As I walk, I clutch Emmy’s party invitation in my hand. I didn’t want it to get crushed in my backpack. The paper is light blue colored, and it calms me.
In class, I’m supposed to design and build sets for the play, but working is hard and I chipped a nail. Everyone thinks I’ve been goofing off, reading my fashion magazines instead.
Nope.
I’ve been reading the script. I’ve got the whole thing practically memorized.
I like to imagine it’s me on that stage, in the starring role. Me!
But I don’t want anyone to know I’m reading the play. I have my reputation to consider, and besides, it would set a bad example for the other girls.
It’s not fashionable to care.
“Top of the afternoon, Franny!” shouts Mr. Wolcott from his lawn chair.
I smile and walk over to his chair, holding tightly on to my invitation and remembering my conversation with Eric. I’m a little nervous, but I brush those concerns aside and return his big grin. I have a good deed to do. “I’m Samantha, remember?”
“Of course I know who you are! A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
“Thanks, I think.”
“Are you in need of Mr. Chips again?” he asks. “You know, the Times once called me ‘a captivating, rising star of the stage’! Although their most lavish praise was for the impeccable Franny Bree, of course.”
I look for a trace of sadness in his eyes as he mentions Franny Bree’s name, but I don’t see it. Not today, anyway. But then again, Mr. Wolcott is an exceptional actor.
“No, I don’t need Mr. Chips,” I say with a slight roll of my eyes. “But I have another favor to ask you.”
He peers in closer. “Yes?”
“Mr. Chips can’t help us this time. But you can.”
I have no appetite for dinner. Instead, my stomach gurgles in despair. I linger at the table while Mom and Dad sit in the study. Finally, I get up.
Dad is snug in the recliner, his thick reading glasses perched on the end of his nose as he peruses a book about Richard Nixon, a former president of the United States. Mom lies on the couch holding a mystery novel, her head resting on a sofa cushion. She licks her fingers before turning each page. It’s a habit that I hate because it means her saliva is on every book. That’s why I don’t read the books Mom reads.
I much prefer science books, anyway.
I stand facing my parents, but they haven’t noticed me yet. I clear my throat. Mom looks up. “Yes, honey?”
Her voice jolts Dad. He twitches, and then looks over at me, too. “Maggie?” he says, peering over his glasses. “Don’t you have homework you should be doing?”
“The girl can take a break,” Mom says to Dad. “Winter vacation starts soon, you know.”
“Well, that’s what I wanted to talk about,” I say. My shoulders sag.
“What’s wrong?” Mom puts down her book and leans forward, eyeing me closely. She can see the defeated look on my face. I don’t try to hide it.
“We can still visit over break, but I don’t think I want to go to college at Harvard,” I say. I don’t tell them why. I don’t tell them that no school will want me after they learn what a teaching failure I am, and how my class lost both a room hamster and ruined a school play under my watch. I feel like a total blockhead.
“What are you talking about?” asks Dad. “Of course you’re going to Harvard. It’s not even a question.”
“She’s only in fifth grade,” says Mom.
Dad frowns.
I’ve let him down. I know it. Every family has a failure, a black sheep, an absolute shameful embarrassment. And I’m ours.
I can’t even look at my father. I can’t stand to see the disappointment on his face.
Tears gather at the corners of my eyes, sobs choke in my throat, and I run upstairs to my room. I hate for them to see me cry. I, Maggie Cranberry, never cry. At least, not usually.
Closing the door behind me, I throw myself onto my bed.
The play is a disaster, our doom is certain, and the discovery of our secret is guaranteed. Now I understand why Ms. Bryce was so grouchy all the time, and so annoyed when kids failed to listen to her. Maybe she wasn’t such a horrible teacher after all. Maybe if I taught school for a hundred years to roomfuls of ungrateful kids, I would be just like her.
Frankly, it’s amazing she wasn’t more cantankerous.
Cantankerous means grouchy, crabby, and mean, mean, mean.
