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      Her face fell, and I immediately felt that I had been mean, turning her daydreams into a joke. It’s not kind to trample on people’s daydreams. Specially not when it’s your best friend. But Saffy is actually quite realistic and never stays crushed for long. She is a whole lot tougher than she looks!

      “Well, anyway,” she said, “as I was saying, if I can’t have Brad I’ll make do with someone else. Just in the mean time. To practise on.”

      “While you’re waiting,” I said.

      “Yes.” She giggled. “As long as they’re not geeky!”

      “Or swamp creatures.”

      “Or aliens.”

      But they wouldn’t be. She promised me! They would be creative and sensitive and hunky. She said we must enrol straight away.

      “We’ve already missed the first two weeks of term. They’ll all be taken!”

      I said, “Who will?”

      “All the gorgeous guys!”

      “Oh. Right!” An idea suddenly struck me. If all the guys were going to be gorgeous, wouldn’t all the girls be gorgeous, too? I had visions of finding myself among a dozen different versions of Petal. What a nightmare!

      I put this to Saffy, but she reassured me. She said that loads of quite ordinary-looking girls (such as for instance her and me) fancied themselves as actresses, but the only boys who went to drama classes were the creative, sensitive, and divinely beautiful ones.

      “If they’re not creative and sensitive they go and play with their computers. And if they are creative and sensitive, but not very beautiful—”

      I waited.

      “They go and do something else,” said Saffy.

      “Like what?” I said.

      “Oh! I don’t know.” She waved a hand. Saffy can never be bothered with mere detail. She is quite an impatient sort of person. “Probably go and write poetry, or something.”

      I thought about the boys in our class. Writing poetry was not an activity I associated with any of them. Ethan Cole had once written a limerick that started “There was a young girl called Jan”, but none of it had scanned and it hadn’t made any sort of sense and what was more it had been downright rude. That was the only sort of poetry that the boys in our class understood. How could you have a class with fourteen boys and every single one an alien?

      I said to Saffy that if I could meet a boy that wrote poetry I wouldn’t mind if he wasn’t beautiful, just the fact that he wrote poetry would be enough, but Saffy told me that that made me sound desperate.

      “Why settle for a creative geek when you could have a creative hunk? Ask your mum and dad as soon as you get home. Tell them your entire future is at stake! You don’t have to mention boys. Just say that having drama classes will give you poise and – and confidence and – and will be good for your self-esteem.”

      “All right,” I said.

      I asked Dad the minute he got back from picking up Pip from school. I followed him round the kitchen as he chopped and sliced and tossed things into pans.

      “Dad,” I said.

      “Yes? Out of the way, there’s a good girl!”

      I hastily skipped round the other side of the table. Dad hates to be crowded when he’s in the kitchen. Mum says he’s a bit of a prima donna.

      “Do you think I could go to acting classes?” I said.

      Dad said, “What sort of acting classes? Hand me the salt, would you?”

      “Acting classes,” I said. “Drama. At a drama school.”

      “Pepper!”

      “It would give me poise,” I said.

      “Poise, eh? Taste this!” Dad thrust a spoon in my face. “How is it? Not too hot?”

      “It’s scrummy,” I said. “The thing is, if I went to acting classes—”

      “Bit more salt, I reckon.”

      “It would give me confidence, Dad!”

      “Didn’t know you lacked it,” said Dad.

      “I do,” I said. “That’s why I want to go. So could I, Dad? Please?”

      “It’s not up to me,” said Dad. “Ask your mum.”

      I should have known! It’s what he always says. Dad and me are really great mates, and he is wonderful for having cuddles with, but whenever it’s anything serious he always, always says ask your mum. It’s like Mum is the career woman, she is the big breadwinner, so she has to make all the decisions.

      Well, of course, Mum didn’t get in till late, and as usual she was worn to a frazzle and just wanted to go and soak in the bath.

      “Darling, I’m exhausted!” she said. “It’s been the most ghastly day. Let’s talk at the weekend. We’ll sit down and have a long chat, I promise.”

      “But, Mum,” I said, “I need to talk now.” Saffy would be cross if I didn’t have an answer for her. She wanted us to be enrolled by the weekend. “All it is,” I said, “I just want to know if I could go to drama classes.”

      It is easy to see how Mum has got ahead in business. In spite of being exhausted, she immediately wanted all the details, such as where, and who with, and how much. Fortunately Saffy can be quite efficient when she puts her mind to it. She had told me where to find the advert in the Yellow Pages, plus she had written down all the things that Mum would want to know.

      “It’s right near where Saffy lives,” I said. “I could go back with her after school on Fridays, and I thought perhaps you could come and pick me up afterwards. Maybe. I mean, if you weren’t too busy. If you didn’t have to work late. And then on Saturdays—”

      “We could manage Saturdays between us,” said Mum. “If you’ve really set your heart on it.”

      One of the best things about my mum is, when you do get to talk to her she doesn’t keep you on tenterhooks while she hums and hahs and thinks things over. She makes up her mind right there and then. It’s something I really like about her. Especially when she makes up her mind the way I want her to! Though considering Pip has his own computer and about nine million computer games, and Petal has her own TV and her own CD player, and I don’t have any of these things (mainly because I don’t particularly want them) Mum probably thought that a few drama classes weren’t so very much to ask. She is quite fair, on the whole, except for spoiling

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