Skinny

by Donna Cooner

  When I reach the mailbox, I’m not out of breath. I start to think about the flyer for musical tryouts. Rat is right, but then he is always right. Drama class is the only thing keeping me from that stage and getting Jackson back. If I want a part in the musical I have to take drama. Drama class means silly acting exercises in front of a whole class full of critics. If I were someone like Gigi, I would love it. But the thought of all those eyes fills me with dread. Skinny would have a field day.

  I keep going for five more blocks before I slow down into a walk. I have a 3.95 GPA average in all honors classes, how hard can one stupid drama class be?<

  That night, when I step off the scale, I add the three more pounds lost on my chart and record the exercise. I wish Rat were here to see it.

  “One mile? Please. Like that’s something to brag about.”

  Rat was nowhere to be found after school, so I took the bus home. But it’s Rat. He’ll be back, right? I’ll fix it. Somehow.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ms. DeWise is the youngest teacher at Huntsville High School. Or at least she looks that way. Maybe it’s because she always wears jeans rolled up to show her black Ed Hardy tennis shoes with the red broken heart on them. Or maybe it’s her red curly hair that is obviously not “born with it” red, but more like “let’s find the reddest red ever to come out of a box” red. Everything about her screams drama, and that’s why I’ve avoided her classes at all cost. There’s no telling what she’ll ask a student to do, and the almost impossible odds of me being able to blend into the back wall make her, and her teaching, a complete nightmare for me. Unfortunately, as Rat pointed out last week, I have to take drama in order to try out for the musical. Stupid rule.

  Too bad he’s still avoiding me, or I’d tell him I’d signed up for the class. I need to tell him I’m sorry and that I miss his weird science experiments and constant monitoring. I need to say I miss him. And I will tell him. Soon. But I’ve gone this far. Risked death by stomach rearrangement, trips to the mall with Whitney, and maybe even losing my best friend, to get to this point. Now all that stands between me trying out for the musical and wowing everyone as Cinderella is Ms. DeWise’s drama class. So here I am, sitting in the middle of a class full of theater nerds, my palms sweating and my breath coming in short little gasps, trying not to draw any attention to myself. But that is the problem. Drama is all about attention.

  “Everybody up,” Ms. DeWise calls out as soon as she enters the room, her clown hair bouncing wildly around her head with each step. In the front row, Gigi leaps up and immediately starts doing jumping jacks. Others, obviously in the know, get up and start stretching legs and arms. I stand there awkwardly, waiting for instructions, sure that everyone is watching me.

  “Stretch. Up, up, up to the ceiling. Inhale.”

  I raise my arms, fingers extending, and glance around the room. No one is looking at me. They are all stretching. I suck in a breath and hold it awkwardly.

  “Okay, relax!” Ms. DeWise shouts. “Go limp from your waist up. Drop your arms down to the floor. Sweeping. Sweeping.”

  I bend over and let my arms drop toward my feet. I keep sneaking looks around the room out of the corners of my eyes, trying to make sure I’m doing it right.

  “Exhale.” Ms. DeWise paces back and forth in front of us.

  “Couple of deep breaths. Slowly. In. Out. In. Out.”

  Slowly, everyone straightens with some groans and relaxed laughter. Okay, it’s over. I did it. I try to escape back into my desk. Not going to happen.

  “Everyone down on the floor.”

  She’s kidding, right? I look around, pulling up my once again baggy jeans. Apparently, she isn’t. Everyone is pushing away desks and lying down on their backs. I sink down to my knees, roll back onto my butt slowly, and awkwardly extend my legs out in front of me.

  “So clumsy. You can’t even lie down gracefully. Look at Gigi up there. She looks like she’s dancing even when she lies down.”

  I position my backpack behind me and lie back, using it as a pillow. I stare up at the ceiling tiles, noticing a water-stained corner on the one directly above my head.

  “Everyone, close your eyes.” I shut my eyes halfway, but close them when I see her Ed Hardys marching up the aisle. “I want everyone to relax their bodies and minds. Think the answers to my questions. Concentrate on quieting your spirit. Ready?”

