Lisa Clark - Time to Shine

Sadie follows my eyes to the audition poster and lets out a big Sadie-sized sigh when she spots the real reason for my attack of the nearly cross-outs.

“Lola, that’s even worse! You simply cannot let Evil Eva stop you from auditioning,” Sadie pleads. She’s reading my mind in the only way a gal pal who has known you for a little while can, because she’s right, that’s exactly what I was going to do. “This is your chance to take centre stage, Lo-Lo. You’re a Think Pink Princess, right?”

I nod, because I am.

“Right, so when we Think Pink we don’t let Eva-shaped obstacles stop us from doing what we want to do, do we?”

I shake my head, because we don’t.

“Besides, you’re cool and kick-ass just like Lilly, and Eva…well, she’s neither cool or kick-ass…”

Sadie’s voice trails off and she tugs at my school cardi while doing a googly-big-eye thing.

“Um…Sades, what’s up?” I ask, trying to work out why my prettilicious pal is making really wrong shapes with her face, but then I smell it. It’s a strong and sickly-sweet scent of rose-perfumed rudeness, which can only mean one thing.

Eva Satine has entered the building.

Followed, of course, by her girl-gang, the Negative Ninas.

It’s really obvious that their straight-from-a-teen-flick corridor strut has been practiced a million times, yet it never, ever fails to impress. Not that it impresses Sadie and I, obv. No, we know they’re badness x 100. But the rest of the school…well, they just don’t see it. With a flick of her signature gold-spun locks, a fixed smile without teeth - which FYI is a neon-flashing sure sign that someone is being false - and the clickity-click of her totally-not-appropriate-for-school heels, Eva Satine really does have the pupils of Parkfield Comp in a constant hypnotic state of ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs.’

Sadie and I are about to vacate the vicinity, not because we’re scared of Eva - because really, she’s not scary at all, she’s just super-mean - but because we know that if we don’t, there’s a good chance that Eva and her hang-gang members will take it as a go-ahead cue to turn their mean switch to the highest setting of all: wicked.

But we’re too late. Eva has shimmied up beside us and made her way straight to the Time to Shine audition poster.

“So Lola,” Eva says, glancing from the audition poster to me, then back to the poster with her ice-blue eyes. “It seems that a certain someone has got a tiny bit too big for their rather unattractive footwear, doesn’t it?”

The Negative Ninas all laugh out loud at Eva’s first-of-many-I’m-sure put down. Seriously, could they be any more predictable?

Answer: No.

“Do you know,” Eva coos sarcastically, “I think it’s really, really sweet that you, Lola Lard - oops sorry, Love - with your trash pink hair and over-sized…well, everything, think that you actually have a chance at playing Lilly. It’s quite possibly the sweetest, most deluded thing I’ve ever heard - what do you think girls?”

She turns to the Negative Ninas who, as if controlled by a remote control, all mimic Eva in an eager-to-please over-enthusiastic way, saying stuff like ‘yeah, she’s totally deluded, Eva. Totally.’

Ouch.

Even though I know that being mean is an Olympic event for Eva, it still feels like a hefty punch in the tummy when she delivers one of her gold-medal-winning verbal blows. Y’see, in Eva’s universe, someone like me, with my pink hair, love of writing and my go-girl ways would never, ever be a star-girl. Eva’s universe is all about the superficial. For a start, to hang in her gang, you have to be blonde. People have actually dyed their hair Eva’s suggested shade of blonde-girl-blonde in order to score a position as an official hang-out bud with the Negative Ninas. I know, how crazy is that?

But people do that sometimes. They do whatever they can to fit in and NOT stand out. For sure, being yourself and celebrating what makes you totally fabulous is quite possibly the coolest thing to do, ever, and really, it’s the absolute most sure-fire way to becoming a star-girl in your own universe, but it’s not always easy.

In fact, it can sometimes feel like really, really hard work.

Especially when every magazine, TV show and so-called ‘pretty’ girl in your school is rockin’ a look that’s so very different to your own.

Or when a mean girl, like Eva, who feels completely threatened by your go-girl ‘tude and stylin’, will do and say anything to take you from hero to zero in a nano second.

Now, I try not to let Eva make me feel bad, but if I’m really honest, that’s why I was going to skip the audition; it just seemed like the easiest way to avoid her nasty-rude comments. But the easy option really isn’t an option at all when you’re a Pink Thinking Princess. Nope, when you Think Pink, you do the right thing.

Even if it does mean having to deal with Evil Eva. Grr.

I say nothing, because I know that more than anything, Eva wants me to react. That’s how girls like Eva work. She wants me to make like JT and cry an entire river, or get so mad I turn a shade of super-rage-red, but I won’t. Instead, I try really hard to force my lips into a teeth-bearing smile shape in the hope that kindness will win out.

And it does, in a funny way, because when Eva realises that this particular Pink Lady isn’t playing her bad-girl games, she tuts, she huffs and just like that, she turns her attention to something far more interesting.

Jake Farrell.

Le Sigh.

Jake Farrell is Eva’s boyfriend. Which by default should make him an extremely unattractive boy-type, but it doesn’t. Not one teeny, tiny bit. In fact, I am head over pink, kicked-in Converse heels in crush with him. He’s so sweet, he gives me toothache. He’s sunshine on a rainy day. He’s a whole lot of bass-playing, yummy-scrummy goodness. Jake has been the heir to my heart since way before he started seeing Eva, and despite his poor, poor taste in girlkind, I still can’t help but make moon-eyes at him. A lot.

“Jakey,” Eva coos, tickling his nose with the blue, fluffy feathers at the end of her pen. “Did you want me to sign you up, or do you want to do it yourself?”

He brushes the feathers away from his face and wiggles his nose in a way that sends him soaring off the cuteness scale into a whole new stratosphere of cute.

“Sign up for what?” he asks, looking genuinely confused. Now, confusion is a look he works on a regular basis, but this really is no reason to judge him, okay?

“For the role of Richie in the musical, silly!” she says, rolling her eyes and shaking her head at him.

“Er, I don’t know about that, Eva,” he says, taking a step back from her. “School productions aren’t really my thing - maybe I could help out with the music instead?”

“Jakey!” Eva squeals, stepping right back into the space he’s made between them. “Of course it’s your thing! Gosh, you really are silly sometimes!” She does a perfected faux-laugh and shoves the pen back in his face. “Here, sign.”

“But Eva…” he protests, through gritted teeth, “I can’t act, I’m a musician!”

“JAKE!” Eva shouts. Foot-stomping is most definitely imminent, until of course she realises that her position as Her Majesty Queen Eva, Ruler of the Corridors, is in jeopardy, at which point she turns on her razzle-dazzle, smiles at passers by and lowers her voice. “Jake.” She smiles a no teeth smile. “Will you look at us? We’re practically Parkfield’s very own Richie and Lilly as it is. Come on, you want to really, don’t you?”

Although it sounds like she’s was asking him, anyone who knows Eva knows that when she ends a sentence with a question, she doesn’t actually require a response. So I’m slightly shocked and stunned to hear Jake still talking.