Kai's Story Read online

  THE STREET

  Lena, Kai, Sanjay and Chelsea live on Swatton High Street.

  They are fourteen years old, and they are best friends. They’ll never let each other down…

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  The Fame Game

  Chapter Two

  Sweet Street-Busker

  Chapter Three

  Pressure and Promises

  Chapter Four

  Going Viral

  Chapter Five

  Heart to Heart

  Chapter Six

  Pretty Kitty

  Chapter Seven

  Message Me

  Chapter Eight

  The Waiting Game

  Chapter Nine

  Tech-Queen

  Chapter Ten

  Angry Dragons

  Chapter Eleven

  Believe in Miracles

  Chapter Twelve

  Winners and Losers

  Bonus Bits!

  Chapter One

  The Fame Game

  Lena and her friend Kai were outside Street-Level, the local music place. “Look at this poster,” said Lena. “Maybe I should enter? They might like me.”

  Kai looked up at the poster. “May Bank Holiday is only a few weeks away,” he said.

  Lena scanned the poster again. She was already doing a twirly sort of dance. “My old drama teacher used to say I had a good singing voice. This could be the break I’ve been dreaming of.” Lena took her phone out of her jacket pocket. “I’m going to text Sanjay and Chelsea. We can go to my house. Then you can all help me decide what to sing.”

  Kai could imagine Lena on stage. With her blonde hair and cute smile, she’d be dazzling. “I’ll write something original for you. Everyone else will do covers. You’ll stand out if you sing something new.”

  Lena wrinkled her nose. “You’re not a songwriter.”

  Kai grinned again. “I can try. My grandad was a musician, back in Jamaica. I’ve got music in my bones. Just give me thirty seconds to come up with something.”

  Kai clicked his fingers three times, then sang:

  “I’m just a crazy boy with music in my bones,

  I’m a sweet street-busker singing songs the world don’t know.

  I’m a sweet street-busker, and I’ll get you through the night.

  Listen to my song. Dance towards the light.”

  Lena stared at Kai. “That’s brilliant. Sounds a bit like Ritchie Ranx.”

  Kai laughed. Ritchie Ranx was his rapper hero. It was cool that Lena thought he’d caught that style.

  Lena looked dreamy. “If I get a contract I might get famous. And rich. I’d travel the world. I’d live in a mansion. I’d get to know other famous singers and party with them.” She giggled.

  Kai had his own dreams. He’d get his dad a Porsche. Dad drove a taxi, and he only earned peanuts. There was no way he would ever afford a decent motor.

  “Can I sing it, then?” asked Lena.

  “What?” asked Kai.

  “That song. I’d just change the boy to a girl, and get you to make it longer.” Lena hummed the tune.

  Kai shrugged. He couldn’t actually remember what he’d sung. “Sure,” he said. “But when you get famous, don’t forget all your friends.”

  Lena hugged him, her eyes bright with tears. Kai wasn’t sure if they were tears of joy about his song, or tears at the idea she might forget her friends, but he didn’t really care. It was great having her as a mate.

  He nudged her. “We’d better go to your house. You will need to practise. Text Sanjay and Chelsea and tell them to come. They can be your audience.” Kai still wasn’t thinking about the song. He was thinking about food. Lena lived near the kebab shop. He could grab a kebab for lunch.

  Lena was thinking about the song. “I’m just a crazy girl, with music in my bones,” she sang. An elderly couple smiled. A little girl started dancing. Lena blew kisses at them all. “I’m a sweet street-busker, singing songs the world don’t know.”

  Kai clicked his fingers to the tune, then turned to see a teenage girl watching him. Not just watching – more staring. The sunlight touched her spiked red hair and it glowed gold. It looked like flames around her head. It felt weird to be stared at. Girls often looked at him, but not in a ‘staring’ way. Kai felt strange. She looked like trouble.

  Suddenly the girl laughed. Kai laughed back. She was OK after all.

  He felt good again. This street was a brilliant place to be.

