Shine!

  “Yes, Mother,” Ainsley snaps. “I’ve got it.”

  “Oh, you better hope you do, young lady.”

  For the first time ever, I see fear flicker in Ainsley’s eyes. Her perfectness cracks—just a little.

  “Yes, ma’am,” she mutters. She looks like she wants to cry.

  For a split second, I see her totally differently than I usually do. It’s like those moon images again. I’m not seeing the Ainsley I expect.

  Fortunately, parents aren’t allowed backstage during the talent show (another one of Dr. Throckmorton’s new rules).

  “You’ll be great,” I whisper to Ainsley when her mother is gone. “You’re an amazing musician.”

  Ainsley looks surprised but manages a soft “Thanks.”

  She drags her cello off to a darkened corner to warm up.

  Our master of ceremonies, Kwame, is pacing back and forth in his tuxedo, flipping through his joke notebook.

  “Has anybody seen the running order yet?” he calls out to nobody in particular. “Have they posted the list? How am I supposed to know who to make fun of first?”

  “No list yet,” says Siraj, who’s standing next to Tim’s rolling magic-trick box. Siraj is wearing red-striped socks and glistening ruby-red slippers. I guess that’s what Emily’s wearing, too.

  Tim’s in a top hat and tails.

  “You look sharp,” I tell him.

  “So does his saw blade,” quips Siraj.

  “How’s your act?” Tim asks me.

  “My dad liked it,” I tell him. “Of course, that was last night in the garage.”

  Tim peeks through the middle of the stage curtains. “I hope my dad likes mine.”

  “He’s here?”

  “Yep. Mom played the golf card. Dad either had to come to this or skip his golf trip on Saturday and go wallpaper shopping. It worked.”

  I hug Tim. I think it shocks him. But I hug him anyway.

  “Um, okay. Thanks, Piper.”

  Kwame comes over. “Hey, did you guys hear about the violinist who played in tune?”

  “No,” Tim and I say.

  “Yeah, neither did I,” says Kwame.

  We laugh. He jots down something in his notebook and paces away. “Definitely gonna use that one….”

  Tim holds back the curtain so I can look out into the audience.

  “He’s the one in the second row,” says Tim. “In the suit and tie. He came straight from the office.”

  I see his father. He looks a little fidgety, but he’s out there.

  “I’m so glad he’s here,” I say.

  “Yeah,” says Tim. “Me too.”

  “Now we just need Emily,” says Siraj.

  “What?” I say. “Where is she?”

  Siraj shrugs. “Running late, I guess.”

  “We should text her,” says Tim, sounding nervous.

  “Again?” says Siraj.

  “Yes!”

  “I’ll text her,” I say.

  “Ladies and gentlemen? May I have your attention, please?”

  A woman dressed all in black, wearing a headset and carrying a clipboard, comes to center stage behind the curtain. I figure she must be the stage manager in charge of running the show. Stage managers always have headsets and carry clipboards.

  “For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Avery Hessler and I’m the assistant drama teacher. I’ll be your stage manager this evening.”

  Nailed it.

  “Dr. Throckmorton asked that I repeat the rules of the competition,” Ms. Hessler continues. “Here we go: All students can appear in one act and one act only. If you do a team performance, you win or lose together. You can’t do a team act and then come back later as a soloist. Is everybody clear on that?”

  Heads nod.

  “Also, no parents, teachers, or coaches are allowed backstage. None. Okay. Here’s the running order for the show.”

  She passes out copies and tapes one to the wall. There are two dozen different acts.

  Kwame is up first with his opening monologue.

  Then comes Brooke.

  After Brooke come the eighth-grade ballet dancers.

  Then a sixth-grade poet.

  After the poet, “the Great Timdini.”

  Ainsley will do her cello piece right after Tim saws Emily in half.

  And I’m on right after Ainsley.

