Monty skipped back and stood in third position as Sidone slowly came onto the stage.

She was wearing a riding outfit and a black, feathered hat. With an eye patch. And a riding whip.

Vaisey whispered to me, “That’s what I wear when I am Black Beauty.”

I whispered back, “What, you wear an imaginary eye patch when you are your imaginary horse?”

She said, “Yes.”

I smiled to myself. This is the life. Proper friends who share everything together.

Sidone was looking at us. Her eye roving over the rows of expectant faces before her.

At last she spoke.

“My girls, my girls, once again we enter the theater of dreams. Our hearts filled with hope, our feet ready to bleed if necessary. Once more we strive, strive to reach the stars. Because, as the old saying, goes …”

Sidone was using her projecting voice. Rolling her “r”s and pausing a lot. Flicking her whip.

“All of us are lying in the gutter … but … some of us … are looking up at the stars!”

There was a round of applause and Monty pirouetted.

Sidone hadn’t finished though. Her voice got very deep and emotional.

“And some of us are being spat upon by the taxman. But let me tell you, my girls, we shall not be spat upon and take it lying down. We shall rise up and wipe off the spit and turn it into clouds of stardust.”

She swept off the stage and we all looked at each other. What did that mean?

Flossie said, “It doesn’t say anything in my timetable about spitting.”

Vaisey said, “I think she means it sort of metaphorically. You know, like pretend … spitting …”

Jo said, “So does that mean we’re doing mime spitting?”

This is what performing arts is like. People, or “artists” as I suppose we are technically called, talking about mime spitting. It’s the thea-tah, dahlings!!!!

After assembly, we drifted off to first lesson and I said to the others, “My cousin told me how to make boys like you. You go like this, flicky hair, flicky hair.”

And I did flicky hair, flicky hair.

Then we all tried flicky hair, flicky hair as we walked along the corridor.

A voice behind me said, “Tallulah Casey, walk properly.”

I looked after Dr. Lightowler as she swept down the corridor, her cloak billowing behind her.

I said, “Why me? Why does she hate me? Maybe she holds my knees against me.”

We had Monty first thing. He had managed to get out of his leotard and had his tweedy suit on and a waistcoat.

He clapped his pudgy hands together and said, “Oh, girls, joy of joys, once more we go back to the Bard. William, William, William Shakespeare. As you know, our group project this term is A Midsummer Night’s Dream, his hilarious romantic comedy. Ah, the puzzle that is romance!! Le grand amour. The dreams, the fantasies. I remember in Copenhagen a dark night, the stars peeping from the firmament, probably looking down in amusement at the antics of us humans wandering around the Reeperbahn. Giggling, dancing, high on the emotions of la romance. I said to Biffo … well, well, never mind. What larks, girls! What larks!”