Rising Star (8 page)

“Perhaps your parents got here early,” Lolly suggested.

“But I was sure Mom knew I didn't want them to come early! Where
is
Ben?” Chloe asked Tara. “Did Danny grab him?”

Tara shook her head. “I don't know. I didn't see any annoying toddlers,” she said. “There were too many cars and people around. It's crazy down there at the moment.”

“Oh no! Ben's terrible about running off,” said Chloe anxiously. “He could get lost, or hurt.” A vision of Ben being knocked down and injured flashed through her mind. It was too horrible to contemplate. She had to go and find him.

“We'll help!” said Pop. But Chloe had already gone. She pushed past Tara and raced down the hallway. Mom and Dad wouldn't have let Ben wander off on his own. But sometimes he could be so difficult to hang on to. He could have wriggled through the crowd of parents and be anywhere.

Chloe hurried over to the main house. The large hall was full of students and parents, all chattering excitedly. There were so many people that lunch was going to be in three sittings. The first group, seniors and their families, were already going in. Chloe couldn't see Ben, Danny, or her mom and dad anywhere. She pushed her way against the tide of people and out of the front door. Cars were all over the place. Some were parked, and others were arriving. People were everywhere, but there was still no sign of her little brother.

“Chloe!” It was Marmalade. She grabbed his arm.

“Have you seen him?”

“I've been looking for you,” Marmalade said. “Danny saw your brother.”

“Where?” She scanned the parking lot wildly.

“He was heading for the lake! Danny's gone after him.”

Chloe didn't wait to hear anymore. Her heart was in her mouth. She ran toward the lake as fast as she could.

“Chloe, wait!”

If only she'd been wearing her tennis shoes instead of her best shoes in honor of the concert. She slipped and slid on the gravel as she wove her way between people. It was better on the grass. She paused for a moment to kick off her shoes, and then she started running again. She could see Danny down by the lake, but she couldn't see Ben.

“Please let him be all right,” she panted. “Please let him. Don't let him drown.”

Danny glanced up and saw her. He waved and bent down to the surface of the water. Chloe could hear people behind her, running to catch up. But all she could think about was her baby brother. She stumbled on a protruding clump of grass and almost fell. As she recovered herself, she heard a loud splash.

“NO!” she screamed. “NO! SAVE HIM, DANNY! SAVE HIM!”

Chloe splashed into the shallows and sank ankle-deep into the soft mud at the bottom. She couldn't stop screaming. “BEN! BEN!” Why wasn't Danny saving him?

Then he splashed in to join her. She was still screaming. She didn't feel the icy water. She was thrashing about, searching for her little brother, but she couldn't see anything in the mud she was stirring up. Danny reached her and grabbed her arms.

“Don't go any further, it's dangerous!” he yelled. Marmalade was there too, and together the boys dragged her out onto the bank. She was still screaming, totally out of control. What use was fame or money or anything else if her little brother had drowned?

Pop and Lolly were waiting on the bank. They were shouting, too.

“He's all right, Chloe! Really! Listen to us. He's all right!” Pop threw her arms around Chloe and held her tight as Danny and Marmalade let go. Tears were streaming down Chloe's cheeks and Lolly did her best to wipe them away.

“Where is he?” Chloe broke free of Pop and spun around, desperate to catch sight of her brother.

“Please, Chloe,” begged Danny, his teeth chattering with cold. “Calm down. It's all right. He's safe.”

“
But where is he?
” she yelled.

Lolly took Chloe's face in her hands and held it until their eyes met.

“Ben is safe,” she said quietly, and Chloe knew that what Lolly said must be true.

“Where is he?” Chloe begged again, her voice ragged.

“With your mom and dad, I expect. On his way here in your car,” said Pop. Chloe stared at her, and then at the rest of them. She couldn't make sense of it. What was going on? Her whole body was shaking as if there had been a terrible tragedy. Had there been or not? What were they all doing at the lake if Ben was in a car?

