The Curtain Call Caper (The Gabby St. Claire Diaries)

by Christy Barritt

  THE CURTAIN CALL CAPER

  The Gabby St. Claire Diaries, Book 1

  By Christy Barritt

  and Kathy Applebee

  The Curtain Call Caper: A Novel

  Copyright 2014 by Christy Barritt and Kathy Applebee

  Published by River Heights

  Cover design by The Killion Group

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  The persons and events portrayed in this work are the creation of the author, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Kathy Applebee would like to thank:

  Christy Barritt, who not only introduced me to the fabulous Gabby St. Claire, but has graciously invited me and my imaginary friends into Gabby’s world.

  Mary Penuel, who accepts me for who I am and encourages me to be the woman God wants me to be.

  My husband Michael, whose daily sacrifices allow me to pursue a dream. I love you.

  My Creator, in whose image we are made and created, the Author and Finisher of our salvation. To Him be the glory forever and ever.

  Christy Barritt would like to thank:

  Kathy Applebee, for believing in my characters and my writing.

  All the kids I get to hang out with and their delightful insight into life.

  CHAPTER 1

  A bell rang as I raced around the corner. Bam! I smacked into the seventh grade hall janitor and ricocheted backward. With the dexterity of an acrobat, I caught myself before plunging either a foot or my math book into the murky water of the yellow, rolling bucket Mrs. Whatever-her-name-was had positioned as some kind of hurdle for the unwary.

  I managed a “sorry” on the fly and rushed the remaining half a hallway, skidding to an ungraceful stop in front of the auditorium of Oceanside Middle School. I cracked the door open and was surprised to hear someone singing.

  Singing and dancing auditions aren’t today . . . are they?

  I slid inside, squinting to adjust to the dimness so I could find my BFF. The musty odor of dusty, threadbare, velvet seats combined with the pheromones of sixty or so nervous adolescents made my nose twitch. I could only hope my generic deodorant was working overtime.

  I spotted my friend’s pixie haircut midway back on the right side of the darkened auditorium. I tiptoed as stealthily as I could, fervently needing my five foot two frame to remain unseen.

  For once, I managed not to trip, slip or spaz out. I slid noiselessly into a seat next to my best friend, Becca Chapman, in the gloomy auditorium.

  “What have I missed?” I whispered. “Did she call my name?”

  “Three times,” muttered Becca.

  “What did you tell her?”

  “Bathroom.”

  I felt and heard rather than saw the scowl on my best friend’s face. Covering for me while I’d been in detention had been quite the moral dilemma for my scrupulously honest BFF.

  When I’d asked her during lunch, she’d hesitated. I’d told her that there was a distinct possibility I could be in the bathroom at the precise moment my name was called and therefore there was hardly any real moral dilemma.

  Becca could be a stickler for truth, justice, and the American way at the most inconvenient times.

  I had to resort to desperate measures.

  I had to beg.

  “I’ve waited all my life for a chance to be in a real play, not just some stupid class thing about The Tortoise and the Hare.” I’d summoned up my best acting skills to school my face into what I hoped came off as a pitiful puppy look. “Besides, it was you and your family that got me into theater in the first place.”

  That was a stretch. They’d had an extra ticket to South Pacific at Chrysler Hall and invited me along. For two whole hours, I’d forgotten my troubles as I was swept away to Bali Hai and into other people’s misfortunes.

  Back in the present, Becca leaned toward me. “I don’t get why this is such a big deal, anyway. It’s not like we lowly seventh graders will get cast in big parts or anything. The high school kids will get those.”

  She was probably right, but Mrs. Baker, a new eighth grade English teacher at Oceanside and the director of Oklahoma, would have to let some middle schoolers in since rehearsals were on the stage at our aging school.

  I glanced around the auditorium to size up the competition. The Diva (our private nickname for Donabell Bullock) sat ramrod straight in her seat, like a queen on her throne surveying her dominion. She was surrounded by her Devotees (the fawning members of her social sphere). They took up nearly two rows, if you counted the other seventh graders who sat close enough to the group to overhear anything meant to be overheard but respectfully far enough away from the Diva to acknowledge they were just wannabees.

  I craned further when I didn’t catch sight of Mitch D’cava, her BF. The two of them were usually Siamese twins. Mitch wasn’t just the hottest guy in seventh grade. He was everything I’d want in a boyfriend: attentive, funny, devoted, but not like the groveling, toadying Devotees. No, his was the genuine devotion of a gentlemen, like Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music or Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind.

  The eighth graders had staked out the front and center and were engaged in a number of separate, hushed conversations. One of them was center stage singing “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” accompanied on the piano by Madame Cherise, the ancient French teacher.

  Madame Cherise’s cat eyeglasses were a throwback to the fifties and her pudgy upper arms were a sharp contrast to her thin, flexible fingers that tapped on the piano keys in front of her. She’d probably been a music teacher in another life, back before the piano or French was invented.

  “Where’s Mrs. Baker?” I asked.

