Show Mode

by Raquel Rivera

  Copyright © 2017 Raquel Rivera

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Rivera, Raquel, 1966–, author

  Show mode / Raquel Rivera.

  (Orca limelights)

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-4598-1204-8 (paperback).—ISBN 978-1-4598-1205-5 (pdf).—ISBN 978-1-4598-1206-2 (epub)

  I. Title. II. Series: Orca limelights

  PS8635.I9435S56 2017 jC813'.6 C2016-904571-4

  C2016-904572-2

  First published in the United States, 2017

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2016949058

  Summary: In this high-interest novel for teen readers, Adina wants to put together a perfect act for the school fashion show.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Cover design by Rachel Page

  Cover photography by Getty Images

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  www.orcabook.com

  20 19 18 17 • 4 3 2 1

  For the fun, spirited and dedicated students and teachers of École FACE

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Author’s Note

  One

  “Gonna get, get, get down…” We’re all huddled around Seth’s music player. Sandra’s bobbing her head. It’s a remix of “Bad Girls” by Gigamesh, Seth says. These days Seth is fully into disco. It is a nice jam.

  We’re planning our act for the fall fashion show. Finally! I’ve wanted to do Fashion Show for ages, but you have to be in ninth grade or higher to audition. Last year my older brother was in it. I was so jealous. They set up this cool runway, jutting off the school stage, especially for the show. Pop songs blare. It’s nothing like our usual concerts, where we students play the music ourselves. In Fashion Show, we get to pick tunes, invent dances for them and make costumes—it’s a lot of fun.

  Our school is right downtown, so we could hold our meeting at any fast-food place or at the mall. But when the weather is warm like this, the lawns and big trees of the university quad are the best. At lunch hour, the seventh-graders like to play pickup soccer games here. But right now, after school, it’s mostly college students and old people—professors—walking the paths from class to class, playing Frisbee or just lying on the slope, taking in the sun.

  “And check this out. We can mix into—” Seth taps at his player, and Donna Summer starts crooning about how much love she’s feeling over the beep-beep sound of a 1970s synthesizer.

  This is too much for Sandra—she jumps up, even though the player isn’t loud enough to really enjoy the music. She begins to move like a snake in a charmer’s basket. She’s got this ripple going, from the hem of her long purple dress to her chandelier earrings. That glint creeps across her face—a combination of mischief and joy—and her epic voice cuts loose, drowning out Donna. “Oh, but it’s good!” she sings.

  People walking by can’t help looking. Mostly they’re smiling. Some even groove along with Sandra as they pass, and she grooves back. Sandra’s voice is a gift, our singing teachers say. Think of Christina Aguilera, down low. Sandra sounds part opera, part Janis Joplin—and all herself. When Sandra sings, everybody notices.

  She drops back down on the grass, blowing kisses to the people on the slope, who are whistling and cheering.

  “Seth, baby, you know what I like!” Sandra wipes sweat off her face. It’s too warm for long sleeves, but Sandra is quite overweight and she thinks she looks better when her curves are covered. “We’re going to ace this audition, you guys.”

  I look around for Willow. The theme of our act will be backup singers, we decided. Now we need to choreograph our moves down the runway. If we nail it today, we can start practicing. Auditions are in just a few weeks, and to win a spot, the act’s got to be really tight. “Willow—we need you!”

  Her flute case is here, so she can’t be far away. Willow goes nowhere without her flute. I scan the football field, then the pathways leading down to the traffic on Sherbrooke. Did she climb a tree?

  “Willow!” By now Sandra and Seth are yelling too.

  Willow emerges from the rock garden under the bridge. “You guys, there’s the cutest squirrel back here. He ate all the leftovers in my lunchbox—from my hand.”

  “Ew.” Sandra makes a face.

  “You’ve got a bunch of twigs in your hair,” Seth points out.

  “We’re plotting the walk—we need you!” I practically shout.

  We have to choreograph moves that’ll get us down the runway. Each act has up to six minutes to perform. Sandra and I have already worked out our storyline. We’re backup singers who all want to be the lead. We each keep trying to sneak in front of the others, at different times. This allows for some nice switches in staging. Also, we can make it funny using slapstick stuff we learned in drama class, like the Keystone Cops or the Three Stooges (if we want to get violent about it). Whatever we do, we have to keep our moves simple and big, to communicate all the way to the back of the auditorium.

  “Seth can spin Willow first,” I suggest.

  The spinning goes all right until they start traveling as if they’re on the runway. They can’t seem to manage. So Willow twirls herself while Seth walks beside her. It looks like he’s turning her…sort of. People will probably get the idea. Meanwhile, Sandra and I are supposed to model-prance on either side. But it’s impossible to prance as slowly as Seth and Willow are moving. And slow as they are, they still can’t keep their hands touching.

  “This isn’t working,” I say, but nobody hears me. They’re all giggling at how stupid we look. Then Seth twirls Willow for real until she falls down. He whoops like a maniac and fakes a wrestling drop on her. Meanwhile, Willow’s squealing her head off.

