Brynn nodded. “Is it that obvious?”
“No,” Rosemary replied. “It’s just that I know pretty much everybody who is into drama at this school. Mr. Saunders is going to be so psyched to have a new person in the group. He runs the club. He’s an English teacher, too. He’s so cool.”
Drew finished signing his name on the list and handed Brynn the pen. The girl sitting behind the desk smiled. “Hi, I’m Trina. I don’t think there’s much else I can tell you about the club. It seems like Drew and Rosemary completely filled you in.”
“You can tell me where you got that amazing green eyeliner,” Brynn said as she put her name on the list. “And you can tell me when the auditions are.”
“Next Monday,” Rosemary said before Trina could answer. “And the eyeliner, it’s called Poison. You can get it at your finer drug stores across the country. Right now it’s on sale at the Rite Aid on Stevenson and Dry Creek.”
Trina laughed. “True and true. I started wearing this eyeliner when I dressed up as Cleopatra for Halloween last year and never stopped.”
“I love it,” Brynn said. She put the pen down on the table. There was no one else waiting to sign up for drama.
“So, new girl? Want to go get food with us?” Drew asked. The question made Brynn’s first day of school seem like a bad dream. Something that was over and that had never really been important.
“It’s Brynn. And yes,” Brynn replied. “See you later, Trina.”
Grace and Alex were so right, Brynn thought as she followed Drew to the lunch line. All I had to do was sign up for drama, and voilà, instant friends. Who would introduce her to their friends. Who would introduce her to their friends.
“Let me give you the rundown on the food selection,” Rosemary said.
“Rosemary is the Rundown Queen,” Drew put in. “You need to know anything, I’m talking anything, ask Rosemary. She told me what kind of dog fit my personality when I got a puppy last year. She told me what kind of shampoo to use. She—”
“You’re making me sound obnoxious.” Rosemary gave the back of Drew’s neck a finger flick, then grinned at Brynn. “But I will tell you that on Wednesdays, I recommend the lasagna. And although they are available every day, I recommend always avoiding the hamburgers. Except the veggie burgers, which are tasty, unless you like the veggie burgers that try to taste like meat, which the ones they have here do not.”
“What did I tell you?” Drew asked over his shoulder. He turned to the woman behind the lunch counter. “I’ll have the lasagna.”
“He complains. But he listens to me,” Rosemary commented.
“She talks way too much. But she is often right,” Drew told Brynn.
“I guess that means I’ll have the lasagna, too,” Brynn said.
“My circle of influence widens! Yay!” Rosemary exclaimed. She got a serving of lasagna for herself and they continued through the line, then over to seats at a table behind the one where Candace and her friends were eating. “This is our table from last year,” she went on. “Unofficially, of course. There are no official tables.”
“She likes this table because it gives her a good view of anybody who’s anybody at school, which is very important to Rosemary,” a guy already sitting at the table joked.
“Eli, why oh why are you still working the faux hawk? How many times have I told you that you need a haircut that frames your face?” Rosemary asked.
“I like it,” Eli answered, running his hand over the ridge of hair in the center of his head.
“Hey, we have a new Drama League member,” Drew told Eli. “Her name is Brynn.”
“Great! We could really use some new blood,” Eli said. “Half the group from last year is in high school now.”
“More parts for us,” Drew answered.
“But if we don’t have enough people to put on a play, how can there be parts for anyone?” Rosemary complained.
“Really? There might not be enough people for a play?” Brynn exclaimed. “That’s so freaky. At my old school, we always had way too many kids who wanted to act. Every musical had a huge chorus. The stage was jammed!”
“Drama was that popular?” Eli shook his head in disbelief.
“It was one of the most popular clubs in the place,” Brynn told him.
“It’s not like that here. You want me to give you the rundown on popularity at Wilton?” Rosemary asked.
“No!” Drew and Eli said together.
“Absolutely,” Brynn answered. She knew Candace was popular. She was really curious to know why.
