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photo could be going up there too, Elektra.’
    If that involved looking like most of the kids on that wall, then maybe not. Daisy fitted right in.
    ‘So tell me, Elektra, how did you get into acting?’
    The first question in any test is usually the easy one, but I was already struggling. I mean, how much backstory did she want? I could tell her all about my early Barbie voice-over years, the
intense doctors and nurses phase with Freddy from next door (he’s moved away now, probably to be nearer to his therapist), but that might be oversharing. I just really liked acting, I always
had – and no question I was better at it than at lots of other things (netball, maths, ballet obviously). I hadn’t given it up which was more than could be said for any other
after-school thing I’d started. But what ‘got me into it’? I should have said something/anything a) because silence is scary when you’re the one meant to be filling it and
b) because I handed my mum the opportunity to jump right in and answer (loudly) for me. Basic error.
    ‘Well . . . Elektra has just always loved the opportunity to explore being other characters . . .’
    At that precise moment, I did want to explore being another character – like someone else’s daughter.
    I quickly cut over Mum and started waffling on about my classes at ACT. I was selective. For example, I didn’t tell Stella that it had been kind of grim at first because most of the other
kids thought I was weird and posh. I didn’t tell her that I wasn’t that keen on warming up to retro Britney Spears compilation tapes or that I struggled with some drama
‘games’ (usually the ones that involve pretending to be any non-human form). I was pretty sure Stella didn’t need to know any of that, so I just told her that I liked making words
come alive and I especially liked it when they were so real that I was suddenly someone or something completely different. And that was true.
    ‘And what made you choose the monologue I heard last week?’ Stella asked.
    ‘Um . . . well . . . my teacher, Lens, chose it.’ Which I know wasn’t the ‘right’ answer. I should have said something about being touched by the raw energy of the
spider/carrot’s spiritual journey. Because I was ninety-nine per cent sure the monologue was an extremely meaningful metaphor. I just wasn’t sure what it was a metaphor for.
    ‘Well, it was very good.’ Stella must have seen the look on my face because she added, ‘But obviously we try to find our clients non-vegetable parts too.’
    ‘Thank you.’ I probably blushed; I blush easily. I definitely blushed when my phone started barking.
    ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry.’ I began a frantic search in my messy bag.
    ‘It’s
fine
,’ said Stella, raising her voice over the woofs.
    Mum’s glare would have melted girders. She fished out my phone in seconds and switched it to silent. It felt like every perfect child on The Wall was looking at me. This was all making me
a bit sweaty.
    ‘But you had fun doing it?’ Charlie put me out of my misery. She pulled her chair over and came to join us.
    ‘Doing what?’ It’s possible I was not at my most impressive. Also I found Charlie quite distracting. She was working a sort of gothy headteacher look: jet-black hair; very
tight black skirt; unchipped black nail polish; three tiny crosses in her right ear and a skull tattoo that stretched all over the back of one hand.
    ‘Performing? Being onstage?’
    I tried to explain what it had felt like which was so much more than ‘fun’, and Stella and Charlie were both smiling and nodding and I relaxed a little. I think I’d finally
said something they wanted to hear.
    ‘So, Elektra, do you really think you want to be an actor?’ asked Stella.
    It was a simple enough question and I knew or thought I knew what the right answer was. Of course I wanted to be an actor – but now she was actually asking the question I hesitated . .
.
    I knew that I wanted someone