Lights, Action, Land-Ho!

by Judy Delton

Tap, tap, tap, she tried with her toe. But the sound it made was thud, thud, thud. Who ever heard of thud dancing? No, she needed shoes. Black patent leather shoes with bows you tie in the middle. With metal plates on the bottom. Putting your best foot forward was not easy. Molly sighed.

  She remembered seeing a shoe catalog from Hanson’s shoe store in her mother’s room. She ran and got it.

  “Supper’s almost ready,” called her mother.

  Molly didn’t want to eat. She wanted to dance!

  In the catalog were lots of shoes. And slippers. And even rain boots. There was only one pair of tap shoes, on page 32. They were just what she wanted! Black and shiny! With a perky bow that tied in the middle! And big heavy taps on the heel and toe of each shoe.

  Molly was all ready to call the store and order them. Then she noticed the price. $19.95. She shook her bank, which stood on her dresser. She emptied it out. When she added all the money up, it came to two dollars and forty-three cents.

  She couldn’t get a job—there wasn’t time.

  She couldn’t ask her mother—it wasn’t her birthday or Christmas. And $19.95 was too much for a no-occasion gift. After all, tap shoes were not practical. She couldn’t wear them to school. She couldn’t even wear them to church!

  Molly would just have to find another way. And fast.

  The next day after school, Mary Beth said, “I’m going to be a fairy princess in the movie.”

  “You have to do something, you can’t just wear the costume,” said Molly. Now she realized she would not only have to tap-dance better than Rachel, she’d have to be better than a fairy princess.

  “I’m going to sing,” said Mary Beth. “I’ll be a fairy princess that sings.”

  The girls walked by Sonny’s house. Sonny was on his front porch. Of all things, he was playing his old violin. Screech, screech, screech.

  “Hey,” called Mary Beth. “I thought you hated that thing. You didn’t want to play it in the talent show last year.”

  Sonny played a very sour note.

  “I’m going to be in that movie,” he said as he ran the bow across the strings with a squealing noise.

  The girls put their hands over their ears.

  “Well, Sonny won’t be any competition for us!” said Mary Beth.

  “I’m going to tap-dance,” said Molly as they walked on. “But don’t tell anyone.”

  Mary Beth stopped. “Rachel tap-dances,” she said. “Very well.”

  “I’m going to be better,” said Molly crossly. “But I need tap shoes and I haven’t got any money.”

  Mary Beth thought about that. She would have to help Molly. Her own talent was no problem. She already had the dress. And it didn’t cost anything to sing. Singing was free. All she had to do was open her mouth. Why didn’t Molly choose something that didn’t cost so much?

  “Garage sales?” she asked Molly.

  Molly shook her head. “They cost money too,” she said.

  The girls walked and thought some more.

  Suddenly Mary Beth snapped her fingers.

  “I’ve got it!” she said. “Leave it to me. I know how we can get tap shoes for you!”

  Molly was glad she had confided in her friend. A problem always felt better when you shared it.

  But Mary Beth had not said where. She had said how.

  Was how to get shoes as good as where? She’d know soon.

  CHAPTER 3

  Push Back Down

  “I have to see your shoes,” said Mary Beth. “Let’s go look in your closet.”

  The girls ran to Molly’s house. Molly threw open her closet door. Mary Beth took all the shoes out and lined them up on the floor.

  “There are no tap shoes,” said Molly. “I told you that.”

  “These are what I was looking for,” said Mary Beth, holding up a pair of white Mary Janes.

  “Those are white!” said Molly. “And they aren’t patent leather. And besides, they’re too small.”

  “Try them on,” ordered Mary Beth.

  Molly could just get them on, but they pinched her toes.

  “They look fine,” said Mary Beth. “We’ll just paint them black and tie a bow where the buckle is!”

  Molly looked doubtful. “They still won’t tap,” she said.

  Mary Beth frowned.

  “Unless …” said Molly. “We could glue taps on the bottom!”

  “Of course,” said Mary Beth. “That’s what I thought. Where can we get taps?”

  “I don’t know where taps come from,” said Molly. “But they are made out of metal, you know, like spoons or half-dollars or pie pans.”

