"Amanda, weren't you listening? I told you to do a dance with a little twirl and end up on this side of the room," Karen directed.
It's always difficult being a director.
When the rehearsal was almost finished, Karen brought her friends up to the playroom and rummaged through the trunk with them, looking for their costumes. Amanda found a black lace dress she wanted to wear.
"No," said Karen. She gave her a red cotton one instead. I think Karen didn't want anyone to be more dressed up than she was. She was, you remember, the star.
The girls ran up and down the stairs several more times, then closed themselves back up in the living room. Kristy could hear Karen's orders and Hannie and Amanda's giggles. Finally, Karen swung open the living room door.
"Come on, everybody!" she cried. "Come on, audience!" It was time for Karen's production.
Kristy hiked Emily up on her hip and brought David Michael and Andrew into the living room. The "audience" settled themselves into their seats. Karen walked to the center of the stage area and held up her hands for attention.
"Quiet, everybody," she said, though no one was saying a word. "We have a play today and the name of it is - " Before she could finish, Hannie tiptoed over to Karen and whispered a question in her ear. "No, no." Karen said firmly. "You come on after." Karen turned back to the audience. "Like I was saying," she continued, "the name of our play today is Getting to Be Stars. I will be the biggest star, and Hannie and Amanda are two other stars. Okay," she said. I think she wasn't sure how to make the transition from her opening speech to the actual play. She walked to the back of the stage, turned around, and walked back again. "Now if s the play," she said simply.
Suddenly, Karen struck a melodramatic pose, her hand across her forehead.
"Oh, dear," she wailed in a high, false voice. "I want to be a star. In fact, I know I'm a star. But the question is, how do I get on TV?" There was a long pause. Something was obviously supposed to happen, but someone was missing her cue.
"Hannie!" Karen prompted loudly.
"Oh!" Hannie started. She tottered over in her too-big dress-up shoes to deliver her (late) line.
"Did you think of calling up that Darrel boy?" Hannie asked loudly.
"Derek," hissed Karen. "Derek." "Oh, yeah." Hannie tried again. "Did you think of calling that Derek boy? Maybe he could get you on TV." "Kristy says no," wailed Karen. She looked directly at Kristy, to make sure the line was having some effect. Then she broke into loud, fake sobs and cried into her arm. She was an actress, all right.
"So what are you going to do?" cried Amanda.
"I'll do the only thing I can do," said Karen. Now she was holding her arms grandly up to the sky. "I'll go to Hollywood and be discovered and I'll get lots of costumes and my own dressing room." Well, you can imagine the rest of the play. Karen did go to Hollywood. She knocked on door after door, but (sob, sob), she couldn't get a job. After many tries, she started thinking that maybe she should go home - crawl back defeated, with her tail between her legs.
"Well," she said dramatically. "I'll just try one more door." She knocked. Amanda answered.
"Who are you?" asked Karen.
"I'm the director," said Amanda. "We've got a show to do here, but my main actress just got sick. I need someone else to step in and be a star." "I'm a star!" cried Karen.
"Then you're hired!" said the director.
In the last scene of the play, two reporters (Hannie and Amanda) crowded around Karen to interview her. They held up their microphones (which were really a spatula and a soup spoon) for her to speak into.
"What is the secret of your success?" asked Hannie.
"Well," Karen said, smiling, "all along I knew I was a star. It would've been very easy if I could've met Derek, but I knew, I just knew, I had to get on TV." Hannie and Amanda dropped their microphones and applauded loudly. Karen took a long, low bow. She was some kind of star, all right. Kristy and the rest of the audience joined in the applause.
Later, when Kristy told me about the play, I felt the knot in my stomach again. Oh, I found myself thinking, if only stardom were as easy as that.
Chapter 8.
On that Saturday when Kristy and her crowd were "getting to be stars" in the safety of their house, I was out in the big, wide world trying to do the same thing. That's because Saturday was my first Swan Lake audition.
