Not Your All-American Girl

by Wendy Wan-Long Shang

  “Who won?” I asked.

  Tara smiled. “You’ll hear on the morning announcements.”

  I didn’t have to wait for the announcements.

  “Congratulations,” I said. “That’s really great. An excellency.” I tried to mean it, even as I could feel the jealousy come back. It settled in my chest like mucus.

  The warning bell rang. “See you at practice?” said Tara. It was our first day of real play practice, and not just Mrs. Tyndall handing out forms and going over the rules.

  “Yup.”

  “Save me a seat if you get there first,” said Tara.

  I got to homeroom in time to hear the principal say, “Congratulations to sixth grader Tara Buchanan, winner of the Eisenhower oratory contest.” I pretended to clap along with the rest of the class, but if anyone had looked closely, they would have seen that my hands hadn’t actually touched. “Let’s wish her luck as she moves on to compete in the county competition!”

  I always imagined that middle school musicals involve a lot of busyness. Sets being painted, people learning dance moves, and maybe a teacher rushing onstage to admit that she made a mistake putting you in the background.

  But apparently in middle school musicals there is also sitting.

  By the time I got to the auditorium, Tara was onstage, talking to Mrs. Tyndall. I looked around for her backpack and found it plopped in a pile with a bunch of other ones. It was not in a seat, the universal sign for “this is saved.”

  “Hey, Lauren Horowitz. Up here.” Duncan was sitting in the last row of seats with a bunch of other kids, who I guessed were also in the ensemble. I climbed up to the second-to-last row and turned around to face them.

  “Did I miss anything?” It was nice to have an excuse not to look at the stage, which was radiating the All-American-Girlness that was Tara.

  “You missed getting yelled at by Mrs. Tyndall,” said Cheryl Vickers, who was in my PE class. “We can’t eat or do homework or read or anything when we’re here. Practice time is her time. Our job is to pay attention, even when we’re not onstage.” Mrs. Tyndall probably thought Cheryl also looked like an all-American girl; Cheryl had white-blonde hair and blue eyes. The reason she was in the ensemble and not a starring role, though, was probably because she was also super tall.

  “Can’t we do something? Like help …”

  “DO I HEAR NOISE FROM THE ENSEMBLE?” Mrs. Tyndall had turned away from the people onstage and was now glaring at us. I faced forward and slunk down.

  Cheryl whispered, “In French, you’re supposed to say ensemble.” She emphasized the first two syllables: En-semb. You could barely hear the le. “Mrs. Tyndall says it like she’s mad.” Plus, she put the emphasis on the bull part at the end.

  I laughed without making any noise. After a few minutes, I pulled out my Walkman and turned it on. I figured Mrs. Tyndall wouldn’t be able to see the headphones from the stage.

  Duncan leaned forward and handed me a note.

  Boring!

  I pulled a pencil out of my backpack.

  Boring would be a compliment.

  I handed the note back to Duncan. He nodded and added another note.

  What are you listening to?

  I was listening to a recording I had made of songs from Nashville Nick’s show. I’d kept my cassette player next to the radio and managed to tape three Patsys, along with a Dolly Parton song I liked, two by Johnny Cash, and one by Willie Nelson, who, according to Nick, had actually written “Crazy” for Patsy Klein. But you’re not supposed to admit to listening to country music, not at my school.

  Some stuff I recorded off the radio, I wrote.

  I thought it was from the musical. Do you know all the songs yet?

  Duncan had nice handwriting. Most boys I knew didn’t.

  Mostly. Do you? I wrote.

  Nope. But you’re smarter than me.

  I wasn’t sure why he thought this. I didn’t usually let people see my grades, even in classes I did really well in. You’re smart, I wrote.

  If we’re so smart, why are we stuck here?

  That was a good question. I passed the note to Cheryl. Hey, Cheryl, why are we stuck here? Cheryl wrote something down and then started passing the note around. When it got back to me, there were a bunch of different answers.

  Because we are being punished. Cheryl wrote this.

