Nancy Clancy, Star of Stage and Screen

by Jane O'Connor

  “You mean it?” Nancy’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, thank you! Thank you from the bottom of my heart!”

  Nancy and Bree fell on each other, hugging.

  “It wasn’t nice what you said,” Bree said a moment later. “But my mom says you had a point. She thinks I go overboard and push myself too hard. I have tap-danced so much, I’m starting to get blisters on my blisters!”

  “You’ll be stupendous tomorrow.”

  “I hope. And then I never have to listen to that song about New York again,” Bree said with a giggle. “Not for as long as I live.”

  It was almost showtime! The scenery—a giant map of the US in red, silver, and blue glitter—was stapled across the back wall of the stage. Everyone was in costume. To Nancy, the kids no longer looked like ordinary third graders. They were now the cast members of The Nifty Fifty.

  Even though Mr. D said peeking at the audience wasn’t professional, Nancy couldn’t resist pulling back the edge of the curtain.

  “I see your parents and Freddy,” Nancy whispered to Bree.

  Bree stood on tiptoe behind Nancy and peeked too.

  The auditorium was still pretty empty. Nancy’s family had arrived early and grabbed front-row seats. Her dad was fiddling with his video cam. Her mom’s back was turned because she was talking to another mom in the second row. JoJo was shouting to Bree’s brother and pointing to an empty seat beside her. Nancy was not surprised to see that JoJo had worn her Cowgirl Sal hat and badge.

  Bree straightened her crown for the fiftieth time. “I wish I didn’t go on so soon.”

  “You’re lucky!” Nancy said. “You’ll be all done and you can relax. Robert and I don’t go on till the end.”

  At that moment Mr. D came and shooed them offstage. Then the curtains parted and Lionel, dressed as Uncle Sam, roller-skated onstage.

  “Greetings, my fellow Americans,” Lionel began. “Welcome to The Nifty Fifty. Do we have a show for you! Our opening act is about the fiftieth state. That’s Hawaii, for any parents in the audience who failed social studies. . . . And speaking of Hawaii, that reminds me of a little joke. A very little joke . . . What did one volcano say to the other?” Lionel took off his top hat and waited half a second. “I lava you!” he shouted. Then he pulled a rubber chicken out of his hat, bonked himself on the head with it, and roller-skated offstage.

  The Nifty Fifty had begun.

  For “Blue Hawaii,” a line of girls in grass skirts danced the hula while a boy from the other third grade class lip-synched along with Elvis Presley. He wore a loud print shirt and his hair was slicked back in a poufy style called a pompadour.

  After “Blue Hawaii,” a bunch of kids in parkas and ski hats sang “North to Alaska.” Then five couples did a dance from the olden days, called a waltz, to a song about Tennessee. After Lionel told a couple of more jokes and bonked himself with the rubber chicken, suddenly it was Bree’s turn.

  When the curtains opened, Bree was posed like the Statue of Liberty, her torch—a flashlight with orange crepe-paper flames—raised high.

  “East Side, West Side,” the music began.

  Watching Bree, Nancy had to admit it: being a perfectionist paid off. Bree didn’t miss a step. In fact, she made tap dancing look easy. Clickety-clack-clack. Her feet looked they were flying. At the very end of the song, Bree tossed her torch—Mr. D was standing by, ready to catch it—and then did three almost-perfect cartwheels off the stage.

  Nancy clapped till her hands stung.

  “I did it!” Bree said. Her shoulders were heaving up and down, she was breathing so hard. Nancy couldn’t remember ever seeing Bree look happier.

  After Bree’s dance, it seemed to Nancy as if time speeded up. The production numbers began and ended, one after another, almost in a blur. For the song “California Girls,” kids wore bathing suits and pretended to surf on boogie boards. Olivia and the Oklahoma chorus sang while they square-danced, followed by a song about the Rocky Mountains in Colorado that Nancy didn’t remember hearing before.

  Then Lionel was back onstage, telling a joke about Texas.

  Nancy grabbed her guitar. She and Robert were next. Strangely she didn’t feel at all nervous.

