Waiting for Callback (32 page)

I couldn’t concentrate. It wasn’t just the heat – although there was a trickle of sweat running down my arm and threatening to drown a tiny ant running the other way – it
was the waiting for the phone to ring. This was drama waiting. Waiting so active that I would have lost weight doing it if it wasn’t for all the comfort eating. Drama waiting was worse than
waiting for a guy to call. Really.

‘Hey, Elektra.’ Archie was coming across the garden, carrying two enormous ice creams. ‘Sorry. I’m a bit early.’

Like I minded. He’d shown.

‘Your mum let me in.’

‘Oh, God, did she interrogate you on your parents/hobbies/predicted exam results/preferred university/career choice?’

‘Nah, she was cool.’

She was? That was a first.

He handed me one of the ice creams. ‘It’s melted a bit.’

‘’S OK, it’s good,’ I said, licking the melted ice cream off the cone, feeling seriously self-conscious because he was looking so hard at me. ‘Come sit down.’
I patted the grass next to me and we sat side by side under the tree and ate the ice creams, acutely, almost painfully, aware of each other. Last night we’d had the music and the beer and the
whole heat of the party and it had been easy. This was daytime and I wasn’t wearing a tiny skirt and mascara; I had on an old pair of denim shorts and a Snoopy T-shirt that used to be a
nightshirt before my latest growth spurt. Archie hadn’t given me time to change . . . or brush my teeth for the third time. He crunched the end of his cone and slung his arm round my
shoulders. That was way better. I leaned into him and it was sort of familiar. Clean T-shirt and some lemony soap or shampoo this time. Oh, yes, this I could do.

‘You’re not going to finish that, are you?’ He eyed up the end of my cone greedily and I handed it over. It was good to share. He finished it in two bites, which meant that
both of us had free hands.

‘Elektra!’ It was my mum.

I thought the look of shock on her face was because she’d seen us kissing, but then I saw that she had the house phone in her hand and was looking at it as if it were radioactive. I
don’t think she’d even noticed what we were doing.

‘Elektra. It’s
Mr Havelski
. . . for
you
.’ She was all weirded out.

I looked at her, and I looked back up at Archie who was, frankly, looking very good indeed.

‘We keep getting interrupted,’ he whispered in my ear. His breath tickled.

I smiled at him. ‘Thanks, Mum. Tell Mr Havelski I’ll call him back.’

(Because that’s how cool and collected I was; an actor one hundred per cent in control. Seriously? Seriously? Well . . . no. Let’s try that again. PTO for Take
Two)

Strangely enough, I wasn’t cocky enough to leave Mr Havelski waiting for
me
to call
him
back. That is a game I wouldn’t play with a sixth former, far less a
Hollywood director
.

And Archie was in the business. He was the one that put the phone in my hand.

‘Hello?’ I squeaked in a teeny-tiny voice.

‘So . . . ’ (Havelski still sounded like a meerkat – a
really important
meerkat.) There was a terrifying pause. ‘So . . . ’ Another scary pause.

I was going to pass out. I clung on to Archie (mostly for support).

‘So . . . Is that my Straker I’m speaking to?’

And I could
hear
Havelski smiling all the way from LA.

(Take 2)

THE END

Both:
[Falling up the stairs to stage] We’d just like to thank everyone who has supported our dream along the way. We’d like to thank The Academy . . .
[Realize that’s not strictly relevant and pull themselves together.]

Jonathan, if it hadn’t been for Scraps playing his trump card and dying you’d have earned the dedication. We love you. Thank you to our awesome, kind and very lovely agent Hannah
Sheppard, for well
everything, y
ou deserve ALL the pugs (and thank you to The Literary Consultancy for their excellent match making). Thank you to the whole team at Simon & Schuster who
have helped make this book the very best it could be inside and out and all the way on to bookshelves. Especially our brilliant editor Jane Griffiths, Rachel Mann, Jade Westwood, Elisa Offord,
Jenny Richards and Laura Hough (and to Jane Tait who would be horrified by the repetition of ‘thank you’). It’s been a team effort and we are very glad that we called you back (to
be honest you had us at cake). Thanks to James Barriscale for reading the novel with his actor’s eye and giving us lots of help (but agreeing that reality shouldn’t always get in the
way of a good line). Thank you to all at The Golden Egg Academy especially Nicki Marshall (we hope Daisy likes Daisy). To all the lovely children’s book people that have made us feel so
welcome and shared so much of their expertise and friendship with us on and off line (Abi and Jim you get a special mention).

