When I open the door, I’m greeted with a wave of sound and the smell of curry. Who’s here?

The last two weeks before production, life actually picks up speed, like a train leaving a station and crawling, then gliding, then hurtling faster, faster, faster.

There’s class and homework and play practice and scenery and cousins and classmates and fun with Faiga and the scenery girls, and sometimes I get home to Bubby’s late at night and realize it’s the first time I’m sitting still in many, many hours.

Today, Michal informs us a few days before production, clapping her hands together, we are finishing the second scenery.

“Finishing! That means finito, complete, ab-so-lute-ly done,” she pronounces, making wide, scary eyes at all of us.

“Oh, we’re not spending another year perfecting it?” Sari asks innocently, then she ducks behind Devorah.

“No way!” Michal says.

We settle down to the forest scenery. It should be easier — there’s not much variety or complex pictures here — but we’re literally painting the trees leaf by leaf, using a million shades of green. I’m not sure I’ll be able to look at green paint again after this.

“So Ashira, now you’re a celeb. My sister Pessy couldn’t stop raving about your speech to that high school,” Sari says, grinning, as she dabs white into her lightest green.

I give a small smile. “Thanks, but seriously, I wish they’d get over it. It was fun for me and was just a few minutes.”