I can't tell you how crazy I was that morning. You know how usually, when you wake up, it takes awhile to shake the sleep off? Well, that morning, when I opened my eyes, my heart was already racing and adrenalin was already pumping through my veins. One word was pounding in my head: AUDITION! I hopped out of bed and began my morning's work . . . driving my family nuts.
Mama was in the kitchen making coffee. I joined her and started pacing around.
" 'Morning, Jessi," Mama said. She smiled an amused sort of smile. I could tell that she recognized this nervousness of mine. My whole family is used to it. This is the way I always get before an audition or a performance.
The rest of my family drifted into the kitchen and we all sat down for breakfast. At least, they sat down. I kept jumping up from my place. I had to check on the toast, I had to get another spoon, I had to fill my glass with orange juice, and, of course, I had to change my mind and switch to grapefruit.
I caught Daddy throwing Mama his own little amused smile. When breakfast was done, I jumped up from the table.
"I'll do the dishes," I said.
"I have a better idea," said Daddy. "Why don't you go downstairs to your practice room and do some warming up. To tell you the truth, I'm not sure you could hold a plate steady in those hands of yours this morning. Better for you to grab onto something stable, like the barre." "Right," I said quickly. "Good idea." Going down to the basement and working at the barre did calm me down some. At least it gave me something to think about. My feet, for instance. I had to work through all the muscles in my toes and up through my ankles. Then, of course, I had to worry about my legs. I stretched my calves and my hamstrings and did some strengthening work. Finally I was ready to put on my toe shoes and work on my balance.
It was a lot of work. But it did keep me occupied until it was time to get ready to leave.
The sheet of instructions Mme Noelle had given me said that I should bring a picture and resume to the audition. Mama had typed me a short resume with information about the ballet schools I had gone to and about the few performances I had been in. We stapled a little snapshot of me on top.
I looked it over. I panicked.
"Mama!" I called frantically. "We forgot to put my telephone number on the resume!" "No we didn't, honey." Her voice was soft and soothing. "There it is, right there." She pointed to the top of the page. She was right. There it was.
"But the resume doesn't say anything about Coppelia," I rushed on. Coppelia was the last performance I had been in.
Mama pointed down the resume. There, indeed, was Coppelia. Mama had included a whole paragraph about it.
"Oh," I said sheepishly. I decided it was time to fix my hair.
I went into the bathroom, brushed my hair back off my face, and pulled it up tightly with an elastic band. I looked at myself in the mirror. It didn't look right. I pulled the elastic band out and tried it again. No good. I must have done this about ten more times when I looked up in the mirror and noticed Daddy standing behind me, watching the whole thing.
"Having trouble?" he asked.
"I can't get all my hair to stay in the elastic, Daddy," I said sullenly. I think I was sort of pouting.
"Did you try glueing it?" Daddy smiled. Of course, he was just trying to tease me out of my mood, but I wouldn't be comforted. Daddy put his arms around me. That felt a little better.
"So why don't we shave your hair all off?" he asked. "I could go get my razor right now. A little off the sides, off the top . . ." All of a sudden, the whole thing did seem kind of funny. I guess I had been getting a little carried away. I took a look at my hair in the mirr
or. To tell the truth, it looked just fine. I gave Daddy a kiss, changed into my leotard, and was ready to hit the road.
The audition itself was bigger, scarier, and even more professional than I had imagined. The girls in my ballet class were right. A lot of New York dancers had shown up to try out. They were all long and lean and wore beautiful practice clothes - shiny leotards that showed off every muscle, matching leg warmers, and gauzy ballet skirts with crisp satin ties.
All these ballerinas had their pictures and resumes in hand. Of course, their pictures weren't little snapshots like mine. They were the same kind of fancy head shots that Derek had. Somehow, being at this audition reminded me of my very first ballet class. I remembered the feeling. Mama hadn't had time to buy me ballet slippers, so I had had to take my first class barefoot. But once the class had started, it hadn't mattered. I got right into concentrating on the work.
I looked around me at the audition. Everyone was stretching out and pounding their toe shoes on the floor to soften them up. These are things that ballerinas always do before they go onstage.