  I guess so.

  “Who’s beside you? Who’s in front? Who’s in back?”

  I have no idea. I know Gigi is in front of the room. I did notice her. I could describe the ceiling tiles, but she doesn’t ask about that.

  “What process did you go through this morning before you came to school? Did you take a shower? Did you eat breakfast? Go through each step before you came to school.”

  I ate breakfast. A quarter of a bagel and a spoonful of cream cheese. Then I fought with Briella over her excessive bathroom time. Remembering the way she threw her hairbrush at me doesn’t relax me.

  “Now think of a sad moment. What is happening to make you feel so sad? Where are you? What do the surroundings look like?”

  The memory of my mom in the hospital cafeteria comes out of nowhere and shocks through my body, causing my hands to twitch uncontrollably at my sides. It’s like this movie I saw once where these people were on a luxury cruise ship and they were having a fancy dinner party, totally unaware that this huge tidal wave was coming.

  In the memory, in the hospital cafeteria, people are eating and talking and trying to be as normal as possible. Even though there are wheelchairs and IV poles and lots of hats covering bald heads. And there is the tidal wave — cancer — coming toward the big sunny windows outside. Every family in this cafeteria will be washed away, including mine, will be turned upside down, torn apart by this huge, random tidal wave, and there is nothing any of us can do to predict when it will hit. We can’t stop it, either. So everyone eats their Jell-O cups and drinks their juice through plastic straws and ignores that huge looming wave right outside the window.

  I squeeze my eyelids shut tightly. Not relaxing.

  Thankfully, Ms. DeWise interrupts the moment with a new shouted command. “Now think of a happy moment. What was going on during that time? On the count of three, shout out one word to describe that happy moment.” I can hear Ms. DeWise marching around the room now, confidently yelling out her questions. “One . . . two . . . three.”

  I think of Jackson and I whisper the word, “Snow.”

  A male voice next to me shouts, “Party.”

  “Wonderful!” Ms. DeWise claps her hands. I hear the noise of people stirring around me and open my eyes a peep. Everyone is getting up off the floor. Evidently, I survived the opening exercises. I slide back into my desk and watch Ms. DeWise warily for her next move. She pulls chairs to the front of the room. There are three chairs facing the rows of students.

  “Gigi.” She motions for her to sit in the first chair. She calls Chance Lehmann up for the second chair, and he saunters up to the stage smiling and waving to the class. Then, horror of horrors, she calls my name.

  “Ever.” She picks the chair up and moves it up a little closer to the audience. “Take the last chair here.”

  I shuffle up to the front and sit down in the chair, staring down at my feet and feeling a little like I’m going to throw up.

  Ms. DeWise rests her hand on my shoulder. “Everyone give a round of applause to our volunteers!”

  I didn’t volunteer. Everyone claps politely.

  “This semester we’ll be using familiar folk and fairy tales for our exercises. Today we’re going to work with Sleeping Beauty.”

  Ms. DeWise puts her arm around the back of my chair and squats down between Chance and me. “In just a few minutes, when I give the signal, all three of our volunteers are going to transform themselves into Sleeping Beauty.”

  Chance sweeps pretend hair back from his shoulders dramatically and bats his eyes. The class laughs. I sit there and swallow and s
wallow.

  “In this scene, Sleeping Beauty has been left alone in the woods.” Ms. DeWise brushes a red curl back from her forehead and it immediately springs back into place. “She’s deserted. Lonely. Dejected.”

  I glance up at the audience and then back down at my feet.

  “How are you going to be the star of the musical when you can’t even do this? You’re going to blow it and then everyone will think you’re totally, completely incompetent,” whispers Skinny, “and you are.”

  “When I clap my hands, I want each of you to look like Sleeping Beauty at this moment. Ready?”

  We all nod and she slaps her hands together.

  I frown and try to look as sad as possible. I throw in a little bit of scared, too. That part isn’t very hard.

