Bright Lights Read online

  ‘I'm sure.’ I swallowed. ‘Anyway, I'd better go. I've got my lines to learn.’

  ‘All right. Ring me tomorrow.’

  ‘I will.’

  I put the phone down and walked slowly back to my room. I looked at the script on my bed. I didn't want to sit down and learn it. I thought about Harriet. I could just see her and Ally trying to hide the feathers from Ally's mum. Was this what it was going to be like all summer? Hearing about them having fun without me?

  Just then the phone rang. I went to pick it up.

  ‘Hi, Sophie!’ a familiar voice said.

  ‘Issy!’ I exclaimed in surprise.

  ‘You don't mind me ringing you, do you? I was like totally bored with learning my lines.’

  ‘I don't mind at all,’ I said. ‘I was really bored too.’

  ‘I keep trying to watch TV,’ Issy confided, ‘but Mum is always coming in to check on me.’ She sighed. ‘I wish you were here and then we could learn them together.’

  ‘I wish I was there too,’ I said, really meaning it.

  ‘So, how were rehearsals?’ Issy asked.

  I told her about Georgina's little song-and-dance routine.

  Issy giggled. ‘She's staying two rooms along from me. She sat by me at supper time. All she did was talk about a TV show she did a few months ago. I wish you were here instead!’

  Just then Dad came upstairs. ‘I need the phone, Sophie.’

  ‘I'd better go,’ I said quickly to Issy. ‘I'll see you tomorrow.’

  ‘Yeah, see ya!’ Issy said.

  I pressed the off button on the phone. I felt much better. Going back to my room, I picked up my script. Somehow learning my lines didn't seem nearly so bad now I knew that Issy was doing the same.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Nervous?’ Cathy asked as she collected me on Wednesday morning.

  ‘A bit,’ I admitted.

  It felt strange to be going off without Mum, but from now on Cathy would be driving me to and from the set each day. I could hardly believe that the rehearsals were over already. But Issy had told me it was quite normal – in fact, some of the films she'd been in she hadn't had any rehearsals at all until she got on to the actual film set.

  I wondered what the filming was going to be like. Putting my hand in the pocket of my shorts, I touched the tiny wooden model of a black cat that Harriet had brought round to my house the day before.

  ‘It's for luck,’ she'd said. ‘I'll be thinking of you, Soph.’

  That's the thing about Harriet: she always does really nice things for people.

  ‘Thanks,’ I'd replied, taking the cat and feeling touched.

  ‘Not that you need luck.’ Harriet had smiled at me. ‘I bet you're going to be great.’

  As Cathy drove, I stroked the cat and thought about what Harriet had said. Was I really good enough to be in a film? What if I messed up in front of the cameras? Oh, no, I thought, feeling suddenly scared. Please let me do OK.

  After twenty minutes, Cathy turned the car into a long, tree-lined driveway. At the end of it stood an old red-brick school –Stanton Hall. The car-parking area in front was filled with pale-grey lorries. There were lots of people milling about. They all seemed to be wearing shorts with long T-shirts, tool belts and big boots. Most of them were carrying walkie-talkies.

  Cathy parked the car and we went inside.

  ‘Wow!’ I said, looking around at the high ceilings and the portraits on the walls.

  ‘Like it?’ Cathy said.

  I nodded. It was very grand. Trying to imagine what it would be like to come to school here, I followed Cathy down a wood-panelled corridor.

  ‘This is the green room,’ Cathy said, stopping by a door.

  The room was light and airy, with comfy-looking chairs and a large TV.

  ‘This is where everyone hangs out when they're not filming.’

  I looked round. ‘Where does the filming happen?’

  ‘It depends,’ Cathy replied. ‘Today we're filming the scenes in Miss Minchin's parlour and for that we're using the teachers' common room on the first floor. Now, let's go to your dressing room. Margaret, who will be chaperoning you, should be there.’

  We went up two flights of stairs to the second floor. Four large classrooms had each been split into dressing rooms with movable partitions. Cathy showed me to the one that had my name on the door.

  ‘This is yours,’ she explained. ‘Someone from Wardrobe will come to help you get changed. Now, where's Margaret?’

  As she spoke, a woman in her fifties came up the stairs.

