I woke slowly and comfortably from dreams of Leila Roberts as the sun streamed in through the window. Hair tickled my nose and I opened my eyes to a sea of black. Phil. Not Leila. Okay. The bed was so small we were practically spooning and I jerked backwards, hitting the wall with my arse and biting my tongue so as not to wake Phil. I glanced down under the covers. Shit. This was not something I wanted him to see, of course he'd jump to the wrong conclusions. I mean, I was sharing a bed with him.

It was still early, I reasoned. If I jumped in the shower now I could be out before anyone woke up. Carefully, I climbed over the soft hump of Phil's sleeping body and shut the bathroom door, turning the shower down as cold as it would go. Taking a deep breath, I stepped into the sheet of ice: focusing very carefully on the image of Mr McEwan in lacy pink French lingerie.

*

"How much of that pond did you get in your hair?!" Phil laughed as I came out of the shower with a towel around my waist.

He was sitting cross legged on the bed reading a book, the duvet pulled up around his shoulders.

"Sorry, did I wake you?" I asked, trying to ignore the adorable way in which he was clinging on to his big toe with his fingers.

"Yeah, but I usually wake up early anyway. Unlike Chris, he won't get out of bed until five minutes before his lesson — and that's only if we tip him out." Phil giggled, turning to grin fondly at the bed by the door.

"Sometimes we have to get the shower out and spray him before he moves." PJ murmured with a yawn. His morning voice was deep and croaky, and he stretched lethargically out on the bed, arching his back against the headboard.

"Sorry, did we wake you, too?" Phil's eyebrows creased and he grinned guiltily at me.

"Nah, s'cool," PJ yawned again. "I woke up earlier anyway. Saw you two all cuddled up." He flashed us a crooked grin.

I smiled into the floor, remembering the warmth of Phil's arms.

"Dan needs to borrow some clothes or he'll freeze," Phil said to PJ. "I reckon he's too skinny for my jeans, you got a spare pair?"

"Yeah, sure," PJ responded. "He'll have to borrow one of my shirts too, every one of yours seems to be dirty and shoved in a pile under your bed as if we wouldn't notice the smell."

Phil glanced guiltily up at me, hiding his face behind my back. "I don't know what you're talking about." He muttered.

*

PJ's clothes smelled like soap and forests, but they fitted me almost perfectly — even the impossibly tight jeans.

"What time's your first class?" PJ asked through another yawn, pulling on a black sock which was more hole than sock.

"It's not till 1:30," I replied as I tried to pull my hair straight with my hands, "Double Lit and then I'm done for the day."

"Same, actually. Do you think we should get started on the shoot? At least, start storyboarding the scenes you're in while you're here," PJ paused with a shirt halfway over his head, staring eagerly at the mass of camera equipment in one corner of the small room. "We'll have to get Chris up first though..."

His face fell slightly as he turned to Chris: asleep with his head under the pillow, one leg hanging so far off the bed it touched the floor and the other curled underneath him so that he resembled a headless duvet-snail.

"Oh dear." Phil said with a little giggle.

Cautiously, I approached the bed. PJ joined me and surveyed the task with his arms folded and his eyes narrowed.

"It's a bad one. I reckon we should go straight for the shower." PJ adopted a gruff voice, as if about to perform heart surgery, and cracked his knuckles dramatically in front of him, wiggling his eyebrows.

"Aw, no, that's mean!" Phil pouted. "We should at least try to wake him first."

"But that's no fun," PJ sighed. "Alright, fine. Dan, would you like to do the honours?"

Tentatively, I lifted the pillow from one corner. Chris's face was squished into the mattress, his mouth slightly open, his eyes firmly shut.

I looked up desperately to PJ for help. I'd only met him Saturday night; I didn't think Chris would take too kindly to me poking him awake. "Er... hey, Chris? Wake up, man." I muttered.

PJ and Phil both burst out laughing, leaving me standing awkwardly by the bed.

"Nice try, Dan," Phil chuckled, patting my shoulder. "We'll take it from here."

With a nod at PJ, Phil stepped forwards: each of them grabbing one end of the mattress.

"On three: One, two, three; HEAVE!"

In one smooth, well practiced motion they upturned the mattress, toppling its contents into a heap on the floor with a thud.

I climbed over the bed slats, laughing, to get a good look at the bundle on the floor. For a moment it was completely still, and then a low groan welled slowly and pitifully from the mound. Gingerly, PJ nudged aside the duvet with his foot.

Chris hissed emphatically at the light and rolled over into a ball, then kept rolling until he was under the bed and out of our reach. PJ shook his head and laughed. "Morning to you too," he addressed the bundle. "We're gonna start shooting today, so you should probably get dressed, but hey, it's up to you."

Chris froze for a moment as though considering mutiny, but sighed theatrically to let us know where he stood on the matter before grudgingly rolling back out to lay on his back, staring bleary eyed up at us. PJ offered him a hand and pulled him to his feet.

Chris sighed again. "I don't know why people say 'good morning'," he grumbled. "There's nothing good about mornings." With that, he slumped into the bathroom — his gangly arms hanging limply at his side.

