Pumpkin Pie (6 page)

Way to go!

The drama classes were held every Friday after school and every Saturday afternoon. Four hours a week! It sounds like a lot, but when you are doing something you enjoy it is truly amazing how quickly time passes. As opposed to how
s-l-o-w-l-y
it passes when it is something you positively loathe, such as maths, for example. Well, in my case when it is maths. I dare say there are some people, with the right sort of brains, that derive great pleasure from the subject.

Possibly not everyone would think it such fun to get up in front of other people and act out your deepest emotions, or do things which make you look foolish, but it is far more fun, to my way of thinking, than right-angled triangles or stupid problems about men filling baths with water. I was so pleased that Saffy had made us enrol! Why hadn’t I thought of it? Saffy only wanted to meet boys; the acting bit was just an excuse. She didn’t really care whether she was any good or not. I was the one with serious ambitions!

To be honest, I thought at first that I was going to be disappointed. It wasn’t a bit how I’d expected it to be! I’d pictured a real school with a proper theatre and a dance studio, but all it was, was this shabby old house at the end of Saffy’s road. The paintwork was all peeling, and the window sills were crumbling. Outside there was a sign that said
AMBROSE ACADEMY
in faded blue letters. The lady who ran it, Mrs Ambrose, was pretty faded, too. She had long white hair done in plaits on top of her head and looked even older than my grans.

I stared in dismay as me and Mum walked through the door that first Friday. I didn’t mean to be rude, but how could this decrepit person be a drama teacher? I remember that I looked at Saffy and pulled a face, but Saffy just mouthed the one word: boys! It was all she cared about.

Mum obviously wasn’t too impressed because when she came to fetch me, later that evening, she said, “Pumpkin, I’m sure there must be better places than this! Why don’t we have a look round?”

I shrieked, “Mum, no!”

After only two hours, I was hooked. In spite of being so ancient, and having white hair, Mrs Ambrose was a true inspiration. She had this really
deep
voice, very commanding, and when she moved about the room it was like she was a ship on the sea, ploughing through the waves. She was strict, too! She didn’t make you take auditions because she said that “drama is for everyone,” but she did expect you to work. She said, “Some of you may go on to become professionals. Some of you are just here for fun. But even fun has to be taken seriously! Work hard and play hard and we can all enjoy ourselves.” I think it came as a bit of a shock to Saffy, who’d probably imagined she was just going to slouch around ogling boys.

For the first half hour we did warm-ups. Physical ones, and ones for the voice.

Ay ee oo ah oo ee ay

MmmmmmmAhmmmmmmEemmmmmmEeeeeee

Sproo sprow spraw sprah spray spree

Saffy said afterwards that she found it a bit boring. I didn’t! Mrs Ambrose said that I had a good strong voice and good breath control, and I could feel myself glowing. It is nice to be good at things! Saffy, on the other hand, was told that her voice was too tight and too squeaky and that she needed to loosen up, and she was given some special voice exercises to help her. I could see that Saffy wasn’t too pleased, but as I pointed out to her, when she was moaning on about it, “There is no such thing as a free lunch.”

“Meaning what?” said Saffy.

“Meaning,” I said, “that if you want to meet boys you’ve got to work at it. You,” I reminded her, “were the one that said so!”

“Huh!” said Saffy. And then, in pleading tones, she said, “I haven’t really got a squeaky voice, have I?”

What could I say? Mrs Ambrose spoke the truth!

“This is so humiliating,” wailed Saffy.

To comfort her, I said that it wasn’t nearly so humiliating as turning right when you should have turned left, which was what happened to me while we were doing our warm-ups. I crashed slap, bang into this girl next to me. She gave me such a glare! I have never been the athletic type, which was what made it so pathetic when I tried to join in with the sporty set. Mrs Ambrose said that I must work on my co-ordination, and the girl I crashed into muttered, “Yeah, and work on something else, as well!” eyeing me sourly as she did so. I wasn’t sure what she meant by this cryptic remark, so I decided to ignore it. I’d already said that I was sorry. What more did she want?

Everyone except me and Saffy was wearing black tights and black sweats, with
Ambrose Academy
printed on them. It was a sort of unofficial uniform, and I was already looking forward to wearing it on Saturday. Black is so flattering to the fuller figure. Saffy doesn’t have a fuller figure, in fact she doesn’t really have a figure at all, but she was looking forward to it because she thinks it is a mature sort of colour. Saffy is really anxious to be mature! (In case she happens to bump into Brad while he is between wives, I guess.)

After we’d finished voice exercises we all settled down to work on this soap that we were creating. The title, which was
Sob Story,
had already been decided on before me and Saffy enrolled. It was about three girls who were trying to make it as an all-girl band. One of the boys was their manager, and another was a record producer, and one was a DJ. All the rest were friends and neighbours. Saffy and me had to invent characters for ourselves. Saffy decided that she would be “someone from America”.

“Doing what?” said the girl I’d crashed into.

“Just visiting,” said Saffy.

“Why?” said the girl.

“Why not?” said Saffy.

Angrily, the girl said, “It doesn’t play any part in the storyline!”

