Stage Fright

by Meg Cabot

  “Shut up! You couldn’t even get the part of Princess Penelope for me!” Cheyenne yelled at her mom. “The least you can do is get me these!”

  I couldn’t believe Cheyenne had said shut up to her mom. If I had ever said that to my mom—or tried yelling at her like that—well, I wouldn’t get what I wanted. That was for sure.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Cheyenne,” Mrs. O’Malley said. She signaled to a saleslady, who came right over. “Could we look at these, please?” Mrs. O’Malley asked, pointing at the earrings Cheyenne wanted (that cost a hundred dollars) from inside the display case.

  “We’ll take them,” Cheyenne said before the saleslady even had a chance to get them out.

  “Cheyenne,” her mother said. But she was laughing, like, Isn’t she adorable?, not using her You’re-going-to-get-it-if-you-don’t-use-a-different-tone-with-me-young-lady voice the way my mother would have if I’d been as bossy with her as Cheyenne was being.

  “Here you are,” the saleslady said, and she laid the pair of purple sparkling earrings down on the counter in front of Cheyenne. “They’re genuine amethysts.”

  No way! Cheyenne was getting a new pair of hundred-dollar genuine amethyst earrings, and it wasn’t even her birthday or Christmas? Just because she’d looked like she was going to cry when her mother had said no?

  If I had ever tried something like that, my mother would have made me go sit in the car.

  Well, no, she wouldn’t really. But only because Child Protective Services would arrest her.

  But she’d at least have taken away my TV privileges for a week.

  Wow! Things were sure different at Cheyenne’s house than they were at my house. I guess the rule at Cheyenne’s house was If you whine enough about it, you’ll get what you want.

  Whereas the rule at my house is If you whine about it, you’ll get sent to your room and also have your TV privileges suspended and maybe also no dessert and possibly also your Nintendo DS taken away for a week.

  “Well?” Mrs. O’Malley asked her daughter. “What do you think?”

  “They’re all right,” Cheyenne said with a sigh. “But playing Princess Penelope would be better.”

  “Well,” Mrs. O’Malley said, handing the saleslady her credit card, “that isn’t going to happen.”

  “Because Mrs. Hunter is a big—”

  “Now, Cheyenne,” Mrs. O’Malley said, finally using a warning voice. “Remember what Mrs. Jenkins said. You can’t always have the lead in the play every time.”

  “Even if I’m the best?” Cheyenne demanded.

  “Even if you’re the best,” Mrs. O’Malley said. “You need to let some of the other little girls have a turn.”

  I felt my face turning red. This was ridiculous! Cheyenne wasn’t the best!

  And it was horrible that Mrs. O’Malley was standing there saying that she was. Even if she was her mother.

  “Come on,” Mrs. O’Malley said, taking the bag the saleslady handed to her, then giving Cheyenne a fond hug. “Let’s go get some ice cream. Would you like that?”

  “I guess,” Cheyenne said, not looking very excited. “But none of that crummy frozen yogurt. I want real ice cream.”

  “Of course,” Mrs. O’Malley said, sighing as they walked away.

  Ice cream? Cheyenne gets hundred-dollar amethyst earrings and ice cream? My mom won’t even let me get pierced ears until I’m thirteen, let alone ice cream before dinner.

  “Hi, honey.”

  My mom, coming up behind me, scared the life out of me. I jumped so high in the air I almost knocked over the earring rack.

  “Are you all right?” Mom asked. “What were you doing down there, anyway?”

  “Oh, n-nothing,” I said. “Just looking at these, um, earrings.”

  “But you don’t even have pierced ears.” Mom looked confused.

  “I know,” I said. Cheyenne and her mom had fortunately disappeared around the corner. “I was just…can we go look at cat collars now?”

  “Of course.”

  We bought a special collar with a Velcro fastener for Mewsie, so if he was ever climbing a tree (not that I ever let him outside, but in case I ever do), and a branch slipped between his collar and his neck, the collar would break away and he wouldn’t choke to death, a frequent cause of death in cats, at least according to Sophie, who is always telling us horrible stories about ways you could die. In honor of Kevin, I chose a pirate collar with skulls and crossbones on it. I figured Mewsie, being a boy cat, might like it better than the pink sparkle collar he currently wore.

