It doesn’t. If my second round isn’t worse, then it isn’t any better either. I hang on, telling myself that I’m more than halfway done with the day. One more round to go. In my third and final classroom, I sink gratefully into a desk near the center of the room.
A new set of kids filters in, one of them a boy with summer green eyes. Those eyes light up when he sees me. He holds up a finger, telling me to hang on for just a second, then heads for the judge at the back of the room. They speak so quietly, I can’t catch their words. Of course, the blood is roaring so loudly in my ears, they could be shouting and I still couldn’t hear them.
Sam plops down in a desk next to mine. “Hey,” he says. “I’m double entered, so I had to tell her—” He nods at the judge. “That I need to speak first.” He grins at me. “So. Looks like you took my advice.”
I nod.
“Prose,” he continues. “Good choice. Are you also doing storytelling?”
For a moment, I can only stare. Why would he think that? “N-no,” I stammer. “Just this.”
“For the first year, that’s probably best. I tried a bunch of categories last year, and it was kind of crazy. Fun, but crazy.”
“We’ll start in a minute,” the judge calls out.
Sam widens his eyes in mock terror. “I’ll see you in the final round if not before. Okay?”
I don’t have words to answer. Does he think I’ll be in the final round—or just watching it? Before I can sort this out, the judge speaks again.
“First up, W-3, Sam Romero.”
He stands up and heads for the front of the room.
Sam Romero? Really? As in Sam Romeo Romero? Winnetka’s star speaker is my Sam from the park. The breath is stuck in my throat. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten how to breathe. I’m so wrapped up in this, and Sam, and Romeo, that I almost miss the title of the piece he’s reading. Almost.
Flowers for Algernon.
It’s the third time I’ve heard it today, but the first that it blows me away. I’m in tiny pieces, close to crying, when Sam finishes reading.
“Like it?” Sam asks when he’s back at his desk.
With my palm, I push the start of a tear from my eye. I manage a nod.
“Great.” He gathers his things. “Gotta run, but I’ll see you around.”
Now, I’m floating. See ya around. What does that mean—exactly? My head is so full of Sam’s words that I don’t hear the judge speak, or at least, don’t hear what she says until a note of irritation pierces the soft cloud of my thoughts.
“F-13, are you ready?”
Oh, I am so not ready. I grab my script and walk to the front of the room. It’s a terrible reading, but that doesn’t matter because of two things:
It’s the last round for the day.
Sam isn’t here to see it.
And that’s all I need to make it through the next eight minutes.
In the auditorium, I sit with Savannah, Kaitlin, and the rest of the Fremont team. Kids from Winnetka crowd three full rows dead center, right in front of the stage. We are puny and unworthy by comparison.
Tory pushes her way down our row. When she reaches the seat next to mine, she makes Kaitlin get up and move.
“Okay,” she says to me, “we need the scoop.”
I have no idea what she’s talking about.
“Details. What piece is he doing for prose?” Tory continues, then raises her voice. “We have nothing on his piece for humorous interpretation since someone forgot to sit in on the humorous interp final round.”
“Because someone had two final rounds of his own.” Ryan’s voice comes from the row behind us. “Yeah. That’s right. Two.”
I glance over my shoulder. He looks smug. Tory tosses her head, choosing to ignore the remark. Their bickering makes me miss my brother Derek.
“Anyway, we need to know what’s up with him.” Tory points toward the Winnetka team.
I play dumb. I squint, turn my head slightly as if I’m searching the crowd. I pretend I don’t see the boy standing in the center of the Winnetka team, fist bumping and high fiving.
“Give me what you got on him,” Tory says.
“Who?” I’m good at this dumb thing. I even sound that way to myself.
She jerks an arm toward Winnetka. At that moment, Sam glances over. From this distance, I can’t see the light in his green eyes, but we all see him wave.
“Did Sam Romero just wave at you?” Tory asks.
Did he? I’m not one hundred percent sure. “Maybe he was waving at you.”
