Grace, Romeo, Juliet and Fred

1514

You’re goingto be late.

4 Ten minutes later.

Grace rushes• out of the house…

Grace, get a move on•!

Yes, you know, the school workyou have to do at home.

In her History lesson. How’s your project coming on, Grace?

Have you got your homework with you?

Sorry!

Are you going to eat your breakfast or not?

Don’t worry,it’ll be OK.

…and into a classroom.

You’re late.

Sorry,Mr Bird.

Erm... I’m sorry.It’s in my other bag.

Oh, quite well,thanks, Mrs Orchard.

I’d like to see it soon.You always do such good work.

In the last lesson of the day.

What?!

Put down that music and eat your cereal.

Don’t forget, you have an importantMaths test soon. It won’t be an easy one.

So be sure you all revise.

Yes, Mr Kennedy.

My homework?

18

‘Can we hear a bit• of the play, David?’ asked Larry.‘OK. This is the introduction.’David took the script• from his bag, cleared his throat•, and started reading.

‘You’re going to see a story set in Brighton by the sea.The story’s about two gangs who were bitter• enemies.Both the gangs had fancy• names – Montagues and Capulets.Romeo was in one gang, and in the other was Juliet.You’re going to see the story of two unlucky teens•.It’s going to be the saddest story you have ever seen… But there are also lots of laughs, some dancing and some fights.So we hope that all of you are going to have a brilliant night!’

‘Thank you, David,’ said Larry, ‘that was a great rap. Now, I said that David and Grace were our stars a moment ago. David’s our star writer, of course. And Grace is going to play Juliet.’Zadie, Holly and the other students gave a little cheer•. Grace was a great actor. Everybody agreed. Well, nearly everybody.

32

Grace, Romeo, Juliet and Fred

33

Holly was right. Grace was worried. Really worried.But she was worried about her performance at school.She was always good at everything.She was good at the piano (actually she was brilliant).She was good at the violin (fantastic, really).She was a great actor and dancer.And she was good at all her subjects at school except for Geography. She didn’t know why. She wasn’t good at giving directions and maybe the two were connected.On top of that, she was the lead• singer with the Garage Girls, her band with Holly and Zadie. And they were fantastic.But at the moment, she couldn’t do anything well. All she wanted to do was think about Chopin. She wanted to play his music and learn about his life. They were the only two things that mattered• to her.But she knew she had to get her act together• and do her school work.

So for the next week the light came on upstairs in the big dark house at 3:30 am.Ten minutes later a lamp came on in the living room downstairs. And, to the surprise of all the owls, bats and rabbits in the neighbourhood•, wonderful music filled the night air. Grace knew her studies were important, but nothing was as important as Chopin!At five o’clock she reluctantly stopped playing and picked up her script for the play. She read this for half an hour. Then she tried to catch up on• all her school work. It was hard work. She tried to keep her eyes open… but at seven o’clock her mother always found her sleeping with her books and paper all around her.