“How do you know?” said Saffy.

Well, of course, she didn’t. She subsided, muttering. I felt quite proud of Saffy! She is not a person who will let herself be pushed around.

“What about you?” said the girl, looking at me like I was a drip on the end of someone’s nose.

I said that I was going to be an old person. Mrs Ambrose cried, “Good! That’s good! Someone brave enough to do a bit of real acting.”

The girl gave me this
look.
I could tell already that she didn’t like me. As a rule I am such a creepy crawly that it really upsets me if I feel I am not liked. I want to be liked by everyone! But you can’t be; not if you have any sort of personality, which I think I
do
have. When I can get it sorted out! When I stop trying to be all these other things. But anyway, for once in my life it didn’t really bother me. I was having too good a time being this old person! I made up a name for myself, Mrs Fuzzle, and I went round complaining about pop music being just a horrible noise, and not like it was when when I was young.

I based it on one of my grans! Dad’s mum, who is nearly seventy and says that nothing is the same as it used to be. (Mum’s mum is younger and more with it.) Dad’s mum doesn’t grouch; she isn’t one of those nasty cross old people. But my one was! Mrs Fuzzle. She spoke all the time in this whiny kind of voice.

“You kids today… no manners! No consideration for the old folk. It wasn’t like this when I was young. When I was young we had respect. We had proper music, too! Not all this head-banging muck.”

I found myself wandering into every scene, doing my complaining. I even managed to get into the recording studio! It wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind. I wasn’t acting scenes of mad passion with a gorgeous guy, and people going ooh and aah and being gobsmacked. But everyone laughed, and the boy playing the record producer couldn’t speak for corpsing!

“You were showing off,” said Saffy, when we met up next day.

I didn’t mean to show off. I am not a showing-off kind of person! I’d never realised before that I could make people laugh. Even Saffy agreed that it had been funny.

“But not very glam,” she said.

She pointed out that next term, when we were going to record
Sob Story
on video, I would have to dress up as an old woman and paint wrinkles on my face. I hadn’t thought of that!

“It’s all right,” said Saffy. “It just means you’re a
character
actress.”

But I didn’t want to be a character actress! I wanted to be beautiful and attract boys! For a while I was crestfallen, thinking that I had made a big mistake. Everyone else was going to be cool and funky, and I was going to be an aged old hag with wrinkles! And then I had this bright idea.

“I know!” I said. “I’ll do a transformation scene!”

Saffy blinked and said, “What?”

“At the end… like in pantomime! I’ll have this mask and I’ll tear it off, and I’ll jump out of my coat and I’ll be the good fairy with a magic wand that makes everyone’s wishes come true!”

Saffy looked at me with what I felt was new respect.

“That,” she said, “is just brilliant!”

I thought it was, too. I thought, I’ve got what it takes! It is very important to have what it takes. You can’t get anywhere if you haven’t got it. But I had! I was going places. I had discovered my vocation!

“You’ve got to admit,” said Saffy, “that it was a good idea of mine, wasn’t it?”

“It was my idea!” I said.

“No, you twonk!” She gave me a companionable biff on the arm. “Going to drama school.”

“Oh! That,” I said. “Yes.” I beamed at her. “It was one of the best ideas you’ve ever had!”

I
T
W
AS JUST
SO
good to have found something I could do, other than drawing pictures of the rabbit’s reproductive system (which now seemed rather gross). I could act! I could make people laugh! I had a good strong voice! I had good breath control! It made me feel all bubbly and enthusiastic, so much so that I actually started doing voice exercises every evening in my bedroom.

Ay ee oo ah oo ee ay

Mummy mummy mummy mummy

MmmmmAH! MmmmmmAY! MmmmmmEE!

Then there were the little stories, about Witty Kitty McQuitty, and Carlotta’s Past, and Cook with her pudding basins. They were all for different vowel sounds, and I practised them like crazy.

Witty Kitty McQuitty was a natty secretary to Sir Willy Gatty mmmmmAH! MmmmmmAY! MmmmmmEE!

One day I opened my bedroom door to find Pip crouching there with his ear to the keyhole. Well, it obviously
had
been to the keyhole. You could tell.

“What do you want?” I said.

Pip said, “Who were you talking to?”

I said, “What business is it of yours? Can’t a person have a private conversation in this house?”

Pip said it hadn’t sounded like a conversation. “Sounded more like a cow farting.”

Greatly annoyed, I said, “When did you ever hear a cow fart?”

“Just now,” said Pip. “In your bedroom!”

“You shouldn’t have been listening!” I screeched.

“Couldn’t help it,” said Pip, “the racket you were making.”

He then galloped off downstairs going “Moo! Moo! Fart!” and making silly waggling motions with his fingers.

“Moron!” I shouted; but he just stuck out his tongue and fled along the hall.

I thought to myself that considering he was supposed to be some kind of genius, his behaviour could be quite extraordinarily childish. But then, of course, he
was
only ten years old. I think sometimes we tended to forget that. It is probably quite normal, at ten years old, to be stupid and annoying. I just didn’t want him being stupid and annoying about my voice exercises!