Behind me, Ryan cracks up. Ben has to pound him on the back before he can settle down.
“You watched the finals, right?” Tory is back to business.
I nod. “He was in my third round, too.”
“What piece is he doing?”
A smile tugs at the corners of my mouth. I don’t answer right away, even though the anticipation is killing Tory. At last, I take pity. “Flowers for Algernon.”
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Nope.”
Tory swivels in her seat. “Ry!” she calls out. When he looks her way, she mouths, “He’s doing Algernon.”
Ryan makes his face go all bug-eyed in shock. “No way.”
Tory points at me. “Eyewitness.”
“They’re messing with us,” he says. “It’s the only explanation.”
Tory turns back around and leans her head toward mine. Her voice drops, so only I can hear what she’s saying. “They did this last year. Their coach had Romero all over the place until the Big 9 tournament, the one right before sub-sectionals. Then he killed in prose.”
Before she can tell me more, the Worthington speech team coach comes out on stage to present the awards. Twice, Tory scoots past me to accept first place in extemporaneous speaking and a ribbon in discussion. Ryan flip flops with a ribbon in informational speaking and second place in discussion.
Now Tory looks smug and Ryan seems fascinated by the ceiling. When the Worthington coach announces the first place winner for humorous interpretation, the name Sam Romero echoes throughout the auditorium. The Winnetka team goes wild. On his way up the stage stairs, Sam trips. My heart catches. I almost cry out. Then he rolls and springs to his feet, the whole thing an act worthy of a Shakespeare play.
The Winnetka team cheers even louder. A few whistles cut through the noise, and a chant of, “Ro-me-o, Ro-me-o, Ro-me-o,” sweeps over the audience. Tory taps my shoulder. I freeze, my lips in mid-chant, and peer at her. She rolls her eyes.
“This is why we need info on Romero,” she says as the crowd settles. “I don’t believe for a second that their coach is positioning him for state with Algernon.” She makes a gagging noise. “Something’s up.”
When Sam takes first in prose, it’s a repeat performance, except without the fall. He strides across the stage every inch the serious speaker, and the girls in my row start chanting. They don’t stop, not even when Tory glares at them. But I do, if for no other reason than Sam Romeo Romero did not hear me speak during the third round. I clutch the megaphone charm Caro gave me and send a long, shuddering thank you skyward.
Chapter 5
One down, eight to go is my mantra all week long. I chant it so often in my head that once, when Tory’s camera is trained on me, it pops out of my mouth.
“What?” she says and switches off the recording.
“She’s killing off all the team members,” Ryan says. “She started with Ben.”
Who is actually at wrestling practice.
“And I thank her,” Ryan continues as if I’m not even in the room. “As long as she leaves me a few of the P&P girls.”
This is what he calls all the girls doing prose or poetry—and really, that’s just me, Savannah, and Kaitlin. Which of the two does he like? They both like him. They’re also best friends. This could get messy, in a reality TV show kind of way.
I practice all week, but I don’t put much heart—or worry—into it. I’m con
vinced the next tournament will be a breeze, not that I’ll win a prize or even score above a five. But the worst is over. I know what to expect. I know failure can’t actually kill me.
And that Saturday, I do breeze through the first two rounds. I ignore my own performance and concentrate on filling out notes and critiques on the other contestants. This is actually a requirement for lettering in speech team, which I don’t care about. However, even though Mr. Henderson hasn’t said anything, I suspect it’s a requirement for passing speech class.
We’re two speakers into the third round. The judge is scratching a few words on her critique sheets before calling the next speaker. I’m bracing for that to be me when the door to the classroom eases open.
It’s Sam.
“Sorry,” he says, his voice quiet and apologetic. “I’m double entered, in this and great speeches—”
The judge waves him in. “Take a seat and catch your breath. We’ll start in a moment with—” She thumbs through her sheets. “F-13, Jolia Cuppernull.”
