Double Act Read online

  Garnet squashed me into a little ball and then dropped me on the kitchen floor.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘No. I can’t.’

  ‘What do you mean? We can we can we can. Yes, all right, it’s going to be difficult getting to London by nine o’clock. We’ll have to get up ever so early. Rose will have to look after the shop herself while Dad drives us. Still, that’ll be fun.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes. Now, we’re going to have to work mega-fast preparing our audition number. Get the book, quick, and we’ll learn one of the scenes.’

  ‘Ruby, I can’t. I can’t act for toffee, you know I can’t.’

  ‘Look, it’ll be fine. I promise you won’t wet yourself this time.’

  ‘Stop it. It’s not funny. I don’t want to be in showbiz. Look, you go if you want, but I’m not.’

  ‘Oh ha ha, very helpful. How can I audition as a twin by myself, eh? Take one of the little dough twins along with me? Don’t be such a dope. Now, where’s the book, we’ve got to get cracking. Which twin is which? I’ll be the one that says the most. We’ll work it so you don’t have to say hardly anything, OK?’

  ‘No, Ruby, please, please.’ Garnet started scrabbling at me, getting dough all over my jumper.

  ‘We can’t miss out on this, Garnet. It’s our big chance. We’ve got to go for it.’

  ‘But it says lively. I’m not a bit lively. I don’t jump about like you, I just sort of flop in a corner. And I’m not outgoing. I’m as inwardbeing as you could possibly get.’

  ‘You’ll be OK. Just copy me.’

  Why do I always have to copy Ruby?

  I can’t act.

  I don’t want to act.

  I can’t go to an audition in London! I can’t say a lot of stuff with everyone watching. It’ll be even worse than being a sheep. Why won’t Ruby understand? She won’t listen to me. She’s riffling through The Twins at St Clare’s right this minute, trying to choose which bit we’ll act out.

  Only I’m not going to act.

  I can’t can’t can’t act.

  Remember what Gran says? There’s no such word as can’t! Now stop scribbling and start spouting. We’ve got to be word-perfect by Monday!

  It’s OK! I don’t have to act after all. Dad won’t let us.

  I can’t believe he could be so Mega-Mean. He doesn’t seem to see this is our one big chance, tailor-made for us. He won’t even take it seriously.

  ‘Don’t be daft, Ruby. As if I’m going to drive you all the way to London at the crack of dawn on Monday! And I don’t want you and Garnet involved in any acting caper while you’re still children. I can’t stick those simpering stage-school kiddiewinks. You’re already enough of a show-off as it is.’

  What a CHEEK! He can’t be bothered to help us achieve our all-time ambition

  Your ambition

  and yet look what we’ve had to do for him. We’ve had to leave Gran and all our friends and our old school and come and live in this horrible dusty old dump in the middle of the boring bleak rainy old country which is all mud and sheep and nothing else and he says we’ve got to have old Rosy Ratbag as our mother.

  Stepmother. And Rose said she didn’t fancy herself as a stepmother anyway, and she didn’t want us to feel she was forever trying to slip us poisoned apples. She said she just wanted to be our friend.

  Well, we don’t ever ever ever want to be friends with her. Do we? Do we, Garnet?

  I suppose not. No. But she’s not really as bad as all that. And she said she didn’t see why we couldn’t go to the audition. She said she thought we’d walk away with the parts. She told Dad not to be so stuffy. She said she’d even get up early on Monday and drive us in the van.

  Yes, but she didn’t really mean it. She knew Dad would put his foot down and say no.

  Still, she did stick up for us.

  Look, what is this, the Rosy Ratbag Appreciation Society? You’ll be writing a fanzine about her next.

  Save your appreciation for us.

  Only we’re not going to be in The Twins at St Clare’s.

  Oh yes we are.

  Dad won’t let us. He won’t ever change his mind. He’s like you. He won’t take us.

  I know he won’t take us. So we’ll take ourself.

  What???

  I’ll fix it. We can’t miss this chance. Come on, Garnet. Twin-grin. Smile.

  Ruby won’t be able to fix it – will she???

  I DID FIX IT!!!

  I prodded my brainbox into action and charged out on Saturday afternoon to arrange things. I phoned the station to check on train times.

  I went into the video shop and ordered the taxi for quarter past five on Monday morning. Mr Baines the video man is also the taxi man. And he’s also a nosy old git who wanted to know why we were going to the station to catch the early train. I spun him this tale about it being Gran’s birthday. He seemed to take it for granted that Dad was going to be visiting her too.

  Then I went to the nearest antique shop and tried to sell my silver locket and my wristwatch and a dopey old china baby doll that Gran gave me. I never liked it even when I was little. Garnet played with mine as well as hers. But the doll was mine. And the locket and the watch. But the antique shop lady wouldn’t buy them. She said I had to have Mummy or Daddy with me.

  Well, I haven’t got a mummy. Or much of a dad.

  I tried the next antique shop. No go. And the last one. Useless.

  But did I give up? Nope. I went to the car-boot sale in the field by the river on Sunday morning. No-one was very interested in my chain and my watch but I saw them get excited about the doll, even though they tried to act like they couldn’t be bothered. They offered me a fiver like they were doing me a favour. I’m not daft. I asked for fifty. Of course they didn’t give me fifty. But they gave me twenty.

  Which wasn’t going to be enough for the taxi and the train fare, even with all our savings in our piggybank, so when my alarm went off at four in the morning I sneaked downstairs while Garnet was still asleep and pinched a note or two out the till. It isn’t really stealing if it’s your own family, is it? If you’re going to pay them back anyway? Well, all right, it is – but I had to.

  Then I went and woke Garnet and we bumbled about in the dark getting ready, in our best clothes and then we crept downstairs and snaffled some biscuits for breakfast and then stood outside the front door waiting for Mr Baines so that he wouldn’t ring the bell and wake Dad or Rosy Ratbag. They were still fast asleep. I checked.

  Mr Baines was ten minutes late so I was in a bit of a tizzy in case we were going to miss the train, and then he held things up by asking where Dad was, and he’s got this incredibly loud voice and I was sure he was going to wake everyone up. But I rose to the occasion. I spun him this story about Dad having a tummy bug and being unable to travel, but Gran was so disappointed when he rang her that he promised to send us on our own.

  ‘Two little girls like you?’ said Mr Baines doubtfully, but I showed him my bulging purse and told him Gran was meeting us off the train, so he shrugged and said OK.

  Garnet didn’t say a word. She still seemed half-asleep. Then she went green in the taxi. I’m the one who gets travel-sick, but I was perfectly OK. I even remembered to give Mr Baines a tip, thought I didn’t think he really deserved it, being late and asking hundreds of questions all the way.

  I bought the tickets for the train. Garnet wasn’t with me. She was being sick behind a hedge. I was worried she might muck up her best jacket. You can’t audition attractively with vomit all down your front. But she was quite neat about it, though she looked greener than ever when she came back. Still, our jackets are green, so at least she matched.

  She was all shivery, even on the train. I made her rehearse a bit and she got even more trembly and tearful.

  ‘Don’t you dare cry,’ I said. ‘You don’t want to be all red-eyed and bleary at the audition.’

  She did cry a bit even so, but I