by Laura Dower
Peeking through the curtains, Madison could see Mr. Gibbons hunched over the piano with Mr. and Mrs. Montefiore. They were reviewing the order of song numbers. Mr. Gibbons had rearranged and shortened the Wiz tunes with the music department. For now the piano played, but for the real show, they were adding drums, cymbals, and a trumpet. Those band members just weren’t expected at rehearsal today.
Madison had set up a bench with a script on it so she could easily cue missed lines. She saw Ivy leaning over the script, flipping pages to find her parts.
“Ivy, you need to go finish getting dressed,” Madison said.
Ivy kept looking through the pages.
Madison moaned. “Why don’t you go look at your own script. Ivy? We’re starting in a few minutes and I need to—”
“Look, I don’t come on for a few songs, so I have plenty of time to get in costume,” Ivy said. “And I need to look at this script now. I left mine in my locker.”
Madison shook her head. “No.” She grabbed the script. “Get dressed.”
Ivy looked steamed. Had Madison really said that?
Rose and Joan walked over. They’d heard everything.
“You can use my script, Ivy,” Rose said. “I’m not stingy, like some people around here.”
The three enemies skulked away. “How do I look?” Lindsay asked. She modeled her braid-in pigtails and gingham jumper. She was carrying Chocolate in her arms. He was still shaking from the curtain incident.
“You’re the perfect Dorothy,” Madison said. “That’s a great costume.”
“Thanks,” Lindsay said.
“Do you have everything else you need?” Madison asked.
Lindsay nodded. She stuck out her pinkie.
“What’s that for?” Madison asked.
Lindsay smiled. “For luck. I’m very superstitious, aren’t you?”
“Hey, Madison.” Mariah poked her head out of the dressing room. “I have to help the Munchkins lace up their green shoes, so I’ll be back here. Are you okay by yourself?”
Madison smiled. “I think so.”
“She’s totally in control,” Lindsay said as she walked to the other side of the stage for her entrance. “Thanks again, Maddie.”
Madison wasn’t exactly in total control, even though she wished she were. Frantic cast members had her surrounded. There were other teachers and crew people around, but everyone seemed to need Madison to help.
Help!
Tommy’s scarecrow stuffing was coming undone. Madison stuffed it in and tied a new knot in his costume to make it all better.
Dan’s lion suit was a little too big and he kept stumbling around, bumping into people and things backstage. Madison unzipped his paws and rolled up his leg fur.
“We’ll figure it out after rehearsal,” she told him. “This will work for now.”
“My wand is missing!” Ivy screeched. She practically spit the words into Madison’s face. “Aren’t you supposed to keep track of the props, Madison?” She said Madison’s name like it tasted bad.
“Yes, but you wanted to be in charge of your own props, remember?” Madison reminded Ivy that she was the one who didn’t want anyone near any part of her costume. She’d made that perfectly clear during rehearsals, so Mr. Gibbons told her she could keep her stuff separate from the rest of the cast’s as long as she kept track of it.
“But you’re the prop person and you’re supposed to know what to do, right?” Ivy snarled.
“I do know what to do,” Madison said. She walked away, leaving Ivy there alone in her Glinda outfit with an expression of utter disbelief.
“I’m going to tell Mr. Gibbons,” Ivy threatened.
Madison didn’t care. “Have you seen Aimee?” she asked Mariah.
Five Munchkins looked up at Madison and pointed toward the backstage bathroom.
“Aimee?” Madison called out. “Are you in there?”
A muffled voice from behind the door squeaked, “Yes.”
It was Aimee, but she didn’t sound like herself.
“Aimee? Are you okay?” Madison rattled the knob. “Can I come in?”
The door unlatched and Madison walked inside. Aimee was leaning up against the sink.
“Aimee, what’s the matter?” Madison asked. They were looking at each other in the mirror reflection.
Aimee shook her head. “I have cramps. Bad ones.”
Madison rubbed her back. “Did you eat something weird for lunch?”