  “No! All wrong!” Ms. DeWise slaps her hands together again, and I almost jump out of my chair. She’s addressing all of us, but I feel like she’s only talking to me. “You all look like you are acting sad, not like you are really sad. Actors can’t just make up emotions. In life, feelings are the result of something that happened that affected you. Feelings don’t just happen without something causing the reaction.”

  My stomach churns.

  Ms. DeWise puts her hand on my shoulder again. “That something is what you think of when you’re onstage — the something that causes you to feel a certain way, when the audience was not there to pressure you to perform. Let’s try this again.”

  Groan.

  “So think about a time when you felt left out and rejected. When everyone had turned their backs on you . . .”

  When did I not feel that way?

  “Think about exactly what was happening when you felt that way,” Ms. DeWise says, stepping in front of the three chairs and scrutinizing each one of her volunteers.

  A day comes to mind with a stage and a chair crashing to the floor. Blood rushes to my cheeks. I feel caught, a deer in headlights. A slow familiar panic takes over my body. There is nowhere to hide. I push the memory away. I don’t want to think about that.

  “Wait, Ever.” I’m startled by Ms. DeWise’s voice. “It was there on your face for a minute. You were remembering something, right?”

  I nod, reluctantly. Panic starts to rise into my throat. I can’t say it out loud. Please don’t ask me to.

  “And I saw it. In your eyes. In the way you held your body. Everything about you looked exactly like Sleeping Beauty would have looked when she was left behind in the woods. Dejected. Alone. Isolated.” Ms. DeWise bursts into applause, and the audience joins in enthusiastically. “Bravo! Well done, Ever!”

  Acting like Sleeping Beauty means not thinking about Sleeping Beauty? I’m confused, but I have to admit a little intrigued. I also feel pretty good about the applause.

  “You can go back to your seats,” Ms. DeWise says. She brings up a few more volunteers and I find myself watching the action carefully. Each time the group portrays a different fairy-tale character and another strong emotion. Some do it better than others. I know the difference when I see it, but I’m still not sure how it happens.

  “Good work today.” Ms. DeWise finally releases the last set of three students back to their desks. “Now for your homework.”

  There are loud groans throughout the room.

  “Everyone, draw a slip of paper on your way out the door today. On the slip of paper will be an animal.” I don’t like the way this is going. I was hoping to play the part of a princess, not a monkey. “I want you to study it and be very specific in your observation of the animal. What is the animal’s posture? How does he move? When does he move? Why does he move? Can you imagine what he might be thinking?”

  “Do you expect us to go to the zoo tonight?” Chance asks and gets a few laughs.

  “You can find anything on the Internet,” Ms. DeWise says. “Find as many different clips of this animal in action as you can. After you watch awhile, begin physically imitating his movements. Be as specific as possible.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Chance asks. “I’ve been told plenty of times to stop monkeying around.”

  Oh, brother. Why does Chance always have to be a clown?

  Ms. DeWise isn’t fazed. “If it’s a gorilla you are studying, and the gorilla places its hand somewhere on its body in such a way that you might not place your hand on your body, especially in public, then you must overcome your inhibitions.”

  There is some more nervous laughter as students head toward the door.

  Ms. DeWise gives one last set of directions while handing out the slips of paper to the students leaving the room. “Keep the physical and psychological aspects of the animal. Just transform them to the human counterpart in yourself. Study the animal for as long and as often as you can. Then come back to the workshop next Monday prepared to share your interpretation.”

  I draw a slip of paper out of her hand as I leave the room, then instantly stuff it down into my pocket. Later, with no one around to see, I pull it out and open it. Elephant. My heart sinks. I couldn’t have picked giraffe, or butterfly, or swan?

  “The fat girl gets to pretend to be an elephant. I think they’ll call it typecasting.”

  I’m not giving up. Jackson will see me play the role of Cinderella, and I will win him back. Even if I have to be an elephant to do it.