  “If a cowboy rides into Houston on Friday and leaves a day later on Friday, how on earth can that be?” Lionel scratched his head, looking puzzled, then yelled, “Because his horse is named Friday!”

  The curtains closed. Quickly Nancy made a fake campfire out of branches from her backyard while Robert set out a couple of cardboard cactus plants.

  Nancy sat down with her guitar by the fire and tilted her cowboy hat a little. Robert gave her a thumbs-up and disappeared offstage with his lasso. Then the curtains opened again.

  Sacre bleu! The place was packed! Lots of people didn’t have seats and were standing in the back. Everybody was looking at her. Every single person in the auditorium. So Nancy smiled. Or at least she tried to. Her lips didn’t seem to be working properly. And then . . .

  Zap! Her mind went blank. Totally blank. It was the strangest feeling ever—like a giant eraser was inside her brain, wiping out everything.

  Nancy opened her mouth. Nothing came out. What were the words to the song? She couldn’t remember! What was the name of the song? She didn’t know that, either! Out of the corner of her eye she saw Mr. Dudeny and Robert offstage. They were trying to signal her. Although their mouths were moving, Nancy had no clue what they were saying.

  Nancy opened her mouth again.

  This time she heard something—the opening line of the song. “The stars at night are big and bright . . .” Only Nancy wasn’t the person who was singing.

  It was JoJo.

  JoJo had scrambled out of her seat in the front row. In a nanosecond she was onstage, sitting next to Nancy by the fake campfire.

  Like magic, all the words to the song flew back in Nancy’s head. She sang and played “Deep in the Heart of Texas” straight through with no mistakes, just as she’d rehearsed it so many times. Robert even added a new lasso trick, making the rope spin low to the ground at his side.

  Every time they came to the chorus line, JoJo clapped four times. Soon everybody in the audience was clapping along too.

  At the end of “Deep in the Heart of Texas,” they all took a bow. Nancy, Robert, and JoJo. A trio. Not a duet.

  There was lots of applause. Nancy’s mom jumped up clapping. So did her dad, who let out piercing whistles through his fingers. JoJo hugged Nancy, then ran back to her seat right before the curtains closed. Backstage, Bree came rushing up to Nancy. “Are you all right, chérie?”

  “I don’t know what came over me!” Nancy covered her eyes. “I took one look at the crowd and . . . and just froze.”

  “Lookit,” Robert said, “you only messed up for a second. After that it went okay.”

  There was no more time to talk because Lionel was in front of the curtains, announcing the grand finale. “Folks, it’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for, when this show finally ends!”

  Nancy found her Hooray for the USA! sign and was standing in place onstage when the curtains parted. The music to “This Land Is Your Land” started playing. It was her favorite song in the show, but right now it didn’t cheer Nancy up. Hiding behind her sign, she marched around with all the other third graders. Soon the parents joined in too, so by the last line of the song—“Yes, this land was made for you and me”—the whole auditorium was filled with sound.

  Then the curtain came down one final time.

  The Nifty Fifty was over.

  Nancy skipped the cast party in the cafeteria. She wanted to go straight home. However, her parents insisted on going out to Cohen’s Ice Cream Shoppe. “To celebrate,” they said. Nancy barely touched the chocolate caramel parfait that she ordered.

  “You got stage fright,” her mom said. “It can happen to anybody.”

  “But I wasn’t even nervous beforehand,” Nancy said, spooning up a little whipped cream. “I knew the song inside and out!”<
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  “That’s how it happens. Stage fright just comes out of nowhere,” her dad said.

  “I was a good helper,” JoJo said, her face smeared with chocolate sauce.

  “You sure were!” her mom said. “You were a great helper.” She turned to Nancy. “You know, Bree’s parents thought JoJo was part of the act. They thought you froze on purpose.”

  “Oh, come on, Mom.” Nancy took a tiny bite of ice cream.

  “That’s what they said. Both of them. JoJo was in a cowgirl costume, after all.”

  “Cowgirl Sal,” JoJo corrected.

  “Nancy, you were brave and stuck it out. And the song turned out great,” her dad insisted. “I’ve got it all on the video cam!”