  Mary Beth was thoughtful.

  Then she said, “I think it’s illegal to use U.S. currency. And spoons are too small.”

  “Pie pans!” said Molly. “My mom has lots of extra pie pans!”

  The girls dashed to the kitchen.

  “Can I borrow some pie pans?” asked Molly politely.

  “What for?” asked Mrs. Duff, who was studying her cookbook.

  Molly paused. “For a surprise,” she said.

  Being the star of the movie would be a surprise for her mother, thought Molly. It was no lie.

  “Sure,” said Mrs. Duff, waving her hand toward the cupboard. “There are plenty of them in there.”

  Molly took two of the pie pans. She and Mary Beth ran down the basement steps and looked on the workbench shelf for some black paint.

  “Here is some!” said Molly. She took the can and the little brush beside it.

  “We need some strong glue,” said Mary Beth.

  Molly found some in the drawer.

  HOUSEHOLD CEMENT, it said on the tube. HOLDS ONE THOUSAND POUNDS. BONDS ANY HOUSEHOLD ITEM EXCEPT CLOTH.

  “We aren’t gluing cloth,” said Molly.

  The girls ran upstairs to Molly’s room. Molly put down some old notebook paper so that they wouldn’t drip paint on the floor.

  “Oooh, this is good!” said Mary Beth when Molly had painted the first shoe. “It’s just right.”

  Molly looked at the black shoe. It didn’t shine. But it was definitely black. She painted the other one.

  “Have you got any hair ribbons?” asked Mary Beth.

  Molly opened her dresser drawer.

  “Not black,” she said. “I don’t have any black clothes.”

  “Let’s use these,” said Mary Beth. She held up some pink ones. “We can paint them black.”

  Mary Beth tied the pink ribbons on the black shoes.

  Then Molly painted them black.

  “They kind of droop,” said Molly.

  “That’s because they are wet,” said her friend. “They’ll be okay when they dry.”

  The girls put the cover on the paint. Then they waited for the paint to dry. Molly blew on the shoes to make them dry faster like her mother blew on her fingernails when she polished them.

  “Now for the important part,” said Molly. “We have to glue the taps on.”

  “The pie pans look a little big,” said Mary Beth.

  Molly set one shoe in the pie pan.

  Mary Beth was right. The pan was way bigger than a regular tap.

  “That’s okay,” said Mary Beth. “Most tap shoes have a little tiny tap on the toe, and a little tiny one on the heel! These will be much better, because they’ll have metal on the bottom of the whole shoe! It will sound much better than other tap shoes,” she added. “Better than Rachel’s.”

  What Mary Beth said surely made sense. The more metal on tap shoes the better. The more tapping noise the shoes made the better.

  “Squeeze out the glue!” said Mary Beth.

  Molly did. She squeezed lots and lots of household cement onto the pie pans. Then she set each shoe in the puddle of glue.

  “I don’t like the way the pan shows around the shoes,” said Molly.

  “Pooh,” said Mary Beth, waving her fear away. “When you are dancing, you won’t notice that. You’ll just see the silver sparkle.”

&nbs
p; “Let’s practice together,” said Mary Beth. “You need music, and I’m going to sing.”

  “These have to dry overnight,” said Molly.

  “Tomorrow after school,” said Mary Beth.

  When Molly woke up in the morning, the black paint was dry.

  The glue was hard. The taps stayed on the shoes. She put them in a bag to take to Mary Beth’s after school. She put her library book in the bag too. What would she wear to dance? Rachel had tights and little costumes. Molly looked in her closet. The closest thing she saw was some pajama bottoms. She’d take those. And she’d wear a blouse on top. Molly stuffed it all into a bag.

  “I’m going over to Mary Beth’s after school,” she called to her mother on her way out the door.

  “Be home for supper,” called her mother.

  At school all the Pee Wees were talking about being movie stars.

  “I can play the violin really good now,” said Sonny to Molly.

  Roger heard it and snickered. “Ho ho ho,” he said. “I’ll bet.”

  Sonny stuck his tongue out at Roger.

  Kevin was still quoting Shakespeare.