  Chapter Two

  Sweet Street-Busker

  Kai sat on the sofa in Sanjay’s tiny front room, shovelling curry into his mouth.

  Sanjay watched his friend slurp the meal they’d just begged from The Curry House kitchen downstairs. Sanjay’s older brothers had both grumbled about Kai ‘eating all the profits’, but his mum had smiled. She had piled spicy chicken and rice onto a foil plate for him.

  “Don’t you get fed at home?” Sanjay teased.

  “Yeah, but it’s never enough,” Kai grinned. “I’m a growing lad.”

  Sanjay picked Kai’s phone up from the arm of the sofa and started filming Kai as he ate. “You can watch this later and be shamed into learning some manners,” he laughed. “You’re like an animal at feeding time.”

  Kai wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “That kebab I had at lunchtime was ages ago. We spent hours at Lena’s, watching her prance about singing.”

  Sanjay nodded. “Plus, the song sucks. It’s got one of those pain-in-the-butt tunes that gets into your brain.”

  “Hey, have some respect.” Kai finished the curry. “I spent all of thirty seconds composing that.”

  “It showed,” said Sanjay and he carried on filming. “At least Lena sounds good. You’d be rubbish singing those words.”

  Kai jumped up. He grabbed the TV remote and held it like a microphone. “I’ll show you I can sing my own song just as well as Lena,” he said.

  “Do it exactly like she does it,” said Sanjay, laughing. “Give me some of that hip action.”

  Kai stood in the middle of the room. He pouted and wiggled his hips. “I’m a sweet street-busker and I’ll get you through the night…”

  Just then Sanjay’s younger sister, Papri, came in. “What are you singing?” she asked.

  “It’s Kai’s own song. Lena’s going to perform it in an audition,” said Sanjay.

  Papri listened. “I like it.” She sang along with Kai.

  Kai swayed his hips. He flicked his hair.

  Sanjay was still filming, and he held the phone up close to Kai’s face.

  “Listen to my song. Dance towards the light,” sang Kai.

  Sanjay kept on filming.

  “I’m a sweet street-busker…” Kai stopped. He was laughing too much to keep singing.

  “Let’s get this stunning performance online,” said Sanjay, grinning. “It’ll crack everyone up.”

  “Everyone except Lena,” Papri warned.

  But Kai and Sanjay were too busy laughing as they watched the video. They didn’t take any notice of her.

  Chapter Three

  Pressure and Promises

  Kai was woken by the buzz of his phone. It was Chelsea ringing him. “Hey Chelsea,” muttered Kai. “It’s Saturday morning and it’s not even seven o’clock. Is there an earthquake or something?”

  “There might be. For you, when Lena gets to you,” said Chelsea.

  “Why, what’s up?” asked Kai.

  “That video you and Sanjay posted online,” replied Chelsea.

  “What video? I haven’t posted a video,” Kai grunted.

  “Check it out, quick. When Lena sees it she’ll…”

  There was a sudden hammering on Kai’s bedroom door. “Kai? You awake? Lena’s downstairs.” Mum peered into the
room. “You need to come down. She’s upset.”

  “OK, coming. Hey, Chelsea. Got to go. The ground is already shaking,” said Kai.

  “Be careful of sudden sink-holes,” said Chelsea. “And… be nice to her.” Chelsea ended the call.

  Kai sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes. He remembered the video thing now. He and Sanjay had uploaded his version of ‘Sweet Street-Busker’. Then he had made his way back along the street to his own home. Why was Lena hassling him about it? He got up, put on his towelling robe and ran downstairs.

  As he reached the hall, Mum was taking Lena into the kitchen. Lena stopped when she saw him. Her eyes were red and puffy. “How could you do it?” she asked.

  Kai opened his arms. “We were just messing about.”

  “What’s he done, honey?” Kai’s mum put the kettle on to boil, then sat down to feed his baby sister, Marci-Lee. Marci-Lee was grizzling in her high chair.

  “He stole my song. I’d rehearsed it for the audition.” Lena’s eyes welled with tears again.