I can’t force myself to look at Sam. I run my finger along the edge of my piece, the words blurring until all I see is forest green—oak leaf green. Why didn’t I think of this? Why did I think it would be easy? I’d rather take Jane’s place on that stool and stand for a hundred hours than speak in front of Sam.
But I don’t have a choice. My limbs feel stiff, like they’re carved from oak. I grip my script until I tear a bit of the construction paper. I can’t remember any of the words I speak, but I do know this: they come out all wrong.
Why is it worse to fail in front of someone you know?
The lobby is quiet, and certainly the trophies in their cases are not going to answer me. From down the hallway comes chatter from the cafeteria. That’s where most everyone is, trading horror stories from their rounds, congratulating Tory and Ryan for making the finals—again. Some of the voices carry an excitement so tense, I think their owners might shatter. Other voices are almost sleepy with relief.
What would everyone hear in my voice? What does humiliation sound like? I know I should go to the cafeteria, read the judges’ critiques of my performance, eat lunch—but I don’t have the stomach for any of that.
The soft squeak of sneakers alerts me to someone coming down the hall. Tory clip clops in heels. Ryan clomps no matter what’s on his feet. Mr. Henderson walks like a teacher, and there’s no mistaking that.
This is someone else.
In the trophies’ reflection, I see a fringe of dark bangs. If I turn, I know his eyes will look like summer. In the glint from the trophies, they look golden. But I don’t turn around.
“Hey,” Sam says, after a long moment.
“Hey,” I say, not to him, but to his golden reflection.
“I like your piece,” he says. “It fits you.”
“Yours, too.”
“Yeah, I know a lot of kids do it.”
A lot? I heard something from Flowers for Algernon twice today. Tory was right. Except when it comes to Sam. Even the second time around, his performance made my throat clog up. I had to blink hard and fast to keep the tears away. For eight minutes, he made me forget what a disaster my own reading was.
“But it’s my favorite,” he says. “I’ve probably read it twelve times.”
I turn around since this is about books. I love books. From what I remember, Sam does too. I almost bring up the park, but that seems so long ago and so silly. Instead, I say, “I think I’ve only read Jane Eyre four or five times.”
“It’s really long, so that probably makes us even.”
For the first time today, I laugh. He grins back.
“So what do you think of speech tournaments?” he says.
“It’s like a reality TV show without the cameras.”
He stares for a moment, then coughs out a laugh. “Yeah. I guess so. Kind of like a literary American Idol.”
“They could call it So You Think You Can Talk.”
“Or Speech Survivor,” Sam says. “You have to make the finals to stay on the island.”
“Good thing for me it isn’t.”
Our conversation crashes to a halt. I want to shut my eyes or turn away, but I can’t. I want to take back my stupid words, but I can’t do that either.
Out of desperation, I say, “Did you make the finals?” I know the answer, since I saw Romero, Sam on the finalist list for both serious prose and great speeches.
A hint of pink spreads across his cheeks. “Yeah.”
“I’ll be there,” I say. It’s one of the team rules. If you don’t make the final round, you sit in on the one for your category. I can also add more notes to my speech binder, although I’m beginning to wonder if I’m not any good at speech how I’ll ever pass. There are only so many notes I can take.
He gestures at the trophies, then drops his hand. He tugs on his tie, which is blue with a thin red stripe, and doesn’t look like it belongs to his dad at all. At last, he says, “Would you like to be there?”
I blink and my mind goes blank. I’m certain I just told him I would. “I will be.”
“No, would you like to be there.”
He’s asking something I’m not sure I can answer. “Do you ... I mean—”
“Would you like to be in the final round, not watching it?”
I shake my head, but I don’t think I’m telling him no. I’m telling him that some things are impossible, and this is one of them.
“I could coach you,” he says.
“You?” Not that I think Sam would make a bad coach. But he is clearly a Winnetka star speaker—just like Tory and Ryan said. Everywhere I went today, all I heard was gossip about Sam. “You know we’re on different teams,” I say, trying to make a joke of it. “Right?”
