“She does not.”
“Wanna bet? A hundred dollars.”
I was sure Joey was wrong. I was sure that the shirt probably just said Witch. But when I yanked the shirt out from the bottom of the pile, there it was: the B word, emblazoned across the shirt in fancy cursive!
“See? What did I tell you? Give it. I’m telling Mom!”
My heart was pounding, like I’d discovered some deep, dark secret of Alex’s that I wasn’t supposed to know. I don’t know why, but I didn’t hand over the shirt to Joey. I hurriedly stuffed it way down deep in the bottom of the drawer.
“C’mon, Joey,” I said, yanking her by the arm. “Let’s get out of here. Now. Before Alex finds out.” My voice sounded wobbly. “We shouldn’t be snooping.” I stared at my trembling hand. I felt far away, like I didn’t know my own hand anymore.
Really, it was my sister I didn’t know anymore. Alex. Who was the Alex who would wear that shirt?
“But what about Sir Croaks-a-Lot? You said Alex would freak if —”
“Never mind what I said,” I told my little sister. For some reason, I couldn’t stay there another minute. I had to get away from that shirt.
SECOND MUSHROOM FROM THE LEFT
Starring Alex
Me: Sock Monkey, O Sock Monkey. Wherefore art thou, Sock Monkey?
Sock Monkey: I’m right here. So? How’d the audition go? Are you Juliet?
Me: Don’t ask. I so totally blew it.
Sock Monkey: I thought you weren’t going to know till tomorrow.
Me: Trust me. I know.
Sock Monkey: Is this like one of those times when you pretend you blew it but really you aced it? I don’t want to hear it. I’d cover my ears, if I had any.
Me: Thou art a villain.
Sock Monkey: A villain made of socks? I hardly think so.
Me: Okay, I know when it comes to auditions, I always say I blew it, but what if I told you this time, it’s really, truly, actually true? Sorry to have to break it to you, my friend, but they will be writing about this one in “sour misfortune’s book.”
Sock Monkey: But you’ve wanted this your whole life. You know Juliet’s lines backward and forward. How could anybody else get the part? You don’t even have to read from the script for the balcony scene, and nobody has died more times than you. Besides, you look great dead.
Me: See, everybody knows when you try out for Juliet, you can’t just get up there and do Juliet. Because the director has seen the same thing a thousand times.
Sock Monkey: Really? That’s weird to try out for Juliet and not be Juliet.
Me: That’s just it. You do something else to show them you can do Juliet.
Sock Monkey: So, what’d you do?
Me: Promise you won’t tell anybody? Especially Stevie. And Joey.
Sock Monkey: (Holds up a sock paw.) Sock Monkey’s honor.
Me: (Hangs head.) I sang.
Sock Monkey: You what? You sang? As in a song? That’s Stevie’s thing. You know you’re horrible at singing. Why would you do that?
Me: I didn’t mean to! See, I rewrote this one Juliet scene, you know, in my own words. To make sure I really had the meaning down. So I actually did that for my monologue, thinking it would be super unique.
Sock Monkey: That sounds kind of cool.
Me: Yeah, except it wasn’t. And Mr. Cannon kept crinkling his eyebrows. Then I said the words “innocent as a rose,” and it made me think of that song from Sound of Music, so I just started singing “Sixteen Going on Seventeen.”
Sock Monkey: (Silence.)
Me: Say something.
Sock Monkey: What did Mr. Cannon do?
Me: Nothing. He just sat in his chair. He didn’t clap. He didn’t say “Good job” or “Nice effort” or “Bravo” or anything.
Sock Monkey: Well, maybe it was like a poker face — he doesn’t want to give it away. You know, who he’s picking for Juliet.
Me: The worst part is, he didn’t scribble any notes. He always scribbles notes on his yellow tablet. Instead, he just thanked me and looked down at his clipboard.
Sock Monkey: Maybe you were actually good and he didn’t need to make notes.
Me: But there were tons of other girls flinging their hair around and saying, “Romeo, Romeo,” and he made notes on them.
