Dying to be Famous (2 page)

“If we go this way Peregrine won’t spot you,” she said. “You can slip in among the Munchkins and he’ll be none the wiser.”

As we reached the theatre’s main entrance, Cynthia shoved us towards the already crowded steps. “Go up the side there. Stand at the back. You’ll be fine. Go on.”

We did as we were told, squeezing between Munchkins until we reached the top. From there we could see the rest of the cast arranged artfully for the cameras. They were all there: the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, the Scarecrow, the Wizard of Oz, Glinda the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch of the West. They were chatting and laughing but then there was the sound of hoofbeats on concrete, and everyone fell into a hushed, expectant silence.

An emerald-green open carriage was being pulled towards us by two pea-coloured ponies. “I wonder how they did that?” I whispered to Graham.

“Coloured hair spray I should imagine,” he replied. “It would need to be completely non-toxic.”

“Bet those horses didn’t like being zapped with green,” I said. “They’re probably really embarrassed.”

“Actually, horses are completely colour-blind,” Graham informed me. “But I wouldn’t want to be the person who has to wash it off.”

And then we fell silent too because all eyes were on the girl in the gingham frock and ruby slippers. Tiffany Webb. Dorothy. Smiling and waving just like the Queen, only with more enthusiasm and whiter teeth.

She was a lot smaller than I thought she would be and for a second I was slightly disappointed. She looked kind of fragile sitting there all on her own. When the carriage came to a halt the Cowardly Lion bowed and stepped forward to open the door. Suddenly the respectful silence was broken by the frantic clicking and flashing of hundreds of cameras. Photographers were shouting, calling her name to get her attention. “This way, Tiffany!” “Over here, love!” “Give us a smile, darling!” A film crew dangled a fluffy microphone in her face and demanded, “How do you feel about your new role, Tiffany?”

It was worse than being at a wedding. The photographs took forever. They took shots of Tiffany and the other principal actors and then did a load of wide-angle ones of the whole cast standing on the steps. Graham and I were elbowed out of the pictures by pushier, more publicity-hungry kids but neither of us minded. The TV crew did an interview with Tiffany and then a celebrity magazine wanted more pictures of her in the carriage with the green horses. Everyone’s eyes were firmly fixed on Tiffany at the bottom of the steps but my attention began to wander. I turned around and it was then that I noticed a wizard edging furtively towards the theatre’s front doors.

I prodded Graham.

“What?” he said, a little crossly. Then he saw what I was looking at and his mouth fell open.

I mean, it was quite a sight.

Six, maybe seven feet tall; black flowing cape; pointy hat; bright green warty mask. It was like seeing Darth Vader out trick-or-treating.

“Must be someone from the play,” said Graham uncertainly. “Probably here for the photo call.”

“Maybe,” I replied. “But why isn’t he down there with the rest of the actors?”

“I don’t know.”

“There’s only one wizard in
The Wizard of Oz
, isn’t there?” I asked.

“Yes,” replied Graham. “And he’s standing right next to Tiffany.”

We watched, and to our horror the tall wizard suddenly pulled a lethal-looking knife from beneath his cape and raised the blade high in the air. With a thud he brought it down hard, stabbing a piece of paper to the front door. Then he ran off down the side of the steps, disappearing into the alley so quickly that we didn’t have a chance of stopping him.

The piece of paper flapped helplessly beneath the knife in the breeze. When Graham and I read what was written on it, my blood ran cold. Scrawled in scarlet ink were the words T
IFFANY
W
ILL
D
IE!

“Inspector
Humphries takes threats of this nature very seriously. He has placed Miss Webb under police protection until the suspect is apprehended.”

Graham and I watched the evening news wincing with embarrassment as the whole drama replayed across the screen for everyone to see.

I mean, we’d been horrified when we read the note. We were in deep conversation with our backs to everyone else when Tiffany finally ascended the theatre steps on Peregrine’s arm, closely followed by the film crew that was recording her every move. We didn’t even hear them coming.

