Everyone's a Critic

by Rachel Wise

  Chapter 12

  INNOCENT REPORTER GETS AMBUSHED

  The next few days at school went by pretty quietly. I felt much better since having some nice quality time with Hailey to ground me. I hadn’t spoken to or seen Michael, but that was okay. Maybe we had spent too much time together. I wasn’t even mad anymore about Allie. I just wanted to forget the whole thing.

  Later in the afternoon, I went to my locker to get stuff for my last class. A seventh grader I barely knew, Todd Gibbons, who worked backstage for the play, came walking straight up to me.

  “You shouldn’t criticize something you know nothing about,” he said.

  “Excuse me?” I said, unsure of what he was talking about.

  “The review. I mean, who do you guys think you are? We worked hard on that show,” he said, and walked away, shaking his head.

  I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. No one had ever reacted like this to one of my articles for the paper. Maybe Todd Gibbons was just extra-sensitive or having a bad day. I grabbed my backpack and headed toward class. As I walked down the hall, at least three people glared at me. I hurried to class and slipped into my seat in the middle of the classroom.

  During class, a note was flung onto my desk. I didn’t see where it came from. I looked around, but no one was looking at me. Then I saw Katie Minor, a drama club member who was one of the dancers in the play, turn toward me and then quickly look away. I opened up the note with shaky hands.

  It said,

  Your review was totally biased and completely unfair. The drama club is pretty upset. Way to go.

  –Katie

  I sat there, gawking at the note. Biased? How was I biased? It would have been biased if we had given it a perfect review because we didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Somehow, being “biased” in Katie’s mind was honesty to me and Michael. I thought about Too Honest’s question, and it was becoming all too apparent to me that people don’t want to hear the truth even when they ask for it, and they certainly don’t want to hear it when they don’t ask, if it’s not positive.

  The minutes felt like hours as I waited for class to end. When the bell rang, I was the first one out. In the hallway, someone yelled out at me, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say it at all!” Innocent Reporter Gets Ambushed. It seriously felt that way. I didn’t look to see who it was, I just hightailed it to the Voice office to see if Mr. Trigg was around. I didn’t want to be alone with this anymore. It was the end of the day, and Hailey was at soccer practice, which had just started up again. I was tempted to go flag her down, but this wasn’t her problem and I didn’t want to distract her. I was hoping to see Michael, but I was pretty sure he had practice too. Just my luck—my two closest friends were both athletes. I wondered if Michael had been getting the same treatment.

  Taped to the closed door of the office was a note. I took it down and went inside. I kept the lights off and sat in the seat farthest from the door so no one would think I was inside. Mr. Trigg usually stopped by here at the end of the day. At least I wouldn’t be roaming the hallways anymore. I read the note:

  To theVoice,

  We are highly disappointed in the mediocre review Michael Lawrence and Samantha Martone gave our production of West Side Story. We are one of the longest-running drama clubs in the county and have won several prestigious awards and contests. We do expect an unbiased review from our school newspaper, but we believe much of the criticism to be unfair and unfounded. We assumed that as the school newspaper, you would be more supportive to our district’s artistic endeavors.

  Sincerely,

  The Drama Club

  I quietly folded the letter in my lap. What had Michael and I been thinking? We weren’t professional reviewers. It wasn’t our job. I was just some kid wannabe reporter who got put on the wrong assignment, obviously. Now I was starting to feel angry at Mr. Trigg. Why hadn’t he stopped us from publishing the review?

  Just then Mr. Trigg walked in. He flung his scarf over his desk chair, not seeing me, and picked up his teacup.

  “Hi,” I said in a low tone, hoping I wouldn’t startle him.

  “Good gravy!” said Mr. Trigg, twisting around and squinting at me, almost dropping his cup. “Ms. Martone? Why are you sitting here with the lights out?”

  “Sorry—I needed to talk to you, but I didn’t want anyone to see me in here,” I said, standing up and handing him the letter from the drama club. “This was taped on the door.”

