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

by Christy Barritt

  This was my one big responsibility.

  Aunt Eller reached back, hands open.

  I went to grab the pans, but my hands touched . . . nothing.

  I glanced down. The pans were gone. My mouth dried up, I looked around. The props were nowhere to be seen. Aunt Eller stretched toward me, but I didn’t have the pans. I desperately checked again. Nothing.

  Someone behind the set pressed something metal into my hands through the fake window. It was only one pan, but one was better than none. Aunt Eller would just have to bang it with her hand.

  In one smooth motion I handed her the cookware. As it left my grip, I realized something was wrong.

  That wasn’t the frying pan . . . it was the starter’s pistol!

  Where did that come from? Who put it into my hand? Why?

  I froze. Aunt stared at it in confusion, then raised it over her head, and pulled the trigger. Everyone jumped at the loud bang. Then all of us froze as if on cue.

  “Cut!” Mrs. Baker shot out of her seat.

  She marched up to the stage, steam shooting from her ears. In slow motion, I realized she was staring at me with incredulous annoyance. Everyone else was following her gaze and locked their eyes onto me.

  “Gabby?” the director said sharply, arms crossed.

  “I put the pans in place.” My words spilled forth in a jumble. “Really, I did. They were just there. I don’t know where the gun came from. It just appeared. Through the window.”

  I sounded like a babbling idiot in my own ears. I held out my hands in surrender.

  Mrs. Baker took a deep breath and in a calmer tone asked Gail, “Why was the gun even out of a locked prop box?”

  “It wasn’t,” snarled the Gorilla, fixing me with her beady eyes as she took the gun from Aunt’s hand. “I had it locked up.”

  A muffled voice from backstage said, “If it had been loaded, someone could have gotten hurt. Seriously hurt.”

  “Take five,” the director said. “Gail, Gabby.” She motioned to the two of us to follow her.

  I looked around. People were looking at me, accusing me. All except for Paulette who looked confused and Brandon who looked disappointed.

  “I’ll take the gun home. I can’t risk having it here.” She held out her hand, and Gail deposited it there as she glowered at me. “Even blanks are dangerous. Did you know that?”

  I numbly shook my head “no.”

  “A bullet doesn’t come out but the powder does. It can damage people’s eyes if it gets into them. If Aunt had had the gun closer to her ear, the sheer volume of the sound could cause temporary deafness.” She sighed. “I’m sorry but, for the good of the production, I have to remove you from the cast, Gabby.”

  Her words sent shock waves through me. After all this, and she was kicking me out? It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t my fault.

  “Gail, get everyone ready to run Act Two. Assign someone else to Paulette and the pans. Have Lydia personally collect Gabby’s costume and walk her out.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” growled the Gorilla.

  Like a zombie, I followed her to the dressing room. No one spoke to me, but I heard titters.

  I will not cry. I will not cry in front of them. I am Gabby St. Claire, and I am strong, and I will not cry.

  Lydia watched me like a hawk, and I really couldn’t blame her. I would watch me too if I thought I had picked a lock and put a gun in someone’s hand. I could feel the tears pressing, wanting to break free, but I held them back. When we got into the hallway, I couldn’t take it any more. I felt like a bug under the microscope.

  “I’ve got it from here. I know my way to the front doors.” I turned and walked down the freshly mopped hallway, my solitary footsteps echoing hollowly. Once I got around the corner, I sagged against the wall, wrung out.

  What will I tell my mom?

  Last night she’d left a Tootsie Roll on my pillow. She used to do that a lot when I was a kid, to cheer me up or let me know she loved me and was thinking of me.

  Just this morning she’d told me how proud she was of me, how much she and daddy were looking forward to seeing me on stage. How could I tell her that, once again, I had let them down? Once again, something precious had been taken away? I scrunched my eyes tight and let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.

  I moved toward the outside doors and shoved my hands in my jacket pockets. I felt the comp ticket. I pulled it out to toss it in the next trashcan I passed when I ran into someone coming out of a restroom.

  It was Mr. Harold and his mop.