  Over the weekend, Rosemary, Caroline, Sophie, Erica, and I got together at Erica’s house to practice our parts for the play. Erica had some fairy wings left over from a Halloween costume Missy had once worn, so she put them on, and Mom had fished Dad’s Dracula cape out for me (even though she hadn’t had a chance to cut it down yet), so I wore that. Rosemary had a sword one of her brothers let her borrow, Sophie had a tiara she found somewhere, and Caroline taped an empty toilet paper roll to her forehead to make it look like she was a unicorn.

  We acted out our parts very dramatically, if you ask me. So dramatically that Missy came into Erica’s room three times to ask us to quit being so dramatic, even though we told her (very politely) that we were doing something school-related, and that we had to be loud.

  The third time she came into Erica’s room, Missy yelled, “You guys!” (She kind of spat when she said the word guys, because of her braces.) “I’m trying to talk to my friend Stacy! She’s going through a real hard time right now, because her boyfriend just texted her that he’s breaking up with her. So can you please shut up?”

  After that we decided instead of play practice it would be more fun to spy on Missy’s phone conversation, even though Erica didn’t think we should, because Missy would be madder than ever if she found out.

  But we all swore we wouldn’t get caught since we’d be quieter than mice.

  So when we finally got Erica to agree, we all crawled into the hallway and huddled outside Missy’s door and heard her going, “Uh-huh? And then what did he say? And then what did you say? Well, then what did he say? Well, then what did you say? Well, then what did he say?” which was fun for a while, but then got kind of boring…

  …until Rosemary got the idea we should shove a paper clip through the big old-fashioned keyhole of Missy’s door and let it drop down to the other side, inside Missy’s room. Just to see if she’d notice.

  So we did…and Missy totally didn’t notice! Maybe because she was so involved in talking to her friend Stacy and all, and helping her through her big breakup.

  So then, after some coaxing from us, Erica went and got some more paper clips. And then we all took turns shoving them through Missy’s keyhole. Plink! Plink! they went as they hit the wood floor beneath Missy’s door. When we lay down, we could see them beneath the door, piling up right there on top of one another!

  But Missy wasn’t paying any attention. She just kept going, “Well, obviously, you deserve better, Stace. You know what? You know what? He’s beneath you, that’s what. Let him have her if that’s the type of girl he wants. If he wants to take her to the formal and not you, so what? She’s not worth your crying over. Neither one of them is.”

  Plink! Plink!

  It was really, really hard not to give ourselves away by laughing. Sophie had to press both her hands over her mouth so no laugh noises escaped. I have to admit it had been kind of hard for me to start liking Sophie again, after she got the part of Princess Penelope and not me. I mean, I didn’t want to be jealous, because she was my friend.

  But a part of me totally was, when I thought about how I wasn’t going to be able to wear my gold flower-girl dress onstage.

  But as we slipped paper clip after paper clip through the keyhole, and Missy still didn’t notice, Sophie looked so funny trying not to laugh, I couldn’t help but start to feel a little friendly toward her again.

  We were all holding our breath as Rosemary sli
pped about the fiftieth paper clip through Missy’s keyhole when a voice behind us went, “Girls. What are you doing?”

  We all jumped nearly out of our skins. Until we twirled around to see it was only Erica’s older brother, John, standing there.

  We sagged with relief that it wasn’t Mr. Harrington.

  “Shhh,” Erica said worriedly. “We’re slipping paper clips through Missy’s keyhole. Don’t tell.”

  “Paper clips?” John made a face. “What’s the fun in that?”

  “Well, what else are we going to put through there?” Rosemary wanted to know.

  “Hang on a minute,” John said, and he disappeared up the staircase to his room, which is in the Harringtons’ finished attic. A minute later he came back with a spray can with a special nozzle. “Silly String,” he said.

  Erica looked shocked. “But she’s totally going to notice that!”

  “Isn’t that the point?” John wanted to know. “Step aside, ladies, and let the master do his work.”

  We all moved over as John knelt down in front of his sister’s bedroom door, put the can of Silly String up against the keyhole, then pressed the nozzle. We heard the shhhhhhh sound of a spray of Silly String being set loose.

  Then we heard a scream from inside Missy’s room.

  “Retreat!” John yelled, jumping to his feet. “Retreat, retreat!”

