Disclaimer: We do not own anything Disney, we just use Disney to write Fiction

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12 year old Mark O’Malley had been practically typecast as the dopey sidekick because of his role in the runaway hit Disney production, “My Brother Mark”. But while on the set of his older sister Krissy’s much darker sci-fi movie production, a misheard comment leads to a whole new branch in his career, and in his life.

Sitting in the interview room at Disney, Mark smiled as he waited for the mark from the camera man so he could do his last interview for awhile. While he was extremely nervous about this, he came across being calm and collected.

After all at 12 years old, he had already been ‘in the biz’ most of his life, from diaper commercials as a baby to bit roles in sitcoms, to his breakout starring role in Disney’s “My Brother Mark”, which just wrapped up filming on its last season. It still never got any easier. It was the anticipation that got him. Once they started, he felt fine.

“And we’re live,” the cameraman stated.

The Teen interviewer for Disney smiled at Mark, “So how was it on the set of the final season of My brother Mark?”

“It was pretty mixed, you know? We became like a big family on and off set, and I’m really looking forward to working with everyone again on future projects.”

“Do you have any plans on doing anything else?” The girl asked, “Maybe with your co-star Juliette Small?”

“Honestly that would be amazing. Juliette is a wonderful and talented actress who’s just so full of energy. She always makes me laugh off-camera. I know our characters are always going at each other, but in reality we’re actually best friends.” Mark answered cheerfully.

“We here at 365 actually were on the set of last week’s episode, There was hardly a moment you two could keep a straight face. It’s nice to see that.” The girl stated. “So whats next for you Mark?”

“Well, I’m going to be taking a bit of a break from acting for awhile, maybe focus on music or other projects, but I’m always up for another acting project, so I’m definitely keeping my name in the hat for any future roles Disney might have.”

That was the first lie of the entire interview. He was considering a new movie role, but it was all very hush hush. He didn’t even know what the role was yet. He’d find that out later that day. With his contract under negotiation, he found himself free to consider non-Disney roles - a rare opportunity, as any Disney actor knew.

“Thank you for coming in today Mark, we really hope to see more from you.” The girl turned to the camera, “That’s it for Disney’s 365.”

The Cameraman stated, “And Cut!”

“Alright, that was great. Thanks so much Mark,” the girl said warmly.

“Thank you Alyssia.” Mark sad, “I can’t wait to see your new movie by the way.” He smiled as they began walking to the changing rooms together.

“Aww, thanks. It was so much fun. Are you coming to the big premiere?”

“I got an invite so I might go with Juliette.” Mark shrugged, “She hinted at it.”

“I’m so going to miss watching you guys every week,” Alyssa laughed. “You really sell it. But I guess her big movie break made it hard to do both.”

“Yeah, she’s got a few big time movie deals she’s looking at. I’m happy for her.” Mark half lied.

He was happy for her, and it was her big break that gave him his big break. The writers were worried Mark was too recognizable as the bratty brother, passing him over for other potential roles, and so his agent - and mother, Janet - had begun putting his name out for movie role consideration as well.

Alyssa grinned and gave him a friendly hug. “Stay in touch okay? Don’t, you know, just drop off the face of the earth or anything,” she teased.

“I’m heading to Sydney for a small break but I definitely will be back.” Mark laughed as the two parted and he went into the changing room that he used earlier.

It was a typical star’s changing room, in that it had only the best things for the actor or actress who used it. He breathed a relieved sigh as he rested his back against the door for a moment.

“Man I’m thirsty,” he mumbled as he picked up a bottled water from the small ice chest under the makeup table. It wasn’t any fancy imported glacial water - after all, it was his own ice chest. He cracked open the inexpensive bottle and turned it up as someone knocked.

“It’s open,” he called back, running his fingers through his strawberry blonde hair. It wasn’t exactly long, but it was getting a little shaggy. Focus testing showed viewers liked the shaggy look on the bratty Mark character, so he kept it.

Mark’s mother walked in, smiling brightly. “Ready for that vacation sweetie?”

“Oh, Mrs. O’Malley there you are,” Mark said jokingly in his best bratty kid voice, and then laughed. “God I am so ready. I don’t want to see another photographer for a month.”

“The studio finally sent over that movie script. I’ve been looking over it, and...” she paused, giving him a skeptical glance.

“Don’t tell me. I want to read it myself,” he answered, setting his bottle of water on the counter.

“I was about to suggest the same,” she said as she handed him an ordinary-looking unmarked folder, so as to not arouse suspicions when he carried it out with him. “The flight leaves tomorrow morning. Your Dad’s got your ticket sorted, and Krissy’s having someone meet you. Are you sure you don’t want one of us to fly out with you?”

“I’m sure,” he answered with a grin. “Maybe I can catch Krissy on set when I get there.”

He always loved watching his sister in action, that was his goal to do an action movie eventually. He also wanted to do a drama as well, but it seemed comedy was his lot in life, barring a drastic change.

Janet laughed softly. “She’ll love that. She texted me a few minutes ago asking how your 365 interview went. I sent her the rough clip from my phone.”

“Wow, she’s up early,” Mark laughed. “I think it went fine, but I didn’t have Juliette to keep me laughing until my sides hurt like our very first 365 interview. That was such a disaster.”

Mark may have been 12, but growing up in show business meant growing up fast as well, without a whole lot of time to just be a kid, and it showed in the way he spoke. He had even lost what little of his Australian accent he had - being born a dual citizen of the US and the AU. He hadn’t been back since he was young, and was really looking forward to seeing how Sydney had changed.

“The director shooting a water gun at you between takes didn’t help,” Janet laughed again. “That’s the one thing I love about working with Disney though. The whole staff knows how to have fun.”

Mark stuffed his half-finished water bottle into his cooler, picking up the envelope again, “Alright, I’m ready,” he said finally.

“Well then, good sir, your chariot awaits,” she teased.

The flight to Australia was long and a little tedious. He sat next to a blabbering teen girl, who was so excited to sit next to Mark from ‘My Brother Mark’. It got so bad a few times he had to get up and leave his seat for awhile, though he loved his fans and did sign a picture for the girl. It wasn’t her fault he was so burned out, after all, but It was the girls that were the worst. The male fans weren't so bad.

Next time he was definitely flying first class, though.

Six weeks in Australia, no parents, just him and his sister, it was going to be an amazing vacation for him; time to relax and read that script over, and make decisions about his future without any stress whatsoever.

It wasn’t as if Disney wasn’t popular in Australia. He planned to hook up with the occasional Disney AU 365 interview just for the local fans, but other than that, it was going to be blissful peace and quiet. That’s what he thought, anyway.

At the airport there was a red haired woman holding a sign with the name “Mark O’Malley” on it, she was dressed in a black limo driver suit. She smiled when he approached. “Oh, there ya are,” she said in a thick accent. It was almost stereotypical to Mark’s mind. If she put on a Crocodile Dundee hat and said ‘Ay, G’day!’ it would’ve been downright iconic.

“Are you taking me to the bungalow that Krissy’s manager got for me?”

“And anywhere else ya need to go,” she answered. “I’m your official driver for the day while Ms. Stuart is stuck on-set.”

“Thanks, I kinda want to go see her on set.” Mark answered. He hadn't seen his sister since she started this new film, six months ago.

“I can take you there first if ya like?” she asked as she reached for his bags.

“Sure, thanks.” Mark nodded, but refused to let her load his stuff in the trunk, doing it on his own. He hated that about being famous. Everyone wanted to do everything for him.

“Ms. Stuart made it abundantly clear,” she said with a grin as she closed the trunk, “Iced Barq’s Root Beer in the mini-fridge inside.” She winked as she stepped around to open the back door.

“She remembered.” Mark laughed as he got in the studio’s limo. After a moment of letting a taxi pass, they were off and away from the airport, on their way to the movie studio. After a moment Mark’s phone rang - Juliette’s ringtone.

“Ay, g’day mate!” Juliette answered as soon as Mark picked up.

“Not you too.” Mark laughed, “Hows New York?”

“Great! How’s Sydney? Oh God I didn’t wake you up did I? I’m freaking awful with these time zones. I tried to wait until I was sure it was day there.”

“Oh no it’s cool, I just got here.” Mark laughed. “It’s like just before lunch here, but it’s tomorrow, so...”

“Man, what a mind trip,” Juliette giggled. “So I got this script, it’s a total Drama, the main character is a trans girl, it’s about her and her sister facing the world.”

“Wow. That actually sounds pretty cool,” Mark answered. “Are you playing the sister?”

“Yeah, I’m playing Emily. Not sure about my co-star though. He’s kind of a prima donna.” Juliette laughed. “After this film I have nothing else planned.”

“I’ve still got to look at the script Mom was sent. She looked over it, but I made her promise not to tell me anything until I’ve read it myself.”

“Oh hey, got some pictures to send you.” Juliette paused as four picture messages hit Mark’s phone. “Don’t laugh please.”

“Got it. Checking,” Mark said, pulling his smartphone away from his ear to look at the pictures. “What the heck did you do to your hair?” he asked her.

“Hey no laughing!” she said, laughing herself. “I got it bobbed. I don’t care how much focus testing said I should have hair to my butt, I wanted something shorter for a change. Do you think I should get extensions, like, mid shoulder?”

“It’s fine, I was just shocked,” Mark answered. “5 years of you having really long hair does that to someone.” He laughed a bit.

“Tell me about it, Shaggy,” Juliette giggled.

“Ok Velma.” he teased her back.

“Jinkies!” Juliette laughed. “Maybe I’ll start wearing my glasses again. I bet nobody’ll recognize me.”

“Wish I had an alter ego to hide in.” Mark laughed, “I got accosted on the plane trip here, they sat me down right next to one of the biggest fan girls in history.”

“Oh God, did this one try to kiss you too?” Juliette started laughing again.

“No, thank heavens. Sherespected my personal space, but she could actually recite my lines word for word.” Mark laughed.

The limo driver couldn’t help herself and laughed quietly. She cleared her throat and discreetly raised the window between the driver and passenger seating area to give Mark some privacy after the fact.

“Whoa, who was that?” Juliette giggled.

“The limo driver.” Mark laughed.

“Uh huh, dating some older girl behind my back are you now Mark?” Juliette teased. “You going to be home in time for Alyssa’s movie premier by the way?” she asked, changing the subject.

“I think so. I’m here for six weeks, but I should be back just in time for it to be out of post production. If not I’ll leave a few days early,” Mark answered.

“Cool, I can’t wait to see you again, I really miss you - and everyone else for that matter.” Juliette sighed.

“Me too. I’m really going to miss working with Amy and John and Mikey. I wish you could come down too, but I know you’ve been dying to get back to New York for awhile.”

“Yeah I missed home, but it’s weird being back. Now that I’m here, I kind of wish I’d stayed in LA. Oh and mom says Hi.”

“Hi Mrs. Small!” Mark said as loudly as possible, causing Juliette to laugh.

“Dork. Say Hi to Krissy for me!”

“I will,” Mark laughed.

As they hung up the limo pulled into the back lot of a large movie studio, and Mark rolled down the divider window this time.

“Sorry about that,” she said sheepishly. Mark shook his head, laughing again.

“Don’t think twice about it. Juliette just asked me if I was dating an older woman,” he teased, causing her to laugh out loud.

“Oh lord, my little sister’ll die if I tell her that,” she teased as she stepped out.

Mark laughed and handed the Limo driver a pre signed picture of both him and Juliette. He carried loads of them of himself and with Juliette holding hands. The tabloids loved to hint that they were an item off-set despite their age, so they sometimes played on it. “Why don’t you give her that?”

“Aww, thank you! Her birthday’s coming up next week. I think I’ll sneak this into a cheap-o dollar birthday card just to mess with her,” she said with a wink. “I’ll be here if you need me - unless you want me to take your things on to your bungalow.”

Mark nodded. “Thanks.”

He walked over to a security guard. “Mark O’Malley, just looking for Krissy Stuart? She should be on set?”

The big security guard looked down at Mark and then laughed. “Oh, I know you. ‘Don’t blame me, it was the ghosts!’” he said, repeating one of Mark’s more famous lines. “You want Studio 5 down that way, hang a left at the fake palm tree, then straight on and you can’t miss it.”

“Thanks.” Mark said with a smile, trying not to laugh as he followed his directions. For a big guy, the security guard did a pretty good Mark Mason. The studio seemed to be bustling with activity with the usual assortment of cast and crew from different productions milling about. It felt like being back in Hollywood in that regard.

Suddenly Mark felt a pair of slender hands - female judging by the hint of sparkling pink nail polish he thought he caught a glimpse of - gently grab his eyes, and a giggly girl whispered, “Guess who?” in his ear.

“Umm, Miley Cyrus?” he guessed jokingly.

“You wish,” Tina, Krissy’s best friend and personal assistant laughed.

“My second guess would have been Selina Gomez and then Tina Messer.” Mark laughed.

“Nah, Selina’s vacationing in Italy last I heard,” Tina giggled. “Krissy said you might stop by.”

“Yeah I haven't seen Krissy in awhile, I wanted to see her on set.” Mark said. “It’s great to see you too though,” he quickly added. Tina and Krissy went everywhere together - and why not? She was Krissy’s personal assistant after all. But he knew it went deeper than that.

“They’re filming right now if you want to go on inside,” she said, nodding. “I just stepped out for a smoke - but I’m trying to quit, honest,” she added with a chuckle.

“Sweet, thanks Tina,” Mark said and went into film mode, knowing full well to be quiet when they were filming. He crept inside and moved a little closer, joining the small crowd of crew behind the director.

“Commander!” a taller man in a simple, but futuristic styled military outfit shouted, approaching Krissy, who was sitting at a desk. He stopped to salute her. “Ma’am, reports from Mars colony,” he said, and placed a clear plastic tablet PC-like device on her desk.

Krissy picked up the object, “Thank you Lieutenant.” she replied. The actor gave a firm salute and then froze in place anticipating the director’s order as the camera moved in to focus on Krissy’s determined stare.

The Director, a tall, pale woman with long black hair yelled, “Cut! perfect that time, just perfect!” she called to the cast on the set.

Krissy casually laid the piece of plastic aside and glanced up at the taller man as she pushed herself up from the ‘futuristic’ glass desk and chair. “Hey John, how was my delivery?” she asked.

“Lunch break.” someone called out.

John laughed, “Pretty damn good. The girl they were going to have play the commander before you couldn’t even nail the ‘scramble the fighters’ line. She couldn’t do a determined stare to save her life.”

“Years of practice staring down my mother,” Krissy teased, laughing. She suddenly stopped, a broad grin crossing her lips as she raced across the stage. Everyone stopped what they were doing to watch the spectacle as Krissy ran to Mark, lifting him off his feet.

“There you are!” she squealed happily and kissed his forehead, letting him down again.

Mark smiled and hugged his sister, “I just had to see you on stage, I know those three episodes you did with us on my show was the same, but it’s cooler to see it from this side.” he laughed.

“Those walk on roles as your and Juliette’s babysitter were hilarious,” Krissy laughed. “I wish I could get more stuff like that in between these serious roles.”

“We try.” Mark laughed, “Hey Juliette said hi, and she shared some pictures with me.” he showed them to his sister and Tina.

“Oh my God,” Krissy laughed. “She pulled an Emma Watson didn’t she? Wow. Or did she lose a bet?” she teased.

“Yeah, I asked her what happened to her hair.” Mark laughed. “Disney wouldn’t let her cut it during the 5 year contract we had with them.”

“Good lord,” Tina laughed. “I can’t go a month without changing my hair. I’d go crazy after five years.”

“Mom said Brianna, my personal assistant would be here tomorrow.” Mark sighed. “I was hoping for six weeks without anyone really. But I guess she needs to be here for the Disney AU 365 interview and the hotspot interview for that Disney game I voiced.”

“Didn’t you voice a girl in that?” Krissy teased, giggling, “But yeah, after that you can tell her to just go out and enjoy herself the rest of the time,” Krissy said. “But that’s why I asked Tina to be my personal assistant while she’s taking business classes online - because I already knew ‘er.”

“It’s win win,” Tina laughed. “I get to work with my... best friend,” she seemed to correct herself, “And get bonus credit for college - and I get paid for it.”

“I didn't have very many friends..” Mark laughed. “And none of them are as smart as Tina. Except Juliette of course.”

“Nice save,” Krissy teased as a young woman approached the trio, carrying a tray.

“Here’s your salads and sodas ladies,” she said cheerfully. “Can I get your sister anything?”

Mark didn’t catch the sister thing at first, “A cheeseburger please?” He had been dying for one for awhile now. “And whatever non diet soda you have is fine - or water even.”

“Sure thing!” she answered and turned to step away again. Both Krissy and Tina burst out laughing.

“Wait.. did she just say Sister?” Mark sighed, finally getting it.

“It’s that shaggy hair. You look just like a young me,” Krissy giggled as she and Tina started toward a trio of empty padded chairs and sat down to enjoy their lunch.

Just then the director walked up, “Krissy, you’re a genius! She can play the role we needed of your Alessa’s young self!” she rattled on as she walked away.

“Wait... What just happened?” Krissy asked, looking, with a mouthful of salad, between Tina and Mark. She seemed as confused as Mark.

Tina shrugged, “I better go find out.” She stood and started off towards the director.

“And I thought people in Hollywood were weird,” Mark laughed, stealing a drink of Krissy’s soda while waiting for the bouncy young blonde to bring his.

After a few moments, the blonde haired woman and Tina both returned, Tina laughed, “Seems the writers wrote in a scene about your character when she was younger, and the director was frantically looking for an actress to play the part.”

“Well, you’ve always said you wanted to do a serious role,” Krissy said, grinning at Mark. “I’ll go and sort this out after I finish eating.”

“Yeah... But i'm not a girl.” Mark shrugged, “Thanks Krissy.”

“I dunno,” Tina said as she put down her salad, pushing Mark’s shaggy hair down so that it framed his face. “With a little mousse and some lip gloss you’d make a damn cute heartbreaker.”

Mark laughed. “Whatever. I don’t have to wear heels do I?” he said jokingly, referring to the time in one of the episodes he dressed up as Juliette, complete with a ridiculous wig. He tore into his cheeseburger as he thought about it. It was an episode he had actually forgotten about, where they had a nearsighted substitute teacher in Juliette’s math class, and her character hadn’t studied, so she blackmailed him into taking the test for her.

He had loved that episode.

“No high heels.” Krissy promised, giggling.

“Nah,” the blonde woman added cheerfully. “The scene we hashed out with the director is where Krissy’s character Alessa sees her mother for the last time before she’s shipped out, and that’s the last time they ever see her. It plays off the Mars colony scene you just saw, as Alessa realizes the aliens that abducted her mother’s unit have returned. I’ll go let wardrobe know to be ready for you,” she said as she turned to leave again.

“... That was a writer?” Mark laughed. “I thought she was just an assistant or something.”

Krissy giggled and shook her head. “No, that was Laura Banfield, the head writer. We’re all pretty relaxed around here between scenes.”

“Wow. The writers at Disney never brought us food.” Mark laughed again.

“Laura’s brilliant too,” Tina giggled. “She wrote the original novel the movie’s based on, but she’s so down to earth you wouldn’t know it just talking to her, especially for how ready she is to make changes to the screenplay like this.”

“Seriously though,” Krissy laughed. “Normally writers freak the hell out when a director wants to change something. Laura’s like ‘Oh I love that’ and runs off on a tangent for an hour about what else can change based on it. Hmm, but we can’t bill ‘Young Alessa’ as Mark O’Malley though.”

“Why not Megan Stuart?” Mark shrugged. “Not that I’ve thought about it a lot or anything. Megan was just the name we jokingly used when I was playing Juliette’s character Michelle in that one episode with the nearsighted substitute.”

“Oh I like that!” Krissy giggled. “Yay. I get to have a sister for a day,” she teased, causing Mark to laugh. As the saying went, ‘The show must go on’, and if they thought he was perfect for a bit movie role, who was he to argue?

After an hour in makeup and wardrobe, and a whopping 15 minutes on set, Mark was finally finished with the small scene in the movie. It was an incredible rush, standing there watching, looking forlorn and lost as the older actress, who doubled as an extra in several other scenes, waved goodbye to young Alessa, and then disappeared into the white light of the ship transport.

What was more, he hadn’t felt nervous about the scene at all. In fact, he really enjoyed the whole experience, however brief.

He had taken some selfies of himself and sent them to Juliette before he walked back to an empty changing room. He had no sooner stepped inside, when his phone rang again.

“G’day mate.” Juliette teased.

“Ay bonza! Bee-uh an’’ dingos!” Mark answered this time.

“Magen’s back huh?” Juliette giggled softly, “They really did a good job on your makeup, and that pink and white dress is so cute!”

“Temporarily,” Mark laughed. “I thought it was a little overdone, but under the studio lights it looked really good. If I wasn’t me I’d have thought I was kinda hot,” he said jokingly.

“We’ll I think you look mighty hawt.” Juliette giggled out. “Can I show that to my mom?”

“Sure. The entire world’s going to see it sooner or later,” Mark laughed. “I’m playing young Alessa in a flashback, in Krissy’s movie, “Dark Days”.”

“Oh God I heard about that movie!” Juliette giggled, “You are SO lucky!”

“Literally,” Mark laughed. “They mistook me for Krissy’s sister. The director overheard her telling me I looked just like a younger version of her, and they like, ran with it.”

There was a soft knock on the door. “Someone’s at your door, I’ll let you go Magen.” Juliette sounded like she had a grin when she said that. Mark just knew her that well. It wasn’t a laugh, just a subtle inflection, like she was really happy.

“Talk to you later, Jules,” Mark said cheerfully as he got up to answer the door.

On the other side of the door was a tall black haired woman holding a small yellow envelope, “I was told to drop this off here,” she said, smiling as she handed it to Mark. Inside the envelope was $500 AUD.

“Wow. What’s this for?” he asked, surprised. He hadn’t given a second thought yet to the fact he was still wearing the pink and white dress of his character, young Alessa.

“It’s your pay for the scene.” The woman chuckled and turned to leave before he could close the door, Laura walked by.

“Oh you can keep that outfit too,” she said as she passed. Mark blushed a little.

“Thanks. It’ll be a great souvenir,” he chuckled, almost a giggle. He had to wait for the makeup artist to return so he could get her help taking off the heavy makeup.

When she had finished, she smiled and asked, “Want a free street makeover, or do you prefer fresh-faced?”

“Street makeover?” Mark asked, not entirely sure what she meant. She chuckled.

“It’s what we call regular makeup, you know? A lot lighter and natural instead of the heavy stage cover.”

“I don’t usually wear...” Mark started.

Tina walked into the room and answered for him. “She’ll take a street makeover. I’ll be going with her to do some shopping afterwards - orders from Krissy.” she winked.

“Sure thing,” the makeup artist answered. Mark shot Tina a glare while the woman’s back was briefly turned, but Tina just giggled to herself. Mark sighed and settled into the chair.

Krissy was up to something, and he’d find out what that was later, but for now, he wasn’t about to ruin his first movie role - even if it was just a short scene. She always looked out for him before, so he'd let her have this one ... for now at least. Besides, Megan looked like a real girl, not a boy in an overexaggerated girl costume.

He kind of liked it.

While Mark’s hair had always been a shaggy, messy mop, once straightened, moussed, and conditioned, it was actually fairly long, reaching just past his shoulders, and as part of the street makeover, was styled into a natural feminine face frame with a ponytail.

The other makeup was light here and there - a little color in the cheeks, a little mascara, and some pink lip gloss to match the pink fingernails which were Tina’s contribution to Megan’s new look.

Krissy cleared her throat, “Thank you Joslin.” she spoke from the door. “She looks beautiful.”

“My pleasure Miss Stuart,” Joslin said cheerfully as she stepped back and turned to leave.

Krissy smiled as Joslin left, stepping further inside, and closed the door behind her. “I figured you might want to have dinner tonight without being harassed by fans.”

“That’s what this was about?” Mark asked, paused, and then laughed out loud. “You’re a genius.”

“That and you can even go out sightseeing and shopping without everyone and their mother wanting an autograph. I’m sending Tina with you, if you don’t mind.”

“Sorry,” Tina giggled. “I couldn’t say anything in front of Joslin without giving you away.”

Mark laughed again as he stood and shook his head. “No, it’s fine. This is great. I mean it’s a little weird, but this is exactly what I wanted, to get away from being noticed for awhile. Thanks you two.”

“You’re welcome, ‘Megan’,” Krissy giggled and gave her new sister a hug. “I still have another couple of scenes to shoot, but I’ll meet you for dinner tonight, and then we can do whatever you feel like together. I have two days off while they film some battle scenes.”

There was a knock on the door, and Laura called, “Megan? Are you decent?” she giggled.

“Yeah I haven't changed yet.” Mark called back.

“Oh, good, you’re here too Krissy,” Laura said cheerfully. “I wanted to get both your opinions on something. I was talking with Mikaela about another scene with young Alessa. We’re thinking maybe a dream sequence where young Alessa talks to her older self. What do you both think?”

“A speaking role? I have to talk to my manager who is in the states right now,” Megan answered.

“Oh, I understand. It would be near the climax of the movie, so it wouldn’t be filmed till near the very end anyway. It’s just an idea we’re kicking around, so there’s plenty of time to decide.”

Megan nodded. “I’ll give her a call shortly and let her know, and she can call you guys. She said walk on non speaking roles are fine, but speaking roles I have to talk to her about first.”

“I understand completely,” Laura answered. “We don’t even have an idea of the revisions yet, so we’re completely open to working with your manager.”

Krissy laughed, “Our mother is her manager, and she’s pretty hard nosed. That’s why I technically fired her when I turned 18.”

“You mean she let you out of your contract,” Megan laughed.

“Well she had you to manage, and having to balance being in LA for you, and flying around the world for me would have been too much for her.” Krissy winked. “Anyway, I think it’s a great idea, as long as Mom gives her approval. I think Alessa needs a swift kick in the ass. Who better than her young self,” she laughed.

“Great. We’ll keep kicking it around for now. If she does say no, then we’ll work something else out though,” Laura answered reassuringly, and then turned to leave.

Megan opened her small pack and pulled out the envelop her mom gave her. “I guess I can start reading this on the way to go shopping with Tina. I’ve been putting it off because... Well, stuff keeps happening,” she laughed a bit.

“Ooh, new script?” Krissy grinned. “Good luck. I hope it’s not one of those lame B comedies like Hot Tub Time Machine or whatever.”

“I hope not either.” Megan sighed. “I really want to branch out. I enjoyed the heck out of My Brother Mark, but I really think I have talent enough to do something besides comedy.”

“Hell yeah you do,” Krissy giggled. “That scene earlier where you were watching Alessa’s mom leave, I swear I saw Laura wiping away a tear. That was perfect. By the way Tina has my platinum card, so don’t worry about spending money. Just have fun, okay?”

“I’ll try not to buy any yachts,” Megan teased as she hopped up to hug her sister. “Oh. I’d better change first. I mean this is cute, but it’s a little ... movieish for street wear, isn’t it?” she laughed and struck a dramatic pose.

Krissy grinned. “Hawt. You're going to be a heartbreaker.” she winked, “There’s some women’s clothing on the racks over in 3B if you want. I borrow stuff all the time.”

“Maybe I’ll buy a few skirts and shorts I can pair with my other stuff while we’re out,” Megan laughed, hugging Krissy again before she and Tina started out together.

Apparently Tina had already talked to the limo driver because when Megan had made her appearance, dressed in a pair of white cargo shorts and a powder pink tank top with a pair of girls’ sneakers, the driver simply gave the pair a cheerful smile and opened the door as they approached.

“Where to, ladies?” she asked upon entering the driver’s side again.

“Westfield Sydney,“ Tina replied. She turned to Megan. “You should so check out Sportsgirl for sure.” She had already completely forgotten Magen was really a boy.

“Sure thing,” the driver answered cheerfully.

Megan thought about Tina’s comment for a moment, but then shrugged. “What’s it like?” she asked. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“It’s a retroish fashion shop,” Tina said. “They have all kinds of amazing stuff in there!” Tina gushed as she pulled up the store’s web page on her tablet, turning it around to show Megan. The page had a cute gray and black variegated stripe style swing dress that Tina apparently had ‘Favorited’.

“Ugh, heels,” Megan laughed, pointing out the huge chunk heels the model was wearing.

“You really don’t like heels do you?” Tina laughed as Megan began to read over Mark’s movie script.

“Not really. When I had to dress like Juliette’s character Michelle, wardrobe had me in these wicked three inch heels to make me taller like her. They were really uncomfortable to try and walk in,” Megan answered casually. It never even dawned on her the other reason Mark would have said he hated wearing heels.

“Those shoes they gave me with Alessa’s outfit weren’t bad though,” she added, thumbing through the script with a frown.

“Hidden platform heels. It’s a neat movie trick to give you a tiny bit of height - to make you and the other actress closer in height,” Tina answered.

Megan looked up. “Those were platform heels? I always thought of those big seven inch high monstrosities from the 70s when I thought of platforms,” she giggled. The change from Mark to Megan was so subtle that she hadn’t even noticed it. The only one who would have known and had always known was Juliette but she never said anything.

Tina laughed, “They come in all sizes. The ones you had were three inch heels, but the platform was 1 1/2 so it was barely noticeable. And with the camera angles, neither will the audience.” she then commented, “You still haven't really hit your growth spurt yet have you?

“No, that’s why I keep getting cast in these brat roles,” Megan sighed, putting the script away. “This one is just awful. Like, Dennis the Menace meets Bart Simpson meets Jim Carrey awful.”

“Ugh. You should so call your mom and tell her no to that.” Tina sighed.

Megan nodded. “I mean I’m not against another comedic role - I’m really not. I loved working for Disney, and I hope they renew my contract, but I don’t want to be typecast as the dumbass or the goofy sidekick for my entire career,” Megan sighed as she pulled out her phone, quickly firing off a text to her mother, since she wasn’t sure what time it was in the States. The phone rang, causing Megan to jump.

“Hello?” she answered without thinking to check caller ID.

“Mark?” It was his mother, “You sent me a text.. I was kinda busy so I didn’t get a chance to read it. What can I do for you sweetie?”

“Oh, sorry. I was just letting you know I looked over the script, and you were right. It’s terrible. I should’ve let you just tell me as much,” Megan laughed softly.

“I’ll let them know you're not interested in the role.”

“Hey while I have you, um, I have another opportunity that’s come up... It’s kind of embarrassing though,” she trailed off.

“Oh? Tell me about it?”

“Well the director saw me talking to Krissy on set during lunch break, and I guess they overheard her joking about how I looked like a young her,” she continued to ramble on explaining, as she was sure she was on hands free voice or headset by now, how the whole thing had unfolded. “And now they want me to do a speaking role as young Alessa in a dream sequence. I told them I’d have to tell you and let you sort it before I could even think about it.”

“I’ll call your sister later, and the studio. You were right to tell them you had to call me first sweetie. How much did they give you for your walkon?”

“$500 AUD,” Megan answered. “Plus Laura told me to keep the outfit,” she added with a wry giggle.

“Cheapskates.” she laughed. “I’d have told them 1k and the outfit.”

Megan laughed a little. “I know, but I wasn’t even doing it for the money this time. I really didn’t want to do it at all but they were so desperate, and it sounded like a cool scene. I figured I’d just be a stand in until they could get a real...” she cut herself off before she could say ‘real girl’. “... experienced movie actress.”

“You’re an actor sweetie, playing the role of a girl shouldn’t be too hard. You’ve already done it a few times.”

