One Man Show (2 page)

Wally could suck the joy out of a birthday party on the beach.

“Let me see.” He shoved me aside and looked through the hole. “Oh, man. It’s packed.”

“I told you. SRO - standing room only. Isn’t that great?”

“I guess,” he said.

“Look, a lunchroom lady just snuck in the back door.”

“Dust? I swear, I can’t remember my first line in scene three.”

“Don’t do this to me, Wally.”

The look on his face told me he wasn’t kidding. It was a good thing a script was attached to the clipboard. I flipped to scene
three.

“‘Why do you look so forlorn, Daughter?’”

“‘Why do you look so forlorn?’” Wally repeated. “Why did they have to put words like
forlorn
in it? Nobody knows what that means, anyway.”

“It means sad,” I said. “That’s how they used to talk back then.”

“And am I supposed to say my line and
then
cross to center, or say my line
while
I’m crossing?”

Wally was clearly losing his mind.

“It doesn’t really matter, Wal.” I gave him a pat on the back, ‘cause it looked as if he needed it. “But say your line and
then
cross.”

“Line, then cross.”

“Ten minutes, people! Ten minutes!” Futterman flew by in a blur.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Wally said, bouncing. “It’s an emergency.”

“Just work fast.”

Wally disappeared, and I had the hole to myself again. Darlene tried to wedge her fat head in front of mine, but I wouldn’t
let her, so she ended up peeking under the curtain.

“Remember, if you can see them, they can see you!”

I knew Miss Honeywell was back before she even said a word. Her peach-pie perfume was a dead giveaway.

“Can y’all gather round?” Miss Honeywell said. She’d transferred to our school in September, from the South, so she said “y’all”
a lot. The cast mobbed her.

“Ooh, I’m all goose-pimply,” she said. “You kids ought to be percolating with pride from all the hard work you’ve done -especially
our star, Dustin Grubbs!”

I already felt like the luckiest kid on the planet, and now Miss Honeywell was gushing over me, smiling so wide her eyeballs
disappeared. Life was good.

“I’m not supposed to say anything, ‘cause nothing’s confirmed yet,” Miss Honeywell said in a hushed voice, “but I’ve just
heard some thrilling news, y’all. Someone
very
special is going to be in our -”

Futterman zipped by, and Miss Honeywell stopped short.

“What is it, Miss Honeywell?” a bunch of us said. “Tell us.”

“No, I’d better not. I’ve said too much already.” She mimed locking her lips with a key and tossing it over her shoulder.
“But if the rumor is true, Dustin and Wallace will be as tickled as two june bugs in a feather factory!”

“Is that a good thing?” I asked.

The backstage lights went out, then on again.

“I’d better get back to my seat, lickety-split. Break a leg, kids.”

“Break a leg, Miss Honeywell!” everyone shouted. Which was stupid. It’s like saying “happy birthday” back to someone wishing
you a happy birthday.

“What did I miss?” Wally said, rushing back. He was all over me like sticky on tape. “What rumor? I heard the word
rumor.”

“Good question.”

“Five minutes!” Futterman’s voice boomed out of nowhere.

“Oh, no. I have to go to the bathroom again!” Wally said, racing away.

I grabbed my jester’s hat from the prop table and ran to the curtain hole to get one last look.
Was someone special out in the audience? Was it a talent scout? A Broadway director?
I scanned the seats for anyone unusual. The houselights dimmed.

“Are you kids ready to go?” Futterman said, poking his head around the curtain. “After ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ I’m going
to give a quick intro, and then you’re up.”

Backstage went black. My toes curled inside my curly-toed shoes, and the last of my saliva dried up.
Deep breaths,
I told myself.

The audience was screeching, “And the rocket’s red glaaare,” I was back to “Betty Batter bought some buttering,” and that’s
when it started.

Clang-clang! Clang-clang!

It was so bust-an-eardrum loud that the scenery vibrated. I was hoping a really noisy ice-cream truck was passing by.

Clang-clang!

But I knew differently.

I was forlorn.

I used to love fire drills. I always thought of them as bonus minirecesses. But sometimes you can take two great things, slap
them together, and end up with a disaster on your hands -like all-you-can-eat sundaes and the Gut Buster roller coaster at
Venture Quest Park.

Or plays and fire drills.

