Waiting for Callback (16 page)

‘Have you had the results back of that biology test?’

‘No.’ Yes.
Moss? Mum’s interrogating me about school. Any minute it’s going to get worse and she’ll interrogate me about my life. HELP
ME.
Five minutes later.
Text meeee
. No answer.

‘Is Jenny still going out with that nice boy?’ asked Mum.

A deceptively simple question but a) Jenny hadn’t ‘gone out’ with anyone, b) Jenny had got with two boys in the last month and I wouldn’t have described either of them as
a ‘nice boy’, c) Mum knew Jenny’s mum so saying anything at all was risky and d) any moment now Mum would ask me why I wasn’t ‘going out’ with anyone.

‘Mmmm,’ I said non-committally.

‘Any boys on
your
horizon?’

I felt a little car sick. ‘No, not a single one.’

‘Or girls?’ she said.

‘No, no girls either.’

MOSSS! Save me!

‘Can you check if it’s the next junction, Elektra?’ Saved not by Moss but by navigation duties.

‘It is,’ I replied. I was almost confident because Mum had asked me to check at every single junction for the last forty minutes. We turned off into a horrible tangle of one-way
roads going through a big industrial estate. By now, we were both a bit sweaty as Mum drove up to the gates of what we hoped was the right unit. There was a guard, but he was too busy watching
Desperate Housewives
to check who we were and he just waved us straight through.

‘We could literally be international drug smugglers,’ I said.

‘Yes . . . but that’s a really good episode,’ replied Mum.

‘Fair. Anyway, I doubt many international drug smugglers visit small industrial complexes in Hertfordshire. And cartels comprising a mother and daughter team from North London are probably
a bit niche.’

‘That’s what you think. And that’s why it would make the perfect cover. No one would ever suspect us; you’re too disorganized and I seem too uptight to traffic large
amounts of hard drugs.’ Seem? ‘We could have family in Columbia that we needed to visit frequently.’

She had this way too worked out and a double life as a large-scale drug smuggler would explain a lot of her neuroses. We parked up outside what was essentially a metal box with a big monochrome
plaque reading
next to the door. A depressed-looking teenager in incredibly tight jeans finally opened the door. He didn’t say anything,
just started backing towards the office (slowly because of the debilitating tightness of the jeans).

‘We’re here for the voice-over,’ I said.

He looked at us completely blankly. ‘
Okaaaay
.’

‘For the squirrel commercial?’ my mum prompted.

Now he was blank
and
judging us. ‘OK.’

‘Do you know where we go?’

‘I’m work experience,’ he drawled and hobbled back into the office. This clearly wasn’t how he’d imagined the cool ‘media internship’ some relative
(I’m guessing) had promised him. He waved us into a room helpfully labelled
waiting
and disappeared. We sat down on a clear plastic sofa (my dad would have loved it: very Scandi,
absolutely colourless and brutally uncomfortable) and hoped for the best.

My phone barked. It was Archie.
Hey, E, what’s up?

At a voice-over thing

This was ridiculously exciting because a) Archie had sent me an apparently random text and b) I had something cool to say. What were the odds?

Sweet. What for?

Utterly Nutterly Nuts
. Presumably, as contrasted to other nuts that were in some way not nutterly. Sub-nutterly? Less cool. I had time to make Mum a cup of tea
and to eat two biscuits (the catering fairies had left a tray labelled
help yourself
) before my phone barked again.

Decent script?

Haven’t seen it. But my character is called Squirrelina so I am optimistic.

Hahaha

Second most important squirrel in the advert

I’m impressed

You should be
. This was borderline drama banter.

A very stressed man with absolutely no hair and a very abundant beard jogged into the waiting room. ‘Elektra?’

‘Yes.’ I stuck my hand up. ‘Hi, that’s me’.

Got to go
, I texted quickly.

‘Great, I’m Martin, the director.’ He gave me a very assertive handshake. ‘And is this Mummy?’

Mum looked like she was about to throw up. ‘Yes I am . . . “Mummy”.’

‘Great, well, Mummy, if you want to just wait out here, we’ll have Elektra done in no time.’

He made it sound like I was going to have an HPV jab, not become the voice of the second most important squirrel in the advert.

I followed the creepy bearded man (as you do) into the recording studio. The ceilings and walls were all covered in light grey padding and there were spaceship style control panels with big
computer screens down one wall.

Two guys in T-shirts with
sound guy
written on the back (so that cleared that up – I had a feeling if I stood still long enough around here someone would label me too) and baseball
caps introduced themselves and I straight away forgot their names.

