what it’ll be like when Rachel finds out and discovers that I knew all about it. She’ll be very angry, and rightly so. She’ll feel betrayed by me as well as Jenny.

But every time I think about telling her, something happens
and she’s sad and I just can’t bring myself to do it – like, this evening she went to the cinema with a bunch of her friends from school (not including Jenny – I bet the evil traitor was off with Tom) and when she came home she was all subdued.