“That’s not our problem,” Mary Catherine insisted. “The Showdown is the most important day of our summer.” She sneezed. “And anyway, I’m allergic. We’ll turn the dog over to Mr. Worling. He’ll know what to do.”
Logan spoke up. “We can’t do that. We just can’t.” His voice brimmed with emotion. “You know how adults are. He’ll say the dog is property and has to go back to the farmer. I can’t live with myself if that happens. A dog is loyal and innocent and trusting. He can’t stand up to an abusive owner. He can’t defend himself. That’s up to people.” A short sob escaped him. “That’s up to us.”
Melissa regarded her friend with a new respect. She had seen Logan’s acting performances before, but this was different. This was from the heart.
Logan dropped to his knees and hugged Luthor, who was tranquilized just enough to put up with it. “Don’t worry, sweetie. We won’t let you down.”
Melissa adjusted her thinking. Logan was playing a part after all. He was portraying Savannah Drysdale.
“Of course we won’t!” Athena declared.
All at once, the other campers in the circle blurted out their support.
“We’re with you all the way!”
“We’ve got your back, dog!”
“That bad farmer’s never going to hurt you again!”
Luthor emitted a confused gurgle of appreciation.
“Fine,” said Mary Catherine. “What do we have to do?”
Melissa glanced across the compound. The bus drivers had split up, and were investigating the cabins one by one. “If we can keep him safe until after the Showdown, maybe we can get Mr. Worling to call the ASPCA or something.” It was another lie, but once the performances were over and the contest had been decided, Swindle’s men would no longer have any excuse to hang around searching. They’d have to take the visitors home to Camp Spotlight. Then Melissa and Logan could get in touch with Griffin about what to do with Luthor.
“After the Showdown?” Mary Catherine echoed in consternation. “Don’t you think we’ll be a little busy between now and then? Like, performing?”
“We can hide him in one of the cabins,” Bobby suggested.
Logan shook his head. “No good. The farmer is already nosing around. The dog has to stay where we can keep an eye on him.”
“Why not right up onstage with us?” Mary Catherine’s voice oozed sarcasm. “I’m sure nobody will notice a giant Doberman in the middle of everything. Don’t all theatrical productions have some random dog just standing there for no reason at all?”
And then Melissa was staring right at it. “Pride Rock!” she exclaimed.
In the back corner of the Showdown stage sat a miniature mountain built atop a large rolling cart. In The Lion King sequence, that was where Rafiki the baboon held up the newborn baby Simba for all the animals to admire. Since it was so big, Pride Rock remained on the platform off in the wings throughout both revues. Right before “Hakuna Matata,” the Ta-da! stagehands would wheel it out into the lights.
The curtain of hair was parted now, and Melissa’s eyes were alight with excitement and purpose. “We’ll hide him under Pride Rock. No one would ever think to lift up a giant set.”
“It’s perfect,” Logan agreed. “The audience won’t even know he’s there.”
A trickle of drool worked its way out of the corner of Luthor’s mouth.
Moving like a giant amoeba with Luthor as its nucleus, the group shuffled across the compound, heading for the stage.
“Stay close together,” Logan advised. “Keep him hidden.”
Mary Catherine rolled her eyes. “Look who’s turned into the big director all of a sudden. Mr. I’m-Too-Good-To-Play-a-Warthog.”
At one point, they passed so close to the driver with the spiky hair that the man said, “Get out of my way, kids. I’m busy.” But he never spotted the Doberman in their midst. It was a good thing Luthor had taken that partial hit from the tranquilizer dart. Had he been awake and alert, there would have been no way to contain his raucous, energetic movements and loud bark.
Oozing along a few inches at a time, the trip to the stage seemed to take forever. At last, the cluster curled around behind the platform to the backstage area and climbed up the steps.
It took several campers to tilt up one side of Pride Rock. Melissa took hold of Luthor’s collar and urged him toward the hiding place.
For the first time since taking the dart, Luthor showed some resistance. This dark, cave-like space didn’t seem like somewhere he wanted to be.
