The Hidden World

Chapter 1

It was Lisa who began it. Things usually began with Lisa, then the others followed her lead—like a chorus, Maeve thought.

"So what makes you think you can act?"

"I know I can." Maeve was defiant, her voice a little tremulous, but she was still determined not to back down, not in front of Lisa Smith and her gang.

The girls were pretending to be amused, but she sensed their resentment of what seemed to them a completely misplaced confidence. They felt a need—almost, one might say, a duty—to set her straight, put her in her place.

"Quit dreaming, Maeve. Ashley will get the part, you know that as well as I do. She's gorgeous, and you—" Lisa hadn't bothered to finish the sentence, but had looked Maeve up and down contemptuously while her friends sniggered.

Maeve flushed. Her looks were one matter on which she could offer no argument. Though not stout, she was sturdily made—like a building designed to stand firm against onslaughts of wind and weather. In her limbs and in the moulding of her face there was an uncompromising solidity. But she had persisted. "What's that got to do with anything? I said I want to be an actress, not Miss Universe. Acting has nothing to do with what you look like. There're always character roles, and—"

"I give up! Catch me trying to help this kid again." Lisa had shouldered her backpack and turned away with an air of disgust. "Ashley's dad has offered to help pay for the stage sets." She threw this over her shoulder as she walked off.

And like a fool I didn't listen, Maeve thought now, wincing. I must have been out of my mind.

The street along which she was walking was lined with large, prosperous-looking houses, half of them designed in a Victorian style, with brick facades and pointed gables, the other half imitation Tudor. Like all the houses in the Balsam Heights development, they were of approximately the same height and breadth, with two-door garages, short driveways and one small strip of lawn at the front. There were few trees in the development, despite its name. Neat, close-clipped hedges were the dominant form of greenery.

It was early spring, damp and chilly, and a cold rain was falling. Maeve huddled into her coat and quickened her pace, her mind running over and over the events of the day. Lisa, of course, had been right. There had always been a sharp, knowing look in Lisa's grey eyes: she understood how the world worked. Maeve should have expected it; she should have guessed. But the possibility of real success for the first time ever had briefly intoxicated her, and she had been caught unawares.

Quit dreaming, said the remembered voice.

She pushed open the front door of her imitation Tudor home, then hesitated as she noticed an acrid smell on the air. Mom was smoking again: a bad sign. She'd quit last year—for good, supposedly. What had made her start again?

Mom was in the living room, reading a magazine—or at least turning its pages, quickly and angrily. Her eyes were fixed on a point in space that seemed to lie beyond the printed words. There were three butts in the ashtray in front of her. Somehow Maeve knew, without asking, that Mom and Brandon had been quarrelling again. The feel of it was in the air, bitter and lingering like the cigarette smoke. Brandon's stereo was blaring up in his bedroom—the kind of music he knew Mom hated.

Maeve stood in the doorway looking thoughtfully at her mother. She had been beautiful once—still was, really. Her hair was gold-blonde and luxuriant; it had been long in the old days, down to her shoulders, though she wore it now in a short, curly perm. Her eyes had lines about them, wrinkles of worry, but they were still the same bright china blue. They turned up to Maeve briefly, before returning to the magazine.