Rosemary shot a satisfied smirk at the boys. “Okay. First thing to know is that here at Wilton, academic excellence equals popularity. There’s huge competition over who gets the As. The academic ranks are posted the first Monday of every month on the bulletin board by the office, and there’s practically a stampede. The kids who—”
“Wait. They post your ranking where everyone can see it?” Brynn demanded, horrified. It’s not that she wasn’t a decent student. But that was just wrong.
“Not by name,” Rosemary reassured her. “Every kid is assigned a number. So nobody knows what anyone’s ranking is. At least that’s how it’s supposed to work.”
“Yeah, everyone knows who the top people are. They don’t keep it a secret,” Drew volunteered.
“So anyway, as I was saying, the brainiacs are at the top of Mount Popularity,” Rosemary continued. “That table in front of us?” She jerked to her chin at Candace’s table. “That’s where you’ll find the most popular kids in school.”
“I actually know one of them,” Brynn said. “I go to summer camp with Candace.”
“You know Candace?” Drew asked, leaning forward.
“Why aren’t you eating over there?” Eli asked.
Brynn felt her face get hot. Why wasn’t she eating with the one person she actually knew at this school? Answer—because the one person hadn’t asked her.
“Eli!” Rosemary exclaimed.
“What? I didn’t mean it in a bad way,” Eli protested.
“I guess…I don’t know. Maybe sometimes camp friends are just friends at camp,” Brynn explained.
“Let’s talk about something really important,” Rosemary said. “How are we going to get more people to sign up for drama? We have to get enough to put on the play, at least.”
“Maybe you could talk your friend Candace into joining,” Drew suggested. “If she joined, a lot of other people would, too.”
“Great idea. Will you do it, Brynn?” Eli asked.
How could she say no to the first friend-type people she’d met at Wilton? “Sure, I guess,” Brynn answered.
Eli and Drew stared at her.
“You guys, she doesn’t have to do it now,” Rosemary said. “Let her eat.”
“No, it’s okay.” Brynn stood up. She sucked in a deep breath and walked the few steps it took to get over to Candace’s table.
“Candace, can I ask you a question?” Brynn said. Everyone stopped talking and looked at her.
“Sure,” Candace said. “You know everyone, right?”
Brynn shook her head, and Candace did quick intros around the table.
“So what’s the question?” Rowan, the tall girl from the bathroom yesterday, asked.
Actually, my question was for my friend Candace, Brynn felt like saying. But she wasn’t even sure Candace was her friend. A real friend asked you to sit at their table.
“I wanted to see if you’d be interested in signing up for drama, Candace,” Brynn said. “I just joined.”
“Drama, huh?” Joshua, the cute blond boy sitting next to Candace, frowned. “Why not sign up for something like debate if you like being in front of people? I’m on the debate team.”
“Debate is good if you like to perform,” Candace chimed in.
“It’s not just performing that I like. I also like having the chance to be other people. It’s so much fun!” Brynn explained. “I’m sure debate is cool and everything, but it’s not l
ike you get to live another life the way you do when you’re acting.”
“Maybe. But you can’t choose a club just for fun,” Samantha said. “Well, you can. But it’s better to think ahead. It’s really important what kind of extracurricular activities you put on your college application.”
“My older brother is always talking about how extracurricular activities are important for your application,” Candace agreed.
“Yeah,” Allen, a boy with dark, intense eyes, said. “Stuff from middle school doesn’t go on your app, but it helps if you get started in the right groups now. I signed up for the science club this year. Statistically, ninety-three percent of the regional science fair winners were members of their school’s science club.”
Whoa, Brynn thought. Rosemary was right. This really is the brainiac table. All they seem to care about are grades and school and college.
It wasn’t as if Brynn didn’t care about those things. She did. But she also cared about acting. It was the best, most fun, most exciting thing she’d ever done.
“So, I guess that’s a no to joining drama?” she asked Candace.
Candace nodded, and Brynn walked back to her table.