There’s a knock on my bedroom door. It’s Mom’s knock. Dad always knocks in threes, but Mom knocks softer and in two sets of two: two knocks, pause, and then two knocks. “Is everything okay?” she asks from the other side of my door. “Do you want to talk?”
“Everything is great!” I holler between my sobs.
“But what’s wrong?”
I bury my head in my pillow to mask my crying. “Nothing!” I say. Nothing is wrong at all—other than my being a complete failure at the age of ten. I never thought I’d be such a disappointment.
“Okay. But if you want to talk, your dad and I will be downstairs,” Mom replies.
At some point I fall asleep on my bed in a pillow puddle of tears. Deep in the night, I wake up from a horrible dream.
I was charging up a hill during the Revolutionary War. Kyle was there, and so were a bunch of other kids.
And we were all on the British side.
“Do I actually have to wear these wooden teeth?” Adam complains, holding his mouth. “They hurt.”
He’s wearing the pair of wooden teeth Mr. Chips brought in today.
I mean the wooden teeth that Mr. Wolcott brought in today.
It turns out that Mr. Chips wasn’t his real name.
“Yes! You are George Washington,” says our new director. “Do you think our first president enjoyed wearing his teeth? Of course not! Imagine a two-by-four hammered into your gums. It’s dreadful. As Shakespeare wrote, ‘I pray thee, peace. I will be flesh and blood; for there was never yet philosopher that could endure the toothache patiently.’ ”
“Uh, okay,” answers Adam, scratching his head.
Mr. Wolcott spurts a lot of nonsense, but he has made the play better already. Tomorrow’s Friday, though. I’m not sure if he has enough time to fix everything.
I was surprised to see Mr. Chips—sorry, Mr. Wolcott—this morning. We were all surprised.
But it was a great idea for Samantha to bring him in. I guess she and Eric cooked up the plan.
It’s just too bad they didn’t cook it up sooner.
Mr. Wolcott immediately took control this morning. Everyone was happy except Maggie. She seemed annoyed, at first. I heard her tell him, “This is my play! Who invited you?”
But then I saw her talking with Eric and Samantha, and she huddled with Lacey and Paige a few minutes later at Paige’s desk. After that, she seemed fine. She actually looked relieved.
Mr. Wolcott is terrific, too. He shows the actors where to stand, how to talk, and even how to project their voices so the entire audience can hear them. He’s on top of everything.
“More regal!” he yells to Lizzie as she walks across the room. “You waddle like a duck. Martha Washington is the First Lady. She doesn’t waddle. Chin up! Shoulders back! No—more bounce!”
Who knew there were so many different ways to walk?
Yow. Yow. Yow.
Mr. Wolcott was a world-famous director, or so he says. He has directed hundreds of plays. Maybe thousands.
Maggie stands next to Mr. Wolcott, nodding her head and smiling.
I can’t remember the last time I saw her smile. Maybe never.
She should smile more. It looks good on her. Her gleaming white teeth are so straight, too.
I think:
With her smile, that nose, and soft eyes to boot—
Who knew a brain like her could be so cute?
“Thrust your arm when you speak,” Mr. Wolcott tells Madelyn. “You’re John Adams! A leader among men! But your hand m
ovements are like that of a girl.”
“But I am a girl,” says Madelyn.
“But your part is not. In the theater you are what you perform. You are playing the part of the great John Adams, our second president. Be him! Feel him! Thrust your arm bravely and with purpose. More thrust! More!”
Madelyn thrusts her left arm forward and accidentally punches Adam in the arm. “Sorry.”
“A little less thrust, perhaps,” says Mr. Wolcott.
Our new director wheeled in a giant trunk this morning. It was crammed with costumes. He gave Adam a George Washington wig, a Revolutionary army coat, and that old set of wooden teeth.
The teeth are old, cracked, and sized for an adult. They look horribly uncomfortable. But they get the point across.
Wooden teeth play a big role in our musical.
