Secret Singing Superstar

Forty-six ~ ♫♪♫

By the beginning of the last school week for Term 3, Caitlin was super tired and ready to drop. She had just finished her tennis competition - she had come second, which was a huge achievement - but it had drained her energy and all she wanted to do was sit and relax for the whole day.

Unfortunately, she had school.

Leanne was stressing out as well. Her singing competition was next week and she kept fretting about it. She was convinced that she wasn't good enough to sing and making a big fuss over what seemed to be nothing to Caitlin, but obviously a big deal to Leanne. Apparently she had decided that she wanted to continue singing as a career in the future.

As for Cailyn; she only wanted to sing for fun. She wanted to be a writer when she grew up. When she saw how distraught Leanne looked, she immediately went over to comfort her and told her that everything was going to be okay.

According to Claire, work experience was boring and she had been increasingly frustrated because somebody sucked at their spelling when labelling books and she declared that the next day, she would bring some candy because she needed more sugar in her system to last the day.

Leanne had also told Claire not to work too hard, because apparently Claire had fallen on a bunch of sticks over the weekend and had cut her arm. Caitlin had then mercilessly teased Claire of how clumsy she was.

Claire's cut arm then reminded Caitlin of how Daniel had gotten a minor head injury. She had immediately gone over to Anna's house and checked to see if he was okay, which he was. Apparently he had hit his head on a brick wall - by accident, of course. Anthony (their younger brother) had pushed him too hard. Caitlin wasn't angry at Anthony - it had been an accident after all.

While she was mucking around with Anna, Leanne was telling everyone how she wasn't going to be at school on Wednesday because she was going to go and have an extra lesson to prepare for the national singing competition - to try and settle her nerves, of course. Cailyn, however, wasn't going, no matter how many times Helina had tried to pester her to go.

Anna and Cailyn had planned to have another of their special sleepovers over the holidays - but this time it was going to be at Cailyn's little house in the countryside. They had invited everyone else to come, and Caitlin was quite interested to go and join them.

"We can make brownies," Anna said excitedly. "I've always wanted to make them."

"Oh yeah," said Caitlin, whooping. She loved loved loved chocolate. "Count me in, please!"

"Me too," Leanne added, eating a bun. She had buns for snack. "I never turn down free food!"

"I can't really be bothered," said Claire, almost quietly, as if she didn't want anyone to hear her. 

"What?!" Leanne exclaimed. "But they're brownies! Come on!"

"Yeah, still can't be bothered!"

"Why? It's not like Cailyn's hair is going to fall in them again."

"Hey!" Cailyn yelled, slightly offended. Last time Claire had eaten brownies, Cailyn's hair had fallen on them, making her do a very un-Claire like shriek (which meant it sounded really girly). It had made Claudia so awed because she'd never thought that Claire would start acting like an actual girl.

"Nope, sorry," said Claire, shrugging, but Leanne noticed something else in her eyes...and it scared her. It wasn't the usual calm look that she usually saw; it was a look of fear. But that was crazy. She was just overreacting. Imagining things. But her instincts suggested otherwise...and they were hardly ever wrong.

"Fine, it'll just be the four of us then," said Caitlin, who hadn't noticed a thing - probably because she and Anna were too busy punching each other. Claudia was busy talking to Rufina and Cailyn and Helina had resumed their everlasting argument. Leanne stared pointedly at Claire, who stared back. The cool look was back; nothing seemed different. She was fine.