  ‘Margaret, just the person I want to see!’ Cathy said. ‘This is Sophie Tennison. Sophie, meet Margaret.’

  Margaret smiled. ‘Hello, dear.’ As she smiled her eyes twinkled. She looked kind and fun.

  ‘I'll leave you in Margaret's capable hands,’ Cathy said to me. ‘See you on the set later.’ She hurried off.

  ‘Come on,’ Margaret said to me. ‘Let's go down to Make-up. You can tell me all about yourself while you get ready.’

  An hour and a half later, I stared into my dressing-room mirror. I was wearing a white dress with blue ribbons running through it and a hat that tied under my chin with more dark-blue ribbon. The dress came to just below my knees and I had white tights on and black shoes. I looked much younger than eleven but I knew that was good. When the film started I was supposed to be just seven years old.

  As I turned from side to side to look at myself, I felt the stiff net petticoats of the dress rustle against my legs. ‘I can't believe it's me,’ I said.

  ‘You certainly look different.’

  Margaret beamed. While I'd been being made up, she had asked me all about myself and I had learned that she was assistant director Steve's mother and had been a chaperon for five years. She said she loved it. Now she glanced at her watch.

  ‘Come on. Time to go to the set.’

  As we went up the main staircase to the first floor, my heart started to bang in my chest. Since I'd arrived I'd been too busy looking round, talking to Margaret and getting ready to feel nervous, but now I began to feel worried. I was about to film the scene where Sara and her father meeting Miss Minchin for the first time. I could only vaguely remember it from the rehearsals. What if I went wrong?

  We reached the landing. It was simply bustling with people. There was equipment everywhere – cameras, rolls of cable, lights on stands, trolleys. There seemed to be so much going on. I shrank close to Margaret's side.

  I want to go home, I thought.

  ‘The set's through here,’ Margaret said cheerfully. ‘Mind the cables on the floor.’

  I followed her into one of the rooms. It was very crowded and hot. In the centre was a clear space that was brightly lit. Lights and wires surrounded it. People were hurrying about, adjusting equipment, writing notes, murmuring to each other.

  Laurence was standing by the camera and talking to Gillian and Alan, who were both in costume. Looking round, he saw me. His face lit up.

  ‘Hi, sweetheart,’ he said, coming over and hugging me. ‘You look just perfect!’

  I felt a bit better.

  ‘Now, come on to the set,’ he said. ‘We're almost ready to walk through the scene.’

  I went over to where Gillian and Alan were standing.

  ‘Hi, Sophie,’ Alan said. ‘All ready?’

  I nodded.

  Laurence pointed out a tiny piece of tape on the floor. ‘When you come in with Alan, I want you to stand here on this mark,’ he explained to me. ‘We'll be taking quite a number of close-up shots of your face and we need you to be in the right place. Can you stand here while we take a few measurements?’

  I stood on the mark. One of the men who were standing by the camera came over.

  ‘Hi. I'm Rob, the focus-puller,’ he said.

  I stood as still as I could until Rob had finished taking measurements.

  ‘OK, let's run through the scene,’ Laurence said.

  We had several rehearsals and
then Laurence went to speak to the camera operator.

  Gillian came over to me as I waited at the side of the set. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Nervous,’ I admitted. ‘What if I get something wrong?’

  ‘It doesn't matter,’ Gillian replied. ‘We'll just shoot the scene again.’ She squeezed my hand. ‘You'll be fine. Just relax.’

  I was suddenly very glad that she and Alan were on the set for my first day.

  ‘OK, guys,’ Laurence said, coming back. ‘Let's go for it.’

  ‘Quiet on set. Starting positions please!’ Steve called.

  I went to stand with Alan by the door. It was hot in the room and I felt sick. This is it, I thought. If I go wrong now, everyone will see.

  Laurence sat down by a trolley that had a little TV screen on it. One of the sound men crouched on the floor near the camera holding a long furry microphone that looked like a rolled-up sheepskin rug. An expectant hush fell on the room.

  ‘Rolling!’ someone called out.

  Rob stepped on to the set holding a black board with white writing. ‘Scene six, take one,’ he said, clapping the two halves of the board together, then he moved off the set.

  ‘And action!’ Laurence called.

  My stomach turned a loop-the-loop.

