The Only Girl in School

by Natalie Standiford

  I can’t be a genius at everything.

  Mr. Harper held auditions during recess today. I went to the auditorium to watch. Most of the boys tried out for Scrooge. Mr. Harper explained how they can’t ALL play Scrooge. Only one of them can, and there won’t be a play unless some people play the other parts.

  It didn’t matter what he said. They all wanted to be the star.

  Mr. Harper noticed me sitting in the audience and asked if I’d read with the wannabes. We did the scene where Bob Cratchit comes to work a little late on the day after Christmas and he doesn’t know that Scrooge has turned good. Scrooge wants to play a joke on Bob Cratchit, so he pretends to be mean. He scares Bob, and then laughs and says that he has seen the error of his old mean ways and wants to be nice now.

  Mr. Harper said he chose that scene because it shows both Scrooges, Nice Scrooge and Mean Scrooge. I read Bob Cratchit’s part. I read it over and over again, with each boy who wanted to play Scrooge.

  Honestly, none of the boys were that great. Kevin and Zach M. were terrible! Totally flat. Gilbert was too mousy—his Bad Scrooge seemed kind of nice.

  Webby was good as Mean Scrooge, but his Nice Scrooge was totally unconvincing. Further proof, if we needed any, that Webby doesn’t have a nice bone in his body.

  Henry was the best. It was fun reading with him. Once we started playing our parts, he loosened up and seemed like my old friend Henry again, funny and warm and nice. But as soon as the scene was over he went back to being too cool. He sat down next to Webby, his new best friend, and ignored me.

  Good luck with that, Henry. Some friend Webby is.

  Will Webby make you chocolate chip cookies when you’re sick?

  Doubtful.

  Will he laugh when you tell one of your dumbest jokes ever?

  He’s way too cool to laugh at your jokes. The only jokes Webby laughs at are his own.

  I drew a scene from the auditions on my clubhouse wall. It shows Webby on the stage trying to giggle and laugh like Nice Scrooge, saying “I’m light as a feather! I’m happy as a schoolboy!”—but instead of niceness, stink lines are coming off of him.

  Mr. Harper is posting the cast list tomorrow.

  All the boys are freaking out.

  I guess I’m the only one who knows which parts she’s going to get.

  Speaking of stink lines, soccer practice reeks.

  Pow-Pow has been letting me play center forward most of the time, but he hasn’t officially announced the positions yet. Webby’s been playing left forward, but he keeps swerving over to the center, so the left side isn’t covered. Once in a while Pow-Pow yells at him to get back to his position, but sometimes he doesn’t.

  Today during scrimmage, when Henry passed the ball to me to make a shot, Webby was out of his position and practically on top of me. He intercepted the ball, even though we were playing on the same team. It happened three times! And twice Webby scored goals. So Pow-Pow didn’t yell at him, because he loves anything we do that scores a goal.

  I told Webby to go back to his side of the field, and he punched me in the arm.

  Yes. That’s right.

  PUNCHED ME IN THE ARM.

  “Mr. Powell!” I shouted. “Webby punched me!”

  Finally, I thought, Webby will get in trouble.

  But what was Pow-Pow’s reaction? He asked me, “Where?”

  Like it matters where he punched me.

  I showed him. He looked at my arm and said, “You’ll live.” To Webby he said, “Peterson, no punching.”

  And that was it.

  Next time Pow-Pow wasn’t looking, Webby punched me again!

  “That’s for being a tattletale,” he said. “If you want to be one of us, you’ve got to take it like one of us.”

  Who ever said anything about wanting to be one of them?

  Still I didn’t tell on him this time. Because what good did it do?

  Later, I saw Webby punch Henry in the arm too, after Henry took a shot that could have been Webby’s.

  It didn’t make me feel much better. With Webby, you get punched if you’re one of them and punched if you’re not.

  Now I’ve got a big blue bruise on my upper arm. Do you think I should show it to Pow-Pow? I don’t want him to think I’m a baby and a tattletale just because I’m a girl. I’m as tough as Webby or any of those boys. I just like things to be fair.

  Our biggest game of the season is coming up next week, against St. Anselm. Their team is all boys. They have a separate girls team. I heard Zach say to Webby that it’s embarrassing that we have a girl on our team.

