by Dan Gutman
And then, like a wave, hundreds of flashlights were passed to the front of the auditorium, where the people in the first row put them into position. The effect was not quite as bright as one strong spotlight, but the stage was surprisingly well illuminated by a bright beam of light.
Mrs. Marotta came out to center stage, getting a nice round of applause.
“It looks like we’re going to be here for a while,” she said. “We’re all praying for Elke’s safety. But Mr. Anderson is right. The show must go on!”
“Yeah!” shouted all the kids backstage.
When the cheer came out of the crowd, Mrs. Marotta went behind the curtain and gathered the kids around her.
“Okay,” she said, “we’ve got light, but no electricity. That means no CD player. If your act depended on recorded music, you’re going to have to improvise. Any amplifiers are useless, so forget about those electric guitars, boys. Drum machines too, Raccoon. Oh, and our microphones won’t work either. You’re going to have to project your voices.”
“How can we—,” somebody started.
“This is show biz, kids,” Mrs. Marotta told them. “And this is life, too. You never know what’s going to hit you. Sometimes life throws unexpected stuff at you, and you’ve got to deal with it.”
She looked at her clipboard with all the acts listed on it and made a quick decision to juggle the lineup. Piano and violin players would go on first, because they didn’t need any electricity or amplification. With a little luck, the tornado would miss the center of town and power would come back on quickly, so the acts that needed to plug in would be able to go on as planned. Everybody scurried backstage and Mrs. Marotta signaled Don Potash to pull open the curtain for the first act.
Jimmy, the quiet little third grader, came out with his violin to a big round of applause and played Beethoven’s “Violin Sonata #7 in C Minor.” The audience loved it. When he was done, Don pulled the curtain closed, and the judges made some notes on the score sheets in front of them.
Jimmy was followed by a girl playing Mozart’s “Piano Concerto #21 in C major.” The crowd gave her warm applause. Then there were the Irish step dancers, Abbott and Costello, the juggler, the magician, Ricky the bacon impersonator, the accordionist, a mime, a poet, Amy the crochet girl, the unicyclist, and The Janitors, who threw dirt all over the stage and swept it up, to the amusement of the audience.
When The Drumming Gorillas hit the stage, nobody knew what to expect, least of all The Drumming Gorillas. They started beating on their garbage cans haphazardly at first, and the crowd had a good laugh. The boys started watching one another as they drummed, and then gradually settled on a regular beat. None of them had ever played drums before, but they must have had some innate sense of rhythm, because soon they were improvising and sounding like they actually knew what they were doing. The crowd began to clap to the beat and stamp their feet. Encouraged, The Drumming Gorillas started banging their heads against their garbage cans, their garbage cans against the floor, and finally against one another. When they were done, they received a huge round of applause. Not bad for a bunch of guys who had never performed anything in their lives before, and didn’t even want to be in the talent show.
Backstage, the kids who needed electricity for their acts were scrambling to figure out what to do. Raccoon, who always rapped along with his drum machine, would have to keep the beat some other way. Paul took him down the hall to the music room, where they found an old wind-up metronome Raccoon could use. While they were in there, Paul spotted three acoustic guitars in a closet. Perfect. It would be The BluffTones unplugged.
While the early acts were onstage, Mrs. Marotta gathered the Beach Babes and Sand Kittens around her. Both groups were lip synch dance acts, and entirely dependent on recorded music.
“Can any of you sing?” Mrs. Marotta asked.
“No.”
“Can any of you dance without your music?” she asked.
“We can’t even dance with our music!” admitted one of the Sand Kittens, causing the other girls to collapse in giggles.
“Julia can dance,” Anne said.
Everybody turned and looked at Julia.
“I just do a little ballet,” she said shyly. “I’m not very good.”
“Would any of you girls mind if Julia were to dance solo?” asked Mrs. Marotta.
