Undeniable (2 page)

‘All right, don’t eat my hand . . .’ he mutters, without looking up from his book. He steps to the side as the doors open.

I fix him with a pitying glance (with a bit of hair flickage for good measure) and step off the train.

Into nothing.

Gabi:
KILL ME.

Mia:
What did you do?

Gabi:
I fell down the gap between the platform and the train.

Mia:
Of course you did . . . Are you all right??

Gabi:
It wasn’t actually very far down and the gap was very big. And this guy picked me up straight away. So it was fine really.

Mia:
I don’t think I’d describe momentarily being under a train as ‘fine’, but okay.

Gabi:
So – other things that happened:

1. I met Johnny Green! Okay, well, technically I didn’t speak to him. But we were in the SAME ROOM. Well, not at the same time. But he was in there
just before me and I GLIMPSED his HAIR. He left a coffee cup on the side and when the guy was telling me about the job and all the important things I have to learn and remember, etc, I stole the
cup and put it in my bag. Later I smelt it. I may have smelt Johnny Green! If I have, he smells of coffee. It could have been someone else’s cup. Do you want me to send you a pic?

2. Have found out that being a runner may not involve actual running unless something ‘urgent’ is happening, like pigeons invading the
shot.

3. Someone’s fist went in my mouth. But Granny has made dinner so I can’t explain about that now.

I MISS YOU.

G x

Mia:
I can’t wait for your explanation of having a fist in your mouth. But I can live without seeing a picture of a coffee cup that smells of
coffee and may/may not be Johnny Green’s. Did you learn or remember anything that you will be doing in the job? I know you will ignore this, but don’t be too stalkery. How is it living
in London? Things that have happened here in the boring countryside:

1. Nish said she saw a lion on the common. She went to alert the local newspaper. Turns out it was one of those small, hairy ponies.

2. That is it. Nothing happens here. I CANNOT WAIT to go to France.

Please tell me more about your exciting London adventure or I will slip into a coma of boredom.

Miss you too. Lots.

Mia x

P.S. Jamie has already packed for France – he’s taking his surf shorts and a crate of wine apparently. I told him it won’t fit in his
rucksack.

It was quite lucky really. I fell straight down on to the track and didn’t hit anything on my way. Not even a boob. And I’m always hitting them on stuff – I
once knocked a child over. Mia says I’m really lucky having big boobs, but she doesn’t realise that there’s a lot of hassle involved. And backache. And people forgetting to look
at my face.

I managed not to pull my suitcase down with me – it stayed balanced on the train step. My head was just above the platform. The laughing guy had got off the train and looked really freaked
out. To him it must have looked like I just disappeared. At some point it finally occurred to me that I was almost under a train, which might not be the best place to stand. So I started
frantically trying to clamber up. The guy put his hands in my armpits and heaved me. I made a rather unattractive grunt. Not that I think there is an attractive version of a grunt. As he set me
down on the platform our eyes met. His were wide and sparkling, probably mostly with shock. My heart was thumping in my chest.

Then, before I could thank him, he’d leapt back on to the train just before it pulled away. I think he’d regretted laughing at me and felt he had to get involved.

I was left in a dazed state on the platform and the other people around me looked pretty shocked as well. It was quite intense having lots of people watch me, so I said, ‘Well, I
won’t try that again!’ Nobody laughed. They just looked away and then carried on with their lives.

A station man came running over to me and fussed. He said that I should stay at the station until I’d recovered and someone could come and pick me up. I tried to explain that I was mainly
just mortified and not actually hurt
and
that I was staying at my granny’s house about two minutes from the station, but he wouldn’t listen. He said that my granny would be
worried about me.

When she arrived she didn’t seem very worried; she couldn’t stop laughing.

‘I wouldn’t find it funny if you were gravely injured,’ she said. Which is good to know.

Mum made a bit more of a fuss when I called her on the way to Granny’s. Although she also said, ‘But they make an announcement about that, don’t they?’ like I’d
fallen off the train because I didn’t listen to the warning telling me not to.

