Rule of Three (13 page)

The January calla lilies had rusted long
ago, hanging their heads, and the February daffodils were fading, making way for March daisies. The fog had lifted, too. Green fur carpeted the hills around Acton, and the first fingertips of fir trees and redwoods reached for the almost-April Oregon sky.

Joey was all about Oregon these days. She was working on a big state project for school now. I could usually find her sprawled on the floor, surrounded by markers and colored pencils, drawing western meadowlarks (state bird) and hairy tritons (state shell). Every day now, she drank at least one glass of the Oregon state beverage (milk).

“Oregon is boring,” she said one day while shading a hazelnut.

“Ha! Oregon is so NOT boring,” I told her. “We have caves and craters and Lewis and Clark, and don’t forget Beverly Cleary and the Oregon Trail. You used to love pioneers. And hello! There’s a volcano right outside your window.”

“We don’t even have a state poem,” Joey said.

“So write one,” I told her.

“You sound like my teacher. We have to write one as part of our project.”

“See? You love writing poems,” I reminded her.

“Not about boring old Oregon. You know what I wish?”

“That Louisa May Alcott lived here?” I asked.

“You read my mind,” said Joey, grinning. “Why did she have to live all the way across the map in Boston, anyway?”

My little sister still had
Little Women
on the brain.

Can I just say — it’s been pretty much peaceful around here for the last several weeks. Almost too peaceful. Kind of like the calm before the storm. Joey actually counted the number of days since Alex and I had had a fight (forty-three). Or
disagreement,
as Mom and Dad always make us call it.

I didn’t see how it could stay this way — it was like one of those laws of nature, or something.

You know that feeling, how the world looks upside-down when you tip your head back really far? It was like that. Somehow my trying out for the play had tilted the axis. Not the whole earth, just our family. I had upset the balance somehow.

Once Alex got the lead (and I more-or-less got over her getting it) things went back to normal, I guess you could say. But I remember it took at least three weeks and three dozen My-Sister-Got-the-Lead cupcakes to get used to the idea.

On the first dozen, I had just wanted to smush her curly head face-first into a bowl of gooey cake batter. By the second batch, I wanted to hit her over the head with a spatula full of icing. Somewhere around Dozen Number Three of my Post-Audition Cupcake Frenzy, I tried to stop seeing my spatula as a means of revenge.

By the time I finished baking that third dozen, I was able to ice them without crushing each one to smithereens. I had finally decided I was better off not getting the lead in the play anyway. After all, by not having to be the princess in the play, I got to:

1. Still be in the cake-off
   
2. Not wear an ugly swamp princess dress made of dripping wet rags
   
3. Get out of saying stuff like “Gluggle-uggle-uggle”
   
4. Avoid any lovey-dovey scenes with Alvin the Chipmunk
   
5. Not have Alex mad at me for the rest of my natural-born life
   

I think I was icing Cupcake Number Thirty-Three when it hit me for the first time that I was actually happier to be in the chorus.

So, it all turned out for the best. This way, I get to do what I love: sing. And NOT do what I don’t love: memorize lines and speak in front of people, which, when I really think about it, still kind of gives me hives. After all, in the chorus, I got to sing way more songs than just one puny solo. And instead of being mad at me, Alex got to be mad at Zoe DuFranc, who was playing Lady Larken and smooching Paper Towel (a.k.a. Scott).

The best thing about being in the chorus was that we didn’t have to go to every single cast rehearsal or practice every day. So I sang in the chorus three times a week and the rest of the days I practiced making cupcakes because . . . did I mention . . . once Mr. Cannon came up with the genius idea of putting me in the chorus, I realized I had time to enter the First Annual Cascade County Cake-Off! For real! (For Reel?)

Not only did I have more time now to get ready, but I also had the rest of the money for the entry fee! After guilt-tripping Mom and Dad about letting Alex continue with voice lessons, they agreed to lend me enough money to enter. (I think they also felt bad for me that I didn’t get a bigger part in the play!) So even though I’ll be kissing my allowance good-bye till I’m eighteen, I was pretty pleased with myself.

I’d finally decided that my perfect cake, my masterpiece, would be an enchanted castle made entirely out of . . . you guessed it . . . cupcakes! I wouldn’t cheat and use a cake mold or layer cakes or sheet cakes — just cupcakes. It would have at least six towers, complete with spires and windows, and a moat around it made of blue sprinkles, maybe even a working Kit Kat–and–licorice–shoelace drawbridge.

Even though I hadn’t figured it all out yet, I showed Joey my rough-draft sketch and she said it kicked big gingerbread-house butt!

I went to bed and counted cupcakes. Guess
what? It doesn’t work like counting sheep, where cute, woolly animals leap over perfect white fences in lazy green meadows, and suddenly you yawn and drop off to Dreamland. These cupcakes might as well have had mean-guy faces, because they sure weren’t lulling me to sleep.

Just the opposite.