Cooper was given a black overcoat, a frilly white shirt, and a white wig. He’s like a shorter, plumper Thomas Jefferson. Somehow he’s already gotten chocolate stains on his shirt, though.
Emmy has a red, white, and blue apron and a simple white bonnet that practically screams, I’m Betsy Ross!
Mr. Wolcott brought costumes for the villagers and the rest of the cast, too.
Yow. Yow. Yow.
He also gave our set decorators ideas—Giovanna and Samantha are painting a giant American flag on an old sheet. A fan will blow on it from the back of the stage so that it waves during the final scene.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
That’s not one of my rhymes, but it’s pretty good.
Mr. Wolcott has put Danny and Jasmine in charge of fireworks. He said he wanted a “Grand display!” I’m a little nervous about that. But he can’t mean real fireworks, right?
“A great actor talks from the diaphragm,” Mr. Wolcott tells the cast. “The diaphragm is just below your chest. Speak from your gut. Project your voice. Emote—and stardom shall be yours. Remember: ‘The play’s the thing!’ Or so says Hamlet.”
“Sure. Whatever,” says Adam, looking puzzled.
I notice someone standing behind me. It’s Eric, and I wonder how long he’s been there. “Yeah?” I ask.
“I’ve been working on your play. It’s good, but I have just a few suggestions.” Eric holds up a thick pile of papers. He puts them on my desk. It’s my script, filled with red marks and scribbled words and extra scenes stuffed inside on loose paper. Eric looks down and mumbles, “I hope you don’t mind.”
He has just a few suggestions? It looks like he rewrote the entire thing.
I feel like hurling an eraser at him.
But then I hear Brian and Seth laugh. They’re horsing around in the back.
They’re not laughing at me, or even talking to me lately. They’re still mad because I refuse to throw erasers anymore, and because I’m being responsible and stuff.
I look back at Soda’s empty cage and gulp. She’s still missing, and I’ve looked everywhere. That’s the sort of thing that happens when you’re good for nothing. You lose things, like hamsters and baby brothers.
I turn back to Eric and put down the eraser in my hand.
“Let me see what you have,” I say, flipping over the first page.
“I really liked your songs,” Eric says, “but I thought a few things needed to be more accurate.”
I continue thumbing through his comments.
I have to admit that some of his ideas make sense.
A lot of them make sense.
Okay, all of them make sense.
For instance, Eric doesn’t know where we would get all the fake blood and limbs for the big Battles of Lexington and Concord reenactment.
I guess he’s right.
That scene where the colonists win the Battle of Gettysburg with their army of stormtrooper clones?
Eric crossed out the entire thing.
“Grab a seat and let’s get to work,” I tell him. Eric smiles and sits next to me.
We work through the script, line by line. Every change gets me excited. We are making it better, although losing the superpowered Ben Franklin scenes are hard.
I insist we keep the George Washington wooden teeth stuff, though.
I’m sure his wooden teeth played a big role in the American Revolution.
Well, I’m pretty sure.
Every few minutes someone interrupts us with his or her own ideas. Lizzie insists we need more romance between George and Martha Washington.
“People love romance,” she claims. “That’s why movies always have lots of kissing.”
“Not the movies I watch,” I say.
“The ones I watch do,” Lizzie says, staring at Adam and sighing.
We add in some mushy stuff.
“I want to do an interpretive dance,” says Ryan, spinning over to us.
“Why?” I ask.
“Because I like to dance and everyone loves dancing. In fact, I think I should do two dances, don’t you?”
So we tell her to make up some dances. She smiles and spins away.
Eric and I are still revising when I notice the class has grown quiet. I assume that means something is dreadfully wrong.
I mean, it’s been hours since something has gone dreadfully wrong.
I think of Soda, and I hope the class silence doesn’t mean someone found her and she’s hurt. I’d never forgive myself.
But I’m mistaken. This is not something that has gone dreadfully wrong, but something that has gone dreadfully right. Lizzie stands in front of the room. She holds a cardboard box filled with cupcakes. They have white frosting with red and blue stripes, like little American flags.
