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‘it’s not really how I would start a conversation.’
    Not that I’ve managed to start one at all, anyway.
    â€˜Oooh!’ Cadence squealed when she saw what was on my lap. ‘You’ve got snakes! Want to swap? Snakes are my next favourite after sherbet bombs.’ She waved the packet in front of my face.
    â€˜Sure,’ I said, offering her mine. ‘The pink ones are the best. Not many companies make them.’
    Cadence happily helped herself to my snakes.
    â€˜Thought you’d be more of a lollipop girl,’ I said.
    â€˜Well, Ellie,’ said Cadence, her eyes sparkling, ‘there’s probably a lot of things you don’t know about me.’
    I looked down. ‘Probably,’ I said, trying not to picture Mum shaking her head at me and saying, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’. I guess I was a little guilty of that.
    Cadence playfully hit me with a snake. ‘I know they’re all totally crazy about musical theatre,’ she said, ‘but sometimes I just want to talk about pop music, you know? I mean, Taylor Swift’s new song …’
    â€˜I love Taylor Swift!’ I blurted.
    Cadence clapped her hands and started singing ‘Shake it Off’ and I joined in. Our voices worked together quite well.
    I guess you can say that’s how I ended up finding out that Cadence Kohdean wasn’t so bad after all.

Chapter Thirteen
    â€˜Girls!’ I yelled, barrelling into technique class.
    Ashley, Riley and Paige turned around like I was a bowling ball and they were the pins I was about to strike.
    I flung myself at them and we all tumbled to the ground in a big heap.
    â€˜Ellie!’ Paige protested, wriggling her way out from under a pile of salmon-coloured legs (technique tights are the worst). ‘Hey,you didn’t come round after school yesterday. Remember we were going to make candles?’
    â€˜Sorry,’ I said. ‘I completely forgot. I went to the music store with Cadence.’
    Paige frowned. ‘Oh. I thought you didn’t like her.’
    â€˜She’s okay.’ I shrugged. ‘I miss you guys, though! Mary Poppins isn’t the same without my girls!’ I ruffled Ashley’s hair. Her bangs were already falling out of her bun.
    â€˜Ellie, how many jelly snakes have you had?’ she asked, trying to tidy up her fringe.
    â€˜Here,’ said Paige, reaching to twist Ashley’s hair back. ‘I’ve got a spare bobby pin.’
    â€˜Ugh,’ said Ashley. ‘My hair eats those like they’re jelly snakes.’
    â€˜That’s why you do the braids, darling,’ said Riley in a fake posh voice, modelling the two, tight braids she always wears. ‘No bobby pins needed.’
    â€˜Ugh,’ said Jasmine, who just so happened to walk by then with Tove, as always, half a step behind her. ‘Look, Tove, a pile of rubbish on the floor.’
    â€˜Jasmine!’ gasped Ashley, jumping up in horror. ‘I’m so sorry! I heard you lost your personality but I didn’t believe the rumours until now!’
    Riley smirked but Paige, who hates fighting, looked down.
    I didn’t really feel like adding onto Ashley’s quip, although normally I would have. I thought, maybe, having spent the past couple of weeks being an outcast at Mary Poppins , that I understood a bit about what it was like to feel ganged up on. Also I thought maybe I had a better idea of why Jasmine was the way she was.
    Sometimes it’s better to be defensive than vulnerable.
    Miss Caroline clapped then to begin the class. I fell into the familiar rhythm of doing warm-ups that I’d done a million times before: flex and point, isolations, body rolls, leg kicks, tendus, splits. I was good at these things because I knew how to do them – I approached them with a confident attitude.
    Was that my problem at Mary Poppins ? Maybe I wasn’t faking it till I was making it