  Video cam. Sacre bleu! Nancy put down her spoon and looked at her father. “Dad, just promise me one thing. Whatever you filmed, destroy it!”

  That night all through dinner the phone never stopped ringing. Finally Nancy’s mom answered it in case something bad had happened.

  From the conversation, Nancy could tell the call was from her uncle Cal in Colorado.

  “Wait, wait. Slow down!” her mom was saying. “It’s on what? Are you kidding? No, no, we haven’t seen it!”

  Ooh la la! This didn’t sound like bad news. It sounded like something thrilling.

  “Let me talk to Uncle Cal.” JoJo tried snatching the phone. But Mom shooed her away. “Okay, Cal. I’ll look right now. Talk to Doug.” Nancy’s mom handed over the receiver. Then she ran and got her laptop from the den, pushed away her plate, and started typing furiously.

  “What’s going on?” Nancy asked.

  Her mom didn’t answer; her fingers kept hitting computer keys.

  “Cal, how many hits?” her dad was saying. A second later he blew through his lips. “Whoa! That’s unbelievable. Yup. Claire’s searching right now.”

  “I think I found it!” her mom shouted. “Yes. I found it!”

  Her dad hung up and raced to the laptop.

  “Found what?” Nancy demanded to know. “Will one of you please tell me what’s going on?”

  “You’re on YouTube!” her dad cried.

  “SAY WHAT?!” Nancy yelped.

  “Somebody at The Nifty Fifty put up a clip of your song. You and JoJo and Robert.”

  “Me? I want to see!” JoJo scooted onto Mom’s lap.

  “It’s getting hundreds of thousands of hits,” her dad went on. “It’s going viral!” Then he started doing an absurd victory dance around the table.

  “You mean all over America people are watching me make a fool of myself?” Nancy clutched her head. “This is the worst news ever!”

  “No, Nancy! No, it’s not.” Her mom was replaying the video. “Everybody understands about stage fright. But you kept on singing and—aw, look, Doug!—it’s so great when JoJo joins in!” Nancy’s mom planted a kiss on JoJo’s forehead.

  “Daddy, did you have something to do with this?” Nancy said.

  Her father stopped dancing. “Absolutely not! Scout’s honor.”

  “I want to watch again,” JoJo said.

  “Well, I never want to see it!” Nancy bolted from the kitchen. Then, midway on the stairs, she stopped in her tracks. “No! I have to.”

  Nancy came back to the kitchen and forced herself to watch as her mother hit the replay arrow. What Nancy saw was horrifying.

  There she was in the vest and red cowboy hat, holding her guitar. At first there was a smile on her face. Then the smile vanished and her mouth started opening and closing like a goldfish. And her eyes looked weird. They were just staring into space, like she was hypnotized or under a witch’s spell.

  A moment later, the camera swiveled from Nancy onstage to the front of the auditorium. Although you could hear JoJo singing, at first all you saw was the backs of people’s heads in their seats. Then there was JoJo, climbing up the steps to the stage and sitting beside Nancy.

  Everything went fine after that. But the beginning of the act! The fish face! It made Nancy shudder.

  Just then the doorbell rang. It was Bree. She came racing in. “Chérie! I just saw it!”

  “You know already!”

  “Grace called me.”

  “She’s seen it too?” Nancy yelped.

  “Everybody has!”

  “What! Oh, I could die! I could just shrivel up and die,” Nancy wailed.

  “No! Don’t be upset. Grace is jealous. She’s scared you’re going to get famous.”

  “As if that will ever happen!”

  “Do you know that some girl our age was on the Today show all because of a song she sang on YouTube?”

  Nancy nodded. “Yeah, my dad told me about her.”

  Bree spread her arms as if to prove her point. “Face it, Nancy, it could happen. You could be on national TV.”

  Nancy never appeared on national television. However, the local station WJIM did request an interview on Sunday morning. The show was called Weekend Wrap-Up with Kelly Green.

  Nancy, Robert, and JoJo sat under hot lights in the studio in white plastic swivel chairs. Tiny microphones—ooh la la!—were clipped to their vests.

  “Try not to look at the cameras,” a guy with a clipboard told them beforehand. “Act normal. And keep your answers short. The segment is only three minutes long.”