“I made these last night to celebrate our play,” she says.
Yow. Yow. Yow.
I was dreadfully wrong about something going dreadfully wrong.
Because nothing can go wrong when cupcakes are involved.
I jump out of my seat and join the rest of the class swarming around Lizzie’s box. I grab the biggest cupcake I see.
“What’s in them?” I ask Lizzie right before burying my teeth into the moist yellow cake.
“It’s sort of a secret, but I think I can trust you guys,” says Lizzie. “I mean, we’ve all kept a much bigger secret, right? Anyway, it’s made with ground tuna. Fudge. Cottage cheese. It’s my own recipe. I call it tuna cupcake surprise!”
Imagine eating old gym shoes wrapped inside a dirty sponge and filled with bologna.
These taste worse.
My taste buds scream in agony. I nudge Lacey out of the way as I dash to the trash can. I spit the cupcake out and keep spitting until every last crumb is gone. But my mouth continues to suffer from the aftertaste, which is even worse than the before taste.
Pretty much everyone in class is gathering around the trash can, spitting cake out of their mouths, too.
Those who have not yet taken a bite of a cupcake look thankful, tossing away their dessert without trying it.
They are the lucky ones.
“These are awesome,” says Adam as he chews his cupcake. He actually swallows it. He has a smile on his face, but sweat drips down his forehead and he looks slightly sick. “Can I have another one?” he asks bravely, with a gulp.
“Of course,” says Lizzie, staring at Adam with a big smile as she chews one of those horrible desserts, too. I’m not sure if she even notices the rest of us holding our throats and gagging.
Adam grabs another cupcake. He takes a bite and smiles, but his hands tremble.
“With my cold, I can’t even taste them,” says Jade, chewing her cake and sniffling. “But I’m sure they’re great.”
I run past them, joining the rest of the class dashing out of the room and toward the drinking fountain.
Fortunately, no teacher sees us running in the halls, holding our throats.
What a day at school. It feels like a hundred-ton weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Even Mom notices. “You’re feeling better?” sh
e asks at the dinner table as I scoop myself a second helping of au gratin potatoes.
“I feel excellent. Superb. Exquisite,” I tell her. We don’t talk about last night.
That’s one thing about my parents—they give me my space. Dad sometimes says, “Great leaders need to be left alone to lead.”
I’ve always agreed with him, but I’m not so sure anymore. I think leaders sometimes need help, too.
Before class began, Paige and Lacey walked up to me, just like they have every morning. But rather than being left alone to lead, like Dad says, and before they could even ask me the question I knew they were going to ask for the forty-seventh time, I handed them a manila folder. “Can you guys create a few work sheets for science?” I asked. “All the information you need is right here. It would be a big help.”
Lacey and Paige looked stunned, but then a smile spread over Paige’s face that could have lit a city block. Lacey had the same expression, too. “We’d love to! Thanks!”
“I knew I could count on you guys,” I said.
But that wasn’t the only thing that made me feel great today.
Mr. Wolcott came in like a white horse, riding in with the cavalry. I admit I was annoyed at first.
But Paige and Lacey needed assistance creating their work sheets, and I couldn’t do that and direct at the exact same time, even if I wanted to. So I tore myself away from Mr. Wolcott, and when I looked back … he was making the play better. A lot better.
A giant, humongous, and gargantuan lot better.
We’ve still got a long way to go to get this play performance-ready. But a few rays of sunlight are peeking through the gray clouds.
I can’t remember the last time anything looked so bright.
Even the work sheets that Lacey and Paige created were good. Really good.
At the table, I put down my napkin after my final bite of potatoes. We’re done with dinner and I ask Mom, “Do you need help clearing the dishes?”
She nods gratefully. “Thanks, honey.”
“I know how nice it is to get some help sometimes,” I say.
I grab Dad’s plate. He’s still upset that I’ve dismissed Harvard as my future, but we haven’t talked about it. I suppose there’s a chance I could still get in. I guess I don’t need to decide that today.
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