  Better than doing nothing at home, wrote Hallelujah Simmons. Her handwriting was strong and clear, like her singing.

  I am Russian spy studying habits of American junior high school students! Do not blow cover. I was pretty sure this was from Andy Jenkins, who was in the ensemble but who also had a tiny role as a visiting Russian ambassador, though Andy had talked with a fake Russian accent even before he got the role. He had one line: “We have banned the Hula-Hoop because it is a sign of the emptiness of American culture.” He pushed his bangs out of his face, which swooped across the front of his head in a wave. Mrs. Tyndall had already told him that he needed to make his hair look more “traditional” for the show.

  We’re part of an experiment to see how long we can sit before our butts go numb.

  Does anyone have any gum? That was Hallelujah again.

  We’re not supposed to have gum. Lila Mahoney was kind of a goody-goody. Everything about her seemed squared off and prim, from the bangs that went straight across her washed-every-morning pale face to the light blue cardigan she wore almost every day. Even her handwriting looked like it followed the rules. Then she added, I bet the leads don’t have to wait around for us. She underlined the last two words.

  Aside from Duncan and Cheryl, I really didn’t know the kids in the ensemble, but they seemed kind of fun, even if Lila was the Gum Police.

  Are we allowed to go to the bathroom? Michael Spiers had to have written this one. Once on a field trip to the zoo, all the buses had to wait while he went to the bathroom one last time. I looked over at Michael, who was sitting with his legs crossed and looking kind of uncomfortable.

  “Michael,” I whispered. When he looked over at me, I nodded and pointed at the door. He got up and walked out. Mrs. Tyndall didn’t say anything. As long as we were quiet, she didn’t seem to notice us at all. So when he came back, I left.

  I told myself I was just going to go to the bathroom and then come back. But I decided to walk around the school first. It was different without all the other kids there. The hallways were a lot wider than I’d thought. It was super quiet. We’d left a lot of trash behind. I also noticed that the teachers’ bathroom, which was usually locked, was partway open.

  It was a lot cleaner than our bathroom. When I was washing my hands, I heard a noise behind me like a whisper right behind my ear. What was it? I jumped backward, but I didn’t see anyone.

  I jogged back to the auditorium.

  Mrs. Tyndall was talking about stage left and stage right, which is the direction according to the people onstage. Duncan passed me a note.

  Where were you?

  Bathroom.

  In another building? I must have been gone longer than I thought. Duncan wrote again: Mrs. Tyndall called for us, but we’ve been asking her questions to give you more time to get back.

  Not that she would have noticed if I was missing, I thought. Thanks for covering for me! I wrote.

  No prob.

  Mrs. Tyndall turned around to face us. “Is it clear now? The point of the song is to establish that the boys and girls of Pleasant Valley are looking for something new.”

  “They should visit Mother Russia,” said Andy. He was using his Russian accent. Maybe Mrs. Tyndall thought he really was Russian.

  “Who is Mother Russia?” asked Lila. “I don’t remember her from the cast list.”

  “It’s not a person,” said Mrs. Tyndall. “It’s a way of referring to the USSR. Sort of like how Uncle Sam means the United States.”

  “Could Mother Russia date Uncle Sam?”

  Mrs. Tyndall took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “Let’s run throug
h ‘Hoopla’ with Theodore and Brenda Sue. Ensemble: We’ll start with ‘Everything Is Still the Same’ tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow? We had spent an entire rehearsal sitting around and hadn’t even made it to the stage.

  I passed another note. In real life, side dishes get to be on the table! I wrote.

  “Brenda Sue? Theodore? Last time, from the top,” said Mrs. Tyndall.

  We listened to them sing one more time before we filed out of the auditorium. Mrs. Tyndall said we would work on singing first, and we would add the Hula-Hooping once we had it down.

  Cheryl and Lila came up to me. “What did you mean about side dishes?” said Lila.

  I explained about side dishes and main dishes. Cheryl laughed. “I only eat side dishes at Thanksgiving, so side dishes are actually my main dish,” she said. “I’m vegetarian.”

