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away as if she’s not sure what to make of me.
    ‘… and don’t get a tattoo,’ finishes the woman in the business suit. ‘It’s all in the contract. Here …’ She hands a pile of pages to each of us. It looks so official.
    I hold it to my chest. My first ever contract.
    The woman in the suit is still taking us through it all. ‘Your agents can contact me with any questions,’ she says in finishing.
    Agent? My hand goes up before I pull it back down. Too late. She’s looking at me. ‘I … ah … don’t actually have an agent.’
    ‘Well, get someone to look at it for you.’ For a moment she peers over her glasses at me. ‘What about equity membership?’
    ‘No, sorry.’
    Already she’s flicking through pages on a clipboard.
    ‘We might have a problem here, Jenny,’ says a voice behind me. A familiar voice. ‘She’s only seventeen.’
    As I turn to see who it is, my heart stops, spasms and falls dead in my guts. It’s Jack.
    ‘Really …’ Jenny peers over her glasses at me before her eyes slide back to Jack.
    I’m so dead. And so stupid. Of course Jack was going to be here. He was organising the whole thing. And Paige! It’s my fault Paige came too.
    Jenny looks at her clipboard. ‘I think our insurance covers someone under eighteen,’ she says. ‘But her parents will need to sign the contract for her.’ She pulls out another pile of forms and hands them to me. ‘You’ll need to fill these out and have your parents sign, okay?’
    ‘Yeah, thanks,’ I mumble, slowly realising that I’m not about to be kicked out. Jack could have made that call from the start.
    Jenny pushes at the middle of her glasses. ‘Okay, all set.’ It’s a signal to leave.
    Without even a glance my way, Jack calls out to someone up the back and jogs up the steps.
    I hesitate. ‘Wait, Jack!’ Taking the steps two at a time, I stop below him. ‘I just wanted to say thanks. I mean, really. You could have kicked me out and, you know … this is awesome.’
    Jack breathes out and scans the room as if checking to see who’s still in here. A flicker of annoyance crosses his face. ‘If I’d had my way, you would have been asked to leave at the start.’
    I swallow. ‘Because … you’re the artistic director, aren’t you? And you were on the panel the whole time.’
    He raises an eyebrow in mock surprise. ‘Well, I’m glad to hear that you managed to learn something at school.’
    ‘And who’s the choreographer? Natasha …’
    ‘Natasha Stojmenov.’
    ‘Yeah, she’s amazing.’ The name is familiar, probably from a dance magazine.
    Jack’s staring at the green screen, so I do too. It looks silly now, no longer lit by anything other than fluoro lights. ‘You’ve put me in a very difficult situation,’ he says. ‘You realise I’ll have to tell Oscar.’
    The Head of Dance at the Academy. ‘I know, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have. It was my idea. Paige came because of me too.’
    ‘Don’t worry about Paige.’
    For a while we’re quiet, Jack’s eyes moving over my face as if searching for a way in. ‘What are you doing here, Scarlett?’ he says softly. ‘Auditions for your graduation performance are in less than three weeks. You have a real chance at the lead. How do you expect to do both?’
    I look down at my feet, but I can’t hold it back anymore. A grin pushes its way into the open. ‘Yes, but I did it , Jack. I made it through!’
    He shakes his head and smiles. ‘Yes, you did.’ He turns to go, saying, ‘We’ll sort it out tomorrow.’
    Jack’s only a few steps away when he turns back. ‘That stunt you pulled?’ He holds his hand up and shakes his head. ‘I told you not to …’
    I can’t help flicking back my hair. ‘Yeah, I know, but Jack … it worked. Moss Young liked it.’
    ‘Moss?’ He frowns for a moment before breathing in. ‘The person who saved you from getting cut wasn’t Moss Young. It was Natasha.’
    As soon as I push through that studio door, I start