  Sandra dumps handfuls of fallen leaves over them both. “Bravo, bravo!” she cries.

  “Hey, guys—” I try again, but Sandra grabs me in a bear hug and lifts me off the ground, which she knows I hate.

  “Get your sweaty hands off me.” I twist and kick until she lets go.

  “Gawd, all right.” Sandra backs away. “It was just some fun.”

  Don’t you hate it when people act all hurt, but they were the ones being obnoxious in the first place?

  “We’ve only got a few weeks.” I try to stay calm and reasonable, even though they’re all acting like third-graders. “There’s still a ton of stuff we have to—quit it, Sandra!”

  Sandra’s sprinkling leaves in my hair now, and I don’t appreciate it. I’m not Willow, child of the forest.

  “Will you relax, Adina?” Seth rolls onto his back, laughing up at me.

  “It’s not like we’re getting graded on this,” Willow adds. “Don’t go turbo on us.”

  What have grades got to do with it? I’m the only one who’s
attended this school since kindergarten, so maybe they don’t get it. I’ve been watching the high-school students put on Fashion Show for years. It’s a huge deal. Hundreds of people—friends and family—pay good money to see it. The funds go to the graduating-class prom, so it’s not a joke. Fashion Show is a professional-quality show—or as near as we can make it. That’s not me going turbo or freaking out.

  It’s true Willow’s parents have never taken her to Fashion Show, and Seth just joined the school last year. But Sandra should be jumping at this opportunity to show her talent. She says she wants to be the lead singer in a band.

  But everyone’s laughing, so I try to act like I don’t mind. We’ve still got a few weeks to get things right.

  Then my phone alarm goes off. Already? That means I have five minutes to run to the bus stop. If I miss this bus home, I’ll have to wait ages for the next one.

  “Saved by the bell.” Sandra hurls herself down by the other leaf-covered idiots.

  I grab my backpack, lunchbox and, of course, my violin case. “We have to decide our choreography soon,” I tell them. “Because don’t forget, there are also costumes to figure out,” I shout, jogging backward toward Sherbrooke.

  “Adina!” Willow’s brushing at her head, like I should do the same. There’s a clump of leaves poking out of my thick, curly, leaf-trap hair. I turn and run, plucking at my head. My backpack and violin case bump against me all the way down the block.

  Two

  Since I got into the school symphony orchestra, I’m supposed to practice at least an hour a day. We’ve been set seven pieces to learn for the next performance, but this concerto is my favorite by far. I admit, I spend most of my time playing this one. The melody always twists my heart, but in a good way. It’s like a twinge that’s almost painful, but I’m happy it’s making me feel—if that makes any sense.

  I know the piece, but I still use the sheet music. When we started learning music notation, back in first grade, it was like a game. By grade three I thought it was boring—learning how to read time signatures and what the black notes meant versus the white notes. But now I feel weird without it, even when I know the tune. Sheet music has become like a security blanket.

  I lean forward and flip the page, and I’m in the difficult bit—quick bow work and a shift from first to fifth position. I play it over and over. I always feel calm and happy after playing this. Like how Mom says she feels after her meditation class.

  Suddenly bhangra is blasting through the living room, practically blowing over my music stand. First the gunfire-fast drums. Then the strings come in. Finally, shrill vocals pierce my calm, happy brain. Dev must be home.

  I knock on his bedroom door, but of course he can’t hear. When I push it open, he starts madly clicking at the windows on his computer screen until he realizes I’m not Mom or Dad. Yeah, that’s right, it’s just me. He always pretends he’s studying. “Because this is his last year of high school. He knows he must keep top grades to be ready for pre-engineering next year,” Mom likes to say.

  But I know better. “Working hard?” I cross my arms and lean against the doorframe.

  “What? Leave me alone, Adina.” Not that I can hear him, but I’m pretty sure that’s what he’s saying. It’s what he usually says to me. He turns back to his computer. Windows are popping open again.

  “Turn down your music and I’m out of here,” I promise. Dev is first French horn in our school’s symphony orchestra, and he plays keyboards in the jazz band. But lately he’s been on this Indian music kick. At home he’s been listening to all Indian, all the time. I’m proud to be Indian—South Asian, whatever—but it’s beginning to feel like I live in a Bollywood flick. Even though I know bhangra is not Bollywood. Dev has already explained that to me.

  “Get out!” Dev twists around in his seat. He’s glaring at me with buggy, outraged eyeballs. He seems mystified that I’m still in his room. He can be so dense.

  “Turn down the freaking music!” I shout back. Sheesh. I used to think Dev was the greatest, but he’s turning into a selfish bleep-hole.

  I remember once when Mom was dashing between emptying Dev’s lunchbox, pulling dinner things from the fridge and checking her laptop for last emails from work. I mentioned that I’d cleaned out my own lunchbox and emptied the dishwasher, and what did Dev do, again?

