Diamond Star Girl Read Online Free Page B

saxophone and has agreed that Chinchillas are the easiest pets to keep.
    Boring Brown Stephen stays as far away as possible and stops kidding himself that we are friends.
LATER
    I was doing all this meditating, laundry, reading difficult books and clearing out of cupboards, checking out stuff on the computer in the sitting room (one computer and fifty million books – what a house!) and just about anything to get my mind offthe fact that I was NOT snogging Nick behind the stage at the junior M&D dance, when the freakiest thing happened! This could make the summer interesting after all and not the marshland of self-pity it was panning out to be. This very minute I’ve just returned from meeting with the girls and it’s still sinking in. You’d think I’d be used to surprises by now, taking into account all the practice I’ve been given this week.
    HERE IT IS!
    Boring Brown Stephen phoned (must start calling him Stephen in case that slips out some time) and Mum refused to pretend I wasn’t in like I asked her to. I was praying he wasn’t going to ask me on a date or anything, but in fact his dad made him phone me, a point which was made very clear in the first minute of the conversation. He explained that Alex’s dad, the film producer, has arranged to shoot part of his movie at The Grange, because it’s a historical drama and they need a huge old house with grounds. AND film-producer-dad wanted Alex and Stephen to find teenagers to audition for sixteen teen extra parts in the film, eight guys and eight girls. At first I thought he wanted me to introduce him to some teenagers who might be good, but in fact he wants ME toaudition too! I so heavily hinted about how perfect Ro and the others would be that by the end of the conversation he asked would I mind choosing loads of other girls to audition because he doesn’t know any in town anymore apart from me. The job of an extra is pretty easy from what Alex told us the other night, you’re just in a costume in the background pretending to speak and eat or whatever is going on in the scene.
    Stephen said to gather up as many girls as possible and be in his house tomorrow after lunch to meet the assistant director who will make the final decision. I then passed him over to Paul who he asked to audition too and bring loads of guys (Alex and Stephen have already been cast as extras, nepotism rules!).
    I chose Ro, Lorna and Alice, Hanna, Dairne, Amber and Bonnie. My thinking was that if there are only just enough of us, then we’ll all get chosen. Mum made me invite my cousin Sophie even though she is only twelve and we have enough girls already. I’m now scared that they won’t choose me because there will be one too many and I’m too tall. If that happens I will never forgive Mum, but she’s talking about it like it’s a kid’s birthday party and everyone’s invited.I keep going from thrilled to annoyed and back again in the space of two seconds.
    Even though it was late, within an hour all us girls met in Hanna’s den, which is cool, with computers and music systems and speakers all over the place, and three huge couches that she and her brothers liberated from skips in the middle of the night.
    We have decided that when we go there we’re not going to dress up too much, we’re just going to wear what we would normally wear on a Saturday in town, jeans and that, and to take it easy on the make-up. We’ll meet back at Hanna’s for a pasta lunch tomorrow and then all go straight to Professor Brown’s house from there.

DAY ELEVEN
    It was hilarious. We all showed up in our best party outfits and wearing way more make-up than usual and enough accessories to stock a medium-sized department store.
    It didn’t matter anyway because when we got there and our pictures were taken they were barely glanced at by the Assistant Director, Lizzy (she’s called the Third AD as apparently there are two others more senior to her). She told us that we were all hired! Alex