Chapter 1

“Will you look at all the people? There must be hundreds and hundreds in here!” Abby remarked on the sea of hopeful singing stars inside the St. Laurent Centre in Ottawa.

“A shopping mall seems like an odd place to hold a singing competition,” Brad remarked of the large crowd on the main floor concourse and edging the second-floor glass railing.

Abby and Brad were joined by Dan, Karen, Wendy, Scott, Vicky, Britney, and Amber. The sunlight filtered down into the main rotunda through the pyramid-shaped glass ceiling. Brightly coloured low-cut tops and short skirts were worn by Dan’s girls, encouraging spring to please soon arrive. Abby dressed conservatively in a white scoop top that revealed a little polite cleavage and form-fitting blue jeans.

Abby put her right arm behind her, scratching her back along her bra line. “It feels uncomfortable wearing a bra. I’m so used to not wearing one around you and the family,” she mentioned to Brad.

“You look absolutely beautiful to me,” he smiled, sneaking a peek down her top.

“Can I have your attention, please?” A voice asked over the public address system. The loud din of conversations politely went silent. “Good morning! I’m your host, Ben Mulroney, and welcome to season six of Canadian Idol!”

The high-pitched screams from the mostly female audience filled the Centre.

“There are approximately 660 of you here today to audition for Canadian Idol. A brief explanation of what will happen. If you haven’t already registered and received your identification number, you should do so after following my instructions. So you won’t have to endure needless hours of waiting to sing; numbers 12,331 to the end will return tomorrow morning to audition.”

Abby smiled at Brad, touching her assigned number, 12,269.

“It will be impossible for the judges to hear 330 competitors in one day, so today’s group will line up numerically in five rows where you’ll sing your song to a music judge. If you are deemed to have potential or are weird enough for TV, he or she will select you to sing in front of our four Canadian Idol judges, Farley Flex, Jake Gold, Sass Jordon, and Zack Werner.”

“Canadian Idol has already made stops in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Hamilton, where we’ve given out 104 golden tickets to appear in Toronto beginning on the 16th of June. Between today and tomorrow, twenty lucky people will have also earned their golden ticket to appear on stage in Toronto. After we leave Ottawa, we stop in Montreal, Halifax, St. John’s, and finally Toronto.”