Even Kenny was upset to see Fliss so distressed. We rushed over to where she had crumpled into a heap on the floor. But at least my hiccups had stopped. It must have been the shock of Fliss’s wailing.

“I want you to take some deep breaths, Fliss, like we do at the start of the class,” Angel told her very calmly. “In, out, in, out – that’s it. Can you feel your breathing getting calmer now? Good.”

The whole class by this time had crowded round. Everybody was looking anxiously at Fliss.

“Right, I want everybody to sit down,” said Angel softly, her deep voice still filling the room. “And that includes you older guys.”

Everybody just sat where they were. Rosie handed a tissue to Fliss, whose eyes were all red.

“Now this is a very good time to give you all some good advice,” said Angel slowly. “Acting is a very fickle profession. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how good an actor you are – if your look isn’t right, you don’t get the job. It’s as simple as that. I know that’s not fair, but it’s a fact of life. That’s why acting is so tough and very few people make it to the top.”

She looked round at us all. “This class is supposed to be fun, you guys. I don’t want you stressing over it. Fliss has just had a tough break because her look doesn’t fit.” Fliss’s eyes started to well with tears again. “But next week something might come up where the casting director is looking for petite blonde girls and she’ll fit the bill perfectly.”

Fliss smiled weakly.

Angel continued, “We can’t all be winners all the time – and that’s a good lesson for everyone to learn. That’s life!”

There was a ripple of subdued laughter.

“For those of you who are keen on going for the audition, we’ll do some preparation work for it next week. The address of the rehearsal rooms is on these leaflets.” She passed them round. “There’s also my home phone number at the bottom. If anyone’s parents want to give me a ring to ask me any questions, please tell them to feel free. And on that note, guys, I bid you adieu!”

Everyone started chattering and headed for the door. A couple of the older girls were talking to Fliss, telling her how something similar had happened to them.

“Poor Fliss,” I said. “She really wanted to go for that audition.”

“I know!” Frankie agreed. “I feel a bit guilty that we can all go for it and she can’t.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t,” said Rosie quietly.

Kenny said nothing. She just looked over to where Fliss was lapping up all the attention she was getting.

When Fliss finally came to join us, she was looking a bit more cheerful.

“Everybody’s been really kind,” she sniffed. “They knew how upset I was.”

“I bet the whole of Cuddington could hear how upset you were!” muttered Kenny. Frankie dug her hard in the ribs.

Dad was waiting for us outside in the van. I climbed in first and whispered to him, “Don’t ask us about the class whatever you do!” I think we’d all had enough weeping from Fliss for one day.

We didn’t say much as Dad drove round dropping everyone off. It was a relief when everyone had got out and there was just me and Dad left.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

I shook my head. If I told him about Fliss, I’d have to tell him about the audition. Then I’d have to explain why I didn’t want to go for it myself. It was best to keep quiet.

We had two more days at school before the weekend. That meant two more days of avoiding the subject of the commercial.

“We can’t go on like this forever,” whispered Rosie, as we were tidying the classroom on Friday afternoon. “It’s silly not even talking about the audition. Fliss is going to have to face up to it sometime. I mean, what’s she going to do at drama class next week when everyone’s practising for it?”

“Worse than that.” Frankie bent down next to us to pick up some bits of paper from the floor. “Kenny is still determined to audition for it herself.”

“Oh no!” We all looked over to where Kenny was furiously sweeping the floor. She was trying to sweep up the M&Ms (Emily ‘the Goblin’ Berryman and Emma ‘the Queen’ Hughes) with all the rubbish, which was kind of funny.

“What are we going to do?” I asked.

Frankie shrugged her shoulders.

“There’s nothing we can do. At least Fliss will have the weekend to get over it. Hopefully she’ll be OK about everything next week.”

I hoped so. I really, really hoped so.

Before I tell you whether she was or not, do you think you could help me lift this bit of scenery over here to the bottom of the garden? It’s going to go in front of the climbing frame to make it look like a castle. What do you think? It’s good isn’t it? Rosie designed it.

Now what was I saying? Oh yes, I was telling you about Fliss wasn’t I? You’re going to love this!

Usually we all meet up sometime over the weekend, but that particular weekend we didn’t. I don’t really know why not. We must all have been doing different things with our families, I guess. Anyway, on Monday morning I was kind of looking forward to meeting the others at school. To be honest with you, I’d tried not to think about the whole audition thing. I just hoped that Fliss was OK now, and that if Kenny and the others did decide to go for it, Fliss wouldn’t cause too much of a fuss. But knowing Fliss, that was probably too much to hope for.

I was a bit late getting to school on Monday – as usual – and by the time I got into the playground the bell was already ringing. I could see Frankie, Kenny and Rosie walking in just ahead of me, but there was no sign of Fliss.