“I don't understand,” Chloe said, her voice trembling. Her friends exchanged glances. No one knew what to say.

“Please don't be angry,” Lolly begged, shivering in her thin dress. “We were trying to help you get your voice back. We hoped if you were scared enough, you might get all worked up and then shout at us when you realized it was a trick.”

“And it worked!” Pop said. “I've never heard anyone scream as loudly as you did just now. You
have
gotten your voice back!”

“We didn't mean it to work quite this well, though,” Danny said anxiously. “We didn't think you'd throw yourself into the water to save him.”

“Why
not
?” Chloe yelled, sudden relief giving way to fury.
“He's my little brother and I was scared! ”

Danny ducked as her flailing arms nearly hit him. “I'm sorry,” he begged, ducking another blow. “It was all I could think of to help you find your voice. We thought you'd shout because you were angry at the trick, not because you really thought Ben was in danger.”

Chloe took a deep, shuddering breath. “Of course I didn't realize it was a trick,” she said, her voice wobbling. “He's only little, and I thought he might drown ... ” Her voice trailed off, and she began to sob in earnest.

Lolly and Pop put their arms around her. Danny looked to Marmalade for help.

“Don't cry, Chloe,” Marmalade told her, trying to sound upbeat. “He really
is
all right. We're all sorry we scared you so much, but it did work. You
have
found your voice.”

“I'm sure you'll be able to sing at the next concert,” Danny added.

Pop let go of Chloe in a panic.

“The concert!” she gasped.

Lolly ignored her sister. She gave Chloe another hug and then took hold of her arm. “Come on,” she urged. “You're frozen and you've had a bad scare. Let's get you back to Paddock House so you can change.”

Chloe's friends were chilled to the bone as well. Pop and Lolly's dresses seemed intact, but even though they weren't torn, they had been splashed horribly with muddy water. The gauzy fabric hung in rags, the jewel colors dulled. And their delicate shoes looked ruined. Marmalade and Danny were as soaked as Chloe with the battle they'd had to drag her out of the lake. Long strings of green weed slimed all over their sodden jeans, and their tennis shoes would never be the same again.

Chloe's heart was still thumping with the scare she'd had but, slowly, her fury at her friends for tricking her was giving way to relief that Ben really was safe. Her anger faded even more as she realized why they'd done it. Even though their trick had gotten out of control, they'd done it all for her. And on this, of all days, when they needed to be thinking about the concert.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. Then she remembered, and sang it for them. “Thank YOU!” Her voice soared. The sound poured out of her lungs, pure and sustained. She could feel the power deep inside her. This was what she had lost and her friends had helped her find. She looked at their pale faces; they were all still watching her with such worried expressions.

“Well, go on!” she urged them, relief making her almost gleeful. “You'd better go and get ready, shouldn't you? Your parents will be waiting for their lunch, and then it's the concert!”

Back at school, they all parted company. Everyone needed hot showers and dry clothes, but even though she was dripping wet, Chloe wanted to tell someone her news. She pushed her way through the crush of parents, students, and teachers in the main hall. There he was, Judge Jim Henson, talking to an elderly woman who looked very elegant in bright clothes and matching headdress. He caught sight of Chloe and raised his eyebrows. She must have looked a strange sight in her dripping clothes.

“I've got my voice back!” she told him happily. “I can sing again!”

Judge Jim's face lit up and he nodded slowly. He smiled at his companion and said, “This here is young Chloe Tompkins, Joan. She is either up or down, this child. There's nothing in between. Just now, as you can see, she's up. Joan is a singer too, Chloe. She's been singing for more years than you can imagine.”

“Why, Jim, that's not very complimentary for a lady,” Joan teased him. Judge Jim just smiled, crinkling his face into even more wrinkles. “Pleased to meet you, Chloe,” Joan went on, holding her hand out for Chloe to shake. “It looks as if you've been celebrating finding your voice by having a Christmas swim!”

“Not quite,” Chloe said. “But I should go and get changed.”