“Not those kind of cramps.” Aimee lowered her voice so Madison could barely hear. “I have my period.”
Madison didn’t know what to say. She and Aimee had never really talked about this. Madison hadn’t gotten hers yet.
“What should I do?” Aimee asked.
“You want me to tell Mrs. Montefiore that you have your period?” Madison asked.
“Noooo! Don’t tell anyone,” Aimee said. “I’ll be okay. I better just get into my costume.”
“Are you sure?” Madison asked.
Aimee put down the toilet seat and sat. She grabbed at her stomach and took a deep breath. “Cramp,” she whispered.
“Aimee?” Madison was worried.
But a heartbeat later, Aimee stood right back up. “I’m fine. They come and go, you know?”
Madison realized she didn’t know. Not one bit. She was eager to get older and wiser, but Madison could definitely wait for her period. She wasn’t ready to enter the world of cramps.
“Aimee, are you nervous, too?” Madison asked before walking out.
“I don’t get nervous. I don’t get all weird when I have to go onstage. I go onstage all the time at dance camp. Why would right now be any different than then? I just think—”
Aimee paused and took a deep, deep breath.
“I’ve never been so nervous, Maddie,” Aimee finally admitted. “I don’t want to mess up. All those dance steps and—”
“Aimee, you’ll be great,” Madison said. “You know you’ll be great. You always dance great, no matter what. Even with cramps.”
Aimee looked straight into Madison’s eyes. “You’re the best.”
“The Munchkins are waiting,” Madison joked.
As she walked out of the girls’ bathroom, Madison was so lost in thought that she almost smacked right into Tommy Kwong. Once again, he’d come unstuffed. Madison restuffed.
“Madison!” Mariah yelled. “There’s someone outside from the local paper. They want to take a picture of everyone in the show. Mr. Gibbons wants you and everyone else on the stage.”
Sometimes the local paper ran human-interest stories about school events like this. This article was going to be about Mrs. Goode’s twenty years at the school and her various contributions to the Far Hills community. They wanted photos from a dress rehearsal so they could run the piece the day of the show. They’d be doing separate pieces on the seventh-, eighth-, and ninth-grade performances.
Mr. Gibbons had turned up the house lights. “Uh, can I get everyone out here, please? All the seventh-grade cast members onstage.”
The Montefiores stopped playing. Madison and Mariah helped to corral the witches and Winkies onto the set. They were standing in front of the city backdrop, and it looked so magical. The yellow linoleum squares twinkled when the lights hit them in just the right way.
“Okay, now let’s line up,” Mr. Gibbons asked the cast.
Amazingly, everyone got into rows and the photographer asked everyone to stand closer. Madison crossed her arms and watched everyone come together. It was so exciting!
Fiona waved her over.
“Here,” Fiona said. “Get in the picture! Stand next to me!”
Aimee put her arm around Madison’s shoulder when she slipped in.
“Hold on!” the photographer yelled. “Would the Tin Man please straighten his tin hat?”
Egg fixed it.
“No, no—I need the Munchkins to be in the same group, please,” he said raising his camera up to his eye again. “Yes, that’s be
tter.”
Mr. Gibbons yelled out, “Dan, would you please roll down your lion feet?”
Madison helped.
“Okay.” The photographer made little hand motions to tell kids to move in, move out, and then move in again. “Would the boy playing the Scarecrow please check his straw?”
Madison looked over at Tommy. Mrs. Perez needed to work on that costume a little more.
“Okay, now everyone smile,” the photographer said, lifting the camera up once more.
Mr. Gibbons suddenly stepped in front of the camera. “Wait! Ivy Daly isn’t here. Ivy? How could we be missing Ivy?” he yelled backstage. “Madison, where did Ivy go?”
“I’ll get her,” Mariah said, running to the back. Madison was very glad she didn’t have to go.
In a second, Ivy was onstage, apologizing. She had finally found her Glinda wand.
“Now are we ready?” the photographer asked once more.