“It’s weird. I thought it would be hard, but once I let go and just kind of went with it everyone around me seemed to forget - even Tina. Oh yeah, um, I’m going out as Megan to avoid autograph hounds,” Megan added with a giggle.

“That’s clever. Just be careful sweetie. Love you and talk to you later.” she hung up the phone.

“Sorry, what about me?” Tina giggled as she looked up from her tablet.

“Nothing,” Megan giggled. “I like this shade of nail polish. I didn’t think I would, but it’s growing on me. What’s it called?”

“Oh,” Tina answered as she opened her purse, fishing around. “It’s just something I had handy. It’s called Cotton Candy Sparkle.”

“It’s definitely a lighter pink than I’m used to seeing.” Megan commented.

“Yeah, I usually prefer something a little more intense,” Tina said, holding out her hand to show Megan her dark pink, almost purple nails. They were neatly manicured, but short. “If I wear pink at all,” she added with a giggle.

As the limo started picking up speed again, Megan couldn’t help a sense of familiarity. This was no mall - it was the airport where she had been picked up earlier.

“Um,” she asked, as the driver stepped out. “I thought we were going to Westfield?”

“Oh we are,” Tina answered. “We just need to stop and get something important first.”

Suddenly the back door opened and a white blur attacked Megan tackling her to the seat in a hug. “MEGAN!” Juliette squealed excitedly amid Megan’s terrified, startled scream and laughter as she hugged Juliette back.

“Juliette, what... How? I thought you were in New York!”

“I actually texted you from customs. If my flight hadn’t been delayed I would’ve touched down same time as you did.” she answered. “The movie’s kind of up in the air because the lead actor walked,” she sighed.

“Oh, wow. I’m sorry,” Megan answered sympathetically as Juliette settled in, taking a Barq’s root beer from the limo’s mini-fridge.

“I’m not,” Juliette laughed. “Like I said earlier, the guy they cast for pre-transition Samantha was a real prima donna who couldn’t stop hitting on me. It was awkward.” she sighed, “He even kept going after I told him I was seeing someone. I mean, he was 15, I’m 12. That’s just wrong on so many levels.”

“Ugh, what a loser,” Megan sighed and shook her head. “I’m glad you’re here though. You’re not going to believe this, but they want to give me a speaking role at the climactic scene in Dark Days.”

“Cool!” Juliette said excitedly. “Oh um, I have some news for you too.”

“Yeah, I told them they’d have to talk to my manager. Mom’s upset that I didn’t ask for more than 500 for my walk-on role earlier.” She paused, looking over at Juliette. “Doesn’t sound like good news.”

Juliette grinned and handed Megan a large script from her bag, ‘They’re thinking of moving film production here since Samantha’s actually from Sydney. My mom faxed this to your mom already, and I put your name forward for consideration before I got on the plane.”

“Wow... This is the script you were telling me about?” Megan asked, surprised, as she opened it.

Juliette nodded and smiled, “Next week you can go in and do a reading for them, if your mom approves of it first.”

Megan flipped through the script a few pages, and started to read. “Mom, I don’t know how else to say this, so I’ll just come out and tell you. I’m a girl. I mean, I’m a girl in a boy’s body, I mean... God dammit why is this so hard,” she sighed and looked forlornly at Juliette. Juliette picked up where she left off.

“It’s okay Samantha. You don’t have to tell her until you’re ready.”

“But if I can’t even say it to myself in the mirror, how am I supposed to face her?” Megan answered without looking back at the script. She grinned as Tina and the limo driver both started clapping.

“Ladies, I give you Samantha,” Juliette giggled. “That was great.”

“I’ll say,” their driver said, clearly dabbing at her eyes with a fresh tissue as they waited at a traffic light.

“This is perfect though,” Megan giggled. “I wanted to spend some more time as Megan, I mean, so I can go out without getting mobbed,” she quickly corrected herself. “This way I can get a better idea of what it’s like to live as a girl for the role, too.”

Krissy smiled as her sister, Juliette, and Tina emerged from the limo later that evening. They had already taken the girls out to a big fancy dinner. Megan even found a pair of patent black heels that she felt really comfortable wearing, and a nice navy dress. Krissy had the driver bring them ‘home’ to a small gated community of several bungalows, and Krissy led them up the short path to one, opening the door.

“Ok so I lied to mom just a small bit. See that house over there,?” she asked, nodding to the house next door. “That’s mine and Tina’s; you and Juliette will share this one.”

Megan laughed. “I wondered how long it would be before you finally came out and told me you and Tina were together.”

“Not much of a secret darlin’ girl,” Krissy laughed. “I never tried to hide it from you. It’s mom that scares the hell out of me.” Krissy handed the girls keys. “The studio owns these, so it’s yours for as long as you want it.”

“Cool!” Juliette giggled. “I hope there’s a walk-in closet in the bedrooms.” Tina laughed at that but didn’t say a word.

“We’ll see you two tomorrow, afternoon. Don’t hesitate to call the limo company if you want to go somewhere, and Megan, I left your credit card on the table in there. Mom said for me to hold onto it but I trust you.”

“Not like I can use it as Megan anyway,” Megan shrugged. “Thanks though.”

“Well,” Juliette yawned, “I don’t know about you guys but I’m exhausted. I couldn’t sleep at all on the plane.”

“I had the same issue.” Megan laughed. “Except I was so excited to be here I couldn't sleep once I got on the ground. I headed straight for the studio.”

“Glad you did, or you’d have missed the shopping,” Juliette teased. “I can’t wait to see you in those cute heels again,” she giggled. Their driver had already dropped off all their shopping, as well as their suitcases, so all that was left was to head inside, as Tina and Krissy returned to their own bungalow.

Inside the bungalow was a large livingroom, with an open kitchen, as well as only two doors.

“Oh,” Megan said as she stepped through the door. “Bedroom, I take it,” she said.

“Yup,” Juliette said, peeking inside.

Megan shrugged, “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“I don’t mind sharing,” Juliette shrugged as well. “I trust you to be a perfect lady,” she added playfully and started to giggle. “Besides, there’s two beds.”

Megan laughed. “You brat!” she teased, throwing a rolled up stocking at Juliette.

Juliette’s eyes suddenly widened with excitement. “Oh God, it’ll be just like a real sleepover! Not like I would really know what a real sleep over was like... Just the fake ones we had on the show.”

“Well according to episode 7, Season 3, it’s where you capture a gullible boy and paint his nails and put his hair up in rollers, put weird green crap on his face...” Megan teased.

“Sleepover at Megan’s!” Juliette almost cackled. “I forgot about that episode!”

Next door, Tina glanced across the way as she and Krissy entered their bungalow.

“Think it’s such a good idea to leave two budding preteens in the same room together?” Tina asked.

“Normally I wouldn’t, but I watched those two grow up. Even with the Hollywood treatment there’s no way they’d do anything,” Krissy said, shaking her head. “I wish I was half as well adjusted as Megan when I was that age,” she added with a laugh.

“Well she did learn from your mistakes.” Tina laughed as they held hands, walking to the sofa. Tina sat down while Krissy walked to their open kitchen. She pulled out a bottle of wine with a cute little dolphin picture on the side, and poured two glasses..

“The most important one too, it sounds like. ‘Don’t grow up too fast’. I can’t believe she really let Juliette buy her a Barbie doll though,” Krissy said with a giggle. “I almost spit out my water when you told me that one.”

“Juliette is right Krissy, even grown up girls still have barbies.” Tina winked teasing Krissy about her 10,000 Barbie strong collection.

Krissy laughed. “Does that mean I can wrap you in plastic?” she teased back and leaned over to kiss Tina’s cheek. “Thanks for helping me get all this set up honey. I know it was short notice, but Juliette was right about one other thing. She’s so much more comfortable as Megan.”

Tina laughed, “Actually I redact my earlier statement about them staying together, It will help Megan grow and learn to be a girl.”

“We should have at least told them there are two beds in the bedroom, that we had to shove together,” Krissy laughed almost wickedly.

“Oh hey, walk in closet,” Megan laughed as she poked around the bedroom, carrying their shopping in from the living room.

“I was joking about that part,” Juliette giggled with glee. “I don’t even have one of these at home! Mom thinks it’s too gaudy and teaches bad habits. I think it’s just nice to have a place to hang my belts. Besides we’re sharing the closet, you have a lot of stuff to hang too.”

“So... How long did you know about me?” Megan asked, as she began taking big plastic hangers out of their wrapping, and putting new clothes on them to hang on one side of their new closet.

“About you?” Juliette asked as she opened the bottom drawer of a large dresser and began putting Megan’s intimates and sleepwear into it “Since first meeting Megan,” she answered.

She smiled as she walked over to Megan and put her arms around her. “You’re my best friend. I could see the change in how you walked, talked, even how you laughed. That’s why as soon as the other actor walked, I put your name forward for the role,” Juliette admitted sheepishly. “The reading is just a formality.”

The girls walked back to the living room, for now, and sat on the big, overstuffed white sofa. Megan sighed, but it was almost like a pressure valve - relief - as she nuzzled into Juliette’s shoulder, putting her arms around her. Neither said a word. There were no more words. They just sat quietly together, holding each other, until both, exhausted from the flight and from an evening of shopping, not to mention a big dinner, were fast asleep.

12 year old Mark O’Malley had been practically typecast as the dopey sidekick because of his role in the runaway hit Disney production, “My Brother Mark”. But while on the set of his older sister Krissy’s much darker sci-fi movie production, a misheard comment leads to a whole new branch in his career, and in his life.

Some time during the night either Tina or Krissy must have come in to check on them because Megan stirred slowly to find both herself and Juliette cuddling under a soft, downy fleece blanket. She yawned quietly and rubbed her eyes. Was yesterday just a dream?

The sun was shining through the living room curtains enough for her to see her nails were still painted. She slid a hand under the blanket to confirm she still had on a dress.

“Mmmm,” Juliette moaned quietly as she snuggled closer to Megan and squeezed her hand. “Hi,” she mumbled, blushing softly.

“Hey,” Megan giggled.

“Sorry...” Juliette said as she sat up. “I...”

Megan smiled and squeezed her hand back. “It’s okay. We were both tired.”

Juliette giggled. “I guess we both got the couch last night huh? When did you get up to get a blanket though?”

“I didn’t,” Megan answered with a small shrug. “I figured you did, or Tina and Krissy came by to check on us after we passed out. We did fall asleep pretty early.”

Juliette yawned again and stretched, “What time is it?”

“Umm,” Megan answered and glanced down at the Barbie pink and purple digital watch Juliette picked out for her yesterday. “Bloody ‘ell it’s ‘alf past time for me ta tickle you!” she teased, lightly goosing Juliette’s sides and causing her to squeal. “It’s 8:30,” she added with a giggle.

Juliette laughed. “Well then, if you let me pee first I’ll let you shower first.”

“Race you for it,” Megan teased as she stood. Juliette giggled.

“Sure!” Juliette managed to get out between giggles.

Unlike most girls their age, Juliette was quite used to wearing makeup already outside of the studio due to being such a public face, and she was more than happy to help Megan in the arts of looking beautiful without looking like a certain type of circus performer that often carries a horn.

Megan, dressed in a pair of capri shorts and a dark pink glittery tank top over a loose, white sleeveless top and neon green crocs, sat patiently still, trying to commit everything Juliette told her to memory, but she wasn’t ready to try this herself yet.

“Thanks so much,” Megan sighed. “I promise not to make you do this every day.”

Juliette giggled as someone knocked on the front door. “It’s cool. I’ve had a lot of practice with Kelly, our old makeup artist. If she had known you were really a girl too she would’ve done the same for you,” she said as she started on her own makeup, while Megan went to answer the door.

Mark’s personal assistant Brianna - a pretty young woman with medium length reddish blonde hair was standing on the other side, dressed in a white silk blouse and gray pencil skirt, her favorite sunglasses resting on the top of her head. She smiled. “Hi Megan. Sorry to bug you so early.”

“Oh, um, hi Brianna,” Megan blushed a little. She had worked with Brianna quite a bit before, as she was her mother’s personal assistant, but ‘Megan’ was before Brianna’s time.

“You look super cute by the way,” she said casually before continuing. “I just wanted to touch base with you about how you want to handle the Disney AU interviews. If you want to go as Mark or Megan, so I know what to tell the producers to expect.”

“Oh God, I forgot about the interview,” Megan groaned and rolled her eyes at herself. “I’ll have to get Mom on the phone and talk to her about it. Come on in Brianna. I’ll put her on speaker so you can be in on the call too.”

“Wow,” Brianna said, trying not to giggle as she stepped inside. “Juliette? Is that you?”

Juliette had her glasses on, with what hair she hadn’t hacked off put up in a small ponytail. She hadn’t gone full pixie cut, but going from completely down her back to where it was now was pretty drastic.

Juliette grinned, waving her mascara brush. “Hey Brianna,” she said, as Brianna and Megan sat down, and Megan dialed her Mom’s number.

“Janet O’Malley’s office, Lydia speaking.” a young woman’s voice answered.

“Oh, hey Lydia, it’s Meg-I mean Mark. Could you have Mom contact me whenever she’s available so we can talk about the Disney 365 AU interviews?”

“Oh hold on, she just walked into the office Megan.” Lydia bubbled. Megan could almost picture the grin just based on her tone. There was some background noise and some talking before the phone was handed over.

“Hello Princess.” Janet giggled softly.

Megan blushed, and Brianna tried hard not to crack a smile as Megan answered. “Hi Mom. I’m here with Brianna, and we were wondering what you think I should do for the 365 interview. I really feel like I should go as Mark just to play things safe, but you being my manager and all, I wanted to get your input as well.”

“Well it’s really up to you. Disney AU is a lot more open than Disney here, even, which is saying something.” Janet stated.

“Yeah, but if I go as Megan I’ll have to spill on the new movie, and lose my incognito status too...”

“The reading is before your interview right?”

“Yes, Juliette said the reading is next week, and the first of the two 365 interviews is ...” she trailed off, and Brianna chimed in.

“Next Wednesday morning.”

“What she said,” Megan giggled.

“Yeah, well if you do your reading first, you can just tell 365 it’s for an upcoming movie and you can’t give details yet.” She changed the subject casually, at that. “Also, Brianna, you need to take Megan to see Doctor Miller today. I forwarded the details to your phone.”

“But I’m not sick,” Megan said, confused. Janet laughed softly.

“No no, Doctor Miller is a therapist specializing in gender identity. I thought since you’ll be living in a different role for awhile, effectively experiencing what it’s like to have GID from the opposite end of the spectrum, that her advice and counseling would help you deal with whatever struggles come up.”

“Oh, um, good idea,” Megan said sheepishly, looking down at her hands.

“Now, as for your question whether to go as Mark or Megan, you could always take a page from the Hannah Montana playbook and do both. Go to the studio as Megan, dress down for the interview, and then change back afterwards - but as I said, it’s all up to you sweetie.”

“Oh, that’s a really good idea especially if word gets out that Megan Stuart has a walk-on role on Dark Days. Thanks Mom,” Megan bubbled.

“You’re welcome sweetie. I’ll be in the office for another hour if you need anything else. Your Dad’s working late to finish the last scenes on his project, so it’s just me, Lydia, and a few other friends tonight - girls’ night out,” she laughed.

“Nah, you go have fun,” Megan giggled again. “You’ve earned the night off,” she said, and then hung up the phone. “Well, that takes care of that.”

“Looks like your appointment is for 2:30,” Brianna said looking at her smartphone. “Your sister has the next two days off, so I assume you’ll want to spend as much time with her - and without me - as possible,” she teased, winking at the girls. “So I’ll stop by around 2:00 to pick you up for your appointment.”

“Thanks Brianna,” Megan said, adding, “You don’t have to leave though. I just figured you’d want to relax and enjoy Sydney instead of hanging around with a couple of kids and my dorky sister all day,” she teased.

“I’m 19 you know.” Brianna giggled, “Still a kid myself.” she teased. “I bet you didn’t know I’m Tina’s cousin, either?” she laughed softly. “Tina recommended me to your mom. I’m technically still interning. Like Tina I’m doing the online classes thing, but I’ve learned a ton from Janet, so she trusted me to fly solo while we’re here.”

“Oh! Sorry. It’s just I only ever see you in those business outfits,” Megan said sheepishly. Brianna laughed, nodding.

“I know. Tina gives me crap about it, but I’m more self conscious than she is. I mean she’s been dating Krissy for over a year now. She can get away with shorts and flip flops on set.”

“Are you doing a business major too?” Juliette asked.

Brianna smiled and nodded, “Yup. Tina’s mom is in the business too you know? She’s really awesome. Oh and Tina and Krissy set me up in the Bungalow right next to yours so if you need me for anything I’ll be right there.”

“Cool!” Megan said cheerfully.

“So I hear that some of this new role you're going to be playing is going to be partly filmed in the outback?” Brianna asked.

“I still need to read through the script some more, but from what I saw it looks like it’s going to be pretty deep stuff,” Megan answered.

“And I get to play your supportive sister. No more of that comedy shtick where I drop a bucket of Syrup on you and stuff,” Juliette laughed.

“No more frogs in your sock drawer,” Megan giggled. “You know I never told anyone this, but I had way more trouble with that scene than you did. I hate frogs.”

“I know,” Juliette giggled. “You kept staring at the prop frog stand-in like it was diseased.”

“At least I only had to touch the real one once,” Megan shivered. “Hey, Brianna, want to help us with line reading?”

“Yes, please,” Juliette chimed in. “We could use someone to play our characters’ Mom in the dramatic coming out scene.”

“Really?” Brianna said hesitantly, but smiled. “Sure, I guess I can help. But just remember I’m no actress, so don’t laugh too hard,” she teased.

Megan giggled, “Well as my assistant, you know it's your job to help me read lines.” she teased back.

“Sure, but you’ve never actually asked before,” Brianna giggled.

“Never need it before, this is a movie. It’s much different than a comedy sitcom.” Megan injected.

“It’s a lot easier to flub a line and make it look intentional in a comedy,” Juliette giggled.

Megan and Juliette sat in the waiting room of Doctor Miller’s office with Krissy. Brianna had decided to wait back at the Bungalows and catch some sun with Tina. Megan wanted to dress nicely for the doctor’s office, putting on a black skirt and dark stockings with a cap sleeve wine colored blouse, and somewhat dressy flat shoes. She had a pair of shorts waiting for her in the limo, however.

“Megan Stuart?” a young woman called out from the doorway.

“Want me to come too?” Krissy asked.

“Nah, unless she wants you to.” Megan said. Two days and she had already begun to pick up on Krissy’s accent. Though in fairness their dad’s was fairly heavy too. “I think I can handle this.”

“Go get em tiger,” Juliette giggled, causing Megan to laugh as she approached the woman.

“Doctor Miller will be right in,” she said, showing Megan to a spacious, well lit office, and a comfortable chair with a tablet PC sitting next to it. “In the meantime, she wants you to fill out a quick questionnaire.” She picked up the tablet, handing it to Megan. “Just press ‘send’ at the end when you’re finished sweetie.”

“Sure, no problem,” Megan answered, smiling up at the woman as she sat down and started on the questionnaire. She was only about five questions in when another young woman - somewhere in her mid-20s if Megan had to guess, stepped through the door. Like the other woman she had a noticeably heavy, but more British sounding accent.

“Hi Megan,” she said cheerfully. “Sorry for making you wait.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” Megan said. “I’m still answering these questions.”

“Oh good,” the woman said. “This is so I know where to start. I hear you’re going to be playing Samantha Snow in a Lifetime movie?”

“Yeah, it’s not exactly big screen, but it’s a big step forward away from derpy comedy,” Megan giggled, swiping her finger to get to the next question set. “I got a bit role in Dark Days as Alessa’s young self too.”

“Everyone has to start somewhere right? The woman replied.

“Hmm...” Megan said, contemplating the next question a moment before punching in her answer.

“Don’t think too hard on answering them. It’s just to get to know you,” the woman half-lied. It was in fact a gender evaluation test..

“Oh no, I just thought I’d answered this one already,” Megan laughed. “I’m super excited about the role though. Especially since we’ll be filming locally so I’ll get to see more of Australia.”

“Well at least you’ll be starring in the movie with someone you know right?” she asked.

“That helps a lot yeah. Juliette and I grew inseparable on My Brother Mark. Getting to do a dramatic role with her is going to be incredible,” she said as she tried not to focus too much on the questions. “I wouldn’t mind doing another Disney show though. Just not as Mark,” she let slip out.

She couldn’t help feeling that Doctor Miller was distracting her intentionally for that very reason, and decided to roll with it. “Was Samantha a real person? I haven’t read through the script yet - just a couple of parts since I only got it last night, and some line reading with Juliette.”

“She is,” Doctor Miller said cheerfully. “She lives and works right here in Sydney. You should really go meet her if you’re going to be playing her.”

“I’d love that. I’ll ask my personal assistant if we can set something up with her.”

“So, tell me about the episode in ‘My Brother Mark’ where you had to play Juliette’s character for the entire episode.”

“Well, there’s not a whole lot to tell really,” Megan giggled. “There were actually two episodes, but the big one, the filming took about a day longer than usual, but that’s nothing abnormal. I had to play Michelle to fool a really nearsighted old crone of a substitute teacher played by Debby Ryan. It was great.”

“How did it make you feel being dressed up as a girl?” Doctor Miller was really trying to keep her mind off the test on the tablet as she answered the questions. “And was it the first time you ever dressed as a girl?”

“It’s hard to explain,” Megan answered. “I felt... I don’t know, more open maybe? I mean it was an over-exaggerated ‘girl costume’ for comedic effect, but I feel like between takes, when I wasn’t being Mark Gilbert being Michelle Gilbert, like...” he shook his head. “Different. I’m actually really self-conscious normally. I usually hide it behind acting overconfident, you know?”

“So you’d say you felt more at ease dressed as “Megan”?”

“Yeah!” Megan nodded. “Like, during lunch I had to stay dressed because we do lunch and then go right into filming again. I hung out with Alyssa and Juliette outside the studio for the first time. Like nobody recognized me, but everyone wanted Juliette’s autograph. It was hilarious. I felt like one of the girls.”

“Do you think it would be easier to make friends as Megan or as Mark?” she asked, and at this point Mark had finished over half the questions without even being able to think about the answers anymore.

“It’s hard to say really,” Megan answered, thinking more about answering Doctor Miller’s question than she was the test’s. “I do feel closer to people I’ve known for awhile though. Like today I just found out that my personal assistant Brianna is really just 19, and my sister’s girlfriend Tina’s cousin. Juliette and I spent the entire morning with my sister, Tina, and Brianna. She’s already like another sister.”

“Good,” Doctor Miller said, noting that Megan had stopped looking at the tablet. “Are you finished?” she asked.

“Oh... Wow, yeah,” Megan laughed as she handed the tablet back.

“Thank you Megan. I want to see you three times a week till you start filming, then I’ll be on the lot with you,” Doctor Miller stated. “You’re my first celebrity client, and your mother wants me to watch you closely, and I feel the same way.”

Megan giggled a little. “Sorry about my mom in advance. She’s really overprotective because of my older sister. Not saying Krissy was ever a bad kid or anything, but she’s trying to overcompensate, and it can be hard to deal with for others sometimes.”

“Well, since your sister is acting Guardian for you right now, would you please bring her in?” Doctor Miller asked.

“Sure thing,” Megan answered cheerfully as she stood to step out of the room. “Krissy,” she said as she poked her head in the waiting room. “Doctor Miller wants to talk to you.”

“Hello. You are Megan’s sister right?” she asked as Krissy and Megan both returned..

“Yes ma’am,” Krissy said warmly as she sat down.

“Your sister has a good head on her shoulders, much more mature for her age than most 12 year olds I’ve dealt with.”

“She’s a lot more well adjusted than I was at that age,” Krissy chuckled.

“Well I want to see her 3 times a week till she starts filming, after which I’ll be joining her on set. Will that be a problem?”

“No, not at all. We do have her in a minor role on my current project, but it’s nothing that will require her to be on set for hours at a time.”

“Ah. Mind if I show up while she’s filming?” Doctor Miller asked.

“Oh no, not at all. She’ll be playing the young version of my character Alessa, so she has a small speaking role, but it’s going to be pivotal to the climax of the film. I think it would be great to have you there supporting her if you’re able to come.”

“Sounds interesting.” Doctor Miller replied. “I also want to point out that Megan displays the classic examples of having GID and according to the test she just took, it confirms my thinking from the questions I asked. Megan, your records say you took anti-depressants previously. Are you still taking them?” she asked.

Megan looked stunned for a moment. “Oh jeez. I was supposed to get my prescription refilled once I touched down. But to be honest I haven’t really needed them. Should I do that after we leave?” she asked, looking between Krissy and Doctor Miller.

The doctor nodded. “It wouldn’t hurt to have them on hand just in case, but I’m giving you medical permission to halt them while I evaluate your situation further. It’s unfortunate that your last therapist didn’t catch this sooner and went straight for the medication route. Thank God he didn’t try putting you on ritalin,” she sighed.

“That’s what I thought too, but I wanted to get a professional opinion,” Krissy answered honestly. “She’s been living as Megan for a couple of days now, and it’s like she was always Megan. I’ve never seen her so relaxed,” she said, hugging her sister close.

Doctor Miller turned to Megan, “Ok, one more thing we need to talk about. I heard you have two interviews with Disney AU 365 coming up. I want you to do one as Mark and the other as Megan in that order. Think you can do that?”

“Yeah, no problem. I had decided to do the first interview as Mark anyway since it’s next week.”

“Second I want you to study your friend Juliette, and see how she moves and acts, learn how to be a girl from her. That’s how Samantha learned - from her sister. Lastly, I want you to start keeping a diary on how you find being a girl is different than being a boy and bring it in every third visit.”

Megan nodded. “No problem. Should I um, do anything else differently like going out more or less or ... I don’t know,” she laughed softly.

“We kind of skipped a step, but it’s a necessary evil. You’ll be dressed as Megan full time from now on till I tell you differently - excepting of course the first interview. Actually I want you to go the entire day that day as Mark.” Doctor Miller stated.

“Well,” Megan giggled a little again, “I was already planning on spending as much time as Megan anyway, so that’s not really any different.”

“I’m taking her to the opera tonight, so that will definitely be different,” Krissy laughed softly.

“Nice. Hopefully you will enjoy it.” Doctor Miller said warmly as she stood. “I’ll see you in 2 days to start your sessions Megan, It’s really good to meet you.”

“You as well Doctor,” Megan said cheerfully as she stood, shaking her hand. “I don’t really understand all that stuff about GID, but I guess we’ll cover that in a couple of days.”

“Actually.” Doctor Miller said, and handed Megan some pamphlets, “I want you to read about it, and draw your own conclusions. Most American therapists will just come right out and tell you, but I want you to understand what it is for yourself. If you have any questions, I’ve written my private cell phone number on the back. Call me anytime, day or night.”

“Oh man, homework?” Megan giggled. “Just kidding. Thanks. I’ll look at these right away when we get back to the car.”

“Lots of homework actually.” Doctor Miller laughed. Megan stepped closer and gave the woman a light hug before turning to step out.

Krissy watched, awestruck, and whispered after Megan had left. “She usually hates close contact unless it’s in-character or Juliette.”

“Thats one of the biggest things I need to figure out - whether this is just an act or if it’s real, but so far the test she took says it’s real. That’s why I distracted her throughout the whole test.”

“I’ll make some calls and see if anyone made any videos of her off-camera from those two episodes she spent as Megan,” Krissy said. “That might give you some more insights as well.”

“If this proves to not be acting, she’ll be far ahead of most girls at her age who come to see me or my colleague. I actually transferred most of my case load to Beth so I could deal with Megan personally and give her more one on one.”

“I hope Mom’s paying you extra for your trouble,” Krissy said seriously as she shook Doctor Miller’s hand. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all this.”

“She’s paying my standard fare, but I’m good with that,” Dr. Miller chuckled. “This is the first time I’ve gotten to work with a child actress. It will be a learning experience.”

“Maybe when all this blows over you can help me too,” Krissy laughed. “I haven’t come out to my parents yet. One crisis at a time though,” she added with a wink. “Take care Doctor Miller.”

“Please, call me Theresa,” Theresa answered warmly as she walked out with Krissy. “Speaking of, though, “ she added, “Is there anyway you can make time to come see me during one of Megan’s visits? It’s always nice to have a guardian in on a session now and again.”

“Of course. My director is incredibly flexible when it comes to accommodating schedule conflicts. It drives investors crazy,” she giggled. “I can always get them to do stunt filming or CG where I’m not needed during some of her sessions.”

“At least till your mom shows up.” Doctor Miller laughed. “Thank you Krissy.”

“Oh, lord. I hadn’t thought about that,” Krissy laughed as she walked over to the girls who were both reading the same fashion magazine, although Megan had one of the pamphlets open, and jumped between the two occasionally.

“Want to go shopping again?” Krissy asked as she approached the two girls.

“A little more selective this time,” Megan laughed. “Otherwise our closet’s going to explode. But I do need to get a nice dress for the opera. Wish you had warned me ahead of time about that one.”

“Opera, huh?” Juliette asked as she stood. “Sounds a treat.”

After they left Doctor Miller’s office Megan’s phone rang. “Hey Brianna,” Megan answered.

“Brace yourself girl,” Brianna said. “I just got word that you and Juliette are being nominated for a Teen choice award for My Brother Mark.”

“OH MY GOD no way!’ Megan squealed - bordering on a shriek, and causing a couple of passers by to stop and look, but she didn’t care. She turned to Juliette. “We were nominated for a Teen Choice award!”

“NO WAY! Really?” Juliette sounded just as excited, as a teenage girl with long black hair and a hot pink t-shirt on the street recorded their excitement on her cell phone.

“I’m probably about to be yelled at for doing this,” the girl giggled, “But I think this is Juliette Small and another girl I don’t recognize. Juliette just found out she was nominated for a TCA over in the States.”

Megan giggled, as they both approached the teen, “Hi, I see you’re a fan of My Brother Mark?” Juliette asked, trying to be friendly as the girl lowered her phone..

“Oh my Gosh yes. I was really sad that it was cancelled, but I completely understand why,” the girl said. “Five years is a long time especially for a Disney show.”

Juliette grinned and turned to Megan, “Hey M. do you have any of those photos you carry around?” she was careful not to call Megan either “Megan” or “Mark”.

“Oh sure,” Megan answered as she took a small stack of pre-signed photos from her purse. They were just the right size to fit in next to her wallet.

“The one of both of us will do,” she said, giving a big hint to the girl.

“Wow, thank you so much. I promise not to like upload that video or anything. I just wanted to show my cousins and friends,” she giggled. “I’m a blogger, but I only report on what I can get permission to report, so you’re safe.”

“Actually “ Megan injected, “Go ahead and upload it, but wait a couple of weeks before you do. it will make good publicity.” she smiled at the girl, “Want some photos with us as well?”

The girl squeaked and nodded. “If that’s okay. You look really pretty by the way. I didn’t recognize you at all,” she giggled again. “Oh I’m Amber Deshane.”

“Nice to meet you Amber.” Megan said, posing with Juliette for a couple of selfies.

Krissy joined them, and took some pictures with the girl’s phone and handed her a couple bills, “Just hang onto that for a couple weeks, before you post them.” she said, winking.

Both Megan and Juliette hugged Amber as she nodded. “Yeah, like I told Juliette and um, ‘M’,” she giggled, “I wasn’t going to post them at all, but they asked me to go ahead after a couple of weeks, so.. yeah. I’ll put them up on Instagram in a couple of weeks.”