  I think it’s embarrassing that we have Webby.

  Mr. Harper posted the cast list today. Here it is:

  Ebenezer Scrooge: Henry Long

  Scrooge as a boy: Calvin Pitovsky

  Bob Cratchit: Gilbert Mellencamp

  Marley’s Ghost: Webster Peterson

  Ghost of Christmas Past: Claire Warren

  Ghost of Christmas Present: Kevin Ames

  Ghost of Christmas Future: Webster Peterson

  Tiny Tim: Zachary Mendoza

  Fred: Zachary Roth

  Mrs. Cratchit: Claire Warren

  Fan: Claire Warren

  Mrs. Fezziwig: Claire Warren

  Belle: Claire Warren

  Fred’s wife: Claire Warren

  Scrooge’s housekeeper: Claire Warren

  Looks like I have a lot of speedy costume changes in my future. Did you notice that he gave the two scariest roles to Webby? I think Mr. Harper sees right through Webby’s freckled face into his dark sticky soul.

  Also, he used Webby’s real name. Which must’ve killed him. ☺

  Meanwhile, I researched traps and think I found one that will work. I’m going to put baby powder on the floor near my wall drawings. If somebody steps near the wall, I’ll get an impression of his shoe print. Then I can match Webby’s shoes to the shoe print and prove he’s the one who’s been sneaking into my clubhouse and drawing on my wall!

  It’s time for a little justice around here.

  We were practicing penalty kicks—you know, running up to the ball and kicking it into the goal. Gilbert tried to block our kicks. I kicked the ball past him into the goal on my first two turns. Webby made it in once and once Gilbert caught his shot. On my third turn, Webby tripped me as I was running toward the ball. Pow-Pow told me to watch my footwork.

  I think Webby’s hoping I’ll quit the team so he can play center. Well, if that’s what he’s waiting for, he’s got a long wait ahead of him. I’m not quitting that team. No way.

  We had our first rehearsal for the play today. Most of my lines come when I’m the Ghost of Christmas Past. I fly Scrooge through the air to visit his childhood and show him scenes from his early life.

  (I’m not really flying in the air. I’m actually standing behind some paper clouds on a red wagon that’s pulled by a rope offstage.)

  As soon as I’ve flown Scrooge back to his childhood, I have to slip offstage and change into Fan, Scrooge’s beloved sister. I wear Fan’s white dress underneath my Ghost robe, so all I have to do is take off the robe and put on a blond wig. (The wig, by the way, looks very familiar—like something a lunch lady would wear. I think Mr. Harper borrowed it from Mrs. Grimes. It smells like sloppy joes, and whenever I put it on, I get the urge to write names on the Bad Board. I really, REALLY hope Mrs. Grimes has never worn it.)

  As Fan, I visit Boy Scrooge at school, where’s he’s very lonely. I have a long talk with him about our father and how he’s ever so much nicer now than he used to be. Boy Scrooge cries tears of joy. Our father never liked him. Scrooge doesn’t understand why, but to me it’s perfectly obvious—it’s because Scrooge is an obnoxious jerk.

  But I don’t have time to make this point because (1) It’s not in the script and (2) I have to hurry up and skip offstage (really, Mr. Harper is making me SKIP), take off the blond wig, put my Ghost robe back on, jump on the wagon, and be the Ghost of Christmas Past again.

  If
the audience is wondering why the Ghost of Christmas Past seems really sweaty, it’s not my fault.

  I say to Scrooge, “See, your sister adored you.” (I say this in a special deep ghost voice so you can tell I’m not talking about … well, me.) “And now we visit another part of your past, when you were an apprentice for Mr. Fezziwig.”

  The scene changes to Mr. Fezziwig’s Christmas party. I change into Mr. Fezziwig’s wife. Fezziwig is Scrooge’s boss, and for the office party, I’m wearing a white wig (which smells like mothballs and not sloppy joes, thank goodness) and a green dress.

  This means I have exactly thirty seconds to change my dress in a curtained-off area that Ms. Ruiz and Ms. Teitelman are guarding.

  Ms. Ruiz has to zip me up. At least Mr. Harper did not assign a BOY to zip me up. I’m grateful for the little things.

