Over the Top

by Alison Hughes

  I looked like some sort of nightmare-zombie-mermaid. A mermaid who would send young children screaming, splashing frantically to the shore.

  I smothered a panicky laugh with my fist.

  Then I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

  And I sat down on the toilet and waited.

  That feeling where you desperately want to be in your bed, with the covers pulled tight over your head…

  CHAPTER 9

  The Wise Man with the Animal Stickers Gives Advice

  It was a short, silent van-ride home. ’Ro didn’t know exactly what was going on, but he knew something had happened. And he knew it wasn’t good. Probably because Mom shushed him when he started talking, silently pointing to me and mouthing “crabby.”

  “I saw that, Mom! I am not crabby,” I yelled.

  Honestly, could anything be more enraging than being called crabby when your life was collapsing?

  “Speaking as the only legit crab in the van, I agree,” said ’Ro, snapping a pincer in the air. “You’re not the one who’s crabby.” He almost made me laugh. Almost.

  I practically leaped out of the rolling van when we pulled into the garage. I ran all the way up the stairs, scrubbed my glittery face clean in the bathroom, and then crawled into my bed. I pulled the covers up over my head and stayed there a long, long time. Trying not to think, trying not to re-live the squirming embarrassment, trying not to utterly dread going to school on Monday. Trying to clear my mind. Trying to be calm.

  I kept telling myself that I wasn’t important to those girls. They weren’t important to me. But I was going to be stuck with those people for all of junior high. Maybe even all of high school.

  I lay curled up under my blankets in a lump of pure misery.

  Finally, my stomach rumbling, I wandered downstairs. No sign of anyone around in the huge house, and that was just fine by me. I stood at the counter and ate a cold piece of leftover pizza. As I munched, I noticed a light on in Dad’s study across the hall from the kitchen. I went over and tapped at the door.

  “C’mon in,” he called and looked up from a small desk covered in papers. “Oh, hi kiddo. Mom and ’Ro went to soccer registration.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I, uh, heard the party was fun.”

  I didn’t answer. If by “fun” you mean giving two girls a truckload of ammunition to make my life even more miserable than it is now, then sure, Dad, it was a blast.

  “Part of it was okay. Part of it… oh never mind. I just want to forget it.”

  I looked around Dad’s office. There was a sleek new corner desk running almost the length of the room. Matching bookshelves and cabinets lined the walls. Two leather chairs sat in a corner with a coffee table in front of them.

  “Wow,” I said, perching on a stack of boxes, “I haven’t been in here since all this furniture was delivered.”

  Dad looked around uncertainly.

  “Yeah, lots and lots of stuff. Mom picked it all out. It’s really great quality. Solid wood. They built the shelves right in there, see? Professional job. Mom’s right; it’s about time I had a proper office, somewhere I can be organized, spend more time at home, even have a client pop by once in a while. Not just the hole-in-the-wall I’ve always had.”

  I looked down at the small, beat-up metal office desk he was sitting at.

  “So why are you still at your old desk if you’ve got all this fancy new stuff?”

  He sighed. “It takes me a while to get used to new things. To tell you the truth, I work pretty well at this desk. Did you know this was the first desk I ever had? When I started up the company. Back way before you were born.”

  “Jeez, old.” I smiled. “I like your stickers.” I pointed to the side of the desk. It was covered in animal stickers.

  “Well, you and ’Ro decorated it back in the day.” He laughed, shaking his head. “Maybe they’re part of the reason I like this old desk.” He wheeled his chair out. “History. And look here—remember this?” He pointed to a huge smiley face scratched on the inside of the desk. “Remember?”

  I laughed. “I remember. I was, like, four and used a key when you weren’t around. Scratched that in so that you’d have—”

  “—happiness all the live-long day!” Dad finished, slapping the top of the desk. “Your exact words.” He smiled at me, then smothered another yawn.

  “You’re tired,” I said. “Working hard?”

  “Always, always,” he sighed. “Shouldn’t complain. Business is booming. How are things with you?”

  “Not so great, actually. Shouldn’t complain, either. But I’d really, really like to complain.”