Megan giggled, “When you post them, I go by Megan like this.”

“So can I ask if you’re TG, or...?” Amber asked. “I know someone who is, so I’m just curious.”

Megan shrugged, “I’m learning what that really is, actually.” she paused, “Hey, why don’t you and your friend come by and hang out with us sometime?” Juliette grinned, at that, and gave Amber the number to reach Brianna.

“Sure! I’m going to meet her upstairs right now,” she said, nodding toward Doctor Miller’s office building.

“That’s to Megan’s personal assistant. Just tell her that you’re Megan’s new friend and want to come around and hang out sometime.” Juliette said. “We’ll warn her to expect it too.”

Amber opened her purse and grabbed a used, empty gum wrapper, jotting down a pair of numbers, after which handing it to Megan. “That’s my and my friend Carolyn’s numbers, in case you need anything or have any questions or anything. We’re still learning too, but Doctor Collins says it helps having support, so...”

She smiled brightly. “Thank you again. Oh! Can I hint at meeting you guys? Not like give anything away just say ‘Hey, I ran into someone cool. Stay tuned to this space in a couple of weeks’? Like I said, I run a small blog.”

“Sure, “ Krissy answered first. She was being Brianna at the moment. “We’re just trying to keep everything on the down low because Megan’s got a major role coming up, and she’s technically supposed to be incognito on vacation right now. Plus she might be playing Sam Snow,” she added casually.

“Oh wow! I heard Juliette might have been cast as Samantha’s sister, but I never reported on it because I couldn’t get any confirmation. I’m so happy for you both,” she bubbled, as a rather cute, tall blonde-haired girl in a black skirt and casual top exited the office, waving at Amber, and the girls’ limo pulled up at the curb.

“That’s our cue,” Megan laughed. “Nice to meet you Amber, and hopefully you two can come and hang out soon.” Megan smiled brightly as she hopped in the limo She had her first new non celebrity friends.

“Good luck with everything guys - the movie and everything else,” Amber called excitedly as she waved. Megan watched as the confused blonde approached Amber, and then slowly turned to look at the limo as they pulled away.

“Brianna’s going to die when she finds out about this,” Krissy laughed.

Juliette nodded. “That’s why I gave her Brianna’s number and not Megan’s, because for one it’s not proper etiquette for a movie star to hand out their personal phone numbers.” she giggled.

“Oh wow,” Krissy said, looking at her phone. “This Amber girl wasn’t kidding. The first ten hits on Google for Amber Disney Australia blog are links to her blogspot page.” She clicked on one of the links and started to read.

“Sad news today as My Brother Mark enters its final episode to be aired in July. My sources tell me they’re moving on to bigger and better things, and that the show was not - I repeat - not cancelled, so put away the pitch forks guys, and wish Mark and Juliette, and the rest of the cast all the best. I’ll keep you posted if I find out anything else.”

“Oh wow, she’s fast.” Megan added, looking at the same page on her phone. “She just posted a blog entry. Good news folks, I ran into some cool people today, and will have more news on the subject in a couple of weeks. Stay tuned to this spot. I promise it’ll be worth the wait! In other news, My Brother Mark has been nominated for Teen Choice 2014! Congrats guys!”

Juliette giggled as Megan’s phone rang, “She is fast.”

“Hi Brianna,” Megan giggled.

“Hi,” Brianna answered, sounding like she was trying to keep a straight face. “Who the hell is Amber?”

“Oh, she’s my new friend, and she’s a massive star blogger.” Megan giggled softly.

Brianna started laughing. “Oh, good, as long as you know she’s technically press. Your Mom’s going to shit herself, you know that right?”

“Not like we do anything that’s negative news anyway.” Megan spoke up.

“Hey, I resemble that remark,” Krissy giggled.

“She said it, not me,” Brianna laughed. “Anyway, I touched base with Amber and Carolyn, and they gave me their parents’ numbers to give them a call if need be. I don’t personally see a reason to though, if you guys don’t. As far as I’m concerned you’re just a couple of teenagers who met on the street and share common interests, right?”

“Yeah, just because we’re celebrities doesn’t make us different from them.” Megan answered.

Krissy piped up, “Besides, Megan could use some non-celeb friends.”

“And they’re close to your age. Honestly I’m half tempted to contact Disney 365 AU and get them to look at her blog though. This girl’s a great writer.”

Juliette piped up, “I wouldn’t wish Disney on her. I mean I really enjoy working with Disney but some of the staff there can be too pushy. Look at what happened to Lindsay Lohan and Miley Cyrus.”

“And Britney Spears, and Krissy O’Malley,” Krissy sighed. “If you ask me you guys got out at a good time.”

“We’re still obligated to Disney for awhile,” Megan nodded.

“That’s the other half,” Brianna laughed. “I’d hate for her to have to shut down her blog and never be able to write again. She seems genuine though so just say the word and I’ll set something up.”

Megan spoke up. “Hey Brianna, I want to actually use Amber’s blogging as publicity. Think you can work something up for her?”

“Sure. What’d you have in mind?”

“Well ,in two weeks she’s going to tell the world about my role as Samantha Snow, and according to the pamphlets Doctor Miller has given me, I’m the same as Samantha. Some of the same feelings I have are what’s listed, and... Anyway, I was thinking... Maybe there’s some way to use Amber’s blog to like come out to my fans?”

“You’ll have your second 365 interview in a couple of weeks too,” Krissy added. “Theresa wants her to go to the first interview as Mark, the second as Megan, so that’s great timing.”

“I’ll set something up,” Brianna said, adding, “Maybe have Amber do a vlog or something? Your mom is really going to flip shit.”

“Believe me, if the worst Megan does is come out as transgendered, she’ll be lightyears ahead of me when it comes to shit flipping,” Krissy laughed. “If she does say anything I’ll just remind her the time you, Tina and I broke into Jack Nichols’ trailer and stole his underwear to sell on eBay,” she giggled.

“Oh God!” Tina spoke up at that. Apparently Brianna had them on speaker as well. “We would have gotten away with that if his bodyguard hadn't snagged you!”

Brianna laughed hard at that, and Megan and Juliette burst into tears laughing. After Brianna managed to calm down to a giggle again, she added, “I’m going to put Amber on conference really fast so I can tell her the plan, if that’s okay with you guys?”

“Sure,” Krissy answered.

Megan giggled. “I know how I feel, but I’ve never been able to put it into words until now. I want to make sure Doctor Miller agrees before I get too far ahead, though.”

“Ok girls, Amber’s phone is ringing.” Brianna interrupted.

“Hello?” Amber answered.

“Hey Amber,” Juliette and Megan answered in unison.

“OMG you called!”

Brianna laughed. “I patched everyone in on a conference call so we could talk to you about your blog.”

“Oh,” Amber answered nervously. “Well if you changed your mind that’s cool, really,” she said.

Brianna interrupted again, “Actually, we want to use you for an exclusive if you’re interested?”

“Wow, really?!” Amber squealed. Someone in the background could be heard asking ‘What?’ “Hang on, I’m putting you on speaker,” she giggled. “Don’t worry though, we’re in Carolyn’s mom’s car so it’s just the three of us.” She could be heard more softly saying ‘They want me to do an exclusive for my blog!’

“Ok so this is the deal.” Brianna spoke up being serious in her role as personal assistant, “The blog you post about meeting the two, we don’t want you to mention Megan having GID. You can blurb about it being for a movie, because well that’s partially true.”

“That’s no problem. It’s not something I’d feel comfortable telling anyone without her right there to talk about it anyway.”

“The second we want you to do a Vlog interview with Megan after Doctor Miller gives the ok, about her coming out as a girl.” Brianna added.

“I have a Disney 365 AU interview around the same time,” Megan added, “Where I’m going to appear on camera as Megan for the first time. The thing is, I want to come out officially during your vlog. During the interview I’ll say something like ‘Visit somethingspecialamber.blogspot.com on such and such day and time for a more indepth interview.’ or something. Or we can livestream it, even.”

“Wow, that would be amazing,” Carolyn chimed in. “Between this and the movie drawing attention to Samantha’s story, you don’t know how much this means to someone like me.”

“Carolyn’s had a hard time,” Amber added. “We’re super excited to be helping.”

“I don’t want to lie to you Carolyn, “ Megan answered, “But I wanted Amber and you to come visit for two reasons, one, I think you two will make awesome friends, and the other, I wanted to get some personal information about what we are going through, because um, I’m new.”

“Hey,” Juliette said, “Would you two be interested in going shopping with us this afternoon?”

Carolyn laughed at that. “We’re on our way to the mall actually, and I want to look at some new camera gear too...”

“Carolyn is my videographer,” Amber giggled. “But we’d love to, if you really want to hang out with a couple of giggly goof balls.”

“It’s ok. Juliette will fit right in.” Megan joked and giggled.

“HEY!” Juliette laughed, causing Amber and Carolyn to crack up laughing. “One thing before you hang up though,” Juliette asked. “How the heck did you recognize me? Megan I can understand, but there weren’t any photos of me with my new hair.”

“Oh, I didn’t at first, until I heard Megan screaming about the Teen Choice awards.”

Brianna laughed.

“Sneaky.” Megan giggled.

“Yup,” Carolyn laughed. “I would’ve just pulled out my big camera.”

“Well yes, but not everyone carries a big DSLR around with them either,” Amber shot back and giggled with Carolyn. “We’ll see you lot at the mall,” she said, and then both added in unison, “Thanks again!”

“Oh, and before I go,” Brianna said after Amber disconnected, “Juliette your mother called me. I am now officially double-dipping as both Megan’s and your personal assistant.”

“SWEET!” Juliette said excitedly. “Thanks Brianna! I promise not to run you ragged like Megan does,” she teased. Brianna laughed hard as she hung up.

“Hey I don’t run Brianna ragged, I hardly used her before now.” Megan protested.

“I know,” Juliette giggled. “Why do you think Brianna was laughing so hard?” she added as she leaned over to hug Megan.

Megan giggled softly. “Sorry,” she said as they hugged.

Juliette giggled. “Nothing to apologize for,” she answered as she cupped Megan’s face in her hands and gave her a soft kiss square on the lips. “Did you learn anything else from those pamphlets?” she asked, as if they hadn’t just shared their first kiss.

Megan took a moment to recover, before answering, “Oh, um, yeah, there’s other mental illnesses that act like GID, which’s why Doctor Miller needs to be absolutely sure.”

Juliette nodded. “I don’t think that’s the case for you though. Even Alyssia thought it was cool that you finally started hanging out with us at lunch after that day - but she never put two and two together like I did,” she added with a wink.

“One of the common connectors between the mental illnesses and GID is chronic depression, which Doctor Moss diagnosed me with. But when I’m like this I don’t feel it. Actually I’ve been happier these last few days than I’ve felt in a long time.”

“Good,” Krissy spoke up, grinning, “Because you’re under Doctor’s orders to dress like that except Wednesday,” she giggled, poking her sister in the ribs lightly. “I’ll get your ADs filled while you’re at the mall. We told Mom about Theresa because you living as a girl for a little while might be ‘distressing’ as you’re living in the ‘wrong’ gender. The truth is Juliette suspected something for awhile now, and clued me in to it as well.”

“Go have fun,” Krissy said as the limo pulled up to the mall to let the girls out. “Just remember to pick out a nice dress for the opera tonight - you too Juliette.”

“Is everything okay?” Juliette asked as the limo pulled away. “You seem a little... on edge.”

“Just stunned,” Megan giggled. “I wasn’t expecting you to kiss me just out of the blue like that. I um... I really liked it. Is that wrong?”

Juliette laughed. “Is that all?” She shook her head and pulled Megan into a hug. “If it helps, I really liked i toot. I’m sorry if it made you feel uncomfortable.”

“Oh God no,” Megan said, shaking her head. “I’d um... I’d like to do it again some time.” She tried to fight the blush swelling in her cheeks.

Juliette giggled, and in full view of anyone watching, kissed Megan again. “Like that?”

“God,” Megan giggled. “Stop that,” she teased. “Paparazzi might be watching.”

“Nah, just a blogger,” Amber spoke up, giggling as the two jumped.

“I guess my hopes of scoring a date with Megan are dashed,” Carolyn said in an overly dramatic fashion and then giggled.

“Oh, I am so not ready for dating yet,” Megan laughed. “I still have all this to sort through first.”

Carolyn giggled again. “I’m teasing. Me too. I’m still reconciling my feelings about boys, yet, but Doctor Collins says there’s plenty of time to deal with that later.”

“So, where to first?” Amber asked.

“We need something nice for the opera,” Juliette answered. “Something that we can wear again to a movie premiere in a few weeks,” she added with a wink.

Carolyn and Amber grinned. “We know the perfect place,” Amber said, leading their new friends inside.

12 year old Mark O’Malley had been practically typecast as the dopey sidekick because of his role in the runaway hit Disney production, “My Brother Mark”. But while on the set of his older sister Krissy’s much darker sci-fi movie production, a misheard comment leads to a whole new branch in his career, and in his life.

“So how long have you been into Megan?” Amber asked Juliette when Megan was off to the bathroom with Carolyn.

“It kind of happened really slowly,” Juliette giggled, blushing. “One day we were doing a scene, and as I watched the character Mark trying to put the moves on the babysitter played by his real life sister, I was like ‘Oh my God, I think I’m jealous.’. I never told him... Her.”

“I think it’s sweet,” Amber giggled. “My parents would freak out if I even looked at a boy. They think I shouldn’t date until I’m older, which I guess I’m okay with for now.”

Juliette giggled quietly, “I came out to my parents about liking girls last month because of Megan, but don’t tell her that yet.”

“My lips are sealed,” Amber giggled. “I like boys, but once in awhile I meet a girl who can make my knees weak too. Carolyn says it’s okay to be confused, normal even.”

Juliette nodded, “I thought I liked boys too, but then Megan came along and changed my whole way of thinking of things, including defined gender roles.” she really sounded mature just then.

“Oi, yeah, I know what you mean. Carolyn’s taught me so much in the short time she’s been out. One minute she’s the biggest geek on the planet, the next she’s fielding goals better than half the boys in school on the girls’ football team.”

Megan and Carolyn both returned after a short while, “Well that was interesting.” Megan giggled. “That was the first time I’ve ever used a public restroom, ever, and on top of it, the girls’.”

Carolyn laughed. “The nice thing about the girls’ room is there’s no piss stains all over one wall.”

“And it smells nice in there.” Megan giggled. “I almost walked into the boys bathroom, but some little boy was like, you're a girl, girls go over there.”

Juliette giggled, “It’ll take time to get used to, and public restrooms aren’t half bad, I try to avoid them if I can though.”

“Here it comes,” Carolyn giggled as Amber opened her purse and pulled out a pocket sized travel can of Lysol spray.

“I keep it next to my can of pepper spray though,” Amber laughed. “I’m afraid someday I might have a lemon fresh mugger.”

“Or a red hot ass,” Carolyn laughed.

They all giggled at that, “So where to next?” Megan asked. “We have our formal dresses and shoes, which was all we needed.”

“I still can’t believe we got those things so cheap,” Juliette added. “Plus now we have something to wear to the TCA.”

“I still can’t believe we’re hanging out with the stars of ‘My Brother Mark’,” Carolyn chimed in and giggled again.

“I really hope that show isn’t the highlight of my career.” Megan said, and laughed a little, “I mean I will always cherish my time on set, but it just wasn't me.”

“Well, you already have two movie roles - one starring,” Juliette giggled. “That’s a good start.”

“Well you're billed as a Co-star, a main one at that, in one.” Megan protested.

“Yeah, that’s true. Emily’s role in Samantha’s life as her support is just so important. I’m honored to be playing her.”

“I wonder if the two sisters are still so close today.” Megan said thoughtfully. “I guess I’ll find out when I go to meet Samantha.”

“I honestly couldn’t do it,” Carolyn said, shaking her head. “Acting I mean, especially now. But I’m really glad there are people like you who can and will show everyone that we’re real people too.”

“Doesn’t hurt though, you and Megan both pass so well.” Juliette added.

“Megan, maybe,” Carolyn giggled. “I’m so bloody tall and athletic though.”

“No way. I had a hard time believing Amber that you were really like me.” Megan said, shaking her head.

“See?” Amber giggled. “A lot of fashion models are tall, and nobody’s going to confuse them either!”

Carolyn blushed deeply as she put an arm around Amber’s shoulders. “Thanks guys. That means a lot to me. Okay, so, I haven’t eaten since brekkie so lunch is on me.”

“Late Lunch huh?” Megan giggled, “Sometimes on set we don’t get lunch till four or five and dinner till 10.”

“See, I couldn’t do that,” Carolyn laughed. “Sometimes my Mom will come dragging in around 11 and just grab a bowl of cereal on the way to the sofa to catch a late movie, pass out for a few hours, and then be up and cheerful as the bloody morning sun the next day.”

“Coffee.” Both Megan and Juliette spoke in unison.

“That’d do it alright,” Carolyn said, laughing as they entered the food court. “Amber’s not allowed coffee anymore,” she teased. Amber giggled.

“You go off on a crazy band nerd rant one bloody time after drinking two large cappuccinos to stay awake on the bus...”

Megan giggled, “Coffee helped me through takes.”

“Me too!” Juliette added.

No matter where you were in the world, it seemed, a food court was still a food court, the watering hole for social teen interactions especially during school holidays. Megan and Juliette didn’t have to worry about that. Since their schedules were always so busy, they were homeschooled on set, but it was still odd being in a crowded area with no one hounding them for autographs.

The only attention they did receive, ironically enough, was one young teenage girl who recognized Amber from her blog, and came over to say hi, and a girl who looked like she could pass for an extra in a vampire movie.

She had on a flowing black dress with a bright red bodice that came just to her bra-line, and then continued into sheer material a little further below that, and long bell sleeves, with her thick black hair hanging in tight curls. She crept up behind Carolyn and pounced, hugging her.

“Jesus balls!” Carolyn squealed. “God damit Rebecca, don’t sneak up on me like that,” she sighed, catching her breath.

Rebecca giggled and kissed Carolyn squarely on the cheek, and then hugged Amber. “I’m sorry,” she said, still giggling at the big, black lip marks left on Carolyn’s cheek. “It’s just so much fun. Oh, shit, sorry, I didn’t see your new friends,” she said, clearing her throat as she stood again.

Megan shook her head, “It’s ok, I’m Megan and this is Juliette.”

“Nice to meet you both,” she said in a surprisingly friendly tone for someone who looked like she could suck their blood dry in three seconds flat, as she shook each of their hands, showing off celtic knotwork rings on her right hand, and her left-hand thumb. “I’m Rebecca O’Hara.”

“Pull up a chair Scarlet,” Amber teased, shooting Rebecca a grin. She groaned.

“Fuck you too,” she shot back playfully, sitting down at the table with them. “Really though I hope I didn’t interrupt anything. It’s rare to observe the Carolynus Sexyus Bitchus in her natural environment at the watering hole,” she said in her best bad Australian Who Sticks His Hand In Snake Holes accent.

“By crikey.” Megan said in a horrible Steve Erwin accent. “We got ourselves a rare one here.”

“Oi, ya met any dingos yet? They’re tricky blighters they are, they’ll nick yer knobs if ya ain’t kehful,” Rebecca giggled.

“No but there were some kangaroos at the Sydney airport.” Megan laughed.

“Oi,” Carolyn groaned, laughing. “Rebecca loves messing with tourists.”

“Yeh, these two talk like Americans, but they’re alright by me,” Rebecca giggled again.

“I’m actually Australian born, lived in the states most of my life.” Megan admitted.

“So,” Rebecca said, grinning at Amber. “What’s this big news about? You know the post on your blog that everyone else has to wait two weeks for, but that you’ll totally tell me now because you love me that much?” she teased.

Amber gave Megan a kind of hesitant glance. Megan shook her head and giggled. “It’s a surprise Rebecca. You know I can’t tell you.” Amber stated with a giggle.

“Awww shucks. Fine, I’ll just tickle it out of Carolyn later...” she said, shooting a glance Carolyn’s way. Carolyn sat up slightly, shaking her head.

“Nope. Trust me, it’s worth waiting for though.”

“Fiiiine, but if I find out you’re dating this hottie over here,” she said, nodding toward Megan, “and you made me wait to find out, there will be blood.” She grinned, adding, “No offense,” as she glanced back at Megan.

Juliette giggled, “She shouldn’t take offense, but the hottie as you say is taken by me.” she teased.

The Disney interview had been moved back to Friday, giving Megan a few days’ reprieve, and in that time she and Juliette had gotten to know Amber, Carolyn, and Rebecca a lot better. Rebecca was full of energy for a goth girl, always cheerful, and as Megan learned, loved drama and wardrobe. If she had figured the pair out though, she never once let on even for a second. Megan figured she enjoyed the theater of playing along too much to spoil her friends’ joke.

The trip to the opera went so well that Megan made Krissy and Tina promise that they could go back again soon. Juliette enjoyed it as well, but that may in part have been getting to see Megan in a formal gown. It was all a subtle, yet stark contrast to today, as Megan had spent the whole morning as Mark just as Doctor Miller asked.

They did some sightseeing together with Brianna, had an early lunch, and then met Krissy for the appointment. There wasn’t much else to tell. Mark seemed to have sunk back into his shell just a little, only being ‘on’ when more than just Juliette and Brianna were around.

It was Megan’s third trip to see Doctor Miller - fourth if you include the first interview like visit. She was dressed as Mark, waiting in the lobby with Juliette and Krissy. Even despite going out as Mark though, she hadn’t encountered near the crazed fan nightmare she was expecting. A token double-take here or there was about it. She’d have to leave straight to the studio afterwards.

“You doing okay?” Juliette asked. Megan nodded.

“Yeah. It’s just for the first time this week, I really do feel like I’m acting,” she sighed quietly. “It’s not like I just flipped a switch and suddenly I’m horribly depressed or anything, if that’s what you mean,” she added, giving her a wry smile. She giggled.

“Tell her that too,” Juliette said as she squeezed her hand.

“Mark O’Malley?” the same woman from before said as she poked her head around the door. Thankfully it was just the three of them in the waiting room.

Where before Megan had always been so cheerful and animated about getting up, receiving the same ‘Go get em, Tiger’ from Juliette each time, today she simply stood, and walked to the door.

“Theresa’s waiting for you. Sorry it took so long,” she said as they walked down the short hall together, and Megan gave her a smile.

“No, it’s fine,” she said, shaking his head. Megan’s normally nice, tamed mane was back to its original scruffy fluff today, bouncing a little as she moved.

“Hi Mark,” Theresa said in her usual cheerful tone as she stepped through the door. She stood to shake her hand, which he did, tentatively, and then sat down in the chair across from her.

“I want you to know up front, that I’m video taping this session for my own reference. This won’t be shown to anyone, publicly or privately, save for a single other person working here in the office, should I want to get her second opinion at a later date.”

“That’s fine,” Megan said, chuckling a little. “I’m used to cameras.”

“First I want to ask you a quick question. Does that make you feel fake?” Doctor Miller had noticed a massive difference already.

“Being used to cameras?” she asked, confused.

“No, being Mark.” Doctor Miller laughed.

“Oh,” Megan laughed a little. “Honestly? It kind of does. I mean... I was just telling Juliette in the waiting room. She asked me if I was okay, and I told her I was. And I am, in the sense that I’m not all raging super depressed or anything. But...” She sighed. “God this sounded so much less corny when I was saying it to her. Today is the first time this week that I’ve felt like I was acting.”

Doctor Miller nodded and changed the subject, “Interview today, that’s why our meeting was postponed right?”

“Yes ma’am,” Megan answered. “It was supposed to be Wednesday, but the guy who’s supposed to do the interview came down with something, so they had to scramble to get a replacement.”

“Who do you think will be interviewing you? Aren’t they all Disney stars?” she asked, really forcing Megan to think.

“It’d be great if it was someone I knew,” Megan answered, shaking hier head, “But I’m not really familiar with anyone from Disney AU.”

“Ah. Well you know your show is very popular here.” Doctor Miller said. “I had a talk with Doctor Collins about it.”

Megan brightened a little at that. “I met one of her patients. I can’t remember if I mentioned that before. It’s honestly amazing having real, non-famous friends who just like you for you. I mean I know Juliette does, but with Carolyn and Amber it’s different. They’re... I’unno. Real too. Not just crazed fans.” She laughed a little. “Rebecca’s awesome too. She’s quirky, weird, funny. I love it.”

“Ah, so that was my other question, has Megan made any friends.. but you just answered it.” Doctor Miller laughed, “Did you bring your diary you’ve been keeping as Megan?”

“Yes ma’am,” he said, and then looked around briefly. “Oh... I must’ve left it in the lobby. I’ll go grab it if you want?”

“No, I’ll go grab it really fast. I have some reading I want you to do.” Doctor Miller smiled professionally and set down a couple small booklets.

“Sure thing,” Megan answered. It was the same thing Megan said quite a lot, but with Mark it almost sounded forced. She picked up the first of the booklets as she turned to step out, and started to glance through it. They were different from the pamphlets she had sent with him the first day. Everything was much more clinical, like Sex Ed without the section on intercourse.

Theresa stepped out of the room, walking down the short hall to the waiting area. Krissy stood, holding the brightly colored - mostly purples and pinks - flower print diary that Megan had forgotten to grab. She and Juliette had worked hard to make the fabric book cover look as professional as possible. “I thought Mark might come back for this,” she said with a chuckle. It was odd to her, because when she carried it before, the thing had never left Megan’s sight.

“I’ve got Mark - or rather Megan, reading about SRS and all the options that are available to her. It’s just so she knows what is in store if she chooses to continue this path.”

“I feel like the path chose him,” Krissy sighed. “How did the mental health evaluations go? Anything unusual besides chronic depression?”

“Not even that, actually,” Theresa said with a quiet laugh. “I bet it would show up today though. Especially if I made her take that first test over again.”

Krissy gave her a wry smile. “The difference is pretty jarring. I would’ve called it subtle a week ago. But just now, it was like watching a condemned man walk to the gallows, like... like he had lost his spark. But I’m no doctor, so...”

Theresa shook her head. “No, you’re exactly right. That’s what I saw as well. I have Doctor Collins going in there to talk to her in a short moment. She watched the tape of her during that episode you sent me. I have to warn you, Doctor Collins is going to be harsh to her, and she may end up walking out of the room..”

“Uh oh,” Juliette mumbled.

“She just wants to know how committed she is.” Theresa answered reassuringly.

Juliette nodded. “No, I understand. It’s just I’ve read about this sort of thing. She might just clam up and stonewall her.”

“That’s the other reaction we look for. The passive aggressive. The ones who walk out on us tend to be not that great of a candidate for SRS, and regret having it. If she passes, there’s just one last step - a simple CAT scan. After that we’ll start her proper transition.”

“This is because of Samantha isn’t it?” Krissy asked thoughtfully. “I’ve been doing some research myself when I can. Sam was the reason the medical handling of transgender people is so drastically different here than back in the States?”

“Exactly. We have to take things seriously. Not that there aren’t good doctors in the US mind you, but it’s national law because of Samantha and Emily’s lobbying efforts, to treat each patient, screen out the possibility of a mental illness, and then work with them to help them transition.”

“In other words, no conversion therapy allowed,” Juliette said, and then shivered a little.

“Exactly,” Doctor Miller replied. “You can go to jail for forcing someone to endure that rubbish.”

An older woman stepped into the conference room that Megan was in, “Hello young man.”

Megan jumped slightly, looking up from the booklet. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t hear you come in,” Mark said sheepishly.

The woman sat down. “So what if I told you, that from what I’ve seen you don’t qualify for anything in those books?” she just bluntly told him.

Megan shrugged as he set the booklets aside. “Then I’d say I’ll wait and get a second opinion when I’m a little older because I’m still trying to figure all this out myself, but with all due respect ma’am, I won’t go back to living as Mark all the time, even if those books aren’t right for me either.”

The woman blinked twice, stood up and walked out of the room.

Megan sighed. “Guess that was the wrong answer,” she said to herself, having forgotten completely that this was still being video taped, as she went back to reading.

Doctor Collins walked into the lobby. She looked, for lack of a better description, at a loss for words. “That was definitely not what I expected.”

“Oh?” Theresa asked as she looked up from reading over Megan’s last journal entry.

“I went in there, asked him what he would do if I told him he didn’t qualify for any of those in that book, and he just said.. She said.. excuse me,” she corrected herself, and sounded rather apologetic for making the mistake in the first place, “That she would wait till she was older and get a second opinion, because she was still figuring it all out herself, but she wouldn’t go back to living as Mark full-time.”

“Is... that bad?” Juliette spoke up.

“In my professional opinion, Megan is acting as a boy not the other way around.” Doctor Collins stated, “Always has been, whether she knew it or not.”

Theresa nodded. “She said as much, and even wrote it here in her diary.” She turned the book around to show Beth the relevant entry. Beth adjusted her glasses, and read it quietly.

‘Feels like I’m preparing for a role tomorrow. I have to psych myself up the night before, just like doing My Brother Mark. Just one day, then back to being myself.’

“I don’t think she needs to figure anything out. She’s already got it, In my professional experience” Beth laughed, “My recommendations are anything that Theresa suggests I will support short of insisting she stop her real life test.”

Theresa smiled. “Can you get Megan in to get a Cat scan later today? Oh, and we’ll tell her she can go back to being Megan whenever she’s ready. No need to make her go the whole day.”

“Sure, that’s no problem,” Krissy answered. “I have the afternoon off while they work on some set redesigns anyway. I don’t know how I’m going to tell Mom though.”

“Tell Mom what?” Janet asked as she stepped through the door with a grin. She wasn’t wearing her usual business suit - skirt or slacks - today, either. For all intents, she looked like just another tourist in gladiator sandals, jeans, and a t-shirt.

“Oh... Mom, you’re um... a month early...” Krissy said hesitantly.

“Funny thing,” Janet answered as she approached. “I received a call on Wednesday from Theresa that my daughter would be coming in for her fourth visit as Mark, and that if possible, she would really appreciate it if I could be here to support her because the final test can be a little nerve wracking.” She grinned. “Busted.”

Krissy blushed and shook her head. “I wasn’t trying to keep anything from you. It all just kind of happened so fast. I wasn’t expecting Theresa to diagnose her as GID so quickly.”

Janet laughed softly as she pulled her eldest daughter into a hug. “It’s okay. I’m not upset. Theresa’s filled me in on everything from the getgo. I just decided that, since things are progressing so quickly, I should come down and give you a breather as Megan’s guardian, and break some news to you and Megan.” Janet grinned.

“Speaking of,” Theresa chuckled. “I’d better go let her know this was all a test.”

“She’s still reading the booklets..” Beth laughed, “Those things are good information.”

“Well,” Janet said, “Her father has already given his blessing, and I agree with him. If this is what she needs and wants, then she has our full support.”

“Wait,” Krissy spoke up, ”Even Daddy is completely behind this? I thought he... you know, because of aunt Rhonda?”

Janet laughed again. “Oh good lord no. They’re not on speaking terms because her wife’s brother borrowed a bunch of money and never paid it back, and Rhonda blamed your father. It had nothing to do with her being lesbian, dear.”

“Right. I’m going to just go find a quiet place to faint now,” Krissy answered wearily as she sat down next to Juliette, who leaned over, fanning her face dramatically.

Theresa smiled, turning to Janet. “I’ll let Beth take care of the preliminary filing, but if you want to speak to Megan in private before we finish our session, I can wait outside.”