She removed one of the burgers from her pocket and placed it on the wooden stage under Pride Rock. Luthor followed it in, opened his huge jaws for a bite, and promptly fell asleep, the food still in his mouth.
“Is he going to behave in there?” asked Mary Catherine dubiously.
“Oh, sure,” said Melissa. “He’s a big softie.”
This time it was the truth. Luthor was a softie — under the influence of a tranquilizer dart.
Twenty-five miles to the west, the same sun that shone on the Showdown reflected off the glassy surface of Ebony Lake. Long, narrow canoes dotted the water as far as the eye could see.
Savannah Drysdale was rowing in unison with her boatmates when her phone vibrated against the fabric of her bathing suit. She reached under her lifejacket, took out the handset, and squinted to read the small screen.
From: Melissa
Emergency! Luthor’s location compromised, two dognappers at Ta-da! Luthor grazed by tranq. dart. Awaiting instructions.
In shock, Savannah squeezed the unit so hard that it squirted out of her grip, and she very nearly fumbled it overboard.
“Savannah!” her counselor admonished from the front of the craft. “You’re not supposed to have that here! Put it away before you ruin it!”
“S-s-sorry!” She stuffed the handset back under the life jacket, but she didn’t care about any phone! All that mattered was Luthor!
Her sweet, loyal best friend in the world was in danger. And where was she? Twenty-five miles away, floating around like a useless idiot!
Where was Griffin? He had to be told about this immediately!
She looked frantically around the lake. He was in one of the many other canoes, but which one?
She needed The Man With The Plan.
* * *
The visiting camp was nothing short of phenomenal.
Spotlight’s revue barreled along at rocket-ship velocity, shifting from large-scale musical set pieces to powerful dramatic scenes to hilarious comedy sketches. It was so entertaining that even the Ta-da! campers and counselors couldn’t help but enjoy it.
Logan took every smattering of applause, every chuckle, every ooh or aah like a blow to the head with a baseball bat. “We’re toast,” he predicted mournfully. “Even if we hadn’t broken into Mickey Bonaventure’s house and accused him of dognapping, we wouldn’t have a prayer.” He gestured down the grassy slope, where the judge reclined in a lawn chair, smiling, clapping, and watching in rapt attention.
Melissa’s focus was on the stage — not on the actors, but on Pride Rock, off to the side. “So far so good. Nobody’s noticed Luthor.”
“Like things could be worse!” Logan moaned. “By the end of the day, Mickey Bonaventure’s going to make sure that everybody on Spotlight has an agent! And us? ‘Well, there was some guy in a warthog suit who showed some promise, but I never really saw his face.’”
“This isn’t about you,” Melissa reminded him. She checked her phone. “I’ve already got twenty-three missed calls from Savannah!”
Logan nodded sheepishly. “We scored with the hiding place. Even if those two guys knew exactly where he was, they’d have to pull him out from under a rock in front of three hundred people.”
The grand finale of the Spotlight revue was a medley from Glee that involved the entire cast. It drew grudging cheers from a Ta-da! crowd that would truly have loved the performance to bomb. A few were even on their feet, dancing to the music. A
t the end, Mickey Bonaventure himself stood up and snapped a salute to the triumphant cast.
“Okay, everybody!” Mary Catherine was smiling, but it was obvious that the quality of the Spotlight performance had displeased her mightily. “It’s our turn now.”
There was a twenty-minute break for the Spotlight campers to get out of costume and makeup, and to set up the stage for the Ta-da! home team. Soon the visitors were settled in the audience position on the grassy slope, and Wendy was giving her campers a last-minute pep talk.
“All right, they were great. We’re great, too! Don’t worry about topping Spotlight. Let’s just do our thing, and we’ll be amazing!”
There was a muffled snore, which everybody but Wendy knew was coming from beneath Pride Rock.
Melissa breathed deeply and took her place at the computer she had programmed to run the special effects. In her pocket, she felt her phone vibrate. Another call from Savannah, number thirty-something. She felt bad about leaving her friend hanging, but nothing could be done about it. There was no way she could take a call here, just as there had been no way she could take it in the audience during Spotlight’s revue. And anyway, what could she possibly say to put Savannah’s mind at rest?
