The Curtain Went Up, My Pants Fell Down

by Henry Winkler

  “No offense, Mom, but we might have to lighten up on the sequins. Sparkly clothes aren’t exactly my look.”

  “Maybe I’ll sew a Mets emblem on the back of your vest,” she suggested, which shows you just how cool my mom really is. “You’d have to add something about baseball in the script, of course, to make it seem—”

  “Randi,” my dad interrupted, in his interrupting voice. “Let’s not put the cart before the horse. Hank and I have a deal that if he doesn’t get a B-plus on his math test, there will be no need for a sequined vest or any other kingly clothes.”

  “No problemo, Dad. The math test is cool. I got that all covered.”

  “When have I heard that before?”

  “Really, Dad. I’m going to work so hard with Heather Payne. Just this morning, we had an eye-opening long division session.”

  “I hear Heather Payne got the part of Anna,” Emily said, as she strolled into the living room with her iguana, Katherine, riding on her shoulder.

  “You heard right,” I said. “So now she’s tutoring me in real life and in the play. How funny is that!”

  “I’ve got an idea!” my mom said. “Let’s have her over for dinner!”

  “Wow-ee. Whoa-ee. Let’s slow it down, Mom. I mean, Heather and I are just barely getting to know each other.”

  “I know that tone of voice,” Emily said in a singsong voice. “Sounds like somebody has a crush on somebody.”

  “Wow-ee. Whoa-ee. Let’s slow it down, Em. I mean, the Zipzer women are out of control here.”

  “Kathy,” Emily said, talking to Katherine but aiming her comment directly toward me. “Wouldn’t it be great if Heather Payne became Hank’s girlfriend? I admire her ability to excel in school.”

  “Of course you do,” I answered. “That’s because good grades are all you ever think about.”

  “It wouldn’t hurt you to spend some time thinking about that very subject,” my dad said, right on cue like I knew he would.

  “Just think of it,” Emily said. “Heather and I could do interclass research projects together. I wonder if she’s interested in the life cycle of reptiles.”

  “Emily, you are a fountain of fun ideas,” I said. “As a matter of fact, ‘fun’ should be your middle name. Mom, is there any way of changing Emily Daphne Zipzer to Emily Fun Zipzer? Legally, I mean?”

  My mom laughed. True, she’s an easy person to make laugh, but still, I like it that she thinks I’m funny.

  “Let’s make dinner a celebration of the good news,” she said. “I’m trying out a brand-new recipe—pureed dehydrated prunes over a bed of alfalfa and broccoli sprouts.”

  Ah, at least now I knew what was in her hair. I didn’t like it any better, but I could identify those wormy thingies.

  It was going to take another half an hour for all that pruney mess to get itself on a plate, so I went to my room and got busy. Devore had given me the script and told me to underline all the king’s lines in yellow highlighter. That way, I’d know which lines I was supposed to read in rehearsal.

  I sat down at my desk and got to work with the highlighter. I didn’t have any problem finding my lines. Every time I saw the word king, I just highlighted all the words that followed it. I was super-concentrating, which I can do when I’m really interested in something. I never looked up, and after I had gone through the whole script, I sat back and flipped through the pages.

  Wow-ee. Whoa-ee. That was a lot of yellow!

  As I sat there wondering how I was ever going to read all those lines, let alone memorize them, there was a knock on my bedroom door.

  “Enter,” I called out, trying out my kingly voice.

  Emily came in, with Katherine the Ugly riding on her shoulder.

  “You’ve not asked your ruler’s permission to enter with a lizoid,” I bellowed.

  “First of all, Hank, there is no such thing as a lizoid. And second of all, Kathy and I came to help, but if you don’t want it, we can leave.”

  Emily turned to go, and Katherine threw me a parting hiss.

  “Wait a sec,” I said. “Help with what?”

  “I think we both know that you’re going to need a lot of help learning your lines.” Emily’s voice was quiet, like she was sharing a secret with me.

  “Why would you say that?”

  “First, because reading is hard for you. And second, because reading is hard for you.”