“Oh Megan’s been doing fine without me since she got here. I know shes only 12, but she’s 12 going on 21.. like Juliette here.”

Juliette giggled. “At least we’re not breaking into Jack Nichols’ trailer to ebay his underwear.”

Janet laughed, “It’s a good thing he’s retired then isn't it?”

“Serious question though,” Juliette said, looking at Krissy. “Boxers or briefs?”

Krissy groaned, covering Juliette’s mouth with her hand as Theresa stood up and walked into the backroom to talk with Megan.

“I have something to talk to you about young lady.”

Megan glanced up, apparently having just finished the last of the booklets. “I think I made an impression on that other doctor - not sure if it was good or bad, but...” she trailed off and shrugged.

Theresa laughed, “Well, lets just say, after your interview, there’s no need to be Mark again unless you want to be.”

Megan stared blankly for a moment back at Theresa. “... You mean after the 365 thing I can go back to being My-egan?” she barely caught herself.

“Yup, Megan isn’t going anywhere, and earlier today I was on the phone with your mother, who is here to sign some papers she requested. She’ll tell you about them in a few moments.”

“... Aw crap. On a scale of 1 to grounded for life?” she asked, without finishing that thought, but she was already looking more cheerful and naturally energetic.

Doctor Miller laughed and changed the subject, “So after reading those booklets and seeing the images as well, are you still interested in moving forward?”

“I think so,” Megan sighed. “I mean... I’ve never had a surgery in my life. Never had my tonsils out or anything, so it’s kind of scary to even think about. I don’t know that it’s something I’m ready for yet, but the ones about HRT... That I could grow into puberty like a real girl? That’s really exciting, being honest.”

“Surgery is a big step, and you wont have to worry about it for awhile Your sister and mother will be taking you to get a CAT scan after your 365 interview, then we’ll wait for some blood tests to come back and start you on your personalized HRT. Have you taken any anti-depressants?”

Megan shook her head. “No ma’am. But...” she sighed. “I brought one with me, just in case I needed it. But I didn’t take it.”

“Good. My records indicate that it was a low dose anyway so there should be no harm in dropping them entirely. In fact, if you want to bring me the bottle, I can have them disposed of properly for you. I do want to start you on an antiandrogen agent as soon as possible, but that can wait until your HRT, which unlike surgery, will only take a couple of days at most to get you started.”

“How is that going to work anyway?” Megan asked. “I can only think of a couple of ways to get hormones into my body, none of them really fun.”

Doctor Miller laughed, “In Australia we use an Implant, like they do for birth control. It’s a simple estrogenic crystal no bigger than a popcorn hull, implanted under the skin.”

“Does it hurt?” Megan asked. “I mean, will I know it’s there?”

“With a local anaesthetic you won’t even know it went in. After that you won’t know it’s even there.”

“Sounds great,” Megan answered as she began to press down her hair a little bit, almost on a subconscious level.

“So if you think you are moving too fast just say something, and we’ll slow down, but we really think you should have been on this path years ago.”

Megan stood up at that, walked right up to Theresa, and hugged her tightly. “Thank you so much. I don’t really care anymore who knows if I’m trans, or what kind of backlash I’m going to get in a couple of weeks. I finally understand what’s been missing in my life.”

Theresa smiled at Megan, hugging her back. “Your mother wants a word with you about some things.” she said, and walked out to call Janet into the room.

Megan gulped a little as she sat back down and picked up the diary that Theresa had left. It was very little shield against whatever wrath awaited her for having done all this behind her back under the guise of preparing for a role and going incognito, but by the time she realized she didn’t want to go back to being Mark again, she was already in too deep, in her own mind anyway.

The few seconds it took for Janet to enter felt like agonizing hours, but she did step through the door, after a fashion and stepped inside.. “Hi Princess,” she said with a grin.

“Hi Mum,” Megan slipped, as she stood to hug Janet tightly. She had been hanging around Aussie girls all week, and their accent was beginning to wear off on her already. It was funny though. For weeks all she could think about was getting away from her parents, and now, she was really excited to see her mom again.

“Have a seat Princess.” Janet said as she set down, herself.

“... Sorry for not saying something sooner,” Megan sighed as she sat down again.

“Not mad at you sweetie.” Janet said, shaking her head, and set a bunch of papers down in front of Megan. She knew her daughter did her best thinking when reading, not being told. “Go ahead and read those sweetie.”

Megan picked up the stack of papers and started to read. In the stack of papers, it stated that Janet and Rob O’Malley give Megan Stuart limited guardianship over herself with the supervision of Brianna Kent, and full control over her own medical situation. It also basically stated that Janet O’Malley would be handing Manager role of Megan Stuart over to Brianna Kent as well.

“I don’t... understand. You’re letting me go as my manager and my mother?” Megan asked, confused.

Janet laughed, “Your dad thinks I'm smothering you, and from the reports that Tina have been giving me behind Krissy’s back, I’ve got to agree with him.”

“But you’re my Mom. That’s kind of your job,” Megan laughed.

“It is. That’s why I haven't granted you full guardianship over yourself. I’m still your mother and can veto any decision you make.”

“So, no head to toe aboriginal tattoos?” Megan teased.

“Nope.” Janet laughed, “Besides, you wouldn’t be able to land a movie job with those.”

“Well, maybe as captured indian white woman number four,” Megan laughed outright now. “I just don’t want you and Dad to think I want to shut you out or anything. Like Krissy I’m only using the name Stuart to throw people off. Everyone knows the name Mark O’Malley, but Megan Stuart is ... Well, like Hannah Montana and Miley Stuart,” she giggled out.

Janet laughed, “Won't be for long. You’re going to be Megan O’Malley after tomorrow, with the DBA alias Megan Stuart.”

“Sweet! Really? I can finally use my debit cards again,” she giggled. “Oh speaking of which I owe Krissy like $150.”

Janet laughed, “For what?”

“Well, food, that really cute pair of shoes, and the evening gown I wore to the opera the other night. She insisted I shouldn’t worry about it, but I promised I’d pay her back since I spent most of the $500 on a new wardrobe,” she added sheepishly.

“Just so long as she remembered to take pictures of you in said evening gown. I am going to be very disappointed if I missed out on my little girl’s first time in formalwear,” she teased.

“She even got me to wear heels,” Megan laughed. “I felt really mature. I mean more than usual.”

“That’s one of the biggest reasons we are doing this. Your dad and I both feel that you are mature enough to do things semi on your own. You are way more mature than anyone at your age should be, but then I think that’s my fault.” Janet sighed.

“I think that just comes with the territory,” Megan said as she shook her head. “You raised me not to be an entitled brat. That’s what’s important.”

Janet leaned in and hugged Megan tight, “I think we’re making the right choice. Make me proud Princess, and I’ll see you at the doctors office later.”

“You’re going sightseeing aren’t you?” Megan teased her, grinning.

“Yes Yes I am.” Janet laughed. “I haven’t been back here in years. But I promise I’ll be there for your second appointment. Good luck with the interview, if you still plan on doing it.”

“I’m obligated. They went to all the trouble of moving schedules around to accommodate me, so I don’t want to disappoint them,” Megan grinned. “But even if I am going as ‘Mark’, it’s still going to be Megan they get. I am more than the sum of my parts, and a training bra doesn’t make me Megan,” she giggled softly.

Janet laughed, “I saw you smuggled one. You plan on wearing that under Mark’s clothes for the interview?”

“I thought about it. I’m not sure if someone would notice.”

“Who cares if they do sweetie, you said so yourself.” Janet laughed, “Anyway if you feel comfortable with a piece of Megan then you should do what you want.”

“On three!” the camera man called out as Mark sat next to a cute slightly older, very pale girl with long reddish brown hair “One.. two.. “ and he held up 3 fingers.

“Hey all you lovely people, this is Jessica McGuinness with Disney AU, and I’m here with the one and only Mark O’Malley!” She turned and grinned at Megan. “So how are you liking Sydney so far?”

Mark smiled at Jessica. “I was actually born here and raised till I was 5, when my parents moved to California. Everything still looks huge though,” he laughed, causing Jessica to giggle too. “Sydney Harbor is as gorgeous as i remember, and Westfield was a parking nightmare, but we’ve had a blast sightseeing.”

“Someday I want to visit California, especially San Francisco. Have you been approached about any new projects now that ‘My Brother Mark’ has finished filming for the final season?” she asked, as Juliette stepped around waiting for her cue. It was a last minute change, once word got out that she was in Sydney as well, but Megan was thrilled that they wanted her on too.

“Actually I’ve got a role on the sci fi movie “Dark Days”. I can’t really discuss it much but I will be playing in flashback scenes. And there’s another project in the works with my co-star from My Brother Mark, Juliette Small.”

“Speaking of Juliette, a little birdie told me she might be hanging around...” she trailed off, and Mark grinned.

“You might be right. Let’s see if we can get her out here too,” he said, and then stood. “Juliette, Juliette, O where for art thou, Juliette?” he called, and Jessica nearly lost it right there, trying as hard as she could not to start laughing as Juliette appeared on set.

“O, Markeo,” she giggled and hugged him before joining him on the fake living room set.

“I swear, you guys crack me up on and off set,” Jessica said, letting herself giggle a little.

Mark grinned. “Sorry, but none of this was scripted. It kind of felt just like being back on the set of My Brother Mark.” He laughed. Or rather, Megan giggled.

“Exactly,” Juliette giggled. “We’re always goofing on each other. We’ve been approached about a serious drama - which by the way is all either of us can say right now - but I can tell you between takes all bets are going to be off.”

“Well I’m really excited to see what you two have cooked up for us fans, and I know I speak for everyone when I say we wish you both well. That’s it for now from Disney 365. I’m Jessica,” she said.

“I’m Mark,” Megan chimed in.

“And I’m Juliette,” Juliette giggled, as they all three waved at the camera.

“And cut.” The director called.

“Oh my God,” Jessica practically doubled over laughing. “That was better than perfect,” she said as she handed off the microphone to a technician. “You’re really in Dark Days though? That’s like the biggest anticipated movie this year around here” she bubbled excitedly.

“Yeah, it’s just a couple of small parts. Like I said, I can’t really talk about it due to contract obligations. They want to keep it a surprise for now, but I can definitely say more next interview. Ive got a lot of surprises for everyone next interview.” Megan grinned innocently..

“I bet,” Jessica giggled as the three of them stood. “I hope I’m asked to do that one too. You and Juliette are both just so full of energy. Normally these 365 things are - no offense - kind of dull. Big name actor shows up, some back and forth questions, and they leave the second the director yells cut like we’re all nobodies because we’re not America. Josh really missed out.”

“To use one of my new local friend Rebecca’s phrases, they’re tosspots,” Megan giggled.

“Sounds like Rebecca O’Hara,” Jessica laughed.

“That’s her.” Megan giggled again. “You know her?”

“We’ve been trying to convince her to audition here for months, but honestly I can’t blame her for not wanting to do it. She has so much else going on that a Disney contract would put a halt on. I’m just a no-name actress. I’ve nothing to lose,” she shrugged, but smiled.

“Oh I don't know about that.” Juliette laughed, shaking her head. “Disney stars tend to go on to become like us I guess.”

“Well I have been working on a song for Disney Radio,” she admitted sheepishly. “But it’s not very good. Nothing like what Rebecca writes. Anyway, I should get back to filming, but if you guys ever want to just, you know, hang out or anything just say the word.” She smiled brightly, giggling as she turned to leave. “Markio,” she said, and started laughing again.

Megan turned to the producer, “I want her for my next interview.” It was something Mark had never done before - demanded anything, but Megan wasn’t about to let such a fun interviewer get away.

The producer nodded. “I think that can be arranged. I really like the chemistry between you three, for what it’s worth.”

Megan grinned and nodded. “She was better at it than the last one. I like Alyssa, but it seems Jessica has more experience.”

“I won’t tell her you said that,” Juliette teased. “I agree. I mean the fact she was able to not just burst out laughing at us being total goofballs.” Megan laughed as she entered her dressing room, Juliette followed. “You have to get used to changing around girls.” Juliette said, before Megan could protest.

“Nah, I plan on having my own trailer,” Megan shot back playfully as she dropped her jeans, revealing a black pleated skirt underneath.

“Hey, you cheated!” Juliette giggled. Megan shook her head.

“Doctor’s orders were to dress like Mark for the day. She didn’t say I couldn’t dress like Megan underneath,” she said as she took off her flannel shirt, tying it around her waist to show she was wearing one of the white tops she had picked up the other day at Westfield.

Juliette laughed, “I’ll just have them weld my trailer onto yours.” she teased. “I didn’t even notice you wearing the falsies under all that.” she poked Megan in her tiny boob.

“It’s a training bra,” Megan laughed. “I had to put something in there to train. But it looks like I won’t be much longer until I start HRT,” she said as she sat down in the chair in front of the makeup counter and mirror.

“Want me to be with you when you you go into the CAT machine?” Juliette asked as she began to fix her makeup.

“If they’ll let you, yeah. I mean I know those things don’t hurt, but still the idea of being shoved into a big metal tube is ... kinda creepy,” Megan sighed, as she began to apply a very light dab of medium hued eye shadow to her eyes - enough to make her eyes pop without distracting or looking dramatic, like Juliette had taught her.

“You’ve gotten really good at that.” Juliette said as she watched..

“I had a good teacher,” Megan winked, making kissy faces at Juliette’s reflection in the mirror. “I’ve got to start keeping a street makeup bag though. Or at least a travel bottle of mousse.” She sighed, pushing her hair back to reveal the two real emerald stud earrings in her lower lobes that were hidden by Mark’s messy, shaggy mop before.

As if on cue, Brianna knocked lightly on the door and then called, “It’s me. Can I open the door?”

Juliette opened the door for her, and she stepped inside, holding a can of mousse. “Sorry I’m late. I believe you needed some of this?” she said with a grin. Megan looked at the purple bottle and laughed. The bottle read ‘Aussie’ and had a white kangaroo set against a bright pink circle for a logo.

“Aussie? Really?” she said jokingly. “Oh man, this stuff smells amazing. I take that back.”

“Krissy swears by it,” Brianna said, nodding. “The interview looked great by the way. I caught a glimpse of your cleavage when you stood up, but that’s probably because I knew it was there,” she winked.

“What little I have.” Megan giggled.

Juliette grinned, “I like it little.” she teased Megan. “I just can’t wait until the real things start growing, so you can share in the joy of wasting an entire bottle of cortisone cream in a week,” she added.

“Oh, God, and ice cubes when you run out at three in the morning,” Brianna chimed in. “It sounds perverted, but it’s really not. When you’re that desperate for relief you’ll try anything. Even toothpaste.”

“It’s not really that bad is it?” Megan asked, glancing between the two. “Besides at 3 am, I’ll just call you Brianna to get me some.” she teased.

Brianna laughed. “I might have to hire my own personal assistant now that I’m managing you two.”

“An Assistant would work for you, since you’re my manager as well.” Megan giggled and unzipped her small purple duffel bag, tossing her jeans inside. “All set. My hair’s the best it’s going to get until I can get it professionally... done... something... with. You know what I mean,” she said, as Brianna and Juliette both giggled.

“She needs some hairapy, stat,” Juliette nodded.

“Ok I’ll call and make an appointment for you with a hairdresser after your CAT.” Brianna laughed.

“Thanks. No sense letting it get ruined by the big metal tube of doooooom,” she giggled as they started out, bumping into Jessica on their way out. She had a bottle of water in her hand that she had already half finished.

“Hey Juliette, who’s the new girl with you, and where’s Mark?”

12 year old Mark O’Malley had been practically typecast as the dopey sidekick because of his role in the runaway hit Disney production, “My Brother Mark”. But while on the set of his older sister Krissy’s much darker sci-fi movie production, a misheard comment leads to a whole new branch in his career, and in his life.

Megan sighed, “I’m Mark.” she admitted. There was no sense in lying about it at this point.

Jessica leaned closer for a moment or two. “... Holy shi-” she managed to stop herself as a producer walked past. “Um... Wow.”

“We were hoping to slip out unnoticed. Please don’t say anything till the next interview, I plan on coming clean.”

Jessica blinked a couple of times, and then smiled and nodded. “No, it’s not that, it’s just ... Wow. You look nothing like Mark, like... I mean you do kind of, but...” she sighed. “Balls. You know what I’m trying to say,” she giggled and gave Megan a hug. “I’m part of another transgendered girl’s support group, if that’s what this is all about. And if this is just some weird publicity thing then just pretend I was never here,” she added after a moment.

“Actually..” Megan giggled and pulled out her temp cards with her new name on them. “It’s not a publicity stunt or anything, but we have one planned for the next interview.” she winked, “To promote a friend of ours’ blog.”

“Oh! You’re-” she stopped herself, and then lowered her voice to a whisper. “You’re that big secret on Amber’s blog?”

Juliette started laughing. “You’re Amber’s secret Disney contact.”

Jessica laughed. “Guilty as charged. I’d be a year up from Amber and Carolyn in school, except that I homeschool these days. But we go way back. I’m sorry if I scared you or anything,” she added with a giggle. “It’s just ... Wow.”

“Oh, by the way?” Megan struck a dramatic pose. “I personally demanded you as our interviewer again. It’s the first time as a star i’ve ever used my status to get anything.”

“Oh, lovely!” Jessica said happily. “I’m really looking forward to it. Like I said earlier, you both are just so much fun to work with.”

“I don’t like throwing weight around, causes you to look like a diva.” Megan giggled, “But you were worth it. Anyway, we have to hurry. Brianna is waiting for us at the limo.”

“Oh, hey, you’re coming to Amber’s birthday party tomorrow right?” she called after them.

“We both got invited and wouldn’t miss it for a billion dollars,” Juliette added, “Megan might not like looking like a Diva but sometimes you have to throw your weight around. Amber’s birthday party will be one to go down in the history books for her.”

Jessica laughed and gave them a double thumbs up, though only Juliette saw it. She grinned and waved over her shoulder.

“What did you do?” Megan laughed.

“Let’s just say, between Rebecca and Carolyn I know what her wish is, and it’s going to come true,” Juliette giggled mischievously as they jumped in the limo.

“That was a bit too close,” Megan exhaled as their regular driver, Alice, pushed the door closed behind her.

“Everything ok?” Brianna asked.

“Jessica met Megan,” Juliette answered, adding, “But it’s okay. It turns out she’s Amber’s secret Disney contact, so she already knows about and is part of Carolyn’s support group.”

Megan nodded. “Still, I should’ve waited until I got to the limo to change. That was just stupid of me.”

Brianna laughed softly. “Ever tried applying mascara in a moving vehicle? Anyway you won’t have to worry about that anymore, if you’re still planning to go through with a public transition.”

Megan shook her head. “I don’t have a choice honestly. I’m not going to hide who I am. I’m not ashamed. I’m a transgendered girl, and I’m quickly learning that there are a lot of girls just like me out there who need a role model.” She paused at that, and started to laugh. “Good God I sounded like a diva just now.”

“No way,” Juliette giggled. “You sounded like a Princess, not a Diva.”

“Well you might not ever get anymore Disney contracts, but they are still obligated to you as you are to them for the next year or two.” Brianna said, “Per your old contract which by the way your mother was smart when she had it done. This change won't affect it at all.”

“I don’t mind,” Megan answered, but added, “Wait... What do you mean won’t affect it?” she asked. “What did Mom put in my contract?”

“Just the way it was worded, she really didn’t have any idea you were transgender till recently. Don’t worry about that.”

“Oh, good,” Megan laughed. “I already feel like someone up there,” she paused to point toward the sky, indicating a higher power, “is plotting and scheming to use me for something.”

“I have been going through both yours and Juliette’s contracts and other things to get more familiar with what I need to do going forward. I was working really close with your mom on the Dark Days negotiation too, so I think I can do this for you two.” Brianna said. “Juliette your old manager wasn’t very good was he?”

Juliette laughed and shook her head. “Mom called him a schmuck. Dad called him far worse... usually to his face.” She giggled. “5% over the usual standard fee, plus he had all the management skills of a high school drop out. Mom’s been managing me since.”

“I got you both a script for an upcoming voice acting job for a Pixar movie.” Brianna grinned and handed them an envelope she had been keeping hidden until that moment. “This can be done between shooting the Samantha Snow movie, since they’re not major roles.”

“I thought you said no more Disney contracts?” Megan said, surprised.

“I did say you might get no more Disney, but I didn’t say no more Disney associates did I?” Brianna grinned.

“Oh sweet. It’s another Merida movie!”

Brianna nodded. “You’ve got to prove yourself to the Disney execs again, well not you Juliette but Megan, but I think a few minor roles in some movies will help as we get you some big roles from places like LionsGate, and stuff.”

“Yeah, I agree,” Megan answered. “They need to see that this isn’t just another Disneybopper meltdown, that I’m doing this for me and not for the attention.”

“I have your dad writing Amber’s questions for her. She’ll have freedom to ask some of her own during her interview, but we want her to ask some really important ones as well.” Brianna added.

“I hope you warned whatever hosting site she’s using that they’re going to get slammed, too,” Juliette giggled.

“Blogspot is owned by google.” Brianna said, grinning. “I don't think they’ll have any issues at all. The good news is I’ve already spoken with the execs, and they’re tentatively willing to let you go on camera for 365 as Megan. They said they’ll let the producer decide if it’s appropriate.” she paused, “Actually they really didn’t have much choice after I shoved your old contract in their faces.” she giggled.

Megan leaned forward and high fived Brianna. “Nice,” she giggled, as the limo rolled to a stop before turning and pulling into a hospital parking lot.

“I learned from the best. Your mom is hard.” Brianna giggled again. “By the way, while you’re here they’re going to go ahead and take a blood sample too.”

“Ugh I hate giving blood, we had to do that for those blood drives I almost cried every time.” Megan sighed.

Brianna nodded. “This won’t be like that. They’ll only draw a small vial’s worth, and Theresa assured me the Doctor who’ll be doing it is excellent at it.”

Juliette giggled, “Besides I’ll be right there remember?”

“I better get a cookie too,” Megan mock pouted, and then giggled as Alice opened the door for her to step out with Juliette. As soon as they entered the lobby, Krissy, Tina, her father Rob, her mother Janet, and Juliette’s parents, Ellen and Nick were all waiting for her in the lobby.

“Jeez,” Megan giggled. “Is this an intervention?”

Rob laughed, “Nah, I figured I should be here because I’m your father, after all, and Ellen and Nick are here because they wanted to see their daughter.”

“And we wanted to show our support,” Ellen added with a cheerful laugh as she approached, giving both Megan and Juliette a tight hug at the same time.

Megan turned to Juliette and whispered, “I don’t think we have room for everyone in our bungalow.”

“No kidding,” Juliette giggled. “So where are you guys staying?”

“In the same hotel as Rob and Janet,” Nick answered.

“We booked a couple of suites for the week,” Rob said, adding,“We’ll be heading back to the states before your second 365, but we have complete faith in you and Brianna.”

“Plus this way you’ll have me over there to bully the execs if they do get out of line,” Janet teased.

“Thank you Mrs. O’Malley.” Brianna said.

“I told you, call me Janet,” Janet laughed. “You don’t work for me anymore anyway - at least not directly.” She winked. “Now that you’re managing both girls I was thinking about offering you a partnership.”

“B-but I’m still just a first year business student,” Brianna stammered.

Janet laughed. “I know, but you’re a natural. The way you handled the Disney situation with regard to Megan’s next interview was brilliant. I couldn’t have done better.”

Ellen nodded, “Nick and I were talking...” she laughed handing Brianna some papers just like the ones Janet signed for Megan, “We’re going to do the same for Juliette that Janet and Rob did, giving her limited guardianship under your supervision.”

“Oh wow. Thank you,” Juliette giggled. “But um, like the worst I have to decide medically is tylenol or advil.”

“Well not just that, Princess.” Nick stated, “Just the limited self guardianship with Brianna as a supervisor. If Janet trusts Brianna with her daughter, we trust her with ours. With the same clause that we can veto any decision you make till you’re 18.”

“So no full body aboriginal tattoos,” Megan giggled out.

“Aw darn,” Juliette snapped her fingers in mock disappointment.

“I swear there’s a huge demand for Captured Indian white woman number four out there!” Megan giggled as a nurse came out and called her name. The poor woman looked a little nervous. There was at least one well known celebrity in the room, and she had a strong suspicion that there were in fact four, counting Megan’s dad.

“Can Juliette come back with me?” Megan asked the nurse, who smiled warmly and nodded.

“Sure she can.”

“Yay. Thanks,” she said as they followed her back. “It’s just I really, really hate needles.”

“You know, a lot of nurses do too,” the woman chuckled. “Myself included. I think it speaks to that desire to do it right after being stabbed by someone with the bedside manner of a rabid dog.”

Megan and Juliette were escorted back to a private exam room where the nurse had Megan hop up on the exam table. After checking her vitals for their records, she smiled cheerfully. She seemed much less nervous now than before. “Doctor Smythe will be in momentarily to take your blood sample personally, and then she’ll take you over for the CAT.”

Megan nodded, giving the nurse a nervous smile. “Thanks.”

Doctor Smythe wasn’t at all what Megan expected. She was an older woman - in her mid-40s at least, with graying light brown hair, and a friendly demeanor. As Brianna promised, Megan didn’t even feel the needle going in, and even got her cookie before she headed down to the CAT scan. She sat patiently in the lobby chatting with her extended family about her adventure over the week while waiting for the lab results, when Doctor Smythe emerged.

“Well, the CAT results were in line with expectations - no abnormal sectors or physical anomalies. As for your blood work,” she said, handing Megan a prescription. “I want you to get this filled and start taking it immediately. We’ll have your HRT implant ready in another day or two.”

“What is this?” Megan asked. Doctor Smythe smiled back at her.

“It’s an androgen blocker. It will prevent your body from producing its own testosterone. It’s of course never too late to start HRT, but it’s ideal to start before puberty.”

“Well I haven’t even started that yet.. Juliette just started though..” Megan giggled, pointing out that Juliette was starting to bud.

“You will in a couple of days,” the Doctor chuckled. “I’ll try and push it through more quickly though. I’ll contact your manager the moment your personalized HRT implant is ready.”

“No shots other than just giving blood?” Megan grinned, “Yay.”

Doctor Smythe nodded. “Precisely. Since you’re still young, I won’t be giving you a booster. Instead I’m going to let the HRT implant nudge you into female puberty naturally. You’ll be just a little bit behind your friends, but not far.”

She took the file folder from under her arm, offering it to Brianna. “This is a copy of her records for your personal files including the actual CAT images, and the preliminary blood work results. I’ll fax the full results to you this evening.”

“Thanks.” Brianna answered. “I’ll let Megan read them over at her leisure, when she's not busy.”

Megan sat down on the bungalow couch, glancing over the report. “So Mark’s finally gone, and I’m happy for once, does that change how you feel for me Juliette?” she called to the bedroom.

“Oh yeah, I’m totally over you and on to that hot goth chick Rebecca now,” Juliette called back, and then laughed as she appeared in the doorway. “Amber asked me the other day how long I’ve known I had feelings for you. Know what I told her?”

Megan shook her head, and Juliette grinned, walking over to sit beside her.

“It was that episode with Krissy’s role as our babysitter. The character Mark was hitting on her and trying sooo hard to win her heart and all, and I was like ‘Oh my God, I think I’m jealous’.” She giggled. “Whatever happens though, even if we don’t... you know, go beyond just being friends, you will always be my best friend.”

“Thanks,” Megan said as she hugged Juliette. “I meant what I said the other day, about not being ready to date yet, but when I am ready... I’d really like my first date to be with you.”

Juliette giggled, “We’ve already been on a date, a supervised one with Krissy and Tina, the opera, remember?” she teased.

Megan giggled. “Oh yeah. We’re doing that again next week with our parents too.”

“It’s great. My Dad’s even renting a tux,” Juliette giggled.

Megan smiled at the thought. “So what do you want to do the rest of the day? I already got Amber’s present for tomorrow.”

“I’m waiting to hear from my present,” Juliette giggled. She had a mischievous grin on her face. “She’s supposed to call when she lands here in Sydney.”

“Oh, you can tell me, what did you get her?” Megan laughed.

“Well, I found out through Carolyn, plus it’s obvious just looking at her blog, that Debby is one of Amber’s favorite Disney stars, so I called her and asked if she’d be interested in singing. She literally laughed at me when I offered to pay her, and said she’d do it for free because it was us asking.”

“Cool, better than my present, “ Megan grinned, “All I got was the cast of ‘My Brother Mark’,” she teased.

“Oh wow, really? So they all know about you going Megan full time?”

“Yup, George said he knew already.” Megan laughed. George was the guy who played their goofy dad on the show.

“Well, I did kind of talk to Amy about it once so I guess she’d know too now that you mention it,” Juliette said thoughtfully, Amy was the woman who played their no nonsense Mom opposite George.

“Alyssa and Devin were the only two who didn’t know and were surprisingly cool about it.” Megan added.

“That’s good. Alyssa I’m not surprised about, but Devin I wasn’t sure about.” She grinned and stage whispered, “She’s totally bi. But she can’t date girls because of the whole Disney stigma. But you didn’t hear that from me,” Juliette giggled. “She said she might ask Devin out to dinner though.”

Devin played Mark and Juliette’s other brother, and Alyssa was Devin’s long time in character girlfriend on the show, although she wasn’t featured in nearly as many episodes since she also played roles in other major Disney productions during the last year. They still considered her part of the core cast, however.

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me. I read in one of those pamphlets that as many as one in twelve people alone are trans, whether they realize it or not. It also talked about how sexuality is more like a sliding scale than a binary “Yes or no”.” She paused and shrugged. “I don’t know if I like girls as a rule or not. I just know you’re my best friend, and all my other friends are girls.”

“Except Devin,” Juliette giggled.

“Well, yeah, but he’s Devin. Come on,” Megan laughed as Juliette’s phone rang.

“Heeellooo substitute!” she answered in her best smart-ass Michelle tone.

“Young lady where is your homework!” Debby answered on the other end in her best crotchety old woman voice.

“My sister Megan ate it,” Juliette giggled out. “How was the flight?”

“Oh my Gosh it was long, but flying over the Sydney Opera House was so amazing. I totally geeked out on the poor girl sitting next to me,” she said, laughing. “I’m in the limo you guys sent me now on the way to the hotel, but after I get checked in, I’ll be free to talk about what you want to do for your friend’s birthday.”

Megan piped up, “Hi Debby! Thanks for that offer to be in your music video by the way.”

“Hey Megan!” Debby said brightly. “You know that offer still stands - for both of you really. We put production on hold because my choreographer twisted her ankle. She’s going to be okay, but she has to stay off it for awhile.”

“Awww bummer.” Megan sighed, “Also thanks for coming out here for our friend’s birthday.”

“Are you kidding? I saw this girl’s blog, and I was like ‘Oh I have got to meet her.’. I blushed when I read her review of Radio Rebel.”

“I’m going to use her talented blogging skills this week myself.” Megan giggled.

“Well, hey listen, I know as Disney brats we have this weird stigma of either being sugary sweet or completely psycho, but Bridget wanted me to pass along - and I agree with this too - that you have our complete support. We’re all really proud of you for what you’re doing, even if you’re not under contract right now.”

“Aww, thanks!” Megan bubbled and stood to go use the bathroom, “I’ll be back in a moment.”

“I heard the rest of the cast are already here right?” Debby laughed as Megan excused herself.

“Yeah, Megan called them and invited them. Amber is a huge fan of the show, and, outside of My Brother Mark, you were her absolute favorite celebrity of all time,” Juliette answered.

