Stella Rising Read online

  Copyright © Nancy Belgue 2020

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Title: Stella rising / Nancy Belgue.

  Names: Belgue, Nancy, 1951– author.

  Series: Orca soundings.

  Description: Series statement: Orca soundings

  Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190168862 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190168870 | ISBN 9781459825628 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459825635 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459825642 (EPUB)

  Classification: LCC PS8553.E4427 S74 2020 | DDC jC813/.6—dc23

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019943952

  Simultaneously published in Canada and the United States in 2020

  Summary: In this high-interest novel for teen readers, sixteen-year-old Stella is suddenly famous after her music video goes viral.

  Orca Book Publishers is committed to reducing the consumption of nonrenewable resources in the making of our books. We make every effort to use materials that support a sustainable future.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Edited by Tanya Trafford

  Design by Ella Collier

  Cover images by gettyimages.ca/Georgijevic (front) and

  Shutterstock.com/Krasovski Dmitri (back)

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  23 22 21 20 • 4 3 2 1

  To John, Daniel, Mike, Sarah and Tilly—the people who color my world.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  “Oh no you didn’t!” I stared at myself on the screen. I sounded like a leaf blower—loud, obnoxious and one-note. I covered my ears. I shut my eyes. I decided to throw myself out the window.

  “Cut the drama,” said Marnie, peeling my hands away from my ears. “You look amazing. And you sound great.”

  I opened one eye. I did look okay. Black T-shirt, holes in my jeans, black eyeliner strategically smudged. Then I heard myself stretching for the high note. “Oh god,” I moaned. “Turn it off.”

  “You are so overreacting, Stell.” Marnie hit Pause on the YouTube video.

  “It’s my worst nightmare. If I’d had any idea you were going to do this, I would never have let you record me.”

  “But Stell. The video is awesome.”

  Marnie is my oldest friend. Maybe my only friend. But she has lousy taste. No one could say I sounded anything but pathetic. “I sound pathetic.”

  “Look, you’ve had eight hundred views already,” said Marnie. “In one hour!”

  “And they are all laughing,” I replied. “Or throwing up.”

  “Stop it. Just stop.” Marnie scrolled down to the comments. “Listen to this: ‘Who is this chick? She is killing it.’ See? Throwing up? I don’t think so.”

  “You’re making that up,” I said.

  Marnie pointed her finger at the screen. “Nope. Here’s another one. ‘Better than the original!’ Can you believe it?”

  I shook my head. No, I couldn’t believe it. But I still wanted it gone. All this attention was making my skin crawl. If there’s one thing I know about social media, it’s that when good comments lead, bad crap isn’t far behind. The trolls would come out any second, and I didn’t want to be around to read their horrible comments.

  “Listen, I got to go. Viv’s expecting me for dinner.”

  Marnie hooked her legs over the arm of the chair. “Seriously? You’ve got to be kidding me. Since when does your mom do dinner?”

  “Since tonight.” Marnie had a point though. Viv wasn’t known for her cooking skills. To say the very least.

  “Something’s up. If she’s making dinner for you, something is definitely up, kiddo.”

  “Maybe.” There was no maybe about it. But I hated that Marnie was always right. “Anyway, I’m late.” I wound my scarf three times around my neck, pulled on my black watch cap and shoved my feet into the battered pair of combat boots I’d found at Goodwill.

  As I walked across the bridge, the wind took my breath away. Viv hated February, and my gut was telling me that it was only a matter of time until she took off. As I got nearer to the house, I could see that the lights were on in our basement apartment.

  “Hey, Viv,” I said as I let myself in. I’d been a latchkey kid since I was six, so I knew the drill. Viv’s latest job was bartending at Whiskey Jack’s, and we hardly ever saw each other. “Is something burning?”

  Viv appeared in the doorway of our tiny kitchen, holding a wooden spoon. “God, I hate cooking.”

  “Give it to me.” I grabbed the spoon as I walked past her. I peered into a pot of blackened rice.

  “I don’t think I added enough water,” Viv said.

  “Let’s have eggs.” I took the pot off the burner, nudged her out of the way and pulled a carton out of the fridge. My phone rang. I ignored it. Viv planted a sloppy kiss on my cheek. I could tell she’d been drinking. The smell of alcohol rose up like a cloud.

  “I think there’s some bread around here somewhere.” Viv started rummaging in the cupboard.

  “Try the breadbox,” I said.

  “Never thought of that,” Viv mumbled.

  We sat down to one of our dumpster specials—a dented can of baked beans, scrambled eggs and toast that was full of holes because we’d had to cut out the moldy bits. Viv kept forking up her eggs and putting them back on her plate. I watched her with a sinking feeling. The signs that something was up were definitely here.

  She sat back in her chair and lit a joint.

  “Okay. Just tell me.” I pushed my plate away. No one was going to eat tonight, that was clear.

