My Homework Ate My Homework (13 page)

“Looks like she’s still mad at you,” Wain says.

“Maybe I should help her. She helped me with my math.”

“That would be nice of you.”

“Yeah,” I say, but do I want to be nice to the girl who cheated me out of fame and glory?

“There are no small roles …”

“I know, Father.” I don’t need to hear the rest.

“Play the role like your life depends on it,” he says, sweeping his arm dramatically.

“Her life definitely does not depend on this role,” Mother says. “It’s just a play.”

My mouth falls open. Father’s, too.
“Just a play?”
we say in unison.

“Madame, the theater is in our very
blood
!” Father says.

“Bluh!” Abby says.

Father and I laugh. Mother does not.

“Bluh! Bluh!” Abby chants.

Whenever we laugh at something she says, she repeats it over and over until everybody’s sick to death of it. She has a lot to learn about comedy. Just because something gets a laugh once, doesn’t mean it will again. In fact, usually it won’t, unless you change it somehow.

“Lovely dinner conversation,” Mother says.

“But she’s right,” I say. “It’s in our blood.”

“Bluh!” Abby says.

“That’s enough, Abby,” Mother says. “Eat your peas.”

“Blecch,” I say.

“Bluh!” Abby says. “Bluh! Bluh! Bluh!”

Mother glares at me as she shovels peas into my sister’s laughing mouth.

“So why do you think Josh cast Eden as Calam, Father?”

“Can she act?”

“No. She’s terrible. But she did do a pretty good job reading a poem during her audition. And she doesn’t sing too badly.”

“He must see something in her. Raw talent. Charisma.”

“Bluh!” Abby says.

“Ignore her,” I say. “That’s the only way she’ll stop.”

“Maybe Josh gave her the role to draw her out of her shell,” Mother says. “To give her confidence.”

“Bluh!”

“Abalina doesn’t have a confidence problem,” Father says.

“Giving her the starring role is more than drawing her out of her shell,” I say. “It’s more like tugging her out of it and plopping her onstage for nearly every scene and making her sing and cry and yell.”

“Poor little turtle,” Father says.

“Bluh! Bluh!”

“Eden’s Asian, you know,” I say.

“So?” Mother says, squinting at me like I said something wrong.

“So Calamity wasn’t.”

“So Eden can’t play Calamity Jane because she’s Asian?”

“I once played a worm,” Father says. “And you played a marshmallow, Zaritza. Remember?”

“Bluh!” Abby says.

“Eden got real mad at me when I said she was Asian,” I say, looking at my lap, trying to convey real regret and shame. It’s not entirely faux.

“What exactly did you say, Zaritza?” Mother asks like a cop interrogating a criminal. Now she’s mad, too. Boy, this is a touchy subject.

“All I said was that she was Asian and who ever heard of an Asian cowgirl.” It does sound mean all of a sudden. Why do things sound so much wronger when you say them around your parents?

“Oh, Zaritza,” Mother says, shaking her head.

“Zuzza!” Abby says. At least she’s off “Bluh!”

I look to my father for help, but he just looks at his plate. Even he’s disappointed in me. Oh, this is horrible! I hate Father’s disappointment more than I hate Mother’s worst scolding.

“You apologized to her, right?” Mother says.

“Um …”

“Immediately after dinner you are to call her and say you’re sorry. Understood?”

Now she sounds like Josh.

“Understood,” I say.

“You know, Zee,” Father says, looking up from
his napkin, “even if you didn’t mean to be mean … well … it was mean.”

Did I mean to be mean? Am I mean person? Am I bad?

I feel bad.

“And after she helped you with your math!” Mother says, rubbing it in.

“You know what you might do?” Father says.

“Yes. I’ll call her and tell her I’m sorry, then, if she hasn’t already hung up on me, I’ll offer to tutor her in acting. Though I doubt she’ll want me to. Right now she despises me.”

“Maybe the apology will help,” my mother says. Then she actually smiles. Wow. We don’t see
that
very often these days. She sets her hand on mine.

“Why are you being nice to me?” I ask.

“Because I’m proud of you. You’re being a good role model for Abby.”

“Bluh!” Abby says.

I laugh. “Think so?”

Mother nods, and wipes a tear off my cheek that I didn’t even know was there.

I didn’t call, but that’s only because I’m better in person. I need my face and hands—heck, my whole body—to communicate. I pretended to call, though, in a voice loud enough for my parents to hear, and I’ll tell Eden I’m sorry today without fail.

I didn’t have time to talk to her before school started, and then we were sent to the cafeteria/theater and were busy rehearsing all morning. Aaron’s mother is here accompanying us on piano, so we’ve been working on the play’s songs. Josh broke us up into groups to work on individual scenes. Hannah took some of the groups to talk about moving sets and arranging props.
Every time I got Eden’s attention, she stink-eyed me. When we worked on our one scene together, she scowled at me the whole time. She read her lines with more of Calamity Jane’s spirit, probably because she was mad at me. She was still pretty awful, though.

