For a few moments I just stared at her, taking in the fact that Skylar Chase, the most famous pop star in the world, was standing in front of me and had just heard me say ‘mwahahaha’ to myself for no apparent reason.
It wasn’t exactly the introduction I’d hoped for.
‘No, don’t worry about it,’ I said eventually, pulling myself together. ‘Sorry, I didn’t realise you were in here.’
‘I was just . . .’ She gestured to the piano as she came forwards to lean on its side.
I nodded. ‘Cool. Well, I’ll get out of your way.’
‘I recognise you,’ she said curiously. ‘Aren’t you . . . Felicity Royale?’
I gaped at her. ‘You . . .?youknow whoIam?’
‘I met your mom earlier, she showed me a picture of you.’
‘Oh no.’ I winced. ‘I’m sorry. Was she really embarrassing?’
She laughed. ‘No! No, she was very welcoming. It was nice to meet her.’
‘Yeah, well she’s not exactly up to date with the charts or anything,’ I explained as she giggled. ‘Don’t be insulted if she talks about music from hundreds of years ago.’
‘I’ll keep that in mind.’ She smiled, showing her perfect set of pearly white teeth.
This may sound stupid, but you know there’s that saying about how some people just have ‘star quality’? Well, Skylar Chase has it. Whatever it is. Her aura or something. It just radiates out, a sort of comfortableness in her own skin.
And the way she looked too. I was still in my school uniform, whereas she was wearing a white blouse, skinny black jeans, black heeled boots, and a black trilby hat which was resting perfectly on the top of her curly brown hair. She really did look every inch a pop star.
Despite the fact that I had just interrupted an international musician rehearsing her songs so should probably leave her to it, something about the way she leaned on the piano watching me made me feel like she wanted to keep talking.
‘Shouldn’t a famous pop star have an entourage or something?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘I actually do have a pretty big team staying here but I wanted to get away for a bit.’
‘Do they tell you how great you are the whole time?’
‘Not nearly enough.’ She grinned. ‘What was with the cackle?’
‘Huh?’
‘The cackle you did when you came into the room.’
‘I didn’t do a cackle.’
‘You did. You went, “Mwahahaha.” Like an evil villain laugh.’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘You definitely did. It wasn’t a very good one, but it was one nonetheless.’
‘What do you mean it wasn’t very good?’
‘There was no power in it; you didn’t use your diaphragm. Like this.’ She threw me a mischievous smile before flinging her head back and really going for it. ‘MWAHAHAHA!’
‘Wow.’ I laughed, trying to ignore how surreal this all was and act as though I chat to famous pop stars all the time. ‘Much better than mine.’
‘Aha! Then you do admit you did it!’
‘Fine, I admit there was a slight cackle.’