“But I … I can’t … not by myself,” Julia protested. “I don’t have my pointe shoes. I don’t have—”
“Oh, come on, Julia!” urged Anne. “You can do it.”
“You’re really good!” said Chloe.
“You’re the only one of us who can dance anyway,” said Caroline.
“We need some acts, Julia,” Mrs. Marotta told her. “It’s not much of a talent show if we just have a bunch of guys dressed as gorillas banging on garbage cans.”
“Please?” Anne begged.
Everyone was looking at her.
“Well … ,” Julia finally said, “okay. I’ll do it.”
“That’s the spirit!” Mrs. Marotta said, clapping her on the back. “Get out there and strut your stuff.”
Don pulled open the curtain. Julia ran out to the center of the stage on tiptoe, hundreds of flashlights shining up at her.
In the audience, her parents gasped. So did Anne’s parents and Sergei Propopotov, the Russian choreographer. What happened to the Beach Babes and Sand Kittens?
It was good that Julia didn’t have time to prepare and practice for this moment. Because that also meant she didn’t have time to worry and doubt her ability. She had made the snap decision to perform The Dying Swan, a solo dance that was created in 1905 by the Russian choreographer Mikhail Fokine for the ballerina Anna Pavlova. It was only a few minutes long, and Julia’s class had been working on it at ballet school the previous week.
The crowd settled to a hush as Julia spun around to face the rear of the stage. Still on tiptoe, she raised her arms and began undulating them up and down slowly. It looked like a swan flapping its wings.
On the sides of the stage, the other performers watched intently. Most of the kids at school didn’t even know Julia took ballet lessons.
“Is she doing The Dying Swan?” whispered Jimmy, the little third-grade violin player as he stood next to Mrs. Marotta.
“I believe so,” she whispered back. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“I know the song that goes with it,” Jimmy said. “It’s from Le Carnival des Animaux.”
“Well, play it,” Mrs. Marotta told him. “Play it!”
Jimmy lifted his violin to his chin and drew his bow across the strings. Julia, hearing the fami-liar notes of The Dying Swan, pushed the eight hundred people in the audience out of her head and got lost in the music. She circled the stage slowly, dreamily, gliding with precise footwork while moving her arms elegantly and expressively, like a light and delicate swan coming down for a landing. Every person in the audience watched, silent and spellbound.
Julia’s legs were quivering, not out of nervousness, but because the swan is so fragile. As the title suggests, it is dying, but struggling to live. Julia took a series of faltering steps toward the edge of the stage and then sank to her knees, her arms still undulating gracefully behind her back. She rose for a minute to fly, but then collapsed, her fingers trembling as she bowed her head against one knee and grasped her feet in a final, sorrowful death.
The audience exploded in a spontaneous standing ovation.
Don pulled the curtain closed. Julia got up and skipped offstage, a wide grin on her face. It was the first time she had ever performed by herself, and the audience loved her. They were on their feet for her. She went out for another bow, and felt a surge of confidence all over her body.
It was Raccoon’s turn. Don opened the curtain, and when they saw him, Raccoon’s third-grade classmates let out a roar.
“Yo,” he said, winding up the metronome and putting it down on the stage in front of him. “I need a beat, y’all.”
Raccoo
n snapped his fingers with the metro-nome, which prompted the audience to begin snapping their fingers with him. Eight hundred people were snapping their fingers. Raccoon began to rap:
You rappers, you homies, you California fools
I hear you got your problems. Let me take you all to school.
It seems like all you do, is whimper and complain.
Am I supposed to cry because you got a little rain?
You think you got it bad. Well, I think you got it good.
Maybe you should come and see my Kansas neighborhood.
Cape Bluff is the name of the town where I reside.
I know you never heard of it. But we got lots of pride.
It happened not too long ago when some of us were napping.
Some of us were singing, and one of us was rapping.
The point I wanna make is we were minding our own business.
Nobody had a clue ’bout what we would shortly witness.
My dad was in the field. He was raking.
He was hoeing.
