Along the way, Brown has become another level of famous for her celebrity crushes, at least one of which has turned into a real, warm friendship. Brown and her BFF, the dancer and star of Sia‘s music videos Maddie Ziegler, are suffering from having been apart for more than a week. In September they got on the phone to talk about Brown’s crazy run, about the love that we all need, and about that one time the fire department had to come to their sleepover.

MILLIE BOBBY BROWN: Hey, girl. How are you?!

MADDIE ZIEGLER: Fantastic, darlin’. Did you just wake up? Because I’m kind of tired.

BROWN: Well, wake up, girl! You got to be professional about things. [laughs]

ZIEGLER: Okay, okay. So I think people are interested in how we first met because they see us on Instagram and want to know how we know each other, but, I mean, we kind of just, like … We clicked right away.

BROWN: Yeah. I got tickets to go see So You Think You Can Dance because I’ve been watching you since I was about 7, and I was crazy when I knew you were actually going to be on the show. And the whole show I was looking at you like, “Please let her look at me.” And then they told me that I could go backstage and meet you, and I’m literally, like, taking deep breaths, like, “Oh my goodness,” and then you were a normal human being. You were Maddie Ziegler. Then you followed me on Twitter—and I had a meltdown—and the rest is history, really. I finally got your number, and then we met, and we had that very hysterical day where we met some funny people at the pool. We just clicked. I feel like I’m talking to someone else, not you. I feel like I’m talking in the third person. [laughs]

ZIEGLER: Nope. It’s just me, darlin’. You were born in Spain. Wait, you were born in 2004?

BROWN: Is this the first time you’ve read my biography? I was born in Spain. I thought I told you this many times before, Maddie Ziegler.

ZIEGLER: I knew you were born in Spain. I didn’t know that it was in 2004.

BROWN: Well, yeah, you were born in 2003—

ZIEGLER: No, 2002. [both laugh] Well, I thought it was really funny because a couple of weeks ago I was asking your sister, “Can you count to ten?” I go, “One, two …” And she started going, “Uno, dos, tres …”

BROWN: Ha, yeah.

ZIEGLER: But you’ve moved around a bunch because your family is British. You live in England but you’re, like, always in L.A.

BROWN: Yeah, no. Listen, Maddie, I live on an airplane. I don’t really live anywhere at the moment. I lived in L.A. for a while and I kind of live in L.A. now. I live in England to do stuff, I lived in Atlanta … I could possibly be moving back there, so I kind of live everywhere, but my favorite place to live is L.A.