‘And the client is here too,’ said Martin, pointing at a large speakerphone.

A disembodied voice boomed, ‘Pleased to meet you, Elektra.’

‘You too,’ I said, which just sounded weird.

‘So, let’s give you five minutes to read the script,’ said Martin, pressing a single page into my hand, but then carrying on talking at me so that I could barely read it.
‘We’re all very excited about this project and I think that we can really make the audience, the potential
buyers
,’ he looked at the speakerphone, ‘feel a connection
with Squirrelina, yes? Great. Well, why don’t we go for a read-through? I’ll be reading the other parts for now.

‘Good job.’ Martin nodded. ‘You just really got her.’

The sound guys tried not to laugh.

‘Can we try it again with her voice a little bit higher and more musical so she sounds a bit sweeter and more girly, yes?’ suggested the client-in-the-phone. ‘Also her
“gentle crunching noise” sounded like she was crushing bones so maybe tone it down a tad.’ There was the distinct sound of a loo flushing in the background; I struggled not to
snigger.

‘
Righhht
,’ said Martin. ‘And could you give me a bit more variation on the first line because Squirrelina is genuinely surprised by the present? And if you could build
up “utterly nutterly”? Make those double exclamation marks really count?’

‘So we really feel it’s a moment of taste epiphany, yes?’ contributed client-in-the-phone.

‘Er, yes, “taste epiphany”, sure.’

‘Amazing,’ said Martin. ‘Also it would be great if we could give “Nuts Nuts No Ifs No Buts” a bit of a wondrous quality; take your time over it like you’ve
just discovered this amazing new idea, yes?’

By the end of the read-through, I was starting to feel a real affinity for Squirrelina. Granted, she wasn’t exactly a feminist icon or a particularly complex character, but she seemed like
a genuinely sweet girl/squirrel. And you have to hand it to her: she knew how to wrap Colonel Kernel round her little finger. I didn’t actually know if squirrels had little fingers. I’d
google it later.

‘Right, let’s get her into the box,’ said the older of the two sound guys (which is not a good sentence to hear when you’re under pressure).

The ‘box’ was just a small soundproofed room to the side of the studio, divided off by a glass wall.

‘OK, Elektra, can we have you standing right up close to the microphone?’ The younger sound guy was setting me up. ‘Literally so your face is nearly touching that gauze circle
in front of it. No, no, that’s not gonna work – you’re too tall.’ He adjusted the microphone an embarrassing amount. And I’d thought voice work would be the one time
my height wasn’t an issue. ‘Headphones comfy?’

I nodded; he gave a thumbs up to everyone on the other side of the glass and left me on my own. I looked at them through the glass and they looked back at me. Martin gave me a little wave and I
waved back. I hoped I was waving not drowning. I’d never think goldfish had it easy again.

‘Right, shall we just go for one? I’ll give you the cue,’ said the older-sound-guy through my headphones and he did and off I went.

‘OK, Elektra, that’s risking coming in at thirty-three seconds so we’re going to need to lose three somewhere. Could you maybe speed up the “No Ifs No Buts”
bit?’

I must have done it ten times before I was released out of my glass box.

‘So, I think we’re all done on this section. What time is Squirrel Three coming in?’ asked younger-sound-guy.

Martin looked at him reproachfully. ‘
Private Pine Nut
is due at twelve thirty.’

‘Great, so let’s break for lunch now.’

‘Yes, thank you so much, Elektra. You’re all done. Great session – you were fabulous,’ said Martin and younger-sound-guy ferried me back to the waiting room.

‘How did it go?’ asked my mum (as she now so often did).

‘Good but also weird. Like really weird.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I was playing a post-feminist talking squirrel called Squirrelina.’

‘Ah, yes, that was a stupid question.’

‘Do you know what was even weirder? I forgot to be nervous.’ And I had. Strange.

‘Good. Well, thank goodness you’re done. I’ve been so bored. The magazine selection was disappointingly arty and I’ve still got
Desperate Housewives
envy.’

‘Right now I feel a very strong genetic link to you. Netflix marathon when we get home?’

‘You’ve got the stamina for a Netflix marathon?’

‘I do. I am the Colonel Kernel of Netflix marathons.’

My mother looked at me like I’d gone slightly mad.

I didn’t blame her.

From:
Stella at the Haden Agency

Date:
26 March 15:32

To:
Julia James

Cc:
Charlotte at the Haden Agency