An eighth grader named Paige went first. “I already know how to play, so I’ll show you how it’s done,” she told everyone.
The girl next to Annie leaned over and whispered, “Paige is the all-time champion of this game. And she’s a real, live professional. She was in a commercial when she was little.”
Annie tried to act like that wasn’t a big deal, but I could tell she thought it was. “She lives behind me!” Annie told us.
Paige went around the circle. She got four people out right away just by saying “I love you, baby. Won’t you please give me a smile?” in her regular voice.
After that, all it took was for her to say her line with any special voice. Once, she even yelled it. The boy was so surprised, he laughed even before she finished her line.
One by one, Paige got everyone to crack. Even Annie. (Who broke when Paige started to hop on one foot.)
Then she stepped in front of me.
Paige got right up in my face. “I love you, baby. Won’t you please give me a smile?”
“I’m sorry, baby. But I just can’t smile,” I told her.
She tried again. This time, she said her line like a three-year-old. “I wuv you, babee. Peas give me a shmile?”
I kept my face as still as I could. “I’m sorry, baby. But I just can’t smile.”
Paige got even more creative. She tried singing the line, fake-crying it, standing behind me. She even did a handstand and said the line.
I didn’t crack.
“Excellent work!” Mrs. Delany said. “What’s your name?” she asked me.
“Eliza Bing,” I told her.
Mrs. Delany told Paige to move on to the next person. I stayed standing.
We ran out of time before Paige could get to everyone else in the circle. The person from the other group had gotten out about half of his opponents.
“Okay, friends!” Mrs. Delany called out. “You did a wonderful job today. I hope you had fun. I hope I see each and every one of you back here tomorrow when we begin reading for parts.”
Hold it right there, chocolate éclair!
I grabbed Annie’s arm. “We have to come back tomorrow?” I asked. “You didn’t tell me it was a two-day thing.”
“Of course I did,” Annie said. “So, how did you—”
“No, you didn’t.”
Annie nodded her head. “Yeah. I did. You probably forgot.” I ignored the pang of sadness inside my chest. Annie usually didn’t point it out when I forgot things.
“But there’s no one to pick me up tomorrow,” I told her. “My mom doesn’t get off till five-thirty and my dad’s got a late class. I’m supposed to take the bus and get off at my neighbor’s house.”
“Mo-mo can drop you off.”
I was stuck like a baker fresh out of flour. I had only agreed to come to the first day of auditions so Annie wouldn’t be alone. What if I bailed on her now and she dropped me like a burnt cookie? Operation BBF would be a bust after only a few days.
Nope. I couldn’t let that happen.
“I can ask if that’s okay,” I said.
“Yay!” Annie squealed. “Thank you, thank you! You’re the best.”
What was it the school secretary had said when I remembered I had gym clothes I could wear? Oh yeah. Crisis averted.
Annie grinned. “You were sooo good at the smile game. How did you keep a straight face the whole time?”
I shrugged.
“No. For real. What’s your secret?”
I wanted to tell her. (Best friends didn’t keep secrets.) But I was embarrassed to tell her.
“I don’t know. Beginner’s luck?” I said.
Here’s the secret about not smiling: all I had to do was think of something else. Which was easy since my medicine had started to wear off.
While Paige was saying her line, I counted to ten in Korean in my head, tried to remember Sweet Caroline’s recipe for fondant, and made a “Note to Self” to take my algebra book home. And when it got really hard, I just tried to figure out why no one had bothered to fix the clock on the wall that’d been stuck at 9:17 since the first day of school.
At dinner, Dad asked how the auditions went.
“Pretty good,” I said.
“Did you have fun?” Mom always asked me and Sam that. Did you have fun at the marching competition? Did you have fun at taekwondo? Did you have fun doing the project? I think it was her way of saying winning wasn’t everything.
“Yeah, it was better than I thought it’d be,” I told her. “But the auditions go for another day. Would it be okay if Annie’s mom gives me a ride tomorrow?”
Mom frowned. “I suppose so. Do you know when you’ll be back so I can let Mrs. Parker know when to expect you?” (Mrs. Parker was the neighbor who sometimes watched me.)
“Probably around the same time it was this afternoon.”
“I guess that would be fine,” Mom said. “I’m sure Mrs. Parker wouldn’t mind, especially since it means you’d only be there for twenty minutes.”
“Oooo, burn! People can only take twenty minutes of you,” Sam said on his way out the door for a late percussion practice.
“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” Mom called after him.
She turned to me. “That’s not what I meant,” she repeated.
I had an idea.
“Twenty minutes seems like an inconvenience for Mrs. Parker,” I said carefully. “What if Annie’s mom drops me at home and I hang out by myself until Dad gets here?”
Mom raised an eyebrow in Dad’s direction. He gave her his I’m-staying-outta-this look.
Mom turned back to me. “Eliza, I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?” I asked. “Everyone else in my grade gets to stay home alone.”
The last time I asked to stay home by myself was over the summer. Sam had to go to the community center and Dad had to take him because Mom had to work, and I didn’t feel like getting dragged along.