  Putting me in the perfect position to, hopefully, make everybody forget how brilliant she is on the cello and, maybe, just maybe, make this my night to shine!

  The curtain goes up!

  Kwame strolls onstage with a microphone to warm up the crowd.

  “Welcome, everybody, to the spring talent show, even though it isn’t officially spring for, what, six more days? But hey, this is Chumley Prep. If we want spring to arrive before March twentieth, we just pay it a little extra to show up early.”

  The audience laughs.

  “Y’know, I’ve got nothing against millionaires. They’re just like everybody else, only richer.”

  While Kwame keeps cracking jokes, I look around.

  Brooke is waiting in the wings, eager to take the stage. I’ve got my planetarium projector on a rolling cart. It’s hooked up to a long extension cord. Tim and Siraj are right next to me with their magician’s box.

  Tim is panicking.

  “Where’s Emily?” I hear him mutter.

  My phone vibrates. So do Tim’s and Siraj’s.

  Emily’s father has just answered all our texts:

  Emily won’t be able to join you kids this evening. She had a bicycle accident. She sprained her wrist. We’re at Urgent Care.

  Tim looks like he might be ill.

  Kwame introduces Brooke. She takes the stage and, once Dad is seated at the piano on the floor at the foot of the stage, launches into “O Mio Babbino Caro.”

  She is, of course, fantastic.

  After she hits her last high note and holds it for forever, the audience gives her a standing ovation. She points to Dad at the piano. He stands, takes a bow. The audience starts screaming “Brava!” and “Bravo!”

  Kwame returns to the stage. “Give it up for the one and only Brooke Breckenridge, everybody. You know what I like best about opera? When it’s over.”

  Kwame brings on the next act, the eighth-grade ballet troupe.

  Meanwhile, Tim is still freaking out.

  “I can’t do the trick without Emily!” he says.

  “I could do her part,” suggests Siraj.

  “Then who’d do your part?” asks Tim. Sweat is bubbling up on his brow.

  “What was Emily supposed to do?” I ask.

  And, while the corps de ballet pirouettes and leaps across the stage, Tim breaks his magician’s code and tells me exactly how the trick is done.

  Turns out, Tim’s magic box has two separate compartments.

  The “feet section” has a false bottom built into the rolling table the box is sitting on. That’s where Siraj will hide his head, chest, and arms.

  “I hide in the bottom and don’t stick out my feet until I hear Emily climbing into the top,” Siraj explains.

  “Emily scrunches herself up in the top half, with her legs tucked tight to her chest,” says Tim, his voice shaky. “But that’s impossible now because she’s not here….”

  The ballet troupe takes their bow. Kwame comes onstage to crack another joke.

  “You know why dogs make such lousy ballerinas?” he asks the crowd. “Because they have two left feet.”

  He tells a few more one-liners and introduces a young kid dressed in black pants and a black turtleneck sweater. Apparently, he is the “poet laureate of the sixth grade.”

  Me? I’m standing in the wings next to Tim and Sira
j, thinking.

  About what’s really important.

  What’s constant and true.

  It’s not just the North Star. It’s friends. And family. And friends who become family.

  I’m also thinking about Ursa Major, and how, if you let her, the Big Mama Bear in the sky will always point you in the right direction.

  Or she might give you a gentle nudge.

  I smile. Because I know what I need to do.

  “Did Emily take home her socks and sparkly shoes?” I ask.

  Tim shakes his head. “No. They’re in the top of the box.”

  “Great.” I kick off my shoes and start unrolling my socks.

  “Um, what’re you doing, Piper?” asks Tim.

  “Taking Emily’s place.”

  “But you can only be in one act,” Siraj reminds me.

  “I know.” I slip on one shimmering ruby shoe and, tugging on the other one, hop over to the control panel, where the stage manager is calling cues into her headset.

  “Okay, cue Kwame,” she says. “Let’s get the poet offstage. Twelve verses is enough….”

