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  To all the special young people who

  inspired Salma and Billie.

  Keep doing you.

  Happy World Book Day!

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  #CastingCall #Audition #MusicalTheatre

  Attention: We are casting for a girl 15–19 to star in a groundbreaking adaption of CINDERELLA.

  This is an open call to audition before Olivier and Tony Award-winning judge Edwina Hirsch!

  Candidates must have experience of acting and singing (dancing is desirable). A superb opportunity to break into theatre, film and television. More details on our website. Please complete the form online.

  Auditions to be held on July 1st.

  Prepare a classic monologue and any song you feel represents Cinderella’s plight.

  Fortuna Theatre

  13 Rollins Street

  PROLOGUE

  ‘Cinderella audition tape: take one.’

  I cough because my vocal chords were not designed for busting out such gravelly bass tones. The coughing fit morphs into a cussing fit. Suddenly aware of the camera again, I slap a hand over my mouth – if I’m going to win the judges over, I’ve gotta be less Gordon Ramsay and more My Little Pony. Ah, screw it! I delete the video, setting my phone back on the window ledge for take two.

  Our poky lounge is my recording studio, the one room in our house that doesn’t look like a tornado hit it. Even when Dad was alive, we weren’t exactly rolling in money, but for some reason we’ve always had way too much stuff. Ten boot sales worth of tat squished inside a two-bedroom house. Thank God I’m not claustrophobic. I glance at my watch. Got an hour forty-five before my first ever date. I’m nervous as hell but Tariq seems pretty chill. I made it completely clear that Netflix and dinner is in no way the same as ‘Netflix and Chill’. Our evening will be strictly PG and if he can prove he’s not some pervy goonda, there may be a follow-up appointment.

  ‘Take two!’ I say, making a cutesy peace sign. ‘Thanks for having me. Honestly, I’m trying so hard not to fangirl right now. Ms Hirsch, I can’t believe it’s actually you. You’re my acting inspo.’

  OK, less arse-kissing, more auditioning!

  ‘So, anyway, my name’s Salma Hashmi.’ I frown, wondering whether to move straight on to take three. ‘Make that just Salma. My surname belonged to my dad and, well, it’s complicated.’

  Why did I even bring Dad up? He’s dead, buried, gone forever – which is exactly why I now get to try out for this role. I rub my temples, trying to remember what’s next on my prompt sheet instead of focusing on my disapproving departed dad. Casting directors are busy people. You got twenty seconds to knock it out of the park or you’re going home.

  ‘I’m fifteen and from Haringey. All my life I’ve wanted to be an actress.’ Lame. ‘You probably get that a lot, huh? But for me . . . look, good stuff doesn’t happen to people like me. It don’t matter how much talent you got, nobody gives you a chance. They take one look at you and they think they got you sussed.’

  Wow. I’m in a whole other postcode from the script. The camera’s running but I suddenly feel I need to say the words that have been sitting inside me like broken glass. Better to get it out now than in the actual audition.

  ‘I just want a chance to show the world what I can do. I know I look nothing like the Cinderella in your head but I’m going to prove that I can be ten times better. Talk is cheap and time is money. You asked for a song, so here it is. Enjoy.’

  My song choice is ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’. Apart from boasting a bulletproof melody and sentimental Cinderella vibes, it speaks to me on a whole bunch of levels, about hoping for a better life and being frustrated with the hoops and hurdles between you and your dreams. I know there are people in my community who think acting is all kinds of evil, just like Dad did, but I’m done caring. Drama is the only thing I’m good at and I’m not going to be ashamed of it.

  Inhaling deeply, I open my mouth and out drifts a lilting lullaby. So far so good – maybe even great? But let’s not hold a party just yet cos if life’s taught me one thing, it’s that karma comes for show-offs. So I get a grip, remembering to sing from the diaphragm, working my way up to the top note. My core temperature rises and I can feel it happening, like me and Adele just got body-swapped. Excited butterflies flutter in my belly, beating their wings faster and faster and—

  My voice cracks.

  What should have been a showstopping power note comes off like a squirrel’s fart. I collapse back onto the settee, cringing. Kill me now.