Mom laughed and tried to be funny by saying, “Hello, go look in the mirror and introduce yourself to the girl there.” I didn’t think it was funny. Or fair. Plus, I was older and more mature now.
“But you’ve never done it,” Mom argued. “And a lot could go wrong.”
“In twenty minutes?” I asked.
“It only takes a few minutes for a house to burn down,” Mom said. (Sometimes it stunk having a mom who was an ER nurse. They had loads of horror stories.)
“I’m not a baby anymore,” I argued. “You should trust me.”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you….” Mom started.
“But how can I prove I can do it if you never let me try? You thought I’d quit taekwondo and I didn’t. Doesn’t that show I’m more responsible than I used to be?”
I could tell Mom was wavering.
“What’s the worst that could happen?” I asked.
(Note to Self: Asking your mom “What’s the worst that could happen?” is not a good idea.)
“I’ve already made plans with Mrs. Parker,” Mom said, shaking her head. “Maybe another time.”
Coconuts! I blew it.
She’s right. The only way to see if she’s ready is to give her a shot.”
On Wednesday, we read for parts. Mrs. Delany told us we’d be doing cold readings. According to Annie, “cold readings” meant you got up and read from the script without having a lot of time to prepare.
“The book says the secret is to focus on who your character is and their motivation,” Annie told me. “And oh, don’t death-grip the paper.”
I wasn’t sure what she meant about who my character was and what they wanted. But I understood death grip because that’s what I did to my report when I had to stand up and read in front of my entire Spanish class.
Annie and I did our pre-performance ritua
l. Tap tap tap. Blink blink blink. Mrs. Delany handed out the pages we would be reading from. Everyone got the same double-sided pieces of paper with lines from various characters.
Mrs. Delany explained that her play combined Cinderella and a bunch of other fairy tales. Cinder Ellen was a cowgirl, and everyone was going to a barnyard bash instead of a ball. We’d be reading lines from Cinder Ellen, Deejay Razzy Ray, Humpty Grumpty, Jill, the Farmer, and Pig No. 1.
“When I call your name, please make your way to the stage,” Mrs. Delany said. “I will let you know which character or characters to read for. Don’t think or stress too much about it. Just do your best and have fun!”
Annie was excited when we found out we’d be going in alphabetical order. Her last name was Young-Mays. “You want to go at the end so you’re the last person they remember,” she whispered.
“Great,” I whispered back. “I’ll be one of the first people.”
“Just make it memorable,” Annie said.
Memorable? It was one thing when I made the people in my group laugh yesterday, but now I’d be in front of everybody! What if I did something like flooding-the-chem-lab memorable?
“Okay,” Mrs. Delany called. “Here’s the first group.” She read a list of six names. It included Paige (her last name was Abraham) and me. Annie gave me a thumbs-up and I hurried onto the stage.
Paige stood onstage like she didn’t mind one bit to go first. But I did.
Holy ta-moley! There were so many eyeballs on me. Come on, I told myself. You can do this. A BBF joins in with her friend’s activities.
Mrs. Delany assigned parts and we started the scene. Paige played Cinder Ellen. (She was great.) I read the part of Jill. Afterward, Mrs. Delany switched things up.
“Eliza, I’d like you to read for Pig No. 1,” she said.
I’d stumbled over a few words when I’d read for Jill, so I was nervous about going again. I took a breath and remembered why I was there and what Annie said about focusing on who my character was.
But my character was a pig.
“Don’t overthink it,” Mrs. Delany told us. “Remember our improv rules and go!”
A boy named Jake started the scene off. My brain scrambled. I searched for a channel to land on. When I couldn’t find one, I started reading my lines and hoped for the best.
Pig No. 1 didn’t have that many lines. I mostly read them straight off the page. But near the end, something interesting happened. I started getting into it.
“So,” I read, pretending I was Sam and all teenager-y, “I was telling my brother what he missed while he was taking his afternoon nap. And I said, ‘The Notorious B.I.G. Wolf showed up and instead of blowing the door down, you know what he did?’ ”—I paused here to build the suspense—” ‘He kicked it!’ ” Without thinking, I threw a push kick in the air to demonstrate and gave a sharp kihap. “Huuup!”
Out in the audience, I saw Annie clapping. A few other people were clapping, too. And Mrs. Delany was smiling!
Whoa.
So, when will you find out if you got roles?” Annie’s mom asked on the drive home.
“The cast list goes up at the end of the day Friday,” Annie told her.
“Oooo. How exciting!” Mo-mo said.
Bingo, Annie’s Chihuahua, crawled over us in the backseat. Mo-mo apologized. “It was raining all day, so he didn’t get to go outside at doggie day care.” I told her it was okay. Bingo always liked me. It was probably because he could smell Bear on my clothes.
Annie spent the whole ride talking about the auditions. Going with her had been a smart idea. It felt good to know what she was talking about.
Annie had read for Cinder Ellen and Humpty Grumpty. “I bet I talked too fast,” she said. “I did. I talked too fast, didn’t I?”