  “Did you do that, Kai?” asked Kai’s mum. She turned towards Lena. “Don’t worry. He’ll sort it, honey. Won’t you, Kai?” His mum made cooing noises at Marci-Lee. She got up to put bread in the toaster.

  “Yeah.” Kai’s gut was rumbling.

  “Promise?” sniffed Lena.

  Kai hesitated. It was hard to think straight on an empty stomach. Why was Lena making a drama about nothing? What was wrong with posting a funny video clip online?

  “Look, I have to go,” said Lena, giving him a long look. “I’m working in the café this morning. But text me later. OK?”

  “OK,” Kai muttered.

  Marci-Lee’s grizzling got louder. Kai’s twelve-year-old brother, Toby, burst into the kitchen. “I neeeeeed food,” he said.

  Mum rolled her eyes. “There’s bacon in the fridge. Do some extra for Dad. He drove someone to the airport and should be back soon.”

  Kai needed food too. He was so hungry he could have even eaten the gloop Mum was feeding Marci-Lee. He headed towards the fridge, but Mum wagged a finger at him. “You sort that promise out for your friend, before you sort your stomach out,” she said.

  Marci-Lee banged her spoon on her tray, and blew him a food-bubble.

  Toby grabbed a piece of fresh toast and tore it in half.

  Bacon sizzled in the pan.

  Kai groaned. “That smell. It’s heaven. And torture.”

  Mum wagged her finger again. “Go. Now. Lena and her family are our next-door neighbours. We all have to look out for each other.”

  Kai groaned even louder. “None of you cares if I die of starvation.”

  He slouched off. Mum had said he had to keep his promise to Lena, but the truth was, he hadn’t promised anything. And he wasn’t sure that he wanted to.

  Chapter Four

  Going Viral

  Kai checked his phone. There was a message from someone he’d never heard of, sent at 7.05 am:

  @dantheman

  Found your ‘Sweet Street-Busker’ video. Hilarious. I posted it to more people. It’s got about 300 more views – just in four hours. Cool!

  Kai opened the video link. The numbers viewing ‘Sweet Street-Busker’ had jumped up since @dantheman had messaged him: hundreds of strangers had rushed to look at him jumping about in Sanjay’s front room. He had over five hundred ‘likes’. Two more clocked up just while he was staring at the screen. “Crazy,” Kai muttered, but he grinned. He felt good.

  He watched the video. Sanjay had done a decent job. He looked at himself pouting, and the butt-wiggling still made him smile. Lena needed to back off. It wasn’t as if he was going against her in the audition.

  He scrolled down to the comments. Mostly from girls. There were eighty-three.

  A cute looking girl called Dollface21 said his voice was like “liquid gold”. Another girl, Jessiebaby, responded with “he’s ALL gold”.

  A third girl, Prettykitty16, just put:

  Prrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

  “Awesome,” Kai thought as he kept scrolling. “I’m collecting comments like a bee collecting honey.” He laughed out loud. “I am buzzing. BUZZING. Bzzzzzzz.”

  A couple of guys had commented too. One was a journalist, journo-jon. “Message me,” he said. “This could be BIG.”

  His video was getting loads of attention. It was going to go viral.

  Kai stopped laughing. Going viral meant serious money. And serious money was no laughing matter.

  Chapter Five

  Heart to Heart

  “Can’t you just take it down?” Chelsea asked.

  Kai sat with her in the private garden of The Crown – the pub along the street that Chelsea’s mum ran. Chelsea had an older brother, Tommy, but he was away in the army. Chelsea seemed to have got even more sensible since he’d gone. Kai had been hoping she’d calm Lena down for him, but the conversation wasn’t going that way.

  “Right, you two, toasted cheese sandwiches and hot chocolate,” said Chelsea’s mum as she came out with food and mugs on a tray.

  “Awesome, thanks.” Kai grinned at her. “I didn’t get to have breakfast. I’m weak with hunger. I might just swallow the toasties whole.”