*

"Right. The basic structure of the Best-Zombie-Movie-Ever: dramatic Shakespeare reading while walking slow-mo through a sea of effects and dead things and explosions, dramatic camera zoom. Then, when it gets up to Dan's face, he's gonna be surrounded by zombies and he'll just pull two guns out, pull the trigger and boom — roll title sequence." Phil and PJ sat at the desk, running through the first draught of the storyboard as Chris talked from the bed. "Then we have some psychedelic shots, lots of focus and un-focussing and just a sort of montage of whatever we can get; some running, heavy breathing, that sort of thing. Then cut to the forest — Blair Witch-esque. PJ's doing that one right? Cool."

"Oh, God. Blair Witch scared me shitless." I piped up from the floor where I was sitting cross legged, a little out of the action as I didn't take media or film studies.

"Don't worry, you can hold my hand when it gets to that bit." Phil grinned at me from the swivel chair.

I jerked my head away so quickly I clicked my neck, glaring at the floor, a red flush rising rapidly in my cheeks. I wished more than ever that I wasn't so clueless, because that sounded an awful lot like flirting to me and I'd just shared a bed with him. What did it mean? Was this an unusually affectionate but entirely platonic group of friends, as I had assumed? Or was there something more that I was missing?

I tried to ignore it, Chris and PJ didn't even bat an eyelid, so maybe it was just him messing around. Maybe I was the one overreacting. Phil was quickly becoming my rock away from the dance studio. I didn't want to complicate it with worrying that he was going to come on to meall of a sudden.

Lost in my thoughts, I'd managed to miss a good chunk of the run-through.

"And I'm still not sure about the ending. Do you make it out alive? Or shall we leave them guessing — maybe some gunshots and screams..." Chris trailed off, staring out the window thoughtfully.

"I reckon we should kill Bryony off and leave PJ." Phil grinned. "She'd get a kick out of a dramatic death, and Adam's got a whole bunch of fake blood ordered. We might as well make the most of it. Let's have something really gory, you know how good she is with makeup and arty things."

Chris nodded in agreement, hugging his knees to his chest. "For the deserted town scenes we're going to have to travel, filming in the college would just look so tacky. I want to blow everyone's mind."

PJ made a few notes in the thick folder, ready to fill with production plans. "Train tickets... Anyone got any ideas? Where would be deserted on a weekend?"

We sat in silence for a few minutes, considering.

"Well, we can worry about that later," Chris frowned. "We won't have anything at all unless we figure out what we're doing about the bloody dance bit."

My ears pricked up at once. Dance? Obviously I'd missed that part of the conversation.

"Yeah. Shit," PJ's face creased into grim determination. "We're going to have to find someone. I'm not giving up on this, even if we have to pay them or something."

"Wait — what dance scene? Sorry, I zoned out." I tried to keep my tone casual, but I wasn't doing such a good job of it judging by their surprised expressions as they all turned to face me.

"We have to include all three of the art forms: music, drama and dance. It's supposed to show diversity," Phil eyed me curiously. "And obviously we're struggling to fit dance into a zombie movie."

"Oh, cool." I murmured lamely, staring intently at the carpet and trying to hide the turmoil of conflicting emotions in my gut. I'd only just met these people, but already I felt closer to them than anyone I'd ever known. And Phil was right: I was nearly an adult. It was time to start being myself, no matter what the consequences. I just didn't know if I was ready for such a big leap just yet.

After a moment's silence they resumed their breakdown, PJ giving the folder to Phil and getting up to pace the small room as he talked. It wasn't until PJ had sat down on the bed opposite Chris to discuss with Phil that I made up my mind.

"I'll do it." I announced, cutting off whatever Phil was saying mid sentence.

"Do what?" Chris asked, confused.

"The dance bit," I squeezed my eyes shut, carrying on in one breath so I couldn't register their reactions. "On one condition. You have to edit it so you can't recognise me. At all. Silhouettes or something, I don't care, but I've had enough trips to the bottom of the fish pond for this year." I carefully avoided their eyes, but I couldn't help spotting Phil's expression in the reflection of the window. A strange little smile played at the corner of his mouth, as though he'd somehow known all along. I tried to ignore it, focussing instead on the stunned silence coming from Chris and PJ on my left.

"You... you dance?" PJ asked, tentatively.

I nodded, still carefully tracing the chipped white paint on the walls with my eyes. "Since I was four. It's... it means a lot to me." And the understatement of the year award goes to...

PJ nodded slowly. "Okay. Yeah. I like the silhouette idea. Could you choreograph the routine and stuff?"

"Yeah, no problem." Taking a steadying breath, I turned to face them, somewhat defiantly.

PJ was eyeing me thoughtfully, as though taking me in properly for the first time. "I did wonder where you got those abs from." He laughed, and I relaxed. He didn't even ask the usual question 'What, you do ballet in like tights and stuff?'

Chris was already back in his laptop and I couldn't stop a huge smile spreading across my face. Acceptance. Phil was right, again.

Talking of Phil, he hadn't taken his eyes of me the whole time; that strange grin. And suddenly it hit me, what it reminded me of. My Mum, telling my grandma about the competition I'd won in year six, barely containing her pride.