  Roger had a magic set in his desk.

  Lisa and Tracy and Patty said they were going to juggle plates in the movie.

  Rachel was tap-tap-tapping her toes under her desk. Even with her school shoes on it sounded good.

  At three o’clock Molly took her bag and went home with Mary Beth. Mary Beth had lots of little brothers and sisters.

  “We’ll go out in the garage,” she said. “There’s a cement floor to tap on and we’ll be all alone.”

  When they got there, Mary Beth put on her fairy princess costume and began to sing “America the Beautiful.” Molly sat down on an old box and opened up her dance book.

  “Anyone can learn to tap-dance,” she read. “If you can tap your toes to music, or drum your fingers, you can dance,”

  Molly felt encouraged. She put on her tap shoes. They felt tight.

  “Take off your socks,” said Mary Beth.

  Molly did. That felt better.

  Mary Beth began to sing again.

  Molly turned to lesson one. The warm-up.

  “Shake your leg,” it demanded. “Like a rag doll.”

  “Then shake the other one.”

  Molly did. “This is simple,” she said.

  “That’s enough warm-up,” said Mary Beth.

  Molly turned to lesson two. “Stamp your foot so that your heel and toe hit the floor together.”

  Bang, bang, bang, went Molly. Then she did it with the other foot. Bang, bang, bang.

  “I don’t know why Rachel needed all those lessons,” said Mary Beth. “There’s nothing to it.”

  Next, the book told Molly to clap her hands and stamp her foot.

  Clap, stomp. Clap stomp. Clap stomp. Mary Beth sang and Molly clapped and stomped all over the garage floor in her pie pans.

  “You should skip some lessons,” said Mary Beth, “because you’re so good.”

  Molly did. She went right to ball change.

  She did what the book said, but she couldn’t lift her foot at the same time the other foot tapped. The two pie pans caught on each other and Molly fell to the floor.

  “I think I’ll skip that lesson,” said Molly. “I don’t think Rachel did that one.”

  The next lesson was the shuffle step.

  Push, back, down. Push, back, down.

  The pie pans banged into each other again.

  Molly reached down and tried to turn the pie pans up on the sides of her shoes. They didn’t want to bend. Rat’s knees. She and Mary Beth both pushed and pulled. Finally they turned up a little.

  Push, back, down. Push back down.

  “I can do it!” shouted Molly.

  “You look good!” said Mary Beth to her friend. “That’s a great step!”

  But the next lesson was trouble.

  “I can’t do a heel drop,” cried Molly, “because my heel and toe are all in one. My shoe can’t bend.”

  “Skip it,” said Mary Beth. “You don’t have to do every step. No one will know the difference.”

  Molly looked doubtful. But maybe Mary Beth was right.

  Push back down, went Molly. Push back down.

  “That’s your best step!” said Mary Beth.

  She broke into a round of “The Itsy-bitsy Spider.”

  Push back down. Push back down.

  “We’re a team!” cried Mary Beth. “We can do our things together!”

  Molly sat down on the box. She was hot and tired. Her toes were pinched. Her pajama bottoms were dragging. And all she could do was one dance step.

  Would they be a team? Would Mary Beth sing better than she could dance?

  Would Rachel dance better than she could dance?

  And if there was a badge for being in this movie, would she be able to get one?

  CHAPTER 4

  Columbus the Pirate

  On Tuesday the Pee Wees dashed to their meeting after school.

  “I hope we find out more about the movie,” said Sonny. “I don’t want to be playing this old violin for nothing,”

  “I don’t mind tap dancing,” said Rachel. “I do it anyway. It isn’t any extra work to do it in the movie.”

  It was extra work for Molly. A lot of extra work.

  If Mrs. Peters told them the movie was off, Molly wasn’t sure she’d mind. But if it was on, she still wanted to be the star.

  Mrs. Peters had colored paper in her hand. She waved it over her head.

  “We all know what day is coming,” she said.

  “Movie day!” shouted Roger.

  Mrs. Peters laughed. “And also Columbus Day! We are going to make boats today!”

  Everyone groaned. They wanted to hear about the movie.

