by Annie Bryant
Isabel really missed her father. Sometimes at night she cried because they weren’t all together. But in the morning, how could she “mope” while watching her mother move slowly and sometimes hesitantly through the house. No, she said to herself. Martinez women did not mope about. They got up and got things done!
When Isabel got home from school, Elena Maria was making empanadas (and practicing her scales—thank goodness she was done before Isabel put her coat away) and fire-roasting chilies on the gas burner of the stove. Her sister was a great cook, just like her mother and father. Her mother was sitting at the kitchen table. Even Aunt Lourdes was there. It reminded her of the last time they were in Mexico…the family all together at the Mercado.
Except that her dad should be here too. “Any…” Isabel stopped herself from asking if there had been any word from her father.
“What?” her mother asked.
Isabel thought quickly. “Any…thing I can do to help?”
Elena Maria smiled. “We’re all set. You can be on the cleanup crew with Aunt Lourdes.”
Cleanup was just fine with Isabel. Since Elena Maria was the cook, Isabel was willing to help with the dishes. “We have a symbiotic relationship, you and I. I cook, you eat and clean. It works for me,” Elena Maria told her.
Isabel hated it when Elena used big words, which she did often. She thought it made her sound smart. It was clear that Elena Maria didn’t want to be known only as a good cook. But the big words annoyed Isabel to no end.
Isabel went to put her backpack away. When the Beacon Street Girls first saw Isabel and Elena’s room, they had been really surprised. It was decorated like an art gallery. The walls were painted navy blue and covered with art posters. Isabel had a Lion King poster over her bed, the one from the Broadway show. Julie Taymor, the director of the show, was one of her favorite artists. A papier-mâché parrot stood in the corner, posing as inspiration for one of Isabel’s bird cartoons. Her room looked like something you would see on Trading Spaces.
Katani had been so excited when she saw the room because she could tell that Isabel loved color and design as much as she did, just in a different way. Now that they were such good friends, the two girls would talk on the phone about their different projects. Their favorite topic: Perfect Color of the Week. Charlotte laughed when she heard about their conversations. “Okay,” she added. “You can never tease me again about being a word nerd, because you two are art nerds!”
Isabel sat down to check her e-mail. There was one from the Brookline Arts Center, her home away from home. When she wasn’t at the tower with the Beacon Street Girls or at the pool, Isabel was at the Brookline Arts Center.
She was surprised when she saw an e-mail from Kiki.
She was even more surprised when she read that Kiki had seen her artwork displayed in class and wanted Isabel to create some backdrops for Kiki’s hip-hop dance.
From the description Kiki gave her, it was hard to resist. The act included hip-hop, singing, computer animation, and a rock video that Kiki’s father had promised to shoot and maybe even sell. But what really intrigued Isabel was that they were looking for another backup dancer. Kiki had apparently seen Isabel’s triptych. She hadn’t danced in a really long time. It would be so much fun. One night of dancing wouldn’t bother her knee that much. It was so tempting. She knew her father would be over the top with happiness to see her dance again. Was Isabel interested?
Isabel hesitated. She already promised she would do artwork for the BSG magic act, and she would never let her friends down. But Isabel knew her father would do everything he could to come to see her dance. He had never missed one of her performances, not ever. And, as much as Isabel hated being the center of attention now, she figured she could handle being a backup dancer. She could certainly handle it if it meant she would get to see her dad.
Kiki left her phone number for Isabel to call.
“So what do you think?” Kiki asked.
Kiki sounded so friendly on the phone that Isabel not only accepted both jobs, but she told Kiki the reason.
“That’s cool,” Kiki said. “I wanted to make some fliers to distribute. Maybe we can send one to your dad.”
“That would be fun,” Isabel said. “I’ll start working now.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow in the auditorium as soon as school ends,” Kiki said. “We can show you all the dance steps so you can practice them before the auditions.”