  He took the letter from me, slipped his reading glasses out of his pocket, and took a look.

  “I see,” he murmured. “Yes, the drama club advisor called me as well. They are not pleased and, in my opinion, taking this way too hard.”

  “Did we go too far?” I asked quietly.

  “Absolutely not,” Mr. Trigg said. “This is part of the game. Get out of the kitchen if you can’t stand the heat, I say to the drama club!”

  “Huh?” Sometimes I had no idea at all what Mr. Trigg was talking about.

  He cleared his throat and sat down. “I told her you both backed up your criticism with examples. You went and saw all the performances. It was a fair review, and just an opinion.” He took off his glasses and pointed at me with them. “Ms. Martone, I saw the play too, and I agreed with the review. You guys did a great job. A little drama, no pun intended, goes with the territory of being a critic and a performer,” he said, finishing his speech. He had a satisfied look on his face, but I wasn’t sure about how I felt. I hated to think I made so many people upset—people who had worked hard and had done their best.

  I said good-bye to Mr. Trigg, slipped out of school, and slunk home. When I got in, Mom was there in her office, but Allie was out. I couldn’t face Allie yet anyway.

  “Mom!” I called.

  “Hi,” she said. “How was your day?”

  “Awful,” I said, collapsing in the tears I’d been holding. She listened to my story, wiping my tears away with a tissue. I sat on the old orange armchair in her office and held the throw pillow against me.

  “Oh, honey. You didn’t do anything wrong. They are just being bad sports. The drama club may not be used to getting criticism, but it doesn’t mean they never should.”

  “I guess not,” I said, wiping my tears.

  “I’ll make a nice dinner. We’ll relax,” she said.

  The phone rang and I ran to the den to get it.

  “Hi,” Michael said after I answered. “Did you get accosted about the review today too?” he asked.

  “That’s an understatement,” I said.

  “It comes with the territory,” he said. “I get yelled at all the time on the field when I pitch a bad game.”

  “I’m just not used to being the target of hostility like that,” I said.

  “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” Michael replied.

  “That’s a harsh way of looking at it.”

  “My dad always says that to me, but I think it’s true. Really, don’t worry about it. They’ll get over it. Just wait a few days.”

  “Okay, I’ll try. Thanks for calling,” I told him before hanging up. I was really glad he called. It made me feel less alone. It was also nice to hear his voice after everything we had been through.

  I went into the kitchen and helped Mom chop tomatoes and cucumbers for the salad. She put a chicken and potatoes in the oven. Soon the kitchen filled with the comforting aroma of food roasting.

  “Mmm, smells good,” said Allie, coming through the front door just as dinner was ready. Mom and I were setting the table. I didn’t want to face Allie, but maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. At least we wrote that she was good.

  Allie came into the kitchen, smiling at Mom. Then she gave me a cold stare. I decided not to say anything. Mom put the food on the table and started carving the roast chicken.

  “White or dark meat?” Mom asked Allie.

  “Why don’t you ask Sam? She seems to know everything,” Allie said, crossing her arms tight around her b
ody.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I said.

  “Girls, let’s try to have a nice dinner,” Mom said.

  We started eating in silence. I could hear the clinking of forks and knives and the sound of chewing, which I hate. After a minute or two of clinking and chewing, Allie pointed her fork at me. “I just can’t sit here with Little Miss Know-It-All and pretend it’s okay that she and her boyfriend trashed the play I have been working my butt off for during the last two weeks!” At the words “Little Miss Know-It-All,” my body stiffened. She couldn’t have meant anything more by that, could she?

  “Allie, it was just one little school newspaper review, the middle school at that, and anyway, we said you were good!” I cried.

  “Gee, thanks, like you guys are qualified to have any opinion about the theater,” Allie spit back with such anger in her face that I wanted to get up and run out of the house. I really couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Allie, you may be upset, and you have a right to your feelings and opinions. But so does Sam. In our house we respect one another’s opinions even if they are different,” Mom said.