  “I’m never going to look at the ensemble the same way again,” said Lila. She started pointing at different people. “Duncan can be mac and cheese. Andy should be borscht. I’ll be mashed potatoes. With gravy.”

  I hadn’t chosen my side dish. An apple was too boring. I could say noodle kugel, but no one would know what that was. Or crispy, fried turnip cakes.

  Hector and Tara were walking together. “Here come the entrées,” said Cheryl.

  “Lauren!” Tara threw her arms around me dramatically. “That was intense!”

  “Not for the ensemble,” I pointed out. “We didn’t do anything.”

  “Not true,” said Cheryl. “We sat.”

  “Oh, trust me, you were lucky.” Tara turned to Hector. “When did Mrs. Tyndall say we have to be off book?”

  “What does off book mean?” I said. Apparently the leads had learned a secret language while I was in the bathroom.

  “It means we have to know all our lines,” said Hector. “The speaking parts.”

  I thought about Duncan and the rest of the ensemble, and how they had helped me out. Sweet and Supportive friends. True-Blue. We were all in this together, right?

  “I could help you memorize lines,” I said. “I don’t have any speaking parts.”

  “Lauren is the best,” said Tara to Hector. She hugged my arm and rested her head against it.

  “The living end,” said Hector.

  I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but it sounded like a compliment.

  “That’s me,” I said.

  Mrs. Tyndall stood on the stage and looked up at the lighting booth. “We’re done for the day,” she said. “Turn on the ghost light.” A tall light that I hadn’t noticed before came on.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  Mrs. Tyndall seemed pleased by my question. “It’s a theater tradition,” she said. “You leave a light on when you’re done for the day.”

  I wondered if they did that just for theater productions, or when we used the auditorium for things like PTA meetings and spelling bees.

  “What does the ghost part mean?” I got a cold back-of-the-neck feeling and made a mental note to tell Tara about it. Tara claimed that she had seen a ghost in the cemetery on the way home from her grandmother’s house. No one in her family believed her. I believed Tara, even though I wasn’t sure what Jewish people were supposed to think about ghosts. Wai Po once told me there was a ghost month in China.

  “Some people think theaters are haunted,” Mrs. Tyndall said. “Ghost lights keep the ghosts company so they won’t pull any tricks. Other people think that it’s a good safety device so that no one is stumbling around in the dark.”

  “What do you think?” asked Tara.

  “I think it’s a good idea not to go against theater tradition,” said Mrs. Tyndall.

  Tara and I traded an excited glance. The Royal We was definitely interested in ghosts!

  WE DECIDED TO PRACTICE AT MY house the next day. That way, Hector could hang out with my brother after we finished. He came over with his hair slicked back, instead of parted in the middle and flipped back. Also, he was wearing a navy-blue cardigan with white arms and a giant letter F above the pocket. The F was orange.

  “What’s that stand for?” I said.

  “University of Florida,” he said. “It was my uncle’s. Nobody from my family went to school in Pleasant Valley, Tennessee, or a school that begins with P.”

  “There was a war between ranchers in Arizona called the Pleasant Valley War,” said my brother, David. “There are two places in Virginia called Pleasant Valley.” David had hung out at our rehearsal, even though he didn’t have a role. Apparently this was what he spent his time thinking about.

  “Is that your costume?” I asked.

  “Nope,” Hector said. “I thought it would help me get into character.”

  David nodded. He had seen enough of Hector’s schemes to know when to go along with them. “Does that mean we have to call you Theodore now?”

  “Only outside of school,” he said. “Otherwise people would think it was weird.”

  People already thought Hector was weird, but I did not point this out.

  “Theodore and Brenda Sue become boyfriend and girlfriend during the show,” said David.

  Hector turned bright red. “It’s pretend. Not like you and a certain person.”

  Hector was thinking about Kelli Ann Majors, a girl my brother had a crush on. He’d even danced with her at his bar mitzvah, but as far as I knew, that was as far as things had gone. She had two small roles in the play, as Elvis Presley’s publicist and as one of the town moms.

