You Don't Know Me by Sophia Bennett Read Free Book Online

‘Go for it.’
    Rose strums the first few familiar chords. She plays flawlessly, as if she’s been playing it all her life. We gathernear her, squeezing into the spotlight. From here it’s warmer, safer, and harder to see the crowd. After eight bars, we begin.
    â€˜I put my sunglasses on
    My yellow sunglasses on
    And I think of you and the things you do
    And it doesn’t matter any more because . . .’
    Several people in the crowd join in at this point:
    â€˜I’ve got my sunglasses on . . .’
    Our voices are wobbly at first, but we quickly find the harmonies. After all our years of singing together, we know each other so well. And the crowd below us are quick to swell the noise.
    They know the song! And they seem to like it. Rose was right about it being catchy. Were these some of the people who voted for us after all? Cool sixth-formers and their friends?
    Gradually we stop being a bunch of terrified girls and we start being a band. The things we love – being silly together and singing in harmony – they’re OK. We look down at the crowd and behind the lights I can just about make out the bobbing heads of a hundred cool partygoers, all singing along to a song we wrote, laughing at our words, swaying to our tune.
    I try and keep my voice low. I know I’m the ‘truckful of gravel’. But even so, we sound good. We really do – you can just tell. Singing in secret was fun, but singing here, now, is a million times better. I almost wish I still had myfeather boa to wave around me. The wonderful feeling builds and grows. By the end, like me, Nell is beaming. Jodie looks happy enough to light up the whole barn and Rose – well, Rose is glowing. I think she’s almost forgiven Jodie and me for making her do this tonight.
    As soon as we finish, Rose turns to the rest of us and tentatively plays the opening bars to ‘I See The Light’ by Roxanne Wills – the other song Jodie chose. I didn’t even know Rose knew it on the guitar. However, she makes it seem easy and, as we practised, she sings the first verse alone. Her voice is gorgeous: mellow, and smoky, warm and strong.
    Jodie’s made us sing the words so often that when my turn comes to sing the second verse, I do it without really thinking. The nerves have gone. When we get to the chorus, once again everyone joins in. A hundred chanting voices, a hundred smiling faces. The music lifts me up, up and over the crowd. It’s like learning to fly and never wanting to land. It is absolutely the best feeling I’ve ever had. Looking across at the others, I can tell they feel the same. We’re all floating, flying, soaring.
    As my eyes begin to adjust to the bright lights in our faces, I glance down into the crowd and see a sixth form boy in the front row, sandy-haired and pale-skinned, filming us on a camera phone. He stands out because he’s not so much happy as mesmerised. And he’s staring right at me.
    I recognise him from Jodie’s house, because he hangs out with her brother Sam a lot. His name is Elliot Harrison. He’s a bit of a computer nerd, like Sam, and generally avoided by all but the super-geeks. His stare has a strange intensity and the steadiness of his hand contrastswith the general movement among the crowd as he holds up the phone to film us.
    In the midst of all the fun we’re having, it flashes over me with absolute certainty: Elliot is the person who stole my phone. For some reason, he has an unhealthy interest in the Manic Pixie Dream Girls.
    He started all this. He made it happen. He uploaded the video.

 
    Â 
    Â 
    Â 
    Â 
    Â 
    Â 
    Whatever It Takes
    I stare at Elliot; he stares at me. But by the time we get to leave the stage, he’s disappeared. Anyway, we’re surrounded. Suddenly everyone wants to say hello, or fetch us drinks, or get our numbers. George comes over, smiling his face off. He insists we have to meet all his