Chapter One: The Dream

I closed my eyes.

I saw nothing but darkness, pure and simple. Nothing moved, nothing stirred, and nothing mattered. I couldn't hear anything. Not even my own breath, soft and slow. I just looked into the darkness, and took a deep breath.

Then, something happened. I saw a very small, very tiny glimpse of red. It flashed for only a second, and then it was gone. But before I knew it, I began to see more of it. It flashed again…and again…and again. Then came orange. It flashed for a while, until I saw yellow. Then green, then blue, then purple, even pink. All the colors of the rainbow, every single one, they were all flashing and dancing.

Then, I heard something. It was a bit fuzzy, but as I concentrated, it became louder and clearer. After a while, I could hear cheering, screaming, and something that sounded like thousands of people chanting my name:

"Kylie….Kylie…." It began to get louder…

"Kylie…Kylie…"…and louder,

"Kylie. Kylie." Louder.

"Kylie, Kylie." And it grew, and grew, and grew, until I could hear it all the way, as if it were right behind me: "KYLIE! KYLIE!" I realized they were cheering my name, over and over. The colors flashed and danced to the beat of my name, and grew brighter and flashed more as the cheering grew. Finally, it became so bright, I had to open my eyes. The colors all blended into one, a bright, shining golden color. I opened my eyes, and I blinked to get used to the bright color. I saw it began to multiply, and I knew I was looking at spotlights.

There was a red velvet curtain that I was standing in front of, and I could hear the voices chanting my name like a tsunami, pushing back the curtain because of their force. Curious, I pushed back the curtain, and stepped out onto…a stage. I was suddenly blasted with the glow of even more spotlights, and the people cheering my name was almost deafening.

I looked around me. In front of me was a microphone on a stand. To my left and the back of me, there was a band-a couple of guitarists, a couple of bass players, a few backup singers and dancers, a drummer, a keyboardist, and a DJ. They all smiled and waved at me. I waved back weakly, having no clue what was going on.

Everybody in the audience was screaming and cheering-all because of…me? I suddenly felt nauseous, like I was going to throw up. I had tons of butterflies invading my stomach, and I felt kind of faint.

Then, I saw the microphone again. I looked at all the people out in the audience, and I got the feeling that I didn't want to let them down if I suddenly got sick. I wanted them to be happy, I guess.

Then, it hit me. I knew what I had to do.

Without even thinking, I jerked my thumb back towards the band, and the music began to play. Lights came on, flashing like crazy, different colors flying all over the place. The crowd went nuts, and started cheering even louder. I then knew I couldn't disappoint them. I took the mic in my hand.

Then, I opened my mouth, and started to sing.

I don't even know how I knew the words, I just did, somehow.

But once I sang the first word, I got this feeling inside of me. I felt I was on a cloud, floating away in space. I felt all my worries, all my problems, all my fears, just seem to cast off of my shoulders. I felt myself smiling, and even moving to the music. But I liked it. I felt good. I was being myself. I was happy.

So there I was, up on that stage, doing what I loved. And pretty soon, I was totally rocking out. I was singing my heart out to an awesome song, and pleasing thousands upon thousands of fans.

Then, I heard a voice off in the distance, but strangely close, calling my name. "Kylie."

I kept singing, but I looked around warily for the person who'd called me. I then saw stagehands in the wings, calling "Ky! Hey, Kylie! Get up!" I didn't know what he meant, so I kept on performing. But the stagehands were persistent, and they called, "Kylie! Get up! You're going to be late!"

"Late for what?" I asked, confused.

Then, like a light turning off, I opened my eyes.

I looked up and saw the ceiling. I turned and saw the walls, covered in pictures and posters. And like a two-ton boulder being dropped on top of me, I felt all my worries and woes being bestowed upon me again.

I heard the voice again, and I knew it. It was my mom.

"Kylie, dear, get up. You're going to be late for school."

I groaned. I realized I was in my bedroom. Back in reality.

"Coming…" I managed to call back.

I sighed. It had been such a great dream, the best one I'd ever had.

But it was over now, and I unfortunately had to go back to regular life.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed, and my feet met the floor. I stood, and walked over to my small closet. Posters of my favorite singers covered the door-the Black Eyed Peas, Beyonce, Boys Like Girls, Lady GaGa and Paramore, among others.

I opened the door and shuffled through my clothes. I wasn't really looking forward to the day ahead, even though it was the last day of school, so I chose an outfit that matched my mood: a long-sleeve gray shirt, jeans, my black jacket, and my black Converse shoes. I brushed my hair and teeth, grabbed my backpack, stuck my iPod in its secret pocket there, and walked out of my room, shutting the door behind me.

I came out to the kitchen, dropped my backpack by the door, and went to the freezer in the refrigerator to see what I could eat for my breakfast. I found we only had two things: microwaveable french toast sticks, which I hated, and toaster waffles, which tasted like cardboard. I closed the door and opened a cabinet where we usually had some more breakfast necessities, and found we were all out of Pop-Tarts.

I finally settled on the toaster waffles.

When they popped out of the toaster, I got them out, put them on a plate, drizzled them with syrup, got a fork, and sat down over at the kitchen table.

My little brother Evan came bounding down the stairs, singing, "Field trip day! Field trip day! Hip hip hooray for field trip day!"

I smiled. Evan was in the second grade, and he loved school, which was the exact opposite of me. His class was always going places. I loved my little bro, though it got on my nerves sometimes when he went through my stuff.