  Now Allie and I both had our arms crossed and were staring at each other, wondering who was going to make the next move. Sisters Challenge Each Other to a Fork Duel.

  “I’m not hungry anymore,” Allie said, and pushed back her plate. “May I be excused, please?”

  Mom sighed. “Okay, Allie. Just clean your plate, please.”

  Mom and I sat there, quietly finishing our dinner.

  “She’ll calm down,” Mom said, patting my hand. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Samantha, but sometimes it stings a little when you hear the truth. She’ll come around.”

  The next day I sat in the back of the room with Michael at the post-issue Voice meeting. I was still feeling awful. Two additional people had said things to me today about the review, and they weren’t compliments.

  Mr. Trigg started the meeting like he always did. “Greetings, fellow journos. So our new arts reporters have stirred up quite the controversy.” He grinned at me and Michael. I was in no mood for Mr. Trigg’s theatrics. I’d had enough of the theater. “This is a good thing, and exactly what I meant about getting out of our comfort zones.”

  Really? He wanted me and Michael to basically have eggs thrown at us? That wasn’t getting out of our comfort zones, that was being thrown into a war zone, I thought.

  “Which is always good for us as writers and for the paper,” he continued. “This is what journalism is about, folks—getting people to talk, and not being afraid to tell the truth the way we see it,” he said, looking at me. “So let’s talk back. Michael, Sam. There are a lot of letters to the editor about the review. What about publishing a rebuttal?”

  Michael and I looked at each other. Had Mr. Trigg lost his marbles? I just wanted this whole thing to go away.

  “I don’t know about that, Mr. Trigg,” I said. “Won’t it just make things worse?”

  “We don’t want to feed the fire. But I also don’t think the backlash is fair. We are entitled to our opinions,” Michael said.

  Great, so now Michael wanted to do the rebuttal. Mr. Trigg said that professional critics do this all the time. The staff went back and forth on the issue for a while and hadn’t come to a decision when the meeting time was up.

  “Okay, Michael, Sam, and Susannah, we’ll reconvene in a couple of days to make the final decision and see what the mood is out there. For the next issue, we’ll all go back to our regular posts and see what you bring to that from your new experiences.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief at the thought of going back to what I did best—researching a story, not criticizing people’s artistry. After all this, though, I was surprised to feel that I still stood by our review. We told it like we saw it.

  Chapter 13

  UNLIKELY HERO SAVES THE DAY!

  “Pasty, check this out!” Michael said, running up to me in the hallway one morning a few days later, waving a copy of the local newspaper.

  I glanced at what he thrust in front of me. It was a review of West Side Story. Michael was breathless. His eyes sparkled. Had he run all the way to school just to tell me something? I quickly scanned the review. The critic talked about the strong singing and dancing talent and the stellar history of the drama club, and she even said that “Allison Martone’s exuberant and well-executed performance as Anita was a highlight.” She also mentioned the unfortunate scenery and lighting mishaps—even a few more than we had cited—and had a few lines about the inconsistency of Julia Gowen’s performance. But the best part was one of the last lines: “Even the middle school reviewers who came to see the play for the Cherry Valley Voice could see that this run was not the club’s best.”

  “Not only did she validate our review,” Michael said, poking at the article, “but we were mentioned in the local paper. How cool is that?”

  “Wow,” I said reading the line over again. “Well, at least now we know we weren’t crazy to make the criticisms that we did.” It did feel good to have a professional reviewer second our opinion and take some of the weight off our shoulders. I had always been a fan of our local paper, but now I felt like bursting through the doors of their office and giving the arts editor a hug. Unlikely Hero Saves the Day!

  “We should go out and celebrate our celebrity!” Michael blurted out.

  “Yeah, sure,” I said, not really taking in what he was saying at first. I gave the paper back to him.

