Under-cover Celebrity

 

A very good friend of mine made me really angry and sad, so I resorted to writing to calm my nerves. Here's what God used me to create;

Under-Cover Celebrity

Text copyright © 2023 by Sasha

To all the young writers out there.

(You know where)

Hello,

My name is Starling Phelps, I’m thirteen years old, and just like my name I’m a star…

Prologue

Hello, my name is Starling Phelps, I’m thirteen years old, and just like my name, I’m a star. (Though I’m currently an undercover star.)

I wasn’t always a star. I was a nobody from Backwater-South in North Carolina whose parents had gotten separated on her ninth birthday and eventually divorced a few months later.

Well, after my parent’s divorce, my mom moved me and my brother Shawn to Brooklyn, NY to live with our Grandma, Sandra Hutchings. Yeah I bet the name sounds almost really familiar. Well my Grandma was a writer -she wrote children’s books back in the day and made quite a lot of money from it. But then time changes made memories of her work to fade away quickly –as most of the people who’d read her books as kids were probably grand-parents now, or people well above their middle-ages.

My Grandmother and I grew quite close at that time. She taught me a lot and told me a lot of stories, one of which was a book that she’d published back in the 60’s. It was called ‘Phoney Pony.’ It was my best and it was about this really cool pony that did a lot of wacky stuff that made young children laugh. Well, ‘Phoney Pony’ was one of my Grandmother’s most popular books, she even won an award or two for it.

My Grandmother’s stories and tales of her ‘Book-writing Glory days’, ignited a huge passion for writing in me, but then I didn’t pay much attention to that passion until ten months ago, when my beautiful and sweet Grandmother passed away. 

 While I was bawling my heart out at her funeral, the urge to do something to give her the honor, respect and remembrance that she deserved, completely overwhelmed me. So, I spent roughly eight months, working on my first book ever. I named it ‘Rashfacklepop’ after a music title that my Grandmother had created and included in one of her hit books and then I dedicated it to her. I found an Amazon KDP ad on Facebook about free self-publishing and I decided to give it a try. I self-published my book last Thanksgiving with the help of my laptop in paperback, hardcover and eBook format on Amazon under the Penname Star Hutchings –it was a really cool experience. I uploaded the details of my dormant (fund less) juvenile bank account and my final book drafts to their KDP website; after which I returned to living my very normal life.

I didn’t know that my book had become a sensation, until my mom received a call from the bank asking if she could upgrade my bank account to a higher one, because of the excessive deposits that Amazon was making into it. Well, she agreed and my account was upgraded. Can you believe that? I’m rich.

It all seemed like a joke to me, but all of a sudden; when my book became a number one best-seller on every single Huge book-sales platform in America, I knew that it was no joke and with that knowledge came the realization that my life was about to change forever.  

Chapter One

NYC here I come.

I got invited for an interview with New York Times. Prior to that, my mom and I, along with my little brother Shawn, have just arrived at New York City and we’re staying at the Empire Hotel.

I’ve seen ‘Gossip Girl’, so I feel really honored to have finally set my feet in the Upper East Side where a major part of the TV series was filmed/set. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve lived in Brooklyn since I was nine, but it’s nothing compared to visiting New York City, and this is my very first time.

Brooklyn is cool and if my memory’s not being a total jerk, I can remember that Dan Humphrey from ‘Gossip Girl’, lived there –I think I’ve even spotted his loft once or twice

To sum it all up, I would say, NYC is way cooler than Brooklyn (period). We passed Madison Square Garden, on our way to the Empire, and I could swear that, if mom wasn’t holding my hand, I’d have jumped out of the taxi window to take in the beautiful sights around me, first-hand.

‘Starling honey,’ my mom calls out to me, few minutes after our arrival at the hotel, when I still haven’t started unpacking my stuff –and I really ‘really’ want to do that. 

‘Your Dad’s on the phone.’

Yeah right, Dad’s on the phone (I muse in Gossip Girl’s voice) –then I roll my eyes. My Dad being on the phone means he’s probably heard about my book’s success and finally wants to be involved in my well-being. Well, that’s not happening. In almost five years since my parent’s divorce, I’ve only seen my Dad three times. Now don’t go pointing accusing fingers at my mom, she has absolutely nothing to do this, it’s all Mr Richard Anderson Phelps’ doing. He’s always too busy to make out more time–even the tiniest bit–out of his busy schedule for his kids with his ex (aka my Mom). Now, don’t think I’m jealous because he seems to squeeze out just about enough time from that same rigid schedule, to spend with his new twin kids who he had with his new super-hot and very young Latina girlfriend Amira who’s currently a run-way model at some fancy cloth-line in God-Knows-Where. The last time I was on the phone with him, which was like a decade ago, he went on and on about how smart Jaden and Willow, the twins –I mean his other kids were, and how I was going to love them. What makes me continually mad at him is that he went as far as naming them after the kids of my favorite Black actor –ugh.

‘Do you want to talk to him?’ Mom asks walking into my suite.

New York Times made reservations for us to stay in a Classy Penthouse suite, so that’s where we are right now and I’ve got my own suite in the Penthouse suite.

‘No,’ I mouth. I stand up from what’s to be my bed for a whole week and start walking towards the door. Sure enough Mom gets the message that I don’t want her in my suite, because she starts heading out after me.

We head towards a dining table and I take a seat. I turn around to look at my Mom and I realize that she’s laughing at something that my Dad is saying and I don’t like it one bit. She shouldn’t be laughing with him, he’s supposed to be the enemy.

‘Oh my God really?’ Mom squeals excitedly.   

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I bet you all want to know why Starling's mum is squealing with excitement, well that's a story for another day. Toodles for now.

Much love,
Sasha.😚

PS: If you want me to go ahead with the story, ensure that you let me know in the comments below⬇️. I would love to hear from you all.

PSS: I bet Back-Water South sounds like a very weird place to be from. Well spoiler alert, it doesn't exist, I made it up.