Perdita:
[grabs the microphone] And thank you to my mother, Sheila, for force-feeding me books and not vegetables (except for Enid Blyton about
whose work she was irrationally snobby) and my lovely sister Linnet and all my family and incredibly supportive friends (especially for all the recent hand holding Hannah, Juliet, Natasha, Lia,
Krystina and Grace), I’m so lucky to have you . . . wow . . . This is just . . . so . . . overwhelming [breaks down in tears and is escorted from the stage].

Honor:
Moving swiftly on . . . Thanks to everyone I met through acting for being so supportive/fun/weird enough to inspire this novel. Special
thanks to Andrew and Dyana at YAT. Thanks to my school for ignoring the rising number of ‘orthodontist’ appointments I had during sports lessons as publication approached. Thanks to the
very cool ‘real’ Elektra for letting us steal her name. Thanks to my incredibly supportive and staggeringly handsome boyfriend. LOL jokes he doesn’t exist. But massive thanks to
all my friends especially my gals Chiara Richardson, Katerina Lelikova, Reeny Eyi and Tash Jeans. I love you to bits weirdos. So yeah, in conclusion, thanks. [Falls down stairs from the stage.]

Quotations Chloe Moretz pg. 3 from
The Guardian
1
^st
December 2011 (Cath Clarke), pp. 61 and 176 from
The Guardian
10
^th
August 2013 (Andrea
Hubert); quotations Alex Pettyfer pg. 14 from
The Observor
16
^th
July 2006 (Phil Hoad) and pg. 165 from
The Guardian
14
^th
August 2014 (Laura Barton); Shailene
Woodley pg. 24 from
The Observor
15
^th
March 2015 (Tim Lewis); quotation Hailee Steinfeld pg. 54 from
The Observor
20
^th
October 2013 (Tim Adams); Romola Garai pg.
71 from
The Guardian
15
^th
September 2015 (webchat); Tom Cruise pg. 83 from
The Observor
12
^th
September 2004 (Neil Strauss); quotation Jennifer Lawrence pg. 115
from
The Guardian
13
^th
December 2012 (Xan Brooks); quotation Daniel Craig pg. 185 from
The Guardian
17
^th
November 2006 (Stuart Jeffries); quotation Robert
Pattinson pg. 195 from
The Guardian
6
^th
November 2011 (Sanjiv Bhattacharya); quotation Dakota Fanning from
The Guardian
20
^th
September 2012 (Ryan Gilbey);
quotations Nicholas Hoult pg. 260 from
The Guardian
10
^th
July 2010 (Rosanna Greenstreet)and pg. 270 from
The Observor
31
^st
January 2010 (Alice Fisher).
All
reprinted by kind permission of Guardian News and Media Ltd.

Quotation Nicholas Hoult, pg. 39 from
The Telegraph
14
^th
January 2007 (Catherine Shoard); quotations Tom Hiddleston pp. 128 and 281 from
The Telegraph
14
^th
January2014 (Chloe Fox); quotation Jessica Chastain from
The Telegraph
11
^th
January 2015 (Celia Walden); quotation Natalie Dormer
The Telegraph
9
^th
August 2015 (Olly Grant); quotation Eddie Redmayne pg. 312 from
The Telegraph
23d November 2009 (Georgia Dehn).
All reprinted by kind permission of the Telegraph Media
Group and pursuant to Licences dated 16
^th
June 2015 and 1
^st
September 2015.

Quotation Daniel Radcliffe, pg. 95 from
The Sunday Times
10
^th
July 2011; quotations Emma Watson pp. 106 and 298 from
The Times
27
^th
June
2009 (Kate Muir); quotation Elle Fanning pg, 142 from
The Times
19
^th
October 2012 (Kevin Maher); quotations from Asa Butterfield pg. 152,
The Times
30
^th
August
2008(Kevin Maher) and 5
^th
December 2011 (Alex O’Connell); quotation Max Irons from
The Times
10
^th
September 2014 (Helen Rumbelow); quotations Kristen Stewart pg.
210 and pg. 248 from
The Sunday Times
6
^th
September 2009 (Will Lawrence); quotation Cara Delavigne pg. 288
The Times Magazine
16
^th
August 2015 (Shane Watson);
quotation Lindsay Lohan pg. 322 from
The Times
19
^th
June 2004 (Lesley O’Toole); quotation Suki Waterhouse pg. 335 from
The Sunday Times
9
^th
August 2015
(Giles Hattersley).
All reprinted by kind permission of News UK and Ireland Ltd.