“Okay,” Isabel said. Boy, she thought, this is going to be so great!
At dinner Isabel told her mother all about her triptych and the talent show. Isabel’s happiness was contagious, though her family didn’t know the real reason behind it. Isabel was going to keep it a secret, just in case it didn’t happen.
For some reason, when she went to bed, she couldn’t get that silly old Disney song out of her head for the next few hours. “Zippity do dah, Zippidy ai ay. My, oh, my, what a wonderful day.” It was driving her crazy. She had to put a pillow over her head and hum to make it go away.
CHAPTER 7
The Audition
Kiki sat in the third row with Anna and Joline, watching as Isabel performed the dance combination. Kiki made Isabel audition like they were famous producers or something, and this was some big Broadway show. Isabel could see them whispering back and forth to each other. She wanted to shout out, “Hey, what are you talking about?” but she wasn’t that brave. So she just kept on dancing. Gradually, her body remembered how good it felt to dance. She could feel the sweat begin to drip down the side of her face as the music’s beat intensified, and Isabel felt exhilarated.
“She’s pretty good,” Kiki remarked as she watched Isabel execute a particularly difficult move.
“She’s not that good.” Anna said nastily. “She’s kinda too…too stiff. We’re supposed to be like music video dancers.”
“Maybe we should get her a tutu,” laughed Joline. “Tell me again why we need her?” she asked, not really wanting to share the stage with anyone else but the three of them.
“We need her because she’s the only one who can paint the sets I want,” Kiki replied. “And she knows something about computer animation. She’s even going to do the costumes.”
“What? Is she like some kind of art genius?” Anna said sarcastically.
“She takes a ton of art classes…more than you,” Kiki answered in her Empress of Cool Kiki voice.
“You’re really going to let her design our costumes?” Anna was horrified. Kiki had never mentioned that before.
“Chill, she can copy our costumes.” Kiki handed Anna a magazine with a dog-eared page.
“Nice,” Joline said.
But Anna wasn’t so sure. “Couldn’t we put her in another color?”
The dress they were looking at came in red and deep blue, almost the same color Isabel had on today. Blue was definitely one of Isabel’s colors. “We can put her in whatever we want to,” Kiki said.
“I think we should put her in puce,” Joline said, laughing.
“I thought she was the designer,” Anna said. “Doesn’t she get to decide the color?”
“No way,” Kiki said. “I tell her what to do and she does it. It’s like she works for me. Hey, I just had an idea. Maybe she could make your costumes and I’ll buy a really good costume for myself. The star always needs to have the most spectacular look.”
“Who sez?” said Anna, suddenly furious inside.
“Excuse me! Beyonce, duh!” said Kiki, tossing her luxurious mane over her shoulder, which managed to hit Joline in the face.
“Ow! You hit me in the eye.”
Kiki ignored Joline completely.
“What…what if she can’t sew?” Anna said, growing more horrified by the moment.
“There’s always blue jeans and a T-shirt,” Kiki responded, looking nonchalantly at Anna. “Besides, maybe she can use it to get a modeling job.”
“I doubt if Isabel cares,” Anna answered, her teeth clenched.
�
�Why not, you do.” Kiki smiled sweetly as Anna’s face turned bright red. Kiki knew that Anna wanted to use this video as a modeling tape, and if she didn’t do what Kiki wanted, she would be out of the show. But Anna was growing mad enough just to say, “Forget it!” Kiki could see that, and she really did not want to lose Anna, so in a sweet voice, she said, “Hey, we all have to do our part. I mean, hello, who is bringing in the lighting director, and the choreographer?”
“Your father?” Anna couldn’t help it.
“Me!” Kiki said, getting agitated that anyone might question her control. “So I get to say what color the costumes are, okay?”
“Okay,” Joline said.
“I can’t understand why Isabel would agree to this anyway. It sounds like way too much work for one person…Okay, less for us to do,” Anna said laughingly.