  Then I put on my Ghost robe again. Then I’m back in the changing area, putting on a beautiful blue satin dress to play Belle, Scrooge’s girlfriend. I give him back his engagement ring and say, “There’s something you love more than me, Ebenezer: money.”

  Back to Ghost again. Then I have to be Fan one more time, this time with tummy padding, because I just had a baby. The baby is played by a doll who will grow up to be Zach R., who plays Fred, who will be my husband later, when I turn into Fred’s Wife.

  But before all that can happen, I have to die in childbirth. It’s a very touching scene.

  “Ebenezer,” I whisper (loudly, because everyone needs to hear me), “promise me … promise me …”

  And this is where it gets weird. Henry gives me this sad look, and it kind of breaks my heart. I know he looks sad because he’s playing Scrooge and the script says that Scrooge is supposed to look sad when his beloved sister dies. But this Scrooge has Henry’s face. And behind Scrooge’s eyes are Henry’s eyes, where I get a tiny glimpse of the nice old Henry, the Henry who liked me.

  It only lasts a second, but it’s there.

  “Promise you what, Fan?” Scrooge asks.

  “Promise me … you’ll take care of my boy.”

  “Of course.” Scrooge sobs and takes the baby doll in his arms. Then I die.

  I don’t stay dead long, though. The lights go out, I stand up and rip off the sloppy joe wig, someone puts my Ghost robe on again, the lights go on, and I’m standing over Scrooge, saying, “You heard her, Ebenezer. But you didn’t take care of your nephew, did you?”

  It’s exhausting. But it did give me an idea.

  Henry-as-Scrooge watches all these scenes from his past and feels bad about how hard-hearted he’s gotten. If it worked for Scrooge, maybe it will work on Henry.

  Here’s my plan:

  I’m going to scare Henry into being friends with me again.

  How, you ask? That’s for me to know and you to find out later … after I figure it out.

  Miss you,

  C

  Dear Bess,

  I found my first clue! This morning, in the clubhouse. I left baby powder on the floor, and now there’s a footprint!

  Nothing else happened—nobody drew on my wall or did any other damage to the clubhouse. Still, if that footprint matches Webby’s, I’VE CAUGHT HIM.

  It’s an awfully big footprint, though.

  I snapped a photo of the footprint. When I went to class I sneaked a glance at Webby’s feet. He was wearing his usual sneakers. The footprint looks like a sneaker print too. I need one of his shoes to match against the print.

  But how to get it?

  Soccer practice, that’s how. He has to change from normal sneakers to cleats. We all do. The problem is, stealing his shoe from the boys’ locker room, taking it to the clubhouse, measuring it, photographing it, and sneaking it back to Webby’s locker will not be easy. It will also make me late for practice. I’m already on Pow-Pow’s bad side. I can’t make things worse.

  If I get caught, Pow-Pow will get mad. He might get so mad he’ll kick me off the team.

  But that’s a chance I’ll have to take in my quest for justice.

  I lucked out. Webby took off his shoes in art class today. We were making a banner on a long roll of paper to decorate the halls for the holiday season. The banner says PEACE ON EARTH, and Mr. Strickland asked us to make handprints on the banner. Webby decided to make footprints instead. Mr. Strickland frowned but he let it go in the name of peace on earth.

  Webby took off his sneakers. While he was splashing around in blue paint, I nabbed one of his shoes and dipped the sole in paint. Then I made an impression of it on a piece of paper. I felt very clever.

  When class was over, Webby put his sneakers back on. He didn’t even notice that the bottom of the left one was blue. He walked to the door, leaving one blue footprint behind him. Mr. Strickland stopped him.

  “Webby, I think you stepped in some paint.”

  “Did not,” Webby said.

  “Oh yeah? Lift up your foot.”

  Webby lifted his right foot, which was clean. “See? Told you.”

  “No, your other foot.”

  Webby lifted up his left foot, which was blue on the bottom. He frowned. Mr. Strickland told him to take it off and clean it before he tracked paint all over the school. I sneaked out of the room with my evidence while Webby grumbled about having to clean up a mess he didn’t make. Tee hee hee.

  I went straight to the clubhouse to check Webby’s footprint against the one in the baby powder. The baby powder one was fading a bit, but I could tell right away that Webby’s didn’t match.

