Phoebe Finds Her Voice Read online

  About this book

  Why won’t Phoebe’s annoying neighbour, Monty B, leave her alone? Can she get her dippy dad and over-worked mum back together again? Will class mean-girl, Polly Carter, just get off her case for once? And most important of all – will she overcome her stage fright in time to sing her musical solo?

  A warm-hearted story about the triumphs and traumas at the Star Makers Drama Club – a special place where everyone has their moment to shine.

  For Dad with big love

  Contents

  1 The Riddle…

  2 How Tiny Little Things Can End Up Really Big!

  3 Thumbs Up For Phoebe!

  4 The Extra Place…

  5 Popcorn Round at Dad’s

  6 The Agony of Auditions

  7 From Bad to Worse

  8 Gel Spell

  9 Cement Head!

  10 Dad’s Great Idea…

  11 A Little Miracle

  12 A Christmas Wish…

  13 An Unexpected Concert…

  14 Time to Get Serious!

  15 Sara Gets Sick…

  16 Missing Costumes!

  17 Rats Don’t Burp!

  18 A Star in the Making…

  19 Sorting Things Out…

  20 Show Time!

  21 Finding My Voice At Last

  A note from the author, Anne-Marie

  More sparkly Star Makers Club stories

  More Usborne fiction

  Everyone saw the leaflets. It was impossible not to – unless you’d been trapped in an underground cave for the past two weeks. They were everywhere: in the corridors, in the classrooms, in the dinner hall; there was even one in the girls’ loo. The first one to go up was printed on bright yellow paper with a huge star in the middle. It said:

  Star Makers

  …is it your time to shine?

  Ellie thought they’d been put up for a joke but Sam said they were from some television company looking for the next Big Thing. They were just guessing though; no one knew who’d put them up or what they were about really. And then a week later a new one appeared, stuck up in just as many places as the first. It looked exactly the same except it said:

  Star Makers

  …have you got what it takes?

  I snagged one off the wall when no one was looking and took it home. It was like a riddle or a code or something and I was waiting for the next clue.

  My name’s Phoebe by the way, Phoebe Franks, and I’m nearly twelve years old. I’ve got flat, mousy-coloured hair – freckles, the size of saucers – and an embarrassing habit of turning beetroot every time I open my mouth. My dad’s a fruitcake, my sister’s a pain, and my favourite pop star of all time is Donny Dallesio. Oh yes and one more thing – I love, love, love, singing and dancing – but only when no one else is watching.

  I could hear Mum clattering about in the kitchen getting breakfast ready. It was Monday morning and I had that funny feeling I always get about going back to school after the weekend, like someone’s tied a knot in my tummy. It’s weird because I’ve always loved school, and I couldn’t wait to start Woodville Secondary. I was looking forward to it like mad all through Year Six – but it’s been a total nightmare. It’s so big, and noisy and confusing and I don’t know where I am half the time – let alone where I’m supposed to be.

  I pulled the duvet over my head and snuggled down for a last five minutes, thinking how brilliant it would be if I could stay under my covers for the whole day or even longer. Maybe I could teleport my bed to somewhere far away: a different country or a different planet. Somewhere amazing where they only serve crisps for breakfast and you can eat as many packets as you like.

  I closed my eyes and concentrated really hard. I tried to imagine rivers filled with salt – and smoky-bacon bushes – but it didn’t work. I was still at home and I still had to go to school – and the chances of getting crisps for breakfast were about zero.

  Downstairs Mum was sitting at the kitchen table reading something. She was hunched right over and the belt from her old, towelling dressing gown was dangling down on each side of the chair.

  “The electricity bill’s just arrived,” she muttered as I walked in. “It’s even higher than last quarter – almost double. I mean I know it’s the winter, but honestly, Phoebs, how on Earth am I supposed to pay for this? We’re just going to have to…”

  But then she stopped, put down the electricity bill and turned into THE BREAKFAST DETECTIVE – tracking my every movement as I took a banana out of the fruit bowl.

