Page 6 of Going Solo

Indira looked at Cole. Indira looked at me. She looked back at Cole. She looked back to me. Then she raised a hand, pointed a finger at Cole, and then pointed it at me.

“You’re not a”—she waggled the finger back and forth—“thing, are you?”

“Oh!” Cole said, letting his arm fall from my shoulder. “No, no. Nothing like that.”

Indira smiled. I wasn’t sure if she was relieved or if she didn’t believe him. “Well, come on, Toby. You’re up.”

* * *

There was no round of applause for me. My heart was pounding in my throat as I waited for the producers’ verdict on my “Firework.” Indira leaned over to another producer and whispered something in his ear. He nodded. He looked up at me, smiled, and kept nodding. Indira pointed at something she’d written on her clipboard. The other producer stared at me. My fight-or-fart mechanism was triggered, and my bumhole clenched like it was tightening a nut.

“Toby,” Indira said, finally, “we’d like you to sing for the judges this afternoon.”

Tears sprung from my eyes with the relief. It was like someone had loosened my corset and suddenly I could breathe again.

“Thank you! Thank you so much!” I squealed. Then, for some reason, I curtsied. “What am I like?” I said. Indira and the other producer laughed. That was encouraging. At least I would be good telly. I skipped out of the room, feeling as high as my Aunt Cheryl that time she did ketamine on an easyJet flight to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. I was in with a shot. There was a chance all my dreams would come true, and I could be a pop star.

ChapterThree

Make Me a Pop Starhost Dorinda Carter and a camera crew found us in the area where the producers had corralled the contestants who were going to perform for the TV judges onstage at Colchester’s Mercury Theatre later that evening. This was either really good news or really bad news. If the camera crew followed you through the auditions, you were going to be on the show. It meant you were either good and they expected you to get through, or they thought you were well delusional and were about to become a laughing stock on national television. No one wanted to be this season’s Jamie Struff.

“Hello, boys,” Dorinda said in her thick Birmingham accent. I couldn’t believe it. I was meeting TV royalty. My heart raced like it was in the three o’clock at Newmarket and the stable boy had given it a sneaky injection of something spicy.

Dorinda was big and Black and had a laugh that cackled out of her like one of those wheezing cartoon hyenas. I was fangirling.

“Now, which one of you is Cole Kennedy?”

Cole raised his hand shyly.

“Fab! So, you must be Toby, are you, darlin’?”

I nodded.

“Right, boys, so what we’re gonna do is, you’ll both be in the same shot, yeah? Then, one at a time, you’re going to introduce yourselves. Say your name and where you’re from, how old you are, and a fact about yourself. OK?”

We nodded. The camera guy framed us both up and said he was rolling. Neither of us said anything. We stared at the camera, frozen—like its sight relied on movement and if we flinched it’d rip us apart.

“Cole, why don’t you go first?” Dorinda said.

Cole cleared his throat and ran his hand through his hair so it swooshed.

“Still rolling,” the cameraman said.

“Hi, I’m Cole Kennedy, I’m from Polstead in Suffolk. I’m sixteen, and I love classic rock and roll.”

Dorinda nodded and pointed to me.

“Hi, I’m Toby Lyngstad, I’m sixteen, and I’m from Colchester in Essex. And I am obsessed with pop music. Like, honestly, I love all the divas. Beyoncé. Kylie. H from Steps. My audition song today is ‘Firework.’”

I looked at Dorinda for confirmation I’d done a good job. Her expression was grim.

“Tell you what, boys, let’s try something different. I’m going to record a quick intro, and then I’ll ask you some questions. Make it feel a bit less formal.”

The camera swung around, and Dorinda was instantlyon. No wonder she’d won so many National TV Awards.

“I’m with Cole Kennedy from Suffolk and Toby Lyngstad from right here in Colchester. They’re sixteen.” As the camera panned across to us, Cole threw an arm around my shoulder, stuck a tongue out, and gave the camera bunny ears. This lad was a freaking natural. A real superstar. I smiled like a red squirrel with a nut in each cheek.

“You boys seem pretty chummy, are you schoolmates?” Dorinda asked, shoving the microphone under Cole’s chin.

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