  Mrs. Baker looked about twenty-eight or thirty and had seemed friendly but firm when I’d seen her in the halls or cafeteria. Her brown hair fell to her shoulders, framing a face without makeup, which wasn’t unusual for female teachers, especially the married ones.

  Becca replied in her best imitation of Madame Cherise’s exaggerated French accent, “Ms. Baker has been unavoidably detained.”

  I stifled my laughter.

  Becca whispered the rest in her normal tone. “She misplaced the audition scripts so Madame Cherise is doing singing auditions until—”

  “Gabby St. Claire?” Madame Cherise’s warbling voice interrupted.

  Her annoyed tone rocketed me from my seat. “Here!”

  I sprang to attention, scattering my books, pencils and notebooks everywhere. I heard titters of laughter and knew instantly it was coming from the Diva and her Devotees.

  Klutz Queen!

  With a zillion people watching, including some high schoolers who weren’t supposed to be here anyway, I briefly wished I was back in detention instead of trying to pick up my strewn belongings in the dark.

  “Go! I’ll get this stuff,” Becca murmured.

  I mumbled a thank you before marching up on stage and taking the paper Madame Cherise waved in my direction. I glanced at the song and breathed a sigh of relief. “The Farmer and the Cowman.” I knew it. I could sing it.

  When the audition announcement was posted, I had raced home and broken out my mother’s show tune cassettes so I could listen to and sing along with the songs from Oklahoma. We were probably the only people in the world to still have a cassette tape player, but mom nostalgically held on to it so she could reminisce about the good old days.

  The stage lights were so bright that I couldn’t see anythin
g. I started perspiring about two seconds after I started singing.

  I glanced up at the lights. Big mistake. They shone like the summer sun at the nearby oceanfront. When I looked back at the paper, spots danced over the words and music, making both impossible to read. Not that I could read music anyway. Focusing on what I’d practiced, I forged ahead, grateful I’d taken the time to prepare.

  I only flubbed a couple of times.

  “Merci, Gabby,” trilled Madame Cherise. She said both of the words with a singsong, rhyming inflection that reminded me for a moment of a character who might have been on the old kids’ show Barney and Friends.

  Still temporarily half-blind, I shuffled toward the voice, unsure of how close to the edge of the stage I was, and considering which would be worse: the humiliation of falling off the stage or the hurt.

  I overcompensated and stumbled into the main curtain instead. I clutched it to keep from falling. Big mistake.

  A humongous crash sounded behind me.

  Sharp little missiles flew into my legs. In my haste to curtail the catastrophe, I slammed into a hidden chair behind me and flipped over it.

  When I stopped moving, I realized I was on my butt, staring at the overhead stage lights, and surrounded by broken glass.

  This wasn’t good. It wasn’t good at all.

  The humiliation, I decided. The humiliation was definitely worse than the hurt.

  CHAPTER 2

  “I don’t know how this happened.” Madame Cherise wrung her hands in front of her as she nervously explained the accident to Principal Black, Mrs. Baker, and most of the custodial staff.

  The janitor I’d nearly tackled in the hall was sweeping up the shards of glass while another examined the smashed spotlight that had nearly clobbered me. My classmates all sat quietly in their chairs, watching everything.

  I tried to stay out of the way, to ignore the stares of my classmates, and to pretend my butt didn’t throb like the heavy bass notes blaring six out of seven nights from my neighbor’s subwoofer speakers.

  “Why weren’t you in here?” Principal Black glared at Mrs. Baker, his arms crossed, his voice authoritative and none too happy. “Someone could have been seriously injured. I expect my teachers to be on top of these things.”

  “I had stepped out to run more copies of the audition scripts,” began Mrs. Baker. She held up a stack of papers, as if to prove her story. Lines of concern formed on her forehead.

  Principal Black didn’t seem to care. “You should have been better prepared. Plan ahead. Be organized. I may just have to reconsider your request to have weapons as props if attention to safety is so lax.”

  “It is not a real weapon that I want to use in the play.” Mrs. Baker sounded far more composed than Madame Cherise. “It’s a starter’s pistol. No bullets. It will be locked in a prop box except during tech week and the actual shows.”

  Becca and I exchanged glances. The principal must be really scared or having a really bad day to chew a teacher out in front of students. For once, everyone auditioning was quiet, their eyes riveted on the real life drama in front of them. Reality was much more interesting than fiction sometimes.

  The auditorium lights came back up, so I checked again to make sure the debris from the light hadn’t nicked me. Thankfully, I’d been wearing jeans and a long sleeve T-shirt, so I was fine. Just a little bruised ego. In one way, I was relieved that the attention was off of me now, and focused on that spotlight.

  “I had the audition scripts after school. I set them here.” Mrs. Baker indicated a seat on the front row. “I have no idea where they went.”

  Madame Cherise tried to get a word in edgewise, but Principal Black wasn’t about to stop scolding the two of them on the dangers of being unprepared and the importance of setting positive examples for our students. He probably just didn’t want the school to get sued.

  Just as Principal Black launched into another tirade about how safety always came first, Mr. Harold—the one custodian whose name I did know—spoke. His deep voice rumbled through the air and quieted everyone.