  CHAPTER 1

  The date was the biggest disaster of my life. I’m not even lying. Cannot handle school today after the humiliation of last night but Mum’s on the warpath, so I better not push it. Frankly, it’s a miracle I haven’t already been kicked out.

  The sun beats down like it’s mad at me too, making me sweat so bad I feel like a basted chicken. I pop into the bakery on the way to school to buy a pink slice of sickly sweet cake. That much sugar could make the wicked stepmother crack a smile. The shop assistant tells me they’re on offer so I grab an extra slice for my best mate, Muzna. We’ve been tight forever: literally born on the same day and in the very same hospital. Muzna’s parents have always been proper strict, trying to raise her as the perfect Pakistani daughter. I’m perfect nothing, but it ain’t for lack of Dad trying.

  Muzna thinks I lucked out with high cheekbones and big eyes. Those things might be Insta currency, but likes won’t buy you a bigger house or get you a good job. Muzna’s always getting top marks in class and has something smart to say. That’s the kind of stuff you can build a life on. Pretty isn’t forever.

  When I get to school on the one day I need to pour my heart out the most, Muzna is nowhere to be found. Smirks and whispers surround me like fog, hounding my every step. Somehow everyone already knows about the date.

  ‘Hey,’ says a ginger kid, a football balanced under his arm. ‘Wanna visit my bedroom after school?’ He flicks his tongue in a way that makes me want to punch his lights out.

  ‘Say that again, see what happens,’ I warn.

  He backs off, warily eyeing my clenched fist. The rumours have started and it’s not even 9 a.m.

  At lunchtime, I finally corner Muzna in the dinner hall and I go to hug her, but she just bursts into tears and runs off, dumping her lunch in the bin. Muzna and me do not dump food in bins. We can’t afford to.

  A folded sheet of pink paper by the bin catches my eye. Even before I’ve opened it, my heart’s taken the lift down to the basement of my soul. It’s from Muzna, begging me to understand that her parents will kill her if she’s seen with me after what happened last night.

  I knew her parents were mad but I didn’t expect her to do this. Tariq screwed up and I get blamed.

  A boy wolf whistles behind me and I whip round with a glare freshly baked in the fires of hell. ‘Easy, fam!’ he says. ‘Tariq said he hit all the bases last night. A home run on a first date!’

  Tariq, I decide, needs his jaw wired shut. He’s by the lockers now, boasting to a crowd of pervy boys, making graphic gestures that leave me in no doubt what he’s on about. They see me coming and undress me with their eyes.

  ‘Gotta go! Bye!’ Tariq says bouncing.

  ‘Oi! You get your lying arse back here!’ I feel my skirt snag on something and spin round as a boy tries to lift it. I kick his phone out of his other hand so hard the screen has cracked before it even hits the floor.

  ‘You’re paying for that!’ he shrieks as I pelt down the corridor after Tariq.
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br />   Longer legs and a head start give him an advantage, but outrage spikes my adrenalin and soon enough I’m honing in on the idiot like a BS-seeking missile. Tariq makes the mistake of looking back once too often and runs straight into a ‘CLEANING IN PROGRESS’ sign. Feet tangling, arms pinwheeling, he hits the floor and rolls over. I land on him in a straddle, slamming into his belly with the force of an Anthony Joshua uppercut. Groaning, he grips my wrists before I do any real damage.

  ‘Why you spreading lies about me?’ I demand, fingers twitching.

  ‘I didn’t!’ he says. ‘I told them we spent last night together. It’s the truth!’

  ‘He did more than tell us,’ laughs a kid. Tariq looks daggers at him, shaking his head furiously. The kid continues undeterred. ‘My boy posted pics on Insta!’

  Another kid, one I actually thought liked me, holds up a phone and my heart implodes. In the pic I’m asleep on a bed, but Tariq is posed behind me, bare shoulders and torso emerging from a duvet giving a cheesy thumbs up. One swipe later and my cheeks are burning. The next picture is of Tariq licking the side of my face like it’s made of chocolate. They say the camera never lies but this one ain’t telling the whole story.

  ‘Why would you do that?’ The betrayal makes me gasp.

  ‘Ain’t my fault you’re so easy.’ Wrong answer.