  ‘Captain Crewe, please come in,’ Gillian said.

  I followed Alan and stopped on my mark. I swallowed, horribly aware of all the people, the camera, the lights. They seemed to be crowding in on me, but then Gillian took my hand and stroked it.

  ‘This must be little Sara,’ she said, her large hazel eyes boring into mine.

  Confidence seemed to flow out of her. I stared into her eyes and suddenly everything else in the room faded away – the cameras, the lights, the people. I was Sara, seven years old, about to be separated from her beloved father, wary of this new headmistress.

  ‘What a beautiful child,’ Gillian murmured.

  ‘She is,’ Alan said fondly beside me. ‘She's my little princess.’

  He walked forward and hesitated. The pause grew longer. Suddenly he shook his head.

  ‘Cut!’ Laurence shouted.

  I jumped in surprise. My eyes darted to Laurence in alarm. I might not know much, but I knew ‘cut' meant stop filming. Was it me? Had I made a mistake?

  ‘Sorry,’ Alan said, looking embarrassed. ‘First-take nerves. Line!’ he called.

  Phew! So it wasn't me. I took a deep breath as Gary, the second assistant director, read out the line Alan had forgotten.

  ‘OK, places again, guys,’ Laurence said.

  Gillian looked at me. ‘See,’ she said softly, ‘if something goes wrong, we just do it again.’

  As the crew reset, Laurence came over.

  ‘That was perfect, Sophie. I loved the way you looked so nervous and yet excited at the same time. Can you keep that expression for me? It was just right.’

  I swallowed a grin and nodded. If only he knew!

  We went back to our starting positions and five minutes later we were ready to try again.

  ‘Scene six, take two!’ Rob announced.

  It took nineteen takes before Laurence called, ‘Cut! That's a wrap!’

  ‘That means we're finished,’ Alan told me.

  I stretched, feeling very relieved. I'd been beginning to think we were never going to finish the scene! There had always seemed to be some reason why we had to do another take – either someone had made a mistake or Laurence had decided to film the scene from a different angle. It was really difficult, because I had to do the scene in exactly the same way every time. The only good thing was that all the waiting around between takes had bored my nerves away. So much for filming being exciting! Most of the time all you seemed to do was sit and wait. All the adults had books to read and I decided that the next day I would bring one too.

  I wasn't needed for the next scene, so I went back to the dressing rooms with Margaret. Issy was just coming out of the one next to mine.

  ‘Issy!’ I exclaimed in delight. ‘Hi!’

  She grinned. ‘Look at you!’

  ‘Should I wear it to the school disco?’ I said, giving a twirl.

  ‘Umm – maybe not,’ Issy replied with a smile.

  ‘Is that your dressing room?’ I asked her.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We'll have to bring posters in and decorate them.’

  I saw a grey-haired woman talking to Margaret. ‘Who's that?’

  ‘Joan, she's the other chaperon,’ Issy said. ‘She's really nice. She's bought a load of craft stuff that we can use and Cluedo and Mouse Trap for us to play.’

  ‘Issy, time to go to Wardrobe,’ Joan said.

  I wanted to go with them, but Margaret said I should have lunch. We went to the school dining hall, where caterers were serving food. A lot of it sounded strange – Galician meatballs, stir-fried pork with chillies and ginger, sauté potatoes. I ended up just having ham and salad and some fried potatoes that were sort of like little square chips.

  Afterwards I went to the green room with Margaret. At 2.30 Issy came to find me there and we messed about for a bit, drawing pictures to decorate our dressing rooms, and then we went back to the set to do a scene together.

  It was just like in the morning – rehearsing, having measurements taken, waiting about while things were moved about, filming a scene and then filming it again and again. Only this time I had Issy to talk to, which made it much more fun.

  ‘Is there always so much waiting around when you do a film?’ I asked her as we stood at the side of the set between takes.

  ‘Always,’ she replied. ‘It won't be so bad next week when all the extras are here and we do the big schoolroom scenes. We'll probably be really busy then. There'll be more rehearsals and we'll be on set most of the time.’ She looked at me in surprise. ‘Why? You're not bored, are you?’

  ‘No way,’ I said quickly. ‘I love filming.’

  Issy smiled. ‘Me too.’

