The Rule of Three

by Megan McDonald

  “Frog Lips!” said Joey (it’s her other favorite name for Scott Towel). “Maybe the part isn’t hairy enough for him.”

  “Ha, ha, very funny. FYI, I haven’t talked to Scott Towel, I mean Howell. So I don’t know if he’s going out for it or not.”

  “So what’s your other reason, then?” Joey asked.

  “Hel-lo! It’s a comedy. You have to act all goofy and trip over stuff and everything.”

  “You’re good at that!” said Joey, unfolding herself from the chair-and-a-half she’d been tucked into with a book for the last hour. She was referring to the now-famous Volcano Incident, when Alex tripped and broke her toe in Beauty and the Beast. At the last minute, I had stepped in to take her part since I knew all the lines. That’s when I’d started to figure out that my Human Piñata days were over and maybe I could actually be in a play without dying of stage fright.

  “We all remember Alex’s Big Trip,” Dad teased.

  “Not every play has to be Shakespeare, honey,” Mom said. “Musicals are wildly popular now, and they’re so much fun.”

  I’ll skip the part where Mom and Dad chatted it up about the Good Old Days (a.k.a. BTHK, Before They Had Kids) and reminisced about all the musicals they were in Once Upon a Time. Major snooze.

  After Dad’s Big Trip (down Memory Lane) he started in on one of his famous speeches. “Mom’s right, Alex. Comedy is just as valid. Shakespeare wrote comedies, too, you know. They have puns and plot twists and mistaken identities. Take As You Like It or Much Ado About Nothing. They’re much more lighthearted in tone than his other works.”

  “Some of them even have happy endings,” Mom added.

  “Learning to use your body to create humor can be challenging for an actor. It’s called physical comedy, and it’s harder than it looks.”

  Dad yakked on and on about Kramer, Mr. Bean, and the Three Stooges and how they were masters of physical theater. Sometimes Dad forgets we aren’t students in his classroom. He launched into explaining the pitfalls of a pratfall (i.e., landing on your butt).

  How hard can it be?

  “Why don’t they just call it a buttfall?” I asked. Nobody heard my joke. They were too busy walking into walls, making weird faces, tossing the jester hat back and forth, and falling down on their butts, laughing. The Reel Family Clown School.

  I was used to feeling left out when it came to this family and acting. Joey tumbled off the couch. OK, so acting has never been my thing, but if that’s acting, I can fall on my butt as well as the next person.

  “Watch this,” I called, joining in. I held the back of my hand to my head in a fake faint, took three steps backward, stumbled over the “half” part of the chair-and-a-half and crumpled to the floor, landing on my butt, legs in the air. Joey pointed and laughed the hardest.

  Acting, I thought, catching my breath. How hard can it be? But if I tried out for an actual play, would I fall on my butt for real?

  Everybody knew Alex was the Actor-with-a-Capital-A. The Pretty One. Just like Joey was the Smart One and the Funny One. And I was the Sensible One. Calm. Even-tempered. Levelheaded. We each had parts to play, even in our own family. I felt like I was breaking a major rule just by thinking about acting in a play. Like when I crossed the line of tape into Alex’s room — the one we weren’t supposed to step over without her permission.

  So, I had a secret. I had decided — I was going to try out for the play. And I was dying to tell Best Friend Olivia, even though it wasn’t the gossipy kind of secret she always tells me, like when you know something about somebody you’re not supposed to know. The kind Olivia always knew about kids at school or people on her street. Olivia lives in a tree-lined, ride-your-bike neighborhood, where all the houses are thirty-three shades of beige and fly flags with pumpkins and hearts and snowmen at the exact right time of year.

  According to Olivia, there’s always somebody to spy on, which I guess you would do a lot of if you were an Only and didn’t have any sisters to bug or hang out with. There was the time Olivia saw a stolen lawn gnome from Mrs. Jaszczak’s front yard in a seventh grader’s locker at school, and the time she heard Sean Vandemeer’s dad yelling his head off when he found out that Sean drove the car even though he’s only fourteen.

  We Reels live in Acton’s oldest house, a run-down Victorian right off Main Street that is as shaggy as a eucalyptus tree from all the peeling paint on the outside. Mom likes to joke that the termites have eaten all the fancy gingerbread trim around the roof and porch.

