All through the afternoon, I felt like crawling down a large hole and staying there with the flap closed. I know most holes don’t have closable flaps, but mine needed to have one to shut out the world and everything in it.

My dreams fell out of the sky, knocked me down, and trampled all over me.

If my acting was no good, how was I going to move to Hollywood and learn American? How would I meet Bradley Porter? And make films with him? And marry him?

What would I do when I got older if I wasn’t going to act? Be an accountant like my dad? A teacher like my mum? Not that those things are bad, but I had a dream, and my dream was now dying in the road like a squashed hedgehog on the motorway.

It was the most major disaster of all major disasters. Ever. (Apart from really serious major disasters, like children in orphanages or the war Vanna was talking about, or, like, famine and disease and poverty and stuff.) OK, maybe it wasn’t a major disaster but it was a major drama—the biggest drama of my entire life. Which was hilarious, really, because my major drama was that I was rubbish at drama.

When we were packing up at the end of the day, I asked Not Very Fantastic if Miss Snar—Snelling was in, and he said he’d seen her earlier in the staff room. So even though it’s totally and absolutely not allowed, I swallowed a teaspoonful of courage and went and knocked on the door.

“Could I speak to Miss Snelling, please?” I asked Mr. Winter, the second grade teacher, as he opened it.

“You can’t just knock on this door and ask for teachers. It’s time to go home—go straight to the playgr—”

“It’s fine, Mr. Winter,” she said, appearing behind him. “Just this once, as an exception. What can I do for you, Dara?” She stepped into the corridor in a long, yellow dress. She might have been wearing a happy dress, but I knew that if I looked into her eyes, she’d turn me to stone in a second.

“It’s…ummm…about Maria.”

“Maria who?”

“The Maria who wasn’t a von Trapp but then was later on.”

“Oh, that Maria.” She folded her arms. “I thought you were talking about someone in school. What about her?”

“I…well…see, I really wanted to be Maria and—”

“I’m sorry about that, but I made my choice based on the auditions. The best actors on the day got the parts.” (The snakes trembled and hissed on her head. I made sure my eyes looked anywhere else but right at her.)

“Miss,” I muttered as I glanced at the radiator, “do you hate me or something?”

“Whuh!” she roared. “Of course I don’t hate you! Why would I hate you, you silly girl?”

Calling me a silly girl was quite a clear indication that she might hate me, but I didn’t say that. It was also quite a clear indication that I might go on hating her for quite a while longer.

“So…is it because I’m rubbish at acting or…is it because I’m Cambodian?”

She gasped. “It has nothing to do with your being Cambodian—why would you think a thing like that? The fact of the matter is that you and Lacey weren’t taking the auditions seriously at all. I was looking for people I could depend on.” She must have seen from the look on my face that my heart was exploding and my guts were spilling on to my shoes, because she added, “And it’s a shame, because I do think you have potential.”

Potential? I glanced up at her and then quickly looked away. Had I just been turned to stone? No, my skin still felt like skin and I could still blink, so I said, “Really?”

“Really. But if you want to act, Dara, you’re going to need to put everything you think you know about acting to one side and start again. You’ll need to work hard at it. Are you willing to do that?”

I nodded slowly but I was thinking, What do you mean, work hard? It’s acting. It’s not work.

“If you’re going to come to the rehearsals but not actually come into the room—” she said, raising her eyebrows.

Whoa. Awkward. I didn’t think she’d seen me peering through the door.

“—then why don’t you try my drama group instead? It’s on Wednesdays at seven at the Marcus Garvey Center. There’s one this Wednesday and one next week, and then we break for Easter. Why don’t you come and try it out?” She disappeared into the staff room for paper and wrote down the time of the class and the address.

I took it and said, “Thank you, Miss Sn”—(I nearly said Snarling but just stopped myself in time)—”Snelling.” And then I looked at her, right into her eyes. I forgot. Stupid girl.

I felt myself turning to stone, cell by crunchy cell.

That was it. I was deadddd…crrruuuuunk.