Free Rebecca Rocks by Anna Carey Page B

hello there,’ said Veronica . ‘Your mentor is Kitty Shorthall from the Chalet School!’
    A woman with a bob and a very cool dress gave us a cheerful wave. We waved back, and Veronica went through the rest of the list. There were seven bands and, to our surprise, one solo artist.
    ‘Right, last but not least is Paula Howard,’ said Veronica. ‘Our only solo act this year. Where are you, Paula?’
    A very small girl all dressed in black with lots of hair and a fringe that almost covered her eyes put up her hand.
    ‘Cool,’ said Veronica. ‘Your mentor is Dave Crewe from Panda Gun. Right, now I want you all to come up here and meet your mentors! And then you’ll go off for your first workshops . Today you’re going to have workshops with your mentors all day, but from tomorrow we’ll be mixing things up a little.’
    ‘See you later then,’ said Richard, giving Alice a quick kiss, and then we all went off to find our mentors.
    ‘What if she hates us?’ said Cass.
    ‘What if we hate her?’ I said.
    ‘Oh, don’t be silly,’ said Alice. ‘She’ll be lovely. She looks nice and friendly.’
    And she was all of these things. Unlike obnoxious Charlie, I wanted us to get a woman for a mentor. There aren’t really thatmany girls in bands like ours, and it’s surprising what a difference it makes when you actually see any. It’s like you’ve got permission to do what you’re doing, even though you know that really you never needed any permission. Kitty seemed to feel the same way.
    ‘Hello, ladies,’ she said when we came up and introduced ourselves. ‘I’m really glad I got a band with girls in it. It’s always good to see more girls starting bands!’
    And after that we got on really well. We went into our designated practice room, which had some amps and instruments in it, and Kitty told us about her band, the Chalet School, which sounds really cool; they met when they were in college, and they released their first album last year. And, of course, we told her all about Hey Dollface.
    ‘We played our first gig at the Battle of the Bands in the Knitting Factory last year,’ said Cass. ‘It went pretty well.’
    I was going to say, ‘Apart from the bit where I fell backwards off the drum platform,’ but then I stopped myself. Surely Kitty didn’t need to know about that minor mishap? It wasn’t like I’m going to do it again. At least, I hope not.
    ‘But we had to take a break for a while because I hurt my wrist,’ said Alice. ‘So we haven’t actually played any showssince then. We want to, though.’
    ‘That’s a great idea,’ said Kitty. ‘And it’s great that you’ve played a gig already. My band were together for about a year before we actually got on a stage!’
    It was really easy to talk to her. In fact, I wish she was going to teach us everything, but it turns out that some of the workshops are just going to be each band alone with their mentor, and some of them will be all the bands together. Anyway, we had lots of fun; we played her our song ‘The Real Me’, and she said it reminded her of a band called Veronica Falls, and before we knew it, it was lunchtime.
    ‘This is brilliant,’ I said, as we walked into the big college canteen café place where we’re going to have lunch every day. ‘We’ll probably have written a whole album by the time this course is over!’
    ‘I don’t know about that,’ said Alice.
    ‘Oh, come on, Alice,’ said Cass. ‘All this practice! Hours a day! We’ll be practically professionals! Ooh, look, there’s Jane and Ellie, they’ve saved us some seats. And who’s that with Ellie?’
    ‘It’s Sam!’ I said. ‘From
Mary Poppins
. I don’t know who the other red-haired girl is, though.’
    ‘Jane!’ roared Cass. ‘Ah, she heard us.’
    We hurried over.
    ‘Look who it is!’ said Ellie. ‘Sam’s doing the art course too!’
    ‘Hey!’ said Sam in a cheerful way.
    It was cool to see him again. He had been quite shy for most of