There was a quiet knock on Monica’s hotel-room door. It was so quiet Monica mistook it for the neighbors on the other side of the thin walls. New neighbors came and went, each with their own sounds and habits.
The knock came again, louder. No one but the cleaning service ever knocked on their door, and it was far too late for that. Maybe her abuelita had forgotten her key. Maybe it was the owner of the mysterious key. She crept over to the peephole.
Through the tiny hole, she saw April standing there with a pillow, a sleeping bag, and a bag of popcorn. Monica slowly unlatched the door.
“Thought we’d hang out on your balcony together,” April said, raising the bag of popcorn.
Instead of responding, Monica felt her shoulders collapse and tears roll down her face. April threw down her things and hugged her. “I’m sorry, Monica. I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t know why I’m crying. I knew I was coming to New York as an understudy. I shouldn’t have expected anything more.” Monica wiped her eyes. “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be at home resting up for rehearsal?” she added.
“Your grandma once said I could sleep over anytime. Is tonight okay?” Looking around the room, she added, “I don’t mind the floor.”
Her sour expression said otherwise. Monica laughed through tears.
“No one knew Tabitha was coming back, not even Artie,” April said.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Monica went over to the window and looked out at the bricks in front of her. “My abuelita put her life savings into this trip.” Monica turned back around and studied the small hotel room. For the first time, she realized what a luxury it was. “April, I know how to break the curse. Well, mostly.”
“What?”
“I started to tell you, but then… Tabitha, and I forgot.” She went over to her backpack to get the file on the Ogden, but her abuelita walked through the door.
“Hi, Abuelita!” Monica said, picking up her backpack.
“Are you leaving?” her abuelita asked.
“Yes. April and I have to go to the theater for a little bit. April forgot something in her dressing room.”
“Well, don’t let me stop you girls. But hurry back. It’s getting late.”
* * *
They called Relly on their way to the theater. There was loud yelling on the other end.
“Where are you?” April asked, screaming into the phone.
“Hudson and I are at tae kwon do lessons,” Relly explained.
“Can you both get away and come to the Ethel Merman after?” April asked.
“It’s urgent!” Monica said leaning into the phone.
“Yeah. We’ll be done by eight.”
* * *
The kids gathered in a tight circle on the stage. The theater was empty.
Monica switched off the ghost light and began in a deep voice, “Dark forces come from the breath of the angry, the jealous, the greedy.” The kids’ eyes got wide. “But they also come from places of fear.…” She turned the ghost light back on and looked at the other three. “Sorry, that even scared me a little.”
Hudson let out a nervous chuckle.
“The story begins here,” Monica said, pointing to the stage, “with the Ogden family.”
“The Ogden family…” Hudson said. “Rings a bell.”
“Yes. They owned the Ethel Merman Theater for many decades. Long before it was called the Ethel Merman.”
“The Ogden Theater!” April said. “I’ve heard stories about it. I never made the connection. That’s this theater?”
“Aha! That’s why we couldn’t find anything in the Ethel Merman’s file at the library before the 1990s, because it was all filed under a different name!” Relly smiled.
“Good detective work,” April said.
“When Franklin Ogden died, he left the theater to his two children—twins, a son and a daughter, Henry and Hildy. Henry wanted to bring in big new shows with the greatest performers. He wanted what was popular and would sell tickets. They were glitzy and wonderfully successful.” Monica paused. “Hildy, on the other hand, wanted to bring experimental, never-heard-of shows that were riskier. Smaller. She didn’t care if they flopped—she wanted to attract new audiences with shows they could afford so they would get to know Broadway.”
Monica stopped. She felt dizzy. It had been an exhausting day.
“And…,” Hudson said.
“They were always fighting about what shows to bring to the theater. Big and glitzy or small and unknown. Henry usually got his way. But one day, Hildy went to her brother and said she had an idea for a show. She would only need one night of space in the theater. Hesitantly, he said yes. Who would come watch her silly one-night show anyway? He was busy getting ready to bring a big new show to the theater from Europe. It was all anybody was talking about—the next big Ogden show—so what would her one night and one little show hurt?”
Monica paused again. The wind outside started to howl. A chorus of wind.
“The night of her show, the stage was empty but for one piano. Earlier in the week, Hildy had gone to every dance and music studio, performing arts school, and artist coop she could think of, throughout every section of the city, inviting artists to the theater. ‘Come show off your talents and be a part of Broadway!’ she said. The place was packed that night. Standing room only. But all those people”—Monica held in a breath, then continued—“none of them had ever performed on Broadway before.
“That night, she told the audience they were going to make their own production, tell their stories, and write a song. One after another, people got up onstage and started to talk or dance or sing their own original songs. How they’d come to New York from small towns. How they were looking for their dreams. People who had never acted told of their fears and worries. They had no voice in this world. They felt invisible. They shared their deepest, darkest emotions.”
April dropped her head. It was not what she’d been expecting to hear.
