Free Hazel Wood Girl by Judy May Page B

to be alright.
    Although it was dark already, I just nipped down to the Hazel Wood and was disappointed to find my sneakers still hanging there, but as I got closer I realised that they were all decorated. I love them so much.
    Even if I can’t have Christophe, at least I can have The Watcher part of him.

DAY FORTY-ONE
    I dressed up really rock-chick and wore my newly-pimped sneakers. The boys were just packing away the tent, and Em-J and I brought them over breakfast from our house. I thought I caught Christophe smiling when he saw me wearing the sneakers, but as usual we said nothing about it.
    While we were setting up and the boys were demolishing the pile of cranberry muffins, Em-J said that this girl she knows called Barbara Montague phoned last night. I’m sure I went grey at the mention of her, because my hands started to sweat and my heart was thumping. She said,
    ‘Barbara is getting back from her holidays just before the gig and wants to help out with singing some backing vocals, and maybe playing some percussion.’
    I suddenly felt really angry – I’d done so much and here was Barbara thinking she could just waltz back here and be on stage in front of the audience that I will have spent hours getting in the door! I never felt so angry in my life as I did right then.
    Just at that point, Beau and Christophe started agreeing that they really needed another backing singer and asked Em-J if Barbara was a good singer and how soon before the gig would she be back. That was it! It felt like a voice came from somewhere else, but it was really my voice, saying,
    ‘ME! I can sing!’
    Then they were all looking at me, and I knew I had to start singing right away or else I never would. The only song I could think of was ‘Whisper Me A Morning’, the one I wrote last night, so I closed my eyes to sing it, and when I opened them at the end of the song, the others were all just staring at me, smiling. Smiling in a cool way, not in a sympathetic way or the way you smile at babies or at bad jokes.
    Then Em-J looked back at her notes and said, 
    ‘Thank God for that, I can’t stand Barbara! OK, super-chick, you sing the lead on that one and we’ll work out the chords and that tomorrow, and you can sing these two that Christophe finds it hard to do the vocal and play guitar on, and then you can sing this one instead of me because you are an angel and a star, and I’ll teach you the backing vocals for the rest.’
    The others nodded and that was it, that’s how I got into the band. I think I caught them winking at each other but I can’t be certain. Anyway, no one has mentioned Barbara since.
    After the rehearsal Beau said,
    ‘Great voice,’ and Christophe even gave me a nod.
    Then Em-J said to him,
    ‘Hey, French boy, don’t forget to bring spare strings tomorrow!’
    ‘Are you French?’ was what found its way out of my mouth.
    Christophe looked puzzled and said,
    ‘Yes, I know Hooper isn’t a French name, but my dad’s French and I grew up in Paris until I was eight. In fact I only learned to speak English after that.’
    Which is the most he has said to me out loud ever.
    It suddenly made sense, Christophe is the French for Christopher. I thought maybe he had just lopped off the ‘r’ like the way Emma-Jo became Em-J.
    It’s funny how all the interesting stuff happens just as you are going home and then you get to torture yourself thinking about it, and not about to find out what you want to know. I bet he still speaks French fluently.
    I am trying really hard not to fancy him for three reasons:
    1 Mindy is coming back and she’ll want him.
    2 All the girls will fall for him at the gig.
    3 His mother told me he sees me as a sister.
    4 He doesn’t bother to look at me or talk to me.
    5 I am tired of making a fool of my self.
    6 Why would he go for me anyway, I never say anything funny like Em-J or Mindy?
    OK, so that’s actually six, but that goes to prove it even more.
    They have agreed to lend me