Beautiful Monster(10)

              “Sure, just let it cool, but I think it’s done.”  I replied, pulling off my apron and wiping my hands on it. It certainly looked like blood, even as it dried, darker than it was wet. “See you after lunch.”
              “Call your father!” he called after me, and I turned, giving him thumbs up, before heading into the change room.
              I texted Dad this time, quickly, as I hurried down the halls. I didn’t want to miss the start of the show, and my sandwich was finished before I even entered the next building.
              On lunch. Going to read a book. I wrote. It was a lame excuse, but he would believe it. I always had my nose in a book, what else was there to do at home? I put my phone away, rounding the corner, attempting to slip into the hall quietly. I did not expect what I was met with.
              There were loud voices coming from the hallway. It was impossible to make out individual words in the din. There were at least a hundred girls, maybe more, in a queue that snaked around the hallway and into the next one.
              I stopped short before I almost ran into somebody. This had happened before, when I was trying to watch a show. They sometimes invited neighbouring schools to watch dress rehearsals, various young drama classes and such. These girls must be from the girls’ school on the south side of town. All of them were perfect; tall, thin and beautiful; the type that a private school usually attracts. I immediately felt inadequate, with my thrift store clothes, and hair a mess, not wearing a scrap of makeup.
              Self consciously, I attempted to pull my hair back into a bun, and prayed it would stay that way. I moved past the girls, who were standing in single file. I figured if they were all from one school, they had to stay together, and I could slip past them and get a good seat before they were all gone.
              There was a commotion up front and I knew who it was before I even looked up. Liam. Escorted as usual by his entourage, I was surprised to also find a crowd of media. That hadn’t happened here in awhile and I assumed they had given up on him. But here they were, squawking, cameras flashing, as if he hadn’t ever been away from Hollywood at all.
              One of his entourage had her hand on his back, a tall wiry redhead who looked young enough to be a student herself, pushing him gently through the crowd. Liam was holding a newspaper up to his face, shielding it from view. However, standing on the other side, I could see he looked tense, paler than this morning, his jaw tightly clenched. And then he was gone, inside the auditorium, and I found myself standing outside the doors.
              “Right this way,” someone said, and I looked up. She was a 6th year student, I recognized her from the hallways, and the few times I sat in on her classes. She was shoving a paper into my hand, and hurrying me inside. “Move along please. Only students, no one else.”
              “What?” I asked my heart in my chest. Did she know my secret? After all these years, was it going to be a preteen girl who called me out? But she seemed already to be speaking to someone else, a mother standing at the front of the line with her arms around someone who was obviously her daughter. I ducked into the room before anyone else spotted me, heading to the second row to take a seat. Only then did I look down at what was in my hand.
              Auditions - Leopard Academy Scholarship Fund - Girls Day.
Below it was a script; an excerpt from what I quickly read was Beauty and the Beast. But it was the headline that got me. I must have gotten my dates mixed up - today was not the dress rehearsal. Today was the auditions for the scholarship that everyone always buzzed about. Every two years, Leopard Academy held auditions for one talented student to win a full scholarship to the school, for as long as they needed to attend before graduating. This was an old tradition that Liam’s Grandfather had started, although I imagine it was even more popular now that Liam was the headmaster. The spots were coveted, people came from other countries just to be here today.  And here I was, sitting in the second row, technically in line.#p#分页标题#e#