Sock Monkey: But think about it. He knows your work. You have way more experience. You’ve been in tons of plays, like Beauty and the Beast.
Me: That’s just it. What if he wants somebody new? Somebody different? What if he’s thinking that I already had a shot at the lead when I got to be Beauty and Scott was Beast. Oh, no. What if he doesn’t want us to be together again? Or what if he decides to give somebody else a chance?
Sock Monkey: Somebody like maybe . . . Jayden Pffeffer?
Me: Uh! Don’t even say that name. It makes my blood boil. Queen Aggravating.
Sock Monkey: What does Queen Aggravating have that you haven’t got?
Me: Long hair, for one thing. She looks exactly like Juliet.
Sock Monkey: But Mr. Cannon isn’t going to pass you over just because you have short hair. He knows there’s more to acting than looking the part, right?
Me: Her audition was pretty lame.
Sock Monkey: What did she do?
Me: A Princess Mia monologue from The Princess Diaries. It wasn’t great, but it was better than mine! What was I thinking?
Sock Monkey: C’mon. You’re always freaked out about Jayden. And most of the time you end up with the lead, and she has to be your understudy.
Me: Not always. Once she got to be the bunny in Mushroom in the Rain, and I had to be, like, Second Mushroom from the Left.
Sock Monkey: In kindergarten!
Me: But Mr. Cannon scribbled down tons of notes after Jayden’s audition. He even had to flip over a page on his tablet.
Sock Monkey: Ooh, this is bad.
Me: It is! Now Princess Mia is going to get the part and Jayden Pffeffer is going to kiss Romeo. My Romeo. In front of the whole entire world. And he’s going to be a prince, not a toad, and kiss her back. Owww!
Sock Monkey: You don’t know that.
Me: Just tell me it’s going to be okay.
Sock Monkey: It’s going to be okay . . . hey, stop shaking meeeeee!
On Thursday morning, Alex would not open the door to her room. What was she doing in there? Probably trying on that blankety-blank shirt that she didn’t want anyone to see. Ever since finding it yesterday, a feeling had started in the pit of my stomach. Kind of like when you’re a kid on roller skates going down a hill and are not sure if you can stop.
“Hurry up, Alex. I made French toast,” I said, trying to sound normal. “We’re going to miss the bus and Dad’ll be mad if he has to drive us. Again.”
Mom opened the door to Alex’s room, pressing a button on the thermometer. “Honey, Alex isn’t feeling well.” She felt Alex’s forehead. Alex was still in her Dick and Jane pajamas, propped up against a mountain of pillows, trying to look pathetic. Plus, she had some serious bed head going on. Not pretty.
“You’re not even dressed?” I asked. My voice sounded edgy inside my own head, and I couldn’t keep my eyes from looking at the drawer with the T-shirt. Why was that stupid shirt bugging me so much?
“I’m sick,” she croaked, clutching her throat. “Can’t you tell?”
“But you’re going to school, right?”
“I told Alex she doesn’t have to go today,” said Mom. “Here. See if you’re running a fever. Leave this in for three minutes. Are you sure you’ll be okay?”
Alex nodded. Outside, the sky was darkening. Heavy gray clouds threatened more rain. Mom flicked on Alex’s bedside lamp, a small circle of warmth against the gloom.
“I’m late for work, but I’ll make sure Dad comes up to check on you in a bit.” Mom headed downstairs.
Alex yanked the thermometer out of her mouth.
“You are so not sick,” I said. “I can’t believe Mom actually believe
d you.”
“Why wouldn’t she?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because you don’t have a fever or a sore throat and you’re not covered in measles or chicken pox. So unless you have the Queen Mab plague . . .”
My sister clutched her stomach. “I think I have food poisoning from the dinner you made last night.”
“All I made was the mashed potatoes. Dad made the rest. Besides, you don’t get food poisoning from mashed potatoes.”
“You do if they taste like cotton balls!”
Sheesh. Can I help it if Joey stored a bunch of cotton balls in an empty marshmallow bag and Mom accidentally put them away in the kitchen cupboard and they fell out and landed in the potatoes? “I fished them out,” I told her. I’d sooner have believed a frog in her throat.
