Could be a Star

Chapter 8

'See ya at boxin','

Max and I giggle. The Geordie accents do not compliment our funny bones, meaning we cannot stop laughing whenever either of us tries to do one.

'We have to try and keep this together,' Max warns with a grin.

I'm round at his house on Tuesday night, we got our scripts today and met the whole of the cast. There were lots of giggling ballet girls and older girls who would be playing the miners. There were very few boys. We are going to be having a very feminine mining team, that's for sure.

Max's room is mainly just a bed and a little chest of draws. His house isn't as big as mine and he just lives with his mum. He tells that that's exactly how he likes.

'Okay, okay,' I laugh 'Maybe we should have a break from learning lines for a while,'

'Yes, an undeserved snack break sounds perfect to me,' says Max springing of his bed and bending down to look underneath it

'Erm... what are you doing?' I ask, peering down under the bed.

'Aha!' says Max as he pulls out a shoe box from under his bed. He opens it to reveal what I would call a secret stash of essential snacks which includes Kit Kats, Skittles, Aero and the likes. He offers me some and I take a Kit Kat without complaining. Well, it's only polite.

And we munch, I notice that the shoe box does not only have snacks in it.

'What else is in there?' I ask with my mouth full.

Max reaches into the box and pulls out a picture which he hands to me.

The picture is from a photo booth and shows a man and a woman pulling faces into the camera. I recognise the woman to be his mum, I saw her when I came in. I look up at Max.

'It's my dad,' he says with a smile which isn't his normal smile but isn't a sad smile either. Its more of an accepting smile, a I'm-grateful-to-have-what-I-have sort of smile.

'Is... is he dead?' I ask nervously

Max chuckles.

'No, he's just not here,'

'Do you miss him?'

'How can I miss what I've never had?' he says with the same mysterious smile 'I never knew him, I've never met him. He left when he found out my mum was having me. No, I'm like an Cassowary bird, that's how I feel,'

'Like an Cassowary bird?' I ask, completely baffled.

'Because you see Cassowary birds can't fly,' Max explains 'And even though they might see other birds flying and maybe want to do it too, they don't know what it feels like to fly, so they can't miss flying. They never did fly. Like me, I never knew my dad and even when I see others with their dads I can't miss mine because I never knew him. I don't know what it feels like to know him,'

I smile and suddenly I feel like the luckiest boy alive. I have parents who spontaneously dance around to 'Singing in the Rain' with me and I have a little cereal-loving adorable brother and I have this wonderful friend called Max and I just got the main part with a lovely cast which is all I could ever dream of and I just ate a Kit Kat and the sun is shining and I want to cry.

But I don't. I just carry on smiling, unable to look directly into Max's eyes, even though I can tell he is staring straight into mine.

Then he springs up and puts away the shoe box.

'Come on,' he says 'I'll teach you a time step,'

'A what now?'

'It's tap! Here stand up! Now repeat after me: shuffle, hop, down, tap, step, ball change,'

I'm sorry what?

'Come on, try! You'll pick it up! Shuffle hop down tap step ball change, Yeah the last bit was good, again! Shuffle hop down tap step ball change, see you're getting it! Shuffle hop down,'

'Max, love?' It's Max's mum shouting from downstairs 'You know I don't mind you dancing but please can you do it downstairs because it doesn't half shake the house when you're up there!'

Max chuckles.

'Come on,' he says heading out of the door.

We pass Max's mum on our way down the stairs. Her hair is dark and wavy like Max's but it has a touch of grey at the sides. Her half moon glasses probably add a few years onto her age and she's holding a thick book in both of her skinny hands.

When she smiles, she smiles with her whole face.

'I hope you don't mind,' she says 'Only with a tap dancing son, you do get a couple of complaints,'

'Oh, I don't mind at all!' I laugh

Max puts his hand on his mums shoulder for a second before we carry on down to the kitchen.

We carry on practicing for a while until I get tired and take a seat at the little table with two small chairs.

'You can't have given up already?' Max says

'I'm just a bit worn out!' I tell him

'You're not going to know what's hit you when you start dancing for the show,' Max tells me as he taps around the kitchen.

'I watched the film,' I say 'The Billy Elliot film,'

Max stops for a second and says:

'I swear I could watch that film everyday of my life and never get bored of it,' he starts tapping again 'One week I watched it every day but Mum had to hide it from me because she was so sick of it,'

'Was it your mum's idea for you to start dancing?' I wonder out loud

'Nah, not really. We'll I guess kind of but I asked her if I could join classes. She took me to see Anything Goes at the theatre when I was very little with my Nana. I remember being so mesmired by it. Apparently I wouldn't shut up about it until I got to my first class. And from then on, my feet haven't shut up!'

'Does she like you doing tap?'

'She says that if it makes me happy, then she's happy too,'

Max stops dancing and sits on the chair opposite me.

'We do alright, you know, me and Mum,' he says 'I like it like this,'

His eyes make me think that he really does.