  Our neighbors are the Raven Theater, which my family owns, the fire department, and an empty lot that used to be a Christmas-tree farm in the way-old days until a Scurry of Pocket Gophers decided to use it as their home address.

  “Look at the bright side,” I told Mom and Dad the other day when they were remembering the Christmas-tree farm and lamenting. “At least it wasn’t taken over by an Implausibility of Gnus.”

  This, by the way, is what you’d call Applied Learning. We were studying animal group names (a Glint of Goldfish, a Quiver of Cobras) in school, and I applied what I was learning. Kind of like using a vocabulary word in a sentence.

  Hint: It’s always a good idea to show off What You Are Learning at School right before hitting up your parents for a hundred big ones.

  It was hard to concentrate on schoolwork or cupcakes, though, because all I could think about was the musical. At first it was just an idea. A wish. A possibility. My pulse raced just thinking about it.

  Then it started to grow, taking up more and more space in me. No matter how much I tried to brush it away, I just couldn’t swat it dead like it was one of a Business of Flies or something. Pretty soon I was thinking about it while I was reading Little Women to Joey or watching reruns of Mom’s cooking show on basic cable or making Cavalcades of Cupcakes (I made that one up!) for the Cascade County Cake-Off.

  That once-tiny pulse had turned into heart-thumping excitement. Me! In a play! Singing my heart out. Onstage. But I couldn’t breathe a word of it to anyone.

  Why the big secret?

  Well, when you happen to have a big sister who’s good at everything and is the Actress in the family, and when you’ve had stage fright ever since your first acting role as a Human Piñata, and when you have always been the one in the family who hates acting, and when you’ve spent eleven and a half years trying to be good at other stuff even though you finally got to stand in for your sister in Beauty and the Beast because she broke her toe and you knew all the lines and you realized your stage fright was all in your head and that standing in that small spot of light in a room full of breathless dark with everybody holding their breath because of you, YOU . . . well, then it was kind of hard to admit that you even wanted to act in a play.

  To get up onstage. To sing.

  In fact, it was absolutely-positively terrifying, especially because Alex is, was, and always would be the Princess. Oldest sister. Snow White. Dorothy. Beauty. And if Alex was the Princess in the family, what did that make me?

  The Pea.

  I am the pea.

  I finally called Olivia to tell her for real. Since this was only the Biggest Secret of My Life, I took the cordless phone down into the basement and hid behind the gurgling water heater, whispering the whole time just in case.

  For the rest of the week, every time I caught myself getting excited about the play, I tried to shrink my secret down to pea size. Don’t get your hopes up too high, I warned myself.

  But a little voice inside me would not be quiet. What if I got to stand in the spotlight for once, the way I had for one shining moment in Beauty? What if I wasn’t the pea? What if the princess was me?

  What if, what if, what if . . . ? In no time, my excitement had suddenly double-triple-quadrupled until I was staring at a secret the size of a Pandemonium of Parrots.

  So I pretended not to have a secret. Pretending was kind of like acting, which was kind of like practicing for an audition without anybody knowing.

  How did this happ
en? Me. The Pea. I was supposed to be the Practical One. Instead, it felt like that first time I’d jumped off the high dive when I was seven. Reckless and brave . . . and exciting.

  The part I hated to imagine was telling my family my secret. I tried not to picture Mom and Dad looking at me like I was a Benedict-Arnold-size traitor and Joey gaping like I’d gone stark-raving, Jane-Eyre mad and Alex running from the room, stung, the same as if I’d just slapped her fresh across the face.

  “What’s up with you?” Joey asked me in our room that evening, sitting on a giant green bouncy yoga ball.

  “What do you mean? Nothing’s up,” I told her. But my insides were screaming, I decided to try out for a part in the musical!

  “Yah-huh. You’re acting weird.”

  “Am not.”

  “Yah-huh. I have proof.” Joey handed over her notebook with a list of seven ways I’m acting strange.

  “OK, Joey. But you can’t tell. Not anybody. Especially Alex.”

  “What? What?” Joey started bouncing on the yoga ball.

