Don't Kiss Girls and Other Silly Stories Read Online Free PDF

voice.’
    The teachers look up at me for a few seconds, not saying anything. Finally, Miss Mason speaks. ‘Tony, that was … amazing!’
    â€˜Unbelievable,’ says Mr Relf.
    â€˜Thanks,’ I say.
    â€˜I mean it,’ gushes Miss Mason. ‘Your pitch was perfect and the range superb. What I also found remarkable was your projection. How did you manage to make your voice reach us so easily?’
    â€˜Umm. I had the volume turned right up.’
    Far out! I wish I wouldn’t speak before I think.
    Miss Mason and Mr Relf look at each other, and then they laugh. ‘You can’t help yourself, can you, Tony?’ says Mr Relf. ‘Always the comedian.’
    â€˜Yeah.’ I do a fake laugh. ‘I can’t help myself.’
    Phew! That was close.
    â€˜We’ll have to work on your dancing, though,’ says Miss Mason.
    â€˜It was terrible,’ Mr Relf adds.
    What are they talking about? I spent half the night practising in front of the mirror.
    â€˜But you’re our best singer by far,’ says Miss Mason. ‘So congratulations, Tony. You’re our leading man.’
    â€˜Get ready for greatness,’ says Mr Relf.
    I don’t care much about greatness. What I care about is kissing Ashleigh.
    *
    It’s the night before opening night and I can’t sleep. I think about holding Ashleigh in my arms and placing my lips on hers. Everyone knows that on-stage lovers always become off-stage lovers sooner or later. And in my case it looks like it’s going to be sooner rather than later because Ashleigh has promised to kiss me tomorrow night.
    During rehearsals it wasn’t easy to make everyone believe that I really could sing. Luckily, Simon did a good job of singing and recording the songs, although I did have to give him some ‘gentle’ persuasion to convince him to do it.
    The problem was when Miss Mason went, ‘Hold up!’ in the middle of a verse. I had to quickly hit the ‘stop’ button while she talked about where we were supposed to stand or how I was supposed to hold Ashleigh. (Yeah, I get to hold Ashleigh. Pretty cool, ay?)
    Then Miss Mason might say, ‘Okay, let’s do it again from the top,’ and I had to cough and say, ‘Sorry, Miss. My throat’s killing me. I need a drink of water.’ And while I went backstage to get it, I’d reset the MP3.
    Yeah, it wasn’t easy, but I’ve got a natural talent when it comes to tricking people. What makes me the most proud is that I’ve even fooled Kane, and he’s almost as talented a trickster as me.
    I must be good.
    Unfortunately, I haven’t got to kiss Ashleigh yet because Miss Mason showed us how actors fool the crowd by just pretending to kiss, missing each other’s lips by a few centimetres. I wish she’d just kept quiet.
    But then during our final practice last night things changed. It was called a dress rehearsal, and I was pretty nervous about it until I found out that I didn’t actually have to wear a dress. During the kissing scene, I got so close to Ashleigh’s lips that I could smell her strawberry lip gloss. She didn’t seem to mind either, so afterwards I said to he r, ‘I reckon we should do a real kiss on opening night. It will look heaps more convincing.’
    She raised an eyebrow and for a second I thought I was going to get slapped by a girl. Again. But then she went, ‘Wow. I didn’t know you were such a professional actor, Tony. Are you sure you want to kiss me ?’
    â€˜Umm. I think I could force myself.’
    She thought for a moment, and then she nodded. ‘Okay, why not?’
    No wonder I’m not sleeping.
    *
    Everybody’s excited. Miss Mason is running around like a chook with its head cut off, Mr Relf is counting everybody and everything (he is a maths teacher after all), and girls are giggling and doing each other’s hair.
    I make sure that the MP3 is