  My fist connects with his jaw, whipping his face to the left with an audible crack.

  ‘Raaa! Tariq got Me-Tooed,’ quips some idiot in the crowd that’s started to gather now there’s a real fight on.

  ‘Don’t ever come at me with your BS again!’ I yell into his face. ‘Understand?’

  He cowers. Point made, I get off him and turn to walk away.

  ‘Salma’s gonna be a movie star, y’all!’ Tariq yells behind me, humiliating me with the one needle of truth in a haystack of lies. He makes me wish so hard I hadn’t shown him my audition tape – why did I ever think I could trust him? Just cos he boo-hooed about his parents getting divorced? ‘Reckons she’s gonna be the new Cinderella.’

  Shut up! Shut up! But he keeps right on, laying my soul bare for the entire world to laugh at.

  ‘Yeah, riiiiight!’ say the vicious glamour queens in disgust.

  Once upon time, these three figured I was pretty enough to join their clique. Strutting round the school, ordering other students about like servants – it was a proposal nobody in their right mind would reject. But then they made the mistake of picking on Muzna for having too much facial hair. Muzzie’s super sensitive about stuff like that and I was done with their meanness. So I ditched them and they’ve haunted me ever since. Muzna wouldn’t let them get to me, told me that school wasn’t forever and that my acting talent would take me places.

  But now I’ve lost Muzna and this boy is the reason.

  ‘The only movie you’ll be seeing Salma in,’ Tariq continues, a grin splitting his face, ‘is the kind that gets passed around the boys’ locker room!’

  Howls of laugher and ‘Raa!’ swell around us, trapping me in an inescapable dome of humiliation.

  The sympathy I felt for Tariq over his parents’ divorce burns in the inferno of my rage. I turn again, grabbing a fire extinguisher and lifting it over my head. Tariq’s left me with zero chill and is about to find out why that was such a big mistake.

  ‘Stop that right now!’ roars Mrs Roche, our Head of Year.

  Problem is: I can’t. Floating five metres in the air, looking down on the scene, is the real me, as shook as everyone else. Down on the ground is feral Salma – the one Tariq’s lies created – preparing to teach him a lesson.

  One of Tariq’s mates rips the fire extinguisher out of my hands while Mrs Roche yanks me backwards. Reflexively I round on her, snarling, ready to take a chunk out of her throat. Then just like that, two Salmas become one and I rein it in.

  ‘Come with me to the head teacher’s office. Now!’ Roche growls.

  ‘Bet she’s an animal in the sack an’ all!’ says a boy, making the assembly of onlookers double up in hysterics.

  ‘Cinderella?’ the mean girls scoff. ‘More like Skankerella. What a total slut!’

  CHAPTER 2

  Mrs Fossey looks at me with savage distaste.

  ‘What?’ I say, splaying my fingers. ‘It weren’t my fault.’

  ‘Half the school witnessed you attacking Tariq, not to mention it was captured on CCTV.’ She holds up her phone. I wince, looking at the paused image.

  ‘OK, so I admit it looks bad, but I was provoked. The boy’s been spreading rumours.’

  ‘And you think that justifies a violent response?’

  ‘You don’t understand. My reputation is destroyed.’

  ‘You roll your skirt ten centimetres shorter than regulation length. You wear false eyelashes and a bright red lipstick—’

  ‘It’s red-orange with UV protection,’ I point out.

  ‘Which is in direct contravention to school rules. You don’t seem to be doing anything to dissuade this reputation you speak of,’ Fossey says tartly.

  I blink, totally shocked by her attitude. Just cos Fossey’s happy looking like a walrus fart doesn’t mean the rest of us should be dissed for making an effort. ‘I’m telling you, I was provoked! I’m not a violent person, you can ask anyone!’

  ‘Provoked into physically assaulting a boy who took a picture of you two together?’ My mouth falls open, blood rushing to my face. ‘Yes, I know all about that. A parent called in this morning to complain. Your behaviour has brought the entire school into disrepute.’

  ‘Speak to Tariq. He’s the one posting fake pictures.’

  ‘I understand you’re upset and we shall get to the bottom of Tariq’s behaviour but violence is never the answer. This is a very serious matter, Salma. I’m going to have to call your mother in.’