“Being a set designer is very cool,” Joline said, echoing Kiki.
“Oh yeah, set designer of a seventh-grade talent show is going to do a lot for someone’s cool factor,” Anna huffed.
“You have to start somewhere,” Joline said.
Kiki decided to put a stop to things. “The reason she’s taking the job is so she can dance.”
“What?” Anna asked.
“She thinks that if she dances in the show, her father will come out and visit,” Kiki said.
“She told you that?” Anna asked.
“She did.” Kiki smiled. “I can be so charming when I need to be.”
As soon as the music ended, Kiki went up on stage to congratulate Isabel. She put an arm around her shoulder. She gave her a few pointers. Then they danced together. If Anna hadn’t known better, she would have sworn that the two girls were actual friends. But Kiki didn’t have friends…not really.
“I want to be Kiki when I grow up,” Joline said, impressed by Kiki’s ability to manipulate people.
“I thought you wanted to be me when you grew up,” Anna said. It was more cutting than she’d meant it to be, and Anna could tell that it hurt Joline’s feelings. Too bad. This little threesome was really getting on her nerves. She didn’t want to admit it, but she kind of missed it just being herself and Joline. Being with Kiki was not all that it was cracked up to be.
For all Anna cared, Joline, who was supposed to be her follower, and Kiki could do it themselves. She didn’t care anymore. And she especially hated the name Kiki had picked for the group: The Hip-Hop Honeys. How boring was that? Anna wanted to call the group ItGirls. That was a way cooler name. Anna consoled herself with that thought for the moment.
“Come on,” Kiki said, motioning Anna and Joline to the stage. “Let’s practice the combinations together before everyone gets here.”
Anna and Joline reluctantly walked to the stage.
All four Hip-Hop Honeys were practicing Kiki’s dance routine when the rest of the Beacon Street Girls arrived.
“OOH,” Kiki said to Isabel. “Here comes the seventh-grade magic clique.”
“Clickety, clickety, clack,” Joline said disdainfully.
It took Isabel a minute to realize that they were talking about her best friends. She had never thought of the Beacon Street Girls as a clique. In fact, they were anything but. She’d have to straighten Kiki out on that one.
Maeve, Avery, Charlotte, and Katani took seats several rows back. They couldn’t help being surprised to see Isabel with Kiki and the Queens of Mean.
“What’s going on here?” Maeve whispered to Charlotte.
“After you said no, they asked Isabel to be in their act,” Charlotte said.
“And she’s actually going to do it?” Maeve couldn’t believe her eyes.
“I thought she didn’t like to be on stage,” Katani said.
“She must have changed her mind,” Charlotte said.
“Or maybe she just didn’t want to be in our act,” Avery suggested.
“You know Isabel used to be a dancer,” Charlotte said. “We don’t have any dancing in our act.”
“We could put in a dance,” Avery suggested. “Maybe she could do a little dance with Marty.”
Lately, Avery was obsessed with the idea of getting Marty into this show. She had convinced herself that he used to be in the circus. Back in his other life. Before they found and adopted him.
Isabel was good at the dance steps, but as Maeve watched, she could tell that Isabel really didn’t like being center stage. It was in her expression, which was just a little reserved. Her dancing was really nice, though. Maeve thought that Isabel definitely had the moves. All that ballet training had paid off.
“Isabel wasn’t lying to us,” Maeve said. “She just really doesn’t like to be the center of attention.”
“I really don’t think she has to worry about that,” Avery said, looking at Anna and Joline, who were already vying for position and trying to steal focus from both Isabel and each other.
“I have a really bad feeling about this,” Katani said.
When Isabel told them the reason she had decided to join the Hip-Hop Honeys, she had hoped that her friends would be more supportive about the opportunity to get her father here. She couldn’t wait to introduce her friends to her father. But even after she told them the reason, the Beacon Street Girls were not very excited about the whole thing. Isabel was their friend, and the Anna-Joline-Kiki crew was not to be trusted, in their opinion.