  She didn’t waste any time. She reached across the table and grabbed my hand. “Remember Javier from the bar? His band played there for two weeks just after Christmas. Name of the band is Rio Rock. Rock music with Latin influences. Well, guess what?” She let go of my hand and spread her arms wide. “He asked me to go to South America with him.”

  “South America?”

  “Yeah. Sandy beaches. Tropical breezes. Music all night long. Sexy Latin men who play guitars. ‘The Girl from Ipanema’?”

  “I know about South America, Viv. Although your cultural references are somewhat out of date.”

  “That’s my brainy girl. Such a big vocabulary. Cultural references. Cool.”

  “So when do you leave?” I asked, ignoring her backhanded compliment.

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” I stood up and glared down at her. “That’s pretty short notice. Even for you.”

  “I know, sweetie. But Javier is leaving tomorrow, and I want to go with him. No fun waiting till next month and having to travel alone.”

  “Not to mention that he could change his mind by then.”

  Viv’s eyes teared up. “You could try being happy for me.”

  “What about me?”

  “Stella. My star.” Viv wiped her eyes. “You’re young. You’ve got your whole life to live. Let me live mine.”

  As if she hadn’t been living her life since forever. She’d been following bands around as long as I could remember. When I was little, she’d dragged me with her. When I got to be school age, she’d parked me with whoever would take me. But for the past five years, she would just up and leave me whenever she felt like it. I was left to deal by myself. I wanted to hate her. She put everything else before me. Always had. But looking at her sitting there so hopefully, waiting for me to give her permission, was hard. Like I was the parent and she was the kid. I knew there was no use fighting it. She was going, and that was that. And who knew, maybe this guy would work out.

  Somehow I highly doubted it.

  “Yeah, go. Have fun. I’ll take care of myself.” I stacked the plates and scraped the eggs into the garbage.

  Viv threw her arms around me and pecked me on the cheek. I got a whiff of patchouli as well as weed and whiskey.

  “You could ask Felix,” she said.

  “My loser father isn’t coming anywhere near me.” I thought of the time he had come to see me in The Little Mermaid in fifth grade. He had roared into the school parking lot on his Harley with his latest girlfriend on the back. They had spent the whole play talking on their cell phones.

  “Well, baby, life is a choice. You can choose to be happy or choose to be sad. I choose happy.”

  “Wow, Viv. That’s very profound.”

  “I know, right?” She headed for her bedroom. “Got to pack.”

  My phone rang again just as her door closed. “Yeah, Marnie, what’s up?”

  “You are not going to believe it.” Marnie’s voice was a squeak. She was that excited.

  “Believe what?”

  “Tur
n on your TV. Channel 6. They’re interviewing the lead singer of Razor. They’ve seen the cover you did of their song. The video now has eight thousand hits, by the way. They want to meet you.”

  Chapter Two

  There he was. Wilcox MacKenzie, the lead singer of the best band ever. And he was talking about me.

  “This kid has game. I like the way she slowed it down. Made it her own.”

  The hosts, a woman and a man, took turns interviewing Wilcox. “Tell us more about your tour dates,” said the woman.

  Wilcox rattled off ten cities, but the only one I cared about was Victoria. I so totally knew about that show, as I had desperately wanted to get tickets.

  The male interviewer said, “The kid who posted that video lives in Victoria.”

  “Ooooh,” said the woman. “Maybe you should try to meet her.”

  Wilcox looked uncomfortable. The guitar player sat forward. Ronnie Segal had the dangerous-bad-guy thing going on. Neck tats, a bald head covered in ink, an ink sleeve on both arms. “That’s a great idea,” said Ronnie with a sidelong glance at Wilcox.

  The interviewers were suddenly animated.

  “Why don’t we see if we can reach out to her?” asked the woman.

  “Yes, I want to say right now that we are very interested in talking to her about joining us onstage. Have her sing a tune with the guys.” Ronnie leaned back and smiled. Wilcox stared him down.

  “Oh. My. God,” Marnie said in my ear. I’d forgotten that I still had her on the phone. “Did you hear that?”

  “No way I’m going to do this.”

  “What? Why not? This is the kind of break other people would kill for. You can thank me later.” I heard computer keys clicking in the background. “Whoa. I already got a message from the TV station.”

  “I have to think,” I said. The idea was terrifying. What if I sucked?

  “I don’t get it,” Marnie said. “What’s there to think about?”

  “I’m not that good.”

  “Oh, come on! You got to work on that confidence, girl!”

  The phone still stuck to my ear, I walked past Viv’s closed door and into my room. The walls were plastered with posters of Razor. I loved their music. I loved their sound. I had loved them since I was thirteen. But I’d never been able to afford tickets to see them live.

  Viv opened her door and pushed her duffel bag into the hall. The smell of weed floated out too. Who knew when she’d be back. She was going to be somewhere in South America drinking margaritas, walking on the beach and perfecting her tan. Me? I was going to be busking in the freezing rain, dumpster diving for food and stuck here taking care of everything. Just like always.

  “You know what?” I said to Marnie. “You’re right. What have I got to lose? Give them my number.”