  Kindly Mr. Harold who’d tried so hard to help me get the stain out. That stain had stubbornly stayed. I imagined the stain on my reputation in the Oceanside schools would be just as permanent. The girl who tried to ruin the show. That’s how I’d always be remembered.

  “Watch it, now. You almost knocked me over,” he said chuckling. “Practice over so soon? They told me to expect it to go longer than usual.”

  “Um, it’s over for me but, um, the rest still have practice for a while.” On impulse, I thrust the ticket into his hand. “Here. This is a ticket to the dress rehearsal.”

  It sounded stupid as it left my lips. He worked here. He could see it for free. He didn’t need a comp ticket.

  “Doesn’t someone in your family want it?” he asked, concerned.

  “They already bought tickets,” I mumbled as I broke into a trot to get outside before the dam broke, releasing hot tears. “You can give it away if you want,” I called back over my shoulder as I bolted out the door and home.

  CHAPTER 27

  I poured out my heart to Becca over the phone, huddled in a corner of my darkened room. I’d cried the whole way home. Nothing was left inside but a huge, gaping hole where my dream once lived.

  “It isn’t fair and of course I believe you,” my BFF insisted. “This is horrible. We have to get to the bottom of this!”

  “It’s too late.” I wiped my nose on my sleeve for the twentieth time. “Even if we figured out if there even is a saboteur, who’d believe me now? I could claim the sky was blue and no one would believe me.”

  “Except me,” she whispered.

  “Except you.”

  Neither of us spoke for a couple of minutes. Sometimes we did that, even on the phone. When words failed, it was comforting just to know there was someone on the other end. Someone who cared.

  “What are you going to tell your mom?”

  “I can’t.”

  “You have to,” Becca reasoned. “You can’t let them go and sit through the whole thing wondering when you’re going to come out and you never do.”

  “I could tell them I ended up working backstage.”

  “You shouldn’t lie. Plus, your mom will still go and drag your dad along. She’ll come backstage. People do that, you know. After the show, family and friends come backstage to congratulate you. How are you going to explain not being there?”

  “I’ll think of something.”

  We were silent again. I closed my eyes and wondered why all these bad things had to happen to me. Why couldn’t I have something, just one thing that wasn’t a struggle, that didn’t end badly? I had no answers. Only more questions.

  Becca spoke softly. “I’m really sorry. You know that?”

  “Of course I know that.” I took a deep breath and prepared to forge ahead. “I guess neither one of us were meant to be in it.”

  “I guess. Did you get the math problems done?”

  “No. I guess I better start. I don’t want to fail at something else.”

  “You’re not a failure. Stuff happened that wasn’t your fault. Plus, pre-algebra might be good this one time,” she added. “It will get your mind off stuff.”

  “Yeah.” I could lose my own problems in someone else’s. “Later, gator.”

  “Tomorrow at noon, baboon.”

  CHAPTER 28

  As it turned out, I didn’t see my BFF at lunch. I’d completely forgotten about Mix It Up at Lunch Day. Since no one
at Oceanside ever listened to morning and afternoon announcements, the whole student body was grumbling and complaining when they saw the big banner proclaiming “Mix It Up.”

  Mix It Up at Lunch Day occurred once each semester. The teachers insisted that when students ate with and interacted with those who were different from themselves, AKA other cliques, biases and misperceptions melted away. It was a cure for all the social ills of middle school. Actually, I thought they did it because the stilted conversations cut the noise by two-thirds those two days.

  For us, it was pure torture. Teachers randomly, and sometimes not so randomly, assigned us seats like traffic cops directing cars. Anyone caught trying to cheat the system and move after being assigned a place got detention and a call home, thus everyone pretty much tolerated the biannual inconvenience. It was, after all, just one day out of every ninety.

  Maybe it would be my lucky day and I’d be seated with no one I knew.

  Or unlucky and I’d sit with people still in Oklahoma.