Everyone smiled.
“Wait! I’m sorry, but who is the girl in the second row? The one in between the two witches?”
Madison knew he was talking about her.
“She’s our stage manager,” Mr. Gibbons said.
“Could I ask you to please step out of the picture, miss? This is just for cast members wearing costumes.”
Madison felt everyone’s eyes on her. “It’s okay, Madison,” Mr. Gibbons reassured her. “You can be in the next round of photos.”
Madison slowly walked to the side of the stage.
“Thanks!” the photographer cried. “Now, Wiz cast, please say ‘Oz!’”
Madison blinked when the flash went off and got dizzy. The photographer kept taking picture after picture, posing the group in different arrangements. He even took shots of Addaperle, Evillene, and Glinda by themselves. The three of them looked great in their costumes.
By the time Madison got into the photo, the photographer only had a few shots left. She posed with Drew and the Nose Plucker. Madison knew she wouldn’t make the paper, but she tried not to let it bother her. The cast and crew photo might make it into one of the trophy cases in the school lobby.
When the picture-taking hubbub died down, the cast finally started their opening number. The actual dress rehearsal took about twice as long as it should have, but it finally ended around six-thirty, to loud applause from Mr. Gibbons. He gathered everyone onstage for a little postperformance pep talk.
“You guys were great,” he said. “See you back here on Monday.”
“That’s it?” Egg said.
Mr. Gibbons nodded. “That’s it. Good job. Now get your gear and get home.” Because it had gotten late, he kept it real short.
Kids were pulling off their costumes in a hurry, so Madison and Mariah kept running from place to place backstage. They had to make sure that props were returned, capes were hung up, and all the caps to the makeup tubes were twisted on tight.
When she was finished running around, Madison had lost track of Aimee and Fiona. They weren’t in the dressing room, the bathroom, or the auditorium.
“Have you seen Aimee?” Madison asked Dan.
He played dumb and put on his Lion voice. “Duh, which way did dey go?”
Madison laughed as she walked away. Dan was a dork, but he was funny.
She bumped into Lindsay at the auditorium entrance.
“Hey, did you see Aimee or anyone else?” Madison asked her.
“Nope,” Lindsay began. “Yeah! I did see Aimee. She was headed out with her stuff like five minutes ago. Fiona was with her, I think.”
Madison sighed. They’d left without her?
“You know, Madison, you really should have been in those photographs,” Lindsay said. “I mean, you’re the most important person in the show.”
“Yeah, well …” Madison mumbled. “No biggie.”
“Still, I hope you know how psyched we all are. Everyone thinks you’re a great stage manager.”
Madison scratched her head. “Thanks.”
“I mean it,” Lindsay said.
“That’s really nice of you to say that,” Madison said. “I mean, you don’t have to.”
“I know. So you wanna walk home together?” Lindsay asked her.
Just then, Aimee ran into the auditorium. “Oh my God, Maddie! I felt a little sick and I went down to the nurse’s office to see if anyone was there. I’m so sorry, but I couldn’t find you! Fiona’s waiting outside. My brother is coming with the car.”
Lindsay started to walk away. “I’ll see you guys later, then.”
Madison looked at Lindsay and then Aimee and then over at Lindsay again. “Want a ride?” she asked.
Aimee jumped in. “Yeah, come with us.”
Lindsay looked at Aimee. “You sure?”
Aimee smiled. “Of course, I’m sure.”
Madison turned to Lindsay. “Come on, let’s go.”
Chapter 10
From: Bigwheels
To: MadFinn
Subject: Hi
Date: Sat 14 Oct 10:15 PM
Thanks for sending a virtual copy of your school program cover for The Wiz. I downloaded it and it looks so cool.
I am feeling ok now. My mom and dad are seeing a counselor I think. I guess I have to wait and see what happens. The only problem is that I can’t get all my homework done and I’m worried about my grades. Do you study hard? I just have so much more homework than I had last year. I think teachers believe in cruel and unusual punishment. My brain hurts.