“Okay. So I don’t have food poisoning. But I think I might have skittles.”
“Skittles?” I asked. “Isn’t that a candy? Unless you have fruit-flavored chicken pox. Never mind. I don’t even want to know.”
Alex slunk down and pulled the covers up to her chin. I could still see a curly-headed kid with overalls and a red balloon and the words Jump, Puff. Jump, jump, jump. Oh, Puff on the piece of pajamas sticking out from under the covers. I couldn’t help letting out a laugh.
“It’s not funny.”
“You can’t be sick. Not today. Isn’t today the day you find out if you got the part of Juliet?”
Alex started fake-coughing.
I opened my eyes wide and pointed at my sister. “Wait a second. Now I get it. You don’t want to go to school because . . . you don’t want to find out the Drama Club results because . . . you’re afraid you didn’t get the part! Ha!”
“Whatever, Sherlock. You’ve got a whole little mystery going on there, but it has nothing to do with reality. I told you, I’m sick.” She hunkered down under the covers some more, trying to look miserable.
“You’re not that good an actress,” I said.
“Join the club.”
“What club?”
“The club of people who don’t think I’m a good actress.”
This is the part where I’m supposed to tell my sister how great she is at acting, reassure her, make her feel better. Like I always did. But I wasn’t sure anymore — was this the same Alex I knew yesterday?
She looked like the same Alex she’d always been, minus the long hair, of course. On one hand, she wore Dick and Jane pajamas and talked to her sock monkey. On the other hand, she read one-syllable titled books about things I didn’t understand, harbored smuggled T-shirts in her bottom drawer, and secretly wanted to kiss a boy.
This was definitely not turning out to be a French toast kind of morning. I could almost feel the atmospheric pressure in the room. I rubbed my temples. It made my head ache, trying to figure this stuff out. Besides, I had problems of my own. Like in-class detention after school today.
“Hey, can I ask you a question? Have you ever had in-class detention?”
“Sure. Lots of times. Why do you ask?”
“No reason.”
“Wait! You got detention?” Alex must have seen my face fall, because she said, “It’s no biggie. It’s not like detention with a capital D where you have to go to the library and spend two hours with a bunch of delinquents.”
“Ha, ha. Very funny.”
“Look, you just stay after and help your homeroom teacher. Once I had to write a short essay about some famous genius that flunked out of middle school. But most times there’s nothing for you to do, so you get to play Sudoku.”
How did Alex know so much about big- or little-D detention? First the shirt, now this . . . Or maybe she got detention for wearing that shirt to school?
“So, are you coming to school or not?”
“Not.”
“Well, don’t think I’m going to go look at the Drama Club list and find out for you. I can’t, anyway.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?” Silence. Alex flipped over onto her side, facing away from me. “Fine.”
“Fine,” I said, turning to go.
“Can you at least get my homework?” Alex asked. “Algebra and biology.”
“Boy-ology,” I muttered. It just came out. In less than thirty minutes, I’d gone from making French toast for my sister to acting as mean as stinging sleet.
“And bring me home some Skittles?”
“You are so not funny.”
Just then, the sky opened up and rain slashed the window.
Great. Now I’d get poured on. I’d really have to run if I hoped to have a prayer of catching the bus. One more late slip might land me in bad kids detention. In capital-D detention, I would not be playing Sudoku.
The day just went from bad to worse.
I was sitting in Earth Science, my favorite class at the moment, when out of nowhere, a wadded-up note hit me in the head. I looked around. Olivia wasn’t even in this class.
I opened it a teeny-tiny bit to try to read it without someone, a.k.a. Wire Rims, spying on me. Not coming to detention after school. Sorry! It was signed with a fancy letter O, big enough to rival Oprah’s autograph. Like that was supposed to make it not so bad.
Olivia. How did she do that? She must have given it to somebody else to pass to me. I was thinking how I’d never speak to her again if she left me alone with Wire Rims, when an announcement crackled over the loudspeaker.