“From your face, I’m guessing the answer is no,” Rosemary said.
“Candace and her friends seemed more into the academic-type clubs,” Brynn answered.
“Like what? Did Candace say?” Drew asked in a rush.
Brynn shook her head. “She said her older brother told her that extracurricular activities are really important for college. They were all talking about college like it isn’t a billion years away,” Brynn told them. “But she didn’t say what she was signing up for.”
“What about at camp?” Drew pressed. “What was she into at camp?”
“You like her!” Rosemary burst out. “How did I miss that? It’s so obvious. You totally like Candace!”
“Say it louder, why don’t you? And the answer is no. I’m just trying to get some more members for drama,” Drew muttered, the tips of his ears turning red.
“Oh, right. You’re going to gather intel on every potential club member—find out what they did over their summer vacation, what other clubs they are thinking of joining, favorite foods, the color of underwear they like. Then what? Create a personalized recruitment plan to get them into drama?” Rosemary joked.
“You have a better plan?” Drew asked, his eyes locked on the piece of lasagna on his plate. “We have to do something. We barely have enough people to put on a show.”
Rosemary turned to Brynn. “Isn’t that cute? He’s trying to change the subject. He’s not going to admit that he liiiikes her.”
He does, Brynn thought. It’s so obvious. She studied his face, trying to memorize his expression. She could use it if she ever had to play somebody who was in liiiike and being teased about it.
“Do we need to be talking about this?” Drew protested. “Or do we need to be figuring out how to get enough people in the Drama League to actually put on some plays?”
“Too bad we can’t afford a commercial,” Brynn commented.
Drew snorted. “Like anyone at this school has time to watch TV. Too much homework.”
“What if it wasn’t on TV?” Brynn asked. “What if we could do a commercial live, right here in the cafeteria?”
“All I can say is ‘huh?’” Drew replied.
“I get it. And it’s a great idea!” Rosemary cried. “We can do a skit that will show everybody how much fun acting is.”
“Exactly!” Brynn answered. She and Rosemary were already starting to do the friend mind-reading thing, and they’d only known each other for about half an hour. That was super cool.
“Come on!” Rosemary jumped to her feet. “We have to go find Mr. Saunders and get permission.” She grinned at Brynn. “I’m so glad you ended up at our school this year!”
At least somebody is, Brynn thought, shooting a look over at Candace.
Candace stared at the board as Mr. Merrill wrote the next algebra problem. Concentrate, she told herself. That was one of her problems. At least that’s what Patrick, her tutor, had told her last year. She didn’t concentrate.
And he was right. It was true. But it was just because after a point she didn’t understand anything. Not a word coming out of the teacher’s mouth. Not a page of her textbook. When she got to that point, her head just refused to stay in numbers mode. She started thinking about books she’d read, or her favorite TV show, or how she might want to rearrange the furniture in her bedroom. Sometimes she even started homework for other classes in her head. She’d be mentally writing a book report for English while her math teacher made those incomprehensible noises at the front of the class.
But that was last year, she told herself. This was a new class. With a new teacher. She had a clean slate. She hadn’t taken a single test or quiz yet. At this point, she could be an A student.
She needed to get an A in this class. This year, Candace wanted all As, a perfect, pretty row of them to show her parents. She wanted to prove that Max wasn’t the only one who could pull it off. Candace was sure she could make that happen in all her other subjects. But math…
You just have to concentrate, she told herself again. Then she realized everyone was staring at her.
“What do you say? Want to give it a shot, Candace?” Mr. Merrill asked.
Candace was positive he’d already asked her the question once, and she hadn’t even noticed him calling her name. At least he wasn’t one of those teachers who got all sarcastic or impatient. He was just standing there, holding out a piece of chalk, like he had all the time in the world.
“Okay. Sure. I want to give it a shot,” Candace answered quickly. She couldn’t believe that she’d gotten so stressed about needing to concentrate that her brain had basically shut down.