The sky got dark and gloomy and the wind it started blowing.
He got down on his knees to pull up a potato.
And when he looked up in the air he saw a big tornado.
The kids all started screaming. So did their Ma’s and Pa’s.
I thought it was a remake of The Wizard of Oz.
It swept right through the town, wrecking everything in sight.
The air was filled with garbage, the day was turned to night.
I staggered. I fell. And then I almost hurled.
Outside it looked like it could be the end of the world.
Everything we had was gone, even my PlayStation.
I bet in your whole life you never seen such devastation.
And then it was over. There was stillness in the air.
People walking around saying how it wasn’t fair.
You think we called it quits. You think we’ve had enough?
Well, homies, you don’t know the people of Cape Bluff.
I lived here all my life. This is a very special town.
And believe me, no tornado is gonna keep us down.
It took its best shot, but you should never say never.
’Cause we are gonna come back stronger than ever!
When it was over, Raccoon’s parents were crying. They had never heard their son rap before. It was at that moment that they realized Richard wasn’t some gangsta like those rappers on TV. He was a poet.
The audience rose to give Raccoon a huge ovation, and Don pulled the curtain closed. Mrs. Marotta signaled to Paul that it was time for The BluffTones to go on. Paul and the band hustled to carry Victor’s drums onstage. Even though they didn’t have electric guitars and amps to worry about, it still takes some time just to set up a drum set. In addition to the drums, Victor had a crash cymbal, a ride cymbal, and a hi-hat, and he was very particular about the way they were positioned.
Don was about to open the curtain, but Mrs. Marotta stopped him.
“They’re not ready!” she shouted. “Hang on!”
Don was standing out on the stage, waiting for The BluffTones to finish setting up their drums.
“You rock, Potash!” somebody yelled from the audience.
“Tell a joke, Donnie Boy!” yelled somebody else.
Don looked off to the side, where Mrs. Marotta was standing.
“Go ahead,” she said, “tell ’em a joke.”
Don looked out at the audience. The first joke that popped into his head was the first joke he ever heard.
“What’s pink and fluffy?” he asked.
“What?” replied the audience as one.
“Pink fluff!”
Everybody laughed.
“Tell another one!” somebody yelled.
Don looked toward Mrs. Marotta again. She could see that behind the curtain The BluffTones were having trouble adjusting the foot pedal to the bass drum. She gave Don the “stretch” sign, and nodded her head encouragingly.
Don could have told a few of the jokes from the comedy notebook he had been compiling for years. But instead, he thought back to the routine he had written about the stuff on his desk at home, the routine he couldn’t remember at his audition. Suddenly, it all came back.
“Well, the theme to our talent show is the beach,” Don began. “I don’t know about you folks, but when I think of the beach I think of summer. And you know what I think of when I think of summer?”
“What?” somebody yelled.
“School supplies,” Don said.
Laughter. Nobody thinks of school supplies when they think of summer.
“No, really!” Don continued. “Because just before school starts, they send you this long list of school supplies you need to buy. Nice way to tell us summer’s over, huh?”
That got a good-natured laugh from the kids in the crowd.
“We have to buy rulers and loose-leaf paper and book covers and pens and pencils and glue sticks,” Don went on. “That’s a big choice, you know. You have to decide between glue sticks, Elmer’s glue, or Krazy Glue. That’s the decision that keeps me up at night. Hey, I have a question for you guys. Is Elmer’s glue made from cows?”
“No,” somebody hollered.
“Then why do they have a cow on the label?” Don asked. “Man, cows are amazing animals. They give us milk. They give us hamburgers and steaks. And they even give us glue. That’s what I call multitasking.”
The crowd was tittering, so Don continued.
“I prefer Krazy Glue myself. That stuff must stick really well because their logo is a guy wearing a hard hat, and he’s hanging from the letter A in ‘Krazy.’ His hat is stuck to the letter A! Gotta buy that stuff. You never know when you might be at school and have to stick your hat to a giant letter and hang there. I had no idea that going to school could be so dangerous.”
