“Here we are,” said Krystal, pausing outside number twenty-seven. The canvas walls fluttered as she unzipped the door and entered the tiny cubicle.
“Well, this is cozy,” said Danny, sitting on the foldable chair in the corner, which took up about half of the floor space. “I can barely stretch in here, never mind practice.”
Ivan’s head appeared around the door.
“Room for one more?” he said, forcing the others into various corners as he joined them in the cubicle.
“Ivan!” said Will.
“Hey, Ivan,” said Danny. “How did you get in here?”
Ivan turned around to reveal the word CREW written across the back of his black T-shirt.
“Did you just murder somebody? Tell me honestly.”
“No murder,” said Ivan. “eBay. I buy long time ago. Is useful. One time I get into Michael Bolton concert for free because of this T-shirt.”
“You snuck into a Michael Bolton concert?” said Krystal, looking at him like he’d just attempted a drunken backflip and failed.
“As a test,” said Ivan, trying to sound nonchalant. “You know. To test T-shirt.”
“Ivan, this is Krystal, my dance teacher. Krystal, Ivan.”
Ivan shook her hand, which disappeared in his.
“My dad saved his life once,” said Will, nodding at Ivan. “Didn’t you, Dad?”
Krystal and Ivan stared at Danny. Krystal looked doubtful. Ivan looked dangerous.
“What?” said Danny with a nervous laugh when he saw Ivan’s expression. “Liz told him that, not me!”
“And who told Liz?” said Ivan.
Before he could answer, Mo appeared in the doorway, much to Danny’s relief.
“How did you get past security?” said Danny, pressing himself against the wall as Mo insisted on entering the cubicle.
“I said I had special needs,” he said, tapping his hearing aid. “Works every time.”
“That’s not a lie,” said Will. “You do have special needs.” Mo thumped him in the arm.
“Malooley?” called somebody from the corridor. A second later a man arrived wearing a T-shirt like Ivan’s.
“That’s me,” said Danny.
“And me,” said Will.
“And him,” said Danny.
“Congratulations,” said the man, consulting his clipboard. “You are officially the last act of the evening. I’ll give you a shout when you’re up.”
“Last!” said Danny once the man had gone.
“Last isn’t so bad,” said Krystal. “I mean, yeah, sure, you’ve got to sit here and wait until the end of the show, getting more and more nervous while your confidence slowly trickles away until you’re a complete emotional wreck. So from that perspective, then yeah, it’s bad.”
“Is this supposed to be motivating?” said Danny.
“I ain’t done. Last also gives you an advantage. See, the judges are going to start forgetting all them other acts the moment they’re finished, right? But you, you’re the last thing they’re going to see before they make their final decision. You’ll still be fresh in their minds.”
“And if you screw up, then you will also be fresh in their minds,” said Ivan unhelpfully.
“Thanks, Ivan,” said Danny and Krystal together.
“Good luck, Mr. Malooley,” said Mo. “You’re going to rock!” He made two sets of devil’s horns and wiggled them at Danny.
“What’s that noise?” said Krystal. Everybody went quiet and listened as somebody spoke into a microphone outside.
“It’s the show,” said Will. “It’s starting!”
CHAPTER 32
“Good evening, Hyde Park!” said a man in his sixties who hobbled onto the stage to the sound of tepid applause. His face was almost as creased as his suit, and he mopped at his brow with a handkerchief.
“Are we all having fun?” He held the microphone over the audience.
Everyone mumbled in stale acknowledgment. Somebody shouted, “Wanker!” and a few people laughed, but the host shrugged it off like a man whose entire life had been spent being called a wanker by someone or other.
“Well, if you’re not, you will be soon because, boy, do we have a lineup for you tonight! We’ve got dancers and DJs, mimes and musicians, jugglers and gymnasts, artists and acrobats—you name it, we’ve got it. Each one of tonight’s contenders will be competing for the grand prize of ten thousand pounds, which will help the lucky winner get off the streets and start to rebuild their broken life.”
A murmur rose from the crowd as people exchanged puzzled looks.
“You know,” continued the host, “when they canceled my TV show a few years ago—Two Short of a Threesome, I’m sure you all remember it—I ended up living on the streets, and let me tell you, it wasn’t easy. I had to do a lot of crazy stuff to survive. Stuff I’m not proud of. But I’d just like to clarify right here and now that despite what certain newspapers reported, I never, ever sold my body in exchange for methamphetamine. It’s important you all know that. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that living on the streets is damn hard, as all of tonight’s performers know, and so—”
A lanky man with shaggy hair ran onto the stage and delivered a note before scuttling off again.
“Fan mail,” said the host. Nobody laughed, which made his own laugh sound somehow worse than the silence.
Removing a pair of glasses from his breast pocket, he put them on and read the note.
“Okay,” he said, “so even though a lot of them might look homeless, I’ve just been informed that as far as we know, tonight’s performers actually live in houses and some even have proper jobs. Sorry for the confusion there. Maybe forget everything I just told you. Except for the whole selling-my-body thing. Which, let me remind you, was a complete and utter fabrication. Anyway,” he said, checking his watch, “the show’s about to start, but before we get to the opening act, I think it’s time we introduced tonight’s celebrity judges!”
Two men and one woman who were sitting at a table in front of the stage appeared on a giant television screen behind the host.
“We have Dave Davidson, otherwise known as Tricky Dicky from Channel Five’s hit TV series Oliver Twisted.”
A middle-aged man wearing a white shirt, dark glasses, and more fake tan than a Hartlepool hen party waved as the crowd cheered.
“In the middle we have Sarah Buckingham, hard-talking presenter of the award-winning docu-series Get Off the Dole, You Dirty Scrounger.”
A slender blond woman in a black suit appeared on the screen. She looked like she’d tortured animals as a child and still thought about it on a regular basis.
“And last, and also least, we have the producer of several popular TV series and the executioner of at least one of them, namely Two Short of a Threesome. Ladies and gentlemen, please start slow-clapping for Martin Gould, the man who ruined my life!”
A chorus of boos rolled over the crowd as a bald man in his midfifties appeared on camera.
“Good to see you, Martin,” said the host. “Love what you’ve done with your hair.”