“Can I make a suggestion on the first song?” Debby asked. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I feel like the perfect song would be “A Dream” - you know that iconic Disney song,” she said, and sang the first line. “A Dream is a wish your heart makes...”

“Oh my God yes that would be perfect! Like as soon as she blows out her candles you come out singing or something?”

“Yeah!” Debby cheered. “That’s what I was thinking. We’ll hammer out the details when I get there. I almost feel bad for her. We’re going to blow her mind,” she giggled a little. “Talk to you soon!”

“I wonder if we should tell Rebecca and Carolyn what we’re doing, or let them be surprised too?” Megan giggled as she came out of the bathroom after washing her hands.

“Oh I think it’s going to be a nice surprise for them too.”

“I thought so too. Plus I know for a fact Amber’s parents got her a big present too, so we’re not being total divas getting our celeb friends to show up,” Megan giggled.

“You know I think we should go out to eat, just you and me, after we hash out the birthday stuff with Debby. Somewhere nice, on me, to celebrate our freedom.”

“Soo, like a date?” Megan teased. Juliette didn’t answer as she went into the bedroom to find a nice fancy skirt and top for her and Megan to wear.

As if on cue, Juliette’s phone rang its new text ringtone. “Could you check that?” Juliette called back. Megan picked it up.

“It’s from Debby. She says she’s been distracted by not eating on the plane so she’ll stop by later this evening.”

“Oh fun, then we can go out first.” Juliette said as she walked out wearing just her bra and a silver skirt, holding two different tops - one a sparkling sequined pink, the other a more subdued off-white silver. “Which one do you think I should wear?”

“The off white one. Think I can borrow the pink one? I think I have a skirt that would match that perfectly.” Megan giggled.

“Oh, the pleated dark pink one? That would be so perfect,” Juliette nodded ass he handed the pink top to Megan. “I traded clothes with Alyssa all the time until she hit that growth spurt,” Juliette giggled as Megan followed her back into the bedroom to change as well. “So what’s mine is yours.”

“Oh here we are. I apologize. It was under Stuart,” the woman standing at the front entrance to the fancy French restaurant stated with an embarrassed look on her face. “Your table is already prepared Miss Stuart.”

Megan giggled, “I think Brianna really needs to hire herself an assistant,” she said as they followed the woman to their table. Juliette touched Megan’s arm gently to get her attention and grinned, nodding toward another table off to the side, where Tina and Krissy were eating. They hadn’t noticed the girls. Krissy was palming a ring box out of Tina’s view.

“I think Krissy is going to ask Tina to marry her,” Juliette whispered. Megan grinned and started humming Kiss the girl, and started to sing it softly.

The woman laughed quietly. “If I may be so bold as to ask, would that be your sister?”

“That would be.” Megan nodded, grinning a bit.

“I thought so, by the name. Those two are regulars here. They come at least once a month,” she said cheerfully. “I’ll let you peruse the menu. Would you like anything to drink?”

“No wonder our manager recommended this place.” Juliette giggled.

“I’ll just have a Coca-Cola or Pepsi,” Megan answered cheerfully.

“I’ll take the same.” Juliette said, nodding.

“You’re hometown girls, sure enough,” the woman said with a grin. It was odd hearing such a candid, casual comment in such a formal setting, but it made Megan grin too.

“Wow. Is it me or is like, everyone more laid back here than back in Cali?”

“I didn’t want to stereotype, but I’ve been thinking the same thing all week,” Juliette answered. “Maybe we’re just lucky. Oh, um, should I order something fancy?” Juliette asked hesitantly. “I was just going to have the grilled chicken with garlic.”

Megan giggled, “Oh, that sounds great. Me too.”

“Oh thank God,” Juliette answered sheepishly. “Can I tell you a secret? This is actually the first time I’ve ever been in a place like this.”

Megan tried not to laugh as she squeezed Juliette’s hand reassuringly. “My parents used to bring Krissy and I to these places all the time. The chefs are usually happy to prepare whatever you ask, as long as you don’t send it back too many times,” she teased.

“That makes sense. Your Dad’s a big time writer director, your Mom’s a manager and talent scout. My Brother Mark was my big break,” Juliette mused as a waitress approached. “Before that we were literally just some middle class nobodies from Brooklyn.”

The waitress smiled warmly as she set the girls’ drinks down, and after taking down their orders, she stepped away again, and Megan shook her head.

“You’re selling yourself short. You have an amazing singing voice. If Disney hadn’t picked you up someone would have.”

“And you’re multitalented,” Juliette giggled. “I’ve heard you sing when you thought you were alone.” Juliette sighed, “I maybe a good singer but I’ve had to have voice lessons.”

“So have I,” Megan laughed quietly. “Granted that was more in the voice coaching acting department. You can act, sing, and I know you can dance. I’ve got two left feet.”

“I don’t know about that, you danced pretty elegantly in the episode Dance for your Life,” Juliette giggled.

Megan giggled again. “Oh, God, that so doesn’t count. I had Amy coaching me like constantly on where to stand and how to move without twisting something,” she said, shaking her head as their waitress returned with their meals, as well as a plate of crepes. Megan looked over at Krissy’s table just as Krissy looked over she gave her sister the thumbs up.

“After we meet with Debby, want to sit around the bungalow and watch some movies?” Megan giggled.

“Sure! What’d you have in mind?” Juliette asked.

“I still haven’t seen that movie Bridget did the voices for from Studio Ghibli. Arrietty?”

“The Secret World of Arrietty, yeah. I’ve only seen the promos too. Oh, I have the other Studio Ghibli stuff on Blu-Ray if you want to make a night of it,” Juliette bubbled.

“Oh that sounds awesome. I loved Kiki’s Delivery Service and Whisper of the Heart, especially that cute remake of Country Roads that they made for it.”

Suddenly the restaurant seemed to get really quiet. Megan and Juliette looked around to see Krissy down on one knee next to their table.

“So how about it? Will you give this Aussie a chance?” she asked. Tina started to cry as she nodded and let Krissy slip the ring on her finger, and people began to clap for the couple, including Megan and Juliette. Megan even managed to snap a few cell phone pictures.

“This is soo going on my Instagram,” Megan giggled.

“That’s going to be us someday.” Juliette teased.

Megan grinned, “Actually I plan on asking you on the movie set while they are filming,” she shot back playfully.

“Very funny,” Juliette said with a giggle as she finished her chicken.

The Waitress came out at that exact moment and placed a glass of non-alcoholic sparkling cider in front of each of the girls. She had set it up with the staff while Juliette was in the restroom, just after they came in, before she knew Krissy was going to propose to Tina - otherwise she would have waited.

Juliette lifted her glass, then stopped, slowly lowering it as she stared at the ring inside. It was gold, set with tiny sapphires and engraved with little hearts. Without hesitation, once she realized what it was, she dipped her finger into the glass to retrieve the ring, licked the tip of her finger and grinned at Megan, slipping it on her finger. “So what happened to not being ready to date yet?”

Megan grinned, “We’re taking things slowly, that ring is just a promise to you.”

“A promise that we’ll always be together is pretty serious though,” Juliette answered.

Megan nodded, “As friends and maybe more when we are ready for that.”

“Weeell... In that case,” Juliette trailed off and giggled softly. She picked up her purse, and took out a small box wrapped in emerald green paper, and placed it in front of Megan. “I guess great minds think alike. I was going to give that to you until you said you weren’t ready to date, and I didn’t want to scare you off...”

Megan giggled and carefully unwrapped it, pulling out a ring almost like Juliette’s except it had small emeralds instead of sapphires. “Oh its so pretty.” she slipped it on her finger.

“Emerald is definitely your color,” Juliette giggled. “I got it the day you got your ears done.”

“Besides Krissy kept pointing out that we were already dating technically.” Megan shrugged.

“Well I don’t know what the future has for us,” Juliette said as she squeezed Megan’s hand across the table. “And I don’t care. I just know that there’s no one I’d rather be dating than you.”

“The first time you kissed me, my heart skipped a beat. It took all I had in me not to make out with you in front of Tina,” Megan laughed.

Juliette blushed softly, but grinned as well. “I don’t know what possessed me to kiss you there, but something said that I should, so I did.”

“Maybe it was a little crab on your shoulder,” Megan giggled, sipping her cider. When the waitress came by again, Juliette raised her hand slightly to get her attention.

“Miss? Could we get something um... chocolateish for dessert and our bill?”

“Sure, how about a chocolate mousse?” The waitress smiled. “The meal’s compliments of the chef however, in honor of your sister’s engagement,” she added, winking..

“Tell the chef thank you, and oh.” Megan reached into her purse and pulled out some signed photos, “One’s for you and one’s for the Chef.”

The waitress glanced down at the photo and grinned. “Oh, thank you! My daughter’s going to love this. She’ll probably frame it,” she giggled softly.

“I’ve never had chocolate mousse,” Juliette said thoughtfully as she stared at the dessert menu. “How is it?”

“It’s to die for,” Megan answered with an affirming nod.

“I’ll try that, then. Megan’s the expert at this stuff.” She giggled again. She was floating on air, and it was a good thing the cider was non-alcoholic or she would have really been bubbly.

“Me too,” Megan said, raising her glass to Krissy as she and Tina stood, waving at the pair before turning to step out together.

12 year old Mark O’Malley had been practically typecast as the dopey sidekick because of his role in the runaway hit Disney production, “My Brother Mark”. But while on the set of his older sister Krissy’s much darker sci-fi movie production, a misheard comment leads to a whole new branch in his career, and in his life.

Megan and Juliette were cuddling on the couch again. It had been a day since Amber’s massive birthday party, and the two had nothing planned at all today, so they were watching movies together. Megan’s phone rang with Brianna’s ringtone..

“Montana residence, this is Hannah speaking,” Megan answered.

“Hey pop star. I’ve got a car coming to get you, the doctors office called and said your HRT implant was ready.”

“Oh, would you believe I actually forgot about that?” Megan said sheepishly. “The last few days has been such a whirlwind, and I’m still recovering from Amber’s epic party. We’re still in our jammies,” she giggled.

“You’ve got a few moments to get dressed.” Brianna laughed.

“We can do your hair in the car,” Juliette added, already on her way to the bedroom.

“Thanks Brianna. I’ll be ready to get ready when the car gets here,” Megan giggled.

After about 20 minutes there was a honk outside. Megan had just gotten her top on. “Holy crap they are fast.”

“Oh, socks,” Juliette said, passing Megan a pair of blue socks to match her top. Megan grabbed them and raced out the door barefoot, with Juliette not far behind carrying her makeup kit in one hand, and two hair brushes in the other. Alice watched the chaos from the driver’s seat, trying her best not to burst out laughing.

“You eh, want me to drive around the block a few times then come back?” she asked. She had gotten comfortable enough with the girls to joke with them without fear of reprimand.

“No no, it’s fine.” Megan giggled.

Alice smiled as she pulled off and headed towards the doctors office, “I’ll take my time then.”

“We just didn’t get any warning we’d have to go anywhere today,” Megan laughed. “We were taking today to catch our breath. Preliminary script stuff Sunday and Monday, that huge party Saturday, filming for Dark Days, and planning a wedding on top of all that.”

“Aren’t you two a bit young for planning your wedding though?” Alice teased, grinning. “Your sister’s engagement’s the talk of the social media world I hear.”

“Not all of it good, sadly,” Juliette answered as she started working on Megan’s hair. “But it’s nice to see the bigots getting run out of discussion threads.”

“Live and let live - that’s my philosophy,” Alice answered. “I mean I’m as white bread boring as they come. I drive a limo for just above minimum wage and my date nights are sitting at home with my two cats,” she laughed. “But two blokes or two gals have as much right to be happy as a man and a woman do.”

Megan smiled brightly at that. “That and they make such a cute couple.”

“I’m jealous,” Brianna giggled. “Not of Tina specifically. I’ve just given up on romance entirely. At least I get to be her maid of honor. Maybe I’ll find a nice hunky surfer while we’re here,” she teased, as the limo pulled up to the clinic “Alright,” she said, “According to Dr. Miller, this shouldn’t take very long at all. Once you’re done, we’ll drop you off at Amber’s. If you need anything, I’ll be a phone call away.”.

Megan and Juliette stood on Amber’s front door and she knocked a second time, “Wonder if she’s home, or if she forgot about that interview.” Megan sighed. After a few moments the door opened.

Amber blushed when she saw Megan, “Oh god was that today?”

Megan laughed a little and nodded. “We can come back tomorrow if you want.” It had been a couple of days since the procedure with no ill effects, and the second 365 interview was coming up fast, but they still had time to spare.

“No no, I got your dad’s list of questions and added a few of my own.” Amber said professionally., “Come on in. Carolyn’s even here so I don’t have to call her over to set up.”

“We’re not interrupting anything are we?” Juliette asked.

“Nope, just a sleepover.” Amber giggled.

“Seriously, we can come back later,” Megan said, shaking her head as she started to back towards the door.

“Nope you’re all good.” Amber giggled, “Come on, I was about to fix some food. It’s just me, Carolyn and Rebecca. Jessica was supposed to come too but she got held up at the studio.”

“She might still make it though,” Rebecca called from further inside.

“I tried calling you two last night to invite you over, but I think I dialed the wrong number.” Amber blushed.

Rebecca giggled as she came into the room, not wearing her usual dramatic goth attire, but a plain gray t-shirt and jeans. “She got some cranky old bat on the phone and was too afraid to try again.”

“We’ve really got to get local cell phone numbers,” Megan laughed as Carolyn came in just behind Rebecca.

“Oh, sweet, you did get the message,” Carolyn said cheerfully.

“Nope, I’m just an idiot,” Amber sighed. “I forgot that we had today down for the big interview. So I’ll need you to set up the studio in a bit.”

“And you laugh when I bring my DSLR everywhere,” Carolyn said with a smug grin. “Sure, I can have something nice set up in no time. And with your new lappy we can even make it look pro. Call me when the food’s ready.” Carolyn grinned as she disappeared.

“And she’s off,” Rebecca laughed.

“When Carolyn’s doing a setup, you’ll be lucky to get three words out of her,” Amber giggled as she led the remaining three to the spacious first floor kitchen. “It’s like Zen meditation for her.”

“Yeah, but I can’t blame her,” Rebecca sighed. “The way kids used to tease her, becoming an AV geek probably saved her life.”

“Most likely.” Amber sighed as well. “Now she works with me on my blog. Wish I could go pro and pay her.”

Megan sent off a few quick texts to Brianna while Amber made food for everyone.

“You know you guys have the makings of a real life iCarly though,” Juliette giggled.

“I know right?” Rebecca laughed. “We talked about that a few times actually, but we wouldn’t be able to keep up a regular schedule like they did on the show. It’d be random stuff like what Amber’s doing today.”

“Hope you guys like tacos,” Amber said as she began browning a big pan of hamburger meat. “They’re the one thing I can cook really well.”

“They have to be better than Taco Bell.” Megan giggled.

“Taco Bell used to bring loads of food for the meal table when we filmed.” Juliette laughed. “Some days Megan’s mom or mine would sneak us something from Subway just for a change of pace.”

“Ick,” Amber laughed. “I like Taco Bell, but every day?”

“Sometimes we’d get a catering company, but it usually is whatever is easiest.” Megan nodded. “When filming you don't have time for much of anything.” Just then Megan’s phone buzzed her text message tone. Megan grinned and put her phone away. “So how much do you think you’re worth as a PR person?” she teased.

Amber laughed at the question. “Considering I’m doing it for free, as a hobby? I’ve had people ask me why I don’t donation beg, but I don’t feel like my writing is exactly up to par for that sort of thing. It’s just something fun.”

Megan pulled a piece of paper out of her purse and a pen and wrote down the dollar number Brianna gave her. “How does this sound, it’s an equal split for you and Carolyn.”

Amber blinked at Megan, looking down at the piece of paper. Her breath caught in her throat. “... Wha?” was all she could get out.

“That’s if you agree to become Juliette and My person PR people.” Megan giggled.

“And before you say no,” Juliette chimed in quickly, “Just remember Jessica is our age just like you, and so are the other people who do the Disney 365 stuff.’

“Yeah but ... They’re trained actors or writers,” Amber protested.

“You are a skilled writer.” Megan shot back.

“Mrs. Potter,” Rebecca giggled, causing Amber to laugh too.

“Yup. Our year 6 English teacher Katherine Potter. She was kind of a grump, but she loved writing, and really made me fall in love with it too. She’s the whole reason I started blogging - because I wanted to get better as a writer.”

Amber reached over and turned off the burner, letting the hamburger meat simmer for a moment. She stared at the number thoughtfully. It was a lot of money - a lot a lot of money, especially for two kids, but there was the work to think about as well.

“What would we even do?” Amber asked. “Oh!” she said a moment later and raced to the doorway. “Carolyn! Tacos!”

“What would happen is you would get together with a Team and have them build a website around your designs, and you would write articles and stuff about us, and Carolyn would be our official camera woman.” Megan said.

“Sorry, all I heard was official camera woman?” Carolyn said as she bounded into the room. “Man that smells good.”

Amber giggled as she started laying out unfolded soft flour tortillas and crunchy shells alongside a huge bowl of cheese, another bowl of shredded lettuce, and even some bean dip and guacamole along the breakfast bar island. She picked up the piece of paper and laid it beside Carolyn’s plate as she sat down with the others.

“That’s USD by the way. I forgot to get it converted to AUD,” Megan giggled. “Granted it would be split between you. We want to hire you and Amber to be our publicists.”

Carolyn gave Megan a sidelong glance, and then looked down at the piece of paper. She froze.

“Not enough?” Megan giggled as she casually spread some guacamole and bean dip on her tacos before adding some cheese. “I can always ask Brianna for more.”

“Way too bloody much,” Carolyn answered finally finding her voice. “That’s if you’re even serious. No way I’m worth even a quarter of that. Amber, sure.”

“Totally serious, and it’s if you two are serious.” Juliette stated. “We’ve seen some of your vlogs, and I watched a couple of your Let’s Play videos on youtube. It’s pretty obvious you put a ton of work into every video you do.”

“So we’re willing to give you two jobs with us.” Megan spoke up before crunching into her taco. “Oh man these are great! If you're serious you’ll have to call Brianna and set things up with her, she’ll hook you up with a web design team, and get you rolling.”

“But what about school?” Carolyn asked. “I’m homeschooled now, but Amber still goes to public school. I mean not that it matters while we’re on holiday,” she added with a laugh. “What would we even have to do?”

“Well you both will be home schooled with us, I think.” Megan giggled, “And well Carolyn gets to shoot behind the scenes videos of Juliette and I when we film movies, and Amber gets to do our official site interviews and stuff.”

Carolyn and Amber both looked at Rebecca, who had been staying out of the conversation entirely. She looked up, with a mouth full of soft taco, and slowly looked between the two of them. “... What? I’m staying out of it.” She giggled. “You’ll want to talk to my Mom if you want a makeup artist, unless you want to look like the Wolfman. That I can do.”

Juliette looked at Rebecca, “We’re also offering you a off and on job designing outfits for us to wear when we're not filming.”

“I appreciate the offer, but...” Rebecca shook her head. “I’m no fashion designer. Everything I own is off the rack.”

Megan grinned, “That's not what I heard.”

“You ARE homeschooling with me and Jessica anyway,” Carolyn added, elbowing Rebecca.

“I guess I can try,” Rebecca answered reluctantly.

“Yeah, I’m pretty much the only non connected person here,” Amber laughed.

“Says the girl who got Debby Ryan to sing at her birthday party,” Rebecca teased.

“Hey, I had nothing to do with that. I was as shocked as you guys!” Amber giggled again. “I just meant that Carolyn’s Mom is a director, Rebecca’s does wardrobe and makeup, plus her dad does set design, and Jessica’s like a second gen Disney brat - which I mean in the nicest way possible by the way.”

Juliette laughed at that last part. “Oh, no offense taken. We always joke about being Disney brats, or, what was it Devin used?”

“Disney-boppers,” Megan giggled.

“My Mom is a veterinarian,” Amber said sheepishly. “My Dad’s military.”

“We’ll make sure the sharks don’t get their teeth on you,” Juliette said with an affirming nod. “Since technically you’ll be working for us you’ll have access to Brianna’s managerial services as part of the deal I think?” she asked, looking at Megan, who had just finished licking bean dip off her fingers.

“Yup. Provided her parents agree Brianna will shield her from being sniped by scouts without full contractual disclosure. Like I said you have to call Brianna and get everything straightened out, along with your contracts.”

“Cool. I’ll tell Mum when she gets home this evening,” Amber said.

“Maybe we can get Brianna to draw up something for you to look at and drop it off when we beg her to pick up our sleepwear,” Juliette giggled.

After they all ate Megan sat down in the room Carolyn setup for the interview, Carolyn smiled as she got the camera ready, “Ok so not sure how they do this professionally.” she said nervously.

Amber sat across from Megan, “I paid attention when we visited your mom. You're supposed to count from five, like, ‘in five, four, three’ I think?” she giggled.

“Yeah, but whatever you’re comfortable with works,” Megan said. “The cue-in is as much for the person doing the editing, so they know when to start the cut, as it is for us to know when to start talking.”

“Why mess with what works?” Carolyn answered. “Alright, lighting looks good, camera’s ready,” she said as she made one last quick adjustment to her digital SLR camera. “This thing only shoots 1080p, but I don’t think that matters,” she said, winking. “We’re rolling in five, four, three...”

Amber smiled brightly at the camera. “Hi everyone out there, thanks for joining me on a special live Vlog! Today we have a special guest, you might know him - or rather her, from My Brother Mark!”

Megan smiled and waved, “Hey everyone. If you don’t recognize me, that’s okay too,” she laughed a bit. She had worn a nice, navy sweater with a khaki skirt in order to present a professional appearance for the cameras, though she had on a casual t-shirt underneath so she could take off said sweater and actually be comfortable once it was over.

“I have some questions here that I wanted to ask you, then after, we’ll take some questions from the viewers.”

“Sure. I bet everyone’s got a lot of questions, not the least of which ‘Who are you and what have you done with the weirdo with the frazzy hair,” Megan giggled. Carolyn quickly jotted something down on paper, ‘Current view count 5,000.’ and held it up.

“Ok first question, this is a standard one, but it should help clear some things up, What was your character on My Brother Mark, and what did you find fun about playing that character?”

“Well, I played Mark Mason, Michelle’s annoying, borderline evil brother,” Megan giggled. “I loved playing Mark because I got to ad lib a lot of my lines. Sometimes I’d try something crazy like spraying silly string in Michelle’s hair, and we’d end up keeping it because the Director was laughing too hard to yell ‘cut’.”

Amber laughed softly, “Sounds like you guys had a lot of fun on the show. “ she paused as Carolyn held up another sign saying 15k viewers, “For all of you just joining us, We’ve got the actor behind Mark, from My Brother Mark with us. My second question is Are you dressed like this for an upcoming movie?”

“There’s no easy way to answer that one I’m afraid. Yes, this began as preparation for a big movie role - Snowballed, the Samantha Snow story, but it’s much more than that. I’ve realized something that my co-stars knew all along, ever since the episode, “The Substitute”, where I famously spent the whole episode as Juliette’s character, Michelle.”

Amber asked several more questions which Megan answered truthfully, during those questions their viewer count rose to 1.5million which was way more than any blog that Amber had ever done before. Finally, Carolyn handed Rebecca a stack of index cards. Rebecca passed them to Juliette, who stepped on camera.

“Hey guys,” she said, waving as she sat down next to Megan, handing the cards to Amber. Megan grinned.

“I was wondering when you were going to get your butt over here,” she teased. Juliette laughed.

“I wanted to let everyone get to know the real you first,” she answered, grinning.

“First question, from Angel359,” Amber began, “Is this for real or just a publicity stunt?”

“This is 100% real.” Megan stated, “Just today I began hormone replacement therapy so I can go through puberty like any other girl.”

“Next question is from Missy from L.A., and she asks are you going to continue to make movies after you transition?” Carolyn held up another sign, ‘3 million viewers.’

“Yes, actually. I didn’t think to bring this up before, but I’m in big screen action feature that some of you might have heard of, called Dark Days. I don’t want to give away the plot of this one, but I play the young version of the main character, and Juliette and I have also been approached about voices for the new Pixar’s Brave sequel, so I’m definitely going to continue with my career. I’ll just be doing it as myself, instead of pretending to be a boy.”

“Justin in New York New York asks, I have a signed picture of Juliette and Mark, is there any way I can get a refund and get a picture of the hottie Megan and Juliette?”

Megan laughed softly. “Sure. Just send an email to MJ Productions at gmail dot AU with your contact information and we’ll send a new one out. That goes for anyone who’s interested, by the way. I know my manager’s going to kill me, but Juliette and I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you our fans, so we set up a special contact email outside official channels for you to use.”

“Two more questions and we’ll be out of time folks.” Amber said, “Second to last question, from Sabrina Moses in Sydney.” she paused, “Would you and Juliette like to make a guest appearance on my new Disney show?” Carolyn held up a sign with the number 25, underlined three times, and ‘million’ written after it, her jaw hanging wide open.

Megan smiled brightly, “We would love to! We’ll have our manager get in touch with the studio and see if we can work something out. Thanks so much for the offer,” she said cheerfully.

Amber smiled brightly, “Folks we just broke a record here at Something Special. We have let me make sure I got this right.” she turned to Carolyn, “25 million viewers right now?”

Rebecca slipped up behind Carolyn and gave her a gentle nudge, causing her to step forward in front of the camera involuntarily. “30 million and climbing,” she said nervously as she tried to scurry back off-screen.

“Everyone this is my camera woman Carolyn. She’s the magic behind the show.” Amber said, trying not to giggle. “Ok so we have one last question for Megan.” She flipped the card so she could read it, “This is from several people asking similar questions, “What is the name of your favorite stuffed teddy bear?” she giggled softly.

“Believe it or not, I actually don’t have any stuffed animals. I was so into pretending to be a boy for so long that I never really let myself give in to being a girl, except for when I was playing Michelle on-camera. But the very first one I collect, I’m going to name ‘Princess’ because joining Disney was a dream come true for me, and I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the Disney Princess movies,” she giggled.

“Ok folks you heard it, time to start sending Megan stuffed animals!” Amber giggled. “Maybe after she gets a few she can re answer that question for you all. That’s it for now everyone, I hope you all enjoyed having Megan here as much as I did! And remember, she has another interview with Disney 365 tomorrow!” she waved to the camera which Megan joined in. Rebecca pulled both Carolyn and Juliette into frame so they could wave as well.

Carolyn smiled and said as she turned the camera off, “And that’s a wrap.”

“Oh my God,” Rebecca whispered. She looked positively stunned now as she looked at Amber’s open laptop that Carolyn had been using to monitor views.

“You got an email from our vlog host the moment we hit 20 million viewers.” Carolyn told Amber.

“That’s not all,” Rebecca said. “Look at the final view count. You hit 38 million total.”

“That’s just crazy.” Amber said, shocked.

“Considering my live streams for video games get maybe 300 views, and my youtube channel has 17,000 subscribers,” Carolyn said with disbelief. “Jesus bloody Christ.”

“What’s the email say?” Amber asked.

“It was a congratulations letter for getting a massively high hit count and that they apologize the stream may have cut for a second due to traffic load.” Carolyn giggled as she read it, and Megan’s phone rang.

Megan answered her phone, “Sorry I’m not in right now, I’m helping my friends pick their jaws off the floor, please leave your name and number and I’ll get right back to you.”

Brianna laughed. “You’d better be in if you want an interview with the BBC,” she teased.

“The BBC?” Megan said out loud.

“And CNN, and just about every news agency in Australia,” Brianna laughed again. “My phone’s ringing off the proverbial hook, and my inbox is being flooded.”

“I’ll give the BBC exclusive.” Megan stated, “But only on one condition.”

“Believe me, you’re in a position to name any conditions you want. I’m pretty sure you could get the prime minister jello wrestling a bear in the background right now.”

“I want Juliette, Amber and Carolyn to be there at the interview stand with me.” Megan stated. “And we want a bowl of red m&m’s.” she teased.

“But every fifth one should be blue!” Juliette added as Amber’s phone started ringing as well, and then Carolyn’s, and Rebecca’s.

“You got it,” Brianna laughed. “Anything else?”

“Heck let’s make this really hard for them, instead of Red M&M’s with every 5th blue, lets make it Breast Cancer Pink M&M’s a whole bowl of those, to be passed around the audience.”

“Ohh, that’s a great idea!” Brianna answered excitedly. “Do you want to accept any newspaper interviews or should I tell them no comment for now?”

“For now, we’ll just do the BBC interview, the rest of them can wait, Juliette and I have a busy schedule to keep.” Megan said, grinning at Juliette..

“That’s true, especially now that they want to make Young Alessa a more prominent character.”

“We’ve also got to start prepping for Snowballed too.” Juliette piped in.

“That was the major condition of Megan’s involvement with Dark Days - that it not interfere with the other project, as per Megan’s request. The director’s thrilled she’s even considering doing more work with the movie, and Laura’s over the moon,” Brianna laughed.

“Hey Brianna, can you bring Amber and Carolyn’s contract over as well as some sleep gear for Juliette and I please? We’re still trying to talk Rebecca into being our wardrobe consultant.”

“Sure thing. Anything in particular or first thing I see?”

Juliette grinned, “The matching silk set.”

“Gotcha,” Brianna chuckled. “Oh by the way your Mom texted me during the interview, and told me to tell you you handled yourself incredibly well, and she’s extremely proud, but didn’t want to say so directly and interrupt it.”

Carolyn laughed as she hung up the phone with her mom, “She sent a question in, we’ll use it for the next interview.”

“There were a lot of general comments mixed in too,” Rebecca said. “Our mods got to the bad ones, but not before they got verbally thrashed by everyone else. I love this one though,” she said, and cleared her throat. “I just wanted to say you’re a real inspiration. I’m going to talk to my parents about my GID, and use this interview to help them understand. Thank you so much.”

“Awwww.” Megan said. “I’m glad I can inspire people. Oh if you can get her username and email I want to send her a personal signed picture of me with a stuffed bear the first one someone sends me.” she turned and glared at Amber, and then giggled.

Amber grinned innocently. “What?” she said, pointing at Rebecca. “It was her question too!”

Rebecca giggled, “I posted where they can send the teddy bears too, in care of Megan Stuart via the studio.”

“We’re going to need a bigger bungalow,” Juliette laughed.

“Actually I wanted to ask you two a question, but I wanted to ask in private if that’s alright?” Brianna spoke up.

“Oh! Sorry Brianna, I forgot you were still on the line,” Megan said sheepishly as she grabbed Juliette’s hand and stepped out of the room with her. “We’re in the kitchen,” she said as they reentered the kitchen, a few rooms away.

“Ok, your mom faxed me your financials earlier today, and wanted to know if you both wanted to make Australia your home or were you both planning on moving back to LA?”

“Oh, no way,” Juliette answered first. “I mean Brooklyn will always be where I grew up, and NYC will always be my home away from home, but I think I want to move here and become a dual citizen like Megan.”

“Ok. Clear your schedules for tomorrow afternoon and I’ll come pick you both up personally after you have lunch.”

“And the 365 interview,” Megan added. “But that’s going to be like, ten minutes of work tops so they can cut it down into manageable sound bytes.”

“Actually they texted me, and want to push it back till monday.” Brianna stated, “They said that there was no way they could top this interview and needed some time to get ready for you.”

