.

you’ve only been coming to drama classes for a few weeks,” she said. “You sound like just the kind of person they’re looking for too!”

      She was just being kind to me because I was the wonderful Tom’s sister, but it was nice of her to say that anyway. When she’d gone back to her friends I joined the others.

      “Just imagine,” Fliss was saying, “I’m going to my first audition!” She patted down her hair as though a casting director was watching her already.

      “Well if it’s bright and sparky they want, they won’t have to look any further than me!” Kenny pranced up and down the hall.

      “Not if they see me first!” Frankie bumped her out of the way.

      Angel was getting ready to lock up so we all bundled out of the door.

      “’Bye darlings, see you next week!” she called after us.

      By the time we got outside, Fliss was totally hyper about the whole thing.

      “Don’t you see? It’s another sign!” she shrieked. “First I tell you that I want to be an actress and Angel’s drama class pops up, and now she tells us about this audition. It’s like this part already has my name on it! What do you think?”

      “I think you’ll have some competition from the rest of us,” said Kenny. She sounded quite serious too. I didn’t say anything.

      Dad picked us up in the van and dropped everybody off. And all the time Fliss was twittering about the stupid audition for the advert. The more she went on about it, the more sure I was that I didn’t want to go for it. And what a big mistake that proved to be!

      

      I guess I should explain why I didn’t want to audition for the commercial. I’ll try, but to be honest I’m not a hundred percent sure myself. It was more a sort of feeling I had, really. I know that I usually just go with the flow, but this time I didn’t want to. I suppose the problem was that I couldn’t face my brothers teasing me about the audition. You know what they’re like. They just go on and on about things and never let them drop. That’s OK sometimes, like when they tease me about spending so much time with horses. But with other things – like this TV commercial – well, it’s just not worth the hassle.

      I didn’t mention anything about the audition to Mum or Dad because they’d have made me go for it. Even though I didn’t want to. They like me to stand up to my brothers you see. But it was one thing keeping my decision from my parents. It was quite another keeping it from my friends.

      I was really panicking when I went to school the next morning. I knew that the commercial was all they would be talking about and I didn’t want to feel left out, but I didn’t want to lie to them either.

      Sure enough, when I got into the playground Fliss was already in full flow.

      “I’m going to smile at the advertising people like this…” (she did this big cheesy grin) “because Mum says that then they’ll be able to see that I’m bright and sparky, and that I have good teeth.”

      “I bet they will!” muttered Frankie.

      “They’ll probably barf up their breakfast, more like!” grinned Kenny.

      Fliss ignored them. “This means a lot to me,” she said firmly. “You know how much I want to be an actress.”

      We all rolled our eyes.

      “I’m not sure how I’m going to approach it yet,” chimed in Kenny. “Should I do this?” She pulled down the corners of her eyes and stuck out her tongue. “Or what about this?” She curled back her top lip until it was touching the base of her nose.

      “You’re so gross!” laughed Rosie. “I think being natural is probably best.”

      “I’m sure Angel will tell us what the advertisers are looking for,” said Frankie. “We’ll probably practise in class anyway.”

      I hoped that we wouldn’t… but at least I didn’t have to say anything to the others because the bell went for the start of school.

      When we were in school we couldn’t talk about the audition, but as soon as break time came the others started up again.

      “Can you imagine being on television every night?” asked Rosie. “Everybody would see you!”

      “Yeah, even some big film producer! He might give you a part in his next movie.” Kenny whirled about as though she was in some big fight scene.