Double Act Read online

  ‘Thank you, sweetie. Off you go, twins. Next!’ said the short-haired woman. She was already staring past us, smiling at the new set of twins.

  ‘No, hang on a minute!’ said Ruby. ‘Look my sister isn’t very well, she’s been sick, she’s not normally like this, she can speak up and be ever so funny, I swear she can. How about if we just do a couple of minutes of our prepared piece? Give us a chance. We’ve used up all our savings getting here, and we’re going to get in terrible trouble with our dad when we get back . . .’

  ‘Yes, it’s a shame, sweetie, but we don’t really have the time,’ said the short-haired woman, and she put her arm round both of us. It wasn’t just sympathy. She propelled us gently but firmly to the edge of the stage.

  Even in the midst of her despair Ruby remembered the camera, twisting round and grimacing in agony, and then she sighed and waved her hand.

  I could hear a few chuckles.

  ‘That kid’s a caution,’ said someone.

  ‘Yeah. Pity about her twin.’

  It was only a murmur. But it was like a giant roaring in my ears. It wouldn’t soften or stop.

  I couldn’t seem to hear properly even when Dad caught up with us.

  ‘You bet you’re in terrible trouble,’ he said furiously. ‘How dare you run off here like this, when I expressly forbade it. I couldn’t believe it when we woke up and found you both gone. I was so worried I was going to call the police, but Rose insisted you’d both be all right and that you’d obviously gone for this idiotic audition.’

  ‘Well, it was a complete waste of time anyway,’ said Ruby. ‘You really blew it for us, Dad. We were doing just great and then you had to come barging in and put us off our stroke.’

  ‘Put me off. Not you,’ I said. ‘And it wasn’t Dad’s fault. He waited. He gave us a chance. But I mucked it up. That’s what they said. You were great, Ruby, yeah. But I was useless. They said so.’

  ‘No they didn’t,’ said Ruby. ‘And anyway, they didn’t give you a proper chance. It wasn’t fair.’

  ‘You don’t want to be an actress anyway, Garnet,’ said Dad. ‘And even if you’d both been offered the parts, I wouldn’t have let you take them. Ruby can act when she grows up, but I don’t want my girls turning into ghastly little child stars, thank you very much.’

  ‘There’s no chance of me being any sort of star,’ I said, and I started crying. I couldn’t bear it. They were both so sorry for me. Dad was still mega-mad because we’d sneaked off up to London by ourselves, but he was holding back his anger for a bit to try to comfort me.

  And Ruby wasn’t cross with me. She should hate me for ever because I did muck it up. I should have said all that stuff and never mind about Dad being there. I could have done. Only I didn’t. I let her down. I’ll always let her down.

  She’s the biggest and the brightest and the best.

  She’s the caution.

  She’s the star.

  It’s a pity she’s stuck with me.

  Pity about her twin.

  Pity about her twin.

  Pity about her twin.

  TEN

  WHAT’S ALL THIS pity piffle??? Perlease, Garnet! And anyway, I did get cross with you. I had a real go at you in the car, because you were a bit of a wally at the audition. What did it matter if Dad was there or not? You could have made something up if you didn’t want to do a rant at Rose. I mean, I wouldn’t go on at you if I truly thought you couldn’t do it, but you can. Well, you could have. Only it’s too late now. We’ve blown it. Lost our chance. We don’t get to be famous child stars. We’re drab child nobodies stuck in this dreary dump for ever and ever. And we’ve lost all our savings for nothing. Not to mention my baby doll that Gran gave me.

  Garnet? Oh, don’t start crying again.

  Look, I’m the one who should be crying. I’m the one who wants to act. I’m the one that Dad is maddest at. The way he went on and on at me! And then when I argued back and told him he was an old worryguts and that we’re big enough to look after ourselves and what possible harm could happen on a simple trip to London, I thought he was actually going to clock me one.

  He hasn’t ever smacked us, has he? I wish he would, then we could show the bruises at school and get taken into care.

  I mean it. I’m sick of living here with him and her.

  Hey, let’s write to Gran and see if she could possibly squeeze us into her flat. We could sleep curled up on her settee, couldn’t we? And she keeps saying how much she misses us on her postcards.

  Then we could go back to our old school. We’re not going to this stupid new school again, especially now that Dumbo Debenham’s told tales on us. We’re not going even if Dad picks us up and tries to drag us there. We’re not speaking to him, right? And we’re certainly not speaking to Rose. Who cares if she came out with all that guff about us being ultra-determined and clever getting ourselves to London. We didn’t ask her to stick up for us, did we?

  Garnet? Look, what does it matter what she’s shouting? We don’t want to go and watch television with her! Who cares if it’s—

  It was us! Well, only a glimpse, but they showed me, doing my goodbye bit. The camera came right up close. They didn’t show much of Garnet, just a bit of her hair and an elbow but they showed all of me, and there was a voice-over saying, ‘And this twin certainly took rejection like a trouper.’

  Pity they didn’t say our names. Still. We were on the telly. Well, I was.

  It was on the News. We missed the first part but Rose videoed it. They did a whole little item about the audition for the Twins at St Clare’s series as a clever early puff for the programme, seeing as it’s going to be made by the same telly company. They showed some of those other twins doing their party pieces. There weren’t any as good as us. Well, me. Of course, that’s only my opinion.

  The twins that they’ve chosen are absolutely awful.

  That’s the way they talk, too. Oooh absolutely jolly good show, fwightfully, ya, jolly super-duper green-welly wallies.

  Perhaps it’s just as well we weren’t chosen. If they’d got us to talk all twiddly-snooty-pop like that then we’d have been sent up rotten for ever and a day. Kids won’t want to watch a pathetic programme like that. Or if they do, they’ll just laugh at it.

  Still, it looks like they’re pulling out all the stops on the production. It’s being filmed on location in this real big boarding school during the summer holidays. They showed all the grounds. It was just like a stately home. And there was a swimming pool. And a sort of miniature zoo, where they keep their pets. And inside this huge great house it wasn’t a bit like a school school. There were ordinary boring old classrooms but they had playrooms with television and videos and music centres and computers and upstairs there weren’t dormitories like I thought – they had lots of bedrooms with flowery duvets and teddies on the beds and posters up on the walls, and best of all, this school has its own theatre. It’s quite small, OK, but it’s got a real stage with red velvet curtains and lighting and props and everything, and they put on plays.

  I wish we could go to a school like that.

  Hey.

  Wow.

  Yes!

  No!

  Oh,Garnet, come on! It would be absolutely fantastic! Oh, let’s go there. We wouldn’t be acting, we’d be the real twins of St Clare’s. Well, Marnock Heights. It would be such fun. We could play all those posh games – hockey and lacrosse and cricket in the summer. I bet I’d be absolutely ace at cricket. And we could have a pet each in the little zoo place. Twin pets.

  Rabbits? Those little ones with shy faces. Dwarf rabbits.

  OK, twin baby bunnies. Though I’d sooner have gerbils. Or rats.

  I don’t like rats. Or gerbils. I don’t even like mice.

  Right, we’re agreed. It’s rabbits. We’ll go and play with our rabbits every day and we’ll have a game of cricket and we’ll swim in the pool and in the evenings we’ll watch videos in the sitting-room and then, after we’ve gone to bed, we’ll h