  “I’m not really hungry, Mum. It’s no big deal.”

  “Well it is to me, Phoebe Franks,” she sighed. “You’re not going to school without eating a proper breakfast, and a banana is not a proper breakfast.”

  “You say that every day, but look at me, I’m fine. Do you even know how many vitamins and things there are in a banana?”

  Mum gave me one of her looks and poured me a huge bowl of cornflakes.

  “Oh, and I’m sorry, Phoebs, your dad phoned. He won’t be able to see you on Saturday because he’s got something on with his group at the centre and apparently he can’t afford to miss it.”

  “He never can,” I said, pushing my cornflakes away.

  None of this surprised me, by the way. Mum always worries about the bills these days and she’s always in a mood. My weirdo dad – who doesn’t live at home any more – nearly always rings to say he won’t be able to see me. And then there’s my little sister, Sara – she just irritates the pants off of me the way that only little sisters can. I swear if you could pick and choose your family, like from one of those catalogues, she’d be going straight back.

  “Something is going to happen to you today, Phoebe Franks,” Sara announced suddenly, a blue and white check tea towel wrapped around her perfect blonde curls. “I’ve looked at your tea leaves and I’m telling you, something is going to happen – something that’s going to change your life – and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

  I pulled the tea towel down over her face. “I’m not drinking tea, I’m drinking orange juice, and something happens to me every day, raisin brain. You don’t need to be a fortune-telling genius to figure that out.”

  “It’s no use, Phoebe,” Sara insisted. “You can’t actually fight your own destiny, you know. Your life is about to change, you’ll see.”

  “What’s my destiny, then?” said Mum. “Am I going to win the lottery so I can pay some of these bills?”

  “Mum. I can only read one fortune at a time,” said Sara, dead seriously – only she didn’t realize how stupid she looked sitting there with an old, stained tea towel stuck on her head.

  I picked up a postcard that was lying in the middle of the table. “Hey, listen to this, Sara, it’s from Gran, and she’s been swimming with real dolphins. How cool would that be?” It was supposed to shut her up but it didn’t work. Why would it? There hasn’t been a thing invented yet that could shut Sara up.

  “Quick, give me your hand,” she squealed, the tea towel completely covering her face. “And don’t call me Sara, right – it’s Mystic Sara.”

  She snatched the postcard away and grabbed my arm, knocking my glass over in the process. A river of sticky juice swam across the table, soaking the electricity bill, this week’s shopping list and the lid of Mum’s sewing box.

  “For goodness’ sake!” Mum snapped, whipping the tea towel off Sara’s head to mop up the mess. “Don’t you think I’ve got enough to worry about without cleaning up after you all the time? Oh it’s all right for your gran, mucking about with a bunch of dolphins halfway across the world, but some of us have to work for a living!”

  And while they argued about spilled juice and dolphins and telling fortunes,
I sneaked a packet of crisps out of the cupboard and escaped back upstairs to my bedroom.

  We always walk to school whatever the weather; it’s only three roads away. Our road is very long and full of squashed-together houses that all look exactly the same, so if all the numbers disappeared or blew away or something, you could easily end up going into the wrong house.

  We have to shoot past Number Four as fast as we can; Valerie – beaky-nose – Burton lives there, with her frizzy bird’s-nest hair and lips as thin as string. She’s got this creepy way of appearing out of nowhere, like in a HORROR MOVIE, and once she’s got a hold of you it’s impossible to get away.

  She goes on and on about the state of the country and the state of the education system and she especially likes to go on about broken homes where the poor children never get to see their dads – meaning me and Sara, of course.

  It’s the children I feel sorry for, she always says, looking at us and nodding like crazy – until I think her head might actually drop off. I hope it does one day. I hope it drops off and rolls away!

  When we get to Sara’s school, Mum goes in with Sara and I carry on by myself down one more very long road and then round the corner to Woodville Secondary. I don’t know why it’s called Woodville; it’s surrounded by these tall, grey railings – like a prison – and there isn’t a tree in sight.

