Melody 5 - Rising Stars

Chapter 15

--- MELODY 5 ---

It was exactly one year since Sherri Holt had held auditions at the Infinity Dance Studios in Covent Garden for a new girlband.  And now, Melody 5 were waiting to find out if they’d got their first UK number 1 single.

The girls sat in a people carrier parked at Leicester Forest Services on the M1.  For the past week they’d been up and down the country promoting their first official single – Melody UnChained.  Now they were huddled around a mobile phone, sharing a bumper bag of burgers, fries and milkshakes – their standard fare over the last hectic week.  They were on speakerphone, waiting for Chart Show presenter, Jhelisa Brookes.  They’d already done a short interview with her earlier in the show and now they were waiting for her to cut back to them for the announcement of the UK Chart’s Top 2 singles.  The battle was on for the UK’s Number 1 spot and it was between Melody 5 and Psylence.

2 On It and the furore surrounding it had massively raised Psylence’s profile and the single had reached Number 5.  His latest offering Girl You Like That had received a big marketing push and was also vying for the top spot.  The battle was being billed as the biggest boy vs girl chart battle since Girls Aloud went head to head with their boyband rivals in 2002.

Who would come out on top?

As the girls listened to the Top 20 countdown Sherri whispered.  “Nervous?”

“Bricking it,” said Jadine.

“Jhelisa will come to you in 60 seconds,” said Sherri.

As the girls waited anxiously, Kat glanced at her phone.  She’d just received a text from Lena.

No 2 or No 1 doesn’t matter.

You’re all amazing!

Especially you.

Kat smiled.  Nothing romantic had developed between them, but Kat still held out hope that one day it would.  Although right now she was too busy for romance.  Her feet hadn’t touched the ground these past three months.  What with recording an album, filming their latest video and storming the promo trail with Melody UnChained.  Kat felt like she was in her element, her only sadness was that things were still difficult back home – apparently Andrezj’s mood swings had got worse since his accident and doctors were now starting to think that his brain had been affected by his fall after all.  Kat couldn’t wait for the day when she could earn enough money to look after Dani and the boys and get them away from the man who was bringing them nothing but misery.  Kat crossed her fingers and hoped with all her heart that they’d made it to Number 1.

As the countdown continued, Rhian bit her fingers as she thought about all the people back home in Penarvon listening to the chart rundown too.  She smiled as she remembered the text she’d got from earlier from Matt.

We’re all thinking about you.

Sure you’ll be No 1.

You always were my No 1 girl!

M xx

She’d heard from her brother that Matt had recently broken up with his girlfriend.  She remembered being miffed that the boy who’d had a crush on her at school had moved on from her after she’d moved away.  Although, what did she expect?  That a nice guy like Matt was going to pine over her forever?  Although, judging by his text, maybe he was.  Matt still wasn’t her type, but it was nice to know that good guys were interested in her after all.  Rhian just hoped they’d made it to Number 1 so she could finally put Psylence in his rightful place – behind her.