Read Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls: Stage Fright for Free Online

cereal she wants (we aren’t allowed to have sugary cereals in our house, because Mom says sugar makes us hyper).
    We’d finished the play and were getting ready for bed when I asked Uncle Jay why, if he knew so much about acting, he’d decided not to stay a theater major.
    “Oh, that’s easy,” he said. “Because as a career, it’s totally cutthroat. I prefer the gentler climes of creative writing. And now, because I don’t have rehearsals, I have my evenings free to hang out with you guys.”
    Awww!
    As I drifted off to sleep that night, I couldn’t help feeling like I was way better prepared for the audition than either Sophie or Cheyenne. I mean, I had rehearsed the part I wanted with a semiprofessional actor! Or at least a former theater major. I highly doubted the two of them had done the same.
    And even if they had, had he given them such good advice as: figure out what your character ate for breakfast?
    Probably not.
    I was going to be the best Princess Penelope Mrs. Hunter had ever seen. And if my getting the part hurt Sophie’s feelings, well, that would be okay. She’d get over it, just like Uncle Jay had said.
    Probably.

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RULE #6
Friends Try to Make Friends Feel Better
    In honor of her television debut, my mom was having a little party at our house. She had invited Erica’s family, including Erica’s big sister, Missy, and older brother, John, and my uncle Jay and his girlfriend, Harmony. They all showed up right before dinner, because Good News! is on at seven. Dad was serving his championship chili, along with nachos and a specialty drink for the adults in a funny glass shaped like a cactus. Us kids got to drink plain old juice.
    “To Liz’s debut,” the adults kept saying as they clinked their glasses. Then they laughed like crazy.
    Harmony was super impressed by Mom’s new job. She’s studying to be a journalist at the same college where Mom and Dad work and where Uncle Jay goes. She’s a big fan, it turns out, of Good News!
    “Have you gotten to meet Lynn Martinez?” Harmony asked Mom. Lynn Martinez is the main host of Good News!
    “Yes,” Mom said. “She’s very nice.”
    “I’ll bet,” Harmony said. “Do you think you could get me an internship there with her this summer?”
    “Uh,” Mom said, “maybe. I’ll ask.”
    “Thanks. It would mean so much,” Harmony said.
    “This is so exciting,” Erica kept saying as we shoveled nachos in our mouths (mine didn’t have any salsa on them, though, because of my rule about not eating anything red). “Aren’t you excited, Allie?”
    “I’m totally excited,” I said. Everyone was excited, except for Erica’s sister, Missy, who wouldn’t stop texting her friends, and her brother, John, who was playing indoor football upstairs with Mark (I could tell from all the thumping, although my mom hadn’t figured it out yet).
    “Aren’t you excited, Missy?” Erica asked her sister.
    “Yeah,” Missy said, not sounding excited at all. She didn’t look up from her cell phone’s keypad. “I’m so excited I could just die.”
    “She doesn’t mean it,” Erica told me apologetically. “She’s really excited. Living next door to you is like living next door to a movie star.”
    “I know,” I said. I mean, I didn’t want to sound like a braggart. But it was true.
    “Hey, everyone, she’s on, she’s on,” Mrs. Harrington, who was more excited than anyone, called from the TV room. So we all ran in there.
    And there was my mom, on TV!
    It’s amazing to see your own mom, someone you’ve known your whole life, practically, on a famous TV show. She looked so great, and not nervous at all. It was hard to hear what she was saying, because everyone was screaming so loud, but I think mostly she was saying not to go see Requiem for a Somnambulist , and why.
    “If you’re looking for a preachy, pretentious snorefest of a film on which to waste ten dollars and fifty cents, I could not recommend Requiem for