  “What’s third?” I snapped back, which wasn’t fair, because I think Emily was truly trying to help. It’s hard for me to accept help, especially from my younger sister, even though I knew she had a point.

  “Okay, maybe we could read one scene together,” I said. “If you promise to dump the iguana. I don’t rehearse with lizoids. Sorry. I mean, lizards.”

  “Katherine and I are a team,” Emily said. “We rehearse together or not at all.”

  She drives a hard bargain, that Emily. But I looked down at all that yellow highlighting and knew I could use the help.

  “Okay,” I said. “Katherine stays. Just tell her to breathe in the other direction. I don’t want her iguana breath in my face.”

  Emily stood right next to me, so we could read from the script together. Luckily for my nose, she did move Katherine to her other shoulder. Emily read Anna’s line, and I read the king’s. Or at least, I tried to.

  “Welcome to my palace,” I said. “And to my…my…”

  The word started with an r, and looked like really or real, but it wasn’t either of those.

  “Realm,” Emily whispered. “It’s another word for kingdom.”

  “Of course it is,” I snapped.

  I guess Katherine didn’t like my tone of voice, because she hissed at me and shot out her sticky grey tongue real close to my face region.

  Or maybe she was just upset that she didn’t have a line.

  Tough luck, Kath. I’m the king and you’re the iguana.

  “Your highness, it is my honor to serve as the governess to your children,” Emily read. My turn.

  “Let me in…in…in…something you to them now.”

  “Introduce,” Emily whispered again. “Just take the time to sound it out.”

  “Introduce,” I repeated. And I made a mental note to remember that word.

  “I am eager to meet the children,” Emily read, and then she turned to Katherine. “Aren’t we, Kathy?”

  “Wait a minute,” I objected. “I may not be a great reader, but I know that’s not in the script for sure.”

  “Hank, Kathy needs a line. She’s an actor, too.”

  Katherine lifted her upper lip, or whatever you call that flap of scaly skin above her mouth, and showed what looked like all 188 of her yellowish teeth. Boy, could she use a good brushing.

  Good grief, I think she’s smiling. What a ham!

  “Enough of that, Katherine,” I said. “You’re hogging the show.”

  “She’s improvising,” Emily said.

  “Well, tell her to read the script and notice that she’s not in it.”

  Katherine hissed at me again, this time with so much force that I actually fell backward from her hot iguana breath on my face.

  “And while you’re at it, you could buy yourself a new toothbrush,” I said to her.

  We went on rehearsing until dinnertime. I’d read a line. Emily would correct it. Emily would read her line. And Katherine would hiss. Line. Correction. Line. Hiss. Line. Correction. Line. Hiss.

  It was a pretty unusual way to rehearse, I’ll give you that. But by the time we sat down to alfalfa and broccoli sprouts in prune sauce, I had made it through the entire first scene and had memorized most of the lines.

  Let me give you two pieces of advice. First, if you’re ever in the school play, it really helps to read your lines out loud. And second, if you ever have a chance to act with an iguana, don’t.

  CHAPTER 15

  HEATHER AND I WORKED TOGETHER on long division every single morning before school. I’m not going to tell you a lot about our pee
r tutoring sessions, because they were filled with words that made me dizzy to say, let alone write down. Words like “divisor” and “dividend” and “quotient” and “remainder.” Whoa…I better stop, because I’m getting dizzy right now.

  I will tell you two things, though, about our peer tutoring sessions.

  First, by the middle of the second week, I actually started to get the long division problems right most of the time.

  Next, and almost as surprising, I began to like Heather Payne.

  Yes, you heard me. I, Henry Daniel Zipzer, started to like Heather Huffington Payne. (Don’t even ask about the Huffington. It’s a long story involving her grandmother and the birdseed salesman she fell in love with.)

  I found out some things about Heather I never would have dreamed of in a million trillion years. Like that she’s a Mets fan, just like me. And that she licks the icing off her Ding Dongs before eating the cake, just like me. And that when she laughs too hard, she gets the hiccups. I taught her my special Hank Zipzer hiccup cure where you swallow water and cover your ears at the same time, and it seemed to work.