“Together the audience wrote the lyrics, which Hildy, who was an amazing piano player and songwriter, one of the best on Broadway, set to music. When it was time to perform the song, she looked out into the audience for a volunteer. She pointed to a young girl, about our age. ‘Can you read music?’ Hildy asked her.
“The young girl said she could read a little music. It was a complicated piece. But her voice was beautiful. Like an angel. So beautiful that as she was singing, everyone in the audience started to cry. She started to cry. Hildy started to cry. Even the doorman started to cry… he blamed it on the onions in his sandwich.”
“Jimmy Onions!” the three said. Monica smiled.
“When Henry saw what was happening in his theater, he was furious and stormed onstage. ‘This is not what people want! People want to be entertained! They want to laugh. They come to escape from their problems; they don’t want to be reminded of them!’ He ripped the music from the piano and told everyone to leave immediately. The show was over. That night, there was a terrible thunderstorm. Lightning struck the Ogden, setting off all the sprinklers in the building. The theater was crying. The place flooded. It made Henry even more furious. He told Hildy she had cursed the theater. ‘Leave and never return!’ When she asked for the sheet music to the song, he threw her out.
“Many months later, theater critics reported that the Ogden audience had composed ‘the most beautiful piece of music ever sung!’ But Henry had already destroyed it. For many months after that, he tried to bring big shows to the theater. But they all flopped. Then he tried only comedies. But the theater kept crying. He brought in Ethel Merman, his favorite actor, to rechristen it, give it a new name, a new life. But it was too late. The cursed theater had been consumed by sadness and left to feed off fear.”
“So what happened to Henry?” April asked.
“He ended up moving to Europe,” Monica answered.
“What happened to Hildy?” April asked again.
“The papers never said.”
> “And here we are,” Hudson said.
“So what do we do?” Relly asked.
Monica took her abuelita’s shawl out of her backpack and wrapped it around herself. “Here,” she said, pulling out four Coca-Cola cans from her bag. “First we drink these.” She handed each one of them a Coke.
They looked confused.
“We must burp up any evil spirits we have inside ourselves before we begin.”
The four kids laughed, and then chugged and burped several times.
“Then,” she said, “if you have a good-luck charm, rub it now.”
April rubbed her special bracelet. Relly pulled out his lucky lock of hair. It was his father’s hair. They looked at Hudson.
“Fine…” He pulled up a cuff on his pants and rubbed his lucky green squirrel socks.
Monica rubbed her elephant necklace.
“Now, a protector. Every village, every cave, and every theater has its protector. That’s us.”
“Why us?” Relly asked.
“Because we don’t fear the curse anymore,” Monica said.
The kids nodded.
“Now what?” Hudson asked.
“Every cursed place has a spot that holds its secrets,” Monica whispered.
“What does that even mean?”
“I’m not sure. My abuelita said we’d know it when we saw it.”
No one had a clue.
“Maybe it’s right here,” April said.
The stage of the theater was where the original song was performed.
“Maybe, but people have fallen from the stage, so maybe not,” Monica concluded.
“Artie’s office?” Relly wondered.
It was a good guess. Maybe they’d feel whatever power they were supposed to feel when they unlocked the door.
Relly turned on his flashlight. The others used their phones for light. Their search began.
They raced to Artie’s office, which was on the third floor. It was locked. Relly tried every tool in his backpack. Nothing.
“Now what?” April said.
“I’ve got it!” Hudson said. “Artie’s office is right above the stage. There’s a small window I’ve seen him look out of. Maybe it’s open and we can get in that way.”
The only way to get to the small window of Artie’s office was to climb the catwalk above the stage.
“That’s like a million feet up!” Relly said. Then he added, “And a million feet long! And did I mention I’m afraid of heights?”
“This is our trust fall,” April said. “Like Miss Susan was talking about when we did our improv. We have to conquer our fears together.”
They went back to the stage and began their ascent of the narrow ladder.
“It’s amazing how high it is up here!” April laughed nervously as she made her way up first. The others followed slowly.
Then the lights attached to the catwalk started to flicker.
“Oh no, Ethel! Don’t do this to us now!” Relly’s voice shook.
The structure they were climbing toward started to sway. And there was a grumbling coming from the waterfall below.
“Don’t look down, don’t look down, just keep going,” Relly repeated to himself.
But at that point, down was cloaked in darkness.
“Don’t look up, either,” Hudson said.
A few pails tied to the catwalk rattled.
The catwalk was only a couple of feet wide. Darkness meant they had to feel their way across by crawling.
April reached the window first, then flicked on her phone for light. “Want the good news or the bad news first?”
“Good news, please, good news,” Relly said from the back, clinging to the platform for dear life.
“Good news is the window to Artie’s office is unlocked,” April said.
“What’s the bad news?” Hudson asked.
“Bad news is it might be a tight squeeze.”
“Oh man!” Hudson said, sizing up the window. “I hate tight places.”