Great day two, she thought as she hurried up to Mr. Merrill, took the chalk, then positioned herself in front of the board. She sucked in a deep breath and studied the problem. Her stomach began to tighten into a ball.
“The first thing you want to do is get all the Xs on one side of the equation,” Mr. Merrill coached.
“Get all the Xs on one side of the equation,” Candace muttered. She hated it when she did that. She was always repeating things. It was because her parents made her go to a weekend class on good study habits once. The instructors had the kids repeat all the study tips over and over again to memorize them. The class only lasted two days, but Candace had never gotten out of the habit. And it got worse when she was nervous.
“Get all the Xs on one side,” she said. D’oh. She just did it again!
Don’t think about that, she ordered herself. You have to concentrate.
“Would anybody like to come up and give Candace a hand?” Mr. Merrill asked.
She’d blown it. She’d taken so long that Mr. Merrill had decided she couldn’t do the problem.
“First we should subtract X from both sides,” someone said softly from behind Candace.
Candace looked over her shoulder and saw Brynn standing there.
“That’s a good place to start,” Mr. Merrill agreed.
Brynn gave Candace an encouraging smile. “You can begin with this side,” she coached, pointing.
Candace automatically did what Brynn said. But she was so surprised that she wasn’t even paying any attention to the problem. Brynn is good at math? Candace thought. At camp, all she cared about was drama. Is she smart, too? That’s so weird.
Gaby stood in front of the Home Away From Home center, waiting for “her” girls to arrive. She’d already told Ms. Jeunet that she’d recruited two friends, and that she knew they would be a great addition to the team. Ms. Jeunet had sounded impressed that Gaby had taken the initiative.
Being nice isn’t so hard, Gaby thought. I don’t know why everyone makes such a big deal about it. She checked her watch. The orientation for new volunteers started in ten minutes. She really hoped Val and Chelsea weren’t going to show up late. That wou
ld be so uncool. It would make Gaby look bad if her people didn’t bother to arrive to the Home on time.
She was pulled away from her thoughts by footsteps running toward her. She turned toward the sound and saw Val dashing up the walkway, her dozens of braids flying around her face.
“Sorry, sorry, and again sorry! I know we said we’d meet up at quarter of. I had to transfer buses to get here, and the second one didn’t show up forever,” Val said, breathless. “Where’s Chelsea?”
“She’s not here yet,” Gaby replied. “She’s probably still in front of her mirror, making sure her eye shadow goes with her shirt. Oh. Oops. Shouldn’t have said that. Sometimes the not-nice stuff just slips out.”
“Yeah, sometimes I’m amazed at what I hear coming out of my own mouth,” Val answered.
“If Chelsea’s not here when the orientation starts, we’re going in without her,” Gaby decreed.
Two little kids ran around the corner of the building and stopped in front of Gaby and Val. “You’re new! What are your names?” a red-haired girl of about seven asked. “And who’s sick in your families? My big sister is the sick one. My brother’s okay.” She jerked her thumb toward a boy with red hair who looked the same age as his sister. “He’s Samuel. I’m Emma.”
Gaby smiled, feeling very saintly. “I’m Gaby and this is Valerie,” she said. “We don’t have any sick people in our families. We’re here to help you.”
“We’re new volunteers,” Valerie added.
“You have any candy?” Samuel asked.
“He’s not allowed any more candy for the day,” Emma said.
Samuel socked her in the arm, then ran. Emma chased after him.
“Those were two cute kids,” Valerie said.
Gaby checked her watch. “We have less than a minute.”
“We don’t want to miss any of it. Maybe we could leave Chelsea a note on the door that says we’re inside or—” Val stopped in mid-sentence. “Never mind. There she is.”
Unlike Val, Chelsea didn’t bother rushing over. She strolled over. And when she reached Val and Gaby, she didn’t bother apologizing. Chelsea is really the one who needs to work on her niceness levels, Gaby thought.
Freaky Tuesday #17 Page 3