“So there’s that rivalry thing.” He shrugs. “We’ll just have to keep it secret. It’s like the Montagues and Capulets, only with scripts instead of swords.”
Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet. We read the play last year in Honors English. My thoughts go immediately to Romeo Romero, and my face burns. The pink returns to Sam’s cheeks, and I wonder if he knows what all the girls say about him.
“At least think about it,” he says.
I nod.
We leave the lobby together. When Sam and I walk down the crowded hallway to Room 33, a trail of whispers follows us. Only after Sam speaks and slips out of the room for the great speeches final, do I remember that Romeo and Juliet didn’t have a happy ending.
Sam catches me before I slip into the auditorium for the awards ceremony.
“Hey,” he says, out of breath. He tugs me around a corner and pulls out his cell phone. “Do you have a cell?” he asks.
I nod.
“Do you have it now?”
I pull it from my skirt pocket.
“Can you receive texts?”
I nod again, wondering where this is going.
“Great. I have an idea for coaching. Next tournament, I’ll find an empty room and then text you the number. Sound good?”
I try to speak, but my teeth get in the way.
“I mean, if you want to, that is.” His words are rushed, but clear, and I wonder how he does that, how he makes his words do what he wants them to do.
“Just tell everyone you’re going somewhere quiet to practice,” he says. “No one will think anything of it.”
Except that all the practice in the world can’t help me. “What about you? Don’t you need to practice before the first round?”
He shrugs like it’s no big deal. Besides, I know the answer. I saw it today during the third and the final rounds. He doesn’t need to practice.
“So. Phone number?”
I hold up my phone, number displayed, so he can punch it into his own phone. A moment later, my phone buzzes in my hand and a strange number pops up—Sam’s number.
“Anytime next week,” he says. “Just text me. Yes. Or no. But I hope it’s yes.” Then he heads into the auditorium, leaving me to stare at the screen of my
phone.
By the time I make it to our row, everyone else is already there. Tory shoots me a glare, which I ignore. I slip in next to Kaitlin.
“So, the deal.” Tory leans her head between ours. “Is he still doing Algernon?”
“He’ll probably win with it, too,” I say. “He killed in the final round.”
“Gawd.” Tory slumps in her seat. “I can’t believe he’s kicking our ass with Flowers for Algernon.”
When she recovers and starts talking with Ryan, Kaitlin whispers in my ear.
“You know why Tory has it in for Sam, right?”
I shake my head.
“Last year, she did prose along with extemporaneous speaking, you know.” Kaitlin pauses. “Flowers for Algernon.”
My mouth drops open.
“I swear it’s true.” She leans closer and lowers her voice even more. “And Tory used to follow Sam around. I think maybe.” Kaitlin makes a face and squints at Tory. “Maybe she had a crush. I don’t know. That’s just what some of the Winnetka girls said.” Kaitlin rolls her eyes like trusting anything the Winnetka girls say is the dumbest thing anyone could do. “Then guess what happened.”
I can’t guess at all, but I’m dying to know.
“At sub-sectionals, Sam did a scene from Algernon. Totally out of the blue,” Kaitlin says. “He came in third and went to regionals.”
“And Tory?”
“Fourth place. She’s convinced Sam stole her slot and has hated him ever since.”
Stole her slot—and her heart? I ease around and peer at Tory. She gives me that debater’s stare, like she knows Sam Romero’s number is on my cell phone. I spin back around and pretend to watch the rest of the awards.
I’m pretty sure reality TV shows are a lot less complicated.
“Not acceptable,” Tory says to us later, after we’ve all been herded onto the school bus that will take us back to Fremont. “No fraternizing with the enemy.”
“Huh?” Kaitlin says, glancing up from her phone.
Tory leans over the back of her seat and covers the cell phone with her hand. “That means no talking, no texting, nothing with the Winnetka team.” She fries Kaitlin with a look until she cowers in her seat. I can’t imagine what sin she’s committed, but I suspect it has something to do with all the gossip she suddenly has.
The Fine Art of Keeping Quiet Page 4