by H. N. Kowitt
Literally, I thought.
I went over to the wings, and peeked out onstage. A skateboarder was flying down a ramp, while a graffiti art slideshow flickered on the wall behind him. Now that Skye and Chantal had energized the audience, they were hooting and clapping for everyone.
I felt a tug on my shirt.
“I did it!” said Asia. “Did you hear my speech?”
“Oh, no! I forgot!” It must have been while I was talking to Jasper and Axl backstage!
“It went fine. Seeing you up there made me less nervous,” she said.
“Yeah?” I was afraid to hear more. I didn’t want to think about her being in the audience.
“You’re not a very good rapper,” Asia said matter-of-factly. “But you didn’t let that stop you.”
Ouch.
“Instead, you got a whole roomful of people singing about global warming. So cool! Besides …” she leaned in. “I heard what everyone said about Ty at rehearsal. You did him a big favor going on in his place.”
Now I felt uncomfortable. It was one thing to get props for being willing to look stupid just to keep the show going. It was another to accept credit for being such a good friend to Ty.
“You know, Asia,” I said in a low voice. “I wasn’t so great to Ty. I got him to rap in the show because it was the one thing he wasn’t good at. I wanted everyone to see that.”
Asia’s mouth was open. But I had to keep going.
“When we got to rehearsal, I knew I’d messed up. I felt so bad, I ended up doing the rap myself. So …” I looked at the floor. “Now you know.”
Asia fell silent. “I’m surprised, Danny.”
More waves of shame. I didn’t tell her what had really turned me against Ty in the first place: that he seemed like the kind of guy that she would like. Once that thought took hold, pretty much anything Ty did was wrong.
“I’m really sorry.” The words hung there for a moment. As they echoed in my brain, I realized I had to say them to someone else.
“Excuse me, Asia.” I pointed across the room. “I’ve got to —”
“Bye, Danny.” She hesitated, then added, “Thanks for telling me what happened. At least you tried to make it right in the end.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But I still have more to do.”
Up onstage, T-Bone Farrell was spinning on his head.
I slipped off to the “Green Room,” where I found Ty in a group gathered around Skye. When Skye saw me, he slapped me on the back. “Great rap, kid.”
“Tell him that,” I pointed to Ty. “He wrote it.”
“You did?” Skye turned and offered his hand for a fist-bump. “It’s awesome.”
“Thanks.” Ty bumped him back, half-smiling.
Skye looked at the other kids. “I hope you guys really listened to the lyrics. Global warming is no joke.” Then Skye turned to me. “And you … um, you were brave to get out there.”
“Hey, Danny,” Pinky Shroeder called out with a snicker. “Don’t quit your day job!”
My face felt hot. I was getting tired of the “ha-ha-weren’t-you-terrible” remarks.
“Dude, no one expects you to be a great rapper,” Skye said, and then he turned to Ty. “Or you, either. How could you be? Getting good at something takes practice. You think I was born knowing how to do a one-handed Superman wheelie? I practice stunts every day, for hours.”
“Danny’s been busy drawing.” Emma pointed to the Green-a-palooza poster on the wall.
“You did this?” Skye turned to look at the poster. “It rocks!”
In spite of everything, I was pleased that Skye liked my work.
“Hey, Skye!”
“SKYE!”
The cyclist went off to greet more fans. Ty and I were left staring at each other awkwardly. This was my moment to say something, but I didn’t know where to start.
“Hey, Ty,” I began.
“Hey,” he mumbled.
“I’m sorry about … you know.” I looked at the floor. “I don’t know why it happened. You were just so, you know, perfect all the time.”
What was I — a girl?
“Perfect?!” He laughed bitterly. “Hah!”
“Well, you are,” I said.
“Hardly.” He lifted his chin. “You’re an artist. You drew ‘I Was a Preteen Cyclops.’ You directed the talent show. And you know tons of people.”