  “I already have a reply ready. All I have to do is hit Send…and done!”

  We sat there for a few moments, Marnie on her end, me on mine. “Holy crap,” Marnie said. “It’s happening.”

  “Yeah. I doubt anything will come of it. They won’t even read it. Bet it goes directly to spam.”

  “I love your positive thinking.”

  Viv poked her head into my room. She doesn’t look anything like your typical mom. She is only sixteen years older than me. She just turned thirty-two, and there are lots of birthday cards on the table joking that she is over the hill, but she could easily pass for my sister. “Javier just called,” she said, the multiple bracelets she wore on each arm jangling. “He wants to leave tonight.”

  “But Viv…”

  She moved into the hall and beckoned for me to follow her out. “You have my cell-phone number. I don’t know what the reception’s like in South America, but you can always reach me through WhatsApp.”

  I wanted to tell her about the video. I thought she would be happy for me. But then she put both hands on either side of my face. “Listen, Stell, I don’t want anything to spoil this, okay? You have no idea what it has been like. I was changing diapers at your age. So what I want from you is for you to say, ‘Have fun, Viv.’ Repeat after me. Have fun, Viv.” She gave me the best I’ve sacrificed my whole life for you look I’d seen yet.

  I removed her hands from my face. Her pupils were huge. She ran her fingers through her wild hair. Waited. Looked me over.

  “Have fun, Viv,” I finally said.

  She smiled. “That’s my girl. Oh, there’s tip money in the coffee tin to cover this month’s rent. Call your father if you need more. It’s about time he did something.” She pointed at her duffel. “Carry that outside for me, okay?” She shouldered her backpack and started for the door.

  We stood in the grungy doorway for maybe five minutes before Javier pulled up. A powdery snow, unusual for Victoria, had started to fall. Viv flung herself down the steps and into Javier’s arms. I followed with her duffel. I looked away while Viv and Javier acted like they hadn’t seen each other for months. Finally Javier took the duffel out of my outstretched hand and tossed it onto the back seat. Viv was already in the car. She poked her head out the window. “Remember to water the plant and feed the cat.”

  I blinked snow out of my eyes. “We don’t have a cat.”

  “Give me a kiss, baby girl.” She tapped her cheek.

  I leaned over and kissed her. Javier honked as they drove around the corner. As their taillights faded, my phone dinged. I looked down. I had a text message from an unknown number.

  We’d like to talk to you about appearing with the band Razor as a promotion for Rock 109. Can you get back to us? Loved your video!

  Snow hit the screen and melted. I typed in a message.

  Sure. Call me.

  Then I went inside to throw up.

  Chapter Three

  I woke up at six o’clock the next morning with one thought in my head: What have I done? I called Marnie, who didn’t sound too happy at being woken before the sun was up.

  “Chill, would you?” Marnie yawned into the phone. “Just tell them you’ve changed your mind. Although I think you’d be stupid to do that.”

  “Maybe they won’t even call.”

  “Whatever you say. I’m going back to sleep. Don’t call again, okay?”

  It was pitch black outside. The powdered-sugar snow was hanging on. It wasn’t like I wasn’t used to being alone. Viv had been leaving me on my own since I was twelve. I sat in the chair by the window and watched the streetlights go out. Then I showered and pulled on yesterday’s jeans. I spiked my hair and lined my eyes in black. Loaded on the chains and stuffed my feet into my boots. There was no point hanging around the empty apartment.

  I took the coffee tin out of the cupboard and popped the lid. I blinked in disbelief. She couldn’t have. I shook the can, even though I knew there wasn’t any point. Viv had lied. That was why she’d mentioned my father, something she’d never done before. There wasn’t more than twenty dollars in loose change in the tin. She’d left me flat broke, and rent was due in two weeks. Despair clutched at my throat.

  I stared at the tin for a full ten minutes, thinking I was imagining things. That there really was money in there and I just couldn’t see it. Finally I stuffed all the change into my pocket. What the hell? I asked the empty, dirty apartment, what the actual hell? I decided I would go out for breakfast. A real breakfast. In a restaurant. Not at the dumpster behind it.

  The coffee shop on the corner was just opening up. I was stupidly happy to see the lights. At least there was someone other than me out this early.

  “Cold, eh?” A guy with a goatee flicked on switches. Machines hummed. Coffee dripped into big metal jugs. “You’re up early. Coffee won’t be ready for about ten minutes.”

  “No problem.” I grabbed a seat by the door. Mentally flipped through my busking playlist. I would have to do some serious time down at the waterfront over the next couple of weeks if I wanted to come even close to having enough money for rent. I thought about that stupid video and cringed.

  The guy with the goatee had a name tag that said Seth. He brought me a coffee.

  “Here,” he said. “On the house. Because you’re the first one here and you look like you really need it.”

  “Thanks.” I wondered what he meant by that. Did I have caffeine junkie written on my forehead? Did I have giant bags under my eyes? What?

  “Saw the video,” said Seth a few minutes later when he brought me my food.