  It was too small.

  As I left the clubhouse I spotted Mr. Jones, the janitor, mopping up the hallway. I couldn’t help noticing he was wearing sneakers. He stepped on the wet floor and I saw the print his shoe made.

  It looked familiar.

  Mr. Jones made the footprint. Not Webby.

  Mr. Jones had come into the clubhouse to clean it, I guess. Or to replace the paper towels or the toilet paper.

  Oh well.

  My first trap didn’t work. I’ll have to think of another one.

  Your disappointed friend,

  C

  Dear Bess,

  We rehearsed for the holiday play this afternoon. This time we worked on scenes from Scrooge’s Christmas Future. I play Mrs. Cratchit. I have to sit rocking by the fireplace, crying over Tiny Tim and burbling over his sweet little crutch by the hearth. Zach M. plays Tiny Tim. I found it hard to cry over him.

  Maybe I should have tried out for Scrooge after all.

  Tomorrow is our big game against St. Anselm. Everybody’s very nervous about it. Pow-Pow worked us really hard in practice today. Before he let us go he gave us a big pep talk.

  “Kids, people will tell you that it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game,” he said. “Well, I strongly disagree with that sentiment. If you play the game right, you should win! Face it, winning is all that matters. You know it, I know it, your parents know it, and most important, the other team knows it. If you lose, Turtles, I’m here to tell you you’ll feel terrible about yourselves afterward. And we don’t want to feel bad, do we?”

  Everybody looked kind of confused. I think we were all afraid this was some kind of trick question.

  “Do we?” he asked again.

  “No?” Webby and a few other boys said.

  “I can’t hear you! DO WE WANT TO FEEL LIKE LOSERS?”

  “No!” we shouted.

  I was kind of surprised to hear Pow-Pow say these things out loud. I figured he thought them, secretly, but I didn’t think he’d actually admit to it.

  “Now, I’ve got to warn you,” Pow-Pow went on. “The St. Anselm boys are bigger than you all, and a lot of them have had more experience than you. They’ve played on travel teams and whatnot since they were knee-high to a jellyfish. St. A.’s is a big school. They have lots of kids to choose from for their sports teams. You actually have to try out to make the team. They don’t have to take everybody who wants to play, like we do.”

  Maybe it was my imagination,
but I could swear Pow-Pow was looking at me when he said that. Me, last year’s high scorer. It really burned my bacon.

  Then he assigned us our positions for the game tomorrow. Webby got center forward. I got left forward.

  My bacon was burned super-crispy.

  “Yes!” Webby jumped up and raised his arms in triumph. “Justice is done!” Then he looked at me to see how I felt about this. Maybe he expected me to cry or something. If so, I disappointed him.

  “See you on the field” was all I said.

  But inside, I was stewing. There’s no doubt about it: Pow-Pow hates me.

  When I got home from school, Mom asked me to help her with dinner because Dad was out on the boat and she was busy with a work deadline.

  I looked around the kitchen. Was I the only kid in the house? No, I was not. Gabe was drawing at the kitchen table, and Jim’s backpack was lying in the middle of the floor, where he had no doubt left it on his way upstairs.

  “Why don’t you ask Jim to help?” I asked. “He’s older.”

  “Because he’s got a lot of homework to do,” Mom answered.

  “You mean, because he’s a boy,” I pointed out.

  Mom did not like this answer. “No, that’s not what I mean, and stop looking for discrimination everywhere. Sometimes it’s just not there.”

  Easy for her to say. She wasn’t the only girl at work.

  “But sometimes it is,” I said, thinking of Pow-Pow and Webby.

  Mom sighed and softened—but only a little.

  “Okay, yeah, sometimes it is,” she said. “Now would you please wash this lettuce?”

  Jim got to stay in his room.

  But don’t worry. He had to clean the dishes after dinner. And I made sure mine was extra dirty.

  Sloppily yours,

  C

  Dear Bess,

  Today was so exciting! Here’s the blow-by-blow:

  The Foyes Island Turtles played the St. Anselm Gorillas after school. The Gorillas arrived on a big yellow bus. We stood on the field watching as they poured off that bus—fifteen boys, mostly on the large side, plus some parents and other kids to cheer them on.