  Every day after school, we went to rehearsals. Heather knew all her lines from the first day. I learned mine, then forgot them, learned them, and forgot them again.

  “Hank, I implore you to study your lines,” Devore said to me every single day. I did study my lines. It’s just that I have a nonstick kind of brain.

  The good thing is that when I’d mess up on a line, I’d always come up with something else to say. Devore called that improvising, which means making up a line on the spot. Heather hated it when I improvised. She’d just stand there, trying to improvise an answer. But if it wasn’t in the script, she couldn’t come up with anything.

  “Heather, you must try to go with the flow,” Devore told her. “Listen to your fellow actor, and respond. Be free, like Hank is.”

  “I’ll try,” she said.

  “You must do more than try,” Devore explained. “Unexpected things happen on stage, but the show must always go on. Improvising is the key.”

  But Heather was as stiff as a board. The non-improviser of all non-improvisers.

  One day, we were rehearsing the opening scene, where Anna arrives in Siam and is being introduced to the king. I was supposed to welcome her to my palace. Then I was supposed to comment on what a long and tiring journey she’d had. Then Luke Whitman, playing the elephant boy, was supposed to take her suitcase and help her to her room.

  “Welcome to my palace,” I said, as we began the scene.

  “Thank you, your highness,” she answered. Then she waited. And waited. And waited. I had completely forgotten my line about her tiring journey. Finally, I just said whatever came to my mind.

  “We are happy to have you here in Siam,” I said, “the land of wild elephants and spicy food.”

  “Huh?” Heather answered.

  “Improvise, my dear,” Devore whispered from the wings. But she couldn’t.

  “Ah, Siam,” I continued, “the land where we eat rice from the earth and eels from the river.”

  “Eeeuuuwww,” Heather said.

  “Go with the flow,” Devore whispered. But she couldn’t.

  “I have ruled this land and its people since I was a child, and now I have nineteen children of my own,” I said.

  “Ahh,” Heather answered.

  “Mr. Whitman, help her,” Devore called from the sidelines.

  “Come on, Anna. I’ll take you to see the elephants,” Luke said, grabbing Heather’s hand and yanking her off the stage. They bumped smack into Nick McKelty, who was snickering in the wings.

  “You suck,” McKelty said to Heather, in a really loud voice. “You totally stink up the place.”

  Devore picked up the broom and marched right up to McKelty.

  “Sweep,” he said. “And when you’re finished, sweep some more.”

  I went over to Heather, who was sitting on the king’s throne, crumpled up in a ball. I knew this was really embarrassing for her. She can do everything perfectly. And Luke Whitman can’t do anything perfectly, except pick his nose and scratch his mosquito bites. Yet here he was, helping her.

  “McKelty’s right,” she said to me. “I do suck.”

  “You’ll get the hang of it,” I said. “You just have to relax, if you know what I mean.”

  “That’s just it, Hank. I don’t know what you mean. I know what the word ‘relax’ means, but I don’t know how to do it.”

  “Like when people tell me to focus.” I nodded. “I know what the word means, but I don’t have a clue how to do it.”

  I knew Heather was feeling frustrated, because I am the world’s greatest expert in feeling frustrated. What she needed was a little encouragement.

  “You know what I think?” I said. “I think one day, you’ll open your mouth and Anna will come out. Just like you’re her and she’s you.”

  “Thanks for believing in me, Hank,” she said.

  “Besides, you’re a great peer tutor,” I went on. “Just ask me anything about long division.”

  “Okay, what’s one hundred divided by ten?”

  “I forget.”

  “What?” she shrieked.

  “Just kidding, teach. Honest. It’s ten. There, are you happy?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I am.”

  CHAPTER 16

  EVEN THOUGH HE CONTINUED to be totally obnoxious, McKelty attended every single rehearsal. Devore insisted on it because being the understudy for the king was a very important job.

  “Why do I have to stay?” McKelty complained during the second week, jelly from his donut dripping down his chin. “It’s boring to watch Zipperfoot tromp around on the stage.”

