Keep Out, Claudia!

Plus, the Lowells and my revelation were so tied up with the band that for awhile the band left a bad taste in my mouth. I didn’t enjoy it anymore. I didn’t look forward to rehearsals.

  But Karen Brewer changed that.

  One Saturday afternoon I went to Kristy’s house to baby-sit for her little brothers and sisters — David Michael, Emily Michelle, Andrew, and Karen. As usual, the rest of Kristy’s family had scattered. Her mother and Watson had gone off for an afternoon of peace. Nannie was at a meeting. Kristy was with Mary Anne at the library, working on a school project. Sam was at the high school for a dress rehearsal of the drama club’s latest play (he had helped write the play). And Charlie had gone off in his car, the Junk Bucket. I wasn’t sure where, but it didn’t matter. (In case of an emergency I had decided to call my own parents. They’re usually pretty easy to find.)

  “Well,” Karen said to me as soon as Charlie and the Junk Bucket had driven off. “That’s the last of them.”

  “Last of who?” I was sitting on the front steps of Kristy’s house. Andrew, Emily, and David Michael were fooling around in the yard. But Karen had plopped down next to me.

  “The last of the big people,” replied Karen. “Now it’s just us little guys and you. The fun can begin.”

  I smiled. “What do you feel like doing today?”

  “Playing.”

  “Playing what?” I was thinking I could tolerate anything except hide-and-seek, which I had played all afternoon the day before with the three Barrett kids. I was all seeked out. All hidden out, too.

  “Our songs,” said Karen. “Let’s rehearse. Hannie and Nancy could come over. And maybe Linny.”

  “Well … how about playing hide-and-seek?” I said, which just goes to show how I was feeling about the band that day.

  “No!” cried Karen. “We need to rehearse. Please? I’ll even let Emily play with us. I’ll give her a pot and a spoon. She can pretend she’s another drummer. That way she won’t feel left out.”

  How could I argue with that? Before I knew it, Nancy and Hannie and Linny had come over and the kids were performing “Miracle of Miracles.” The tune came from Karen who was playing her kazoo, and Hannie, playing her harmonica. The other kids were playing cymbals, sticks, oatmeal drums, and the pot and spoon.

  When the children had run through the song one time, Karen said, “Let’s pretend we have a big audience. Here. Claudia, you sit on the grass and be the big audience. We will play on the steps. The steps are our stage.”

  The kids arranged themselves on the steps. Then Karen came forward. “Welcome, ladies and — I mean, welcome lady. I’m very, very glad you could come to our show. My name is, um, Lucretia Marissa von Brewer and this is my band. I am your emcee this evening. Tonight, for your listening pleasure —”

  “Excuse me!” spoke up David Michael. “Excuse me, Miss von Brewer. How come you get to lead things, like always?”

  “Because this was my idea,” Karen replied. “Now, as I was saying, tonight we will favor you with that ever-popular song ‘Anatevka.’ ” Karen turned back to her band. “Places, everyone! … Emily, I said, places! That means you. Hey, are you in this band or not?”

  “Are you in this band or not?” Emily repeated. She was wandering around the yard, filling her pot with sticks and fallen leaves and flower petals.

  “Claudia!” Karen complained to me.

  “Why don’t you go ahead and play without her … Miss von Brewer?”

  “Okay. Ready, guys?” said Karen to her band. “And a-one and a-two!” “Anatevka” rang across the yard, accompanied by exuberant drumming. When the song was over, Karen took charge again. “Not bad,” she said. “Not bad.” She frowned. “Well, not great.” She eyed the group on the steps. “You know what we need?” she said.

  Hannie and Nancy perked up. “What?”

  “Uniforms! I bet we would play better with band uniforms.”

  I smiled. I thought of the movie The Music Man, about this traveling salesman guy who calls himself Professor Harold Hill (he’s really a con artist) and breezes into this little town, River City, Iowa, and convinces the parents there that a band is just what their kids need. He gets everyone to buy these expensive instruments and fancy uniforms from him, so the band looks really terrific. But Professor Hill never bothers to tell anyone that he’s not a musician, he can’t play a note, and he can’t teach the kids to play their instruments. It doesn’t matter. The kids gain self-confidence from the way they look and everything, so in the end they can play after all (or something like that).