I thought I’d talk to her at recess, but she didn’t go outside with the rest of us. I don’t know where she went, but I guessed the library, to tutor. My next hope was lunchtime, but I couldn’t find her in the lunchroom. More tutoring, I bet. The girl’s a workaholic. Mr. O. kept us busy in the classroom all afternoon, so my only chance to talk to her was going to be after school.

Which is now.

“Eden!” I say after the bell rings.

She quickly grabbed her things and slipped out the door. I run after her, calling her name. Her shoulders shrink up, but she doesn’t look around. In fact, she speeds up. I skip after her. Yes, skip. I’ve decided the tone of this apology is going to be light and breezy.

When I catch her, I take a deep breath, smile wide, and say, “Hey, buddy! I wanted to say I’m
sorry, right? For the things I said yesterday? What was I thinking? It was
so
stupid. I’m really, really, really,
really
sorry. You’re going to make an awesome Calamity Jane.”

She looks confused, or maybe suspicious. I can’t tell. Her facial expressions are so … expressionless.

“You know I’m not prejudiced or anything. I don’t judge people by stuff like that! I never even noticed before that you’re …” I almost say Asian again.

“Javanese,” she says. “Javanese-American, actually.”

“Oh, cool. So congrats on getting the starring role! You’re doing fantastic.”

“You really think so?” she says, frowning. “I think I’m terrible.”

“You’re not!” I say, though she is. But you don’t say that to people, right? Talk about rude. “You know all your lines. Nobody else does, that’s for sure.”

“You do,” she says. “You’re so good. You should be Calamity Jane. I don’t understand why Josh cast me.”

“He must see something in you. Raw talent. Charisma.”

“Charisma? Really?”

“Look, Josh wouldn’t have given you the lead if he didn’t think you could do it. He has a lot of experience, you know. He’s a professional.”

“But I can’t be Calamity Jane. I’m not the right type. Besides, I don’t
get
her. Why did she like shooting guns? Or dressing like a man?”

“That’s just the way she was. She lived her own way, and made every day an adventure. She loved attention. She loved performing. I think she performed every moment of her life.”

I really was meant to play her. Alas.

“See what I mean?” Eden says. “You understand her so well, Zaritza. You should play her.”

Here’s my chance to offer to tutor her. But before I can, she says, “Would you help me, Zaritza? Would you teach me how to be Calamity? Please?”

I wanted to be the one to suggest it, but I faux-smile and say, “Sure. I’d be happy to.”

My homework tutor is now my homework.

“Bigger,” I say.

“I can’t be bigger,” Eden says.

We’re in my room, rehearsing. Wain is here, too, and Abby. Wormy is scratching at the door.

“Wum!” Abby says, pointing.

How can a person work under such conditions?

“Everyone can be bigger,” I say to Eden. “You’re just afraid to. You have to be brave.”

“Like the song you sing,” Wain says. “ ‘Who Doesn’t Want to Be Brave?’ ” And he breaks into it:

“Bray!” Abby says.

“She’s so
cute
!” Eden says.

“I know you’re kind of shy,” I say, trying to keep her on track. “If you want to be a turtle, that’s fine. But onstage you have to come out of your shell.”

“I don’t want to be a turtle,” she says, shrinking up, which is the opposite of what we want. “Am I a turtle?”

“Bray!” Abby says.

Eden laughs. “You’re so lucky to have a little sister, Zaritza. I don’t have any sisters.”

“Forget the sister,” I say. “And forget the turtle. It’s cornball.” Figures. It was my mother’s idea, not mine. “What are you afraid of anyway? Are you afraid of screwing up?”

She shrinks more. Bingo.

“You’re not going to screw up. You’re, like, a genius.”

She smiles a little.

“The only mistake you’ll make is being too small. It’s not like the movies. On a stage everybody looks small, so if you act small, you’ll look microscopic. You have to be really big just to look normal-size. You have to be
huge
.”

“You!” Abby says.

“Okay, that does it, Abby. We’re working in here. You’re going to have to stay quiet or you’re going to have to leave.”

“Aren’t you being a little rough?” Wain asks. “She’s just a baby.”

“Right. And babies don’t belong in rehearsal. Be a pal, Wain, and take her out of here. Give Eden and me some time to work alone. Oh, and ask my mother to keep the ‘dog’ away.”

“Okay. Come on, Abby.” He holds out his hand.

“Way!” she says, and takes it. “Way” is Abby’s version of Wain.

“Don’t let the ‘dog’ in when you leave,” I say.

Wain crouches down when he opens the door so Wormy doesn’t sneak between his legs.

“No, Wormy. You can’t go in there. There’s a rehearsal in progress.”

He shuts the door behind them.

“Why do you make finger quotes when you talk about your dog?”

“Never mind about that. We need to focus. Listen to me now. You need to understand your character. Maybe if you did, you could be bigger. Calamity Jane was tough. She survived the covered wagon trip that killed her ma. She raised her brothers and sister. When she grew up, she didn’t want to be a quiet little lady. She wanted to be a big, loud cowgirl. She didn’t want to wear fancy dresses or go to tea parties. She wanted to ride horses and shoot guns and hunt and fight. People laughed at her and told her she was wrong, but she just laughed back and did it anyway. You get it?”