  Dad laughed. “Well: shoot.”

  I picked at the box I was sitting on.

  “Oh, I don’t know, Dad. School’s just… hard. Well, not school, but the other kids. The people.” He nodded and waited. I loved that about Dad. He let you stammer and struggle and he didn’t make you feel slow or awkward because you did it. He just listened. Mom would have been bouncing around the room, making suggestions, finishing my sentences, planning, trying to force things to get better. Dad just sat quietly and let me talk.

  “Like, for example, there’s ’Ro. Running around with a group of friends already, and I can’t figure out how he does it. I’m not—I don’t have—I haven’t really met many people yet. Almost none, actually. I’m not really great with people, you know. Or even good with them. On a scale of, say, excellent to brutal, I’m definitely at the brutal end.”

  Dad looked skeptical.

  “No, Dad, it’s true. I’m not like Mom or Hero. I’m more like you! No offense, but we both kind of suck socially.”

  “I prefer to think I have a quiet dignity rather than ‘suck socially,’ as you so eloquently put it,” Dad said, air-quoting the phrase with his fingers.

  I laughed.

  “Well, see how far having ‘quiet dignity,’” I air-quoted back, “gets you in sixth grade, Dad. I’ll answer that: not far. Because people want you to be funny and loud and cool and smart and pretty and all sorts of things that I probably don’t even know about.”

  I picked at the box. I was tearing quite a strip off of the old cardboard.

  “How did you get through school, being quiet and shy?” I asked him.

  Dad blinked. “Well, I don’t really know. I guess I played sports.”

  “Okay, not an option for me. You’ve seen me throw. And run.”

  “You throw and run just fine. Stop running yourself down. What I’m saying is that I got involved in something, and the friendships flowed from that. Is there anything you could get involved in at St. George?”

  “Well, I could audition for the play, I guess.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that. You’ve always enjoyed being part of the school plays. And you’re good.”

  “Thanks. Weird how sometimes it’s easier getting up in front of a gym full of people than talking to one single person. You know?”

  “I don’t, actually,” Dad admitted. “The thought of getting up onstage terrifies me. In fact, it’s a recurring nightmare of mine. Pushed out onstage, no idea what the play is or what line I’m supposed to say.” He shivered. “Now your mom…”

  “She would have loved being in plays, Dad. She’s a natural performer.” I smiled, thinking of Mom singing all those show tunes.

  “Maybe you are, too.”

  “Maybe. There’s just such a good feeling when you’ve all pulled together rehearsing, and then it’s opening night and the room gets quiet, and the lights go on and the play starts. It’s exciting.”

  “Sounds like you should do it.”

  “Auditions are Monday. I brought home the sheet to practice. It’s The Wizard of Oz.”

  “Hey, you must’ve seen that movie a million times. You probably know it by heart. You’ve got all day tomorrow, so practice, and give it a shot!”

  “But maybe I won’t get a part,” I said. “This is a way different school than Elmwood was, Dad. Way different. There’s thi
s semiprofessional director who sounds totally intimidating, they actually print posters of the plays, they rehearse for months. There are tons of kids, and I bet there’ll be lots of good actors.” I didn’t mention Miranda, but I was thinking of her.

  “Maybe you won’t get a part,” said Dad, somehow not understanding that what I needed him to say was “Of course you’ll get a part!” Like Mom would have said. And then I wouldn’t have believed her.

  “But you’ll have tried,” Dad continued. “You’ll have gone after something you wanted. Isn’t that worth something?”

  “I don’t know, Dad. It’s complicated. Some of the people that might be in the play aren’t the nicest. At all. Some are, though.” Yes, I was thinking of Spencer. “I just don’t know.”

  “I do. Try out for the play.” He said this, pointing a finger at me, mock-stern. The laying-down-the-law role was so not Dad that it was funny.

  “Okay, boss-guy. I will,” I said, pointing right back, mock-serious. “But only if you keep the desk.”

  We smiled at each other.

  “Deal.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Not Quite the Grueling Ordeal I Had Feared

  Auditions were Monday after school, so I had the whole day to really wind up into a nervous wreck. My hands were ice-cold as I packed my backpack. I rehearsed Dorothy’s speech in my head, as I’d done all day.

