Larger-Than-Life Lara

by Dandi Daley Mackall

  test

  grade

  61% (This is a number, but I think it’s a noun, too, although I’m not sure about that.)

  trash can

  script

  stuffed pigs

  balloons

  Ferris wheel

  bell

  practice

  lines

  mistakes

  practice

  darkness

  rain

  speed

  mud

  fear

  house

  porch

  door

  DADDY

  shouts (This can be a noun or a verb, which is confusing. And there are other words in this list like that.)

  clock

  words (bad)

  beer

  Daddy

  hand

  slap (This is another of those words that is a noun and a verb.)

  Laney

  cheek

  tears

  stairs

  bed

  wish

  prayer

  sleep

  I’m done with these exercises and with this chapter because sometimes you just don’t want to give any more details.

  14

  THAT LAST CHAPTER was really hard to write. And I had to leave a lot of things out, of which some, I think, were important. You could read all of those verbs and nouns and still not get it that the teasing of Larger-Than-Life Lara didn’t let up. But it didn’t. It got worse.

  Or better, depending on how you look at it. Ms. Connolly and Mrs. Smith were always telling us how all our play practices were going to make us better at acting the play. And that’s kind of like the way all the practice teasing Lara Phelps just made Joey Gilbert and everybody better at it. Meaner.

  So just because I didn’t keep up that part of the story, don’t forget it.

  Because I have to get this story up to the dress rehearsal. To do this, I need what Mrs. Smith calls a “transition,” which is a fancy way of saying that you’re getting from someplace to another place without stopping everywhere in between. Transitions keep things from getting too long, which is why this chapter is very short. I had to skip over stuff like I did about that teasing getting worse. I also had to skip most of what went on at my house before dress rehearsal day, except for one thing.

  Something funny was that I’d taken to talking more to my littlest big brother, Luke. He didn’t talk back. He still wasn’t talking. But after about a week of me talking to him for a change, he stopped slamming his bedroom door in my face. Sometimes he would just stay where he was, like in the living room or maybe at the kitchen table eating Chinese Chow Mein, which is something he can eat cold and out of the can. And I would sit by him, if I didn’t get too close, and tell him about Larger-Than-Life Lara and Joey Gilbert.

  I still hadn’t talked to my daddy about the play since that night I asked him if I could try out for it. He never talked about it either. There had been a few times when he got really mad at me for getting home late and not having groceries to eat or clean clothes for him to wear. And you read about one of those times in that list of nouns, but you may not have noticed.

  I never said one word about the play to my biggest big brothers, and I think you can figure out why that was. But I was getting used to talking to my littlest big brother, Luke. So two nights before the play, when we were the only ones home, we were sitting in the kitchen. Luke was eating three hot dogs that he didn’t even bother to make hot, so they were more like cold dogs.

  And I said, “Luke, I’m going to be an actress.”

  He choked on his dog, so I knew he heard me.

  “Our class is putting on a play. And it’s called Fair Day. And I tried out for a part in that play, and I won one. I memorized all the lines. And that’s where I’ve been all these times when I’m not at our house.”

  I stopped and hoped maybe that would shock him so much that he’d talk. But he didn’t. Which, I admit, took care of one worry. And that was that he’d tell Robert or Matt.

  “The play is Friday night,” I went on. “We have dress rehearsal tomorrow afternoon, which means we act out the whole entire play, but only for ourselves, but we’ve got to wear our play costumes, of which I don’t have one of exactly. I’m wearing jeans and a shirt.”

  Luke didn’t get up and go away.

  “I’m real scared about that play, Luke. But I’m excited about it too, because I think I’ll be an actress. And you could come if you want.”

  Luke looked up from his hot dog. His eyes aren’t slanty like Robert’s and Matt’s and Daddy’s. He has big brown eyes that, for the first time, I thought looked like my eyes. He stared at me for probably a whole entire minute. I stared at him back.

  Then he stood up and walked out of the room.