Megan laughed. “More like Disney HQ need time to prep the legal team to make sure I’m not going to embarrass them.”

“You said it I didn’t.” Brianna laughed. “Anyway tomorrow about 12:30 ok? If you need me, I’ll be available on Tina’s phone because mine will start ringing again the second we hang up.”

“Don’t you just love us?” Juliette giggled.

Brianna laughed again. “I really do. You two are like little sisters to me.”

As they hung up the phone, Jessica stepped through the kitchen doorway. She looked exhausted, but she was grinning practically from ear to ear. “I knew you were up to something,” she said, giggling.

“We heard they’re getting the legal team fired up.” Megan sighed.

“For what it’s worth, my producers are scrambling to try and figure out what strings they can pull to get you back on contract. You can’t buy this kind of publicity.” She paused and gave them both a hug. “I know this isn’t why you’re doing this - for publicity - but you have a lot of friends in your corner behind the scenes. You should have seen Sabrina’s face when Amber read her question,” she giggled.

“It’s all about the fans.” Megan did a dramatic pose and fanned herself. “It really is though,” she said more seriously. “And I meant what I said, we’d love to be on her new show as guests.” Megan’s phone beeped again, this time with a text message. “Ugh. Sorry, I swear I’m going to turn this thing off,” she groaned as she looked at it. Her eyes widened. “Oh my God.”

“What?” Juliette asked, looking at Megan’s phone. “Oh my God,” she repeated.

“What?” Jessica laughed.

“Laverne freaking Cox just texted me,” Megan squeaked. “Well it’s a forwarded text from Brianna, but still!”

“Oh wow, what did she say?” Jessica moved closer. “You go grrl, hope to see u stateside for TCA & Oscars. Wow.”

“Jess! Jess Jess Jess Jess Jess!” Carolyn bubbled as the three of them rejoined the others still reeling from the show’s success. “Holy crap 38million viewers.”

“Congrats guys,” Jessica laughed. “You’re all officially viral and way bigger than me to boot,” she added teasingly.

“Sure, but we won’t forget the little people like you megastars that made this possible,” Amber shot back dryly, unable to keep a straight face. “Oh my God though. I think I’m going to lose my tacos. I can’t believe this is real.”

Carolyn shook her head. “I just wish Rebecca hadn’t nudged me on camera. 38 million plus people saw me looking bloody foolish.”

Megan shook her head. “I think it added a nice touch, and you did a really good job.”

“It’s like I always say,” Jessica said as she wrapped an arm around Carolyn, “You don’t have to think about who might be watching somewhere else. You just have to think about who’s watching you now. Trust me, if I thought about how many people see my show every week, I’d never crawl out from under my covers in the morning.”

Carolyn blinked, looking at Jessica. “No way. You’re not shy. I’ve seen you give public speeches at big local award ceremonies before.”

Jessica laughed. “Yes, but I didn’t have my contacts in either. It’s harder to be terrified of big amorphous blobs.”

Juliette nodded. “I’ve never had to give any speeches yet, but like Jessica said, I forget about who’s on the other side of the camera and just go with the flow.”

“See, it’s not about being fearless,” Jessica giggled. “It’s about finding ways to trick yourself into forgetting about it - or just plain cheating and not wearing your contacts,” she teased.

“Sorry about the 365 interview.” Juliette sighed, “Megan was really looking forward to it, and so was I. We were going to do another joint thing.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Jessica said, shaking her head. “Lynn, my senior producer said they’re doing the standard precautionary circling of the lawyers because of stunts like Miley and her stripper pole dance when she was still under contract. The interviewer's going ahead whether they like it or not.”

“Okay guys,” Rebecca said as she held up her phone and turned it off. “Let’s party. A little bird told me these two have never had a real slumber party, and we need to fix that.”

Megan, Juliette, Amber, even Jessica took out their phones and shut them off ceremoniously, putting them on the kitchen counter.

“But first,” Jessica said, “I want some tacos too!”

12 year old Mark O’Malley had been practically typecast as the dopey sidekick because of his role in the runaway hit Disney production, “My Brother Mark”. But while on the set of his older sister Krissy’s much darker sci-fi movie production, a misheard comment leads to a whole new branch in his career, and in his life.

As promised, the next day after the girls ate lunch with their friends at an outdoor corner Bistro, Brianna showed up, without the limo, she was in a nice red sports car, “Hey girls ready?”

“Hey Brianna,” Megan and Juliette called almost in unison as they waved.

“Byeeee,” Rebecca giggled, waving as the girls got up to jump in the car.

“Sooo what’s the damage?” Megan asked. “I shut off my phone last night so we could have a normal, quiet slumber party.”

Brianna laughed out loud. “Normal and quiet just don’t go with the words ‘slumber party’. It’s not a proper sleepover until someone’s been locked out of the house naked. Twice.”

Megan giggled, “Didn’t happen but we did play spin the bottle.” she teased.

“Rebecca is a really great kisser by the way,” Juliette laughed. When Brianna slowly turned around to look back at her, she grinned innocently. “It was a joke. Megan kissed her,” she said, trying to keep a straight face.

“We really didn’t play spin the bottle.” Megan giggled.

“Anywaaay,” Brianna said, trying not to giggle too, “The Disney damage isn’t as bad as I was expecting. I spoke with a top exec this morning, and she assured me that the reason given, that they wanted time to prepare after the 30-whatevermillion views interview and facebook shitstorm, was completely honest. They want to make sure they ask the right questions and not make you look bad, or like they’re choosing a side.”

“I kind of expected that after I talked to Jessica about it,” Megan nodded. “She said she expects the lawyers to be scrambling to try and get me back under contract again, actually.”

“The guest roles are a go at least. You’ll have to speak with the writers though. I told them you’d have creative freedom to veto anything you didn’t like, and they immediately agreed.”

“As long as it’s tasteful, not like Michelle and Mark on vacation in Australia, and Michelle blackmails him into dressing like her sister or something,” Juliette said.

“Exactly. Mark is behind me now.” Megan agreed.

“And I really want to play a nice girl for a change,” Juliette giggled.

Brianna pulled into a long driveway. “First stop,” she said. The house was a Victorian style with two stories, and a front porch that began near the garage, with forward facing steps, and wrapped around the side, with a pristine white banister and white faux wood siding, and dark navy blue shutters on the windows. It wasn’t absolutely massive, but it wasn’t small either.

The woman standing next to a white sedan smiled warmly as the sports car pulled up. “Miss Messer, Miss O’Malley, and Miss Small I believe?” she asked cheerfully.

“That would be us.” Brianna smiled professionally as she shook the woman’s hand.

“Excellent, excellent,” she answered, but somehow, Megan didn’t get the sense that she simply smelled an easy sale. The way the woman carried herself, she actually seemed rather genuine even though she was obviously a realtor.

“I don’t really recommend this place to first time buyers.” The woman stated, “It’s a bit much for a single person or even a single couple.”

“I appreciate your honesty,” Brianna answered. “These two have quite a busy life, and they never know who will be dropping in.” She chuckled. “I wanted to at least let them see what they think. If not them, my cousin and her fiancé will certainly be interested for the same reasons.”

“Oh, no I completely understand. My daughter practically pulled my arm out of its socket to get me to come and watch the interview yesterday,” she said, winking at Megan. “It’s a peaceful neighborhood, with enough land on the property that you could stand on the front steps and shout, and no one would bat an eye.”

“It’s nice.” Megan said as they entered the house. “And wow, that’s what they mean by a grand entrance.”

The woman laughed softly. “It was built in 2011, but fell into foreclosure. The house features six bedrooms, two fully furnished kitchens, two offices,” the woman rattled on as she showed them the house. When she had finished, she turned to the three again.

“Don’t say no yet, but I have a few other places I want to show you as well.”

About six houses into the tour, the girls were not happy with any of them, Megan took Juliette aside. “Why don’t we get the big house, and move Krissy and Tina as well?”

“That’s what I was thinking too,” Juliette admitted sheepishly. “I mean, you saw those bedrooms. Two of them were as large as the master bedroom. Plus that huge entertainment center for a basement, and the recording studio. We could use that for our future interview stuff.”

“Exactly.” Megan nodded. “And it doesn’t seem too far from Amber’s house.”

“Besides,” Juliette sighed. “We are just kids. I know we act super adult sometimes, but I still miss my stuffed animals. I liked having my Mom around to make breakfast in the morning. I’m not ready to grow up yet.”

Megan started to laugh, hugging Juliette. “God I’m so relieved to hear you say that.”

“What? Really?” Juliette asked, stunned. Megan nodded.

“I wanted a little freedom from my Mom on this vacation, not totally shoved out the door. I’ve been trying to keep up with everything that’s happening, but this...” she said, motioning to the rather crappy house they were being shown, “This is too much.”

“I’m glad to hear you both say that.” Brianna said as she put her phone up to her ear, “They both are really mature for their age, but I agree, yup, I’ll have their stuff moved to your house asap.” She hung up and grinned.

Megan and Juliette shared a glance. Juliette giggled. “I think we just got Full Housed.”

“Actually Krissy got the idea from an episode of your show. Mark Moves Out,” Brianna giggled as the realtor approached, grinning as well.

“You girls both have a good head on your shoulders, and a lot of people who love you watching out for you.”

“Thank you again for helping us with this,” Brianna said as she shook the realtor’s hand. “I know this was a bit strange.”

The woman laughed softly. “Oh not at all dear. This was just a normal day for me. Now, the woman who wanted to buy an entire apartment building for her cats - that was strange.”

There was a big party to celebrate the final filming of Dark Days, Megan ended up having a major supportive role in the movie. She really enjoyed working with her sister, and even with post production only about to begin, Laura had let it slip that she was already planning the sequel, Darker Days. Megan and Juliette had also been working hard on their role in their upcoming Samantha Snow movie, which was set to start filming soon.

They also both guest starred on Sabrina’s new show ‘Life with Sarah’ twice. Amber’s call out for Megan’s fans to send her stuff animals was a huge success as well, Megan ended up with over 200 stuffed animals at this point, and the Teen Choice Awards were almost on them. They had been back in L.A. for a couple of days before the awards.

The BBC interview sent shockwaves through the entertainment world. Disney, like the rest of the world, just didn’t know how to handle the fact that Megan was for all intents and purposes a normal teenaged girl. Moreover, that becoming Megan stopped her from becoming another statistic just didn’t seem to compute with some people, but she didn’t care. The fans loved her honesty.

The 365 interview likewise went smoothly, but they had to turn it from a standard 2 minute short into a full 15 minute interview which aired on the official website, as well as being broadcast being cut down into small increments for television broadcast.

Krissy, Tina and Brianna sat across from Megan, Juliette, Carolyn and Amber in the limo. Megan and Juliette had worn the formal dresses they wore on their first date to the opera, and Megan had her hair up, while Juliette wore hers down. Brianna grinned at the pair. They had only been back in the US for a few days, but they were swamped.

“You nervous yet?” she asked.

Megan laughed. “Feels like I swallowed a Roomba, and it’s doing circles around my digestive tract.” She wiggled her feet inside her two inch t-strap heels lightly and sighed. “I just know I’m going to trip on the way inside.”

“You did great at Alyssa’s big movie premiere the other day,” Juliette said.

“Yeah, but I was wearing flats,” Megan giggled. “Is it weird that Devin’s the only person who hasn’t starred in a movie now?”

“Yeah, but he’s doing okay,” Brianna added. “He got picked up for the new Pixar movie with you guys. Didn’t I tell you?”

“Wow, really?” Megan asked excitedly as the limo rolled to a stop. “That’s great!”

While the girls were in L.A. again, they planned to record as much of their lines for the movie as they could, while being able to interact with the other actors and actresses. They also couldn’t wait to spend time with Alyssa again. She had been chosen to do the next interview, and was self-admittedly extremely nervous about the affair.

Of course, they were needed back in Sydney for filming of Snowballed in a couple of weeks as well, but filming for that was expected to last a few months, given budget constraints and the investors’ desire to capitalize on Megan’s popularity.

“At least you’re used to these things,” Amber whined. “I mean having Debby and the entire cast of My Brother Mark showing up to my birthday party was bad enough. I can’t believe I let you rope me into coming to the States for the TCAs.”

Unlike the “stars”, neither Amber nor Carolyn wore anything so extravagant. Amber had on a nice knee length white off the rack dress, and Carolyn wore an a-line skirt and top like something Juliette might have worn on the set of ‘My Brother Mark’

“I feel underdressed,” Carolyn said as nervously. “I mean I look like I’m going to a movie, not the bloody Teen Choice. Thank God I’m not nominated for anything.”

“Amen to that,” Amber laughed. Juliette and Megan exchanged a glance and grinned innocently.

“Uh oh,” Carolyn said, glancing between the two. “What?”

“Nothing,” they said in unison. Amber groaned.

“Okay really. What did you do?” she asked.

“We’re innocent,” they again answered in unison, and then laughed.

“They are,” Brianna giggled. “But someone had to contact your Mum for permission.” she said ‘Mum’, as being immersed in Australia had already begun to wear off on her. She also said ‘damned’ a lot more. Juliette was even worse. Between reading for an Australian character for Snowballed, and Scottish accents for the Brave sequel, she had picked up small mannerisms from both covered over a California surfer girl base.

“Permission for what?” Amber pressed her.

“You didn’t look at the TCA vote options did you?” Megan finally started to laugh. “Specifically the blog section?”

“.... I voted for SimsVIP and moved on?” Amber said, confused. She turned pale a moment later. “Oh my God. Please tell me you’re not serious.”

“Surprise,” Megan and Juliette said in unison. Megan giggled. “Brianna put your name forward based on the, like, freaking massive positive publicity your interview gave me.”

“But that was only one video,” Amber whined as the limo rolled to a stop.

“But you’ve been our publicist ever since,” Juliette added. “Ooh, showtime,” she said as the limo door opened.

A full week had past since the TCAs. There was a somewhat awkward moment when Megan received the award for “Choice Hottie” (Female), and everyone saw Amber winning Choice Blogger - everyone except Amber, who cried on-stage as she thanked Megan and Juliette, Brianna, and her best friend Carolyn.

Amber and Carolyn had by now gone back home, and Juliette, who had been staying with Megan and her parents at Megan’s Hollywood estate, was lounging around in her pajamas, eating a bowl of Trix cereal while she channel surfed. Megan, dressed similarly in a dark purple shelf cami and short pink sleep shorts had just come out of the bathroom off from the rec room and sat down, when Brianna came through the door.

“Uh oh,” Juliette laughed. “Brianna’s doing her Bruce impression again.” It was an inside joke that started about about a week ago. Ever since the TCAs the girls had been getting offers pouring in daily. The ones Brianna really liked, she’d show to the girls. They could tell she really liked them because she grinned like a shark.

“No, really, you’re going to love this one,” Brianna said. “On the smaller of the two notes, Disney AU faxed the script for the revised final episode of My Brother Mark,” she said in reference to Megan and Juliette’s desire to film a new final hour long episode in which Mark runs away to Australia, Michelle follows him, and Mark reveals that he’s always tortured his sister because he’s secretly jealous.

Of course, Corporate would have to approve first, but the rest of the cast absolutely loved the idea, and Megan and Juliette were prepared to fund from their own pocket as it were until Disney agreed.

“Secondly, filming doesn’t start until June or July next year, which gives you enough time to work on your other projects, and... It’s a serious role based on a Disney IP.” She had Juliette and Megan’s undivided attention.

“Do I get to play a nice girl?” Juliette asked. Brianna laughed.

“There’s not even a script yet,” she answered. “AMC’s legal team literally just finished hammering out a contract with Disney corp. You’ll be on the ground floor.”

“How’s that even possible?” Megan asked skeptically. She knew how things usually worked, especially with Disney involved. There was no way they were going to cast two actresses without even a script

“The short answer is,” Brianna replied, “The director who wants to do the project knows you, and he knows your work. He wants you, as Disney veterans and as teens, to help guide the show so it isn’t automatically branded as more Disney fluff. Like I said, this is AMC. Think The Walking Dead, only not that dark.”

“The only dark thing Disney’s ever done is Beauty and the Beast,” Juliette giggled. “Oh do I get to be the beast?” she teased.

“Madame. Gaston. Can’t you just see it?” Megan began to sing, “Madame. Gaston. His little wife?”

Juliette picked up, “No sir, not me! I guarantee it! I want much more than this provincial life!”

“Here’s the contracts,” Brianna said, offering the girls a pair of identical manilla envelopes. “As well as a copy of the pilot script. I know I said there wasn’t a real script yet, but the director wrote the pilot himself as a base. He’s really passionate about this project.”

Megan took out the script, immediately noticing the name on the front - Robert O’Malley. Her jaw fell open. “Daddy wrote this?” she gasped, immediately throwing it open.

“No question your dad wrote this,” Juliette laughed. “Look, instead of character names, he wrote ‘Megan’ and ‘Juliette’.”

At that, Megan’s dad peeked around the doorway. “Is it safe?”

Megan leapt off her chair and ran to her Dad, hugging him. Brianna laughed. “I’d call that a yes.”

“You should’ve told me you sneaky arse,” Megan laughed.

“Well I didn’t want to get your hopes up,” he answered. “I wasn’t even sure Disney would go for a story based on their version of Peter Pan. But it’s a story I wanted to tell for a long time, and now seemed like the time.”

“Lost Girls, huh?” Juliette said. “I didn’t know there were any lost girls.” She giggled. Rob nodded his agreement.

“Exactly. You only ever hear about the Lost Boys, except for Wendy of course. She was the original Lost Girl, but she found her way back. What if other girls weren’t so lucky? I lined up filming for next winter, around May or June so we can scout different locations, and give you two some downtime between like you originally wanted.”

Megan laughed as she sat down again and picked up the script. “Yeah, I haven’t exactly had much downtime. This was supposed to be a vacation, and so far I’ve co-starred in a major Sci-fi movie, I’m memming lines for a serious drama, and recording lines for Pixar.” She paused to look up. “Not that I’m complaining. Working with Dev and Jules has been a blast.”

“Well,” he said, “I know you wanted to take the weekend off, but I thought, if the two of you are up for it, Mom and I might take you to Disneyland like old times this afternoon.”

Juliette squeaked a little. She cleared her throat, looking over at Megan for confirmation. Megan just laughed. “Juliette might hurt me if I say no,” she teased. “That sounds great Daddy.,” she said happily. “And as for this Lost Girls thing...”

Megan paused again, and Juliette spoke up. “We’re in.”

12 year old Mark O’Malley had been practically typecast as the dopey sidekick because of his role in the runaway hit Disney production, “My Brother Mark”. But while on the set of his older sister Krissy’s much darker sci-fi movie production, a misheard comment leads to a whole new branch in his career, and in his life.

A month had passed since receiving the original script, and Rob had made some changes based on the girls’ input. They were taking a break from the set of The Samantha Snow Story and the one hour special for My Brother Mark, relaxing as they looked over the changes

They had worked out with a schedule with the studio to allow them to film both simultaneously, which required massive amounts of coordination, but since the director, Lucy, had worked with the girls already on Dark Days, she was more accommodating than most directors would have been.

“Oh I totally agree,” Juliette nodded. “I mean this is even darker than the later episodes of Boy Meets World, and that was like, pretty heavy stuff near the end. This is up there with Pirates of the Caribbean, minus Handsome Jack’s shenanigans,” she teased.

“Yeah.” Megan nodded, “Touched a lot of really crazy stuff. I really like how Dad does the pixies, but I wonder who we can get to play them? They really have to be people we get along with, since they’re a very big part of this story. I don’t just want to have CG animated pixies with voiceovers, if we can avoid it.”

“That’s going to be the fun part,” Juliette sighed. “There’s so many big roles to fill. The pixies, the lost girls and boys,” she trailed off.

“At Least Peter isn't in the movie.” Megan laughed. “You hear his voice in that one part, but so far he’s not appeared once.”

“Yeah, really. Mr. Williams will always be Pan in my mind. No one can fill his shoes,” Juliette giggled a little.

“God I was so awestruck when he did that guest appearance in our first season.” Megan giggled now too. “He’s such a cool guy.”

“I laughed so hard I had to change my underwear when he started doing the Genie,” Juliette laughed just thinking about it as a brown haired woman in a nice business suit came onto the set.

Megan looked up at her, “Can I help you?” she asked, smiling politely.

The woman smiled as well. “I’m looking for Megan Stuart?” the woman said in a strong Sydney accent.

Megan raised her hand, “That’d be me.”

“Ah, I thought so!” she laughed softly. “You do so look the part...” she said thoughtfully.

“We’ll right now i’m still in costume. We’re on a two hour before a location change. We’re moving down to the river for a really big scene,” she said, knowing the woman, whoever she was, had permission to be here because security had been tight from the word go.

“Yes I heard,” she replied. “I was so hoping to catch you before you left. It seems I owe you an apology,” she said wryly.

“Why’s that?” Juliette asked for Megan.

“I’m Samantha Snow,” she said as she offered the girls her hand. “We were supposed to meet quite awhile ago, but there was a scheduling mixup. I’m so very sorry about that.”

“Oh my God!” Megan gushed, “I’ve been trying to reach you personally for awhile now. I really didn’t want to take this part without talking first.” she sighed.

“My secretary filled me in after I got back. I’ve been in the states giving guest lectures at a couple of universities about transgender in the work force. Congratulations on your TCA awards by the way,” she added, grinning.

“I hope you can go through the footage at least, and see if I’m doing a good job being you.” Megan giggled. “I cried reading this part that's coming up, so when we do it, the tears I’ll be shedding will most likely be real.”

“If I’m not mistaken this is the scene where my sister and I got lost in the Outback trying to get to my father on the west coast?” she asked.

Megan nodded. “What Emily said when she found you really moved me.”

“I was so furious with my mother,” she sighed. “But Emily got to me before it was too late, and then when Karl appeared... He was our guardian angel..”

“Miss. Snow, don’t take this wrong, but your mother is a real bitch.” Juliette sighed.

Samantha laughed softly. “She’s actually changed a lot in the last few years. Unfortunately the movie won’t show that, but the story needs to be told as it happened, so that’s just how it has to be.”

“She still refused to talk to Krissy, the woman who’s portraying her.” Megan nodded.

“It was a ... difficult time for all of us, but I can’t really defend her on that one. Mum should bloody well be willing to talk to you. Maybe I’ll go knock some sense into her after we’re finished here,” she teased.

“Like I’ve always said,” another woman in her 20s with strawberry blonde hair, dressed similarly to Samantha laughed, “Being a girl doesn’t mean you can’t be a hard-ass. Mum needs some sense knocked into her once in awhile.”

Samantha laughed. “There you are Em. What do you think?” she said, standing next to Megan and Juliette. “Pretty good resemblance?”

“She looks just like you,” Emily laughed. “And Juliette’s hair is perfect. Except I had one of those hideous bowl cuts that I wouldn’t wish on anyone, so we’ll just keep that secret between us,” she teased. “Sam and I did quite a bit of consultation with both he and the writers during the pre-production stages.”

“She says that as if she’s not a writer too,” Samantha laughed. “Her book is what the script was based off of.”

Juliette giggled. “They kept it pretty darn word for word. I’ve read it cover to cover when I had time to.”

A balding man poked his head around a stage prop,”It might be another hour girls, we got animal control wrangling up some wasps that seemed to like the area we wanted to shoot at.”

Emily and Samantha shared a glance and then giggled. “Why don’t we treat our younger selves to lunch?” Emily suggested.

“You’ll have to let us get our sunglasses, and stuff, last time we left the set to go eat, we got mauled by fans.” Juliette said as she bounded off.

“You should see how bad it is in Cali..” Megan sighed, “At least here they only wait for you outside the studio,” she said, turning to follow Megan as Krissy approached.

Samantha looked up, a little startled. She laughed. “Good lord, talk about meeting a ghost. You look just like Mum. It’s uncanny.”

Krissy smiled wryly. “You must be Samantha and Emily? Have you two seen Megan and Juliette?”

Samantha nodded. “We are, and we have. Animal control is having a bit of a wasp problem with the new location, so we offered to take them out to lunch. You’re more than welcome to come too of course,” she added cheerfully.

“Oh good. I was just going to see if Derek had told them. Thanks for the invite, but I really shouldn’t. I need to go over the lines again. This final scene with their mother is really hard. Krissy sighed.

Samantha surprised Krissy with a hug, at that. “Just remember at the end of the day, I was lucky. My story has a happy ending, and what you’re doing, even if this is just a made for TV movie, is a huge step forward for transgender rights alongside your sister’s public transition. We’re both really proud of all of you.”

Krissy smiled and nodded. “I want you to know, that after I read both the book and the script I donated over a million dollars to your foundation, and I’ve convinced the investors to let go of 10% of the proceeds as well.”

“Wow,” Megan spoke up at that. “I didn’t know you had that much put away,” she teased.

“I did three movies, two voice acting movies, and a TV show just in the last two years,” Krissy laughed. “See you two when you get back,” she added with a grin.

“You wouldn’t ever guess, but Krissy played Mrs. Balamomb in our show.” Megan grinned.

Emily laughed as they made for the back exit of the movie lot. “Thanks to our nieces I think I’ve seen every episode to date. My husband Michael’s sister has twin girls your age.”

“Except the final episode, which airs next month.” Megan winked

“On location in Sydney,” Juliette giggled. “We had the cast together for a friend’s birthday party, so we figured, ‘What the heck’. Pitched the idea, Disney AU went crazy over it especially since they didn’t have to pay to fly us here.”

“Wow,” Samantha said. “So I have to ask, what was it like going back to playing Mark after living as Megan for the last month and a half?”

“I’m not going to say anything..” Megan grinned, giggling. “You’ll have to wait for the episode. Unless you’ve seen Juliette and my Vlogs. Speaking of, there comes our camerawoman now,” she said as Carolyn waved.

“We’ll be right behind you,” Carolyn laughed as she, Amber, and Rebecca jumped in the studio limo.

Emily giggled. “I’ll ask Misty and Melissa if they’ve checked Something Special Amber this week the next chance I get.”

It was getting late in the day, and the sun was going down when the director finally called out, “Cut! Good job everyone!” they had been filming for the last four and a half hours in the heat, and the swamp and river the girls had been wading in didn’t help.

“I’m going to go home, and I’m going to soak my feet in an industrial vat of Cruex,” Juliette laughed as she sat down in her chair to dry her legs for the fifty thousandth time that day.

“God that sounds good.” Megan sighed as she joined Juliette. “I hate to sound like a Diva but man that water stunk like dead ass. It’s a miracle Sam and Emily’s toes didn’t bloody rot right off. Why didn’t they just abandon the canoe?”

“They were 12,” Krissy laughed softly as she approached. “Unlike you two, most 12 year olds don’t think things through, speaking from personal experience.”

“Don’t take this wrong, but there’s no way on God's green Earth I’d walk through this. The Concrete Jungle of LA is bad enough.” Juliette laughed.

“Well, the good news is,” the director said as she approached, “This is our last day of filming for the river scene. The bad news is, next is crossing the desert.”

“Lucy you are a goddess.” Megan giggled. “I’d rather deal with the desert than this. Dad used to take me and my sister out there to run quads when I was little.”

Juliette wrinkled her nose. “Running in the desert... And you say Sam and Emily were the crazy ones.”

“No, not really running.” Krissy laughed. “She means quads, like four wheeled motorbikes.”

“OH!” Juliette giggled. “Okay that sounds way more fun.”

Lucy leaned closer to Megan and whispered, “Did you tell her about the witchetty grub scene yet?” She grinned, referencing an upcoming scene in which a wandering aboriginal happened upon the girls, and showed them how to live off the land by eating grubs.

“I think she’s read that far already.” Megan giggled.

“I heard that,” Juliette said, shooting them a glance. “I’m trying not to think about it. I want my reaction to be as real as possible... Even if that means throwing up on camera.”

“You didn’t have to do that thing on Disney’s Survival Island did you?” Megan giggled. “You lucked out because of that Pixar film you you were doing in between our show.” She stuck her tongue out at Juliette.

“Yeah,” Juliette laughed and stuck her tongue out at Megan in return. “I mean don’t get me wrong, living here, filming in these exotic locations, has toughened me up a lot. I don’t even blink at a spider the size of a small dog, but the thought of eating a... a grub...” she shuddered.

Lucy laughed, “I picked two of the fattest juiciest grubs I could find for you both as well.” she gave them both a wink as she wandered off.

Megan laughed, watching Juliette turn green. “Don’t worry. They’re actually a delicacy. They have kind of a nutty flavor, like a really chewy Payday.”

“Thanks,” Juliette groaned as she stood. “Now I’ll never eat a Payday again, either,” she teased, stepping into her slip on shoes.

“I got your hotel rooms ready for you both,” Brianna said as they approached her. “You’ll be staying in the town close by to where you’ll be filming tomorrow. Don’t worry. I did get you both really nice rooms.”

“As long as there’s a soft bed,” Juliette laughed, “It could be a broom closet. Thanks Brianna.”

“No problem. I’m still shocked your mom gave me your contract Juliette.” Brianna grinned. “You girls want a cab or a Limo?”

Megan and Juliette shared a glance. “Cab,” they said in unison. “I’m starving,” Megan added as her stomach rumbled.

“Cab it is.” Brianna grinned as she made a call.

“We can pick something up in town?” Juliette smiled, “It’s big or small town?” she looked at Brianna.

“It’s where they filmed Crocodile Dundee,” Brianna teased, and then giggled. “It’s no Sydney, but it’s pretty decent sized. The locals call it Last Chance though because it’s the last major area before you’re in the blazing Outback. After we get some grub-” she paused. “Oops. Sorry Juliette. After we eat, I’ll give you the grand tour.”

“You know,” Megan laughed, “Rebecca wasn’t kidding when she said Aussies love to mess with tourists who come here expecting us all to be like Croc Dundee. He even does it in the movies, like when he pretends he was shaving with that big knife,” she added with a giggle.

“Everyone I’ve met so far has been really really nice to me here.” Juliette giggled, “Maybe it’s because we’ve been attached at the hip since first day?”

Megan put an arm around Juliette and bumped hips with her. “Wow,” she said, giggling. “I just realized mine are a little wider. I think the magic implant’s finally kicking in.”

“I did notice you pitched a fit before the last shoot.” Brianna teased. “Hormones are a real bitch aren’t they?” she winked at Juliette, who knew only too well..

Megan blushed. “Hey, I apologized!” She pouted cutely and then giggled. “It’s been a long, hot day. I think we were all wearing thin.”

“Now you girls see how a lot of female stars get labeled Divas. The work is hard.” Brianna nodded. “Some think they’ve earned the right, but others usually are nice till the end of the day.” she laughed.

“And in their defense,” one of the sound guys spoke up, “I did almost drop the boom on her head.” He looked sheepish.

“Accidents happen Frank.” Megan giggled,. She always took the time to get to know everyone on the sets’ names, no matter what their job was.

“Not on my watch. I checked the gear again. I missed a loose thread. Won’t happen again,” he said as he waved. “See you tomorrow, ladies.”

“Take it easy, and make sure you call your daughter tomorrow for her birthday!” Megan waved as the Cab pulled up to the location as they walked away. The cab driver had on a dusty old hat and a necklace full of fake crocodile teeth.

“G’day ladies,” he said as they hopped in, and then laughed. “Oh, you’re not tourists.” He took off the silly hat and necklace and put them back in the glove compartment, grinning.

Megan shook her head, “I’m actually from Sydney.” she let her accent bleed out.

“Yup,” he said with a laugh. “Megan and Juliette. You’re all my kids can talk about. You two are national heroes, y’know? Well, figuratively speaking anyway.”