Send me more about the play. How is the guy playing The Wizard? Do you still like him? Thanks again for being my keypal and for your advice. It’s nice having you out there.
Yours till the home works,
Bigwheels
EVEN BIGWHEELS HAD TROUBLE at school. It was just another thing they had in common. She sounded like she was in better spirits since her last e-mail. Maybe Madison really did help her keypal. Maybe she should make Bigwheels her own special collage about being smart. Bigwheels said she liked the Wiz cover, which meant she’d probably love a collage of her own.
Madison rummaged through the piles on her floor for the right words and pictures. She found a cartoon of a computer and some pictures of flowers her mom had taken in Thailand on a business trip a while ago.
It was nice to take a break from all things related to The Wiz.
The house was so quiet. Mom was out running errands and then taking Phinnie to the vet for his regular checkup. Madison almost never missed Phin’s trip to the vet, but she made an exception this once. Mom said it was okay for her to sleep in after the busy week.
Madison thought about staying under the covers. But she wasn’t about to waste valuable time alone—sleeping.
She turned the stereo volume in the living room to its highest setting. She could feel the bass vibrate inside the wood floors as the radio played America’s Top 40. As her frozen waffles popped out of the toaster, Madison sang along even though she couldn’t sing. She liked the part of the radio show where people called from all over the country to dedicate songs to people they loved. One day Madison would call with her own song request. She’d dedicate her song to Hart.
When the radio show ended, she went into Mom’s office to boot up her computer. This was the best part about being alone in the house. She could sit at Mom’s workstation with all its fancy dials and knobs and imagine that she, Madison, was the real-life film producer. She was Madison Finn—making an important call, dashing off a quick memo, taking a meeting.
Madison loved the idea of being important.
She also liked the idea of being just a little sneaky.
Mom didn’t like it when Madison played video games, so she had strict rules about computer game time and kept all the games on the shelf in her office. But with Mom gone, Madison could play. Today she installed Troll Village, the not-yet-released video game software Mom got from someone at Budge Films.
In Troll Village, Madison had to trick all the trolls in the town in order to become sherif
f and rule the area. It was like the Wild, Wild West with saloons and horse stables, only the gunslingers weren’t wearing cowboy hats. They had pink, blue, and neon yellow troll hair. Madison could sit and play for almost an hour without moving a muscle. She wasn’t sure she even blinked when she played.
When the phone rang, Madison jumped so suddenly that she pressed the control key accidentally and eliminated one of her troll’s seven lives.
Whoops.
“Hello, Finn residence.” She answered the phone in a special way just in case it was a work-related call for Mom.
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“Hello, is somebody there? Who is this?” Madison knew someone was on the line.
“Maddie, is that you?” It was Drew Maxwell.
“Drew?” Madison asked. “Is that you?”
“Yeah. What’s up?”
“Um … not much.”
Madison took the game off pause and played while she talked on the phone.
“How’s your weekend?” Drew asked.
“Um … fine.” Madison had no idea why he’d be calling her.
“I didn’t see you after the rehearsal. I wanted to tell you that all your stuff looked good.”
“Uh-huh.” Madison was half listening now.
“What do you think about the lighting?” Drew asked.
Madison had turned back to her trolls, so she didn’t really hear.
“Maddie, are you there?” Drew asked again. “Did you like what we did with the footlights?”
“Yeah,” Madison mumbled. “Oh, sure.”
She couldn’t get the least bit excited about talking to Drew. Ever since they’d been helping Mrs. Wing out with the Web site at school, Drew had been hanging around Madison nonstop. She felt bad because he wasn’t always sure what to say. She was half afraid he might say something mushy.
There was nothing worse than the vacuum of silence on the phone between them. Like now.
Drew coughed.
Madison coughed.
“So, anyway,” Madison said. “I sorta have to go.”
Drew gulped. “Are you coming over today to watch the movie?”
“The movie?” Madison didn’t know about any movie.
“Yeah, the movie.”