“Stevie Reel to the front office. Mr. Petry? Is Stevie Reel in class? Please send him down to the office.”
Him? The whole class erupted in laughter. Suddenly Mr. Petry’s giant jellyfish weather phenomenon was not so interesting. All eyes were on me. I felt my face go thermal and turn bright red. Weather alert: global warming had just reached classroom 11.
“Did they say Steven Reel?” somebody asked.
“Hey, Reel, make sure you don’t stop in the boys’ bathroom on the way to the office,” somebody else jeered.
I zoomed out of there before I had to hear the standard string of sixth-grade-boys-being-jerks jokes.
The office! Now what? Did I do something wrong? I hope I didn’t have capital-D detention. But Dad had already signed off on the paper saying I had to stay after school. Did something happen? Somebody got hurt? Alex was sick for real and they rushed her to the emergency room?
I hurried over to the woman at the main desk who was clicking her yellow happy-face nails a mile a minute on the keyboard. “Hi, um, I’m Stevie Reel.”
“You’re Stevie?” she asked, glancing up but still clicking. “I was expecting — never mind. Your mom’s on the phone.”
“My mom?” I asked, like I hadn’t heard from her in a hundred years or something. Why isn’t Mom at the studio?
“You can take it on that phone.” She nodded to a desk in the corner. “Just press line three.”
“Mom?” I asked. “Is everything okay? Why are you calling me in the middle of —”
“It’s me, okay?” the voice said. “I had to talk to you.”
“Alex?” I whispered. “W-what are you . . . where are you . . . why are you . . .” I stammered. Finally, I eked out a whole sentence. “I was in the middle of a class, Mom,” I said for the benefit of Happy Nails. “Why are you calling me?”
“Sorry I got you out of class, but —”
“You told them you were Mom? You scared me half to death! I thought it was some kind of emergency!”
“It is an emergency. I’m going crazy. I can’t take it anymore. I have to know.”
“Know what?” I asked, looking around guiltily.
“You know. About the play. Who got the part of Juliet? You have to look at the list for me.”
“I’m not — I can’t —” Still sputtering.
“What’s the big deal? Just go over to the auditorium and check the Drama Club list. It’ll be posted on the bulletin board outside Mr. Cannon’s door as soon as school’s over. You know, the same as it was for Once Upon a Mattress.”
“I can’t believe you. You fake sick and don’t
come to school because you think you didn’t get the part and now you want me to find out for you? I’ve got problems of my own, you know. I can’t. Even if I wanted to, I have to stay after. For detention. Comprende?” Just then, Happy Nails walked past with a stack of papers.
“Stevie, just run down there as soon as the bell rings, please? It’ll take two seconds.”
“Sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean to worry you. I know I forgot my lunch, but Olivia gave me half of hers. And, no, I don’t need my violin. Orchestra is on Thursdays.”
“Stevie . . .” Alex urged.
“Okay. Love you too. I’ll see you at home. Bye, Mom!”
I walked back to class, fuming about Alex. But before I reached room 11, the bell rang and everybody poured into the hall. I rushed over to Olivia, who was spacing out in front of her open locker.
“What do you mean you’re not going to be at detention?” I practically screamed. “How can you skip detention? It’s detention! They’ll give you another detention for missing detention.”
“Stevie, I think you just got the Guinness world record for saying ‘detention.’” Olivia glanced around to see if anybody was staring at us.
Right-left-right. I spun the dial on my lock, yanking open my own locker so hard the door vibrated angrily. “You had all day to tell me this. You couldn’t have told me on the bus or at lunch or this morning in Language Arts?”
“I’m telling you now. I have an orthodontist appointment and I had to wait months to get it. And I’m not about to miss my one chance to get the last of these braces off.” She flashed the shiny silver on her four front teeth at me. “No way am I waiting one more day. One more minute. Look out, popcorn, here I come!”
“And Ms. Carter-Dunne said that was okay?”
“I told her I had a dental emergency. She said I could make it up Friday.”
“Sheesh. Faking sick sure is going around. Maybe I can catch it too.”