No one expected it to happen, least of all me. It should have been Stacey, after all I was only ment to be moral support.

I, Mary-Anne Spier have been chosen as a finalist in America's Next Top Model. It was Stacey who suggested I try out for it, but I had protested. I was not model material. I had never had the desire to be one, but here I was, facing the first challenge as a finalist.

Tigger was my "motivation" for the photoshoot and my face was made up as a grey tabby cat with whiskers. I was crouched on my hands and knees batting at a ball of string as my kitten would have done.

Tyra held my photo in the air and it was evidence that I did not have a clue about modelling.

Nevertheless I was safe from elimination for that week. I wondered what it was the judges saw in me to want to keep me.

I've always been shy and a little afraid to let go. I'm super sensitive or as my friend, Kristy would call, a drip and I have always been a plain Jane, never believing that I was beautiful. Stacey was beautiful with her blond hair and New York sophistication. Dawn with her cornsilk white blond hair was beautiful, just as Jessi with her cocoa skin and ballerina's grace and stature, would far surpass any of the girls I was to live with while I was part of the show.

Yet none of them were here and I was instead. I guess they saw past my mousy features and found something else, what I'll never know.

Staceynever even made the first round, but instead of being disappointed, she was so proud of me and told me So, that night after the first elimination. Living with eighteen other girls, many of them much more serious about winning ANTM that I would ever be, was not easy. I had left the safety of Stonybrook Connecticut, my friends, family and Logan and entered a world of bitchiness and sabotage. I was not used to it all and I was more than a little overwhelmed and I was dabbing my wet eyes with a cleenex as I spoke to Stacey.

"They're so bitchy," I sobbed. Then I relayed the story of the mayonaise one of the girls put in my shampoo bottle.

"Oats!" Stacey exclaimed suddenly and I was immediately confused, but not for long. She was excited as she continued, "Put oats in her moisturiser ."

"Stace, you know I can't do that." Although it did sound tempting, Kristy was the practical joker out of all of my friends and me.

"Okay, but stand your ground, Mary-Anne. Don't let those ditches push you out. You deserve to be there."

It ment the world to me to hear those words from Stacey. "Do you really think so?"

I could almost hear her nodding on the other end of the phone. "Of course I do, and so do the judges. That's why they picked you and why you're still there."

When I hung up the phone I was gasping with sobs and I was missing home worse than ever.

In the large living room, Josie the tall red head from Texas was hurling swears at Emily the superbitch from Michigan. Emily was laughing historically in a high pitch, her black curls shaking with the force of it.

I snuck past them and was almost in my room, when Josie called my name. "Mary-Anne! Hey Mary-Anne!"

I turned around.

"Is she crying again?" Emily asked, mockingly.

"Leave her alone, Emily." She bounded after me as I continued into my room.

An arm was around my shoulders as I flopped onto my bed. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"This is all so overwhelming." I buried my head in Josie's shoulder. "I don't belong here."

"You're a threat to them, to all of us. Some of those girls want to win more than anything they're struggling to show the judges what they've got."

"As am I." I said.

"Not as much as you think. Your photos are gorgeous!"

"Really?" I was starting to feel cheered up.

Josie nodded.

At that moment we shared an unspoken vow to stick together through the the next few weeks. Maybe it wasn't going to be all that bad after all.