  “Ms. Hessler?” I whisper. “I’m Piper Milly.”

  She consults her clipboard. “Wait in the wings. You’re on after Ainsley.”

  “I know. But I’m not going to do my solo act.”

  “What?”

  “You can scratch me off the list. I’m going to do the magic act with Siraj and the Great Timdini. They need an assistant.”

  “You’re giving up your own slot?”

  “Yeah.” I shrug. “It’s what friends do.”

  “Oh-kay,” says Kwame when the sixth-grade poet finally leaves the stage. “You know how poets sneeze? Haiku! Our next act is one of my personal favorites. Give it up for the magical stylings of the one and only, the Great Timdini!”

  Tim rolls the box onto the stage. Siraj is hidden in his secret compartment. I carry Tim’s MP3 player with the Beethoven music loaded on it down to the lip of the stage.

  While the audience applauds for Tim, I strike various magician-assistant poses like the ones I’ve seen on TV. You know—one arm up, the other pointing game show–style at nothing in particular. My sparkly star dress looks very magician-assistant-ish, too.

  Tim starts his spiel.

  “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Prepare to be mesmerized, shocked, and astounded! For I am the Great Timdini! Piff-piff!”

  I shift my pose. I basically just change which arm is pointing up and which one is pointing sideways. Tim pulls out some shiny steel rings for his first trick.

  “Examine these rings closely,” he says to me. “Do you see any holes?”

  “No,” I say.

  “How about the big one in the center there?”

  The audience laughs. Tim bangs the rings together and makes them pass through each other. While he does that, I glance around the auditorium. I see Ms. Oliverio. Mr. Van Deusen. And, down in the front row, Dad.

  With his mouth hanging open.

  He has a total “what the what?” look on his face.

  He’s just realized that I’m not going to win the talent show or the Excelsior Award. I am not going to see my name engraved on a plaque like Mom. I’m just going to be me—Piper Milly.

  Focus on your friends, I tell myself. They need you.

  Tim pulls his fluttering windup bird out of my hair and sends it flying out over the auditorium.

  The audience laughs. They love the Great Timdini.

  I cheat another sideways glance. Now I see Tim’s father. The man is smiling, big-time.

  Tim does a quick card trick with a volunteer from the audience, then returns to the stage to set up the main event.

  “Sawing a lady in half,” he says. “A classic of the magician’s craft. A trick not to be attempted lightly.”

  He pulls a saw out of his long tailcoat. (That thing has some extremely deep pockets.)

  “I dedicate this next trick to my father.”

  A spotlight swings over to where Tim is pointing. Mr. Bartlett looks a little surprised by the sudden attention, but he waves. The audience applauds. Everyone has a sense of how much this next trick means to the Great Timdini.

  “Let’s hope I don’t goof up,” says Tim, comically bending his sword and shooting me a worried look.

  “I agree,” I ad-lib.

  Tim points to the box.

  I walk over, lift the lid. From my vantage point, I can see Siraj hiding in the bottom. The audience, however, cannot.

  I climb into the top half and pull my knees to my chest.

  As I squeeze in, I can hear Siraj pushing his feet through the leg holes. Remember, his shoes and socks look just like mine. I stick my head out of the head hole. The trick is working.

  Tim lowers the lid on the box, flicks some snaps. I’m locked in.

  Next, he grandly marches to the lip of the stage and says, “Maestro, if you please?”

  He pushes play on the MP3 player.

  No Beethoven comes out. Not the Fifth Symphony, the Sixth, or the Seventh.

  Nothing.

  The trick isn’t working anymore.

  Tim pushes play again.

  Still nothing.

  He jabs it repeatedly.

  More nothing.

  “Guess we should’ve checked the battery!” I joke from my locked and frozen position inside the box.

  “This is a disaster,” I hear Tim mumble.

  My legs are starting to cramp up.

  “Surely the Great Timdini doesn’t need music to make magic!” I say, trying my best to keep the act going.