  I could understand why Karen wanted uniforms for our band.

  “Hey, yeah! Uniforms!” cried David Michael unexpectedly. (He is not generally a fan of Karen’s ideas.) “That would be way cool, right, Linny?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Okay,” said Karen. “Then I will take charge. Allow me.”

  “You’re in charge again?” cried Andrew.

  “I have lots of ideas,” said Karen haughtily. “Come on, Nancy. Come on, Hannie. I want you guys to help me.”

  Karen and her friends disappeared into the house. While we waited for them, Linny said, gazing into space, “I think blue uniforms would be good. With stripes up each leg. And blue hats.”

  “We’d look like policemen,” protested David Michael.

  “I think we should wear boots and spurs and chaps and ten-gallon hats and carry lassos,” said Andrew.

  “We want uniforms, not costumes,” David Michael replied.

  “Oh. Well, what do band uniforms look like?”

  The front door to the house burst open then. “They look like this!” cried Karen. She and Hannie and Nancy tiptoed between the boys and pranced onto the lawn.

  I bit my lip to keep from laughing.

  The girls were wearing long slips, clumpy high-heeled shoes, and feather boas. Plus, Karen was wearing a straw hat, Hannie was wearing a motorcycle helmet, and Nancy was wearing a bride’s veil.

  “Dress ups!” cried Emily Michelle. She dropped her pot and ran to Karen. “I dress up! I dress up!”

  David Michael, Linny, and Andrew stood on the steps, their mouths open. They couldn’t speak. They could only stare.

  “How do we look?” Karen asked me.

  “You look … beautiful.”

  “Yeah, to Frankenstein,” said Linny, recovering the power of speech.

  “Do you really think those are band uniforms?” David Michael managed to ask. “Andrew’s idea was better than this. He wanted everyone to dress as cowboys.”

  “What’s wrong with these outfits?” asked Karen.

  “You expect boys to wear slips and high heels?” answered Linny.

  “No. I guess not…. But we couldn’t find band uniforms,” admitted Karen.

  “Hey, I know!” exclaimed Nancy. “How about if all the band members just dress the same? We could wear, like, jeans and red shirts. I bet everyone has a pair of jeans and a red shirt.”

  David Michael opened his mouth, then closed it. Apparently he could find nothing wrong with the idea.

  “I have jeans!” exclaimed Andrew. “And a red sweat shirt.”

  “I have jeans and a red blouse,” said Hannie.

  “I have jeans and a red T-shirt,” said Nancy. “The T-shirt says, ‘My parents went to Hawaii and all they brought me was this dumb shirt.’ ”

  We laughed. And Linny added, “Hey, maybe we could have red T-shirts made that say ‘ALL THE CHILDREN’ on them. Then we would really look alike.”

  Even David Michael liked that idea.

  “Well,” I said, “I’ll find out how much the shirts would cost. Maybe we could raise money to buy them.”

  “Or we could ask for donations at our first band concert,” said Karen.

  “You guys had better be really good then,” I said.

  “Don’t worry. We will. Come on, let’s rehearse, everybody!”

  And the kids played “Anatevka” with new enthusiasm.

  For awhile that afternoon I forgot about
the Lowells.

  “How are we doing?” I asked.

  “One more stack,” Jessi replied. “And it’s a short one.”

  “Did we get rid of the fliers with those misspelled words?” Kristy wanted to know.

  “Yes,” I answered testily. The misspelled words had been my fault, of course. The first few fliers I had lettered had said things like “the Newtons bake yerd,” and “every one is welcomb!” and “WE NEED BAD UNIFORMS!” Then Kristy had leaned over my shoulder and realized what I was doing. She’d given me a new job: decorating each flier. So what if I can’t spell? Drawing little instruments and designs on the fliers was much more fun than lettering them.

  It was a Friday evening. I had invited my friends to stay after our meeting and eat a pizza supper. Now we were sprawled around my room, preparing for the first band concert. It was going to be held in a week. We needed time to distribute our fliers. We were hoping lots of people would be free on Saturday at 2:00. Our kids were looking forward to a big audience.