  “The webbing was deliberately sliced.” He held up something, but the teachers were blocking most of my view.

  I wondered what webbing was. The word reminded me of spiders and icky stuff that should be cut. Whatever webbing was, it had been slashed, allowing a spotlight to nearly take me out. Just a few more inches and the heavy equipment would have hit my head.

  “No more auditions or anything in here until I’m sure all the glass has been swept up and nothing else is going to fall from the ceiling.” Principal Black’s scowl took all of us in. He wiped the sweat from his brow. The man seemed to sweat when he was stressed, and apparently he was stressed all the time.

  I couldn’t even imagine what could be stressful about watching over the 400 little angels who called this school home for seven hours a day.

  “The students’ safety is our first priority.” Mrs. Baker turned to the gaggle of students who’d been auditioning, smiling calmly like nothing happened. “I’ll let you know the adjusted audition schedule as soon as I figure it out. You are dismissed.”

  I glanced around, fire igniting in my veins. This falling spotlight could put this play in jeopardy. I didn’t have to be a detective to figure out that Principal Black valued his reputation more than he valued performing arts. He was more of a sports guy; everyone at the school knew that.

  This play had been all I’d dreamed about since I heard that auditions were happening. I wasn’t going to let one falling spotlight crush my dreams. Mr. Harold made it sound like the spotlight was no accident, that the whole incident had been planned. Why would someone have deliberately made that light fall?

  I was going to keep my eyes and ears open. No one was going to ruin this play. Not if I had anything to do with it.

  CHAPTER 3

  The following morning, I again dashed down a hallway, but this time in the empty corridor toward 322, Ms. Lynnet’s dreaded pre-algebra class. It wasn’t like I wanted to run in the halls. You could get silent lunch if you were caught. The person who had designed the school back in 1956 was to blame. He or she had done a terrible job. Even before a half century of use had given the institute of higher learning a drab, worn out look, some bozo had stuck the FACS (Family and Consumer Science) class on the exact opposite side of the school, at least forty miles from any seventh grade core classes. I had to run.

  I nearly wiped out on a puddle of something slick turning the corner into the dull beige seventh grade hall. The institutional red lockers did nothing to spruce up the place, mostly because of peeling paint and deliberate scratches. I steadied myself by grabbing a passing lock and miraculously balancing my armload of books.

  I slowed myself to a normal pace and halted outside of 322. I waited until I saw the math teacher turn back to the board, then quietly eased the old, wooden door open just enough for me to slide in. With the stealth of a panther, I closed the door soundlessly. Two more steps and I’d slip unnoticed into my seat. I was getting good at this.

  Bam!

  A Math for Middle School, Volume Eight crashed onto the floor. The sound surprised everyone . . . except Donabell the Diva. It didn’t surprise her, I realized, because it had fallen from her desk onto the scuffed, yellow and black squared linoleum floor.

  On purpose.

  Not only was every student staring at me, I was caught in the crosshairs of the teacher’s beady glare as I tried unsuccessfully to disappear from sight at my desk.

  “Two more and I’ll see you after school, again, Miss St. Claire.”

  Donabell Bullock turned to look down her nose at me. She tossed her chin length blonde hair around like she was posing for a shampoo ad. Her disdain was unmistakable as she muttered loudly enough for her bevy of hanger-oners to hear, but not loudly enough for the math-witch-queen to notice.

  “Something stinks.” The Diva wrinkled her nose imperiously while the Devotees set their schnozzles to sniffing. I gave her the “yeah, right” fac
e when it struck me something did indeed smell awful. I glanced down at my feet and was horrified to discover that whatever I’d nearly slipped on in my haste to avoid another tardy had managed to stick to my scuffed tennis shoe.

  Gross.

  Donabell was looking at me out of the corner of her eye with contempt.

  Why does Donabell hate me?

  For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what I had ever done to Donabell so that she took every opportunity to humiliate, belittle, and verbally bully me. But she did.

  As far back as third grade, I remembered her slinging nothing but poisonous barbs my way. She made fun of everyone who wasn’t part of her group, but seemed particularly delighted to humiliate me. Once we reached middle school, face to face confrontations were rare. Instead she relied on catty remarks. Condescending smirks. Deliberate snubs. I’d long since given up on making sense of it. She hated me and that was that.

  If she thought I’d ever cave in and suck up like everyone else, she was dead wrong.

  I, Gabby St. Claire, am a fighter.

  “Being tardy is one thing. Not bothering to open your book is something else,” Ms. Lynnet said.

  Her voice grated like nails on a chalkboard and jarred me back to reality. Daydreaming, like being late, was another of my many faults.

  I lowered my head and dutifully flipped the book open, trying to ignore the negative vibes all around me.

  “Page 286. Number 2,” Becca whispered.

  The sound of my friend’s voice broke through my pity party and got me back on track. Becca was good at that sort of thing, keeping people on track. Which made our friendship that much more remarkable because I could be derailed as easily as a cheap toy train on an uneven floor.

  The only thing I’d promised myself I wouldn’t get off track on? Making sure this play was a success.