  Neither happened. I was directed to sit next to Raff and his ankle bracelet. I’d gulped down my PB&J so I could get out of there and had just bitten into my apple when the Caveman’s voice echoed through the chow hall. He was arguing heatedly with Ms. Lynnet who was pointing my way. I choked on my apple. Half coughing, I reached for my juice box and tried to wash it down.

  Instead, apple puree went up my sinuses and out of my nose. I quickly covered my face with a napkin and spit-sneezed the mess out. When I could breathe again, Mitch D’cava slammed his tray down across from Raff. It slid, knocking Raff’s tray into his lap. Raff was out of his seat in a flash. Only the table was keeping the taller boy out of the Caveman’s face.

  “Bring it on, sissy boy. Maybe you can get kicked out of this school too,” Raff sneered, taunting Mitch to throw the first punch.

  Mitch wasn’t taking the bait. He leaned back out of reach, his jacket yawning open. A bottle of laxatives peeked out of his inside pocket.

  “You’re not worth it, scum bag.” Mitch’s words were brave but his voice shook.

  That was all the invitation Raff needed. He reached across the table in an instant.

  I darted from my seat but had nowhere to go. Raff blocked my exit on one side and pulled out chairs on the other.

  I knew it was probably against the rules to run across a row of chairs in the cafeteria, but it beat being in the middle of a fight. Fortunately, the teachers were zoned in on the fight and not me.

  Two of them grabbed Mitch and Raff, dragging them down to the office. Ms. Lynnet barked orders for everyone to clear out.

  I moved as fast as I could. With my luck, she might decide I had something to do with the fight and give me detention.

  That was the last thing I needed.

  CHAPTER 29

  I was having a terrible time concentrating on Ms. Sherrod’s lecture and handout about the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one.

  “We’re not going to have any drinks for the cast party,” whined a Devotee. “We have to have drinks to go with the pizza. Pizza with water isn’t going to cut it.”

  I didn’t feel the least bit sorry for their suffering. I would not just be missing out on punch and pizza; I was missing my one big chance to be on stage. I really wished snacks before dress rehearsal was my biggest worry.

  “Chillax. Mitch already made his punch. It is in the FACS’s fridge already,” the Diva whispered back. “I don’t know why he got in some stupid fight the day before the agent will be here to see me.”

  I could hardly believe how self-centered the Diva was. Instead of being worried about Mitch and what might happen to him, she was worried about herself. How in the world did she rate someone like Mitch?

  Raff’s comment about the Caveman being kicked out of school flooded back into my mind. Had he been protecting a former girlfriend and gotten into a fight? If he had, I could understand that. But I couldn’t fathom why he would have laxatives at school.

  I have to find Raff and find the answers.

  Moments later the final bell rang, and I dashed out the door. I didn’t even see the custodians poised to empty the trash and mop the floors. I stepped right into a yellow, rolling bucket of sudsy water.

  I ignored the laughter, the slipperiness, and the piney cleaner smell clinging to my soaking wet tennis shoe and dodged past the clusters of my classmates on my way to Principal Black’s office.

  CHAPTER 3 0

  Raff sat in the hallway outside the principal’s door, legs stretched out so the hem of his pants rode above the shiny, metal band around his ankle. I skidded to a stop in front of him.

  “What did you mean when you said ‘get kicked out again’?” I gasped.

  Raff stared down at the puddle forming underneath my foot. I got a good look for the first time and realized my jeans were wet halfway up my shin. Lovely. I sucked in a gigantic puff of air and started again, slower.

  “In the cafeteria, you said Mitch had been kicked out of a school before. Why? How did you know?”

  Raff stared at me, an amused smile on his lips. He cocked his head from one side to the other like he was trying to decide if I was worthy of his attention.

  I wanted to grab his flannel shirt and shake the information out of him.

  “This just happens to be your lucky day, Red, ‘cuz normally I wouldn’t answer such a stupid question.” Raff looked up at me, a smile playing on his lips. “But seeing as how your chair ballet and that frizzy, red hair of yours just happened to be in the right place at the right time—you blocked the cameras in the cafeteria so no one can tell exactly who threw the first punch—I’m gonna let you in on a little secret.”