“You really don’t want to hang around with them,” Avery warned. “They could cause you a lot of trouble.”
“They’re really not nice a lot of the time,” Maeve added.
“Just be careful,” was Charlotte’s advice.
Even Isabel, who usually liked pretty much everybody, had to admit that Anna and Joline were not the nicest girls in Ms. Rodriguez’s homeroom. But this Kiki girl seemed genuinely nice. And it really was Kiki’s show; she was the one who was calling the shots. With Kiki in charge, even Anna and Joline were being nice enough that Isabel was starting to wonder if people had misjudged them all along.
But, it was so strange to hear Kiki refer to the Beacon Street Girls as a clique. That just wasn’t true. They hated cliques. It was against the Tower Rules. The Beacon Street Girls were just good friends who spent a lot of time together. She would have to make Kiki understand that—if she could make Kiki understand anything at all.
TROUBLE IN PARADISE
“I don’t see what the problem is,” Isabel said when she saw Katani’s face. “I like to design scenery, and I like to dance. Plus, we’re allowed to be in two acts.”
“There’s no problem,” Katani said. “If that’s what you want to do.” Isabel had heard Katani use that tone before, back when they first met. It sounded kind of snobbish. She hoped Katani wasn’t going to get mad at her again. They had seriously bonded over their “art nerd” thing, and she didn’t want to lose that.
“Okay, everyone,” Ms. Ciara said. “People, please take your places now.”
There was a sudden rush as the kids all grabbed seats next to their friends in the auditorium.
Avery whispered to Maeve, “We should just go sit with other people and start a new trend.”
“Cool idea,” Maeve whispered back. But, before they had a chance to move, Ms. Ciara clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention.
“Settle down, everyone. We understand that you’re just beginning to formulate your plans, so we’re not going to make you perform now. All we’re trying to find out today is what you intend to do: what kind of act, what it entails, and about how long it will be. For example, if you’re doing a musical number, we want to know what kind of music…or what kind of dancing. Then we can set up the rough order of the show.”
She called their names in the order they had signed up. Betsy Fitzgerald went first. She had decided on something by John Philip Sousa, but there were too many notes to play any of Sousa’s tunes as a tuba solo. Each piece she had tried only ended up making her dizzy.
Betsy had done quite a bit of research before deciding which instrument to take up for ba
nd. In the end, she’d decided on the tuba the same way she decided on everything else. The tuba was a favored instrument for college admissions. College bands were always looking for people who could play the unwieldy instrument. And, since not many girls actually played it, Betsy figured that the tuba gave her an edge. Betsy was serious about going to an Ivy League school like Harvard or Yale. Everyone in the seventh grade thought she was obsessed…but smart.
“It says here that you’re doing a tuba solo, Betsy,” Ms. Ciara said. “One of Sousa’s marches?” She looked impressed.
“I’d like to change that,” Betsy said. “I still want to play something by Sousa,” she said, “but I don’t want to play a solo.” Betsy didn’t want to admit the reason, and nobody asked her to. No one seemed excited about a tuba.
“Well, where are your other band members?” Ms. Ciara asked.
“Um. I haven’t exactly found them yet,” she said. “But we have band practice tomorrow. I’ll get some volunteers.”
Maeve went next. She had first intended to perform a solo from Fame. But then she found a song she liked even better from the musical Wicked. Ms. Ciara was familiar with the show, and thought the song was an excellent choice.
“I’m sure you will do a wonderful job,” Ms. Ciara said.
Another girl was going to do a gymnastics floor exercise with rings and trailing ribbons. A boy offered a recitation of a poem by Robert Frost, while a third girl was doing a ventriloquism act using an old Cabbage Patch Kid as a dummy. Everyone loved that idea—it was so funny, and the girl who was doing it was a real crackup.