He grabbed the stool next to the refrigerator, stood on it, and went looking through one of the cabinets until he got out a package of-

"Pop-Tarts!" he said proudly, holding up the silver cellophane containing the food. "Hot fudge sundae flavor, too!"

I looked at the waffles on my plate with dismay. I should have known we'd had one more package of my favorite kind.

I asked my brother, "Where's your class going?"

"The zoo!" Evan exclaimed, climbing down from the stool. He sat down next to me, opened the package, and started eating the Pop-Tarts. With his mouth full, he said, "We're gonna see the monkeys, and the edelphants, and the monkeys, and the polar bears, and the monkeys, and the giraffes, and I also wanna see the monkeys!"

"Elephant, you little nut job," I said, tousling his brown hair. "When are you going to get that word right?"

"I dunno, but who cares? I'm going to the zoo!" Evan replied, chowing down the rest of his food.

I shook my head. Seven-year-olds.

I finished the disgusting waffles and drank some orange juice.

My mom walked in just then, wearing her pink bathrobe and bunny slippers. "Kylie, honey, you might want to get going. Lisa will be waiting. And I know she invited you shopping this afternoon, so you have my cell phone number if you need me, right?" I nodded.

I looked at the clock above the window. It was 7:25.

I grabbed my backpack, called goodbye to mom, gave Evan a hug and wished him a good time on his trip, and walked out the door.

I met my friend Lisa at the stop sign.

"Hi, Kylie!" she exclaimed.

I sighed. She was always a bit perky, but today I wasn't in the mood. I was going back to school. I hated school. "Hey," I replied.

We started walking down the sidewalk, which led to our school a few streets away.

"Why so glum, chum?" Lisa asked me. "This is the last day of school, the last day of eighth grade! You should be excited!"

"I'm just tired," I lied. I was really just mad that I'd been woken up from the best dream ever.

"That's OK," my friend replied. "So what stores do you wanna hit after school?"

"Oh, it doesn't matter, whichever ones you want to look in," I said. The truth was, I hated shopping. There just wasn't anything for me.

"OK, well, first, I wanna go into Forever 21, then Icing, then that really cute store that just opened on Broad Street…"

I tuned her out. I didn't want to hear her babble.

I thought of all the things I would do this summer. Not much, considering I didn't do much else besides listen to my iPod and sing. But I had to do something. All the other kids in my class were either going away on some fancy-shmancy cruise, or sleeping over at their friends' houses night after night, or taking trips to Disneyland or SeaWorld or some other theme park, others were going camping.

But me? I was stuck at home, bored out of my mind. And I probably would be all this summer. As usual.

I began humming a song I liked, but once I was getting to the good part, I heard a voice call out from somewhere, "Kylie? Kylie?"

I smiled, because I thought I was having the dream again. I pushed back the velvet curtain and stepped out onto the stage…

"Ow!" Lisa yelped.

I quickly woke up, and realized I'd stepped on her foot. "Oh! Sorry! I didn't mean to!" I tried to apologize.

"Whatever," she replied, walking ahead of me. "Gosh, Kylie, you're so strange sometimes,"

"Maybe strange is a good thing," I mumbled under my breath.

We walked in silence the rest of the way until we reached the school. It was a low gray building, kind of small, but big enough to fit all the people who went there.

"Oh, there's Shelly! Shelly!" called Lisa, and she raced off to her friend, which meant I was alone.

I took a deep breath, and walked inside to homeroom.

Most of the day went pretty well. We watched movies in all our classes, which was fun, but I sat by myself in the back of the room.

I had no friends, except Lisa, but she wasn't that good of a friend. No one ever wanted to sit next to "Kreepy Kylie", as they sometimes called me.

At the end of the day, I walked to the bus stop at the sidewalk and waited for Lisa.

When she came, she said, "OK, let's go. I can't wait!" and we headed for downtown.

The shops here in Los Angeles are a bit expensive, I can never afford anything. That's why I shop at places like Wal-Mart.

Lisa, however, was walking out of every store with a bag full of stuff. She had a lot of money, I guessed. It was interesting for me to see all the cool stuff they had, despite the fact that I was broke. We passed a music store, and Lisa had to drag me away from this really cool cherry red Fender electric guitar, amp included, but it cost three hundred dollars.

We shopped-and we shopped-and we shopped-until I felt my arms were gonna drop off from holding all of Lisa's shopping bags.

"OK, I'm beat, how about you?" Lisa said.

I was breathing heavily from holding up the heavy bags for so long. How could a girl need all this stuff?

"All righty, then," she replied. "Let's look in this one last store and then we'll call it a day."

We walked into the store, when I saw something that made me stop dead in my tracks. It was a purple flyer, with the big white bold headline saying:

CALLING ALL PERFORMERS!

I read the rest of it.

Are you dreaming of becoming a world-famous musician, dancer or artist? Do you long for the world to know you for who you are and your talents? Did you ever wonder that your biggest dream could come true? Well, now's the chance for you to make that dream a reality. The Los Angeles Center for the Performing Arts is holding auditions for next school year for anyone who hopes to become a student and share their gifts with the world. LACPA is always welcoming new talent, but be wise-you get only one chance. Auditions will be held at Riffley Auditorium on Tuesday, July 14th from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thank you, and have a good day.

I stood there staring at the flyer for what seemed like hours.

I couldn't believe it.

A school where I could sing? A place where talent is needed? Somewhere that I belong?

"Come on, Ky," said Lisa impatiently, pulling me into the store.

But I managed to grab the flyer and pull it off the window. I stuffed it in my backpack.

I figured I'd be needing it soon.