Free The Kiss by Lucy Courtenay Page B

show Mum ever did, so I don’t know the songs. However, I can pretty much guarantee that turning it into a musical won’t have improved it. I arrive at two with a heavy heart and a bag of popcorn I bought on the way over.
    ‘Oz is here,’ Tabby informs me as she opens the door. ‘I bumped into him earlier. Apparently he’s mad about musicals so I invited him to join us. Go on up. I’ll get us some drinks.’
    I go upstairs and push open Tabby’s bedroom door. Oz jumps up from the bed, looking guilty.
    ‘Were you just sniffing Tab’s pillow?’ I ask.
    ‘Uh,’ he says, ‘if I said no, would you believe me?’
    I check him out, up and down. ‘Looking good today, Osgood. New shirt? Is that aftershave I can smell?’
    Oz wafts his hand around his head a little anxiously. ‘Too much?’
    ‘I didn’t have you down as a musicals kind of guy,’ I say.
    ‘Never watched one in my life. Don’t tell Tabby.’
    Tab comes in, her arms full of Coke and packets of crisps. ‘Don’t tell me what?’
    ‘Don’t tell you what a massive fan of What an Ado! Oz is,’ I say blithely, as Oz makes horrified faces at me behind Tabby’s back. ‘He’s quite embarrassed about it. He knows all the words, to all the songs.’
    ‘Really?’ Tabby looks excited. ‘Which are the best ones?’
    Oz flaps about like a dog in a swamp. ‘Uh, the, uh, love duet is great. And . . . and . . . so’s the one when they, uh . . .?’
    ‘Don’t look at me,’ I say, enjoying myself. ‘I’ve never seen the musical, I’ve only read the play. Which part do you think Tab should go for, Oz?’
    Tabby chucks us both a can of Coke as the titles start up, saving Oz from any more floundering. He gives me a Chinese burn as she slides the curtains closed. I kick him back.
    It’s an old film, dating to when movies of musicals lured the crowds from their radio sets and knitting and showed them a glossy vision of Hollywood in full song. The musical numbers are pretty good, and on one or two of the really fast ones, I wind Oz up by asking why he isn’t singing along. But the storyline is still a shocker.
    ‘Brilliant,’ squeals Tab as a Hollywood orchestra brings the whole thing to a whopping snog-fest of a conclusion. ‘Right?’
    ‘The best,’ Oz agrees, looking relieved that it’s over.
    ‘It was a bit . . . retro for me,’ I say. Hero was as pathetic as ever, trilling away like a dappy blond canary. I’ll never get past her pretending to be dead because she didn’t have sex. I’m sorry, but there it is.
    ‘The show was written over sixty years ago,’ Tabby points out, catching the look on my face. ‘But the songs are amazing. I love how it’s about two people who love each other while pretending to hate each other.’
    ‘I liked that bit too,’ says Oz.
    ‘She’s never going to kiss you,’ I tell him when Tab has hugged us both and shooed us into the street with promises of meeting up at college the next day. ‘However many bad musicals you commit to memory.’
    ‘I know,’ Oz sighs. ‘But what am I, if all the life I have is made of cold reality, not dreams?’
    I look at him in alarm. ‘A scientist last time I looked.’
    ‘If scientists didn’t have dreams,’ he points out, ‘Isaac Newton would still be sitting under that apple tree rubbing his head and vowing to dig up his orchard on Health and Safety grounds.’
    Audition day hits in an all-singing, all-dancing supernova. I come with Tabby to give her courage, although there are a hundred other places I would rather be. Oz is supposed to join us, but after a massive party on Monday night is fit for nothing but a beanbag-and-PS4 combo in the comfort of his own bedroom.
    ‘Whose party?’ I ask with interest when he calls me.
    ‘I have no idea,’ he croaks before hanging up.
    The Gaslight is organized chaos. Or maybe disorganized chaos. I’m not sure how you tell the difference. The big foyer is loud and bursting at the seams with actors and