  A moment later Kelly Green arrived on the set. A bunch of paper towels were stuck in the neck of her shirt. “It’s to keep makeup off my clothes,” she explained, shaking hands.

  Once the paper towels were removed, her hair combed and sprayed, she took her place in a swivel chair between Nancy and Robert.

  “Okay. We’re good to go,” someone behind the cameras shouted.

  “Welcome to Weekend Wrap-Up. This is your host, Kelly Green, and I am happy to have three special guests here with me this morning—Nancy Clancy, her sister, Josephine Clancy, and Robert Nelson, who is one of Nancy’s third-grade classmates at the Ada M. Droozle Elementary School.”

  Kelly Green crossed her legs and clasped her hands together. “Last Friday what started out as one song in a patriotic school variety show called The Nifty Fifty quickly went viral on YouTube. As of this morning the clip of these youngsters performing ‘Deep in the Heart of Texas’ has been watched by more than four million people.” Kelly Green winked at Nancy, Robert, and JoJo. “That’s pretty amazing, guys. So let’s see what all the excitement is about.”

  After the clip was shown, Kelly Green asked, “How does it feel to be a YouTube sensation? Robert, why don’t we start with you.”

  Unfortunately, Robert’s microphone malfunctioned. That meant it wasn’t working, and JoJo, who normally loved attention, totally clammed up. So that left Nancy to do all the talking.

  The guy with the clipboard held up a sign that said Only 20 seconds. So Nancy spoke quickly. She tried to sound natural and mature. “At first I was despondent about getting stage fright. It was a mortifying experience. However, I am grateful to my sibling for her assistance.” Nancy turned to JoJo, who was busy spinning in the swivel chair. “Actually, I am astonished that JoJo’s being so bashful and timid. Ordinarily she is very rambunctious. In fact—”

  “Gee, I’m afraid that’s all the time we have,” Kelly Green broke in. “Thank you so much, Nancy, Robert, and Josephine, for appearing on Weekend Wrap-Up, and now a word from Otto’s Chevrolet, because if you need an auto, you oughtta go to Otto’s!”

  “That guy said the segment was going to be three minutes,” Robert told Nancy as they all left the studio. His stopwatch was cupped in his hand. “But I timed it. It was only two minutes and fifty-four seconds.”

  Waving good-bye to Robert and his parents, Nancy climbed into the backseat of the car with JoJo.

  Nancy’s mom had taped the show beforehand so they could all watch as soon as they got home. She turned to the backseat. “Nancy, it was really sweet of you to give JoJo a shout-out on TV.”

  As soon as her mother said that, Nancy realized something. Yes, she had thanked her sister on TV, b
ut she had never said anything just to JoJo. Face-to-face.

  Nancy helped JoJo with the belt of her car seat. “JoJo, merci mille fois—that’s French for ‘Thank you a thousand times.’ You’re a great sister and you really came to the rescue.”

  “Is my posse buckled up?” Dad asked. “Okay—back to the ranch!”

  He started the car.

  “The stars at night are big and bright,” Dad began singing.

  All the Clancys joined in. Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap.

  “Deep in the heart of Texas.”

  BACK AD

  JANE O’CONNOR is truly a native New Yorker. She was born and raised on the glamorous Upper West Side and, after graduating from Smith College, returned to the metropolis (that’s fancy for city) to begin a career in publishing. Currently Jane works as an editor for Penguin Books for Young Readers.

  Jane has written more than sixty books for children, including the bestselling Fancy Nancy books, seven of which were #1 New York Times bestsellers.

  Jane is married to Jim O’Connor. They have two grown sons and a rambunctious canine (that’s fancy for naughty dog) named Arrow.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  ROBIN PREISS GLASSER, a former professional ballet dancer, has illustrated more than fifty children’s picture books, including the New York Times bestselling Fancy Nancy series, written by Jane O’Connor. Robin lives in San Juan Capistrano, California, with her husband, Bob. She has two grown children, Sasha and Ben, and a dog, Boo, who looks exactly like Nancy’s dog, Frenchy!

  CREDITS

  Cover art © 2015 by Robin Preiss Glasser