  “You never know when you’ll be called upon to step in,” Devore said to McKelty. “Something could befall the lead actor, and he won’t be able to show up for a performance. So you have to know every word and every move.”

  I could see a light go on in McKelty’s eyes. And I thought a saw a little puff of smoke come out of his ears. That meant he was thinking.

  “So, like, if Hank gets, like, say, a bad cold or lost in the fog or, like, is in a major shipwreck or…”

  Or gets anything less than a B-plus on my math test, I thought.

  “So, like, that’s when I get to take my rightful place on the throne,” McKelty said, proud that he had finished his thought with a bang.

  “Precisely,” said Devore. He seemed a little surprised that McKelty was almost two weeks into rehearsal and only now understanding what an understudy did, but then, he didn’t have the years of dealing with McKelty’s thick head that the rest of us had.

  That was all McKelty needed to hear to go into action. From then on, he was a one-man demolition derby, doing everything in his power to make sure that I wasn’t able to play the part.

  EIGHT TRULY ROTTEN THINGS McKELTY DID, EVEN THOUGH THERE WERE WAY MORE THAN TEN

  He sneezed a big wet sneeze into a Kleenex and then stuffed the tissue into my jeans pocket so I’d have to touch it. No kidding. He really did that.

  He kept trying to trip me coming down the stairs, but his feet are so huge and he’s so klutzy, he tripped himself instead.

  He had his girlfriend, Joelle Atkins, call me on her cell phone, disguising her voice as Katie Sperling, and ask me to the movies the night of the play. I didn’t fall for it, since Joelle sounds like Barney the Purple Dinosaur, and the one time I spoke to Katie Sperling on the phone in the second grade, she sounded like a movie star.

  He told me Heather Payne had poison oak between her fingers, and if I danced with her, I’d get it and then it would spread all over my body and even behind my eyelids.

  He tried to switch my milk carton at lunch with one that he had kept in his desk for several days, so I’d drink the sour milk and get a horrible stomachache. Luckily, my nose sniffed out the problem before the carton reached my mouth.

  He locked me out of the multipurpose room before rehearsals. It’s a good thing
Devore saw my head bouncing around in the glass pane of the door as I frantically jumped up and down to see in. Fortunately, I was wearing my basketball shoes, which make me jump higher.

  He wrote a letter to Devore as if he were me, resigning from the play for “personal reasons.” He’s so stupid, though, he signed his own name.

  He tried to convince Frankie and Ashley to talk me into resigning because he said the part should only be played by someone who is truly Siamese, and although he wasn’t actually Siamese, he once petted a Siamese cat and didn’t get an allergy attack, so he must be one-sixteenth Siamese.

  It’s funny, though, that McKelty was doing everything in his power to stop me from playing the king, when the one thing that could truly stop me was right there under his thick, hairy nose.

  The unit test in long division.

  CHAPTER 17

  PAPA PETE ALWAYS SAYS that time flies when you’re having fun. Well, I must have been having a ball, because those two and a half weeks until the math unit test flew by like a rocket in outer space. Between math tutoring in the morning and rehearsals in the afternoon, my days were full. I was so busy, I didn’t even have time to get nervous about the test.

  Until Friday, the second Friday in November, to be exact. The day of the unit test on long division. I woke up with a rumbling in my belly. It was like my stomach was talking to me, saying, “Hank Zipzer, can you do it? Can you pull off a B-plus?”

  “Of course you can do it,” Frankie said to me on our way to school. “Just stay calm and breathe. Remember, dude. Oxygen is power.”

  “And check your work,” Ashley said. “No careless mistakes.”

  “Neatness counts,” Emily chimed in. “Don’t be your usual sloppy self.”

  Heather and I didn’t meet before school that day for tutoring. She said I knew the material cold, and she didn’t want to make me nervous. So instead, I just hung out in the yard before school, watching the last of the fall leaves float to the ground and listening to my stomach rumble.

  Ms. Adolf takes test days pretty seriously. Well, she takes every day pretty seriously, but on test days, she wouldn’t crack a smile if two hundred clowns ran into class throwing whipped-cream pies and making funny faces.