Free Rebecca Rocks by Anna Carey Page A

mean, surely it’s quite obvious that the people are, like, on a stage? And acting? Anyway, Richard was still going out about how brilliant Ian Cliff was and how much he hoped they’d get him as their mentor when we left the Orchestra Room. And it turned out that we needn’t have worried about not finding anyone because as soon as we walked out into the corridor we bumped into Jane.
    ‘Oh, thank God I’ve found you,’ said Jane. ‘Something terrible has happened.’
    ‘Oh God, you’re not sick, are you?’ said Alice nervously.
    ‘No,’ said Jane. ‘Well, sort of. But only because they divided us up into groups, and I’m in the same one as Vanessa and Karen! And Bernard the Fairy-tale Prince, though I don’t really have anything against him apart from the fact he’s going out with Karen. We’re going to have to spend the whole summer camp coming up with a play together.’
    ‘Just the four of you?’ said Alice.
    ‘No, thank God,’ said Jane. ‘There’s another girl and two boys. But still!’
    ‘Oh dear,’ I said. And I patted her arm sympathetically.
    ‘Oh well,’ said Jane bravely. ‘It’ll be good acting practice, trying to pretend they’re not driving me mad. What’s your thing like?’
    ‘Pretty good, I think,’ said Cass. And we told her about Veronica and Tom and the mentors.
    ‘So, who’s your mentor?’ said Jane.
    ‘We don’t know yet,’ I said. ‘They’re telling us in a few minutes when we go back in. Do you have mentors?’
    ‘Not like that,’ said Jane. ‘Just facilitators. Whatever that means, exactly. Oh! I forgot to tell you. One of them is Cathy.’
    ‘Director Cathy?’ said Alice. Cathy Laverty directed ourproduction of
Mary Poppins
. She was okay, in an intimidating, serious sort of way.
    ‘The very same,’ said Jane. ‘She’s still doing that scary glare thing. One of the boys started messing around at the start of the session, and she just … stared at him until he turned around, and then he shut up immediately. It’s like magic.’
    Then we realised that people were starting to go back into the various meeting rooms, so we told Jane we’d see her at lunch and headed back into the Orchestra Room. When we got back to our seats, Richard and his bandmates had been joined by the other band from their school. They were having a serious conversation about which mentor they wanted to get. Of course Richard was going on about Ian Cliff and how he was the greatest artist in Dublin and Verfremdungseffekt were the best band since the Bad Seeds.
    ‘Yeah, they’re not bad,’ said a boy from the other band. He laughed. ‘We’ll have to fight you lot for him.’
    ‘I hope we don’t get one of the girls,’ said one of his bandmates . ‘I just can’t take girly musicians seriously.’ He looked at us and grinned in what he probably thought was a charming way but which looked more like a smirk to me. ‘No offence.’
    ‘Lots of offence taken,’ I said. I could see why Richardhadn’t looked very pleased to see them here. He looked even less pleased now.
    ‘Wow, Charlie,’ said Richard. ‘I didn’t realise you were that scared of girls.’
    Charlie looked annoyed.
    ‘I’m not SCARED of them, Murray,’ he said. But before he could say anything else obnoxious, Veronica and Tom and the mentors came back in.
    ‘So,’ said Tom. ‘We’re going to give you each a mentor now! First up … Richard Murray and the Wicked Ways. Where are you, Wicked Ways?’
    Richard and the bandmates put up their hands and looked a bit nervous.
    ‘Your mentor is Ian Cliff from Verfremdungseffekt!’ said Tom, and Richard looked very relieved. Ian looked over and nodded at them in a very serious way.
    Then they called the Crack Parrots, which, it turns out, is the name of horrible Charlie’s band. I was hoping he’d get one of the women but alas he didn’t, he got some man called Simon from a band called Aniseed. And then it was our turn.
    ‘Now, where are Hey Dollface? Ah,