  Mom stopped her whirling and gave me one of her serious looks. “You and your brother have different lives, Adina—not better, not worse.”

  Why did I even bother even bringing it up? Mom is very big on not making comparisons. When I was little, every time I pointed out something unfair she’d say, “You are younger,” or “You’re a girl.” Then, when I got old enough to figure out sexism and ageism, Mom switched her reasons. “You’re different people, is what I mean, Adina. My expectations of you and your brother are based on your unique personalities and capabilities.” Which, when you think about it, is another way of saying Mom makes up random rules as she goes.

  Like when I mentioned having emptied the dishwasher and ended up getting scolded. “Concern yourself with your own efforts, Adina,” she told me.

  Most parents would be thrilled I’m doing well with the workload they give us at school. I have daily classes in voice and music, not to mention required credits in drama and visual art, as well as the usual academic subjects. Maybe Mom could notice that I am making an effort.

  Meanwhile, Dev only comes out of his room for meals, with the attitude that he’s doing the rest of us a favor. He’s so inconsiderate. Like right now. As if I would be anywhere near his smelly room if he wasn’t screeching music all over the house.

  “Headphones!” I point at the fat, cushiony headphones he got for Diwali last year. I frantically mime putting them over my ears.

  For a moment he actually focuses. He turns down his music. “You’ve got junk in your hair.” He’s looking at me as if I’m roadkill—equal parts disgusting and pathetic.

  What, more leaf bits? I pat my head and find a poking stem. I try to untangle it.

  Dev snarls, “Don’t do that here.” He reaches for his headphones and turns his back on me.

  Don’t you hate it when everyone acts like a total pain? Stupid brother. Infuriating friends.

  I’m still pulling at that leaf stem as I slam the door and stomp back to my violin. The strings buzz when I start playing. I have to force myself to lighten my bow stroke.

  Three

  I bump into Seth coming out of music class. Basic woodwind is next door to advanced strings. We both have math next, so together we dart through the sea of students coming and going. Seth leads, swinging his clarinet case to clear a path out of the music department. I don’t know why, but clarinet seems to be the choice of kids who don’t care about playing an instrument. Like Seth, for example. He wants to be a dj—he wants to mix. Seth says the music is his true instrument.

  He smashes though the fire doors, and we’re in the north wing hallway. Math class is in the south wing, four floors above. We pass the girls’ bathroom and are moving full speed across the marble floors of the great front hall.

  Chatter from the north wing fades behind us. Dusty sunlight streams through the old-fashioned, glass-paneled front doors. Coming our way is a slow-moving kindergarten snake. Pairs of stubby kids, holding hands, are surrounded by shushing teachers. I spot my little reading partner and high-five him as we pass. (This semester, Reading Partners is part of our Ethics and Citizenship class.)

  We push hard against the south-stairwell doors, booting it up the nearest staircase. The south-wing stairwell actually has two sets of stairs twisting around each other, like a double helix or an M.C. Escher drawing. The dingy glass walls allow you to see the other set of stairs, but you have to wait until the next floor if you want to change over. Maybe when the school was originally built ages ago, one was for going up and one for coming down. Now we just pick the one that’s less clogged.

  Above me, Seth turns to speak—I dodge his backpack before it smash
es my face. “Give me your notes? I have to copy.”

  “What, again?” I don’t know how Seth keeps up in math, since he’s mostly copying my homework. But he aces the tests.

  By the time I’ve got my backpack unzipped, found my math binder and kept my pencil case from flying all over the place, we’re almost at the classroom. I’m hot, and my hair’s coming undone. I have to blow it out of my eyes, since my hands are full of dismantled school junk. So annoying. Seth doesn’t bother with homework, so how is it I’m the one scrambling at the last minute? That’s just wrong.

  I move over to the wall, drop my bag and hand him the stupid binder. He must know I’m upset because he’s slouching over me, shuffling around, trying to catch my eye. He smooths my hair away and tells me, “I finished the mix. Our music is ready.”

  Our music is ready? My sweaty frustration evaporates. It feels like a bright light is flooding through me. It’s good news. But maybe not as good as Seth touching my face.

  Either way, I forgive him completely.

  Our music is ready! This means we can finally nail down our dance moves. I already asked our science teacher if we could use his room for practice at lunch periods. He’s a very approachable person. There are many teachers with big classrooms, but mostly—without going into gory details—it’s wiser to just slink to your desk and escape as soon as class is finished.

  But our science teacher told me practicing in his room was absolutely no problem. Any lunch hour we wanted, he said. Well, now we want! I’m going to tell him as soon as math is over.

  Seth takes the binder that I’m still holding in midair. He picks up my backpack too, which is a nice gesture, if you think about it. We go into class, the final bell clanging around us.

  Four

  “It’s my fault. I didn’t realize you were in different acts.” Our science teacher is at his desk, peering at the bunch of us. He pushes up his glasses, looking from our group to the other. “I seem to have double-booked my room.”