  “Maybe you should carry her books,” David said. “Didn’t they do that in the fifties?”

  “Hmm,” said Hector.

  “Do you kids want a snack?” asked my dad. He was working a late shift tonight and hadn’t left yet.

  “What foods were popular in 1958?” Hector asked. “I think I should adjust my diet accordingly. At least until the play.”

  “That was the year I graduated from high school,” said my dad. “All I remember is drinking Tang and eating a lot of frozen peas.”

  Tara came in, and we went upstairs to drop off our backpacks. When we came back, my dad was showing Hector how to make a grilled peanut butter and banana sandwich. It was Elvis’s favorite food, according to my dad, so Hector deemed it appropriate to eat, even though Ricky was the one playing Elvis. Casseroles were also popular in 1958, but there wasn’t enough time to make one.

  “Back when I was eating these, I thought they tasted best with root beer,” Dad said. He opened four cans of root beer and gave them to us. He was right. The spiciness of the root beer was a nice contrast with the sweet banana and the salty peanut butter.

  “Root beer has been around since the 1800s,” David said.

  That made me think of the ghost light. “Do you think that the school theater could be haunted?” I asked.

  “No,” David said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because there’s no such thing as ghosts,” he said.

  “But not everything has a rational explanation,” said Hector.

  “The theater has a ghost light,” Tara told my dad. “They all do. They have to be there for some reason.”

  “Because they don’t want anyone to trip in the dark,” said David.

  “Have you ever heard of someone dying in the Eisenhower Junior High Theater?” I asked. Dad worked in a hospital, so it seemed like he would know.

  “Dying tragically,” said Tara.

  “Ah,” said Dad. “Sorry, I’ve got too much going on in the real world to worry about the spirit world.”

  I took another bite of sandwich. “Why haven’t you made this before?” I asked. It was way better than regular peanut butter and jelly.

  Dad shrugged. “I haven’t thought about grilled peanut butter and banana sandwiches in years—not until Hector reminded me.”

  “This is weirdly good, Mr. Horowitz,” said Tara.

  “Yeah. Thanks, Big Daddy,” Hector said. “These are gangbusters.”

  After we finished our sandwiches, we went up to my room,
where I had pictured Tara and me practicing together when I thought we might both get leads.

  In the first scene that she’s in, Brenda Sue describes why she likes Theodore to everyone in the school cafeteria. She’s supposed to be all dreamy and in love, but Tara kept laughing.

  “Can you imagine saying this in the middle of the cafeteria?” she said. “ ‘Theodore may be an egghead with an overbearing mother, but I love him.’ What teenager would say that?”

  “You have to have a motivation,” I suggested. “We’d say ‘nerd.’ ” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Hector’s face twitch. He and David were the nerd kings at our school. This year they’d been hanging out with Scott Dursky, who was on the cool side, but it hadn’t rubbed off.

  Tara read her line again. This time she let out a loud hiccup. She covered her face. She took a deep breath and made her shoulders go up and down.

  “It’s a tough line because she’s conflicted,” said Hector.

  “Let’s just skip that part for now. You just need to know the words—you don’t need to do all the emotions.” We read a few more lines. I coached her. “Then you leave the cafeteria. What’s your next line? See …”

  “See you later, Imogen. Oops. Hic. Want to get a soda after school?” Tara said Imogen with a hard g.

  Imogen was being played by Jennifer Gallagher, the other girl who had made the finals for Brenda Sue.

  “It’s a soft g. Like giraffe,” I said. “Imma-jen. Not I-mo-geen, like in green.”

  “It’s from Shakespeare,” added Hector.

  “But this. Hic. Isn’t Shakespeare.” She shouldn’t have had that root beer before practice. Tara tossed down her script. “I can’t focus with these hiccups. And Imogen’s a weird name! It sounds like that tummy medicine.”

  “Imodium?”

  “Yes! Can’t we just change it to something easier, like Jen?”

  “We can say it,” Hector pointed out.

  “Well, yeah. You guys are used to saying weird stuff!”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I wasn’t sure how Hector and I had become you guys.