The other three managed to slide their way in, but Hudson had a tough time. When the waterfall below started to gurgle loudly and the catwalk started to shake harder, he blew out all the air he could while the other three pulled him through. They made it!
Artie’s office was silent. It smelled like a combination of stale takeout and old coffee.
“It doesn’t feel like anything powerful is here but clutter,” April said.
“Look,” Relly said. There was a whole stack of newspaper clippings on Artie’s desk about the Ogden Theater. Every headline, every flop. Stories about Hildy and Henry. About the night the theater was cursed.
“Wait… look.” Hudson pointed to one of the newspaper articles.
In a blurry photo, a young Artie was standing next to Henry and Hildy in the theater.
“Artie’s cousins. That’s why he’s been trying to save the Ethel Merman!” Monica said. Even she hadn’t seen that one coming.
Relly took photos of the newspaper clippings.
“There’s another storm brewing,” Hudson said. They could hear the wind howling outside the theater. They were relieved that they could get out through Artie’s office door and not have to go back the way they came. But somehow the dark hallway was just as scary. They looked behind them as they continued searching for what they did not know. They could not quit now.
They heard movement. It was the evening doorman checking around. “Kids, you in here?” He went one way; they went another.
Soon they found themselves back onstage. They moved deeper into the main auditorium. They tiptoed up the center aisle, touching row after row of empty seats.
Hudson whispered, “Why do you think the insides of so many theaters are red?” April looked around. How many theaters had she been in and never once thought about it?
“Such an astute observation,” Relly said, quoting one of his lines from the show in the voice of his character, Pax. “Red,” he answered, “is the first color to get lost in the dark. When the lights go down, red disappears.”
“Not black?” Even April was surprised by this answer.
“Black shows dust and lint,” Relly said, stopping to look around. “Theaters get dirty.” He scratched his head. “Huh. So many people in one place night after night. Amazing more strangeness doesn’t happen.”
They reached the top of the aisle and turned around to face the stage. Their perspective changed. Once actors, now viewers. Everyone was lost in thought.
Hudson slapped his head. “I know where it is.”
“Where?” They looked at Hudson with surprise.
“Amanda, that’s pretty good…,” he said, chuckling to himself. “The classroom.” He shrugged.
“The classroom!” Monica and April said together.
“The classroom?” Relly said.
“It’s completely obvious, isn’t it?” Hudson laughed.
“You’re right!” Relly snapped his fingers. “In every good mystery it’s always the least likely place.”
“Why not?” April shrugged her shoulders. They had nothing to lose.
The lights flickered, and a door in the distance slammed shut as they walked back down the aisle toward the empty stage, the ghost light their only source of light. A police car with its sirens going sped by outside.
A loud howling occurred.
Then a rumbling. Pipes! The waterfall onstage started to shake.
“Monica!” She heard Hudson call to her. He pulled her toward a side door, and they moved from fast walking to running. As they sped toward the classroom, papers from scripts and musical scores churned through the air. The piano in Studio A started to play. The wind outside now sounded like a woman hissing.
As they got closer to the classroom, the wind became visible in the theater, like tufts of clouds passing through walls.
Find it, Monica heard Jimmy whispering in her mind.
The theater started to groan.
“This is it,” Hudson said in a loud voice.
> The classroom door was wide open, and the lights were on, which surprised them. Wind and papers and costumes on hangers, rolling buckets, wigs, and duct tape were chasing behind them, caught in a tornado of energy.
“Go faster!” April screamed.
They made it into the classroom and slammed the door. All four leaned against it.
The room was still. As if nothing were happening on the other side.
“This is the center,” Relly said.
“What now? There’s nothing in here but chairs, a table, and a rubber chicken,” April said.
“Think about our clues,” Relly said.
“What clues? A key to a box with a message that says ‘Happy Birthday’? What clues?” Hudson said, beads of sweat rolling down his face.
April let out a little whimper. Everybody looked at her. “If there are no clues, then we have to go back out there. And out there is really scary right now.”
“Don’t worry, April; we’ll figure this out,” Relly said confidently. “Somehow.”
All of a sudden, the entire room started to shake. They held on to the door; then they held on to one another. It felt like an earthquake, rumbling below and above. The walls shook so hard, the dry-erase board came off one hook and fell at a diagonal, crashing to the floor and splitting like lightning had struck it.
They all stood in disbelief, not because the dry-erase board had come down with such thunderous force, but because after its fall, a portion of the wall was exposed, revealing a metal square the size of a large flat-screen television.
“It’s a safe!” Relly exclaimed. And not a small one either, but a very large and old-looking safe. The kind that an olden-days bank robber would want to get his hands on, with a twisty dial to open it.
“No way. That thing’s a vault!” Hudson said.
“It was right in front of us the whole time!” April laughed.
Whatever was inside, the kids were sure it was the answer to breaking the curse.
With the theater still quaking, they had to think quickly.
“Relly, our clues,” Monica said. “ ‘Happy Birthday’? What does that mean?”
Fearless Page 12
