Kingston

26. Olivia

'Okay everyone, pair up and grab your music sheets!' Miss. Moore, my music teacher, called out, as my first class of Monday morning began and also my favourite class.

The door opened and Chloe hurried into the room, apologising for her lateness before she joined me in the corner.

'Hey, how was it?' I asked, referring to her audition for the part of Dorothy in this year's school show.

'It went so good,' she squealed. 'I feel pretty good about it.'

'Oh my god, Chlo, that's awesome,' I said, feeling overjoyed for her. 'What about Polly? Did you see hers?'

'She was after me but I hung back to watch,' Chloe told me. 'I have to admit, she did good.'

'Well, I really hope you get it,' I sighed, knowing that my friend needed this right now. She still seemed down over what had happened with Christian and I knew it had to be pretty bad considering she still hadn't wanted to talk about it or tell me anything.

'I hope I do too,' she said, as she picked up our music sheet and we studied it together.

The song we had been given for the lesson was Don't Rain On My Parade from the musical Funny Girl and after getting 45-minutes of our lesson to practice together, Miss. Moore has all of the pairs perform their song at the front of the class.

I was nervous singing in front of other people, even though I had chosen to take this class. I loved music and I also loved singing but I wasn't as good as Chloe. She had a natural theatrical voice, hence why she was the perfect part for Dorothy.

The performance went okay considering the time we'd been given to arrange it and we both spent the most part of the song harmonising before we agreed to take the two final parts as solos.

Chloe sang, 'I'll march my band out, I'm beating my drum, and if I'm fanned out, your turn at bat, sir, at least I didn't fake it, hat, sir, I guess I didn't make it...'

Then it was my turn to take solo on the final part. 'Get ready for me, love, 'cause I'm a comer, I simply gotta' march, my heart's a drummer, nobody, no, nobody, is gonna' rain on my paraaaaaade!'

I held my final note for as long as I could, controlling my voice as best I could and when I finished and fell silent, my whole class burst into applause.

'That was brilliant, ladies!' Miss. Moore said. 'You harmonise extremely beautifully together, the solos were fantastic and that final note, Olivia, it was stunning!'

'Thank you!' I gasped, feeling overwhelmed at the compliments and everybody smiling at me approvingly.

'Nice work, Liv,' Chloe said, as we walked back to our corner to watch the rest of the pairs sing. 'I didn't know you could sing that high.'