To the Stars, Isabelle

by Laurence Yep

  I … I ch-chase those wwwwords down

  But when I try to speak, I don’t make a sound

  Up, up, up and then racing to the ground

  Words flying by me that I can’t pin down

  Sometimes my words get caught

  Come grinding to a halt

  I slip, I fall, I stutter

  But it’s not my fault

  Up, up, up and then racing to the ground

  Words flying by me that I can’t pin down.”

  The applause was instantaneous. So was my smile. I’d made it through my whole poem, and by the end I wasn’t stuttering at all! I took a deep, exaggerated bow. And then another, and then curtsied until the rest of the poetry group was either laughing or calling out, “Brava, brava!” or “Encore, encore!”

  Red, still beaming, held up his hand for silence. “No time for encores, but awesome job, Gabby.” He walked over and gave me a high five. “Bria, you’re up.”

  Bria, a tall, round-faced girl with a big, bushy ponytail, took center stage as I slid back into my place next to Teagan. Bria, like Alejandro and Red, was going into seventh grade and when Red had told her about the poetry group, she’d joined immediately.

  “Nice job,” Teagan mouthed. Then she reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a flash drive. “Ready for later?” she whispered.

  I nodded. I felt ready for anything.

  The rest of the performances flew by, and I still couldn’t believe how far we’d all come since Red had first started the poetry club. And even more than that, I couldn’t wait for the show. Poetry, dancing, and—

  “Gabby and I have a surprise,” Teagan announced, just as Alejandro, the final poet, took his seat. “We’ve been working on something for the show, a little something visual to go with our poetry. Wait right here.”

  Teagan jumped to her feet, pulling me with her. We darted around the curtain and backstage, where there was a laptop sitting on top of a podium. Wires snaked down the side of the podium like vines. To anyone else all of those wires would have been intimidating. But not to Teagan. In one smooth motion, she plugged the projector adapter into the laptop, inserted her flash drive, and said, “Can you get the main power switch for the podium and projector?” She pointed at a black box hanging on the wall behind us. It looked like a very large, very expensive version of the circuit breaker in our garage, only, I realized after pulling the box open, much more complicated. Inside were three rows of buttons and switches, all glowing a faint shade of neon green.

  “Um, Teagan?”

  “On it,” Teagan replied, and hurried over. She pointed at a big silver button on top of all the others. “This one turns on the main power for all the stage equipment. It’s kind of cool how it all works. You see, this main box controls—”

  “Teagan,” I cut in. Sometimes, when Teagan started talking tech, she couldn’t stop.

  “Sorry!” Teagan said, laughing. “Ready?”

  I nodded. We reached for the button, both of our fingers pushing it at the same time.

  And everything went black.

  © 2014 American Girl. All rights reserved. All American Girl marks, Isabelle™, Gabriela™, Gabriela McBride™, and Girl of the Year™ are trademarks of American Girl. Used under license by Scholastic Inc.

  Published by Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental and not intended by American Girl or Scholastic Inc.

  Illustrations by Anna Kmet

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Available

  Excerpt from Gabriela by Teresa E. Harris. © 2017 American Girl.

  First printing 2014

  e-ISBN 978-1-338-19720-4

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