  My friends and I planned to post the fliers the next day and to hand them out to our neighbors. But we wanted the kids to be involved with inviting guests, too, so at our next rehearsal we were going to hand each band member one invitation to give to someone special.

  “Boy, I hope the kids are going to be ready for the concert,” said Dawn.

  “Oh, they will be,” I assured her. “The ones who play the important instruments — not that the sticks and the oatmeal drums aren’t important, but you know what I mean — the kids on the keyboard and the guitar and stuff have already learned the music. And the others follow along well. I think the concert is going to be great.”

  “So what’s our schedule this week?” asked Stacey.

  “Short rehearsals on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday,” I replied, “dress rehearsals — or whatever they’re called — on Thursday and Friday, and the performance on Saturday.”

  “I hope everyone can fit into the Newtons’ yard,” said Mary Anne.

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” I replied.

  Mary Anne smiled. “What should I worry about?”

  “Oh, things like whether Jackie will knock over the keyboard while Shea and Marilyn are playing it —”

  “Or whether Claire will have a tantrum if she makes a mistake,” said Mal.

  “Or whether Karen will decide to perform in her bathing suit or something,” said Kristy. “You know, she likes our band uniforms, and she especially likes the idea of getting T-shirts, but she still wants to perform in an outfit that’s a little, oh, flashier.”

  “Her bathing suit?” I said.

  “Well, you know, for instance, in her bathing suit with a crown and high heels so she could be Miss Kazoo.”

  “Oh, my lord. Miss Kazoo,” I repeated, but I was giggling.

  * * *

  Six days later, on Thursday afternoon, not long after school had let out, the first dress rehearsal of All the Children got underway.

  Everyone was nervous.

  “Do you realize,” began Stacey, edging closer to me, “that this time Saturday the concert will be over?”

  “I wonder if everybody will be in one piece,” said Dawn, who had overheard.

  “We can only hope,” I replied.

  “At least,” said Kristy, “the kids remembered to bring their instruments and wear their uniforms. That’s a good sign.”

  She was right. It was a good sign. Then again, I thought I had once heard Janine say something like, “Good dress rehearsal, bad opening night.” Maybe we didn’t want the dress rehearsals to go too well after all. Not if that would jinx the concert.

  I watched the kids enter the yard. Some filed in alone. Most arrived in pairs or in groups of three or four. All were wearing blue jeans with sneakers and red tops.

  When everyone had arrived, Kristy tapped my shoulder. “Okay, Claud,” she said. “Let’s get started.”

  I clapped my hands and the kids gathered around me. “This is a dress rehearsal,” I reminded the kids. “Remember what that means? It means we play every song, and we put on the program just the way we’re going to put it on when we have an audience. We don’t stop for mistakes because we won’t be able to do that on Saturday. We keep on going no matter what. So now — you guys pretend that Stacey and Jessi and Kristy and Mal and Mary Anne and Dawn and I are your audience. In fact, we are your audience. And it’s two o’clock on Saturday afternoon. Everyone has arrived and they’re sitting patiently, waiting for the concert to begin. Jackie? Are you ready?”

  Jackie stepped forward. Then he turned around and scrutinized the band. The children had arranged themselves as we had practiced — the kids playing “real” instruments in front, the kids playing kazoos and percussion grouped behind them, and the singers standing in a semicircle at one side. Jackie nodded to them. Then he faced his audience again.

  “Welcome, parents and friends,” he said loudly. He paused thoughtfully, then added, “And brothers and sisters and grandparents.” Another pause. “Oh, and stepbrothers and … and, well, and stepfamilies.” (He was covering all bases.) “And teachers …” (At this point I almost whispered, “Enough, Jackie!” but he was on his own.) “And aunts and uncles and cousins. Um, welcome,” he said again. “Today I am proud to present All the Children. This is our new band and this is our first concert. We are playing music from … from …”

  “From Fiddler on the Roof!” hissed Karen.