  ‘No! You can’t!’ I cry, my hand wrapping round her wrist, stopping her from lifting the telephone off its cradle. Her hooded lids retract, like a poisonous reptile queen who is about to attack.

  I. Am. So. Dead.

  Mum drives me home. She’s vexed.

  ‘Mum?’

  Silence.

  ‘Mummy?’

  ‘Just be quiet, please, Salma,’ her voice rasps, puffy bags swelling under her eyes. ‘I’m struggling to understand how I could’ve raised you so wrong.’

  ‘You didn’t!’ I assure her. ‘You taught me to stand up for my rights, which I did. Before you came, Mrs Fossey was saying all this crap, making out I’m the one to blame instead of Tariq.’

  ‘Maybe you’re both to blame.’

  Oof! ‘Mum, are you serious?’

  ‘I gave you all the freedom my parents never gave me,’ she says tearing up, her voice trembling. ‘In the past twenty-four hours you’ve single-handedly managed to make yourself look like a wild child and me like a terrible mother. There are scandalous pictures of you on the internet, Salma! That never goes away! And as if that isn’t terrible enough, you get a two-week exclusion for fighting.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to—’

  ‘Do you have any idea how hard I work in A&E to look after us? Hmm, do you?’ I sink lower in the seat. ‘I do day shifts, I do night shifts, I work with drunks and thugs who hurl abuse at me till they’re blue in the face. They call me worse things than what that stupid boy called you.’

  When Dad was alive, I got to blame him for all the bad things that ever happened to us. But who do I blame now? Mum’s burdened with a daughter who keeps getting in trouble no matter how many sacrifices she makes for me. I’d do anything to make it up to her but how do I turn back time? Why did Tariq – my first date ever – have to turn out to be such a jerk?

  ‘I’m sorry, Mum.’ I mean it for every bit of pain or disappointment I’ve ever caused her.

  Mum’s lips stitch together, smothering a harsh comeback – one which I totally deserve. I wonder if every time she looks at me, she sees Dad staring back. People always called me ‘Daddy’s Girl’. Could I be just as messed up in the head as he was
? Even if I’m not like him, one thing is clear: I’m no better for Mum than Dad ever was.

  CHAPTER 3

  Looking back on it, I’m not even sure why I agreed to go on the date with Tariq. Not to sound up myself but I’ve had way better offers and each time I turned them down. Then Tariq came along, this nerdy little try hard. He wasn’t like the others who’d tell me how hot I was or what they’d like to do to me. Tariq was clumsy but at least he actually tried to talk to me. Made me laugh; made me feel sorry for him. I guess I believed it was something in my life that was mine, that I could control.

  ‘Wanna come round my place?’ he’d asked hopefully in the corridor at lunchtime. He was pretending to be cool but his hands were bare shaking. When he quickly stuffed them in his pockets, it made me smile.

  ‘You mean for a date?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. My uncle’s given me a house, like for when I’m eighteen, innit? We can watch Netflix on the massive seventy-five inch 8K def TV.’ His arms spread wide, fingers splayed, as if the TV screen was the size of a bus. ‘And we can do dinner.’

  ‘Riiiight,’ I say. ‘Then we can take your uncle’s private jet to Honolulu and hire Ed Sheeran to play ukulele while we stuff our faces with caviar.’

  ‘I ain’t lying!’

  ‘I’m seeing Muzna tonight anyway.’

  ‘What that girl with the ’tache?’

  ‘Why does everybody do that? She’s my best mate and I don’t appreciate you knocking her.’

  ‘Sorry! Sorry!’ he said, raising his hands in apology. ‘I don’t know her, innit? I only go by what other people chat.’

  I should have stopped it right there. His statement was a big red flag with bells on. But the pips went and I needed to get to maths. He followed me all the way there, begging and pleading. He made me feel like a queen and you know what? Flattery can make the sanest people do the dumbest things. So I agreed to swing by later, squeeze him in before a sleepover at Muzna’s.

  At 6 p.m. I found myself standing outside a tall house on a posh street. As I rechecked Google maps, the front door opened, the porch light illuminating Tariq’s desperate grin. ‘You made it! Sweet.’