Page 95 of A Class Act

‘And if it’s bad?’ She turned at the door, a look of comic melancholic dejection on her pretty face.

‘I’ll treat you to somewhere posh.’ I smiled, trying to work out what was left in my bank account that month.

‘Comeon.’ Sorrel was at my classroom door as the bell went, waiting with her coat on and irritably elbowing the younger Year 7 kids and their voluminous bags as they barged into her in their bid for freedom.

‘Oy, don’t rush. Walk!’ I shouted at their departing backs. And then, grabbing my jacket, added, ‘I’m coming, I’m coming.’ Luckily, Friday was the one afternoon I didn’t have a staff meeting, rehearsal or one of my extra-curricular dance classes. ‘OK.’ I jingled my keys in Sorrel’s direction as we attempted ourown quick getaway through a throng of pop-drinking, chocolate-bar-eating and phone-scrolling kids.

‘You OK?’ I asked once we were belted up and negotiating our way through the dissipating crowd of pupils.

‘Duh! No!’ Sorrel snapped. ‘Of course not. What if they turn me down for an audition?Of course, they’ll turn me down for an audition,’ she added crossly.

I patted Sorrel’s hand in sympathy, but slowing to a standstill at the main gate where kids and parents had gathered was just too much for her and, pressing down the window button, she shouted, ‘Get out the fecking way, can’t you?’

‘Sorrel,’ I spluttered. ‘There are parents there.’

‘I’m sure they’ve heard a lot worse.’ She grinned. ‘Sorry.’

Mum, Jess and Lola were all waiting in Jess’s kitchen, hovering impatiently over a devil’s food cake brimming with chocolate and cream.

‘I made it to stuff our faces if it’s not good news,’ Jess said apologetically while Mum poured tea.

‘What if one’s good news and one isn’t?’ Lola asked, holding the two letters reverentially to her chest.

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I said. ‘You’re all drama queens. Get the damned things opened.’ I took the envelopes from Lola and handed them to their rightful recipients. ‘Just do it.’

Jess and Sorrel did as they were told and, without another word, opened the letters.

‘Yes!’ Sorrel immediately shouted, thumping the air and jumping up and down. ‘Yes, yes, absolutely yes! Got an audition after Christmas.’ She hugged Mum so hard the pair almost fell over.

‘Jess?’

We all turned in her direction where she stood, stock-still, grim-faced, her demeanour one of utter disappointment.

‘No?’ I asked gently. ‘Aw, Jess. Look, you can try for thebig onenext. ActualMasterChef…’

Sorrel grabbed the letter angrily from Jess’s hand and then started to hoot. ‘You big fraud, Jessica Butterworth,’ she yelled, turning back to Lola, Mum and me. ‘She’s got it too: she’s one of the ten picked to show what they can cook in the first round of just two rounds in Harrogate. Blimey, Jess, filming starts the beginning of the week after next!’

Mum had immediately messaged Jayden touring in South America to tell him the good news and he’d (amazingly) immediately got back saying he’d transfer the necessary readies to Mum’s account and for her to book somewhere fabulous for the five of us to celebrate.

‘You don’t think we’re being a bit premature?’ Jess worried. ‘I mean, we’re only both at the first stages.’

‘Yes, and let’s face it, being realistic, you might not get to the finishing line.’ I patted Jess’s arm. ‘So, best to take up Jayden’s offer of a fabulous meal and make the most of celebrating this first step of the way while you can.’

Three hours later, showered, coiffured, dressed in our best and made up (including Lola, who was immediately ordered back upstairs to take off the badly applied startlingly pink lipstick and blue eyeshadow) we were in an Uber and heading for Cream, an up-and-coming and ridiculously expensive restaurant in the town centre.

‘Do we just get cream?’ Lola wanted to know as we were shown to our seats. ‘You know, like at the chippy, we just get chips?’

‘Yes,’ Sorrel deadpanned. ‘You just have to choose from single, double, clotted, whipping or sour.’

I glanced over at her. What a difference three months had made to my little sister’s whole life. She was still feisty, probably always would be, and, let’s face it, that wasn’t a bad thing if she was to make it andsurvivein the West End. I couldn’t see Sorrel getting as upset as I had been with the mean girls who’d turned on me backstage at The Mercury. Sorrel, this evening, was animated, glowing, her hair, released from its usual scrunched-up ponytail, a cloud of dark smoke around her ravishing little pixie face.

‘Ugh, sour cream? Why’s it gone off?’ Lola pulled a face. ‘I’ll have clotted cream, I think. Can I have Coke, Granny?’

‘She’s having you on, sweetie.’ Mum smiled. ‘Yes, one Coke if your mum says that’s OK.’ Mum, too, was so much better than when I’d rushed up – as much as onecanrush up with an ACL injury – three months earlier, terrified that this particular downward spiral into her condition might be her last. Thanks to Matt Spencer and his team at Midhope General, she’d pulled through again and was trialling new drugs, which appeared to be working. Slight, pretty, her beautiful facial bone structure a heads-up to her Asian heritage, she looked more like my and Jess’s older sister than our mum.

Jess, herself always a worrier, appeared, despite the nerve-racking Yorkshire Christmas TopChef rounds ahead of her, much more relaxed and happier now that Dean Butterworth was out of her life and Matt Spencer very much in it. I watched as she perused every bit of the menu, frowning at a dish she obviously didn’t think would work, but nodding sagely to herself at an idea I knew she’d be emulating in her own kitchen the following day.She’d lost quite a bit of weight recently – whether through worry or, as was probably the case, through falling in love with Matt – and, with Jayden’s Caribbean heritage, rather than Mum’s South Asian genes, her stunning dark eyes and full mouth reflected her own striking good looks.

Mum looked up from her perusal of the menu. ‘Right, I know what I’m having,’ she said, turning to me. ‘So, Robyn, how’s it going with the magnificent Mason?’

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