“How dangerous is it?” somebody hollered.
“I’ll tell you how dangerous it is,” Don replied. “I’m always having accidents at school. Y’know, paper cuts and stuff. The fumes from those felt-tipped markers. That stuff can make you pass out! And I almost blinded myself with my own laser pointer in third grade. Hey, one time I closed a loose-leaf binder on my finger. Ever do that? Man, that hurts. Another school supply–related injury. I tell you, those things should come with warning labels.”
While the audience was chuckling, Don looked over at Mrs. Marotta. The BluffTones had finished adjusting their drums and were ready to play, but she didn’t want to tell Don that. The audience was really enjoying him.
“Keep going,” she said. “Keep going!”
“I stapled my finger once,” Don told the crowd. “Did you ever do that? There was a staple sticking in my finger! Hey, speaking of Staples, I gotta tell you a little secret. Up until recently, I thought that all they sold at Staples was staples. I thought, what a dumb idea for a store to just sell staples. I didn’t even think they sold staplers. Just staples. I figured, how often does anybody need to buy staples? Once every few years? I kept thinking, what keeps this store in business? Then my mom took me to Staples to get school supplies. I looked around at all the stuff. A guy came over and asked if I needed any help, so I said, ‘where are the staples?’ The guy said, ‘Sorry, we’re out of staples.’”
That got a big laugh.
“So anyway, I’m in Staples,” Don said, “and when you walk in the door the first thing you see is an aisle full of sticky notes. A whole aisle! They’ve got ten different sizes, different colors, different shapes. They got flags or flowers on some of them. Some of them are scented. They’ve got super sticky ones. Some are lined, or they come in a little plastic cube. They even sell a highlighter that comes with built-in sticky notes. Okay, I get it. Do we really need that many options when it comes to our sticky note needs?”
Don was in a groove now. The crowd was eating it up. Even some of the grown-ups in the audience were wiping their eyes. It was a rush. He had them in the palm of his hand. He was
improvising now. He hadn’t even thought anything else out in advance.
“Hey, what’s the deal with Wite-Out?” he said. “My mom told me that before they had computers, students corrected their mistakes with Wite-Out. Can you believe that? She showed me some of her old school papers. It’s like, gee, the teacher won’t notice the mistake I made because it’s covered by a BIG, WHITE, SPLOTCH. How dumb were teachers back in those days?”
He looked over at Mrs. Marotta. She was laughing and gesturing for him to keep going.
“Y’know what else they sell at Staples?” he said. “They sell those little gold stars and stickers that teachers put on your homework when you do a good job. ‘Ohhh, look Mommy, I got a STICKER!’ Who do the teachers think they’re fooling with those dumb stickers? I say when we do a good job on our homework, they should pay us in cash. I’d try a lot harder for cash. Wouldn’t you? Those stickers are worthless. You can buy like a hundred of ’em at Staples for a buck ninety-nine. That totally burst my bubble. I tell you, Staples can really rob you of your innocence.”
Mrs. Marotta flashed Don the okay sign.
“I’d like to discuss something that’s near and dear to me,” Don told the crowd. “Pencil sharpeners. But I think our next act is ready. So, continuing with the beach theme, our very own Cape Bluff rock group is going to play ‘Wipeout.’ Give it up for The BluffTones!”
The crowd erupted in a huge round of applause. It wasn’t for The BluffTones. It was for him. Don had never felt so alive. He made a deep bow and pulled open the curtain.
Paul took a deep breath and looked out at the audience. He spotted his father in the fifth row and winked at him. Then he looked at his bandmates, nodded his head, and began to sing.
Stacy’s mom has got it going on …
Stacy’s mom has got it going on …
For a moment, the audience just sat there, confused. That’s not “Wipeout”! Everybody knows “Wipeout” starts with a drum solo.