That first day it took me a while to get used to being looked at all the time. I followed along as the other girls sashayed around the playground and I could hear my name being whispered through every class. A couple of times, when I heard something like, “why her?” my face would start to go red but I gave myself a talking-to.

“Social stuff and popularity is my thing. It’s what I’m good at and I deserve it. Anyway, if Charlie can win everything else, I can win this.” Then I tried to channel some of Charlie’s effortless confidence and immediately felt better.

After two days I got used to it. I loved that everyone was looking at me. I loved the feeling of being on top and I loved having Saffron smile at me and hearing even Tiger Lily say something complimentary.

The only thing I didn’t love was telling Charlie and Mum that we had to put off our birthday celebrations.

“You’re kidding, right?” said Charlie, taking a sip of her drink. We were sitting at the back of the house, looking onto our long, terrace garden. Her face was puzzled. “You want to go to some spa thing all day with people you hardly know on our birthday? Why can’t they just change the day? Why do you have to go anyway?”

“You know about this. I explained to you about these girls,” I said. “It’s part of being in the group, going to the things they organise. If I don’t go, it’s going to look like I don’t really want to be friends with them and they might drop me when they’ve only just picked me. It’s too much of a risk not to go. Please. At least try to understand!”

“It seems a little bit extreme,” said Mum. She had a cup of tea in front of her and was nibbling on carrot sticks and pesto. “They can’t be very nice friends if they’d drop someone because they can’t go out with them one day. Are you sure that they’re the sort of girls you really want to hang around with?”

“They’re fine, Mum,” I said, a little bit between my teeth. I picked up a piece of carrot and crunched. “F-i-i-ine. Seriously. You don’t get it. Please, it won’t really matter if we have a birthday dinner on Sunday instead. I mean, it’s just a day, right? The important thing is that we celebrate it. I mean, half the people in the world don’t even know the exact date they’re born on, and they still have birthdays.”

“That’s the stupidest argument I ever heard of,” said Charlie. She was tipping back on her chair and looked sulky. “Mum, this is ridiculous.”

I tried a different tack. “Well, do you remember three years ago when Charlie made it to State for freestyle and the competition day was on our birthday? And you had to go to Canberra and you weren’t back until late so we had our cake and party on the next day instead? This is kind of the same thing.”

Mum looked thoughtful. She slurped her tea. “But it’s not really sport,” she said. “I mean, this is a bit different.”

“Yes, but I don’t do sport,” I said. Under the table I clenched my fingers in frustration. “I’m never going to be in a sports competition like Charlie. Not a serious one anyway. You know that. It’s not really fair if Charlie gets to change the days because of sport but because I don’t play sport I don’t get to! This is social stuff and fashion stuff—this is what I’m good at. This is what matters to me. Isn’t that as important as a sports competition?”

Mum looked almost convinced. Maybe I should have been in the debating team after all. “Well, I guess if you put it like that… Maybe just this once we could change the day, if Charlie agrees?”

Charlie looked like she was coming around as well. “Alright,” she said. It was a long drawn out one. “But you still have to sing to me in the morning when we get up.”

“I’ll sing as loud as I possibly can,” I said, smiling. “Thank you, Mum, thank you, thank you.”

“Thank Charlie as well,” she said so I burst into a terrible rendition of ‘You are my sunshine’ which is what I always sing to her on our birthday, complete with cheesy actions. I’ve been doing it for four years now. It’s what Mum used to sing to us both when we shared a room when we were little. We have a love/hate relationship with Mum’s voice so it’s fun to take her off. She doesn’t realise that she sings off-key.

“Ha ha,” said Charlie. “Thank you—not! Have fun on your silly spa day. But you’d better come back extra beautiful or I won’t let you do it again.”