“All right, places, everybody!” barked Mary Catherine.
Melissa punched the keyboard, and the opening music of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown blasted out of the speaker. The actors marched out onstage, with the exception of Logan, who was playing Snoopy, and had to crawl on all fours.
The countless hours of rehearsal had paid off. The timing was crisp, the voices were clear, and the staging was excellent. From the many faces in the audience, Melissa sought out Mickey Bonaventure. She understood instantly that, although Ta-da! was good, they were not good enough to win the Showdown. The judge was sitting back, smiling politely, yet not with the enthusiasm he had shown the Spotlight cast. Or maybe it was her imagination. She was a computer geek. What did she know about theatre?
The sequence of scenes had become familiar to her by now. A song from Cats; a reading from Twelfth Night; a scene from Miss Saigon; poetry from The Belle of Amherst. The Phantom of the Opera was their mid-revue climax. Logan had no part in that number, so he joined Melissa at the mechanism that would bring down the “chandelier.” He had already put on his warthog costume for “Hakuna Matata,” which was coming up next. It was hard to take him seriously with his head protruding from Pumbaa’s mouth. But the middle of the Showdown was not the time to point that out.
“How do you think it’s going?” Melissa whispered.
“Mickey Bonaventure hates it,” Logan replied morosely.
“I saw him clapping a couple of times,” she protested.
“Probably swatting at mosquitoes. Trust me. If we don’t kill from here on, we’re doomed.”
All at once, Melissa put an iron grip on his arm. “Look —”
He followed her gaze. Standing at the top of the hill, behind the audience, the two bus drivers were watching the show.
“Do you think they know?” she asked in a small voice.
“Not unless they’ve got X-ray vision,” Logan replied. “How could they know?”
“Deductive reasoning,” Melissa insisted. “They’ve scoured every millimeter of the camp. He isn’t there, so he must be here. And when they see you onstage, they’ll know you’re involved with hiding the dog.”
“Oh, yeah, like they’ll recognize me in this outfit!” Logan scoffed. “My own mother couldn’t find me with a telescope.”
The song was ending, and the big moment was upon them. Melissa threw the switch, and Logan guided the rope upward. There were screams from the crowd as the “chandelier” toppled over the lighting arc and came down to the stage with an earsplitting crash.
A surge of applause swept in from the crowd.
For Melissa, the non-performer, it was her first chance to bask in the approval of an appreciative audience. Her eyes gleamed. “They liked it!”
“They loved it!” Logan agreed fervently. “Even Mickey Bonaventure! Hand me my caterpillars! We’re still in this thing!”
What happened next was completely unexpected: Pride Rock moved.
Did you see that?” Logan hissed.
Melissa had turned to stone. “Never mind me! Did the dognappers see it?”
Light dawned on Logan. “The crash from the chandelier —” He rushed around to the back of the stage and tried to peer under the rolling cart that formed the base of Pride Rock. To his dismay, he saw four canine legs standing upright. Luthor was awake.
Logan tried to press his cheek to the stage for a better view, but Pumbaa’s head was too bulky. He caught a fleeting glimpse of the famished Luthor wolfing down the burger he’d fallen asleep with. Logan thought of the food he had stashed away in his pockets, and tried to reach inside the warthog suit. The costume simply wouldn’t permit it. He would have to take the whole thing off, and put it back on again — too risky with “Hakuna Matata” coming up any minute.
“Melissa!” he exclaimed. “I need your burgers!”
She was amazed. “You’re hungry now?”
“Not me — Luthor! If we feed him, maybe he’ll go back to sleep.”
But it was not to be. Mary Catherine, already in her lion outfit, came up and said, “What are you waiting for? Wheel Pride Rock into position!”
Uh-oh. “Are you sure it’s the right time?” Logan stammered.
The Ta-da! captain’s eyes shot sparks. “Of course it’s the right time! Did you hear that ovation? We’re catching fire! We have to keep it going!”
