“Oh. My. God. Hailey, I’ve never seen you in a dress before!” she squealed as she emerged from the tiny room, totally shell-shocked. What? Just because she wore jeans and band T-shirts all the time doesn’t mean she couldn’t dress up once in a while. Okay. Correction. Let Zoë dress her up once in a while.

Jem was wearing tight green lycra pants, they looked like they were painted on her skinny legs, and a black halter top with cute silver buckles. Her frizzy red hair was in an ‘up-do’ piled on top of her head, where it balanced, precariously close to toppling and spilling over her freckly shoulders, if not for a few scattered hair pins.

“You look awesome, Jem! C’mon. Let’s go make sure those boys haven’t strangled themselves with their guitar leads.” The two girls linked arms, giggling at the image of Tommy wrapped up in a mess of black, snake-like wires.

The guys were sitting patiently in the room backstage, waiting for them. Dylan laughed openly when he saw what Hailey was wearing. Tommy looked embarrassed and Paul was grinning from ear to ear.

“At least all the males in the audience will clap,” he said between laughs.

“What about me?” pouted Jemima jokingly.

Paul shook his head. “Nah, Jemzie, you wear somethin’ like that every day. You look great, though.” He made a point to look her up and down until the smile returned to her pale face.

“When are we on?” Hailey asked Tommy.

He looked pleased with the change of subject. “We’re on, like, fifth.”

She nodded and sat down beside Dylan to wait. She watched while each performance prepared to go out onto the brightly lit stage. She couldn’t see it, but she could hear the music, or the speech. It was a music, dance and drama evening, essentially. She eyed the jazz girls as they tightened their little outfits and stretched their lean muscles. They were on second.

“Miss Ateara!” her head whipped around in response to her name.

“Miss Ateara!” called the voice she recognised as Mrs Foster’s. She stood up and made her way to the other waiting room.

Mrs Foster was drowned in a sea of adolescents, and looked worse for wear because of it. Beside her were two dark skinned and extremely tall teenagers.

“Seth! Jake!” she squealed and launched herself at them.

Both boys laughed. Jacob Black hugged her to his enormous frame. He was the same as ever.

“Hello, little wolf!” said Jacob, a bright smile pulling at his dark features. She glanced at him for the first time in over a year. Her childhood friend had changed so much. He was taller, older looking. She had to look up to see his face. Hailey wasn’t used to that. She was very tall herself and often found herself looking down on people. She found his dark eyes.

“What are you guys doing here?” she asked, turning to hug Seth. He had to be nearly fifteen now. He was as tall as the other boys. At least a head taller than herself. He smiled hugely at her. She remembered when she used to baby-sit him as a kid. “Where’s Quil?” A strange look passed over Jake’s face.

“He’s real sick,” answered Jacob quickly. “With the mono.”

“The kissing disease? What’s he been doing?” I giggled.

He laughed. “I don’t wanna know. He asked us to come and see you perform. So here we are.”

“I’m glad you came,” she smiled radiantly at both of them. “Are you staying afterwards?”

“No rush to get back. It’s only La Push,” said Seth.

I scowled. “Ugh. Don’t remind me of that place.”

“It’s not that bad,” laughed Jacob. “Anyway, we gotta go get our seats. Good luck, Hailey!”

He started to head back to exit.

Seth smiled at her and followed him, ignoring the gathering crowd of females as he left the backstage area. I grinned and headed back to my friends. Mono. Poor Quil.

“Where did you go?” Dylan asked as I pressed myself into the non existent space beside him.

“My brother’s friends came to wish me luck.”

“So is your brother here?” he questioned. “You’ve been talking about him all week.”

“No,” I said. “He’s sick. Mono.”

“The kissing disease?”

“What other mono do you know?”

We waited nervously, impatiently and uneasily while the other performers entered and then exited the stage. Finally it was our turn.