  “Lena’s gutted,” Chelsea went on, as her mum hurried back into the pub. “She thinks no one will take her version seriously now. She can’t sing it in the audition.”

  Kai glugged back his hot chocolate. “She could sing something else,” he suggested.

  “She wrote ‘Sweet Street-Busker’ on the entry form. She’ll have to pay again if she sings something different. And she says that was her song. You wrote it for her.”

  Kai felt annoyed. He hadn’t written it for Lena. He hadn’t written it at all. He‘d just sung it, and then messed around with his own words. His own words! Why didn’t Lena and Chelsea get that? “I’ll pay,” he said suddenly.

  “Pay what?” Chelsea picked at a bit of crust, then flicked it to the ground. Two pigeons strutted close to where they were sitting.

  “Pay for Lena to do a new song. If that’s the issue,” said Kai.

  “It’s not the whole issue,” Chelsea was looking at him with her serious grey eyes. ‘Sweet Street-Busker’ is an original song. That makes it special.”

  “If it’s that special, then it should belong to me.” Kai reached for another toastie. “So, what do you think I should do?”

  Chelsea bit into her own toastie. “You’ve got to do the right thing.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Kai.

  “Follow your heart,” said Chelsea.

  Kai dropped his toastie back onto the plate. “You’re trying to make me feel bad,” he muttered. Chelsea wasn’t being fair. Follow your heart. There was no way Lena would give up a big break for him.

  He stood up quickly, scaring the pigeons away.

  “Where are you going?” Chelsea frowned.

  Kai shrugged. “My heart just went off without me, so I’m following it. Just like you said I should.”

  He walked away.

  Chapter Six

  Pretty Kitty

  Kai sat on the bench in the park, watching children chase each other round the swings. His head was going round too.

  He checked his phone.

  There had been more comments coming in, mostly from girls. Plus eleven hundred ‘views’ and almost six hundred ‘likes’. He had read that internet success was all about advertising. If he got enough comments then people would want to run ads on his video. But Mum would be angry if he didn’t sort things out with Lena. All this pressure was doing his head in.

  A shadow fell over him. He knew, without looking up, that it was Lena.

  “Hi, Mr Popular – shove over.” She wriggled next to him.

  Kai moved over on the bench. Lena’s puppy, Robbie, began chasing pigeons.

  “I saw Chelsea just now,” said Lena. “She said you got cross with her.”

  Kai shrugged. “Sort of.”

  “Because of me?” asked Lena.

&
nbsp; Kai shrugged again. “Is everything always about you?” he said. He knew he sounded harsh, but why couldn’t she see this could be a massive break for him? He wasn’t being out of order. It was his song.

  “Is that what you think of me? Attention-seeking and a pain in the butt?” Lena was looking at him. The warm weather had brought out a new sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheeks. She had the sort of eyelashes that were long and curled.

  He sighed, and put his arm around her. “No, hun. That’s not what I think. You’re gorgeous. You don’t need my stupid song to make you famous. You’ll make it anyway.”

  Kai didn’t want to add that this viral thing was his only chance, because it wasn’t true.

  He did OK at school. He was doing better than OK with his kickboxing. He had loads of options for the future. Maybe none of this was worth fighting over.

  Lena smiled. “So you still love me? In a ‘friend’ way.”

  “I still love you. In a ‘friend’ way,” said Kai, smiling back at her.

  Kai waited for her to say the next thing. To start begging him to take down the video. Right then, if she had asked, he would have said ‘yes’.

  But she didn’t ask. Instead she said, “I’d do it too.”

  “Do what?” asked Kai.

  “What you’re doing. Seizing the moment, of course,” said Lena.

  Kai frowned. “You would?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it all morning. I’ve just been a drama-queen, but I was upset firstly about the music and secondly…”

  “Secondly, what?” said Kai.

  Her eyes glistened and he thought she was going to cry again. “… you made fun of me. All the pouting and hair flicking. I saw myself in a certain way when I watched that video, and it was horrible. I didn’t even know if you liked me.”