“Well done with that voice,” Judge Jim said with a smile, offering his hand. She took it. But that didn't seem like enough. She was so happy, and she didn't want him to think she hadn't appreciated his advice, even though she hadn't been any good at taking it.

“Thank you!” she said, and found herself giving him a big hug. At first he seemed surprised, and she wondered if she'd done the right thing. Then he hugged her back, and she could hear his big, booming laugh echo through his chest.

Chloe hurried back to her room. Pop and Lolly had just showered and were drying their hair.

“How are your dresses?” Chloe asked anxiously.

“We rinsed them out and Mrs. Pinto is tumble-drying them,” Pop said. “She's keeping an eye on them. They should be all right if they don't get too hot.”

“The seams might not dry in time,” added Lolly. “But it won't matter. We can wear them a bit damp. How's your voice?”

Chloe gathered her breath and powered up through a scale with the sort of volume Mr. Player had been asking her for all term. Pop shook her damp hair.

“That is one truly awesome voice,” she said. “I can't believe you've had that amazing sound locked away for so long!”

“Great,” said Tara, lounging on her bed. “There'll be no peace in this room now.” But even she was smiling slightly.

Time was ticking on. After a quick shower, Chloe took the twins' shoes into the bathroom and did her best to clean them up. They wouldn't look too bad onstage, she decided, but they looked pretty awful close up. You couldn't expect to tramp around the muddy shores of a lake in diamanté sandals and expect them to stay as good as new. She hoped Pop and Lolly's mother wouldn't be too angry.

Everyone was having lunch with their parents except for Chloe, Tara, and Danny, so they sat together.

“How's your voice?” Danny asked as they wolfed down their lasagne.

“Don't encourage her!” warned Tara.

“Sorry.”

Chloe laughed. “It's fine. I feel really confident. Thanks, Danny.” He met her eyes and they grinned at each other. With the concert starting in a few minutes, the atmosphere in the dining hall was fizzing. If Tara hadn't been with them, Chloe might even have given Danny a hug!

“Look! There's Mr. Player,” she said instead. “I must go and tell him.” She went over to where he was in line for his lunch. “It's back!” Chloe told him excitedly. He knew what she meant right away.

“Oh, well done!” he said. “What was it? The throwing-up exercise, or calmly leaving it alone to recover on its own?”

“Neither!” said Chloe. “It was my friends.”

“Oh? Well, I'm very pleased for you. Don't let it disappear again, will you? I have some great songs for you to learn next term. You're going to have to work really hard to catch up, but I know you can do it.”

All the students, parents, and teachers were assembling in the theater. The backstage area wasn't used for Rising Star concerts. The performers all sat at the front, where it was only a few steps up onto the stage. This way, everyone could enjoy the concert, and perform and vote as well. Each person had a program and a pen to score each act on a scale of one to ten. Over the vacation, the staff would analyze the results, and when the students came back they would see which performance had been awarded the most Rising Star points.

Even though Chloe was not performing, she had been allowed to sit with her friends down at the front. Danny glanced at her, and she could see he was thinking the same thing.

“I can't believe I'm here,” he said.

“Me, too,” she agreed. “Even though I'm not a part of the concert this time, I'm here at Rockley Park, learning to be a pop singer. And now that I've found my voice, next term's going to be amazing!”

“I know,” Danny said. “I'm going to be drumming in front of an audience for the first time in my life!”

“Oh, come on,” said Tara. “Don't go all soft on me, Danny. I hope you're not going to let me down. Are you sure you know your part well?” Danny said nothing, but he smiled slightly at Chloe and she grinned back.

Pop and Lolly were first up. Onstage, the lights made them look impossibly gorgeous. They strutted their stuff like the catwalk queens they were, singing as if their lives depended on it. Chloe gave them both nine out of ten.

She crossed her fingers for Danny's act, but he didn't need it. His drumming was fantastic. She did
try
not to be biased, but she gave him ten anyway. To Chloe's surprise, Tara was very nervous and made several mistakes on guitar. She sang well enough, though, and Chloe gave her seven.