Maya's Secret by Holly Webb

to do the presentation about Fairtrade cotton with Poppy, and they weregoing to introduce the fashion show. Izzy was so organised she was going to be the show producer, and Emily was excellent at bossing people around, so she was being backstage manager, which as far as Maya could see was shoving everybody into the right place with all their stuff – something Emily was used to doing every day. Maya and Poppy were in charge of the publicity too. But the girls had all agreed that they’d help with everything. They’d told Mr Finlay he was the technical coordinator, and he’d pointed out that they ought to do a programme. It had gone on the List. It definitely had a capital L by now.
    Maya jumped as the phone rang. She could hear Anna calling from downstairs that she was covered in pastry so please could Maya answer it.
    “Hello?”
    “Maya? It’s me, Emily. I talked to Miss Sara after my ballet class, and she says yes, she’s happy for us to dance at the fashion show, and she thinks the girls who do tap will come and do it too, because they’ve got a festival coming up, and it’d be good practice. And since she doesn’t teach on Tuesdays, she’ll come and help. But she says please can we put an ad for Sara’s School of Dance in the programme.”
    “OK…” Maya frowned. She was beginning tothink that the programme ought to be more exciting that just a sheet of paper with everyone’s names on it. Maybe she should get Poppy to draw a logo, or something. Poppy was the best at drawing in the class, everyone said so.
    “Maya, do you think other people would give us things if we put in the programme that they had?” Emily asked her.
    “Like what?”
    “The coffee and stuff. If we asked a shop that sold Fairtrade coffee and tea and biscuits, and said we’d put a big thank-you in the programme?”
    “It’s worth asking, I suppose,” Maya said doubtfully. She wasn’t sure she’d be very good at that. She’d only been brave enough to ask Tara about the fashion show idea because it had all happened so fast.
    “Do you think Izzy would write a letter?” Emily suggested hopefully. “She’s clever at that sort of thing. She wrote all the stuff that convinced Mrs Angel.” Emily’s voice changed. “I’m saying she’s useful, Maya, not that I like her.”
    “All right, all right.” Maya shrugged. “I’m going to do the maths homework, and then I’ll try and make something that looks like a programme. I guess that’s a publicity job. And posters… Eek.” Maya scribbledon the back of her hand.
    Designing the programme and the poster was actually a lot of fun – more fun than maths homework, anyway. Maya messed around with different fonts, and she had to leave a space for Poppy to draw something, but at least she had rough versions to show the others tomorrow.

    “I hadn’t thought about that.” Izzy looked down at her list rather crossly, as though she thought it had let her down.
    “I don’t think I can be a model, not if I’m dancing and doing backstage too.” Emily sighed.
    “No, we’ll all be too busy,” Poppy agreed.
    “So who are we going to get to do it?” Maya looked anxiously around at the others, squashed on to one of the playground benches. “It’s got to be people who aren’t going to go all giggly and stupid in the middle. And they have to turn up to rehearsals.”
    “Auditions,” Emily said firmly. “It’s the only way. Let’s ask Mr Finlay. We can send a note to all the classes, for the afternoon register.”
    “I wish the bell would hurry up and ring!” Maya muttered.
    Mr Finlay liked the idea of models from allthrough the school, but he pointed out that they’d need parents to agree.
    “How about I get Mrs Allwood to let you lot in the information technology room at lunch time? You can run up a letter to go home with all the girls tonight. The shop doesn’t do boys’ clothes, does it? Then you have your auditions tomorrow, and only people with a form saying