Star struck

STAR STRUCK

Chapter One

Thursday the 7th of April at 10.17 o’clock exactly.
Waiting by the phone for this really exciting thing.

Hi! Lucy Jessica Hartley here! This thing is soooooo exciting I’m even starting a new journal to tell you about it. Of course it might all still end up in tears if I don’t get in, and then this journal will have about half a page of writing in because my life will go back to its usual state of boringness!

Hang on, you’re probably not getting what I’m on about. Mum says I have this habit of starting at the end and ending up back at the middle. Sometimes when I’m trying to explain about something, she goes, “Deep breath, Lucy, and start at the beginning.” So I will.

Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrr!

So here I am, at the beginning of something mega-ly exciting (I hope!).

What happened is that about one week ago I was hanging out with my BFF (BFF means Best Friends Forever, BTW) (BTW means By The Way, BTW) the fabulicious Julietta Garcia Perez Benedicionatorio – Jules – and the toptastic Matilda-Jane Van der Zwan – Tilda.

We were walking through the market getting some hot dogs and looking at embroidery thread for making friendship bracelets. We are mad on them at the moment and we make them all the time. In fact, you can pin them to your skirt and then carry on making them secretly in class while listening to the teacher, although when I pointed out to Mr. Wright in English that we were still fully engaged (as he puts it) with the lesson, he didn’t quite agree, and we had to sit with our hands on our desks for the whole time.

Anyway, I’ve got off the point (which is something else I do a lot, according to Mum).

So what happened was, we were walking round the market, with Jules cheerful because the hot-dog man hadn’t put onions on hers without asking and Tilda cheerful because her dad had said she could have one Diet Coke while we were out. Normally she’s allowed no fizzy drinks whatsoever because they make her go hyper and – (Whoops, I’ve gone off the point again, but read Makeover Magic, my first journal, if you want to know the sizzling secret details!)

So we were all happy, which can sometimes not happen as Jules gets a bit moody with Tilda about us being a three now. It used to be only me and Jules on our own in BFFness, right up to 4 months ago when Tilda came to Tambridge High and –

Eeeeeeek!!! I can’t believe I have gone off the actual point again! It must be that all the excitement is making my brain spin.

Okay, so we sat down on a bench, and there was a local newspaper someone had left.

I was flicking through it to get to the horoscopes and I suddenly saw this advert:

Extras Wanted!

Local people of all ages required to work as
background artistes in major new British period drama,
Passionate Indiscretions.

To apply, please send your name, address, contact
number, age, height and measurements to:
Cherry Pip Productions,
12 Burlington Court, London

We will contact suitable applicants by phone
on the 7th of April. If you apply, please ensure
that you are available on the 8th of April for auditions
and from the 11th to the 17th of April for filming.
Professional Attitude Essential.

Well, I read it out and we all got madly excited because they are making an actual MOVIE in our actual TOWN!!! At first I was thinking that background artistes are people who paint the fake scenery for outside windows on film sets, but brainy Tilda explained that it’s really the same as extras, the people who are in the background of the actual film!!! Of course we all three instantly wanted to be in it!!! For a minute we were devastated because it was in the week and then we realized that it was actually the Easter holidays, so we thought *Yay*!

Then me and Jules were busy laughing about how we might be in a period drama, i.e. a drama about a Q! Q is our secret code word for period, so we can talk about it at school when boys are there (’cos P is too obvious). But then brainy Tilda also explained that period drama means an old-fashioned film where the women all have Heaving Bosoms and the men all do reckless horse-riding up lanes and swim in lakes in their breeches and that. So it’s nothing to do with Starting after all.

We tore out the ad, and we all went back to my house to write our applications together professionally as a three. In Jules’s house it is impossible to write things professionally. This is ’cos of all the kerfuffle (cool word) of her mum and dad practising their salsa dancing to loud music in the living room while going “Yeeoww!”, and of JJ playing rock, and of Benito and Benita running around with their talking Luke Skywalkers and of Hombrito just barking. (Hombrito is their dog, BTW, in case you were thinking “Eh?”)

Plus, we haven’t even been round Tilda’s yet ’cos it’s just her and her dad at home (her mum died when she was little, but she doesn’t really talk about it). Apparently Tilda’s dad is usually working in his study, so she says she likes to come to somewhere where there is Something Happening. From my point of perspective it’s better round mine or Jules’s ’cos Tilda’s dad is totally stricty about food, and the only munchies available would be the sort of things Tilda gets in her lunchbox like sunflower-seed bars and fruit in its Natural State instead of made into Winders or Frubes or whatever.

Anyway, when we’d written out our applications, we walked down to the post box linking arms all the way for luck and ceremoniously sent them off, by hooking our little fingers together and shaking our hands up and down 3 times.

So today I am on tenterhooks (whatever they are?! – maybe hooks for holding up tents??) because it is the day of deciding who will get an audition to be an extra in Passionate Indiscretions, and we have all been waiting nervously by our phones since about, like, 6.42 a.m. Plus, we’ve got our mobiles ready, so we can let each other know immediately if anything happens without blocking up the other person’s phone line. Ingenious or what? I should get extra science points off Mrs. Stepton for my logical thinking on this issue, because now I am her favourite it is expected of me to be a Shining Example.

Eeeeeeeeeeekkkkkkkkk! The mobile’s ringing!

It’s Tilda! Hang on…

She got an audition!!!!!

Yessssss!!!!!!!!!

That’s so brill!!!!!!!!

Erm… Why isn’t my phone ringing?

