Hayley Westenra by Hayley Westenra Read Free Book Online Page B

competition.
    From the start, Alan and his wife Nettie were as supportive as it was possible to be. We arrived at the restaurant to find a big yellow balloon with the words 'Good Luck Hayley' on it. Alan is a very well-spoken man and thoughtful in the truest sense of the word, in that he's careful and measured in everything he says. I was very touched when he turned to me at the end of the meal and said, 'Even if you get no further than this, you should be so proud of coming this far.'
    After having known me for a couple of years, Alan gave me a VIP card, which was a big hit with my friends.
    'Not many people have this card,' he said as he handed it over.
    The card read, 'This card entitles Hayley Westenra and a friend to a free meal of their choice at McDonald's.'
    From then on, if we were hanging out in the mall, one of my friends would say to me, 'Hey, Hayley, let's grab something to eat at the food court. And what about that card you have?' We would then share out the food between us.
    There were not very many of these cards in existence. The only other ones I knew about were given by Alan to the players for the Crusaders, the Canterbury rugby team. On one occasion, I went into a McDonald's restaurant that it turned out that Alan didn't own and tried to use the card. Everyone behind the counter looked a little confused, but they still handed over the free meals, even though they had a suspicious look in their eyes. Only afterwards did I discover that it was not one of Alan's restaurants and this was the reason for the blank faces. Still, I managed to score myself a couple of free meals in the process!
    For the semifinals in Taupo, I sang Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'Wishing You Were Somewhere Here Again'. Unfortunately for me, things did not go quite so smoothly as my performance in the heats. As I was singing, I lost control of my voice and ended up with a frog in my throat on one of my first notes. As far as I was concerned, I had completely messed up. After I had finished, I stood backstage shaking from the experience. It seemed to me at the time to be the most horrific thing that had ever happened to me in my whole life. I was still young and, as I waited to hear the views of the judges, the mistake was gradually amplified out of all proportion in my mind. It was such a big deal for me: I was in the semifinals; it was on national television; I had embarrassed myself; the judges would never know just how well I could sing. I was convinced that one
of the other two acts I was up against – a dancer and a flautist – would go through.
    The host,Jason Gunn, walked up to me. I had met him a couple of times before at local events. He was very encouraging and tried to comfort me by saying, 'The judges know your potential and what you're capable of.'
    I didn't share his optimism. But somehow – and to this day I'll never know quite how – I made it through to the final. When my name was read out, I was completely taken aback. I felt quite undeserving of it all because, as far as I was concerned, I had stuffed up my performance. But the judges must have backed me because they had heard me in rehearsals earlier in the day. They saw past the frog in my throat and put me through.
    When the day of the finals arrived, I discovered that I was the only solo act. There were a couple of family-based dance troupes, four singing brothers and me. There were no problems this time and my performance went well, but, then, so did everyone else's. It was a hard job for the judges to compare singers with dancers and groups with a solo act. They gave me a huge amount of positive feedback after I had performed my piece, 'The Mists of Islay'. Ultimately, I came in at fourth position out of the four acts, but I was overjoyed to have made it to the final. My only disappointment came because I had hoped to give something back to my family. The first two prizes were family holidays and it would have been great to have taken everyone away on a luxury trip