Star Crazy Me by Jean Ure

dunno! Just things. Like… things .”
    â€œWell, make sure you have your phone with you. I like to know that I can reach you.”
    I could have taken a chance and gone to Indy’s. Or I could have been brave and called first, to make sure she was there and that she was still talking to me. But I didn’t do either. Instead, I caught the number twenty bus and went to Sheepscombe. If I’d taken my guitar I could have pretended I was going there to sing, but I left the guitarwhere it was, in my bedroom. I knew I wasn’t going to sing – well, not to my adoring public. (OK, I’m only joking! Though one old man did actually call out to me as I walked across the square: “No songs today?”)
    I’m not sure what I’d have done if Mrs P had been out. She was way the most provoking old person I’d ever met, but at least when I was with her I felt alive and tingling with energy. After two days just mooching about at home, I felt like some kind of slug.
    I was relieved when she opened the door but a bit embarrassed, as well, considering how I’d flounced out on Sunday. It never really occurred to me, though, that she might not want to see me any more. I find that odd, as I don’t think I’d have wanted to see me; I had been kind of unpleasant. I think I might have shut the door in my face. Mrs P just very calmly nodded and said, “So there you are. The prima donna returns. I wondered if you’d have the pluck.”
    I started stammering out excuses, but she waved a hand, a bit impatiently, and said, “Never mind all that!Come in, come in, don’t just stand there. I presume you’ve come to do some work?”
    She kept me at it all morning, and I really enjoyed it. We did scales and exercises and she said I had a very good range. I glowed at that! Fortunately she didn’t ask me if I’d done my breathing exercises. I wouldn’t have liked to lie to her, but I’m not sure I’d have been bold enough to admit that I hadn’t. I just hated it when she gave me one of those beady-eyed looks of hers, like I was totally beneath contempt and not worth bothering with.
    At the end of two hours she said that that was probably enough. “We should have some lunch now, and then I must send you on your way.”
    I said, “It’s all right, I don’t have to be back till tea time.” I could have gone on all afternoon! “We can do some more exercises, if you like, I’m not in the least bit tired.”
    She said, “No, my dear, I’m sure you’re not. But I’m an old lady, and old ladies need their rest.”
    I hadn’t thought about that. Of course I knew she was an old lady, far older even than Nan had been, but when she was at the piano, barking out her orders – “Gently, gently! You’re not selling potatoes!” – I tended to forget how ancient she was.
    â€œCan I come again tomorrow?” I said.
    â€œOn one condition.” She did the beady-eyed thing, but not like I was beneath contempt, more like she was about to issue some kind of challenge. “You must sing a song for me. Not” – she held up a hand – “not just any old song. The song you would sing if you were going in for the contest.”
    She was doing it again! Nagging at me.
    â€œI’m sure you must have thought about it. You must have a favourite song.”
    I could feel my face scrunching itself up into a scowl.
    â€œOh, now, come along, come along!” she said. “I’m no threat, I’m just an old woman. What would you sing?”
    Sullenly, I muttered, “Something I wrote with a friend.”
    â€œSplendid! Then please, tomorrow, come prepared to sing it for me.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t like it,” I said. “It’s not your sort of music.”
    Her pencilled eyebrows rose in a sort of cool disdain, like I’d said something really stupid.