In full, glorious technicolour the TV audience was treated to a close-up of our bright and leafy bottoms. We’d been blocking their way, so Peregrine had coughed loudly. Only then had we turned around.

He hadn’t said anything: just fixed us with a steely stare and jerked his head so that we were compelled to stand aside. Then he’d spotted the note and the knife, and chaos had erupted.

Tiffany had gasped and staggered as if she was deeply upset; Peregrine had sworn so violently they’d had to bleep his words out on the news; and Cynthia had called the police.

The TV news froze for a few seconds on a close-up of the note’s shocking words. An interview with Tiffany – distressed but courageous – followed.

“Is there anyone you think might be responsible for this?” the interviewer asked sympathetically.

“I really don’t know.”

“An ex-boyfriend, perhaps?” the interviewer suggested.

“Maybe,” Tiffany said.

“Or a crazed fan?”

“I’ve no idea. I can’t think why anyone would want to hurt me. The police are looking into it. They seem to think I might have a stalker.”

“And will you alter your plans at all as a result of this threat? Starring in a live theatre show might expose you to danger. Will you go ahead?”

“Of course!” Tiffany threw back her head, raising her chin defiantly. “I’ve always wanted to play the part of Dorothy. Nothing’s going to stop me. He’d have to kill me first.” Then she looked right at the camera, as if she was issuing her stalker a direct challenge.

I thought her manner was kind of interesting.

If someone had sent me a note like that there’s no way on earth I’d go on stage in front of a live audience. Anyone could take a pot shot at you – it’s not like there’s bullet-proof glass between you and the punters. Being Dorothy was obviously really important to Tiffany – so important that she’d risk her life to go ahead.

I was fascinated watching that interview. Normally when people talk on the news you can tell they’re a bit uncomfortable – they scratch their noses or pull at their ears or pick their nails. They say “erm” and “ah” and trip over their words. They do little things that can tell you what they’re really feeling. A touch of panic. A shred of fear. A hint of embarrassment. You can usually see all of those.

But I didn’t with Tiffany.

Usually there’s a big difference between someone who’s acting and someone who’s taking part in a reality TV show. However people act in soap operas – however grittily realistic they try to make it – you can tell they’re speaking lines someone else has written for them. But with Tiffany there was no difference – she talked in that interview exactly the same way she talked in “Dead End Street”. With her you just couldn’t work out where the acting ended and the real person began.

When it was over I switched off the TV and said to Graham, “Do you think she looked a bit … I don’t know …
theatrical
?”

“She’s an actress,” he pointed out reasonably.

“What do you reckon about this stalker, then?”

Graham paused. “A high proportion of famous actresses acquire a stalker at some time or another. It’s often an obsessed fan. They can be very persistent.”

“They don’t usually dress up, though, do they? Do you think he’d really try to hurt her?”

“From what I’ve read, I gather that anonymous threats are rarely carried out. The main object of the exercise is to instil fear into one’s victim,” said Graham wisely.

“Well he’s failed there, then,” I said. “She’s being very brave about it.”

Graham frowned. “Let’s hope it doesn’t drive him to more extreme measures.”

The next morning every front page carried headlines like D
ARING
T
IFFANY
D
EFIES
D
EATH
or D
EADLY
D
OROTHY
? or B
RAVE
T
IFFANY
R
ISKS
A
LL FOR
O
Z
. Everywhere you looked there were photos of her. Whatever the stalker wanted to achieve – whether he meant to kill her or simply scare her – there was no denying that he’d created great publicity for
The Wizard of Oz
. When the box office opened the following morning, the tickets for the whole run sold out in less than an hour.

Tiffany
was in London for the rest of that week. While she was busy filming “Dead End Street”, her stalker was busy sending her more death threats. We saw her on the news every day. Notes were popping up everywhere: stuck on the reception desk at the TV studios; nailed to the front door of her flat; taped to the seat of the exercise bike in the exclusive gym she frequented. Each time one of the messages appeared there was a corresponding sighting of a masked figure in a wizard’s hat and cape – a neighbour had seen him driving away, or the security guard had glimpsed him disappearing around a corner. On one occasion he was caught on CCTV. Inspector Humphries showed me and Graham the footage so that we could confirm it was the person we’d seen at the theatre. Not that we could be one hundred per cent certain. I told the policeman, “The outfit looks the same all right, but anyone could be underneath that mask, couldn’t they?”