  15

  THE NEXT DAY after Luke didn’t talk to me was our dress rehearsal. I had a funny feeling on that day. It felt like I was on a sled and flying down a steep hill and couldn’t stop. And somehow, I knew there was a crash waiting at the bottom of that hill. That’s what that felt like.

  Mrs. Smith says that in a story you got your rising action and your falling action. I never understood that part very good. And this is why. Rising action is like when you’re creeping toward something big that’s going to happen. So you’re stepping closer to it, and I guess you could think of it like you’re climbing up a ladder. And that makes sense about the rising part of this action. Falling action would be coming down from the ladder, after the big thing happened on top of it.

  So that’s probably how it got its name of “rising” action. And you are supposed to have some of that before you get to the climax, where the really, really big action thing happens. Only I think that it feels more like a sliding-down-the-hill action. You go faster and faster and faster all the way to the crash, which is waiting for you at the bottom of the hill. And that’s more what it felt like on the day before the play, when we had to have our dress rehearsal. It felt like we were all on a sled and picking up speed.

  Rising action the day of dress rehearsal started with us practicing in our classroom. I still pretty much practiced my Caroline speeches by myself, which was no problem because the real Caroline in Fair Day spent most of her time with her pigs. She had one favorite pig, which went by the name of Hamlet. And that is kind of a play on words because “ham” comes from dead pigs. And Caroline wouldn’t “let” her daddy kill her pig. Plus, Hamlet was a real live play written by Shakespeare, who wrote in hard English. So that was a very good name for that pig.

  Theresa brought in a stuffed pig the size of her dog. I had seen this stuffed pig when I was at Theresa’s house, when her and Amanda were being mad at each other. Theresa’s whole room was pink like that pig. So I asked her could I borrow that pig in the play. And she said I could, but I better take real good care of it. And I said I would and that at least her pig would get to be in the play, which I thought was a thing to say to make her feel better because Theresa didn’t have herself a part in the play. Only Theresa didn’t like that I said that. But she still let me use her pig, as long as I took good care of it.

  Then Sara Rivers, all by herself, brought in eleven stuffed pigs for Caroline because it turns out Sara collects pigs.

  So I was saying my lines to Hamlet. But I was watching Lara, too.

  Lara Phelps moved around our classroom as fast as her legs could go. She cut out the drawings on poster boards because nobody else wanted to do that. She glued felt onto the Ferris wheel because Eric Radabaugh kept getting glue all over everything, and that includes himself and the pencil sharpener, which Mrs. Smith said would never sharpen again. And because Wayne Wilson kept sniffing that glue until Lara took it over. She was the one who swept the stage after school, too.

  I first felt that sled take off downhill when I saw Wayne Wilson whispering to Joey Gilbert. And this was not Wayne’s regular whisper that sounds like a normal person’s talk. He was whispering for real, so as I couldn’t make out a word of it
.

  And there was a lot of this kind of whispering going on in our room, even though Mrs. Smith was letting us talk out loud so we could say our play lines to each other. In addition to Wayne Wilson and Joey Gilbert, other whisperers were: Roger Steeby and two unnamed boys from Ms. Connolly’s class, who were helpers with making scenery. Maddie Simpson, Carly, Kaitlyn, Jordan, Amy, Felicia, and Hannah, and maybe some others I forgot.

  There was secret laughing going on too, where you couldn’t figure out what they were laughing at. And if you asked nicely, “What’s so funny?” they gave you mean looks and said stuff like

  “Shut up.”

  “You’re what’s so funny, Hillbilly!” (Only you knew that this was a lie this time.)

  “Mind your own business, Laney.”

  So like I said, I was practicing with Theresa’s big pig. “Don’t worry, Hamlet. In all the world there could never be a pig as lovely as you.” When I said these lines, I divided them up in my head so they sounded like a poem song that doesn’t rhyme. And it went like this:

  Don’t worry, Hamlet. /

  In all the world / there could never be /

  a pig as lovely as you.

  I could sing that poem to you, if you could do that in a book.