They were keeping me awake. They were keeping me awake because I was trying to calculate whether or not I had enough cupcakes built up in the freezer for the castle I hoped to make for the cake-off on Saturday.

Saturday! Only one and a half days away.

I must have finally drifted off, because when I woke up, it was Friday. At school that day, I doodled more cupcake castles in the margins of my notebook, trying to figure out the Grand Total number of cupcakes I would need, but I kept coming up short. Somebody (a.k.a. Joey) had obviously been stealing my Do-Not-Touch-or-I’ll-Chop-Your-Hair-Off freezer cupcakes.

I even had the cake-off on my mind at play practice after school.

“Stevie, are you with us?”
Mr. Cannon.

“I’m with you.”

“You missed your cue.” I stepped out of the chorus and sang a few riffs of “Quiet,” then stepped back in line.

“Great. Good,” said Mr. Cannon. “Except that wasn’t the verse we were on.”

Oops.

“I like the energy we had on the finale today. That’s exactly what I want to hear tomorrow, people. Don’t forget, I want to see everybody in full costume for the final dress rehearsal. Full cast. Great work, everybody. See you then.”

I turned to Samantha, the seventh-grade girl next to me. “Did he say tomorrow?”

“Yeah, tomorrow. You know, dress rehearsal.”

“Yeah, but, I thought —”

“It’s no big deal. We just have to come in costume. I guess Mr. C wants to make sure we can still sing with those big, pointy hats on or something.” She giggled.

“I’m dead.”

“How come? What’s wrong?”

“I can’t come. I have something important I need to do tomorrow.”

“So, just tell him. He’ll understand.”

“Yeah, right. Mr. Anybody-Who-Misses-a-Practice-Gets-Kicked-Out-of-the-Chorus. You know how strict he is about showing up. You’re only allowed to miss like one practice.”

“Have you missed any?” asked Samantha.

“No.”

“So?”

“Yeah, but this is dress rehearsal. How could this have happened?”

“I don’t know. It’s been on the rehearsal calendar forever. And it says full cast.”

“I didn’t know it meant the chorus, too. Yep, I’m officially dead.”

I took an excruciatingly long time packing up my stuff. When the auditorium was empty of all other kids, I inched over to Mr. Cannon.

I cleared my throat, but my voice sounded like a mouse’s anyway. “Mr. Cannon, could I maybe talk with you for a minute?”

“Sure, Stevie. Is everything OK? You seemed a bit, shall we say, distracted today. I need you to focus, and make sure you come in with your ‘dragonfly’s wing’ line on cue.”

“I know. It’s not that. Look, I have to tell you something, and I know it’s going to make you mad, but, see, I read the schedule and everything, and how it said full cast for dress rehearsal, but I didn’t know that meant everybody. I mean, I knew it meant cast members, like actors, but I didn’t know it meant the chorus, too.”

“And . . . ?” he said, motioning with his hand for me to go on.

“And, um, well, I can’t come tomorrow. See, I really like to bake and stuff, too, and I’m entering the Cascade County Cake-Off, and it’s tomorrow, and I didn’t know and I had to pay a hundred dollars just to be in it, and it’s at the same time, so I don’t see how I can —”

“Be in two places at the same time?” Mr. Cannon finished the sentence for me.

“Exactly.” I let out a breath. It was a relief to have the words no longer knotted up inside me.

“Look, Stevie, I’m glad you came to me in person to let me know, but it’s not the end of the world. You’re my strongest soprano, and you’ve had these songs down for weeks.”

“Really? You mean it? So it’s OK if I can’t be here tomorrow? I can still be in the play?”

“No worries. I was aware that this might present a problem long before now. Honestly, when I first heard that you had other major commitments, I was concerned that it might interfere with practices.”

“You were?”

Mr. C nodded. “But I don’t think you’ve missed a single practice. You’ve shown me you’re committed to this play.”

I was aware . . . might present a problem . . . when I first heard . . .
Mr. Cannon’s words knocked around inside my head like blueberries in a blender. “Wait — you mean you knew? About the cake-off? But how? Who . . . ?”

“Alex mentioned it to me.”

“Oh. Really? When?”

“The day you auditioned, she told me it might be difficult for you to be at all the rehearsals, because you were entering the baking competition.”

“You mean she told you before you decided who got the parts?”

“Yes, the day of the audition. But that’s not why I put you in the ensemble, Stevie. Your voice is key to my whole chorus.”

“But I . . . never mind. Thanks, Mr. Cannon.” I picked up my backpack and slung it over my shoulder. Suddenly, it felt as heavy as two tons of concrete. I trudged up the aisle.

“Oh, and Stevie?” called Mr. C behind me. “I almost forgot. Can you give this to your sister? It just turned up, and I know she’s been looking for it.” Alex’s missing charm. He held it up, dangling it in the air. Comedy seemed to scoff at me.

“Oh, and one more thing,” Mr. Cannon said. “Knock ’em dead at the cake-off tomorrow, kiddo.”