The crowd raucously applauded their agreement.

We trotted offstage feeling light and airy. My most pressing issue was I wanted to burst into wild, messy cheers, but I had to keep my composure as I exited the stage. It felt like holding my breath underwater. When we were finally out of sight from the audience, we screamed! We jumped into Vanessa’s waiting arms for a group hug! Yes, Vanessa was pumped up too!

But this group seemed a little small. Wait a minute—

“Where’s Riley?” I asked.

We didn’t see her anywhere.

“OMG, look!” shouted Lily, who pointed back to the stage, where Riley stood alone and in a daze, staring at the back of Trey Thompson’s head.

“Somebody should go get her,” Megan said. She touched her nose. “NOT IT.”

Trina and Lily touched their noses in a not it signal. Okay, I was IT. I got to be embarrassed. Fine. I spun onto the stage as if this were part of the performance. When I got to Riley, I took her hand and spun her around once, before I walked her off—pretty much dragged her off—with our arms linked.

“Let’s go, city girl,” I said. “You’ll have plenty of opportunity to see dream boy at NYC High.”

The rest of our hours in the chill room were just that—chill. We were proud of our performance, so we had no trouble eating lunch when it was brought in for everyone.

“Maybe we should grab an extra bottle of water,” I said. “In case Riley here chokes on a furball again.” Everyone cracked up, teasing Riley about all her drama.

“Good thinking,” said Trina.

“This time we’ll have to keep a close eye on her.” Megan rolled her eyes, but in a joking way.

“How’d it go?” Eliza asked me as she passed me by on her way to her lunch line.

“I think okay?” I said. She gave me a thumbs-up and said, “Same.”

It seemed there were strong performances by many, if not all of the teams who returned to the chill room, relieved and congratulating one another. I hated to admit it, but Megan’s mom was right. This was a level of competition we were not used to. There were no amateurs here. We weren’t the only ones who’d had a good day. Now came the tough part—finding out if it was our last day here. If we didn’t place high enough, we were out.

EEK.

“No matter what the results are out there, you should be so proud of yourselves. You owned that stage today,” said Vanessa before she led us to the designated area in front of the stage for all contestants.

Arriving at the grand ballroom on floor level gave us a different view of the crowd, the stage and its huge skyline backdrop, and, of course, the MC himself.

“There he is!” Riley grabbed Megan’s arm. “TREY!”

“Pull yourself together, girl,” Megan said. “He’s a human being like the rest of us.”

Mesmerized by Trey Thompson, Riley was back to her antics. She cleared her throat. Loudly. And then she tripped over her feet because she wasn’t looking at where she was going. We all just shook our heads and guided her for her own sake. We were shuffled to the middle of the pack, but we had decent sightlines.