  “I need that pig!” Joey Gilbert grabbed Hamlet’s pig head and yanked.

  I grabbed the pig’s belly just in time. “Stop it!” I shouted.

  “Sh-h-h-h!” Joey whispered, which was a very strange thing to hear Joey telling somebody else to sh-h-h-h. “I’ll give it back.”

  I didn’t let go. First, I needed that pig. Second, it was Theresa’s pig, and I promised to take good care of it. Third, Joey is a liar, and he probably wouldn’t never give that pig back.

  “Oh, all right!” Joey let go of Hamlet, and I fell down on my backside.

  The true thing is that I didn’t worry much right then about Joey Gilbert doing that with Hamlet. And this was because Joey Gilbert is the kind of boy who grabs things from people for no good reason.

  But only a little while later, I saw Joey drawing pigs—lots and lots of pigs—onto poster board. Maddie and her friends were coloring those pigs pink with markers and crayons. And other girls than Lara were cutting those pigs out.

  And there was another thing. Balloons. Wayne and Eric and a bunch of other kids kept bringing in bags of balloons, like they were one big, fat balloon factory.

  Mrs. Smith strolled back to the balloon corner and looked real surprised to see all those balloons there. “I think we have more than enough balloons for the fair,” she told them.

  Maddie smiled up at her. “We thought they’d make good decorations on the ceiling over the stage.”

  “Shouldn’t you be practicing Elizabeth’s lines for your scenes, Maddie?” Mrs. Smith asked.

  “Yes, Mrs. Smith,” said Maddie, all fake syrupy sweet. Plus, she looked like she was a beer-breath away from cracking up laughing.

  And that sled kept going faster and faster down that hill.

  “How’s it going, Laney?” Lara stopped beside my desk. She was carrying a big cardboard box loaded with stage stuff, called props. These were: fake darts, fake fireworks, fake cotton candy, fake flowers, hats, old shoes, and stuff like that.

  “It’s going okay,” I said.

  “Need help on your lines?” She shifted the box in her arms.

  I shook my head. I thought about telling her that I’d memorized all my lines in two days, on account of I turned them into poem songs that stuck in my head.

  “Great!” Lara smiled at me. “I’m really glad you got the part of Caroline,” she said.

  “You are?” I’d figured she might be real mad at all of us who got parts since she’d said all the parts better than us.

  “I think Caroline is the best role in the whole play,” Lara continued. “She’s the strongest character in Fair Day. She knows who she is. She knows what she wants. And she never lets other people throw her off.”

  I liked Caroline in the play too. Only I hadn’t thought how come.

  “Well, good luck, Laney. Break a leg this afternoon!”

  I already knew that she wasn’t saying I should really break my leg (which is what Joey Gilbert would have meant if he’d have said this, and he would even have tried to help it happen). “Break a leg” is what actors and actresses say to each other for good luck. Only don’t ask me why. One day I’ll look it up in the big dictionary, but I don’t have that much time yet.

  “You too,” I said, meaning Lara should break a leg too. Only she was already shuffling toward the door, her big box balanced on her belly. Her thighs slapped against each other so it sounded kind of like applause.

  Dress rehearsal started after lunch, which was a very bad idea because Sara Rivers, Erin McDonald, and Tamara Reno all hurled in the girls’ john on the way to the gym.

  I admit straight up that I felt like doing this myself. Only I didn’t have nothing to throw up on account of I had forgot to pack me a lunch.

  Us girls had to change into our costumes in the girls’ locker room. I didn’t like this any better than when we had to change into our gym clothes. Maddie put on a pink dress that made her look like a princess, instead of Elizabeth, the fair friend. Sara wore a blue-and-white checkered dress, and it made her look just like Adeline should have looked for that fair. Mrs. Smith said I could wear jeans because Caroline in the story was a farmer, so I did that. And that was a very good thing because I didn’t have many other clothes to choose from.

