Chapter 5
Five
‘CALL ME REX,’ THE third-year in the grey T-shirt said. ‘I’ll be your student liaison for the day. Any questions, just come and find me. We’ll do a quick tour and then I’ll drop you off back at reception, where you can get your ID cards. Sound good?’
The group murmured their assent. I looked around. Victoria wasn’t here yet. Or maybe she was with another cohort. As Rex led us up the stairs, I typed out a quick message.
Shannon Bell
Hey, what group are you in? I’m with this Rex guy. Maybe I can meet you for the ID bit? Let me know xx
Rex ushered us through some security doors and down a long corridor. The excited chatter died away, replaced with hushed awe at the vaulted ceilings, the polished marble floor, the gilded portraits that peered down at us.
Rex stopped by a plinth. He reached a hand out and stroked the bronze bust that sat atop it.
‘This is Ollie,’ he announced. ‘Oliver Hewlett-Smith – the founder of the school.’ He smirked at us. ‘All us students stroke his nose before doing a show. It’s good luck.’
A ripple of excitement went through the group as we were let in on this nugget of theatrical lore.
‘Honest to God, it’s not even bollocks. A girl in my class, Annabelle, stroked him before she went on to do her Ophelia, and the next day she got a job at The Nash.’
The group cooed and chattered in response. I wasn’t entirely sure what The Nash was, but it sounded impressive.
‘Go ahead, give him a stroke.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re at RLSDA now. You need all the luck you can get.’
Each member of the group stepped forward in turn and stroked the long nose, worn to a dull copper by years of fraught, ambitious fingers.
I went last. I pressed my thumb to the bust. The head toppled slightly. Rex stepped in front of me.
‘Woah there. I think that’s enough luck for today.’
Monday, 7th September at 10:56
Shannon Bell
Hey, I’m in the queue. You here yet? Xx
The person ahead of me moved.
Monday, 7th September at 10:57
Shannon Bell
The ID queue I mean, haha, just in case you were like, what queue?? Xx
I shuffled forwards. I glanced over my shoulder but didn’t see anyone I recognized. Even Rex had abandoned us.
I looked at my phone. There were no new messages.
I sighed and rubbed my eye, whereupon some dust mote, some speck of dirt got stuck. I blinked a few times, trying to dislodge it, but the thing burrowed deeper.
‘Ow, bastard.’
I wiped my hand on my jeans, pulled back my eyelid, and tried to dig it out with my finger.
The queue moved forward.
I tried again, pinning my eyelid back, rooting around for the lash or grit or demon that was causing my discomfort.
‘Next!’
I looked to the side and caught my reflection in a glass display case. My eyes were streaming. A woman with a clipboard stopped beside me.
‘Name?’
‘Shannon Bell.’
‘Are you OK, sweetheart?’
‘Yes, no, I’m fine – I’ve just—’
‘I know the first day is nerve-racking, but you’ll be all right.’ She squeezed my shoulder and continued moving down the line.
‘Name?’
The queue moved forward again. Now there were only two people between me and the camera’s unforgiving gaze. I dabbed at my face, wiping as much mascara from beneath my eyes as I could.
‘Next!’ the photographer yelled.
I sat down in front of the blue backdrop. My nose was running now too. I stared down the lens, holding my eye open as long as I dared.
The camera flashed.
‘Next!’
One more blink and the grit, with virtuosic timing, dislodged itself.
‘First-years, this way please!’ someone yelled.
I was ushered through a different door and into a new crowd of people.
‘Once you’ve had your photograph taken, please head to the Hewlett Theatre. The principal’s address will start in five minutes.’
I walked through the padded velvet doors and into the crimson five-hundred-seat theatre. Another third-year was directing students to fill up from the front.
That’s when I saw her.
She was sitting three rows from the stage, already hemmed in by students on all sides.
She had her feet on the chair in front of her.
To her left was a broad-shouldered boy. On his head sat a tight crop of black curls.
A delicate silver chain glinted from around his dark-brown neck.
To her right bounced a puckish boy with alabaster skin and a messy shock of white-yellow hair.
The skinny boy delivered the punchline to a joke and the three of them laughed. He stood up in his chair. Victoria, giggling, pulled him back down into his seat.
‘Up here, please.’ The third-year tapped me on the shoulder. ‘There are places near the back.’
I climbed the stairs, sat down and pulled out my phone.
Nervous, excited chatter filled the room.
Monday, 7th September at 11:12
Shannon Bell
Look up ^^ I’m here! Xx
‘Hi, I’m Lucy. What’s your name?’ the girl beside me said.
Victoria, still deep in conversation, reached for her phone.
‘Shannon.’
She glanced at the screen and replaced it in her pocket.
‘Oh, cool. I’m doing the set design course. What about you?’
I shifted in my seat to get a better look at the three of them.
‘Did you hear what I said?’
Turn around, Victoria.
‘I said I was doing the set design course, what about you?’
Notice me.
‘Hello?’
See me.
‘Hello?’
‘EVERY ONE OF YOU is sitting here today because you have something special. Whether you call it talent or that maddeningly inscrutable “X factor”, every one of you has it.’ The principal stopped and gazed around the room. ‘So use it.’
I stared at the back of Victoria’s head.
‘You are the storytellers. You are the witnesses. Use your voice. Tell the world what you have seen and heard and felt.’
Why hadn’t she responded to any of my messages?
‘Tell the world what matters, why it matters. Use your voice to make them laugh and cry and feel things, to experience everything that this world has to offer.’
Just a simple text?
‘As performers and theatre makers, you have the power to reach inside people’s heads, inside their very beings, and connect with them.’
Had I upset her somehow?
‘You have the power to transport them across borders, continents, galaxies.’
I watched as she leaned her head on the arm of the guy to her right, watched as she was handed a tissue by the puckish boy. The small tight-knit group sat forwards in their seats, hanging on the principal’s every word.
‘You have the power to—’
She was wearing baggy paint-splattered jeans, a cropped white vest.
‘Your time here won’t be easy. There will be times when you’ll struggle, when you’ll falter. When you’ll fall so low you won’t know how to get back up again.’
The three of them turned and looked at one another, smiling, gushing and spilling over with pride at how demonstrably special they all were, how very chosen.
‘But, as I believe Confucius once said: Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall—’
Her hair fell in waves across her shoulders.
‘We expect a lot of our students. You are the creators of the future—’
She’d said I should grow my hair too, that then we could be twins.
‘As students of the Royal London School of Dramatic Arts, we want to teach you how to thrive, to flourish—’
She said she’d never met anyone like me before, that she’d never felt such an instant connection.
‘—like the bright butterflies you all are—’
That we were like sisters.
‘We want you to learn lots of things. But above all, my dear first-years—’
We’re sisters now, you and I. Don’t ever forget that.
‘—we want you to rise!’
Sisters.
The hall erupted in applause. Students leapt to their feet. Whoops and cheers filled the auditorium. Someone started stamping their feet, and soon the whole student body had joined in.
The principal touched his head, his heart, placing his hands in a mandala pose of humble grace, bowing, grinning, genuflecting; a deity, a rockstar.
Victoria was on her feet too, clapping her hands high above her head, the hem of her vest lifting with every slap of air.