  “I need Beethoven’s Fifth,” Tim mutters.

  “Forget the Fifth,” I joke. “Just saw me in half.”

  The audience titters.

  Tim doesn’t.

  “We rehearsed this and rehearsed this,” he mumbles. “Over and over. Everything is timed out to the music….”

  OMG. Tim is having a major meltdown. Onstage. In the middle of the talent show. In front of his father.

  “I’m sorry, Dad….”

  His whole body is trembling.

  The audience goes completely quiet. I hear a few chairs squeak. One cough. That’s it.

  Then I see the silhouette of somebody standing up in the front row. Has the audience had enough? Are people starting to walk out on the Great Timdini?

  “Do you require musical accompaniment, O Great Timdini?”

  It’s Dad! He’s walking to the piano bench.

  “Yes!” says Tim, snapping back, adjusting his top hat, and flicking out his coattails. “Beethoven’s Fifth, if you please. Do you see what a magnificent magician I am, ladies and gentlemen? I just made a pianist appear out of thin air!”

  And with that, the audience breathes a collective sigh of relief. Actually, they laugh, which is, basically, the same thing.

  Dad bangs out the opening bars to Beethoven’s Fifth.

  Da-da-da-DUM!

  Tim plays the beats. Sawing in time to the music. It’s hysterical.

  Da-da-da-DUM!

  Dad keeps going, Tim keeps sawing.

  Finally Tim slides the box apart. I have been cut in half!

  The crowd goes wild! Tim is beaming!

  When the applause starts to die down, Tim slides the box back together. He unclasps the latches and raises the lid. Siraj pulls in his feet and I pop up out of the box.

  We get a standing ovation.

  Tim’s father is standing, too.

  And he’s clapping and cheering louder than anybody!

  I push the box offstage while Ainsley Braden-Hammerschmidt rolls her cello into the spotlight, where Tim is taking his sixth bow.

  Kwame dashes onstage to ringmaster the proceedings.
>
  “Let’s hear it one more time for the Great Timdini.”

  Tim shakes Kwame’s hand. And pulls a mile-long scarf out of Kwame’s tux sleeve. The audience cracks up.

  Ainsley clears her throat. Loudly.

  Tim takes one last bow and bounds off the stage, happier than I’ve ever seen him. In the wings, I’m helping Siraj climb out of the bottom half of the box. He’s a little wobbly. Both his legs fell asleep on him.

  “Thanks, you guys!” says Tim.

  “You had me worried,” says Siraj, while Ainsley sets up her cello at center stage.

  “Me too,” I say.

  “Sorry. Guess I freaked out a little. Good thing Piper’s dad was out there.”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  I realize, Dad’s kind of a North Star, too.

  Ainsley plays a Bach sonata, which, it turns out, is a hauntingly beautiful cello piece. I know it is because that’s how Ainsley introduces it.

  “And now,” she says, “the prelude to Johann Sebastian Bach’s hauntingly beautiful Cello Sonata Number One in G.”

  * * *

  —

  More than a dozen acts later, including that sixth grader with the electric guitar (he really is amazing), half a dozen singers, some gymnastics, and a trombone solo, the talent show ends.

  And just as Dad predicted, Brooke Breckenridge takes first place. Ainsley comes in second. Tim ties for third with that sixth grader with the guitar.

  All sorts of parents and friends start streaming backstage after the winners are announced.

  Dad is in the crowd.

  I see him dabbing at his eyes with his handkerchief. I figure he’s been weeping because I publicly blew my last chance at winning the Excelsior Award.

  “I’m sorry I let you down, Dad,” I tell him. “But Emily sprained her wrist and Tim needed help and his father—”

  I stop yammering because Dad is shaking his head and smiling at me.

  “I’m not crying because I’m upset, Piper. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder. When I see you do something like that, something exactly like your mother would’ve done, it makes me feel as if she’s still here.”