  “Listen to me. This is a big-time Super Sister Secret. You have to triple cross-your-heart-hope-to-die, quadruple-zip-your-lips promise you won’t tell.”

  “I promise. This is so great.” Joey clutched her hands to her heart. “Now I’ll know a secret. Like how Jo, when she meets Laurie, is sure he has a dark secret. A tragic European secret.”

  “OK, but if you tell . . .” Snip, snip, snip. I made scissors with my fingers, threatening to cut off her ponytail.

  “Blast and wretch,” said Joey, reaching to protect her ponytail.

  I cleared my throat. I coughed. I sputtered. “Guess what? I’m going to try out for the play.”

  “You? What play? Not —”

  “Once Upon a Mattress,” I finished the sentence for her.

  Joey stopped bouncing. Her face morphed from uncertainty to recognition to horror.

  “Alex’s play?” she breathed.

  I nodded. “Except it’s not Alex’s play, because she’s not trying out, remember?”

  “Wow, you’ll be the best Princess Winnie ever!” Joey said, spinning around the room.

  I blushed. “Joey, that’s the lead. I can’t go out for the lead.”

  “Why not? Sure you can. Your voice is perfect, and you already know all the songs. This is so great. I can just picture you singing ‘Happily Ever After.’”

  Joey was saying out loud what I had already been secretly thinking and imagining to myself. “Well . . . maybe I could. Maybe I should. Do you really think so?”

  Joey bobbed her head up and down, still flinging herself around the room, humming “Happily Ever After.”

  I took a deep breath. The fact that Joey thought I should try out for Winnie felt like a sign. “OK, I’ll do it. I’ll try out — for the lead. But you still can’t tell. Not till I’m ready.”

  Joey pretended to zip up her lips. “This is big!” she cried. “This is so big! No wonder you’ve been acting so really weird!”

  HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE ALEX?

  Starring Alex

  Me: (Entering Stevie and Joey’s room, hearing them talking.) What’s big?

  Stevie and Joey: (At same time.) Nothing!

  Me: Then how come you look so guilty? I can always tell when you guys are keeping a secret, so you might as well just tell me.

  Joey: (Rearranges stuffed animals on her bed.) Stevie didn’t go in your room, honest! And she definitely didn’t go in your closet.

  Stevie: (Makes mad eyes at Joey.) Joey!

  Me: I didn’t say you guys were in my room. Were you?

  Joey: Never mind. That’s not the real secret, anyway.

  Stevie: (Throws pillow at Joey.) Jo-ey!

  Joey: Hey, no throwing pillows. It’s against Sisters Club rules.

  Me: Ha! (Points at Joey.) So, my dear Watson, we’ve established that there is, in fact, a secret.

  Joey: A Super Sister Secret!

  Stevie: Joey, a pox on you if you breathe one word!

  Me: It’s OK. You can tell me, Duck. I’m your sister. Was Stevie in my closet, trying on my heels? Is that it?

  Joey: (Imitating Little Women.) “What cunning little heels! You have to have heels!”

  Me: Jo-ey?

  Joey: She wasn’t not in your closet.

  Me: Precisely, Watson. Just as I thought.

  Stevie: (Biting on end of hair.) Enough about secrets! Didn’t you have something you wanted to tell us?

  Joey: I know — why don’t we make this a Sisters Club meeting?

  Stevie: Yeah!

  Joey: (Holding up stuffed animal hedgehog.) Hedgie can be our mascot, instead of Sock Monkey.

  Me: OK. Sisters, Blisters, and Tongue Twisters. Official meeting of the Sisters Club, now in session.

  Joey: Hey, we didn’t hook pinkies!

  Everybody: (Hooking pinkies.) Sisters, Blisters, and Tongue Twisters.

  Joey: This is so cool! It’s just like the Pickwick Club — that’s the secret society Jo and her sisters have in Little Women. I could be Augustus Snodgrass and Stevie —

  Me: Pickwick Club! Might as well call it the Pick-Your-Nose Club.

  Joey: C’mon, you guys. Let’s bare our souls and tell the most appalling secrets, like they do in the Pickwick Club.

  Me: (Wrinkling nose.) Whatever. Look, we have to go with Dad to pick up Mom from work. They’re taking us to House of Cheese for pizza, so we don’t have much time.