"I know how to do all that," I thought confidently.
So I took a deep breath and joined right in.
The audition itself was actually kind of fun. They broke us up into groups and taught us some combinations of steps, some slow ones in which you had to try to be steady and graceful, and some fast ones in which you traveled across the whole stage. I wasn't sure how I did, but I thought I did okay. After my group took its turn, I waited in the back of the theater and watched the others. There was a tight, clique-y group of ballerinas standing near me. They were watching the other groups, too. And they were making nasty comments about everyone onstage.
"Look at her," one of them said. "She has no balance. And look at her leg. It's just flopping there." I couldn't help but look at the girl they pointed out. It was true, she lost her balance at one point, and it was also true that her leg wasn't as stretched as it could be. But to tell you the truth, she was a beautiful dancer. I thought she was the best onstage.
I moved away from the gossippers. The thing about ballet is that sometimes you come across girls who are sharks - girls who circle around, watching and waiting for someone else to fail. I guess it's because ballet can be so competitive.
"Jessica Ramsey." What was that? Someone was calling my name. It was the stage manager. She was reading off a list of names, and the girls whose names were called were gathering at the front of the theater. I joined the group.
"Me?" I asked the stage manager. "Did you call Jessica Ramsey?" The stage manager nodded.
Now this you won't believe. At least, I couldn't. The names they were calling were the ones that had made it through the first audition, the dancers they wanted to see a second time.
Me, Jessica Ramsey! They had called my name! "Come back next Saturday. Same time," said the stage manager.
You bet I'd be there! Daddy was waiting outside for me. I hopped in the car. I was talking a mile a minute.
"Daddy, Daddy, I got a callback! They broke us into groups, and of course there were some gossipy ballerinas there, but Daddy, they called me back!" I don't know if Daddy understood all of what I said, but he did manage to get the gist.
When we got home, I raced to the phone to call Mallory and tell her my news.
"That's great!" she squealed.
But by this time, other, shakier thoughts had started to seep into my head.
"Oh, but Mallory, what if I'm not good enough?" I said. "And this audition business is so scary. I'm not sure I can go through it another time." Mallory is my friend for a good reason. She said all the right things then. She told me all 1 could do was try. And she said I shouldn't let my fears stop me from doing what I wanted in life. I knew she was right. I'd just never been this nervous about anything before.
After Mal had calmed me down, she also told me something that Nicky said about Derek, something about how he was doing in school.
"What?" I said. "Is it John again?" Mallory said Nicky told her that Derek had gotten into a fight. "Nicky said Derek threw his food all over a kid in the cafeteria." "Nicky must've got it wrong," I said. "That's probably what the Superbrat did to Derek." "No," Mallory insisted. "Nicky says Derek was the one who threw the food." This information did not sound good.
"The Superbrat pushed Derek too far," I said decisively.
Poor Derek. Things did not sound like they were getting better at all.
Chapter 9.
As you can see, I wasn't the only one in the Baby-sitters Club involved in the Derek business. When Claudia took an afternoon job sitting for Derek and Todd, she jumped right into the soup. Is that what the expression is, soup? Maybe I mean stew. Now Claudia's got me making mistakes. Well, whatever the mess was, Claudia got involved.
When she reached the Masterses' house, the boys had just gotten home from school. Claudia noticed that Derek looked kind of jittery. He kept chewing on his nails and, when she gave them their snack, Derek shredded his napkin into a hundred little pieces.
"How was school today?" Claudia asked.
Derek started in on another napkin.
Luckily, it happened to be a beautiful, sunny afternoon. It was one of those blue-sky days, the kind that only happens a couple of times a year and when it does, you think, This is heaven. Every day should be like this. It was much too pretty to spend the whole afternoon cooped up inside, so Claudia suggested a trip to the school playground.
"Yeah!" cried Todd. No question what his vote was.
Derek wasn't as enthusiastic. He scuffed his shoes around on the kitchen floor before he agreed, and Claudia noticed that when they got to the playground, Derek's eyes darted around, taking a quick survey of the other kids who were there. Most of the kids at the playground were younger, and Derek seemed to relax a little. He straddled the seat of a swing while Claudia pushed Todd.