  “I know that!” Jackie hissed back. “From that ever-popular musical, which my brothers and I have actually seen in Stamford, Fiddler on the Roof. And now for our first song, ‘Anatevka.’ ” Jackie pointed to Shea and Marilyn. “Hit it, boys!” he called, and Marilyn flashed him an angry look. “I mean, um, hit it, kids!”

  Jackie ran to the kazoo players, tripped over his untied shoelaces, fell over Mathew Hobart, the violin player, and lost his kazoo.

  I closed my eyes briefly.

  When I opened them again, the children had sorted themselves out and Jackie had located his kazoo. At the keyboard, Shea and Marilyn glanced at each other. Then Shea nodded and the first chords of “Anatevka” danced across the lawn. One by one, the other kids joined in and soon everyone was singing or playing.

  When the song ended, the members of the BSC clapped loudly.

  All the Children performed two more songs.

  During the fourth number, “Tradition,” Claire lost her place. In a rest (that was supposed to be silent, of course) she banged on her oatmeal drum. Then she clapped her hand over her mouth.

  “Uh-oh!” said Suzy Barrett loudly. “You did a boo-boo.”

  “I know it,” replied Claire. Around her the music was starting up. But Claire’s temper had taken over. “Quiet!” she yelled. “Quiet! … I said quiet! We have to go back!”

  “Claire did a boo-boo,” Suzy said again.

  The band was confused. Some kids continued to play, others had stopped, several had lost their places.

  “What should I do?” I whispered to Kristy.

  “See if they can fix it themselves,” she replied.

  “If they can’t, I’ll take Claire aside,” added Mal. “Maybe I should be prepared to do that on Saturday, too.”

  The band was nearly out of control when Jackie yelled, “START OVER! AND A-ONE AND A-TWO!”

  Claire pouted for one entire verse, then joined in again.

  “Whew,” I said under my breath.

  After one more song, Jackie announced, “And now it is time for a station break…. I mean, for intermission.” He glanced at me, then added, “By the way, the band is trying to buy cool red T-shirts for our uniforms. If you would like to help us, we’d be glad to take your money. Remember — this concert is free. You did not have to pay to get into the Newtons’ yard.”

  The kids relaxed for several moments, and I called Jackie over. Before I had opened my mouth he said, “I know we didn’t rehearse that last part. It’s new. I wrote it myself last night.”

  “And you did
a good job,” I told him, trying to be tactful, “but I don’t think you need to say that. On Saturday we’ll leave out baskets for donations. Please don’t remind the audience that they didn’t pay to see the show. I’m not sure they’ll appreciate that.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  Jackie walked away and I stifled a laugh. I noticed Jessi and Stacey doing the same thing. Across the lawn, Mallory was having a talk with Claire. When Mal joined us again, Jackie shouted, “Okay, everybody! That’s the end of intermission. You can sit down now!”

  “Is that how he’s going to talk to the audience on Saturday?” said Mary Anne, sounding horrified.

  “Maybe the grown-ups will think it’s funny,” whispered Jessi.

  “Maybe. But I have a feeling I better talk to him before tomorrow’s rehearsal. I don’t want anyone to be offended,” I said.

  When the dress rehearsal ended I had another chat with Jackie. I tried to explain the meaning of the word tact. I’m not sure I did a very good job. “Be polite, Jackie,” I said finally.

  “Polite,” he repeated seriously.

  “Say things you’d like to hear if you were in the audience. Make the audience feel good. Flatter them.”

  “Flatter them.”

  “Just use good sense.”

  “Claudia?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I think maybe I was born without good sense.”

  The time: 5:05 p.m.

  The day: Friday.

  Twenty-four hours from that moment the first public performance of All the Children would be over. I wasn’t even going to be in the performance and I was nervous. I kept remembering Claire’s temper tantrum and Jackie’s guilt trip, which he hoped would bring in money for T-shirts.

  “Oh, my lord,” I muttered.

  “What’s the matter?”

  I whirled around. “Geez, Kristy, don’t sneak up on me!”

  “I didn’t sneak up on you,” she replied indignantly. “I ran up the stairs like I always do. And I am not a quiet person.”

  “I know.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “Well, you said it.” Kristy made a face at me. “Oh, I’m sorry,” I told her. “I’m nervous about the concert. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”