  I figured this wasn’t the time to mention all the witnesses who’d been there to see what had happened. Who needed a camera to verify it? I held my tongue.

  Raff beckoned me closer. I scooted over and squatted next to him. I might look like I was peeing on my foot but I didn’t care. Raff held the final clue; I just knew it.

  “So a summer or two ago when my cousin was in TDH—you know, the lock up?—they bring in this guy, and they put him in with my cousin. He’s like freaking out, not because he’s in the slammer, but because he can’t see his girl.” Raff smiles and raises an eyebrow.

  “The boy was Mitch,” I said.

  Raff nodded.

  “What did he do?”

  “He tells my cousin that on the day of some Valentine’s party at this snooty school, he passed out brownies with a laxative in them, so as to make sure this girl he likes won’t take up with somebody else. But he used too much and a couple of the kids got dehydrated or something and wound up in the hospital.”

  The laxative. He’s doing it again!

  No . . . he’s already done it!

  The mysterious stomach flu plaguing the cast had happened the day after he’d brought his punch to practice. It was a practice run for this—the main stage event.

  I nearly wiped out as I sprinted down the now empty halls toward the FACS classroom.

  I barely heard the, “You’re welcome,” Raff sarcastically called after me. Everything finally clicked into place.

  Mitch felt abandoned by his mom for a career on stage.

  Mitch worried the Diva would be discovered and leave him for showbiz too.

  He had backstage access to stuff. Props. Lights. Even the gun.

  I burst into the FACS classroom, hoping I wasn’t too late. Pitchers containing an orange liquid were on a table surrounded with cups. Only two people, Lana and Bran held cups as the Caveman poured a third for Mrs. Baker.

  “Don’t drink the punch!” I yelled.

  Every head turned in my direction.

  “Not you again!” The Gorilla growled as she grabbed at my arm, but for once I managed to dodge disaster.

  I skirted around her and knocked the cups from Bran and Lana’s hands before they could take a sip.

  “What in the world?” Lana muttered.

  “The punch is
n’t fortified with vitamins. It’s spiked with laxatives! He . . .”

  The Gorilla had my arms pinned to my side before I could point at Mitch. The rest of the cast and crew were staring at me, mouths wide open in disbelief.

  “You are a nut case,” declared an eighth grader.

  “Pathetic,” said a Devotee.

  “Go get Principal Black,” Mrs. Baker said in an extremely calm and even tone, the kind you use when you tell children to move away from a rabid animal.

  I scanned the room, searching for even one person who wasn’t looking at me like I was crazy. Not Donabell. Not Amy. Not Hannah.

  Finally, I locked eyes with Brandon. He nodded ever so slightly.

  He believes me. A surge of confidence rushed through me. That was all I needed.

  “Just hear me out,” I started, even as the Gorilla tried to pull me back. “Mitch ground up laxative pills and spiked the punch so that the show wouldn’t go on. I saw the bottle in his jacket pocket at lunch. Check his jacket. You’ll see I’m right.”

  I realized with a sickening thud in the pit of my stomach that Mitch was decked out in the all black of a stagehand. There was no jacket to check.

  But Mitch’s eyes resembled a deer caught in the headlights. He knew I had figured it out. But how did I convince the others? No one was going to send a sample of the punch to a lab.

  “What now?” Principal Black’s exasperated voice sounded behind me.

  I tried to twist around but the Gorilla was as strong as her nickname implied.

  “This crazy girl . . .” Donabell pointed at me.

  “Wait! Let’s hear her out.” Lana pulled something from the table where a bunch of jackets had been heaped. The Caveman’s jacket! She opened Mitch’s jacket and revealed a bottle tucked inside the inner pocket. “She’s right. Here’s the proof.”

  The Caveman’s eyes widened, and he bolted for the door. The Gorilla released me and deftly tackled him. But instead of struggling, the Caveman sagged in surrender.

  “Donabell, I’m sorry. I did it for you. For us.” Mitch looked utterly miserable and a teeny tiny part of me pitied him.