  “I don’t know much more about the movie yet,” said their leader. “Those movie producers work slowly. I do know some of you will be in it. And I think it is about Christopher Columbus. It will come out on Columbus Day next year. To celebrate his anniversary. And the other thing I know is that there will be a badge for the people who are in it.”

  “An acting badge, Mrs. Peters?” asked Tim.

  “Columbus?” shouted Roger. “How can we juggle plates in a Columbus movie?”

  “Yes, an acting badge,” said Mrs. Peters.

  “Did Columbus play the violin?” cried Sonny.

  “They didn’t even have violins then, dummy,” said Roger.

  “I can sing a Columbus song in the movie,” Mary Beth whispered to Molly. “And you can wear a Columbus costume when you dance.”

  “I have a perfect hornpipe costume,” said Rachel. “I’ll dance my sailor dance. Columbus was a sailor, so I’m all ready.”

  Molly felt the urge to choke Rachel. She was always so smug. She always had the right thing at the right time. Molly wondered if she hated her. Hate was bad. But who could like a perfect person? Especially a perfect person who bragged?

  The Pee Wees sang their song.

  They said their pledge.

  They told their good deeds.

  They had chocolate cookies with M&Ms in them.

  And then they settled down to make boat pictures.

  Mrs. Peters showed them the picture she had made.

  The three boats she had cut out and pasted onto the paper were in a straight line. They were on a wavy blue sea. Their sails were puffy.

  Molly couldn’t get her sails puffy. She couldn’t get her waves to splash. They seemed to go backward.

  “Look at Sonny’s!” whispered Lisa. “He’s got paste all over the paper.”

  Sonny’s boats were full of paste. They were not in a line. They looked like they were sinking headfirst into the sea.

  “Hey, man overboard!” shouted Roger when he saw it.

  When everyone was through, Mrs. Peters held up Rachel’s boats.

  They were perfect. Her waves were drawn right. Her paste did not show. And her sails puffed out farther than anyon
e’s.

  “I did a little extra, Mrs. Peters,” said Rachel. “I put some sailors on the deck. You know, Columbus had a crew of men on each boat.”

  Sure enough, there were sailors on Rachel’s boats. And letters on the boats saying their names.

  Niña, Pinta, Santa Maria. Even Mrs. Peters didn’t have the names on her boats. And she didn’t have any sailors.

  “Good for you, Rachel. It is always nice to add something creative to a picture, isn’t it, Scouts?” said Mrs. Peters.

  No one answered. They all wished that their leader had held up their pictures instead of Rachel’s.

  “I can’t wait for the movie men to come,” said Patty to Mary Beth.

  “We can’t either,” said Mary Beth. “Molly and I have a team act. You should come and see it.”

  “I’ll come and see it,” said Rachel.

  “Come over to my garage after school tomorrow,” said Mary Beth. “Molly really is good.”

  “Okay,” said Rachel. Some of the others said they would come too.

  “Why did you say that?” asked Molly crossly. “I don’t want Rachel to steal my dance.”

  There were other reasons Molly didn’t want to dance for the Pee Wees. She had a feeling they might laugh at her pie pans. She knew the movie men would think it was a good idea, but the Pee Wees weren’t that smart. They might think it was a dumb idea.

  When the meeting was over, the Pee Wees cleaned up and washed the paste off their hands.

  “See you next week!” called Mrs. Peters. “By that time I’ll have heard from the producers. Just get ready to be in the movies!”

  “We are, Mrs. Peters,” said Rachel.

  On the way home, Molly said, “What can I wear to dance in? I can’t be a sailor, Rachel’s going to be a sailor!”

  “You could be a pirate,” said Kenny.

  “Columbus wasn’t a pirate,” said Molly.

  “But he might have had pirates on his ships,” said Kevin.

  Kevin was smart. And Molly liked him. She wanted to marry Kevin someday. If he said there were pirates on Columbus’s ships, there probably were.

  “You could wear one of those patches over your eye and carry a sword,” Kevin went on.

  “I guess I could,” said Molly.

  Molly felt a little better when she got home. A pirate costume would be easy to make. She could just tie a rope around each pajama leg.