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waited for the crushing comment, but it didn’t come. Instead, she flipped
out a hairbrush from her backpack and started fixing it. ‘Maybe we could have another
hair lesson tonight,’ Jean said, yanking the brush through my hair.
    ‘Ow!’ I tried to move away but the brush was wedged. ‘I can’t tonight. I have drama
class.’
    ‘Oh, is that why you’ve done this to yourself?’ said Jean, gesturing vaguely in my
direction.
    Panicking, I looked down at the top I was wearing. It was a new green shirt that
Mum had bought me for Christmas. I thought it looked good. Anyway, I didn’t have
time to get changed. But Jean shook her head. ‘The clothes are fine. But the hair
… it’s wrongtown.’
    Any chance I had of making it to school on time went out the window as I waited impatiently
for Jean to fix me. After what felt like ages, she stood back and smiled, pleased
with herself. ‘That’s better. Not great, but given what I had to work with …’
    ‘Thanks a lot,’ I said, rolling my eyes. ‘Can I go now?’
    By the time I’d pulled on my helmet, ridden to school, then taken it off again,
I’m sure my hair looked exactly the same as it did every other day. But now I was
also late. I skidded into class, wrote down some stupid excuse, and looked around
for Tess. She was sitting next to some girl I’d never really noticed before, and
there was no spare seat for me. In fact, the only seat left was right at the back
of the class. I had to squeeze past about ten other kids just to get to it.
    By the time I sat down, dropping all my stuff on the desk and getting a dirty look
from Mr Eccles, I was feeling pretty awful. Usually I loved English, but today it
was impossible to focus. I kept sneaking little looks over at Tess, but she didn’t
look back. Not once.
    After class, I packed up really quickly to try and catch Tess before she escaped
out the door. But as I slid my books into my bag I heard a voice behind me whisper,‘Only
a few hours until we know!’
    I spun around. It was Freddy. He looked even cuter than usual in a white skater T-shirt
and jeans.
    ‘Excited, my lady?’he asked, giving me a theatrical bow.
    Grinning, I nodded. I liked being called ‘my lady’. ‘I can’t wait.’
    Freddy nodded. ‘Me either. I’m dying to find out what part I got.’ Then he rolled
his eyes. ‘Pity I have double maths to get through first!’
    I pulled a sympathetic face, but before I could say anything, I saw Tess walk out,
looking super sad. I dashed off, calling back,‘Gotta go! Later, Freddy.’

    Tess was already outside by the time I caught up with her. I was glad to see that
the girl she’d been sitting with in class had disappeared. At least we could talk
alone.
    ‘Tess?’ I called, chasing after her.
    ‘Doesn’t Freddy want to walk to class with you?’ she said, refusing to even look
at me.
    I was pleased to see she was still wearing her friendship bracelet. We’d bought them
years ago. They were identical, and the only time we took them off was for netball
games, and only because the umpires made us. Surely that meant she hadn’t given up
on me altogether?
    ‘Can we just talk? Please?’ I begged.
    But she just started walking faster. I knew she had geography now, so I probably
wouldn’t see her again until lunch. That is, unless she decided not to meet me in
our usual spot near the netball ring. Our school was a big place – it would be easy
to hide for an hour.
    ‘Go and find one of your drama friends, Edie. Maybe they’ll understand,’ she said,
walking into her geography class and leaving me outside, feeling awful.
    I know we’d always talked about playing state netball together, but I’d never imagined
that would mean giving up drama. The more I thought about it, the more I realised
that it was Tess’s idea to try out for state netball. I’d just gone along with it.
She’d begged our Sapphires coach to put us forward. She’d found out the tryout dates.
She’d tried to get me to