Mum has just tried to come in here and ring Nan (Delia) for a chat. I explained about the mobile and house phone system and how I’m waiting for a vital call about the audition and could she please just this once go down the road and use the payphone on the corner?

She went, “Oh, marvellous! I mean, I pay the bills, I bought you a mobile, which I also pay for, and now I’ve got to go down the road to make a call! Do you want anything from the shop as well, while I’m out?”

It’s nice to have such an understanding mother at this sort of nerve-making time. I asked for a Twix and ’cos I’m a Model Daughter I did even offer her 50p to put in the payphone, but she just wandered off muttering. I know how she feels. Call boxes are really pricey these days and 50p doesn’t get you very far. Probably only to Bournemouth or something.

At least Mum coming in here took my mind off the fact that the house phone is STILL NOT RINGING! Now I am totally back on to thinking about it.

In my application to be in the film I really showed my Professional Attitude. Like, I even did it on my swirly pattern notepaper, which is my best kind that I only use for very important business.

They have to ring me for an audition, don’t they? Especially when they have rung Tilda. They must know that BFF have to do this kind of important stuff together as a three.

Hang on, I will stick the photocopy of my application in here. Mum said having a Professional Attitude means making photocopies of stuff for your records so we all did, even though it was 10p a sheet in the Spend and Save. That was okay for Jules and Tilda but I ended up writing quite a lot. Anyway, I will put it in here to see what you think.

Name: Lucy Jessica Hartley
Address: 4 The Meadows, Barnaby Road, Sherborne, Dorset.

Height: 1m 50cm. But that is not a fixed thing. What I mean is, I am really good at walking in VERY high heels because of the practice I had going down the runway at London Fashion Week (runway is American for catwalk, BTW).

I was on the runway because I had won the Hey Girls! magazine Fantasy Fashion Competition and I was modelling my creation (my life’s ambition is to be an Actual Real Fashion Designer, BTW).

Anyway, I promise I would not let the high heels show under my hoopy skirt-thing. But on the other hand, if you think I am too tall I can sort of stoop down or even walk on my knees so long as you can provide those padded things like cyclists wear so I don’t get a problem with my cruciate ligament. I know this is a hazard of too much kneeling because Dad got one by fixing the plumbing under the sink. (Mum said it was more like a case of Skivalitis, but she’s not medically trained either, so I don’t know who was right.)

Of course, that was while Dad was still living here and before he decided to CRUELLY ABANDON us to move in with Uncle Ken in the town centre. I still don’t fully get why he left, but it is something to do with wanting to be a rock and roll star and also 16 again. I pointed out to Mum that without a time machine that is impossible, and also it means I wouldn’t even exist, so it would be a bit rubbish for me.

But according to her, Dad leaving is called a midlife crisis and is quite usual in men who never properly grew up in the first place.

Anyway, when Dad first moved out it turned my life upside-down and I was in tumultuous turmoil wondering why he would choose a manky curry-and-feet-smelling flat with a toilet that has never set eyes on a loo brush (also according to Mum) instead of us. But now it’s mainly okay and Mum and Dad can talk to each other nicely (well, most of the time), and me and Alex (my little bro, BTW) are slowly adjusting, like Mum told her friend Gloria on the phone the other day. I’m just telling you about this parent stuff to let you know that I have been through a Difficult Time but that it is mainly sorted out now, and it will not affect my Professional Attitude.

Measurements: Erm, not sure what you mean about this. I normally take an age 10 to 12 even though I am a very-nearly-teenager, because I have a svelte figure like a model (as my BFF Tilda calls it). My other BFF Jules just now said she reckons we should measure ourselves round the erm, well, the you-know-whats, and the waist and hips. I am a 30-20-30 (apparently you measure it in inches, like pizzas). Well, hopefully I will be in a couple of weeks. Just between us, at the moment I wish my you-know-whats would grow a bit more, as I am right now in the smallest bra size it is possible to actually get.

BTW, my BFF Tilda mentioned that all the actresses in period dramas have Heaving Bosoms. I have to be honest and say I don’t think I could get mine to heave exactly, but in an emergency I would obviously do my best.

Okay, well, I have to go now ’cos Jules and Tilda finished their applications ages ago and they are getting bored waiting for me. So just to add –

pick me,
pleeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaasssssssssssssssssss
ssssssssssssssssseeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,
Lucy Jessica Hartley
xxxxxx

PS Please also pick Tilda Van der Zwan and Julietta Garcia Perez Benedicionatorio. Thanks!

Yessity, yes, yes! The phone just rang this second. It was this lady called Ramona Blunt who has a bossy voice like a dog trainer. Before I could even say “Hartley residence, to whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?” in my posh telephone voice, Ramona Blunt had barked at me that Lucy Jessica Hartley has an audition tomorrow at 10 a.m. at the town hall and no latecomers will be admitted. I was just about to say that I in actual fact AM Lucy Jessica Hartley when she put the phone down. I dropped the receiver, so it dangled on the wire, while I jumped up and down going “Yessity-yes-yes!!!”

Oh wow, I can’t believe I might be in an actual FILM!!!!

Then my mobile rang and guess what?

JULES GOT A BARKY PHONE CALL TOO!!!!!!!!

So we have all three got an audition at 10 a.m. tomorrow!!!!!!!

Now the vital question is, what am I going to wear? The audition is only 22 hours and 37 minutes from now, and I haven’t even thought of one single outfit idea.

Right, I am off to rummage though my wardrobe. Byeeeeeeee!!!!!