“Hiya!” I ran up to them. “Where’s Fliss?”

“Dunno!” shrugged Kenny. “She’s probably taken to her bed because life is so unfair!” She pretended to swoon on to the benches in the cloakroom.

“You idiot!” laughed Frankie. “It is a bit odd that she’s not here though. She must be ill.”

In the classroom Mrs Weaver was standing by her desk talking to a girl. We couldn’t really see who it was because she had her back to us, but she wasn’t anyone we recognised. She was kind of small and thin and had long dark hair.

“Who’s that?” I mouthed to Frankie. She pulled an ‘I don’t know’ face.

I was expecting Mrs Weaver to tell us all that we had a new girl in our class. But instead, the girl, keeping her head down, walked over to sit next to Rosie. We all looked at each other. That was Fliss’s seat.

“Erm, I think you’ve made a… FLISS!” yelled Kenny.

Fliss was no longer blonde. Now she had chestnut-coloured hair and she looked, well – different.

“What have you done?” squealed Rosie.

“Dyed it,” muttered Fliss.

“So you can do the audition for the TV commercial?” I asked.

Fliss nodded. Kenny was tapping the side of her head to show that she thought that Fliss was crazy. Frankie gave her a warning look, so she stopped.

“Did your mum do it for you?” asked Rosie. She couldn’t stop staring at Fliss’s hair.

Fliss nodded. “Mum tried to get through to Angel to talk to her about the audition but her phone was always engaged. So she dyed my hair for me at the weekend. I’ll be used to it by the audition on Saturday, and the advertisers will think it’s natural.”

It was obvious that the rest of us thought she was crazy, but of course we didn’t say anything. And when the stupid M&Ms started teasing her about it, we all stuck up for her. Pop stars change their image all the time, don’t they? So why not Fliss?

At drama class on Wednesday night we were all just about used to it, but poor Angel didn’t know what to make of it at all. She kept telling Fliss that doing something so drastic wasn’t really the best idea and that it certainly wouldn’t guarantee her success. Of course Fliss wouldn’t listen to that. Once she’s set her mind on something, nothing will shift her.

Angel made us all practise for the audition. I suppose she did that so that nobody felt left out. It was quite simple really. All you had to do was hold a bottle of Spot Away, pretend that you were with your older sister and say: “So this is why you spend so long in the bathroom!”

Angel said that in the advert there would then be a voice-over about how Spot Away works. Then the camera would come back on to the two sisters, the older one would say something rude, and the younger one would pull a face and stick out her tongue. We were all very good at that bit!

After we’d done that a few times, we broke up and did other improvisation exercises, but you could tell that everyone’s mind was really on the audition. If I’m honest, I couldn’t see what everybody was getting so excited about. It was hardly some award-winning piece of television. It was an advert for spot cream, for goodness sake!

Before we left, Angel advised all those girls who were going to the audition to practise handling products as though they were advertising them on the television. Apparently it’s one of the things casting directors look for. She said that she would see people at the auditions and wished everybody luck.

When we got outside Fliss was all excited.

“I’ve been dying to tell you guys all evening that Mum says she’ll take us all to the audition on Saturday!”

“Cool!”

“And she said that we might as well have a sleepover at my place the night before!” she squealed. “Then we can practise everything and we’ll all be nervous together!”

“Who’s going to be nervous?” asked Kenny.

“ME!” screamed Rosie and Fliss together.

“You will audition now, won’t you Lyndz?” Frankie turned to me.

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“Well there’s no point you coming to the sleepover then, is there?” said Fliss.

I don’t think she’d meant it to come out like that, but the others all looked really shocked.

“That’s a bit rude, Fliss!” Frankie turned on her.

“We always have our sleepovers together. We can’t have one without all of us there,” reasoned Rosie.

“You’ll just have to audition after all, Lyndz!” laughed Kenny.

“No thank you,” I said. To be honest with you, it sounded as though it would be an awful sleepover. The others would be practising their stupid stuff all night. Then Fliss would start panicking and Kenny would make fun of her. Nope, I’d be better off away from that. Still, I felt a bit upset because we did always have our sleepovers together and I didn’t really want to miss out.

“I only thought that Lyndz might get bored,” said Fliss quickly. “Of course I want her to come.”

“And you won’t have to audition if you don’t want to,” said Rosie kindly.

“I know!” yelled Frankie all of a sudden, “you can come along to the audition with us and be our lucky mascot!”

“Yes!” the others cheered.

They all grabbed hold of me and we danced around in a big huddle. So that was settled then. I must admit that I felt pretty chuffed at the idea of being the Sleepover Club mascot. But all the same, I had a bad feeling about the whole thing. I couldn’t help thinking that something was going to go terribly wrong…