  Joey: Yum!

  Stevie: So what’s up?

  Me: Well, I have some exciting news. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and I decided . . . Are you ready for this? . . . I’m going to try out for the play after all. I decided just to go for it, so I’m going to go out for the lead in Once Upon a Mattress.

  Joey: (Looks at Stevie, mouth open.)

  Stevie: (Looks at Joey, turns beet red.)

  Joey: The lead? Did you say the lead?

  Me: Sure. Why not? Why are you acting so weird?

  Joey: You mean the princess?

  Me: Yes, the princess. Of course, the princess. What else but the princess?

  Joey: But what about — what about how you hate musicals?

  Stevie: And what about how you can’t sing?

  Me: Thanks a lot!

  Joey: In front of people, she means.

  Me: So I take a few voice lessons. The music teacher at school might help me or something. What do you think? Isn’t it exciting?

  Stevie: Yeah, thrilling.

  Joey: That’s — that’s — that’s . . . great.

  Me: What’s wrong? I thought this would be big giant news.

  Stevie: (Sarcastically.) News flash! Alex Reel is going to star in yet another play for like the one-millionth time!

  Me: (Standing in doorway, about to leave.) Well, you don’t have to act so snot-faced about it. Geez! You’re my sisters. I thought you’d at least be happy for me. And you guys wonder why sometimes I don’t want to be in the Sisters Club.

  Dad: (Calls upstairs.) Time to go pick up Mom!

  Joey: Wait! Don’t go yet. The meeting’s not over. Stevie has something she wants to tell you. Don’t you, Stevie?

  Stevie: Um, yeah. Good luck.

  On the way to Mom’s studio, I let it sink in that Alex was going out for the play. Really and truly. My excitement over trying out myself had gone out of me, like air out of a day-after party balloon.

  What goes up must come down.

  I stared out the window. Fog. Gray January fog. No mountains in sight. Usually the snowcapped peaks of the Three Sisters, like frosted cupcakes, were silhouetted against the purple-streaked sky. No drama in the skies today, just inside me.

  We get three kinds of gray skies in Oregon: white-gray, light-gray, and gray-gray, and today was gray-gray. I could imagine Joey spouting Little Women: “‘There is always light behind the clouds.’”

  Not today.

  Now the fog had gone to twilight, which was turning to night.

  The back
seat was quiet. Not the dreamy kind of quiet when you stare lazily out the window and all’s right with the world. The frozen quiet like a wall between two sisters that feels hard as ice.

  Alex kept stealing sideways glances at me. She looked nervous, like I was a shaken-up bottle of pop about to explode. But as soon as our eyes met, she quickly looked out the window.

  Good thing Joey was smushed in between Alex and me. For once, I wasn’t in the middle. But I was in the middle of a giant mess.

  Why did Alex have to decide to be in the play, anyway? She didn’t even like musicals. Or singing in front of people. Why couldn’t she, just once, be the audience, not the actor?

  Dad was listening to news on the radio. The annoying radio guy was droning on and on, buzzing like a Scourge of Mosquitoes.

  “Dad! Could you turn that thing down?” I said, louder than I meant to. “Please,” I added, a little softer.

  I felt like I was in a mixing bowl myself — all churned up. Why did Alex have to go out for the lead? How could I even be thinking of trying out for the same role as Alex? She was the oldest. The Pretty One. The Actress. The Princess. How could I compete with that? How could I compete with my own sister?

  Anger sizzled inside me like hot oil in a pan, just thinking about it. Maybe I should just forget the whole thing. Drop it. Chalk it up to Stupid Idea Number 297.

  But a little voice inside me wouldn’t quit. I love to sing, and finally the school was putting on a musical. Why shouldn’t I make my voice heard?

  I was still seething when we pulled up outside the ugly brownish-beige box that is Mom’s building.

  “I’ll tell Mom we’re here,” I said, fleeing the confines of the car.

  “I’ll go with you,” Alex said, and flip-flopped after me without a coat, even though it was freezing out.

  At the front desk, we signed in and grabbed badges that said V for Visitor. I headed down the hall, past offices and sound booths with glass windows; past bulletin boards with notices of the county cake-off tempting me; to the studio, where they taped the Fondue Sue show.