  I paused at the last line. It was Dorothy, back from her adventure, remembering that while some of her experiences hadn’t been all that great, most of them had been beautiful. I’d like to think that just about sums up life. I seemed to be waiting for the mostly beautiful part. But there had been a hopeful episode today. One of the nice girls in my class, a small girl with dark curly hair, saw me looking at the audition sheet at recess and asked me what paragraph I’d chosen. She’d picked Dorothy’s speech, the same as I did. A few of her friends joined in, saying which parts they were going to read, and they talked and laughed about what could go wrong and how scared and nervous they were. I was pretty quiet, because I couldn’t think of anything funny to say, but for most of recess I was part of a group!

  I went down the hall to the theater, running through the speech over and over again in my head. Home. It was all about home. About coming home, about Dorothy finally finding her way home.

  I tried to think about how I would have felt, being away from Hero and Mom and Dad. I tried to think about what “home” was to me. Home was a deeper idea than just a place you lived. For me, home wasn’t the pink house yet, and it wasn’t the small house we’d left anymore. It was my family, and the feeling of belonging to them. With them. That’s good: hold on to that feeling during this audition, I thought. The feeling of home.

  The hall leading to the theater was lined with kids waiting to audition. It was loud with nervous chatter and laughter. I saw Miranda and Miko sitting on the floor with their eyes closed, looking like they were trying to block out the rest of us. I slid down with my back against the wall and sat on the floor as far away from them as I could get. I’d successfully avoided those girls all day. There was one episode that made me think I wasn’t going to get off so lightly, though. At lunch, Miko and Kallie walked past my desk, and Miko said, just loud enough so that I knew she wanted me to hear, “Something smells fishy around here.”

  Such a small thing, but it was a reminder. We know. We remember. Don’t forget that we know.

  I prayed the auditions would be alphabetical and those girls would be done and gone before I had to go in. But waiting until the Ps would be torture, too. At the rate I was biting my fingernails, I would have none left at all and would have started in on the skin around them by the time I was called. I hoped they wouldn’t start bleeding. Sometimes you just rip a little piece of skin off, and it bleeds ridiculously for a while. I pictured stumbling into the audition all blood-spattered, and the mental image was enough to make me stop biting.

  I was pretending to read my book when that nice girl from my class slid down beside me. We smiled nervously at each other.

  “Lots of kids,” she said, pushing up her glasses and pushing back her curly hair. “Shoot. I’d hoped there wouldn’t be so many. I’m Shaya, by the way. You got introduced to, like, a million of us, so you probably don’t remember.”

  “Shaya,” I repeated, so I’d remember it. “I’m Diva. Or Deev.”

  “I actually like Diva,” she said. “Unique.”

  “Same with Shaya, actually.”

  “I always have to spell it out, though.”

  “Same here!”

  We laughed at this tiny little link.

  “Have you been part of the plays before?” I asked.

  “Nope. This is my first time auditioning ever. And I think I’m only doing it because my brother Jeremy doesn’t do the plays, and it would be nice to do something he doesn’t do better than me. And I’m so nervous I think I’m going to throw up.”

  “Me too,” I said. “At least we can throw up together.”

  She laughed. “Double-puke. Never been done!”

  Shaya’s last name was Abrams, alphabetically one of the first to be called when that big theater door opened.

  “Good luck,” I whispered as her name was called. “Break a leg, I mean.”

  “You too!”

  Spencer came down the hall as she was going in, and he gave her a high five.

  He caught my eye and smiled. I smiled back.

  Talking a bit with Shaya, a smile from Spencer. Maybe this wasn’t going to be such a scary ordeal.

  By the time my name was called, the crowd in the hall had thinned out.

  I scrambled to my feet and went in. The door closed with a thunk behind me. I walked across the stage to where a woman was standing. The acoustics in the theater were very good; each step I took across the stage sounded clearly. You could almost hear the hushed silence when I stopped.

  “Hi. I’m Diva Pankowski.” Was that raspy voice mine? I tried to clear my throat a little, which is hard without making a sound at the best of times, let alone when your every breath is being amplified outrageously.

