Ruby Parker Hits the Small Time

Author:Rowan Coleman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: HarperCollins

Chapter Twelve

Anne-Marie’s house was exactly like I described—complete with the security gate, not to mention marble pillars and a nice Spanish housekeeper who answered the door when I (finally) got to it. It was a huge door too, about the size of four normal doors all glued together. I knew there were houses like this in Highgate, but I hadn’t actually been to one. In fact, I hadn’t even been past one, because they were always behind lots of trees set far back from the road.

“Come this way, miss,” the housekeeper said. “Your friend is already here. She is in the garden with Anne-Marie.”

If Anne-Marie had come to my house, it would have taken her about thirty seconds to get from my front door to the back garden. But it seemed to take us forever going through room after huge room. Eventually we came out onto a terrace, and the housekeeper pointed me in the direction of a swimming pool. Not just a paddling pool but an actual swimming pool. I said to Mum once a couple of years ago that I wouldn’t mind if we used my money from the show to buy a bigger house—maybe even one with a pool. But Mum had just laughed and asked exactly how much did I think I earned anyway and, besides, she wanted me to have a normal family life in a normal family house and grow up to be a normal, well-adjusted adult, etc. Well, so much for that plan.

I could see Anne-Marie reclining on a sunlounger in a pink bikini and matching sarong. Nydia was perched on the edge of another, wriggling uncomfortably under the heat of the sun and the glare that Anne-Marie was probably giving her from underneath her sunglasses. Poor Nydia. I shouldn’t have let her go through this alone.

“Would you like a drink?” the housekeeper asked me. “I’ll bring you one.”

“Oh, yes please,” I said gratefully. I had run all the way here from the bus and I was hot and sticky. “And could my friend have another one too, please?”

The housekeeper nodded. “You’re a very nice girl with nice manners—unlike her friends. Right little madams, most of them.” She threw a look at Anne-Marie. “Although, with my little Annie, her bark is much worse than her bite, trust me!” Then, before turning back to the house, she said, “I love your show, never miss it.”

I took a deep breath and walked down the steps of the terrace where Anne-Marie and Nydia sat.

“Hi!” I said, sitting next to Nydia.

“I waited for you for ages,” she said sulkily under her breath. “And then I thought I’d better go in, otherwise she’d think we weren’t coming and she’d go shopping or something.” She looked glumly at Anne-Marie, and I tried to imagine the torture she’d been going through, waiting for me.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” I said to Anne-Marie. “It’s just that my scripts came and—”

“Blah, blah, blah,” Anne-Marie interrupted me, flapping her hands like a duck’s beak. “I’m so important, yak, yak, yak, who cares about anybody else.

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