Free Ruby Parker Hits the Small Time by Rowan Coleman Page A

quiet.”
    I reached into my pocket and pulled out three pounds and eighty-nine pence. “What, with this? Because this is all I have left out of my allowance, and it’s only Wednesday. I don’t think it’ll cut much sway with a millionaire’s daughter, do you?”
    Nydia looked at the coins languishing in my palm. “What about your trust fund?” she said.
    â€œNo way, José,” I replied. “I can’t touch it. And anyway, Anne-Marie would never—”
    â€œI know!” Nydia’s eyes lit up, and I could see the worst had happened. She’d had one of her mad plans again, the kind you can’t get her to leave alone—the kind that always, always gets us into trouble. Only this time I had the feeling she was going to surpass herself.
    â€œYou said your mum is feeling guilty, right? And your dad too? Well, we’ll find out what Anne-Marie wants—a mobile phone that can take photos or a PSP or something—and then get them to buy it for you and then we’ll give it to her. Easy peasy.”
    I thought for a moment. “I don’t know,” I said. “They feel bad, but …oh, Nydia, this plan is ridiculous! It’s never going to work. Anne-Marie won’t help us, even for a cool mobile phone. And even if she would, my mum would never buy me one. You know what she’s like about me being normal! Anyway, it doesn’t seem very fair to Mum or Dad to rip them off like that.”
    Nydia took both my hands in hers. “Have they been fair to you?”
    I shook my head, the bleak reality of what was waiting for me at home surging back for a second. All these plans, all this excitement over Justin: It was mad and silly, but it was better— anything was better—than thinking about that . I boxed up all thoughts of home and shoved them to the back of my mind.
    â€œAnd besides,” Nydia continued, “it would only be a one-off. It’s not as if you’d do it every week. You deserve to get something out of all this, Ruby, don’t you?”
    I nodded uncertainly. The only thing I really wanted was my family back the way it always had been. But I couldn’t have that, so I’d just have to be tough. It was the only way to get through it.
    â€œHave you got a better idea?” Nydia asked pointedly. I shook my head.
    â€œAnd do you want to be able to kiss Justin so well that he’ll be blown away at what might be your only chance?”
    My heart plummeted. But it was no good. I just couldn’t do it.
    â€œI can’t,” I said. “I just can’t get Mum and Dad to buy me something to give to Anne-Marie. Even if I don’t like them much at the moment. I’m sorry, Nyds.”
    Nydia squeezed my wrist and thought for a second longer. “Yes, you can,” she said excitedly. “And you don’t even need your mum and dad to do it. You’ve got the one thing that Anne-Marie wants more than anything else.”
    I looked confused. “What? A bra the size of a battleship?”
    â€œNo, silly. Fame. You’ve got fame and she hates that.
    If you told her that you could maybe help her get a part on the show …”
    â€œBut I can’t,” I protested. “I’m barely holding on to my own part.”
    Nydia shook her head quickly. “Yes, I know that, and you know that. But she doesn’t , does she? She’d go for it. I bet she would. She dyed her hair orange to try to get the lead in Annie . If she’d do that, she’d do anything.”
    I nodded. “Maybe …” I said. Maybe I was overtired and overwrought, but Nydia’s plan did have a mad kind of logic to it. And so what if it would mean lying to Anne-Marie? It’s not as if she’d ever been anything but nasty to me.
    Nydia was looking pleased with herself. “Well then,” she said, “all we have to do is just call Anne-Marie and we’ll see what