  My breath was coming quickly, like I’d sprinted across the stage, and I didn’t know what to do with my arms. It was awkward just leaving them hanging, but it seemed rude to cross them or shove my hands into my pockets. What was left? It was totally not me to stand there with my hands on my hips. That was more of a Miranda pose, I thought. Confident. Sassy.

  Madame Ducharme was the woman from the bathroom, but I hadn’t gotten a good look at her then, because I was running out the door. As she looked down at her clipboard, I studied her. She was an older woman with spiky black hair and red lipstick lining very thin lips. She wore a long, black dress, high-heeled shoes, and lots of jangly bracelets on both wrists.

  “Well, Diva, you certainly have a theatrical name,” said Madame Ducharme. She smiled at me. A nice smile, not like she was making fun of my name.

  “Haha, well, my parents wanted something unique—”

  “So let’s see whether you live up to it.” Madame Ducharme swept over to a chair and collapsed gracefully into it. I wasn’t sure when to start until she raised her eyebrows and threw out her arm. “Proceed. When you’re ready.”

  “Okay,” Calm, slow, with feeling, I reminded myself. It was good advice that I somehow totally ignored. Was that my high, shaking voice rattling off Dorothy’s speech at breakneck speed? Too fast. Way too fast. I gulped as I finished it, and looked at Madame Ducharme miserably.

  “That was way too fast, right?” I said. “Sorry.”

  “You’re nervous. It’s okay. Calm. Breathe. Once again. Feel it.”

  Breathing actually helped. I don’t think I’d breathed once all the way through that speech.

  Focus, I thought. Think about Dorothy. Think about Home.

  I recited the passage again, trying to infuse it with life, with meaning, like I did when I’d rehearsed in my room. My calm, beautiful, blue room.

  I stopped, and there was a s
ilence. Madame Ducharme looked at me with her head tilted to one side, a quizzical look on her face.

  The silence lengthened.

  Does she think that was horrible? Oh, why am I even doing this? For Mom and Dad? To try to fit in somewhere, anywhere? Because I was a big shot at the stupid little plays I’d been in before? To see if I could compete with the other kids in this school? With Miranda?

  “Hmmm. Much better.” Madame Ducharme stood up and came over to me. She pulled back her shoulders, and lifted her chin, encouraging me to do the same. “Posture. There. Now, ’ow about a song? Or no?”

  “Sure,” I said. Deep breath. I sang a few lines of the song, expecting her to stop me. She raised her eyebrows but let me sing the whole song. I closed my eyes and imagined I was singing with Mom in the kitchen, like we’d done so many times making dinner.

  When I finished, Madame Ducharme had a strange expression on her face.

  “That was… unexpected,” she said. “Very, very nice. Your singing voice is different from your speaking voice. Rich, bold, deep, deep, deep. Unusual. You are a bit of a mystery, Diva.”

  Then she surprised me.

  “You’re new to this school. Good for you to audition for the play. That took guts.” She nodded briskly and stood up. “Thank you. Next!”

  CHAPTER 11

  Birthdays: The Most Dangerous Day of the Year

  We’d only been in Castle Pink-a-Lot three weeks when the birthday talk started. My birthday. April 16. Two weeks away.

  Always, every year, a very dangerous day.

  Mom was extra-super-squealy excited about birthdays. It was irritating sometimes, but I understood why she was like that. My mom was an only child whose parents died in a car accident when she was four. If that wasn’t sad enough, her grandparents, who raised her, were really old and very, very strict. Like, “lights out at seven p.m.!” strict, chores before school strict, plastic covers on the furniture strict, no birthday parties or sleepovers strict. She desperately wanted a kitten, and they finally gave her a small, homemade cat stuffie (it’s kind of creepy, but she still has it). Maybe her grandparents loved her but didn’t want her to become spoiled. Maybe they thought they were doing the right thing. But poor Mom—I always picture a little girl (okay, I picture Hero, but with longer, curly Mom-hair) who longed for fun and music and people and excitement. For birthday parties and a kitten to cuddle.