Anne-Marie said as we walked back in from netball practice the next day, dogged by Menakshi Shah and Jade Caruso, who had been compulsively teasing me since news got round about my terrible audition. “What do you know anyway?” Anne-Marie snapped at them. “Neither of you two were even good enough to get into the first audition.” “Well, we should have been,” Menakshi said sharply. “At least I wouldn’t have chucked up everywhere—in front of Art Dubrovnik! Not quite as professional as you think, are you, Ruby? What’s it like being one of the crowd again now you’ve had your fifteen minutes of fame? Ready for a lifetime of lame?” She and Jade cackled like a pair of witches. “Well, at least her fifteen minutes was in a top-rated soap and not in a nit commercial, Jade,” Nydia said, joining us from the bench where she had been first sub again. “And it was much longer than fifteen minutes that Ruby was famous for.” Jade laughed. “Peaked too soon, that’s your trouble,”