  It was one of those freezing cold mornings, the kind when you can see the breath coming out of your mouth. Outside the school gates, Polly Carter was standing with one of her pathetic little sidekicks, holding a pencil and pretending to smoke. I tried to stay out of her way, but just before we went in she pushed past me and hissed, “Watch where you’re going, Phoebe, can’t you!” as if it was all my fault in the first place.

  She’s such a witch, Polly Carter. She’s been on my case ever since I joined Woodville in September but I’ve got no idea why. Hate at first sight or something. I was just about to ask her where she’d left her broomstick – but the bell rang and everyone trooped inside.

  I noticed the third leaflet straight away. It was stuck up right next to our lockers and I nearly dropped my bag when I saw what it said.

  Star Makers

  …is your life about to change?

  Seriously, I’m not kidding. It totally spooked me out – like Sara really could see into the future. I spent the whole day waiting for something to happen, anything, but it was pretty much business as usual. In maths we learned some complicated new way of doing long division, but since I can’t do the old way there wasn’t really much hope I was going to get the new one. Then in English, as part of our poetry topic, we had to write a humorous limerick.

  I love writing – especially poems – but when Mr. Davis asked if anyone wanted to read theirs out to the class I looked down at my desk and pretended to be busy sharpening one of my pencils.

  “Put your hand up, Phoebs,” hissed Ellie, leaning over and reading mine. “It’s wicked!” But I couldn’t, not in a million years, and by the end of the lesson my pencil was so sharp I could’ve used it to pierce Polly Carter’s ears.

  The trouble with me is that I’m shy – and I’m not talking about the way some children are shy, like when they walk into a room full of total strangers, or have to speak out loud in assembly. I’m talking about being so shy that sometimes I can’t speak at all. The words are there, squashed inside my head, but it’s like I don’t know how to get them out any more.

  I didn’t used to be shy – just the opposite – but ever since Dad left and since I started at Woodville, it’s like I’ve had a personality transplant or something. Sometimes I wonder if maybe I left my old personality at Merryhill Primary. That if I popped in there one day – after dropping Sara off in the morning – I’d find it hidden behind a radiator, or stuffed down one of the loos.

  Anyway, by the end of the day, after double science and the most boring French lesson ever, I’d more or less forgotten about Sara’s prediction at breakfast. Then just as we were getting ready to go home, our form teacher, Miss Howell, said she had something important to tell us. I stopped sorting through my stack of homework and looked up.

  She was standing at the front of the classroom with some bright yellow leaflets in her hand – the bright yellow leaflets – and she looked excited, like it was her birthday, or she’d won the lottery or something. It’s not like I even believe in fortune-telling, I’m not that stupid, but there was something about the way she was standing there, with that look on her face, holding those mysterious leaflets, that made me wonder, just for a second, if The Great Mystic Sara might have been right after all.

  “Just stop what you’re doing and listen up for a minute, guys,” said Miss Howell, waving the leaflets about. “I’ve got some really exciting news.” She ran her hand through her hair. It was short and black with a bright pink streak down the middle.

  “Are you getting married then, Miss?” Patrick Thornton shouted out. “Are those the invitations?”

  She grinned. “No, I’m not getting married, Patrick, but don’t worry, if I was, you’d be right up there at the top of my guest list.”

  I stared at the leaflets. I didn’t know what Miss Howell was going to say or what they were about but I just knew it was going to be something exciting. I held my breath and waited.

  “It’s a drama club,” announced Miss Howell. “I’ve decided to start an out-of-school drama club called Star Makers on Saturday mornings. We’ll be doing heaps of drama games, lots of singing and dancing, and then in February we’re going to put on a big musical production that I’ve written myself, called The Dream Factory.”