Sort of true, I realized. Chantal, Axl, Asia, the lunch table girls, tech nerds. It was a strange mix, but they added up.
“You save wounded animals,” I accused him. “You play soccer and Frisbee, and put on Green-a-palooza, and had a skateboard recycling drive —”
“How’d you know that?” He looked puzzled.
Oops. The skateboard recycling was at his old school — Jasper learned that when he tried to dig up dirt on him. “Um — never mind,” I said. “The point is — you built a solar oven to bake pizza and you …”
We looked at each other and laughed.
“Listen to us.” I shook my head, embarrassed.
“I never meant to broadcast that stuff,” Ty said. “Being new and all, maybe I … tried too hard.”
We both looked at the floor.
Why had Ty bugged me so much? Somehow he’d become the focus of all our frustrations. All I could see were Ty’s successes, everywhere.
My jealousy had really messed me up. Even if Ty hadn’t turned out to be a nice guy, why had I done something like that to anyone?
“I’m sorry about everything,” I continued. “I’d take it back if I could. Maybe we could just … start over?”
Ty nodded. “Yeah.”
We were both quiet.
“C’mon,” I said. “Let’s go watch the rest of the show.”
“Odel-Ay, Odel-Ay, Odel-Ay-EEEE-Oooo.”
Dr. Kulbarsh was yodeling his head off. Just the sight of him in lederhosen and a cap was astonishing enough. Everyone stared, amazed.
“And the lonely goatherd sang ‘Odel-ay, odel-ay, odel-ay, odel-ay eeee-Oooo!’”
Ralph the emcee held up his hands and clapped. “When Dr. Kulbarsh took the stage,” he confided to the audience, “I thought, ‘Not another yodeling principal!’ But this guy’s good!”
Ty and I laughed. The energy level of the show kept rising, as we watched the rowdy audience cheer and scream for every act — from the snake whisperer, to the soccer ball bouncer, to the water-glass rock star. When Chantal came on, she took the show up three more notches.
“Gerald Ford Middle School!” she yelled. “Make some NOISE!”
Her dancers lifted her up so she floated like a balloon in the Macy’s parade. Just when the excitement couldn’t get any higher …
Skye Blue burst onstage.
He did a wheelie, then he rotated the bike 360 degrees. Our jaws dropped as he dazzled us with one trick after another after another.
Jasper came up behind me and Ty, and we all gawked together.
Skye Blue ended in a spin. With the audience still gasping, he got off his bike and took the mike.
“This school ROCKS!” Skye yelled. “This playground project is so cool, I’m going to kick in 2,500 dollars. Plus, I want all the kids at Gerald Ford AND P.S. 160 to be my guests for a day at Big Kahuna Water Park!”
“YAY!!!!” The audience roared.
Jasper and I looked at each other, astonished. Big Kahuna Water Park! That was our dream. How did Skye know …?
“I told him your original idea,” said Ty.
“The Twisted Tunnel of Terror!” Jasper high-fived me.
“Honolulu Hurricane!” I fived back.
We rushed onstage with the rest of the cast, crew, and maybe half the audience to sing the rap again. Ty came too.
And you know what? He wasn’t all that bad. This time, maybe he was less nervous. Not that anyone noticed — we were too busy screaming at the top of our lungs:
“I’m mean, I’m green …”
No words ever sounded better to me.
H
.N. KOWITT has written more than forty books for younger readers, including The Loser List, Dracula’s Decomposition Book, This Book is a Joke, and The Sweetheart Deal. She lives in New York City, where she enjoys cycling, flea markets, and gardening on her fire escape. You can find her online at www.kowittbooks.com.
Text copyright © 2012 by Holly Kowitt
Illustrations copyright © 2012 by Scholastic Inc.
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
First printing, May 2012
Cover art by Holly Kowitt
Cover design by Lillie Howard and Whitney Lyle
e-ISBN: 978-0-545-50236-8
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