“Just to the tweens.” Juliette giggled. “Hopefully after this movie and our next show we’ll be more recognized by the older teens and adults too.” she winked.

The girls grew quiet for a few minutes as they rode back to town. They were lucky to find a “swamp like” area so close to the second filming location, without having to head too far north first.

“So what’s tonight’s vlog going to be about?” Megan asked Juliette. Amber and the girls were back in Sydney because Amber had come down with tonsillitis, and Carolyn and Rebecca wanted to be there for her, but Carolyn loaned them one of her cameras since they both loved doing Vlogs for their fans so much. It allowed them to be themselves and goofballs at the same time giving everyone a real taste of their everyday lives. They tried to do one or two a week at least..

“Good question actually,” Juliette said thoughtfully. “Maybe about how the filming for the movie is going? Oh and how much we miss having Carol and Amber to help us work the camera,” she laughed.

“Sure. I mean we aren’t really under a total gag order, we did tell everyone we were filming a movie based on Emily Snow-Turtle’s book.”

“We could order room service and then record while we wait?” Juliette asked. “Then we can go out with Brianna for that tour she promised us after.”

“Sure.” Megan giggled, “LIke I said on set, I’m starving.”

“Why don’t I take you two of Glenda’s diner?” The driver asked, “Then after you two eat, I can take you over to your hotel? Sorry I didn’t mean to eavesdrop on your conversation.”

“Nah it’s fine,” Megan laughed. “Sounds great. We’ll be filming in the outback proper tomorrow so we might not get another chance to take in the town for awhile.”

“Oh you two will love the place. Glenda really tries to make the place look like Hollywood's rendition of the outback,” the man laughed as he pulled up to an old 1950s style diner.

“Oh, wow,” Juliette said as she took out her phone. She put an arm around Megan and snapped a selfie in front of the diner, quickly firing off a tweet as they started inside. ‘At Glenda’s Diner, a stylized Outback restaurant ♥ So awesome!’

Megan giggled. “Tweetoholic,” she teased.

“You were attached to your phone before we started filming.” Juliette teased back.

“Oh yeah,” Megan said as she pulled out her phone, snapping a photo of the inside, and tweeting it, ‘Inside Glenda’s Diner. Now let’s eat! ♥’

The girls watched, acting uneasy and distrustful, as the withered, gray haired old man chopped away at a lump in the tree with his bush knife. What was truly amazing was that they had cast an actual aboriginal bush guide to play the role.

“All you need,” he said, as he cut away the wood to reveal a hollow hole, “Any small thing - a piece of wire or a thin stick, something for the witchetty to latch onto,” he explained.

“Doesn’t that hurt the tree?” Juliette, as Emily, asked. The old man laughed softly.

“You would think so, but no, it is actually good for the tree not to have them eating it from the inside. The hole will scar over and the tree will be as good as new, just as nature intended, and you get a delicious meal as nature intended.” He winked at the girls.

“Cut!” Lucy called. “Perfect! Okay, let’s set up for pulling out the grub while we get the campfire scene ready.”

“So, unlike Megan I’m a total city dweller,” Juliette giggled. “Is it true it’s okay to have a campfire in the day like in the script? I mean obviously it happened, but that just seems like it’d be way hot.”

The old man laughed. “Well, you can eat grubs raw,” he said with a wink, as their grub wrangler eased the fat little creature into the hole, “But they taste better cooked. Of course, you won’t actually have to eat it.” He winked. “We have prop grubs made of marshmallows to ‘roast’ over the fire. But my ancestors would come from all over just to eat these juicy little buggars.”

“Wait... Did you say marshmallows?” Juliette asked, and then breathed a relieved sigh. “Oh thank God.”

The old man laughed deeply. “Just remember that feeling of unease you had when you thought you had to. Emily and Samantha gave me that same look.” He watched realization dawn on their faces and laughed again, grinning.

“Oh wow, seriously?” Megan gasped. “You were the guide that found them?”

“Though I was a bit younger then,” he said, winking again. “But yes. I was out surveying the land for a survival TV show, when I found the girls. I knew there was no one around for miles from the air survey, and that they had to be runaways, so I played up the mysticism a bit to help them find their way.”

“Ready?” Lucy said after the girls had another bottle of water each. Everyone took their positions. “Witchetty, take one!”

The old man poked his stick in the hollow of the branch. “It’s just a matter of... getting..” He looked back at their grub wrangler. “You sure you put it in here?” He started to laugh.

“Cut!” Lucy called, trying hard to keep a straight face as the man, dressed in stereotypical khaki shorts and a shirt approached. He pulled out a flashlight and began to peer around the hole.

“I’ve never seen such a fat grub move so fast,” he laughed. “It’s definitely up in there.”

“Ah, I see it now. Imagine the monster that was living in this hollow, eh?” he grinned at the girls. Juliette shivered.

“Take two!” Lucy called, still trying hard to keep a straight face.

“It’s just a matter of getting their attention. Once they grab hold,” he said, pulling out the big, fat white grub, “Then you’ve got them.”

He placed the wriggling larva in Samantha's hand. She cringed as it wriggled around. “Should be more here,” he said as he surveyed the small forest. “Not every day two girls from the big city find themselves lost in the middle of the outback like this. But then,” he grinned at them. “Not every day a bush man goes walkabout either. It’s a dying art.”

“We’re going to see our father in Bunbury,” Emily said.

“Bunbury?” the old man chuckled. “You’re a long way from there. Why not take a bus or a plane? Why walk?”

“It’s my fault,” Samantha sighed deeply. “I wasn’t really trying to find Dad. I was trying to ...”

“To get away from our oppressive right bitch Mum,” Emily spoke up at that, so Samantha wouldn’t have to tell the truth that she was trying to get herself killed out here before Emily found her.

“Suicide by Outback is a slow, painful way to go,” the old man said seriously, shaking his head. “A knife would be faster. You wanted to suffer. Why?”

Samantha hung her head in shame. “Because I...” she started to cry. “Everyone hates me and wants me gone just because I’m a little different. They call me a freak at school. I just wanted to get away so I started walking. I didn’t plan to make it this far. I just wanted out...”

The bush man smiled at them. “Come. I’ll make you a warm fire and we roast up these grubs. You can tell me all about it.”

“Th-thank you,” Samantha said, trying to wipe her eyes as Emily hugged her.

“Cut,” Lucy called, wiping her eyes. “That was beautiful. Okay, ready on the campfire scene.”

A few days later, back in Sydney, the girls had just finished filming for the day. Early that morning they visited Amber in the hospital. She was recovering, but still sounded a bit sore, so Megan and Juliette posed with her for a picture for her blog, along with the big stuffed kangaroo they had brought her.

As they relaxed in the air conditioned star trailer, Brianna peeked inside. “You wanted to see me?” she asked. Juliette nodded, motioning for Brianna to come inside. Megan was away from the door with her top off, examining herself in the mirror.

“Someone got a visit from the boob fairy,” Juliette said, trying to keep a straight face.

“And they’re driving me crazy,” Megan whined.

“Oh,” Brianna said, “I’ve got just the thing.” She walked across the rather spacious trailer, and she took out a bag that had been hidden under some costumes. It read ‘Victoria’s Secret’ on the side. She handed it to Megan. “I hope I got the size right. There’s a tube of itch cream in there too. I know you had some training bras already, but I wanted to make sure you had enough.””

“You’re the best,” Megan groaned, practically tearing open the bag to get to the itch cream. Juliette giggled.

“I told her it was normal. I’m just glad filming is getting closer to being done so she won’t have to bind to pass as a pre-teen boy’s body.”

“Sweet relief,” Megan sighed as she pulled her hair through the top of her pink-purple-blue-yellow tie dyed t-shirt. She had been keeping it shaggy for the role of Samantha, but moussed it down and conditioned it to go back to being ‘Megan’ each evening. “Any news from Dad?” Megan asked as she looked back at Brianna.

“He’s already started scouting locations,” Brianna answered. “But it’s slow going. Thankfully the shooting date of next summer gives us plenty of wiggle room.”

“Did you tell him he should look at New Zealand?” Juliette grinned. “It was amazing for the Lord of the Rings.”

Brianna laughed. “My thoughts exactly. Nothing screams ‘magical enchanted Neverland’ like New Zealand. He says it’s on his short list, but he wants to do some scenes back in the States as well. Not sure which ones.”

“All I have to say, Brianna, is whoever they get to play the pixies, I want to vet, they really need to be able to work well with me and Juliette since we’re the lead Lost girls. Not trying to sound like a prima donna, but we met the guy playing Sam’s dad. He has three scenes, and he acts like he owns the whole movie.”

“It’d be nice if they actually looked like the Pixie Hollow pixies, too,” Juliette spoke up. “None of this reimagining them where Rosetta is a 40 year old chain smoker to make it more edgy.”

“Or as close as possible.” Megan nodded in agreement. “LIke you said, shooting doesn’t start until next summer, so we have plenty of time to be picky.” She grinned.

Brianna laughed. “Now you’re thinking like a creative consultant,” she teased. “Oh, Disney asked if they could link to your Vlogs, as long as you two continue to keep them clean anyway.”

“Wow, really?” Megan asked, stunned. “I mean the whole Disney relationship has been pretty cold since I came out. Nobody’s been outright rude, but it’s like they’ve been expecting me to go crazytown on them.”

Brianna nodded. “They don’t know what to do with you because you have both been so completely upstanding.” She laughed. “So we’re all blazing new trails, making it up as we go, and hoping to God not to piss off the soccer moms.”

Megan shrugged. “We don’t intend on changing our vlogs. I mean we are who we are. We’re kids, not f-bomb-dropping rock stars.” She laughed.

“Yeah,” Juliette said, “They help us calm down after filming. You said mother of ducks in the last one instead of the f-bomb when you stubbed your toe anyway.”

“Mother ducking bed got in my duck diddly fast blasting way,” Megan said, trying on her Lost Girl ‘swear without swearing’ persona. It had become something of an inside joke for awhile, inspired by a scene in “Hook” where Rufio and Robin Williams as Peter Banning exchanged barbs. Little did they know, it had been worked into the script in the latest revisions.

Brianna laughed. “I’ll let them know you plan to continue down the current vein. Speaking of, I got a call from Disney AU wanting to know if you wanted to come on 365 again now that you’re back in Sydney.”

“Disney AU seems to be our biggest supporter.” Juliette nodded. “We can tell them that we plan on taking some time off after this movie, and just be kids, but we do have plans for a new series, but not tell them much about it.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Megan said. “Even if we weren’t technically under AMC’s NDA on the project, I wouldn’t want to get the hype train rolling before it’s even got tracks to roll on yet.” She giggled.

“We can drop a hint like we’re filming a pilot episode come next summer, or something,” Juliette added.

“Yeah, just kind of let people know we’re not goinna fall off the face of the Earth. Plus I really do want to work on my music like I said in that first interview, before we came,” Megan laughed. “I haven’t picked up my guitar in months though. I’m soo rusty.”

“And I kinda want to hang with my best friend, and maybe do some surfing,” Juliette added and winked at Megan. “I mean we hang out a ton but we don’t really just get to Hang out except in our vlogs.” Juliette sighed.

“Yeah. We’re just so exhausted after filming. I’ve gained a whole new respect for Krissy. Movies are a lot harder than TV,” Megan said as she gathered her things. “Ready?” she asked. “I need to get like, fifty more bottles of that cream. Thank you so much, Brianna.”

“You're welcome.” Brianna said, adding, “Oh, your dad says he’s coming in this weekend Megan, and your Mom Juliette wants you to know that Mittens is missing you.”

“Awww,” Juliette sighed. “I miss her too.”

“Did she have her kittens yet?” Megan asked excitedly.

“Yup she had a small litter.” Juliette answered as she followed Megan and Brianna out “They’re driving Mom crazy because they’re so feisty.”

“Awww I want one.” Megan giggled. “I’ve always wanted a cat.”

“Maybe we can train Mittens to be a Lost Cat,” Juliette laughed as they walked out to their waiting limo. A small throng of fans on a studio tour group stopped to cheer at them as the tour guide announced them.

“And over on your left you’ll see Megan Stuart and Juliette Small, stars of the movie “Snow in the Outback: The Samantha Snow Story’, and ‘My Brother Mark’. Tune in tonight to see the final episode of the series,” she said enthusiastically.

Megan waved to the tour bus and smiled as people took pictures, Juliette also waved as well, “I hate paparazzi,” Juliette sighed, “But I love our fans. Though I did give that one girl an interview, but she was really polite about everything, even when I told her I had to go.”

“Oh, the one from the place,” Megan said, unable to remember the name TMZ.

“The place with the thing,” Juliette laughed. Brianna joined in.

“Oh the one with the place with the thing and the guy that does the other thing,” she teased.

“TMZ you goofs.” Megan giggled.

Juliette laughed as she hopped in the back seat of the limo. While she waited for Megan and Brianna, she fired off a quick text to Amber. ‘M got a visit from the boob fairy ;)’

“OMG too cute, want non sexual picts.” she teased.

‘LOL inc’ Juliette said, trying to discreetly hold up her phone to snap a picture of Megan.

“Tell Amber I said hi,” Megan said, and stuck out her tongue for the photo. Juliette laughed.

“Amber says everyone’s looking forward to this weekend. What am I forgetting?”

Brianna helpfully spoke up, reading off from her phone. “Megan’s appointment with Theresa has been moved up to Saturday morning since you’ll be out of town on Friday, Jessica McGuinness wants to meet up and chat about a post-MBM interview potential, Amber should be out of the hospital by then, and you’re letting Rebecca and Jessica use your recording studio. Doesn’t look like anything crucial like a party.”

On cue, Amber texted her again, ‘Haha did I scare u? I just meant it’s the weekend, yay :P ♥ Nice pics btw. Love that top!’

‘Yeah we were going over the schedule with Brianna making sure we didn’t miss N E thing, Becca & Jess coming over to use the studio is all we could find LOL.’ She put away her phone again.

“I should so think about getting a new keyboard,” Juliette laughed. “I used to take piano lessons, but as the show got more popular it was harder to keep up.”

“We should hit a music store,” Megan said. “I can get a new guitar, and you can get a new keyboard, and we can make Tina and Krissy both thank the great good lord neither of us ever took up drums,” she teased.

“Hey, you should show Brianna that song you were working on,” Juliette giggled. Megan blushed, shaking her head.

“Oh, no way. That’s for your eyes only,” Megan laughed. “It’s terrible.”

“No it isn’t!” Juliette shot back. “It’s cute!”

Megan whined, pulled up a google doc on her phone, and showed it to Brianna.

“This is really good,” Brianna said after she had read the entire thing. “I mean sure it’s a little rough, but no song comes out perfectly the first time.”

“Unless you’re Taylor Swift,” Juliette teased. Brianna laughed.

“Okay,” Megan said, “I’ll work on it, but only because you both said it’s good. So it’s on you when it bombs out and wins a Hall of Shame award for worst album sales ever,” she teased, giggling.

12 year old Mark O’Malley had been practically typecast as the dopey sidekick because of his role in the runaway hit Disney production, “My Brother Mark”. But while on the set of his older sister Krissy’s much darker sci-fi movie production, a misheard comment leads to a whole new branch in his career, and in his life.

The last week of filming had been long days even into the nights sometimes just to get things together and ready for editing, The girls were standing on the porch of a house that the studio had rented temporarily from a realtor to film the scene where the girls were reunited with their dad. It was actually pouring down rain at that moment as well.

Megan broke character. She couldn’t take it anymore. “Lucy can we take a break for a bit It’s almost midnight?” she sighed.

“Actually,” Lucy said, “We’ll get it in editing. That’s a wrap people. Pack it in before someone gets electrocuted,” she called.

“Oh thank you there is a God.”

Megan play collapsed into Juliette, who laughed as she heaved her onto the old porch swing. The chains creaked a little and a lightning bolt lit up the sky as she sat down beside her. Brianna came running over with a couple of bottles of water.

“So do you two want a ride home, or do you want to sleep here tonight?” she teased.

“If it’s all the same, I could pass out right here.” Juliette giggled.

Megan laughed. “We’ll take the offer on the car. I’m hungry, and I saw a Denny’s on the way here.”

“How is it,” Brianna laughed, “I’ve been here for what, six months? And had no idea they had Denny’s here. That sounds great.”

“We’re teens! We can smell food before you even mention it.” Juliette giggled. She had, in fact, just turned 13 in November, with Megan’s birthday coming up fast in December.

“That does sound great,” Lucy said, laughing. “Okay everyone,” she called out, cupping her hands to make herself better-heard. Everyone stopped what they were doing to look at her. “Our stars are trying to sneak off to Denny’s without us. Anyone else who’s hungry, follow their limo - I’m buying!”

It was the busiest the managers there had ever seen, as the entire crew and nearly all the actors from the movie had piled into the place. When they had arrived, there were only two people even in the place other than the employees: a teenage girl and her mother.

The pair watched in quiet awe as more and more people came through the door, as well.

Megan giggled as she pushed through the crowd of coworkers, “Beep Beep.” she said, holding Juliette’s hand, “Two hungry teens coming through.” One of the camera men had been recording the entire adventure in the parking lot and inside with a personal digital HD camera. Carolyn had gone home hours ago, but he wanted to capture the wrap-up in her stead.

“Oh, there are our stars,” Lucy said. She had apparently just been advising the manager about their impending arrival. Megan giggled again.

“Sorry for not calling ahead to warn you, but we just wrapped up filming, it’s like 1am, and we were starving. These other nutters just followed our lead.”

The manager laughed. “That’s what we’re here for. How can I help you?” she asked in an entirely too perky for this hour tone.

“I’ll take what she’s having.” Juliette pointed to the teen girl's plate. It looked like a large Cheese and Bacon burger. The girl giggled quietly as she took a bite. “Bacon double cheeseburger,” she said shyly.

“Coming right up. Want fries or a drink with that?”

“Oh hey I’ll take one too, and a diet coke, as well as a order of cheesy fries, can you make sure we get the cheesey fries first? Oh and a thing of ranch to dip the fries in too please.”

“Regular coke, and seasoned fries for me, please,” Juliette chimed in

The manager nodded as she glanced between the two. They were clearly starving and going a mile a minute each, but she was easily able to take in their order. “Sure thing,” she said warmly as another worker set their drinks out before heading back into the kitchen to help cook.

Megan smiled at the teen girl, “Sorry we put you on the spot, but we’ve been working like literally since eight this morning.”

“Oh no, it’s fine,” the girl laughed. She was definitely not Australian. “We just landed too, and I was like if I don’t get a cheeseburger I’m going to start chewing on the cab tires. Not to go all freaky fan girl or anything, but I love your show.”

“Aww thanks. You’re not from around here, eh?” Megan teased.

The girl laughed. “Yeah, I’m a visiting my aunt. This is her - Aunt Liz,” she said warmly. Liz gave the girls a warm smile as she raised her glass to them. “Oh um, and I’m Carly.”

“I’m Juliette and this is Megan, and everyone you see in here besides your host mom, is a film crew.” Juliette giggled. “Oh and the staff, they’re not with us either.”

Liz laughed softly. “Well, we can get out of the way if you run out of seats.”

“No way. You were here first.” Megan insisted as a plate of cheesy fries was served, she put her allowance credit card on the waitress’ serving plate with a note to pay for their food and to take a $100 tip.

Carly took out her phone as Megan and Juliette sat down the next table over. Before she could snap the picture, Juliette leaned closer to Megan, put an arm around her, and gave her a big, goofy thumbs up as Megan waved. “Sorry. I couldn’t resist,” Carly giggled as she put her phone away again.

Megan began to eat her fries, “It’s cool,” she laughed. “You know the only actor slash actress I didn’t enjoy working with on this movie was that David guy? God he’s such a jerk. He didn’t even bother to come here with us.”

“It was really a shame that other guy broke his leg before the shoot,” Juliette nodded. “He was much better for the role as Sam’s dad.”

“Yeah, I liked him, that’s why I’m going to start vetting when we get lead roles. I really don’t like working with people who are like that. He was like a total negative on the entire film.” Megan sighed as Lucy approached Carly and Liz.

“Hey, sorry to keep bothering you both,” she said sheepishly. “I was just wondering if I could get your permission to use the video in a making of documentary?”

Carly paused, mid-chew, to look blankly at Lucy. “But... We literally didn’t do anything.”

Lucy laughed softly. “I know, but you do appear on camera. I want to make sure you’re okay with it. Otherwise we can just edit it out, you know, blur your faces, that sort of thing to ensure your privacy.”

Carly shook her head. “No way, like I told Megan it’s totally fine. I just meant you didn’t have to ask my permission or anything. But um, I guess you have it if you really need it though.”

Liz nodded. “Likewise, it’s really not a bother at all.”

“I think we should sign something for her.” Juliette whispered to Megan as she helped her clear the cheesy fry plate.

“Something other than those silly pictures I carry around,” Megan laughed. “And not just because I don’t have any with me right now,” she added dryly.

“Oh, I’ve got just the thing,” Juliette said. “B R B.” She grinned and hopped up, running back out to the limo while Megan turned to talk to Carly. By the time Juliette got back, their bacon cheeseburgers had arrived, and juliette was carrying a copy of the script. It was a little dog eared, and while it wasn’t her personal copy, it was a well used reference copy they kept in the limo.

“DId you ask Lucy?” Megan grinned as she pulled out her lucky signing pen.

“Yup. She signed it too,” Juliette laughed as she showed Megan the director’s signature. Megan signed under it, and then offered her pen to Juliette to sign. Both Megan and Juliette’s handwriting, while distinguishable from one another, was very girly. Juliette even dotted her ‘i’ with a heart before handing the pen back to Megan, along with the script, so she could tear into her hamburger.

Megan smiled and stood. She walked around, asking everyone - cast and crew - to sign as well, until the cover was filled, both outside and inside, with signatures, and then brought it over to Carly and Liz’ table, Juliette not far behind, still chewing and wiping grease off her hands, “On behalf of Juliette and I, and our director, I’d like to give you this as an early Christmas gift.” she handed Carly the signed script.

“Oh, wow! This is from your new movie! Oh I really want to read it, but I want to watch the movie first,” she giggled. “Thank you so, so much!”

“Yup the one we were totally not talking about on Disney 365 until last week,” Megan giggled out. “And you are soo welcome.”

Carly stood and hugged them both. “I wish I could do something for you,” she said, not even realizing the cameraman had been filming the whole time, in between bites of his grand slam breakfast.

“Nothing we want, but a picture of the three of us after we eat if you don’t mind?” Juliette grinned.

“And if you’re not busy this weekend,” Megan added, “We’re having a ‘Thank God it’s over’ party. Just us, a couple of close friends, and a metric ton of pizza.”

Carly looked to her Aunt Liz. “If she’s ok with it, then I’ll be there.”

Megan took a snapshot of Carly with her phone and sent it to the girls who were coming to the party, ‘Our new friend Carly. Met her @ Denny’s.’

‘Woot, new meat!’ Rebecca texted back - the only one of them still awake at that ungodly hour.

Megan giggled and texted her, ‘Caffeine or?’ she turned to Carly, “Our friend Rebecca says Hi.”

‘Massive insomnia, so I’m working on a song,’ Rebecca answered. Carly laughed nervously.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Juliette laughed now. Our friends, save one, are normal. Rebecca’s an artist, so she’s excused.”

“Don’t let her fool you. Those two are mega Divas.” Lucy laughed. “Just last week they were whining and complaining about having to wade through a river.” she teased.

“A river that smelled like a gym sock that was dragged through an outhouse,” Juliette laughed. “Besides, I only said our friends are normal,” she teased back.

“Jess is the only other actress.” Megan agreed, “Rebecca’s dad is a famous musician. We did con those two into coming on set with us for the final episode of My Brother Mark too.”

“Oh, the one you filmed here? God that was such a deep episode. I loved it,” Carly gushed.

“Yeah. Did you like how I wasn't hardly Mark at all in the episode? I mean there’s no way I could hide my changes in the outfit I was wearing anyway.” Megan giggled.

“Yes. I have a transgender friend who, like, literally was in tears afterwards. She said what Mark said about putting up a goofy front to cover up for Megan’s insecurities was exactly how she used to feel too.”

“When Megan was allowed to come out, she was the fun one. Mark was just this mask. He was boring, dull, and hid with video games and around pretty girls, so people would notice them not him.” Megan nodded.

“And Michelle was finally nice to the in-character Mark,” Juliette laughed. “We finally got to act how we really act around each other. Megan was worried about being typecast as the comedy relief the rest of her life, but now she’s got people beating her door down for serious roles.”

Carly laughed. “I bet. I’m honestly glad the show ended on a serious note like that. it felt like it did the entire family justice, but especially Megan and Michelle. But I’m glad you don’t have to be an actress to hang out, either. I get wicked stage fright,” she joked as she munched on her french fries.

Rebecca laughed as she came strolling over, carrying a dark purple bike helmet, but dressed rather normally in faded jeans and a pink “Diva!” tank top. Gone were her usual, dramatic goth trappings, but she had new, dark purple extensions in her hair. “I’m in trouble if that ever changes,” she teased.

“Hey Rebecca! This is Carly, Carly this is Rebecca.” Megan giggled and gave Rebecca a hug.

“Ay, g’day mate, bonza kangas an’ ol,” Rebecca teased, and Megan lightly swatted her shoulder, causing her to laugh. “I’m just kidding. I love messing with tourists, but any friend of Meg and Jules is a friend of mine.” She paused, looking around. “Good lord, was there a grand slam sale or something?”

Carly laughed. “This is like, their entourage or something,” she joked. Megan laughed out loud.

“We just wrapped up filming on the movie, and decided to raid the place for food,” she said, “And these lot just followed us here.”

“Fun,” Rebecca said. “I thought they looked like a familiar mob,” she teased. “I’ll warn the others you’ll be asleep till Saturday,” she added.

“Oh before I forget,” Megan said, “Normally we don’t give out our number, but this is our manager Brianna’s number,” she said, handing Carly a stock business card. Rebecca turned it over, scribbling her own number on the back.

“And that’s mine,” she laughed. “These two are like, contract bound not to give out their private number so don’t take it too personally.” She winked.

“Miss never remembers to put her phone on vibrate,” Lucy laughed as she walked past with a fresh cup of coffee. Megan stuck her tongue out as she passed.

“We should get going if I’m going to get any sleep tonight,” Carly laughed. “But I really want to thank you guys again. This has just been amazing.”

“Catch you at the party, Carly.” Juliette and Megan both hugged her.

“I promise I’m not as strange as these two,” Rebecca teased causing Carly to laugh again as she stood up to leave.

“Man, it’s going to be weird going back to the states next year,” Juliette laughed.

“Americans think we have it backwards because the toilet flushes backwards.” Megan giggled.

“I’d be doomed if I ever went stateside,” Rebecca laughed. “I’d never leave the bathroom for watching the toilets flush backwards,” she teased.

“See!” Megan giggled, “I told you Jules, American toilets flush backwards. The ones here flush normally.” she winked.

“Forwards or backwards, as long as they don’t talk back like those creepy Japanese toilets,” Juliette laughed, sharing her seasoned fries with Rebecca.

“Oh God, I forgot about that episode where I snuck off and stole Mom’s credit card to fly to Tokyo to meet my friend from the internet.” Megan giggled as she finished her hamburger.

“Oh yeah,” Rebecca said, “That’s something I always wanted to know. Did that toilet really say ‘happy poopy time’, or was that a voiceover?” she asked, trying to keep a straight face.

“It was a voice over literal translation of what that thing was saying to me.” Megan nodded.

“Wow,” Rebecca giggled. “That’s both creepy and awesome.”

“That was one of the perks I’ll miss about being on a runaway success show,” Juliette nodded. “Paris, London, Tokyo... All the free travel was great.”

“Can’t forget the episode where you and ‘Mom’ went to Russia for your class project.” Megan giggled and winked.

“Oh God, and I got us thrown in jail for kicking a Russian cop in the shins,” Juliette almost cackled with glee. “Okay, so I know I said I want to play a nice girl, but Michelle definitely had her moments.”

“She was just being a preteen girl.” Megan laughed. “Just look at Megan Parker from Drake and Josh. She tormented her brothers relentlessly.”

“Oh, God yeah,” Rebecca spoke up. “Megan Parker was genuinely evil. Not like Michelle - most of the time. Hard to believe her actress went on to play such a sweet girl as Carly Shae.”

“That’s my only regret about our show closing, you know,” Megan laughed. “Sorry, my tired brain just jumped a few tracks there. iCarly and Victorious did that amazing crossover special. I regret that we never got to do something like that with, say, Jessie or Dog with a Blog, even though we had Debby on our show a couple of times.”

“A Suite Life on Deck crossover would’ve been hilarious,” Juliette nodded. “I’m pretty stoked about the Pixar movie release coming up, though. And with Snowballed finishing filming. Did your Dad settle on a locale for Lost Girls?”

“Three, actually,” Megan laughed. “He wants to film different aspects of the Lost Girls’ backstory as flashbacks so we’ll be shooting in Hollywood, and a couple of scenes in Florida.”

“We haven’t started casting for Lost Girls yet, if you want to get in early,” Juliette said, grinning at Rebecca.

“No thank you.” Rebecca laughed, “But Amber would.” she teased, since Amber wasn’t there to defend herself.

“Actually.” Amber giggled as she, Megan, Juliette, Rebecca and Carolyn sat in the living room at Tina and Krissy’s waiting for the others to arrive, namely Jessica, Sabrina, and Carly, “I’d love that, but I’m not even a real actress.”

“But you’re great on camera,” Juliette said. “I mean, you and Carolyn are the whole reason we started vlogging during filming.”

“Yeah, but vlogging and blogging is nothing like real acting,” Amber whined. “Rebecca’s the theatrical one.”

“Ohh no,” Rebecca laughed, “They already barked up this tree. I enjoy theater, and that one guest shot on MBM was fun, but I’d rather be on the creative side, working on set pieces and props. Uh, not that I’m volunteering for a big AMC project,” she quickly added. “Just in general terms.”

“We can get you a great acting coach,” Megan said. “You wouldn’t even have to do anything for the pilot.”

“Can I think about it?” Amber asked.

“Oh, of course,” Megan said as she hugged Amber. “We wouldn’t ask if we didn’t think you could do it, but we don’t want to pressure you either.”

“God, yeah,” Juliette spoke up. “If you don’t want to you really don’t have to. It’s just we get creative control over who gets cast. We want people we can work with.”

“People who have good chemistry with us,” Megan added. “Filming Snowballed was a nightmare at times because the guy playing Sam’s dad was... Kind of an asshole.”

“Kind of?” Juliette laughed. “He was worse than the jackass they had playing pre-transition Sam before we got you on board.”

Amber laughed. “Thanks guys. Don’t get me wrong; I’m honored you feel that way about me, but this is bloody AMC we’re talking about. That’s a little bit out of my league.”

“You’d have said that even if we had said it was Disney filming it.” Megan giggled.

Amber giggled, looking sheepish. “Pretty much, yes,” she said as Jessica and Carly appeared in the doorway.

“Filming what?” Jessica said, adding, “Oh, and I found this strange girl poking around outside,” she teased, causing Carly to laugh.

“A surprise project we’re going to be working on next summer.” Megan grinned.

“Yup,” Rebecca giggled. “They’d tell you, but then they’d have to tickle you mercilessly.”

“We already tickle attacked Becca and Amber.” Juliette giggled.

“Hey, what about Carly?” Rebecca said thoughtfully. “Wasn’t she there the other night when you told me?”