The cast got swallowed up by the crowd jamming through the exit doors of the auditorium. It’s a good thing it was freakishly
warm for March, ‘cause I didn’t have my jacket - or my pants. The school yard was a total mishmash. No neat fire-drill rows.
Pepper and I were smooshed between the second-grade class and some rowdy seventh-graders. Our class was nowhere in sight.

Out in bright daylight I was suddenly aware of the red
circles I had painted on my cheeks. Not to mention the curly-toed shoes, droopy tights, and pillowcase tunic. Breezes were
blowing where no breeze had gone before.

“Hey, Dust Bin, nice dress!” Travis Buttrick said. “You got a purse to match?”

“Yeah, I borrowed it from your mother,” I said, which didn’t make sense. But people don’t like it when you mention their mothers.

Travis was a year older than me, and he was already sprouting facial hair. You know the type. Rich. Spoiled. Kicked out of
every private school in the Midwest.

“Oh, yeah? Well,
your
mother just called - she wants her lipstick back,” he said. (See, I told you about the “mother” thing.)

“Oh, stick a sock in it, Buttrick,” Pepper said.

“What’s the matter, Dust Bin?” Travis said. “You make your girlfriend do all your fighting for you?”

“Just ignore him, Pepper,” I said, yanking her away.

The fire drill was taking a lot longer than usual. Teachers were trying to round up their classes, but some kids escaped to
the swings and monkey bars. Others were picking on innocent costumed bystanders.

Derek, one of Travis’s boneheaded friends, started sniffing the air around Pepper.

“Oh, no, I’m gonna sneeze!” he said. “Ah… aaah…
ah-chooo!”

“How original,” Pepper said. “Can’t you Neanderthals come up with a new one?”

“Now, Pepper,” I said, “you mustn’t speak ill of the brain-dead.”

“Pepper sounds like a dog’s name,” Travis said. “Sit, Pepper! Stay, Pepper! How did your parents know you’d turn out to be
such a dog?”

“Okay, knock it off!” I said, stepping forward.

Travis’s arm sprang out at me with his fingers in flicking position, like a bee ready to sting. I tried dodging, and he knocked
off my jester’s hat.

“Hey!”

“You said ‘knock it off,’” he said, laughing.

Miss Honeywell had made me that hat with her own two hands. It was constructed out of multicolored felt and had five floppy
points with pom-poms on the tips. When I bent over to pick up the hat, Travis kicked it out from under me. Then he grabbed
it and threw it to Derek. The next thing I knew, they were playing keep-away.

“Give it back!” I shouted.

“Look at me, I’m king of the dweebs!” Travis had my hat on and was dancing around like a drunken marionette.

Why is there never a teacher around when you need one?

People other than Travis Buttrick suck-ups were starting to watch. We had to get even. Pepper came up with a plan
and whispered it into my ear. I gave her a “let’s go for it” nod, and we assumed our positions.

“Okay,” Pepper said, “on the count of three…”

“One.”
We turned our backs to the enemy.

“Two.”
We yelled, “Hey, Buttrick! Wanna see a butt trick?”

“Three.”
We bent over, lifted our costumes, and shook our rear ends.

It was excellent. Even Travis’s friends were howling. It wasn’t exactly the performance I thought I’d be giving that day,
but as my aunt Olive says, “If life hands you lemons, make lemonade.”

Pepper and I were shaking our bottoms and stirring our lemonade when I saw a pair of deformed high heels stomping toward us.
A whiff of stale perfume slapped me in the face. I was getting to be an expert at recognizing teachers by their smells. While
Miss Honeywell’s was a perfect combination of peach pie and vanilla, this stink bomb was a way-too-flowery blast from the
past.

“Mr. Grubbs! Miss Pew!”

It was Mrs. Eugenia Sternhagen, my old second-grade teacher. Ah, yes, I remember it well: an overpowering blend of Country
Garden toilet bowl cleaner and Dr. Desmond’s wart remover.

“Save your shenanigans for the stage!” she shrieked.

Pepper and I shot upright. Birds stopped chirping. The American flag stopped rustling.

“Sorry, Mrs. Sternhagen.” Those words seemed so familiar to my lips.

“This is a serious situation we have here,” she said.

Is she talking about the fire drill or the butt trick?

Mrs. Sternhagen was lugging around one of her trademark shopping bags. You never knew what she was going to pull out of those
things - a stapler? comfortable shoes? her pet tarantula? Sometimes she’d recruit a few of her second-graders to carry the
bags for her. I remember - I used to be one of them. Slave labor.

