“Rule Number Two: eyes on Chef JJ or Dieter or your station only. No looking off camera.”

“How come?” asked the Disney character.

“Because it’s obnoxious. Moving on.” Randy made another angry check.

“Why is it obnoxious?”

Randy took a deep breath and exhaled hard like she was the wolf trying to blow down one of the little pigs’ houses.

“Because,” Skinny Jeans said, “nobody wants to watch a show where the people on the screen are looking at something they can’t see.”

Right then, the beast in my stomach shook its cage so hard you could hear the bars rattle.

Randy’s head jerked up from her clipboard. She scanned the room, but the monster was taking a break. “Rule Number Three,” she continued, still eyeing the room, “if someone gets hurt, call for the medic. We have one on set at all times. So, kids, if you find yourself in need of medical assistance, you yell…”

Nobody said anything.

“You yell…” Randy waved a hand as if she was conducting an orchestra.

“Medic,” we repeated.

“Bravo.”

“Okay, that’s it.” Click. Click. Check. “Any questions?”

That’s when the beast delivered a punch that sent me flying out of my chair.

Randy aimed her pen right at me. Click. Click. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just a…cramp.”

“You sure? You’re, like, green.”

“Oh, um, that’s just me.”

“I don’t think so. People who are green normally are like, olive. You’re a whole different green.” Then she clicked a button on her walkie, pulled the mic on her headset down to her mouth, and said, “Randy to Terrence, what’s your twenty? Okay… When you’re done there, I need you to get one of those alternates to come in. Like, now.” Her eyes yo-yoed up and down me.

“No!” I lunged forward and felt the monster slosh against the sides of my stomach.

“Hey, relax,” Randy ordered, holding her pen out like a wand. “If you’re fine, no worries. We just have to cover our you-know-whats.”

“Okay, because I am fine. I really am always this color. I get it from my dad.”

The truth was, I was not at all fine.

The truth was, I wanted to lie on the floor and not move for a very long time, but I wasn’t going to lose this thing before I’d even started. How would I ever be able to face anyone if I’d failed because I’d eaten myself sick? What kind of nuddy eats like Joey Chestnut, world-famous competitive eater, right before the first round of Can You Cut It?

“Really, I’m good.”

Randy so wasn’t buying the all-the-men-in-my-family-are-green excuse. She held her hand over her headset mouthpiece and glared at me. “You get that you can’t be sick, right? No sickness allowed.”

“Is that a rule too?” Skinny Jeans asked. “Because it’s not on the sheet.”

“Yeah, it’s a rule, but someone in legal said we couldn’t write that one down. But just so you know, it is. No sickness allowed on the show. Not a fever. Not a cold. Not even a sneeze. You got me?”