  My heart started to race. I’d always wanted to join a drama club – and if Miss Howell was in charge I knew it would be good. She’s our drama teacher as well as our form teacher and she’s brilliant. She’s really young and trendy and her drama lessons are the best. I look forward to them all week even though I usually end up hiding at the back, terrified she might choose me to do something in front of the class.

  Of course at Merryhill I would’ve been the first one up there, showing off in front of everyone. I even had a solo in our end-of-year production. I remember Mum and Dad came to watch – together – and when I ran on for my bow I could hear them cheering and whistling louder than anyone.

  “But why did you stick all those leaflets up?” Tara – brains of the class – Perkins called out suddenly, her hand shooting up in the air. “I’ve spent the past two weeks trying to guess what they were about; it’s been driving me nuts. Why didn’t you just hand the leaflets out?”

  “For exactly that reason, Tara,” said Miss Howell, laughing. “I wanted to get your attention. I wanted to get everyone talking and it worked! But I am going to hand the leaflets out today. The first session is next Saturday, so if any of you think you might like to join – and it is going to be very special – take a leaflet and show it to Mum or Dad as soon as you get home.”

  I held onto mine tight, reading it over and over; wanting to join more than anything but knowing I’d never be brave enough. When the bell rang I trailed outside and gave the leaflet to Mum. It was all crumpled up and my hand felt horribly hot and sweaty.

  “Hey, this sounds great, Phoebe, and you know, it would probably do you the world of good. You’ve been so quiet since…since…” Mum trailed off, fussing with the buttons on Sara’s coat. She was going to say, since Dad left, that I’ve been so quiet since my dad left home – but she likes to pretend that nothing’s changed, that Dad still lives at home and everything’s the same as it used to be.

  “It sounds all right,” I said slowly, “but, look, it’s way too expensive, Mum. You said we couldn’t even afford the electricity bill this morning. And anyway, I see Dad on Saturdays, don’t I.”

  Mum glanced back down at the leaflet. “Don’t worry about that, Phoebs; it’s not very expensive at all compared to some of those other drama clubs you hear about. Anyway, I’m sure Gran will pay if it’s something you really want to do and it’s only for
a few hours in the morning, so you’d still be able to see your dad in the afternoons.”

  And then Sara started. Bleating away like some sort of whiny goat. “Oh, but I want to go too, Mum. And you know how brilliant I am at singing, pleeeease.”

  “You can’t go,” I said. “You’re too young, you have to be ten and you’re only eight, and anyway I don’t want to go either, so let’s just go home.”

  “Come on, Phoebs, what’s the matter?” Mum put her arm round me and gave me one of her looks. “You’ve always loved singing and dancing. You and Ellie used to spend every spare minute in your room making up plays together. This would be such a great opportunity for you.”

  I knew she was right but that just made me feel worse. I shook off her arm and walked away. I wanted to join, of course I did, but there was no way I’d be able to act or sing or anything like that, not in front of Miss Howell and the others.

  Back at home, Sara plonked herself down on the sofa to watch TV and Mum got busy sewing. During the week she does shifts at the Co-op on the High Road, but in the evenings and on Saturdays she makes dresses for people, like bridesmaids’ dresses and christening dresses. She’s brilliant at sewing but she’s always totally stressed about getting stuff finished on time, so I knew there was no point trying to talk to her.

  I did some homework, and ate my tea, and tried my best not to think about Star Makers. I wasn’t going to join so there was no use tormenting myself. It would probably be stuffed full of loud-mouth show-offs anyway, all tripping over themselves to get the best parts and Miss Howell would have to get an extra wide door fitted for all their big heads to squeeze through. Anyone a little bit quiet or shy like me would end up getting trampled on or squashed and Miss Howell wouldn’t even notice because all the others would drown out my cries for help – showing off about how amazing and super-talented they were.

  Who’d want to go to something like that anyway? I’d had a lucky escape. I could join a karate club instead – that would be far more useful. I’d be able to sort Polly Carter out for a start. I wouldn’t even have to say anything; I’d just finish her off with a knee strike and a deadly upper-hold or whatever the moves are called.