"During school, I hate this playground," Derek said sullenly.
"You do? Why?" asked Claudia.
" 'Cause out here, anything can happen. The teachers aren't really in charge and the kids can pretty much do anything they want." "That's exactly what I always liked about the playground," said Claudia.
"Yeah, but that means they can do anything they want to me." "Oh. Right." Claudia remembered. How could she have even forgotten?
Derek looked around again to make sure he didn't see anybody he knew.
"What do the kids do to you?" Claudia asked.
"Well . . ." Derek sighed. "Like the other day, I was on the monkey bars over there and I was just playing, I was hanging upside down, when this guy John came over and pushed my legs off the bar." "Really?" Claudia gasped. "That's terrible!" "I landed right on my head," said Derek. He pushed his hair back to show her where. "Do you see a bump?" "Not really." Claudia squinted. She parted his hair and combed her fingers over his scalp.
"It must've healed," said Derek.
"Still," said Claudia. "That's horrible." Derek heaved another big sigh.
"Yeah, and then another time, when I was on my way into the school in the morning, John grabbed my book bag, dumped all my stuff onto the ground, and stole my math homework." "He stole your homework!" Claudia was aghast. Probably because Claudia isn't the best student in the world and she appreciates how hard it is to do homework in the first place. "Well, what did you do?" she asked.
"What could I do?" asked Derek. "When Mr. Rossi asked us to pass in our homework, I didn't have any to turn in. I told him I forgot it at home." Claudia shook her head. She could relate.
"Did the teacher call your parents?" she asked. That would be Claudia's worst nightmare.
"No," said Derek. "I just had to bring it in the next day." "Well, do the kids ever let you play with them?" asked Claudia.
"Once," said Derek. "They were playing catch. I asked if I could play, too, and they said yes. John tossed me the ball, and I couldn't believe it. I thought, 'This is great.' But when I caught the ball, something sticky got on my fingers. John had stuck AB
C gum all over the ball." "Ick," Claudia said. "Already-been-chewed." "Right," Derek answered.
Claudia gave Todd another big push.
"Oh, no!" Derek said suddenly. He turned backwards on the swing and tucked his chin down to hide his face.
"What is it?" asked Claudia.
Derek shushed her.
Claudia looked in the direction Derek had turned from. Four boys on bicycles had just ridden onto the playground. They looked like they were about Derek's age. They circled the monkey bars and reared the fronts of their bikes up as if they were cowboys riding wild horses. They headed for the swing set.
"Oh, no," Derek said again.
"From your class?" asked Claudia.
"Yeah." "Don't worry," she said. "They're not going to bother you while I'm here." When the boys reached the swing set, they hopped off their bikes. Derek turned back around. He sat up straighter.
"Hi," he said cautiously.
"Hi," the boys replied.
Then nobody said anything. The boys stared at Derek. He stared at the ground. Claudia knew that it's usually best to let kids try to work things out for themselves, but after awhile, when everybody was still standing there not saying anything, she just had to jump in. That's when she got her great idea.
"Would you like to join us?" she asked the boys. "I'm Claudia, the baby-sitter, and this is Todd. We were just about to head back to Derek's house. Do you want to come over?" Derek stared at Claudia, dumbfounded. Each of the boys looked at another.
"Yeah," one said finally. "Sure." Claudia smiled. That boy was obviously the ringleader. She figured he was probably the infamous John.
Claudia's idea to invite the boys over was a smart one. She had a hunch that it would be good for them to see where Derek lived. They'd see that he was just a regular kid living in a regular house in Stoneybrook.
On the way to the Masterses' house, the boys walked their bikes alongside Derek. Claudia held Todd's hand and walked a little ways away. She kept her ears open, though. The boys still didn't say much of anything.
One sort of muttered, "This the way?" Another commented briefly, "Hey, I know somebody on this block." Well, at least what they did say seemed friendly enough.
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