“What?” Carly laughed. “I’m innocent. I just got here this week.”

Megan giggled. “Besides she left right before we started talking about it.”

Juliette nodded. “Okay, so, this doesn’t leave this room. We’re talking serious non-disclosure agreements here. You know how protective Disney is of its IPs?” she asked. Carolyn and Carly both nodded. “Well, Megan’s dad and AMC managed to strike a deal with Disney to use the Pixie Hollow fairies’ likenesses in a new TV series based on the Peter Pan mythos, called Lost Girls.”

“And,” Megan giggled, “You’re looking at the leaders: Red,” she said, pointing to Juliette, “and Pinky. Filming for the pilot starts in June plus promos, so it’s going to be awhile.”

“Oh my God,” Carly whispered. “That is so cool! I um... I guess it’s okay to admit now that I have like every Pixie Hollow movie on Blu-Ray now.” She blushed. Carolyn giggled.

“Me and Amber do too. Tell her about the vault, Amber,” Carolyn laughed.

Amber nodded. “It’s what we jokingly call my walk-in closet. One wall has a shelf with literally every Disney movie or TV show ever released to DVD or Blu-Ray, plus some bootlegs,” she said with an innocent grin.

“It;s too bad the last episode of MBM won't ever air anywhere but Australia and Europe.” Juliette sighed.

Carly nodded. “My friend I told you about and I got it off Pirate Bay, and we shared it with like everyone we knew.”

“We both forgive you.” Megan grinned. “Normally I’m totally anti-piracy, but I agree it’s BS they won't air it in the US, just because im TG. Disney AU and EU are way more lax.”

“I wrestled with whether to post on my blog,” Amber said, “But there’s a massive change.org petition to get it aired in the US. So far there are 20,000 signatures, last I checked.”

“Wow, that’s actually kinda cool.” Megan brightened. “It’s a good heart warming episode too, Disney AU adored it.”

“Disney AU is just awesome like that,” Sabrina, a taller red haired girl spoke up as she peeked around the corner. “I’m not late for the party am I?” she laughed, having only caught the tail end of the conversation, but as a Disney AU personality she couldn’t resist piping in as well.

“Sabrina, hey!” Rebecca spoke up. “This is Carly, the new girl Megan and Juliette’s film crew ambushed at Denny’s the other night. Carly this is Sabrina, one of the only actress types we hang out with,” she teased.

“Oh that’s the girl from the text.” Sabrina giggled. “Well there’s one more, but she’s always so busy.” she teased. “Getting married, making movies and all.”

“Hah, that’s true,” Megan giggled. “I haven’t seen much of her since filming wrapped. I think she and Tina are going to take the weekend off and veg though. They’re probably at some spa relaxing right now,” she joked. She knew how much Krissy hated spas.

“I could never do the spa thing,” Juliette laughed. “I’m just not the ‘spoil me rotten’ type.”

“I do enjoy having a makeup crew.” Megan giggled, “At least having them around I know I never have to worry about getting it right, Rayne and Sasha are both on call.” she winked. “But before you girls get any bright ideas.” she wasn’t talking to Juliette, “Yes I do know how to do my own makeup.”

“Ah, so you’re just lazy too,” Rebecca teased.

“I used to wear a ton of makeup,” Carly admitted sheepishly. “Believe it or not, I used to be a total goth in junior high. I guess my tastes changed, but I still adore the style on others.”

“I go goth once in awhile” Rebecca laughed. “I still like it, but like you, it just wasn’t ‘me’. Plus it takes me two hours to do my makeup.”

“You’d make a hot goth,” Carly laughed. She paused. “Oh um, don’t take that the wrong way. You just have really pretty eyes. Easy to accent with dark makeup.”

“Awww,” Rebecca laughed. “Thanks. I still have all my goth clothes. Maybe I’ll wear that cute red corset dress next time we hang out, before you have to go back to Florida.”

“We don’t really care how anyone dresses, for what it’s worth, as long as they’re real.” Juliette giggled catching the flirt between Carly and Rebecca.

“By the way,” Rebecca said, “I was promised pizza damit,” she teased, changing the subject..

“Brianna went out to pick them up.” Megan giggled. “She should be back shortly. Any opinions on what to do until then?”

“Dance naked in the rain?” Rebecca said, paused, and giggled. “Oh, damn. No, that requires rain.”

“And being naked,” Carly laughed.

“We could watch The Walking Dead?” Carolyn grinned. “Give our poor Lost Girls an idea f the kind of carnage they’re probably in for,” she teased.

“Wait, what?” Jessica asked. Everyone just giggled, filling her in on what she had missed by being late, as they headed to the TV room.

12 year old Mark O’Malley had been practically typecast as the dopey sidekick because of his role in the runaway hit Disney production, “My Brother Mark”. But while on the set of his older sister Krissy’s much darker sci-fi movie production, a misheard comment leads to a whole new branch in his career, and in his life.

And so it went that Mark O’Malley became Megan Stuart, movie starlet on the Australian scene, and well known celebrity worldwide. While thus far the American release of the final episode of ‘My Brother Mark’ still hadn’t aired in the North America, it gathered a cult following, and Disney, to their credit, did put the episode up for viewing on the website, with a warning and parental permission requirement.

They filled the next several months of much needed downtime exploring their lives as normal teenagers - after all, they were both 13 well before the pilot filming in Hollywood began. Amber eventually, reluctantly agreed to join the cast, but began taking acting lessons daily, and Rebecca, to her own credit, did eventually sign on with Radio Disney, becoming fairly well known in both Australia and the US, though trouble with Amber’s passport held her up for a bit, with Rebecca and Carolyn staying by her side in Australia for the time being.

The pilot episode of “Lost Girls” was to be a two parter, literally a four hour episode. So they could get the entire back story, which meant they’d be doing long shots in Hollywood and then just as many shots in parts of Florida, before finishing up in New Zealand.

By the time of pilot filming, they still hadn’t found anyone who fit their qualifications for the Pixie Hollow pixies. Actresses either refused the roles outright, or couldn’t fill them properly, or couldn’t work with the cast and crew, or any number of other problems, so they decided to go on filming most of the parts without them, while they continued to search, though Megan regretted her comments about how much time they had before.

Megan was on her way out of her resort hotel at Walt Disney World when she spotted a familiar, iconic someone in a green leaf dress. She took a quick snapshot of Tinkerbell, texting Juliette ‘OMG she’s so perfect.’

‘SHE IS!’ came Juliette’s text back, followed rapidly by ‘OMG. She is Tinkerbell.’

‘Totally. What do?’ Megan sighed, adding a follow up text, ‘I’ll wait for you to get here.’

‘If you want,’ Juliette texted back. “You should go have fun and enjoy the park till then. I’ll be here another week or 2 :-(‘’

‘It’s so boring so far.’ Megan lied She was having a blast, but felt guilty that Juliette couldn’t be here to enjoy it too. ‘I might check out Animal Kingdom while I’m there though. We’re filming one last promo today.’

‘Sounds awesome,’ Juliette texted back. ‘Tlk 2 u 2nite!’

Tinkerbell paused to look over at Megan. “Say, I don’t suppose you’ve seen a water fairy flittering around here? about yay high, answers to Silvermist?” she asked, motioning with her hand to indicate Sil’s height.

“Nope, Sorry Tinkerbell.” Megan shook her head, “I haven’t seen her at all.”

“Ohhhh, flutterdust. I was sure she came this way,” Tink sighed, cutely blowing a tuft of hair out of her face. “You’re not from around here are you?” she giggled. “I just love your accent.”

“Thank you,” Megan laughed softly and asked, “Hey Tink, mind if I get a picture of us together?” she motioned for one of the studio watch dogs that was assigned to her to come over.

“Oh! Sure!” Tinkerbell said excitedly. “Are you going to draw me?” she teased as she came over to Megan.

“Yup, it’s going to look so real too.” Megan giggled and handed her phone to the lady who came over. Tinkerbell put an arm around Megan’s shoulders and mock-leaned on her with one foot resting toes-down. She grinned at the phone.

Megan giggled, and took her phone back showing Tinkerbell the picture, “See ,the drawing looks soo real huh?”

“Oh! It’s one of those, oh, what does Iridessa call them. Lightboxes!” she announced and giggled. “Oh just look at my wings. I really should scrub them more,” she said introspectively.

“If you wait a second I can help you go look for your friend?” Megan asked.

“That would be great,” Tink laughed. “She’s just arrived on the mainland you know. I want to make sure she’s not getting into too much trouble without me.”

“I was just fighting Pirates back in Neverland.” Megan teased. “I’m pretty sure you don’t recognize me.” she winked. “Peter Pan taught me and a friend of mine how to fly.”

“Hmmm,” Tinkerbell said, inspecting Megan closely. “You must be a lost girl!” she said, though she hadn’t actually heard the rumors yet about an actual filming. She was simply playing along.

Megan flexed her muscles. “I am. Second in Command of the Lost girls, Pinky.” she giggled.

“You are?” a squeaky voice said as a man in a ridiculously tall hat and orange coat approached. “But you don’t look lost to me. You’re right there!”

“But you see Hatter, I had to become lost to get here.” Megan grinned. “Peter Pan told me to follow the second star on the right and straight on till morning.”

Tinkerbell looked between the two. She started counting on her fingers. She pointed this way and that, and then went cross-eyed. Hatter just laughed. “Oh well why didn’t you say so!”

Alice giggled as she approached. “I think you broke Tinkerbell, Hatter.”

“But she’s not in pieces Alice! She’s still standing right there, see?” He pointed to Megan. Megan used the tip of her finger to guide Hatter’s finger to Tinkerbell, trying hard not to laugh. They were gathering a crowd now.

Tink laughed and shook her head. “Have you two seen Silvermist?” she asked.

“You mean the tea pot thief?” Hatter asked.

“Yyyyyes,” Tink giggled. “Silvermist did it. Not me. No siree!”

“Oh wait your Tinkerbell, and the blue one is Silvermist?” Hatter asked as Alice signed a signature book for a young girl dressed as herself. “You're the Tea Pot Thief and she’s the crazy one.” Hatter turned to Alice. “Say, what are you signing?” he asked.

“My book,” the girl said shyly.

“Your book? All books are the Queen’s books!” he announced regally, paused, and tapped his chin. “No, wait, that’s not right.” He giggled, signing the book and then passed it to Tinkerbell.

“Didn’t she steal your hat too?” Alice asked. Hatter giggled.

“She borrowed my hat.” Hatter laughed. “Besides, it was only my second best hat, so that’s okay.”

“And I borrowed your tea pot,” Tink giggled.

“But you haven’t returned it yet?” Hatter asked.

“Well no, I’m living in it while Fairy Gary, Clank and Bobble renovates my hut,” Tink answered. Megan just watched the whole affair, trying hard not to laugh, and failing miserably. It was fun watching someone else be in the spotlight for a change.

“See, you stole it.” Hatter spoke with a laugh.

“Oh, but I think I did see Silvermist board the monorail for the Wild Animal Kingdom,” Alice finally said with a helpful nod.

“Oh,” Tink said brightly, “Well that’s good then. She took my advice to go and explore some more!” She giggled.

“I was actually going to head that way myself.” Megan finally stopped giggling. “You guys are way more fun than Disneyland in California.”

Alice looked up at the Hatter, confused. “Oh!” she finally said. “She means that other place where we sometimes end up, following your silly shortcuts.”

Hatter laughed. “My shortcuts are not silly! They always get us precisely where we mean to go ... eventually.”

“Well anyway when you’re over there, you're not as cheery as you are here either one of you.” Megan winked she leaned incase anyone else was listening, “I’m going to be here in a few weeks in a costume myself.” she winked then out loud she spoke, “If you want if I see Silvermist want me to tell her you were looking for her?”

“Oh, how exciting!” Alice whispered. Tinkerbell giggled.

“Oh, it’s fine. I’ll catch up with her this afternoon. Thank you though! And if you do run into her, feel free to chat her up too.”

“She’s quite adorable,” Alice giggled. “But for some reason, people can’t seem to believe it’s her. Everyone is telling her how she looks like the real Silvermist.”

Megan laughed. “I thought the same thing when I saw Tinkerbell,” she said, waving cheerfully as she turned to leave. Tinkerbell turned to Alice and the Hatter, and whispered.

“Now what do you suppose that was about?”

Hatter giggled. “I love a good mystery!”

“Perhaps Fairy Mary knows more?” Alice asked, shooting Tinkerbell a knowing wink. She tried to stay in character while giving her friend a hint.

“If she does she’s not told me.” Tinkerbell shrugged. “But I’ll certainly ask her when I see her again,” she said, putting on a bright smile for a group of oncoming park guests. “Hi everyone!” she said, as brightly as her smile.

Megan was sitting in her hotel room, having just finished filming her last scene in Florida before she had to film some with Juliette. She shot off a text not knowing if Juliette was filming her scenes or on break, ‘Whatchya doin?’ She giggled. She had just watched a Phineas and Ferb marathon. A moment later there was a knock at the hotel door. “Come in.” Megan called out.

“Oh, hey Isabella,” Juliette said as she came through the door, grinning.

“Oh my God, thank you, I was going nuts without you Juliette.” Megan pretty much jumped up and tackle hugged her.

Juliette laughed. “Guess this means you’re not mad at me for not telling you I was coming, huh?” She giggled. “I wasn’t sure my connection would get me here on time for once.”

“You weren't supposed to be here for a few more days, but I can give Gennine a call and say we can do a park visit early.” Megan grinned.

“Nah, let’s enjoy not being mobbed for a couple of days first,” Juliette laughed.

Megan laughed, “Too late, I got mauled after some girls recognized me a few days ago. But I had a hilarious time before that. The pixies are just what we were looking for.”

“Should I be jealous?” Juliette teased and giggled. “And who’s Annie? What’s this stuff about us joining a Pixie Hollow fan club? You’ve been a busy busy girl,” she laughed.

“Not as busy as Silvermist,” Megan laughed too. “You know she saved a guy’s life the other day? Like just bloody dove off the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and rescued him. They had a big pirate party and everything. I think we found our Pixies,” Megan said, as the two sat down and Megan caught Juliette up to speed on everything that had been going on the last couple of weeks.

It wasn’t as if they didn’t talk or text, but filming kept them both busy. When one had downtime, the other was working.

“Wow,” Juliette laughed. “Okay, we have to plan out our little publicity stunt carefully, but I definitely want these girls on the project.”

“I completely agree. I’ve had a chance to hang out with the pixies and some of our old friends. Rumor’s already spreading like wildfire about Lost Girls now,” she said sheepishly. “Want to hit the water park before we get to business?” she asked. Juliette giggled.

“Sounds like fun.”

Megan giggled and dashed to the bathroom to change into her new bathing suit. One of the makeup crew members showed her a secret for wearing it, though she needed little help thanks to the HRT. “Tada, I’m ready.” she giggled.

“OMG hawt,” Juliette giggled. “That looks so good on you.”

“Thanks, “ Megan giggled, “I bought it um, for you.” she said sheepishly. “Well for me to wear but for you.”

If there was a pair in the universe that never argued, and was always destined to be best friends and be together forever it was these two. It was like they always knew what each other liked, didn’t like, and knew what the other was thinking, and it wasn’t from being on MBM for so long together either. Ironically the two didn’t even really begin to hang out until a few years ago, following the infamous ‘Substitute’ episode.

“Hmm, what a coincidence,” Juliette laughed. “I changed before I came up to find you,” she added, grinning as she lifted her tee shirt to reveal a lilac bikini underneath. “I figured you might want to hit the water park.”

“Hey that’s my favorite color.” Megan giggled.

Juliette laughed as she hugged Megan. “I couldn’t tell by how many pairs of lilac bras and panties you own,” she teased. “I saw it, and I was like, ‘Must get’.”.

“I’ve been waiting for you to get here first,” Megan laughed as she grabbed her already packed beach bag including two pairs of expensive sunglasses, two beach towels, and two bottles of SPF 85 sunblock. “Oh yeah,” she said as they started for the door, “What do you think of those watch dogs AMC assigned to us?” she sighed.

“The big one scares me,” Juliette laughed. “But the lady’s kind of pretty for being a bodyguard.”

Megan glared, “Should I get my claws out?” she teased, then laughed..

“Ew, she’s like old enough to be my... um... Wait, actually she’s probably not much older than Krissy,” Juliette laughed, following Megan out.

Megan and Juliette were in a private dressing area in the costume department, Megan was finishing up pulling on her halter top native american style shirt and her skort type skirt and shorts. Her costume sword lay on the counter, and she had a long pink stripe from her forehead to her chin hanging down the right side.

Juliette was dressed similarly, except she wore long trousers, and a red bandana over her hair, tied neatly in back. Her hair had grown much longer since she had it cut a year ago. It wasn’t as long as it used to be, however. She looked at herself in the mirror, and then at Megan’s reflection. “You know you should keep the stripe even after this,” she giggled. “It’s so you.”

Megan giggled, “Na, only on set,” she teased as she sheathed the sword on her side. ““Oh the Pixies don’t know we’ll be out there.”

“Okay girls,” Gennine said cheerfully as she came through the door. “I just want to go over the plan with you one last time before I send you out.”

“Will people even know who we are?” Megan asked. “I mean rumor among the insiders is spreading like crazy, but I don’t want to scare the bejeezus out of the kids,” she laughed.

“I know that Disney aired the commercial for it on ABC for the last several days, So people should kinda have an idea who we are.” Juliette grinned.

“It’s pretty straightforward,” Gennine said, “We managed to get Johnny to reprise his role just for today, too, so you’ll be tussling with the real Captain Jack Sparrow.” She winked. Megan’s breath caught in her throat.

“So we get real pirates good.” Juliette giggled, she was lucky she got to work with Johnny Depp once before.

“After the ride starts - and we have divers checking now to ensure no more turtles are harmed,” she added quickly, “you bust out of the captain’s quarters and declare the ship to be Lost Girls’ property. You’ll duel Jack and Angela, and then Silvermist will step in and explain how these are nice pirates.”

“And Red will say, “ Megan grinned, “There is no such thing and I will argue, till Jack does that thing he does and confuses us.”

Gennine laughed. “Exactly. Now your swords as you can tell are real metal, but don’t worry. They’re completely blunt. The only damage you could do is if you dropped one on your foot.” She winked.

“Yeah, the ones we use on set are actually combat ready swords.” Juliette giggled. “These are lighter. Good balance though,” she added.

“Unlike most of the costumes here besides Jack and Angelica’s and maybe a few others, ours are actually set ones too so we have to be really careful not to mess them up too bad.” Megan nodded.

“No falling in the water,” Gennine teased. “Alright, I think that’s everything. I just want to say again how excited I am to help set up all this. It’s been a joy working with you.”

“Yeah, so we take the tunnel over to the ship because we don’t want people to see us till it’s time, not even the pixies?” Juliette asked just to make sure.

“Right. Silvermist has some idea, but I haven’t told her everything, either. I find she works better when she’s forced to think on her feet.” She grinned. “You’ll have a five minute gap after the last group of guests leaves the Black Pearl, where Jack and Angelica will be signing autographs in the shade, where you’ll be able to sneak aboard.”

Megan gave Gennine a hug, “Thanks for having us here.” Juliette hugged her as well, after which she showed both girls down the maintenance tunnels.

“This is so exciting,” Juliette giggled. “I mean I know we ran into Peter and the pixies at the water park the other day, but this is genuine in-character stuff.”

“None of them know who we are, “ Megan grinned, “I mean in character, this will be our introduction to our Pixie friends.”

Juliette looked up at a clock over the maintenance door. “Okay, one minute to go before we sneak onto the Pearl,” she said, counting down the seconds. At the one second mark, Megan opened the maintenance hatch and popped out, followed by Juliette. Right on cue, Jack and Angelica were busy signing autographs for the guests, keeping them all distracted for the girls to set up.

The girls were a little surprised to find an ultra modern medical facility inside the ‘captain’s cabin’. A pair of EMTs were standing by chatting when they entered, and one of them looked up and grinned.

Megan waved and put a finger to her lips, “We’re pirate hunting.” she whispered.

The man tried his best not to laugh. “We didn’t see anything,” he answered.

Juliette grinned, just as the ship started to move, they both busted out the captain's door, and Megan spoke, “Ah! Pirates finally!”

Juliette grinned, “We claim this ship in the name of the Lost girls!” Both girls drew their swords.

“Poppycock!” Jack shouted. “If you’re keen on takin’ me blessed Pearl then you’ll have ta fight me for it, and spoiler alert - I’m the good guy!” he said as he and Angelica drew their swords. Angelica rolled her eyes.

“Define ‘good’,” she groaned as she went for Juliette. The pixies watched in stunned silence, helping to keep the crowd out of the way of the duel as best they could.

Megan put one hand behind her back as , “I fight pirates unfairly. Just a warning to you Captain Catfish.” she touched swords with Jack’s.

“Well I don’t usually fight girls, fairly or unfairly,” Jack retorted. “But I’ve lost me Pearl to Barbosa and to Davy Jones. I’ll be buggared if I’m losing her to some upstart in a funny dress!”

They clashed blades a few times; it looked like a real sword fight. They had spent the day before practicing with Johnny, but neither of them realized that it was him under the pirate garb. They assumed, when he showed up, that it was the actor, just come from the ride.

“You’re making fun of my clothes? You should see your hair Captain Catfish.” she goaded back.

“Now I do believe you have me confused with someone else, madam. I am the illustrious and legendary, incomparable, one and only Captain Jack Sparrow,” he announced and took a step back, taking a deep, sweeping bow as he swept with his sword. “Not, I repeat, Not. Ay. Catfish.”

Silvermist jumped into the fight as they got closer to the guests. “Stop this right now!” she demanded. The girls stopped. Red and Angelica’s swords were locked, each trying to press the advantage on the other. They withdrew their swords, all four turning to look at Silvermist. Silvermist for her part, looked stunned that that actually worked.

“These pirates are good people and the Lost Boys have given them permission to be in Neverland,” she insisted.

“There’s no such thing as good pirates,” Red argued with the pixie.

“Exactly.” Pinky spoke up, “The only good pirate is a dead one. They all lie cheat and steal.”

“Nonsense!” Silvermist insisted. “This pirate made me an honorary pirate. He even shared his rum,” she giggled.

“I did?” Jack answered questioningly as he put away his sword. “In any case, the little blue figment of me imagination is right. Well, she’s half right anyway. I have turned over a new leaf.” He paused looking at Tinkerbell. “Well, not her leaf obviously, because then Angelica would run me through.”

“What he’s trying to say, I think,” Angelica groaned, “Is it’s possible to be a pirate, and a good man. Just like it’s possible to be a pixie, and an honorary pirate.”

“Uh, what she said,” Jack said, pointing at Silvermist first and then slowly moving his finger until it pointed at Angelica. Megan fought not to laugh.

She turned to Silvermist and the other pixies, sizing them up. “And you vouch for these weaselly black hearted guttersnipe toad sucking scum of the sea?”

Silvermist nodded firmly. “Yes I do. We all vouch for these weaselly black hearted gutter... Uh... whatever you said.” She giggled. “So come now, put away those swords and enjoy the ride with us?” she asked, joined by a chorus of ‘Yes won’t you?’ and ‘Please?’ from the other pixies. The guests stared, awestruck. None of them knew what was happening, but a few had cell phone cameras out to record it.

Pinky and Red laughed as they sheathed their swords. “Oh all right,” Red said. “You convinced us, Miss Silvermist.”

“Sorry for the trouble,” Pinky added. “But you must admit MOST pirates are bilge rat scum of the sea, even if these aren’t.”

“Even Peter’s old friend is.” Red looked at Tinkerbell, “You know, he tricked you and you almost died.”

Tinkerbell put her hands on her hips, paused, and then giggled. “Okay she has me there. But these guys are okay.”

“Except for Angelica,” Jack spoke up, “Who is in fact a girl, and okay, just so there’s no confusion, ey?”

“What’s wrong with being a girl?” Pinky asked, eyeing Jack.

“Nothing,” Jack defended himself. “Just trying to avoid any further confusion or crossing of blades over the mixing of words and nouns,” he rambled.

“Say.” Pinky looked at Iridessa now. “We could so use you to help us light up our Tree house.”

“And having a water pixie around would be handy,” Red said. “No more having to draw it from the well and carry it all the way up.”

“All of them would be useful.” Pinky nodded thoughtfully. “The girls at the tree house..” she was interrupted by Tinkerbell.

“Now just a darn minute,” Tinkerbell said, paused, and then blinked. “Wait, what?”

“Wait what what?” Pinky asked, looking at Tinkerbell.

“There are other Lost Girls besides you two?” Silvermist spoke up now.

Red nodded, “Pinky and I are the head Pirate hunters. The other girls aren’t ready to hunt Pirates yet.”

The pixies shared glances, and Silvermist spoke up. The girls knew about the show by now of course. It was Megan and Juliette who spilled to them, though this publicity stunt of theirs, as Gennine had mentioned, only Silvermist knew anything about.

“So, they’re all alone and defenseless?” the water pixie asked.

“No, the Neverbeast is watching over them.” Pinky spoke up. “We would never leave them completely defenseless, silly gal.”

“Well, that settles it,” Fawn said. “If the Neverbeast trusts them, then I do too!”

“Lost girls are friends of Neverland.. Peter pan..” Pinky looked at Red to make sure it was ok.

“Pan my man put us in charge on our island,” Red continued with a giggle. “The Isle of the Lost Girls.”

Just then, there was a Rooster call, and with some really fancy wire tricks Peter Pan landed on the Black Pearl, hands on his hips. “Hello again ladies.” he bowed to them all. “Ah, good Captain Sparrow!” he called. Jack just grinned and tipped his hat to Peter.

“Don’t look now,” he said in a stage whisper, “It’s more bloody imaginary figments.” The crowd roared with laughter. The whole ‘Neverland visitors are all in Jack’s head’ joke had been running for awhile now, and quite well known. Even the regular actors that played Jack used it.

“Peter!” Pinky called. “We were just talking about you!”

“Hows Lost girl island?” Peter asked with a grin. “Was the tree house good enough for you girls? I had the boys build it you know.”

“It’s wonderful, though we were just thinking of borrowing your pixie friends to make it even better,” Pinky laughed. “If they were agreeable of course.”

“Well I don’t know.. You’ll definitely have to return them when you're done, unlike Tink. She has a habit of not returning things she borrows.” Peter grinned.

Tink stuck out her tongue at Peter, and Pinky laughed. “Oh my, yes. We would have them back on the mainland in no time I’m sure.”

“Well then, I’ll let the Pixies decide for themselves,” Peter said. “You girls would love it on Lost girl island though. There’s so much more new to explore.”

“Pixie huddle,” Iridessa said, and the girls gathered, quite literally putting their heads together as they whispered among themselves. Finally Vidya and Fawn pushed Silvermist forward as their spokespixie.

“You got us into this,” Vidya chided Silvermist. “You tell them.”

“Well,” Silvermist giggled, “After careful consideration, we’ve decided that you do need our help, so we’re in agreement.”

“They definitely need a tinker fairy.” Tinkerbell nodded. “No girls’ treehouse would be complete without my gadgets.”

“And no girls’ treehouse is a girls’ treehouse without lots of pretty flowers,” Rosetta said, adding, “And someone to give them sunshine and water,” she giggled out.

“Right then!” Jack announced. “What did we decide? Oh, yes. The figments of me imagination and the confused girls-”

“Lost girls,” Silvermist corrected.

“Lost girls... Shall be henceforth known as honorary members of me crew - except the blue one who already was,” he added. “Or something like that.”

“Actually.” Periwinkle spoke up, “There’s no need for a Snow Fairy on Lost Girl island, so I will stay behind but I promise, to come visit.” she giggled. “Someone must bring winter to the island after all.”

“Awww,” Tink said as she hugged Peri. “You’d better! It’s only a hop, flit and a flight from Winter.”

The girls sat in the food court near Pixie Hollow with the other girls, now out of costume. “That was so much fun.” Megan giggled.

“I love working with Jack,” Sarah - the pixie formerly known as Silvermist, laughed. “You two really sold it by the way.”

“I was kinda afraid. Johnny is kind of Intimidating,” Megan said sheepishly. “We did a run through for like 5 minutes it seemed like, but we had no idea that was really him.”

“He was dressed like Jack then, too,” Juliette laughed. “So we had no idea until Gennine told us right before we left.”

“He’s sneaky like that,” Olivia - Tinkerbell laughed.

“So have you thought about our offer?” Megan asked.

The pixies’ actresses shared glances, and Olivia spoke up. “It’s something we have to really think hard about. It’s an incredible offer, but it’s a big step from just acting here in the park.”

“There really is no rush, the pixies and the rest of the lost girls don’t appear in the pilot till near the end, to rescue us,” Megan said.

Sarah nodded. “It honestly sounds like a ton of fun. I mean we can definitely help with the pilot at least.”

“We all just flowed together on that ship, it was like magic. No scripts, just some minor lines between us and Jack and we all thought on our feet.” Juliette gushed.

Jade laughed. “That’s how it is working the park most of the time. You never know what someone’s going to say or do so you have to think on your toes constantly. The main characters like Cinderella have it a little easier, but not much.”

“That’s the thing about this show. We’re allowed to improv if need be.” Megan nodded. “There’s a few funnies I did filming in for my parts, that made it because they were just good. Like when I bonked a pirate on the head with my pistol instead of running him through. I was just goofing around.”

“But Rob, the director, loved the pratfall so much they kept it,” Juliette laughed.

“It couldn’t hurt to try it out,” Sarah said finally. “I mean, Gennine said the full series won’t go into production until AMC sees how the pilot tests. I know these girls. I know they can totally pull off the Pixie Hollow crew.”

Olivia nodded her agreement. “Plus our role would be small like Megan said. If anything Annie would get more screen time,” she laughed, referring to Sarah’s younger sister. “I’m all for it.”

“As I said on the ship.” Kelly said at that, “I’ll have to stick this one out, but I do think that I can do guest appearances and stuff. I mean Lost girl Island has to have winter right?”

“I’ve got my own concerns to think about too,” Sarah said. “I’ll have to talk to someone before I commit to anything long term, but in the short term, as I said, you have my full cooperation. Consider Silvermist at your service.”

“Sweet. The last bit where we really need you girls, is probably going to take about two or three days out of your schedule, and you will be paid for it.” Megan said “Oh, you don’t have to come in costume either. Our costume designers worked with yours to create some really nice stuff.”

“Awesome,” Carol - Fawn spoke up at that. “I can’t wait to see what they came up with.”

Juliette nodded, “And Megan has an in with the Producer slash Director.” she grinned, “So if you girls decide to stick around we can work some really uber contracts because it’s a Disney Production on AMC.”

And so it went that a ragtag group of theme park actresses found themselves the center of a whole new adventure. Not that things turned out anything like Megan and Juliette expected, either. They were much, much better.

Unbeknownst to them Sarah had her own issues to think about, though. The demands of playing a character in a Disney theme park were high, and her body was about to turn on her in the worst possible ways, turning her dream into a self-imposed nightmare, at least in her own mind.

If she only knew that Megan was in the same ship she was. She had to make sure she kept up otherwise she’d gain the wrong kind of weight, and other things that Sarah encountered as well. She even had to do therapy sessions just like Sarah, though Doctor Miller was considering moving to the US to join her on set.

Of course Sarah knew the Mark/Megan story through her little sister, but she had no clue how much work Megan put into being Megan, and how much work she was going to put into being Sarah. But that’s a story for another day.

The end... For now.