Annie always talked as fast as Bear could lick peanut butter off a spoon, so I didn’t know what difference it would make to point that out. “No. You did great,” I told her.
She grinned. “Thanks. You, too! And I think it’s cool you took my advice about doing something memorable.”
I tried to tell her the whole taekwondo kick just came out; it wasn’t anything I planned. But she wasn’t listening. She kept saying how I’d made a “brave choice” and that her book said acting was all about making brave choices.
Annie may have thought I was brave, but I was definitely not feeling that way the closer we got to my house. I’d never been alone in the house before. Unless you counted that time Sam was at a friend’s and Mom ran next door to borrow something from a neighbor and the smoke detectors went off. I was three. And taking a nap. So it wasn’t my fault. Turns out it was dust in the system, but the fire trucks came anyway. Mom freaked out.
Annie and her mom watched me get the mail and then waited until I was safely inside the front door before waving and pulling away.
The house was quiet. I stood in the middle of the front hallway for a second and let my ears adjust. Who knew silence could be so loud?
Suddenly, Bear noticed someone was home and came running and barking around the corner.
“Hiya, girl,” I said, leaning over to rub her curly poodle fur. “Did you miss me?” Bear licked me to tell me she did and then followed me into the kitchen.
“I guess it’s just you and me”—I checked the oven clock—“for the next eighteen minutes. What kind of shenanigans shall we get into?”
Bear cocked her head. “How about a snack?” I suggested. I went to the fridge and grabbed a cold hot dog and gave her half. I chewed my half extra carefully since Mom always nagged me about eating too quickly. It wouldn’t look good if I choked to death the first time I got to stay home alone.
After our snack, Bear pawed at the back door to be let out. “Hurry up,” I told her. “I’m supposed to keep the doors locked at all times.”
Bear came running back in a few minutes later. After she settled on the couch, I decided to start my homework. But I kept getting distracted, thinking about the auditions. It felt really good when people clapped and gave me high fives. I wondered if I had a shot at a speaking role. I bet Annie did.
Hummmmm.
What was that? The garage door was going up! No one was supposed to be home yet. Maybe I should hide. Or call 911. Maybe I should do both.
“Yo, E! I’m home!” It was Sam.
“What are you doing here?” I asked him.
“I live here, you dork.”
“No. I mean, I thought you had marching band and then drum practice,” I said.
He shrugged. “Mom asked if I could come home a little early to make sure you didn’t destroy the house or get yourself kidnapped.”
I scowled. Mom didn’t even think I could manage on my own for twenty lousy minutes?
“I know how to escape from a kidnapper,” I told him.
“Oh, right. You’re a great and powerful yellow belt now.”
“Why did you come through the garage?” I asked.
“You have my key. Speaking of which, give it back.”
Sam never used to tease me. Not in a super mean way at least. But it felt different ever since he started dating—
A girl walked in from the garage. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Megan.”
Here’s what I learned: doing your homework at the kitchen table is impossible when your big brother and his girlfriend are laughing and carrying on as if making nachos is the funniest thing in the world.
I grabbed my things so I could finish my work in my bedroom. But then Megan sat down, smiled, and shoved a bowl of nachos across the table.
“I wasn’t sure how much cheese you like, so I didn’t put much on,” she said.
“Thanks,” I said, taking a hot, cheesy chip. It was the polite thing to do, after all.
“So how do you like middle school?” Megan asked.
“It’s okay.”
&nbs
p; “Do you play an instrument, too?”
I shook my head.
“I’m in the marching band,” Megan said.
I know, I wanted to say. I knew a lot of things already because Sam wouldn’t shut up. Megan was a sophomore like he was. She had a little brother. She wanted to be a preschool teacher. She took honors classes. Blah blah blah.
“I play clarinet,” Megan told me.
I already knew that, too. I thought clarinets were cool. Maybe not as cool as drums, but when I did a report on Sweet Caroline for school, I found out she played clarinet. I didn’t tell Megan that.
“We’ll be in the living room,” Sam told me. Megan followed him out.
Good. I could go back to my homework.
A little while later, though, they came back. Mom had texted Sam and said she was running late, and Megan thought it would be a nice surprise if she and Sam started dinner. We were having spaghetti, so it wasn’t that hard.
Megan said I could work on the garlic bread if I wanted. I thought about it; I knew Mom would appreciate the help. But what I wanted was to be anywhere but there.
Hurry up.” Annie tapped her foot.
“I’m coming,” I said. “I have to get my stuff first.” The two of us maneuvered our way through the halls toward the music room, where the cast list for Cinder Ellen was supposed to be. It seemed kinda mean of Mrs. Delany to make everyone wait until the end of the day. Especially since a lot of us had buses to catch. (Annie said her mom could give me another ride if I missed mine.)
We were just about to pass the woodshop room when a girl stepped in front of us.
“Hey! You’re Nimbus,” the girl said. “I heard about you!”
The old, familiar shame crawled up my cheeks. But Annie put her hand on her hip. “Her name is Eliza.”
Eliza Bing Is (Not) a Star Page 4