This audition is just one more box to check off on Sophie’s Plan to Superstardom.

Basically, the list so far has consisted of me performing at every possible talent show, wedding, sporting event, bar mitzvah, birthday party, etc., in the Brooklyn area (check!), getting Emme to write me a can’t-lose original song for my audition (check!), and getting into CPA.

Of course, once I’m accepted, I’ll have my work cut out for me. I’m not that naïve. So once I get in I need to become the star pupil, land the lead in every play, get the most coveted spot in the Senior Showcase, and then get a record contract by the time I graduate.

I will have a Grammy before I turn twenty. Even if it kills me.

I’m not even nervous. Are you kidding me? I LOVE being onstage. I LOVE the glow of the spotlight. It’s the waiting that’s killing me.

I look around and notice a few other contenders for the vocal department at CPA from different talent contests that I’ve done … and won. They’ve got nothing on me and they know it.

All the singers (at least in Brooklyn) are jealous of me. While they’ll be auditioning with songs from West Side Story, My Fair Lady, and The Sound of Music, I have an original Emme Connelly song written just for me.

For a second, just a second, my stomach drops. I hope Emme gets in. Her audition for the music composition program is in a couple weeks. Although her acceptance (or rejection) won’t really affect my Plan. She’ll still write songs for me. It would just be easier if she would also be at my school. Don’t get me wrong, she’s talented enough to get in, but being center stage really isn’t her thing. She gets nervous.

Not everybody can be a natural.

“Sophie Jenkins.”

I hear my name and enter the auditorium. I can’t wait to show the panel what I’m capable of. I’m ready to move on with my Plan and be the star that I know I am.

This is just one small step.

Check.

Ethan

I want to get this over with.

My stomach has been in knots all morning. Oh, who am I kidding? I’ve been a wreck since I got the date of this audition. Maybe going to CPA isn’t the best idea. I’ve got it pretty good in Greenwich. I’ve got friends, and even better, I’ve got Kelsey.

Although, I just got a girlfriend and what do I do? I audition for a school in New York City, which means I’ll have to live at my parents’ Park Avenue apartment during the week.

Leave it to me to complicate one of the few good things in my life.

I almost considered backing out of the audition and not going to CPA, but — and I’m fully aware of how corny this sounds — music is my life.

At first I didn’t know that it was unusual for someone to hear a song and be able to play it back instantly on the piano or guitar. Or that not everybody can sit down and write a song. I’ve been playing music, my music, for as long as I can remember. It flows from me with ease.

It’s just the lyrics that I suck at.

I’m a thirteen-year-old kid who lives in a huge house in Connecticut with my investment banker father and stay-at-home mom. What do I have to write about? I don’t know anything about suffering or pain. Or love.

I guess the one good thing going for me is that I don’t have to sing today. I’m doing a couple of instrumental pieces. I hate singing. I hate it when people look at me. I wonder if they’ll let me perform behind a screen?

I try to get my legs to stop shaking, but if they stay still, what will distract me from the bile that is slowly rising in my throat? I go to bite my nails, but there isn’t any nail left.

Dad squeezes my shoulder. I hate him knowing that I’m nervous. Why can’t I just tune out the voices in my head telling me I’m going to mess it up, like I mess everything up? Why can’t I be normal? Why can’t I do something without thinking of the fourteen thousand ways that I can mess up?

Actually, there is one thing I can do to quiet the voices. The only thing that I am good at, which is playing music. That I can do well.

It’s everything else that’s the problem.

Emme

I thought things would be easier the second time around.