We were all astonished when my sister almost wimped out at the last moment last night because, up to that time, she’d impressed us all with her poise and self-confidence. I was about to tell her that if she let us down I would make it my business to inform everyone in our school (including the first years) about how she’d spent the last week and that she’d even bought herself some girly lingerie. However, Karen must have read my mind as she nudged me before I could open my mouth and whispered that we should leave the adults to deal with the crisis. Sue, Karen and I therefore had to get ourselves ready without knowing whether or not we would even be performing.

Eventually, ten minutes before we were due to go on stage, Mum arrived at our room with a nervous looking Josie, who had changed into her baby blue dress, and her hair was in two pigtails.

‘Hi Josie, are you alright now?’ asked Karen.

‘I think so,’ she replied.

‘Well you look really lovely in that blue dress, doesn’t she girls?’ Karen continued.

Sue nodded.

‘Yes, you look great, Sis,’ I said, actually meaning what I said.

Josie blushed a little but thanked us.

In the event all turned out well. Despite the initial upset we seemed to grow in confidence once we walked out on to the stage and gave our version of Wannabe (the old songs are usually the best). Though I say it myself, we gave a fairly polished performance. Sue and I were lead vocals, both strutting our stuff, in our sequinned trousers:

‘I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want,’ began Sue.

‘So tell me what you want, what you really, really want,’ I responded

Josie and Karen dressed in their girly-girl outfits came in with the line:

‘If you want my future, forget my past..’

By the time we’d reached ‘If you want to be my lover’, Josie was provocatively wiggling her bum and tossing her pigtails from side to side in time to the music, eliciting both a cheer and a couple of wolf whistles from the audience. Mum stood in the wings with a look of amazement and horror. Nobody tripped or stumbled during the dance routine, despite the fact that we were all wearing high heels. In fact we were all were pretty good and our performance seemed to go down well. I also noticed that Josie’s sexy lingerie and suspenders, which had been quite visible to the audience, were exactly right. She had noticed what was needed to complete the costume when the rest of us had failed to do so.

After taking a bow, we left the stage with the applause still ringing in our ears. As we came off, I noticed Aunt Jean in the front row having recorded the whole thing on her digital video camera.

‘See it wasn’t so bad was it Josie!’ I said once we were clear and had regained our breath.

‘No, I suppose not,’ she answered looking intensely relieved, but also very happy. ‘But I’m glad it’s now over.’

‘You were great Josie, and, what’s more, you didn’t let us down,’ said Karen giving her a hug and a kiss. ‘We’re all very grateful to you for filling in for Denise at such short notice.’

‘Yes, well done Josie,’ added Sue.

I nodded briefly to show my agreement.

‘Thanks Sue, but it was you and Jenny who did most of the singing, although I think we all danced alright as well. I am sorry, everyone, for nearly losing my nerve.’

‘That’s all right, as long as you don’t let it happen again,’ I said.

‘I think that everybody deserves some congratulation, but we three didn’t have the additional complication of coping with a change of gender, at the same time,’ said Karen.

Josie beamed with pleasure so I decided it was time to put a stop to all this gushing.

‘Alright ladies, that’s enough of all this mutual-congratulation, let’s go and watch the remainder of the competitors and await the results,’ I said.

A couple of the later acts were exceptionally talented and we knew there was no way that we were going to win, but by the end of the show we felt that we’d acquitted ourselves quite creditably. In fact ‘Angelica’ was placed fourth in the competition, with only one vote less than the third place (four lads emulating a boy band from the nineties).

‘I’m sorry girls, you were really unlucky; with only two more votes you would have won our prize,’ said Tom, the singer from the group. ‘Can we make it up to you tomorrow by buying you all a coffee?’

‘What do you think girls? I said addressing the twins; (at the time Josie was busy talking to Mum and Aunt Jean).

Karen and Sue both nodded their agreement.

‘OK guys, we’ll see you at reception at 10.30 tomorrow,’ I said.

‘Will you be wearing your Spice Girl costumes again in the morning?’ asked another lad from the group.

‘Why do you want to know?’ I asked.

‘If you did, we could also wear our costumes and arrange to take a joint photograph of both groups together,’ he answered.

‘It’ll be fun for us all to wear our costumes again,’ said Karen.

Sue seemed to agree, so I agreed as well.

‘In that case we’ll look forward to seeing you tomorrow, girls,’ said Tom, just as Josie, Mum and Jean joined us.

Whilst Mum and Aunt Jean were congratulating the twins, I mentioned to Josie that her services were going to be needed again in the morning.

‘Nobody said anything to me about wearing this costume tomorrow as well,’ she said.

‘Well you’ll want to wear something nice when we meet the lads again, and in any event, we’ll need to get some decent photographs taken of us all to go on the convention web site,’ I said.

‘I just hope that nobody is ever able to recognise ‘Joe’ in the costume, said Josie.

‘I honestly don’t think you need to worry, you look really hot in that baby blue outfit,’ I said.

My sister blushed, but she was beginning to regain her confidence and I don’t think she minded what I’d said.

There was a disco after the competition and we all found ourselves dancing for an hour or so whilst our mothers kept an eye on the handbags and chatted together. Once again Josie showed herself to be quite a sexy little dancer and several guys made their way over in our direction, but we’d promised her that we’d all stick together for the evening. Eventually we made our way back to our rooms feeling quite elated.

We discussed the arrangements for the Saturday with the mums over breakfast this morning.

‘We’re intending to put on our ‘Angelica’ costumes again and spend the morning going round the convention,’ said Sue. ‘That group of lads have asked whether they can be photographed with us.’

‘I assume these lads think that they’re going to be meeting four girls, so please be careful for Josie’s sake,’ said Jean.
‘Yes of course, we’re all very proud of Josie after her performance last night and won’t let her get into any difficulties,’ added Karen.

‘Will you be able to get yourself ready this morning, Josie?’ asked Mum.

‘Yes I suppose so; the worst of the nerves seem to have passed, although I’m still not sure about entering the competition on my own this evening.’

‘Denise will be really disappointed if you don’t do so,’ said Karen.

‘See how you get on this morning, and then you can make your mind up after lunch, if you like,’ suggested Aunt Jean.

‘Alright.’

‘So let’s go and get changed into our costumes, girls,’ I said.

‘Jean, how would you feel about looking round the shops this morning?’ asked Mum as we were about to leave.

‘Alright then, if the girls don’t need our help.’

Once again Josie made a pretty good job of her hair and makeup, somewhat better than I would have done at her age and we set out to find the guys. In fact they proved to be quite good fun. Like us they were accompanied by two sets of parents and so had to be on their best behaviour, but we all had a laugh together all the same. They had come down from the West Midlands, whereas we’d travelled up from Sussex so we were never likely to meet them again after the weekend, so there was no question of pairing off, just eight young people enjoying themselves together.

‘Angelica’ appears to have made a name for ourselves and we found that we’d become minor celebrities overnight. We were even asked for signed publicity photographs of the group, as if we really were a girl group. We had to disappoint those who asked, but were always happy to have our photos taken with anyone who wanted. I even got the impression that Josie enjoyed herself as well. If she was a little hesitant at having her photograph taken at first, she’d managed to get over it by mid-morning was getting in to provocative sexy poses along with the rest of us.