  We did our whole dress rehearsal on the stage, with all the drawings and scenery set up and all the lights on and everybody just as nervous like it was the real show. Joey and Wayne and Eric and Roger kept themselves backstage most of the time, and I’m not sure what they did back there. But I kept an eye on all my pigs. Lara carried whole entire sets onstage, like the balloon game and Ferris wheel or the barn and pig pen.

  I kept watching for all those balloons and pigs Joey and Wayne had been making up, but I never saw them.

  I won’t bore you with the rest of what happened at rehearsal because a rehearsal is only just a fancy practice. And the next chapter is the real play. So you will get enough of this stuff then, I promise. Because even though I was sure that action was rising and Joey and Wayne and Eric and Maddie and everybody were up to something, it didn’t happen. We got ourselves through that whole entire dress rehearsal. And that sled that had felt like it was going faster and faster never did crash.

  When the whole play was over, every one of us actors and actresses lined up in front and held hands and bowed. And I was glad I had two girls on the sides of me so I didn’t have to hold a boy’s hand. When we were done bowing, we stepped back and let all the scenery makers and backstage people hold hands in front of us and take a bow too. And I thought that was pretty fair.

  That night I told my littlest big brother, Luke, about our dress rehearsal. And then I told him about that sled going downhill and how it didn’t crash and that I figured that maybe I’d been all wrong about that rising action and that sled sliding.

  Only that’s when I remembered all those balloons in the balloon corner and those pigs Joey drew and Maddie cut out. And I got that sick, sled-sliding feeling again that I was right about that rising action.

  And you would know for yourself that this was true if you looked at the next page, because the next chapter is called “Climax.”

  16

  I WILL SKIP STUFF what happened in school on the day of our play because nothing much did. Mrs. Smith says that the “climax” of a story is the most importantest part of the story, which is why this chapter is the hardest to write. And if I don’t do it right or I forget things, then I’m just sorry about that. But I’m only ten, and as my daddy says, “Laney, you ain’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.” And I don’t think this is a cliché because I never heard anybody’s daddy say this a lot, except mine.

  I still hadn’t come straight out and told my daddy about Fair Day since that first time. Part
of this reason was because he’d taken to staying out later and later. This wasn’t an entirely bad thing because he didn’t get mad so much when I was late on account of he was later.

  Mrs. Smith told us to be at the school at 6:30 at night to get ready for the play. At 6:00 at night, I was still the only person home in our house. I kept thinking Luke would come home and that he was my best chance to have somebody sitting in our audience because of me.

  At 6:13 at night I wrote my family a note, and it looked like this:

  I walked into school at the same exact time as Lara, and this was by accident.

  “Laney, you did a great job in rehearsal,” Lara said.

  “Thanks,” I said back. “You too.” Which was dumb because she hadn’t acted. And also I don’t know if Lara heard that part. I still wonder about that.

  “Where’s Joey?” Mrs. Smith asked, when most all of the rest of us were in our classroom. Some kids, like Maddie and Sara, were getting makeup put on them. Others of us, like me and Carlos, were just making sure we were buttoned or zipped up and maybe had our props, such as stuffed pigs.

  “Has anyone seen Joey?” Mrs. Smith asked again. “And where are Wayne and Eric?”

  “They were here earlier, Mrs. Smith,” Sara Rivers answered.

  Maddie Simpson poked Sara, and I saw this with my own eyes. Then she said, “They went to the bathroom.”

  Then Joey and his boys finally came back. And then it got pretty crazy in our room because Carly couldn’t find the cotton candy, which was fake and was found in her desk later. And then I couldn’t find Sara’s little stuffed pigs, except for I did find half of them. And I had Theresa’s big, stuffed Hamlet. Then Janelle’s fake rabbits were missing. Only she found them where she’d left them, which was in her desk. Only I never could find the other missing pigs that were Sara’s.

  Mrs. Smith said that we had to go and that half of Sara’s pigs would have to be enough. Only I didn’t like this, and it felt like starting this play with a bad thing. And I couldn’t help myself from thinking that I was back on that sled, sliding downhill, and Fair Day wasn’t even on yet.