  That night, I look at every elephant video I can find on the Internet. Only elephants in the wild, though, because I want to see what they look like when they’re at home — not in a cage. I try to focus on the animal’s eyes. Does it seem intelligent? Tame? Wild? Dangerous? I try to imagine thinking like an elephant. I wonder what I’m thinking when the elephant in one video moves from the spot where she had been standing for quite some time to a tree fifty feet away to pick a few leaves to eat. Why did she move now, and not five minutes ago?

  I find this one video where a huge bull elephant crashes out of the brush to charge a camera crew in the back of a truck. The elephant isn’t clumsy. He doesn’t cower. He bursts through the trees large and in charge, ears flapping wildly. He’s perfectly comfortable in his size and knows exactly how to use it.

  I watch it again.

  I can’t imagine any other animal intimidating him. He moves with a speed terrifying to everyone in the back of that truck watching. Nothing stands in his way.

  I watch it again.

  Amazing. He relishes every bit of his size. This is the kind of elephant I want to be. I stand up in front of the computer. I watch the video again, but this time I move around the room as I watch it. Now, the elephant has legs and arms. I don’t cower or waddle. I walk like a huge elephant.

  And I like it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “So when the actor becomes aware of being observed by others out there” — Ms. DeWise waves to the seats out in the auditorium — “the tension finds its way into the actor’s life on the stage. The key word here is ‘aware.’ ”

  I’m back in drama class and today we’re meeting in the auditorium for the first time. All I can think about is what’s going to happen when I take the stage pretending to be an elephant.

  I’m definitely aware.

  “When the actor first becomes aware of being observed by an audience, it causes the actor to suffer that state of self-consciousness that we sometimes call stage fright,” Ms. DeWise continues her lecture from center stage, her arms sweeping widely to emphasize the importance of her words to everyone listening.

  I’m always aware of being observed. Always self-conscious. I’m evidently living my life with stage fright.

  “So the trick here is not allowing oneself to become aware of the audience.”

  Duh. The idea of that seems completely impossible to me, but oh so attractive.

  “Let me show you a little demonstration,” Ms. DeWise continues. “Gigi, if you’ll come up to the stage.”

  Gigi flits up the stage steps and joins Ms. DeWise. This week, her hair is all blue with just a streak of pink on the left side and she’s wearing a red-striped
T-shirt with skinny blue jeans. Sparkling chandelier earrings wobble wildly from side to side as she waves energetically to the class. A pretty tame outfit for Gigi.

  “I’ve asked Gigi to help me with this exercise.” Ms. DeWise steps over to stage left and leaves Gigi standing alone in the middle of the stage. I feel a twinge of jealousy at how effortlessly she faces the room full of people watching her.

  “Onstage we have three walls,” says Ms. DeWise. “The one in back and on each side.”

  Gigi gestures in each direction as Ms. DeWise talks, like she’s a flight attendant showing the exits.

  “The fourth wall, that very important wall between the actors and the audience, is invisible. If the actors don’t acknowledge the audience behind that fourth wall, then everyone watching the action onstage is able to believe they are peering into the secret lives of the people onstage as if they were in their own kitchens or bedrooms.”

  Gigi pretends to sit down at a table and eat imaginary food.

  “So here you have the actor.” Ms. DeWise points to Gigi, who continues to pantomime eating as though we aren’t watching her. “Then you have the invisible fourth wall.” Ms. DeWise makes a sweeping motion signaling the front of the stage with one hand. Finally, she points to all of us watching. “And the audience.”

  Gigi pretends to pick up a phone off an imaginary table and dials, while we all watch.

  Ms. DeWise continues, “When we use a fourth wall in a play, the actors don’t acknowledge there is anyone watching them and the audience is able to suspend disbelief and pretend the actors are actually living out their real lives onstage.”

  “Hello?” Gigi says into her pretend phone. “Is Cinderella there?”

  The audience laughs, but Gigi keeps talking, looking blankly out at the audience as if she is staring absently at a painting on the wall. “I just got my invitation to the ball yesterday. Are you going?” She waits as though she’s listening to the response from the other end of the phone conversation, then continues, “I don’t have anything to —”