“This isn’t just a drill,” she said, digging around in her bag. She pulled out a tissue and handed it to me; I guess I must’ve
been leaking. I blew my nose and handed it back. “Principal Futterman informed me that there was a small grease fire in the
cafeteria. So, best behavior!”

Her favorite saying. It made me want to shove pencils in my ears. Or hers.

“Did they put the fire out?” Pepper asked. “Is everyone all right?”

“Everything is under control,” Mrs. Sternhagen said. “It’s a shame about your play, children. I understand you worked very
hard.”

Wow, kind words.
That was unusual from someone with a personality you could store meat in.

“The whole thing was this guy’s idea,” Pepper said, punching me on the shoulder.

“Mine and Miss Honeywell’s,” I said. “We’re still doing the play today, right?”

“It’s doubtful,” Mrs. Sternhagen said. “Perhaps Principal Futterman will reschedule it.”

“Perhaps”? What does she mean “perhaps”?

“I seem to recall you had the acting bug back when you were in my class,” she said to me. “You were so enthusiastic about
our little Christmas pageant.”

“Uh-huh.”

She’d given me one measly line. Still, it was my first taste of applause. I was hooked.

“Mr. Donovan! Miss Oliver! Best behavior!” Mrs. Sternhagen barked, snapping her fingers at her second-graders. One of them
had probably scratched an itch or adjusted a bow or something. “There’s always a mischief maker in the bunch.”

“This drill is taking forever,” Pepper mumbled.

“Patience is a virtue,” Mrs. Sternhagen said. “So, Mr. Grubbs, speaking of mischief makers, how is your big brother? Gordon,
was it?”

“Fine, I guess. He’s at Fenton High.”

“Hmm, I’m pleasantly surprised to hear that. I’ll never forget what a handful that boy was.”

My sixteen-year-old brother, Gordy, had a nickname when he was at Buttermilk Falls Elementary: Trouble. And I had to prove
to every new teacher from day one that I wasn’t going
to be a carbon copy. “Grubbs?” they’d say, tensing up. “Are you Gordon Grubbs’s brother?” Lying wasn’t really an option, so
I’d answer, “Yeah, but only by birth.”

Mrs. Sternhagen fished out a small tube of hand cream from her shopping bag. “Well, it’s a good thing you didn’t follow in
his footsteps,” she said. “But when I catch you pulling stunts like this on the playground, it makes me wonder.”

Okay, you made your point, lady. Let’s drop it.

“It all comes down to the family unit.” She squeezed a blob of lotion onto her palms and rubbed them together furiously. “And
it can’t be easy in your circumstances. Am I right, Mr. Grubbs?”

I had an overwhelming urge to kick Eugenia’s chubby ankles. Slamming Gordy was one thing, but leave the rest of my family
out of it. I had to say something. The words were already forming in my mouth.

“Am I right, Mr. Grubbs?” she repeated, rubbing her hands together like a mad scientist coming up with an evil scheme.

I glanced at Pepper, then locked eyes with Mrs. Sternhagen. My face felt like a red-hot briquette. I got my nerve up, took
a deep breath of wart remover, and said, “Yes, ma’am.”

The green metal doors sprang open, and Pepper and I got swept away by the mob spilling back into the school. Something rammed
me from behind.

“Yeoww!”

I collided with Pepper and we both hit the ground.

“Enjoy your trip?” Travis said, laughing the devil’s laugh. “See ya next fall!”

He crumpled my jester’s hat and lined it at me, then melted into the crowd. I must’ve banged my head, ‘cause there was definite
pain on the left side. No blood, but things were getting whirly.

“You’re roadkill, Buttrick!” Pepper shouted. Her sheet-turned-costume was ripped all the way up one side.

The stampede just kept coming. I guess when you’re rolling around on the ground in a crazy costume, people think you must
be doing it on purpose.

“Hello!” I yelled. “The King’s Jester and the beautiful Princess are being trampled to death!”

“Omigod, are you guys all right? What happened?”

I squinted up at two droopy socks. I think they were attached to the little knock-kneed girl who lived next door to me.

“Here!” she said, balling up her sweater and shoving it under my head like a pillow. “Don’t move, Dustin Grubbs. I’m going
for help!”

The next thing I remember was having a sneezing fit -probably ‘cause the sweater was covered in orange cat hair. I scrunched
my eyes closed to wait for the pain in my head to pass. But when I opened them again I was lying on a cot, with the nurse’s
office spinning around me.