  “What are you doing Friday after school?” he asked me.

  “Um, nothing,” I said, looking up in surprise.

  “How about another round of pizza and ice cream?”

  I smiled. “Absolutely. We definitely deserve at least a slice of pizza for our trouble,” I said, and we both laughed. So, according to my guidelines, this had to qualify as a date, right?

  “Great,” he said. “Gotta run!”

  Off he went with his backpack slung over his shoulder. In a daze, I watched him walk away until someone snapped a finger in front of my face.

  “Earth to Sam,” Hailey called out.

  “Oh, hi!” I said, switching back to reality.

  “You have that dreamy ‘I just had a good conversation with Michael Lawrence’ look,” she said.

  “How do you know me so well?” I asked her.

  “Isn’t that a job requirement for a best friend?” she asked.

  “Yes, and you’re really good at your job,” I said. Hailey beamed. I told her about the local paper’s review and about Michael’s offer of pizza and ice cream on Friday.

  “That sounds like a date to me!” she said. We would see.

  The rest of the day, people were talking about the local paper’s review instead of our own, which was a huge relief. Some people were mad at the town critic now instead of at us, but others had started to agree with us and accept the fact that the play hadn’t been perfect, now that a professional had given weight to our opinions.

  That night at dinner, Allie complained about the local paper’s review too.

  “They just didn’t get it,” she said, shaking her head.

  “But, honey, in both reviews you were the shining star,” Mom said. “Doesn’t that mean something?”

  Allie was quiet for a moment. “Of course it does,” she said, and looked at me. “It means a lot. I just feel bad for everyone else.”

  After dinner there was a knock at my door. “Can I come in?” asked Allie as she barged in.

  I took a deep breath. Here it comes, I thought.

  “Did you really think I was good in the play?” Allie asked.

  I stared at her. “What?!”

  “Well, some of the kids in the drama club said you just gave me a good review because I was your sister.”

  “They what?” I sputtered. Now I was really mad.

  “Well . . . did you?” Allie asked.

  “Of course not!” I yelled. “I mean, if you were really bad, that would have been hard, but you
were the one great thing about the play. You should have been the lead.”

  Allie had a big smile on her face now.

  “Besides, it wasn’t just us who gave you a great review either.”

  “That’s what I told them,” said Allie. “But Julia is really mad and, well, she convinced a few kids that the reviews were rigged.”

  “Oh for goodness’ sake!” I said. “They were just reviews! This is really going too far.”

  “Yeah,” said Allie. “It’s a touchy group. But you know, I think they are all really mad because the reviews were no surprise. We all knew there were problems. We knew that the scenery crashed and that Julia wasn’t terrific and that it was just too big a production. Sometimes the truth hurts.”

  “I’m learning that,” I said. Just then I realized that Allie had agreed with my review. “Well, all that’s past us now. I’m going back to news reporting next week. So no more reviews for me.”

  “That’s probably a good thing!” said Allie.

  “Allie, in all honesty, you were great. Even if the show overall wasn’t great, you were great in it.”

  Allie actually blushed. Then she gave me a really big smile. “Thanks, Sam. That means a lot. Well . . . good night. And . . . well, thanks for the good review. And I’m glad you’re going back to writing about news before next year’s show!”

  “Thanks,” I said, and grinned.

  “Hey, just being honest,” said Allie as she left my room.

  That night I finally knew what to write back to Too Honest:

  Dear Too Honest,

  Sometimes people think they want to hear the truth, but when it’s not positive, they do some serious backpedaling. Maybe your friend thought she wanted to hear your advice, but ultimately was not ready for the truth, or the truth as you saw it. Basically, advice is subjective. Beyond math and science, the way each of us sees things is only our opinion of what we think we see. It is okay for you and your friend to disagree. Because, after all, true friends should ultimately respect you for your honesty. Maybe, with a little time, they just might see it your way.