  ‘That was good,’ Issy said on Friday as we walked back to the dressing rooms after finishing a scene together.

  ‘Only six takes,’ I agreed, feeling proud of myself for using the right words.

  All the words that had meant nothing to me on the first day, like boom and take and rolling, were slowly starting to make sense now. Soon, I hoped, I would be using them as easily as Issy did.

  We went up to our dressing rooms and got out of our costumes.

  ‘What are you doing at the weekend?’ I asked Issy.

  Although I was filming on Saturday, I knew she had both Saturday and Sunday off.

  ‘Going back to London,’ she said. ‘Mum's coming for me tonight. I think I'll go shopping with her and maybe catch up with some of my friends. Sapphire, one of my best friends, has just finished filming for the latest series of Hollyoaks, so I want to see her. I'd also like to catch the new Brad Pitt movie. It's opening in Leicester Square this weekend. I might ask Mum if she can get tickets to it.’

  I felt a flicker of jealousy. Issy's life sounded so glamorous – meeting up with famous friends, shopping in London, going to see movies the day they opened. But then I thought about my sleepover with Ally and Harriet on Saturday night and my jealousy faded. It was a whole week since I'd seen them properly and I was beginning to have serious withdrawal symptoms! Talking on the phone just wasn't the same.

  ‘What about you? What are you doing?’ Issy asked me.

  ‘Having a sleepover with Ally and Harriet,’ I said.

  ‘Sounds fun,’ Issy said.

  I nodded. Mum had said we could have a Chinese takeaway and we had also all arranged to get loads of sweets and crisps for a midnight feast. Oh, yes, Saturday night was going to be lots of fun!

  *

  ‘Let's do our nails now,’ I said.

  ‘Bagsy mine first!’ Ally said.

  ‘OK, Harriet and I'll do them together,’ I said.

  We were in my bedroom experimenting with a nail-painting kit that Mum had bought me. I think she'd been feeling guilt
y about banning me from sleepovers in the week and it was her way of making up. It had four different bottles of nail varnish and a packet of tiny nail transfers.

  ‘I want the gold nail varnish on,’ Ally said, inspecting the colours.

  ‘You should see the make-up artists on the film set,’ I said as I started to paint gold nail varnish carefully on to Ally's thumbnail. ‘They're called Jules and Sandy and they're brilliant. Yesterday afternoon, when Issy and I weren't filming, they showed us how to do fake scars and things. Issy did this amazing cut on her hand. When Margaret saw it she almost died.’ I grinned as I remembered Margaret's face. ‘She was really worried and –’

  ‘Who's Margaret?’ Harriet interrupted.

  ‘She's one of the chaperons,’ I said. ‘She's Steve's mum.’

  ‘Steve?’ Ally said, frowning.

  ‘You know, the first AD.’

  ‘AD…’ Now Harriet was frowning. ‘That means… yes, I know, assistant director,’ she said, looking pleased with herself.

  I nodded. I'd told them that about ten times!

  ‘Steve was the one who auditioned you, wasn't he?’ Harriet checked.

  ‘No, that's Gary,’ Ally said.

  ‘No, Gary's the second AD,’ I told her. ‘Harriet's right. Steve did the auditions – with Cathy.’

  ‘Who's Cathy?’ Ally said.

  She and Harriet both looked totally confused. I felt a wave of frustration. I wanted to talk about everything that was happening on the set, but they just couldn't seem to remember who the people were or what they did. I'd told them both about a million times!

  ‘Cathy's one of the third ADs. Oh, it doesn't matter,’ I said almost crossly.

  There was a moment's awkward silence.

  Harriet cleared her throat and quickly changed the subject. ‘So… er… where's Jessica tonight?’

  ‘Out at a party.’

  I tried to stop feeling cross. It wasn't their fault they didn't know who was who on set.

  ‘With Zak or Dan?’ Ally asked.

  ‘Zak,’ I said. ‘Although, I don't think they are there together together. He's playing in the band and she's gone along too.’

  ‘Does Dan know about Zak?’ Ally asked me.

  I shook my head.

  ‘I bet he'd freak if he did,’ Harriet said. ‘There,’ she added, finishing Ally's last nail. ‘All done. What do you think?’