Granny moved to London after Grandpa died and she has the coolest house ever. It is a converted church and the room I’m staying in has an arched roof and a stained-glass window and you get
up to it by going up a ladder. She is an actress so there are posters from her plays all around and pictures of her with people who are probably famous, but from olden times so I don’t know
them.

Also in the room I’m in there’s a photo of her and Grandpa. She is throwing her head back and laughing and it looks a bit like she’s taking up the whole picture. Grandpa is a
bit blurry and the sunlight is flashing off his glasses. He’s kind of in the background, but I bet it was him who said whatever it was that cracked her up. Granny said that she could have
gone off with any of these rich actor guys, but she knew Grandpa was the one for her. She would always say, ‘He looks like an egg in specs, but he makes me laugh.’

My sister Millie reckons I was really ‘awful, insensitive and frankly evil’ at his funeral because I got drunk, insulted Uncle Nigel and was sick everywhere. But I didn’t mean
to – the waiters kept filling up my glass. Besides, Granny found it hilarious. She said I livened it up while everyone else was being boring and sobby. And I think it distracted her a bit
from Dad not being there. Grandpa was his father and he couldn’t face it. And Uncle Nigel is a little bit gropey. And only a tiny bit of vomit went in the cremation urn.

I lie back on the bed and stare at the beams. I should probably read over all the handouts I got today before I go to bed. Or I could lie here and picture tomorrow when I get cast as Johnny
Green’s new love interest – on and off screen.

I’ll think about that.

And not Max.

‘Coffee.’ The man interrupts me when I am in the middle of introducing myself and doesn’t even look up from his desk.

‘Oh, no thanks,’ I say. Granny chucked two espressos down my throat this morning to wake me up.

He does look up now. But just with his eyes.

‘The coffee run,’ he says wearily. ‘Kitchen’s that way.’ He waves me away and clicks his fingers twice. He looks all bony and mean, like an angry skull. My face is
burning as I turn away from him. I don’t care if he’s the producer; there’s no need to be rude.

I leave his office and am tempted to pull the bit of laminated card saying his name off the door. It’s not really a proper office if your name’s just on a bit of card, is it? If I
had an office I would have my name carved in stone.

Actually it would probably be wood.

I head down the corridor. This place is huge. From outside it looks quite old with stone walls and high up windows. It’s right by the canal so it looks a bit like a castle. Then when you
get inside the place seems
even
bigger. And it’s this mixture of old and modern with exposed brick walls, shiny wooden floors and bright white walls. On the tour yesterday I saw loads
of big rehearsal rooms, a studio rigged up to film a game show, as well as production offices, editing suites and make-up rooms.

There’s this warehouse bit at the back where they’ve made the set for the inside of all the students’ rooms. I immediately guessed which room belonged to which character
– Nina who was showing me round seemed impressed, but not impressed enough to say I could have a souvenir prop to keep. But obviously I stole Johnny Green’s coffee cup later so it was
fine.

When I get to the rehearsal room all the actors are milling around the
very well put out
tables and chairs that were my morning job. It’s a big hall – the size of a school
hall but way cooler. The walls are all brick leading up to the big windows and then an arching roof with beams going across it. Definitely not like the hall at my old school where the floor was all
uneven and next to one of the radiators it smelt a bit like bins. And the chairs they have here are all black and stylish like they are from Ikea or somewhere.

We always used to complain at school that the chairs we had to do our exams on were splintery and the pain distracted us from doing well. Then Mr Garrick said in assembly that he’d had
complaints that chairs were ‘pinching girls’bottoms’ and they were forced to abandon the assembly because we wouldn’t stop laughing.

That’s just made me laugh now and I’ve accidentally snorted. Someone at the other end of the room has looked up and spotted me. A new celebrity friend, perhaps?

Oh my God, it’s that guy from the train. What on actual earth is he doing here? He is grinning at me, because of the snort, I think, and then he mouths something that looks a bit like
‘Hello’. So I mouth ‘Hello’ back. Then he mouths what he said again.

