The Look by Sophia Bennett

we’ve got what we need. Good job, Seb, darling. I don’t think we need to bother with the dresses.” She doesn’t sound entirely happy, and I don’t blame her. I only produced one good shot out ofabout a million — well, over a hundred, anyway, and poor Seb’s been working for hours.

    But that one shot is good enough for me. I can’t wait to show Ava. I excuse myself and rush off to the kitchen area to see if she’s awake yet.
    She’s just sitting up and stretching when I get there, looking tons better after her nap.
    “Sorry!” she says, yawning. “Did I miss the whole thing?”
    “You did. But guess what? Seb actually managed to take a decent picture of me. Only one, but it’s really quite nice. It’s, like, the first one ever . It must be that camera. I think I might save up for a Nikon one day …”
    I trail off. Nikon cameras are so out of my price range. I was definitely getting a bit carried away there.
    “It’s more the lens than the camera,” says a voice behind me. I whip around. “But it’s a load of other things, too. The light. The background. The composition. Mostly the light, though. You could do it on your phone if you tried hard enough.”
    It’s Nightmare Boy again. I wondered where he’d got to. He’s been busy getting himself a Coke from a vending machine in the kitchenette.
    “Really?” I say. “I noticed that the brickwork in the background was good. Seb chose this great, peeling bit. And it’s true: He didn’t use many lights in the end. It was mostly daylight.”
    “The best shots are,” he says. He looks up at me and gives me another quick smile. “You should check out the style blogs. They mostly use natural light. I’m Nick, by the way.”
    “I’m guessing you’re a photographer,” Ava says, stretching and coming over.
    He peers at her. “You look familiar. Have we met?”
    “Not exactly,” she says. “You were in your mum’s office when we came round.”
    “Oh.” He frowns. “Anyway, no. I’m an artist, really, but I dabble in photography. Not this sort of thing, though.” He waves a dismissive hand toward the studio.
    “What sort of thing, then?” Ava asks, looking hurt on my behalf.
    Nick considers. “Experimental. Documentary. Pictures with a purpose. I’m still working it out. Look, I use this website — a group of us do.” He pulls out a tiny notebook from his pocket, tears out a page, and scribbles on it. “If you want some ideas, look here.”
    He hands it to me. The paper is thick and creamy: sketchbook paper. It’s still warm from his body heat.
    Ava’s phone goes off in her bag as Cassandra’s voice wafts through the door.
    “Darling? I’m going. Are you ready?”
    He sighs, rolls his eyes, and walks out without another word.
    “Huh: ‘dabble,’” Ava says, making a face at me.
    I’m not really listening. I’m looking at the piece of paper. There’s a brilliant little pen-and-ink drawing of Mario the labradoodle on the back. Nick may be a nightmare, but he’s talented. The spattery painting in the background of the fashion photo was fab, too.
    Ava finds her phone. “Oh, hi, Dad. Which theater are we at, did you say? I suppose it has been a long time, hasn’t it? Wedecided to see three films after all. Are you sure you want to pick us up?”
    She gestures at me helplessly, but I just stare straight back at her. She got us into this mess, and she can get us out of it.

Y ou can fool a lot of people a lot of the time, but you can’t fool an academic historian forever — or even, as it turns out, for more than about six hours on a Saturday. Dad got back ages ago from his research trip to the library and he’s had a long time to pick holes in our movie story. When Ava can’t actually name any of the films currently showing at our local multiplex, he insists on coming to pick us up from wherever we are, and when he finds out exactly where that is, I seriously wonder how his cell phone is going to survive the power of his