Grace

Chapter 9

"Who is it?" I asked.

"It's me, Dame Clarke."

I quietly groaned because it wasn't like I could tell her to go away. "Come in," I said and sat up. I also put the desk lamp on as it was beginning to get a little dark.

She sat at the desk and smiled a little. "I thought I'd drop in and have a chart before you get too comfortable. You look pretty tired."

"Long day," I surmised.

"Your very first day is always the longest. I've no doubt F block feel about the same."

I didn't know what to say to that so I just made a non committal noise that was sort of agreement.

"But over all it wasn't too bad?"

"No. It was pretty ok actually. Forty minute lessons are weird though."

"It does take a short while to get used to. Listen, I heard you talking to Ben earlier. I hope you understand where he's coming from and that he meant no offence by it."

"I get it. I got stared at enough on interview day."

She smiled a little. "He showed you around?"

I nodded.

"What about the camera crew? If they're distracting you I can talk to them if you like."

"It's ok."

"Ok, well, if you ever do want me to talk to them, just ask."

"Thanks."

"Ok, so why are you up here? You're supposed to be in the music discussion."

"Oh soot! Sorry, I completely forgot!" I jumped up and we both headed back downstairs.

The meeting was in the dining room and Mr. Clarke was talking about options of what to do. I slipped almost unnoticed into the seat next to Clara.

"... totally do that with Grace on her trumpet," someone was saying and I looked around with more interest than simply trying to figure out what piece of music we were on about.

Everyone looked at me.

"Sure," I said.

"And... Clara, right? I was thinking you could sing it?"

"Yeah, I sang it in music earlier."

Ah, Don't Cry For Me Argentina.

"What about the rest of us singers?" a girl in F block asked.

"There's a really great André Rieu video of it in YouTube where he has backing singers," Clara said and brought it up on her phone.

We listened to it, about fifty of us crowded around to hear it on the not so great speakers and then we split off into two groups. One of the B block boys took all the vocalists to a lounge and went over vocals with them, Clara and I photo copied our sheet music in the computer hub we had and then we got together in the biggest lounge and began playing it though after getting our instruments. At half nine, which was actually F block's lights out time, we got the rest of the house back together to show them what we had so far.

The camera crew filmed that first, ropy run through but that was all they were allowed to film of the project before Saturday when we were going to show it. Though the vocals didn't always come in at exactly the right time and the flutes were late at one point we did ok and got an enthusiastic applause afterwards. We got a little bit of feedback which went along those lines and a lot of praise. Then F block were sent to bed and I followed them, yawning as if I had been up for twenty straight hours.