Emma wasn’t paying attention to the back-and-forth between Zoe and Frida. Instead, she was looking freaked out.

“Maybe that spaghetti was meant for me!” she said. “Maybe I was supposed to get sauce in my eyes and see things in a new way, like the fortune-telling app said.” She shuddered. “I’m scared. Since the spaghetti didn’t get me, I could be in store for something worse!”

I didn’t know if I believed in any of this. I mean, Frida did get the part she wanted, and Jessi definitely did get caught up in chaos. But both of those things could have been coincidences. I mean, Frida got the part because she’s a good actress, right? And there’s almost always chaos in our cafeteria.

A little part of me hoped Flash Fortune was real, though. It would be really cool if my fortune came true. Who knew? If I did a really great job at the next modeling shoot, I could earn more money and get to go to Charlotte’s sweet sixteen party!

Chapter Nine

That night, I started to get a little nervous about my photo shoot the next day after school. I guess I had done a decent job, or Ashanta wouldn’t have offered me another one. But I definitely hadn’t been in my comfort zone the first time. The soccer field was where I felt confident. At the last shoot, I got to pretend to be playing soccer. That helped me feel more comfortable. If I didn’t have that going for me at this shoot, would I be a complete disaster?

After I finished my homework, I started to think about soccer versus modeling. Why did I feel so much more comfortable on the soccer field? Maybe natural talent was part of it. But also, I practiced my butt off, so I was prepared. Do models practice too? I wondered.

At the photo shoot, I’d had trouble smiling naturally. Zane had even told me that I looked like I was grimacing. So I decided I could practice smiling—although I had no idea how to do that!

I stood in front of the full-length mirror on the back of my bedroom door and gave a big smile. My eyes were wide and popping out of my head, and you could see every single tooth in my mouth. I didn’t look happy at all.

I shook my head. No good. And I felt really silly. While I never felt silly playing soccer, sometimes I wanted to learn new techniques, and there were a lot of great tutorials online. Maybe there was the same for modeling?