CHAPTER ONE: TWENTY FIVE

"I'd like to think I can dance…" I shrugged nervously at the bald headed man who stood face to face with me, his stocky, tall frame completely blocking entrance through the door behind him.

"I mean, my friends have always said I can dance and so have my family…" I continued after a few moments had passed without him saying anything to my previous statement. No luck. The man just continued to stare down at my 5'1 self which scarily green eyes.

"You do know I'm only security kid" he finally said, still showing no sign of emotion. Oh great, just perfect, this whole time I'd been spilling my heart out about dance and experience to the bloody security guard who clearly didn't care less. He rolled his eyes and finally let out a small breath of a chuckle,
"you're looking for studio 343…its right down this corridor and you're last door on the left" he pointed out. Before he could even finish the sentence I was already sprinting down the hallway, I was expected to be in the studio by 5:00pm…it was 4:58.

One thing you should probably know about me, I couldn't turn up to a meeting/class/event on time if my life depended on it.

I couldn't help but grin and squeal quietly to myself in excitement when I heard the song 'Happiness' by Alexis Jordan as I pushed open the studio door to be greeted by about 30 girls, all very beautiful and all surprisingly tall…It was fair to say I felt like an ant that'd just crawled into the giraffe enclosure at London Zoo.

There were girls by the ballet bars, there were girls on the floor stretching, there were girls sitting on the benches at the back of the studio just chatting and typically there were girls looking in the mirrors checking themselves out.
"Are you Katie Alison?" a wannabe Louis Spence asked me,
"close enough…" I shrugged. For some weird reason, everyone seemed to put my middle name and first name together to make 'Katie-Alison', as if Katie alone wasn't good enough; for a while it annoyed me and I attempted to correct people but after four years of saying the same thing you kind of end up giving up…

"You're almost late, go and quickly warm up…Joanna and the boys will be here in a minute" he snapped before walking away.
Almost late…How is that even a legitimate reason to be mad at someone? That's like being extremely happy because you almost won the lottery.

Urgh…I looked gross, I took a look at myself in the mirror as I tied my hair and took some time to loosen up and stretch out. The only thing I actually liked that I was wearing were my red and white polka-dot Nike high-tops, since I brought them I'd never danced without them.

"Alright girls and boys" the fake Louis Spence called clapping his hands, "can you all come and stand in-front of the mirrors" he ordered quickly leaving the room. There was an expected wave of excited whispers from the dancers…I had to admit I was a little excited too, like I knew I hadn't turned up to a tour dancer audition to fan girl but after all they were my favourite band and they were so, so, so, so…SO talented.

The majority of the girls including me, subtly screamed to themselves as the five very recognisable boys of One Direction entered the studio and sat behind a table that was placed in-front of the mirrors followed by a snobby looking blonde women who I assumed was Joanna – their manager/assistant and a whole other bunch of boring people in black suits with designer sunglasses playing around with their PDA's and blackberry's…I never understand why people wear sunglasses in months like October?

"Alright girls and boys, we need to make this quick…I'm going to teach you a simple routine to the song 'Higher' by The Saturdays and then you'll be split into six groups of five and dance the same routine so myself and the boys can get a better look at your technique" he explained,
"The competition is extremely tough girls, we've been running auditions all week with thirty dancers each day…we've picked 5 from each group so far. This is our final audition where we hope to find five more people to make up our team of 25 tour dancers" he added….Jeeze, no pressure or anything!

…

"Can I have Helen…Jade…Chloe…Daisy and Katie Alison" the rip off Louis Spence called reading our names off of his clipboard, I stood up along with four other girls who were obviously Helen, Rogan, Chloe and Daisy and made our way into the studio.

Maybe I was extremely tired but for some reason I had no nerves what so ever, all I wanted to do was sleep,
"ready girls? 5…6…7…8" our choreographer called. Straight after the music kicked in and all I could do was just focus on me and what I was doing in the mirror.
By at least 3 or 4 inches I was the shortest girl in the studio dancing at that time and for some reason I felt threatened by that, Chloe, Helen and Daisy were all average height…about 5'4-5'6 and Jade must've been something crazy like 5'10 and she had long, wavy bright red hair that made her look like the Little Mermaid and the prettiest deep blue eyes.

Everything seemed to be going well.
I was getting the moves right, bonus.
I could kind of see each of the boys watch every now and then, scary but cool.
The other girls were doing well, good for them.
BANG…."Ouch!"
Spoke to soon.
"I can't do it…that spin is too hard!" I heard a voice whine.

The music cut out and I span around to see Jade behind me on the floor,
"what happened? Walk it off…walk it off…" the Louis Spence rip off called with no enthusiasm. I watched as jade wriggled around on the floor in pain…it looked kind of serious.
"That's your audition done anyway girls, wait outside the studios and we'll call you back in when it's relevant" he said, seeming to have forgotten all about Jade.
…...

I looked from the fake Louis Spence to Liam Payne,
"Welcome to the tour!" he cheered, straight away the girls in the room with me screamed and leaped onto the boys, their managers and also the fake Louis Spence…even though through most of the day he'd been an absolute prick.

"What're your twitter names girls? We'll keep in-touch!" Chloe smiled as the five of us walked out of the studios,
"mines x and then Katie with two E's" I smiled.
"Mines op-its-Helen" Helen answered, pulling out her phone to follow me,
"mines Brogan-underscore-tweets"
"and mine is Sarah-111"

I don't care how cheesy it sounded. We were the chosen ones, on whole throughout the five days 150 girls had auditioned to become dancers and we were five of the 25 that actually got picked.

Best feeling ever? Of course, duh.
…

"So let me get this right, from the 18th of December to the 26th of January…You're going to be eating, breathing, sleeping, dancing, drinking, smelling, living One Direction?" my best friend Bex gasped as she handed me a glass of Lemonade
"I haven't thought about it that way…I suppose so!" I laughed
"Lucky bitch, they're life" my other best friend, Sarah added.

The three of us had been best friends since we were all like three years old and nothing had come between us ever,
"Oh shut up you'se two. You know I'll attempt to get you tickets to like every show because I know how much you want to see me dance" I teased
"…Yeah, whatever helps you sleep at night" Bex laughed, joking rolling her eyes at Sarah. I was so happy with how supportive the two of them were being of me and I found it cool that we were just at Sarah's house doing nothing as if nothing amazing had happened today.

"zzz…zzz…Who run the world? Girls!" my phone started to vibrate and shout,
"You've got a DM on Twitter" Sarah said looking at my phone screen,
"Spam…I'm getting them all the time lately" I groaned after drinking some more of my drink, I didn't understand how the whole spamming thing even worked on Twitter but for some reason it seemed to like my inbox.

"Katie…" Sarah said slowly looking at my phone, I turned my head to look at her,
"you might want to look at this…" she added.