‘Weirdo.’

He grins and for a moment I get a leap somewhere in my chest. But I narrow my eyes at him and then look down at my notepad like I have far more important things to do. Like the coffee order. I
cough, trying to get everyone’s attention.

Nothing.

‘HELLO!’

Well, that did it. They all turn to me, obviously expecting some important announcement.

‘What coffee does everyone want?’

Of course everyone answers at once and I don’t hear anything. When I take orders at Radleigh Castle everyone is well behaved and speaks one at a time. I try not to panic.

Someone nudges me. IT’S JEN. JEN FROM THE SHOW!

She’s like the main girl and amazingly beautiful – but really mean. All of the other characters are scared of her and she is the only one who can tame Harry, who is a total
ladies’ man, but unfortunately also
fit
on a
stick
.

I’m a bit scared that Jen has just nudged me. What if she makes me eat dog food like she did to that girl in series one? Or what if she hits me like she does to loads of people?

She’s smiling, though. And she doesn’t look very hitty.

‘Hey, you okay?’ she asks.

I need to play this cool.

‘YOU’RE JEN.’

Cooler than that.

She laughs. ‘Ha, yeah. I’m also called Bex. Who are you?’

‘Gabi. I’m a runner. Would you like some coffee?’

She points at the pad I’ve been taking notes on. ‘Pass it round for them to write down their orders,’ she says confidentially. ‘Trust me, I did my fair share of coffee
runs back in the day.’

‘Oh, thank you so much!’ I smile at her, probably more crazily than gratefully, but she just shrugs.

‘No probs. Good luck!’

I draw two columns on a page, write
Name
and
Coffee order
at the top, and hand it to the nearest person. My eyes go wide and I do a scream inside my head when I see that the person
is Ben Hart, who plays Greg the gay rugby guy. But other than that I don’t react. I am getting better at this. Ben smiles sweetly and says thank you. He starts the notebook going round the
semi-circle of tables.

While they are doing that, I don’t have time to relax because I also need to get everyone’s scripts handed out. It is so very exciting seeing
The Halls: Series 2: Episode 1
written on them. I hope I get to hang around and hear the read-through. Most of the actors just mumble thanks at me and then start flicking through the script nervously. There are a few new people,
but I recognise pretty much everyone – even the really minor characters. It’s so weird seeing them in real life, wearing jogging bottoms and strappy tops and not looking all made-up and
famous. It’s like when you see teachers doing things like wearing jeans or eating crisps. I get to the girl who plays Jas, who is really shy and geeky. Well, in the series she is, but then
when the show started broadcasting she did a photo shoot with a lads’ mag where she whipped off her glasses (and clothes). She didn’t seem so shy then.

Max printed out a picture of her after that and stuck it on his lyric book and I accidentally tore it off. I don’t see why she couldn’t have kept the glasses on. I wear glasses for
things like reading and looking at stuff. But I don’t look like that naked. I’d love to steal her perfect bum. Maybe I should tell her?

I smile at her when I hand her the script, but she looks at me blankly and turns back to her conversation. I suppose I should stop assuming that famous people will recognise me just because I
know who they are from TV, and quite a lot of personal details about them from stalking.

The next person I get to is the train guy who mouthed at me. He’s leaning against the wall on his own and reading a book again. And wearing the same hat. It’s like he
wants
to
look pretentious.

‘Are you one of the cast?’ I say like I’m totally not bothered about whether he is or isn’t and like I am not thinking of his hands in my armpits.

I see a glint come into his eyes as he realises who I am.

‘Well, I have a line in here somewhere,’ he says, taking the script from me. Then I see he’s holding the notepad with the coffee orders on it under his book. He holds it out to
me and gives another wide grin.

The most annoying thing about it is that it does make me want to grin back at him. And I’ve got a fluttery feeling in my chest. I look away from him because suddenly just the thought of
fancying someone has started a whirlpool of guilt and mentalness.