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to ask me to act in their television drama or their film right now. I knew that I wanted to be onstage in front of an audience (or even without an audience). I knew
I wanted my photo on The Wall. I knew I wanted an agent. I knew I wanted to be Juliet to both Douglas Booth’s and Gregory Peck’s Romeo. I knew lots of things in my head and in my
imagination. But Stella was asking: ‘Do you want to do this
for real
,’ and that was a massively big question.
    Stella, my mother and Charlie were all leaning forward in their chairs, waiting for my answer. God, the pressure. ‘I just . . . I know I want to do it
now
, but I think it’s
maybe a better job when you’re fifteen than when you’re thirty.’
    Stella stared at me. My mum fidgeted. Even Charlie looked embarrassed. The perfect children on The Wall judged me. I blushed (again).
    There was silence for a long moment and then Stella smiled and said, ‘Quite right, Elektra; I think you’ll handle this just fine.’ She paused and exchanged a look with Charlie.
‘Look, I know you’ll need to go away and think about this . . .’ I wouldn’t. ‘But from our side I might as well just say straight away that we’d love to
represent you.’
    I’d passed a test. I was
stupefied
.
    Stella started talking to my mum all about how contracts and fees worked and when I’d recovered a bit I snuck a look at my phone under the desk. There was a whole scroll of text messages
from Moss.
    Good luck
    GOOD LUCK
    GOOOODDDDD LUCKKKKKKK
    I just called you
    But you didn’t pick up
    Which is annoying
    Because I wanted to be nice
    And wish you LUCCCCKKKKK.
    It was typical of Moss both that she’d remembered to phone me to wish me luck and that she’d been about an hour too late. She was pretty much always an hour late
for everything. In fairness, it was typical of me that I’d forgotten to switch off my phone. I pretty much always forgot stuff.
    ‘We need to get your Spotlight form filled in.’ Stella pulled me back into the conversation. ‘It’s a sort of CV.’
    Personal details were easy: height, eye colour (brown – which sounds better than ‘muddy’ which is what they actually are), hair (brown – more mediocrity right there),
etc. My ‘native’ accent is, apparently, Received Pronunciation (aka RP – just a tiny bit on the posh side of normal). Then things started to go downhill.
    ‘Do you have any other accents?’
    I looked at Stella questioningly.
    ‘You know, can you do an American accent or an Irish accent or a Scottish accent?’
    I shook my head.
    ‘You must watch American TV shows?
Friends
?’
    I shook my head (I mean, I’d seen it, but I wasn’t an expert).
    ‘
Pretty Little Liars
?’
    I nodded. I may have watched several hundred episodes.
    ‘Great. Then you probably can do an American standard accent. That’s always the most useful one. Have a go.’
    I had one of these blank moments when I couldn’t think of anything to say. There was a yellow Post-it stuck on Stella’s desk: ‘Remember call Jamie’s mum
after
5 p.m. re
Potato Boy
CBBC casting.’ I tried not to get distracted by imagining what sort of show CBBC were planning that could possibly be titled
Potato Boy
and read it out in what I hoped was the right sort of American accent.
    Apparently, it wasn’t
any
sort of American accent – I watched as Stella wrote NONE.
    ‘Do you speak any other languages?’
    ‘A little bit of French,’ put in my mother from the sidelines. I could tell she was still nervous by the way she was holding her handbag on her knee like a large and expensive body
shield.
    ‘Could you cope with a script in French?’ asked Stella.
    My mother and I looked at each other and shook our heads. Stella wrote NONE in the ‘Other Languages’ category.
    ‘Never mind,’ she said kindly. ‘OK, let’s move on to skills.’
    Now we were talking. This was where my optimistic if scattered attendance at after-school activities was going to pay