She and two wildebeest began to ease the rolling cart out toward center stage. Logan had a nightmare vision of Luthor overturning the set in full view of the audience and two professional dognappers. If the Doberman had the strength to move the heavy piece on his own, he could probably topple it. Without hesitation, Logan flung himself aboard Pride Rock. He landed flat on his face and, if it hadn’t been for the soft material of the warthog costume, would probably have knocked himself unconscious against the wood of the set. When his vision cleared, he found himself high above the crowd, the object of everyone’s attention.
Because it was unprofessional to waste stage time doing absolutely nothing, Logan made a great show of eating a caterpillar with much loud smacking of warthog lips. From the back row, the two bus drivers were staring directly at him. Still, no way could they know the dog was under the set.
“Get off!” Mary Catherine rasped from below.
It was a theatrical problem. Pumbaa was not supposed to be on top of Pride Rock in The Lion King. But Logan couldn’t move without something else to weigh down the set. He could already feel Luthor scrambling around underneath the cart. It was time for an ad lib. He threw his head back and announced, “I think that baboon is coming up here to show everybody the new baby lion!”
There was a bit of a stir backstage, because this was definitely not in the script. But eventually, the actors were in place, and Rafiki the baboon, flanked by King Mufasa and his wife, climbed to the top of Pride Rock.
Mary Catherine was playing Queen Sarabi, and as Logan tried to retreat from the set, she elbowed him hard in the ribs and muttered, “You’re dead, Kellerman!”
The camper playing Rafiki held up the stuffed toy representing the infant Simba, and cried, “Animals of the Pride Lands, behold your future king!”
A cheer went up from the cast, matched by one from the audience. It obscured a mournful howl that came from inside Pride Rock. Luthor was still groggy, but he seemed to be coming out of his partially tranquilized state. And that was bad news all around.
Logan wriggled off the scenery and found Melissa at the computer. “Luthor’s definitely awake, and he must be hungry! Quick, give me your hamburgers! Maybe some food will calm him down!”
The two looped around the back of the stage and crawled out, hidden from the audience’s view by the bulk of Pride Rock. Melissa unwrapped a burger and squeezed it under the gap between the
rolling set and the platform. Another half inch would have cost her two fingers. The food was sucked in and snapped up in the blink of an eye.
“I’ve only got one more!” she warned.
“Give it to him! Give it to him!” It was almost time for “Hakuna Matata.” Pumbaa was due onstage in less than a minute. “I’ve got a bunch more in my pocket! Can you reach inside my costume, and —”
Too late. Timon and the adolescent Simba had already taken the stage. “Hurry up!” Bobby hissed in his meerkat suit. “And don’t forget your caterpillars!”
Logan knew he was out of options. With everything going on, and all the factors that needed his attention, one simple truth shone through everything: The show must go on. For Logan Kellerman, that rule was as basic and unchanging as the law of gravity.
So Pumbaa joined Timon and Simba in front of the audience. Logan could feel the bus drivers’ eyes boring four laser holes in his costume. But he put that out of his mind, and sang his heart out, popping caterpillars and burping in all the right places as befitted a gassy warthog.
Mary Catherine the Klingon had done everything in her power to make him a nobody in this show. Well, maybe he couldn’t change the casting, but there were no small roles, only small actors. And his Pumbaa would have the audience feeling the stomach cramps and tasting the wriggling bugs in the back of their throats.
And then Pride Rock rolled up and bumped him from behind.
The food hadn’t calmed Luthor down. He was more restless than ever. Still singing, Logan leaned back against the set, and tried to wheel it away from the edge of the stage. The last thing they needed was for Pride Rock to go over the apron and take out the first three rows! Mickey Bonaventure would definitely deduct points for that.
The final chorus had never lasted longer. The audience must have noticed that Pumbaa did not join Timon and Simba for their dance, and instead leaned against the rock, pressing down with all his might. It wasn’t great theatre but, when at last the cast pushed Pride Rock off into its corner, he sensed they were in the clear.
“Keep Luthor under there!” he called to Melissa, “no matter what happens!”