Inspector Humphries admitted, “Yes. That’s precisely the problem.”

In every interview she gave, Tiffany remained brave and defiant, and refused to be terrorized into giving up the part. I suspected that underneath that fragile-looking exterior lurked an iron will.

By trawling through news sites on the Internet, Graham and I kept an eye on the police investigation. They’d interviewed each and every one of her past boyfriends since the first note had appeared. But the two film stars, three pop singers, seven footballers and the boxer didn’t seem to be very convincing stalker material to me.

“Really,” I complained to Graham when we trawled through a gossipy celebrity site, “when you look at it more closely they hardly count as boyfriends at all.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, look,” I pointed at each of them in turn. “As far as I can see, she went to a party with that singer. She had dinner with that actor and lunch with the other one. That footballer took her to Alton Towers and she went to Wimbledon with that one. She went to a polo match with that singer, the races with that one, and a nightclub with him. She went to different award ceremonies with all the other guys. They were just single dates. She went on holiday with the boxer but it was with a huge group of people and there aren’t any photos of them alone together. As far as I can see, she didn’t have a serious relationship with any of these people. She hasn’t been out with anyone long enough for them to get possessive and obsessed.”

“You’re looking at it too logically,” said Graham earnestly. “The true stalker is a delusional obsessive. Some of them never even meet their victims face-to-face and yet they think they’re married to them or something stupid.”

“Really?”

“Oh yes. They end up believing all kinds of peculiar things. It’s called de Clerambault’s syndrome, I think. There was one famous case I read about when a woman became fixated on King George V. She thought he was in love with her and used to hang around outside Buckingham Palace. Every time the servants drew the curtains she was convinced he was sending secret signals to her.”

I was impressed. “Wow! That’s really bonkers.”

“Yes. And there was this mad guy in America who was obsessed with a movie actress. He tried to assassinate the President because he reckoned it would force her to admit she loved him. But she didn’t even know he existed!”

“Weird!” I looked back at the computer screen. “So it could be one of her boyfriends then?”

“Possibly. Or it could be a man she’s never met.”

“It could be a woman too, couldn’t it?” I asked, and Graham nodded. “Maybe it’s someone she sat next to in the hairdresser’s. Or a girl who did her nails.”

“Or it could be any one of a million people who’ve seen her on TV, or passed her in the street,” offered Graham.

“Well, in that case it could be anyone at all,” I sighed. “How on earth will they ever catch them?”

We
didn’t see Tiffany in the flesh again until the read-through.

It was set for the following Monday, so Graham and I got to miss school again. I’d never taken part in so much as a nativity play before so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. When we reached the theatre, Cynthia herded me and Graham to the side of the stage with the other kids, where we couldn’t get in the grown-ups’ way. The death threats had made everyone extremely tense, I thought, or maybe it was normal for theatre people to be irritable at the start of rehearsals.

Peregrine was barking instructions at Geoff, the technician, who was lugging chairs onto the stage and setting them down around a long table. Cynthia was minding us kids and humming such a high, fast tune that she sounded like an angry swarm of bees.

Elizabeth, the stage manager, was handing out scripts to the kids and wearing a harassed expression. I took mine and looked at the front cover, where a typed list of characters was set alongside the names of the actors who were playing them.

First there was Dorothy. Tiffany’s name was in big block capitals but underneath – in teeny-tiny print – her understudy was listed as Hannah Price. Then there was the Scarecrow (Brad Slater), the Tin Man (Timothy North) and the Cowardly Lion (Rex Butler). These four were the only actors with just one part – the other five had to double up so that, for example, Aunt Em (Belinda Fowler) was also the good witch Glinda, and Uncle Henry (Walter Roberts) got to be the Wizard of Oz too.