Ruby Parker Hits the Small Time by Rowan Coleman Page B

person and that he has never really loved us. Dad told me Mum doesn’t care about anything or anyone except herself and that we should come and live with him. We have to see a social worker soon and tell her what we think.
    The thing is, Angel, I know they still love each other really—just like your mum and dad. How can I make them see it? We don’t live near any tall buildings with lifts, and anyway Mum won’t go in one ever since she saw that episode of Kensington Heights.
    Thank you for listening,
Naomi Torrence

Chapter Eleven
    I looked at Naomi’s letter for a long time after it arrived this morning with the rest of the post from the studio. I couldn’t think of anything to say. How could I tell her that Angel’s mum and dad only got back together because Trudy had written it that way—not because of anything that might happen to a real girl like Naomi or a real girl like me. I should be glad, I suppose, that my mum and dad haven’t said or done the things that Naomi’s mum and dad have. But I’m not.
    I read the letter again, and part of me wanted to write back and tell her I did know exactly how she felt. I did know because it was happening to me too, and it didn’t matter if it happened to one in three families or one in three billion, because when it happens to you it feels like the worst thing in the world. But somehow I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t write anything to Naomi, and my usual pep talk and leaflet for ChildLine seemed pointless.
    For the first time I thought about what I would do if someone told me to talk to a teacher, or my mum, or a stranger on the end of the phone—even a very nice one. I didn’t know if I’d be able to take that advice. To say the words—to really say out loud the things that are worrying you—is hard, maybe too hard. Maybe it’s best just to pretend they aren’t there and get on with things. But I can’t write that to Naomi; she needs someone to tell her that everything is going to be OK one day. I don’t know if it is anymore though, not for her or for me.
    So I folded the letter up and tucked it into my pillowcase (which is where I plan to put the love letters that Justin will write me one day), and I pulled out my scripts for the next four shows. Everest pushed open my bedroom door with his nose and looked at me before lumbering up to my bed. I reached down and helped him up beside me, pulling the scripts he was lying on out from under his tummy.
    I looked at them in their pale yellow covers, with the Kensington Heights logo swirled across the little window that showed the episode number and title. Normally, I’d take it downstairs and Mum would go through it with me and highlight my lines, and we’d give them a general read-through so I knew how Angel was supposed to be thinking and feeling, and then I’d sort of learn them. I say “sort of ” because it’s not like a play where you always have to get it right all the time. I mean, you do have to get it right, but you can improvise too—make up your own way of saying the line, as long as when we get to the end of the scene everyone is happy. Our schedule is too tight to learn them all by heart. But when Mum brought my tea in this morning her eyes were red and her nose looked swollen; she’d been crying again. I didn’t want her to feel like she had to hide it from me so I thought I should stay out of her way.
    Anyway, on the third script there was a bright pink Post-it note with Trudy’s handwriting crawling over it in fat blue marker pen. “Read this scene first! It’s so fab!” I picked up the script and turned to the page she’d marked. I knew exactly which scene it was before I read it, but that didn’t stop my heart from pounding like a drum and my hands from shaking as I read the words.
    KENSINGTON HEIGHTS
    SERIES NINE, EPISODE FOURTEEN
“FIRST LOVE FOREVER”
WRITTEN