  Screaming, we all began running in different directions as Missy tore open her bedroom door, shrieking, “You…you…ingrates! Look what you’ve done to my floor! It’s a mess!”

  It’s really hard to run when you’re laughing so hard you can’t see properly, because of the tears in your eyes. But I grabbed hold of a fistful of Rosemary’s shirt and hoped wherever she was going, she’d just drag me there.

  “Get back here!” Missy yelled, her voice sounding scarily closer. I couldn’t see how close she’d gotten, though, because my laugh tears were still keeping me from being able to see anything, really. “Get back here and clean this up!”

  “She’s coming!” Rosemary screamed hysterically. “Run!”

  I still had hold of Rosemary’s shirt. We had almost made it to the safety of Erica’s bedroom when, suddenly, someone stomped down on the back of Dad’s cape, which I was still wearing. This yanked me backward so hard that my feet flew out from under me. It also caused the ribbons that held Dad’s cape tied around my neck to cut into my throat.

  My eyes weren’t filled with laugh tears anymore, but real tears. Because, excuse me, but that totally hurt!

  Also, I was lying on my back, blinking up at a big blurry image I realized had to be Missy. Missy was the person who’d stepped on the back of my cape!

  I was caught! By the enemy! By Missy!

  “You little brat!” Missy snarled in my face. “I can’t believe you! Why are there paper clips all over my floor? You better get in there and clean it all up.”

  “Allie!” I heard Sophie scream from somewhere that sounded far away. “We’ve got to rescue Allie!”

  “Troops,” I heard John yell. “One of our men is down and has been captured. We can’t leave a fellow soldier in enemy hands!”

  The next thing I knew, Silly String and paper clips were flying everywhere. Most of the Silly String was hitting Missy’s shirt.

  “John!” Missy screamed. “I’m going to kill you! This shirt is brand-new from the Gap!”

  “Here, Allie,” Sophie said, appearing from nowhere and holding out a hand. “We’re here to rescue you!”

  I grabbed the hand Sophie was offering and let her pull me up, while Erica, Caroline, and Rosemary formed a huddle around us so Missy couldn’t get us. All of them were screaming. Caroline’s toilet-paper-roll unicorn horn was dangling off her forehead by a single piece of tape, but she didn’t appear to notice.

  “Stay back,” John was yelling as he kept spraying Missy with Silly String. “Stay back, vile beast!”

  “You are so dead,” Missy shrieked, trying to grab John and put him in a headlock. “I can’t believe how immature you’re being.”

  “You guys,” Erica yelled in alarm. “Stop fighting!”

  “Never!” John was blindly shooting Silly String into the air now. “Never give up! Never surrender!”

  “Hey!” Mrs. Harrington yelled up the stairs. “What’s going on up there?”

  We all froze. Only some of the Silly String John had sprayed kept moving, falling softly from Missy’s shirt to the top of John’s head.

  “Nothing,” we all called down to Mrs. Harrington at the same time.

  “Well, I think your friends have been over long enough, Erica,” Mrs. Harrington replied from downstairs. “It’s time for them to go home now. I’m just about to take dinner off the stove. John, come down and set the table. It’s your turn.”

  “Okay, Mrs. Harrington,” Rosemary said sweetly. “I’ll call my parents to come pick me up right away.”

  We waited until we heard Mrs. Harrington’s footsteps walking away. Then Missy said, “Ha!” and knocked the canister of Silly String from John’s hand before letting go of his head. “You have to go set the table! Loser.”

  “Takes one to know one,” John said, and, with quiet dignity, he brushed all the Silly String from his head. Then, seeing that I’d been successfully freed, he gave us all the two-fingered V sign for victory and said, “We will fight again another day, troops,” and ran down the stairs.

  Missy looked over at us, rolled her eyes, and stomped back into her room. But not before saying, “Ingrates,” and slamming her door.

  “That,” Caroline said, her toilet-paper-roll unicorn horn bobbing as she spoke, “was awesome. I wish I had an older brother.”

  “No, you don’t,” Erica said mournfully. “Usually, I’m the one he sprays Silly String on.”

  I turned to Sophie. I was sorry for hating her as much as I had over the Princess Penelope thing. She was a true friend, after all, for rescuing me from Missy.

  And it wasn’t her fault she’d gotten the role instead of me. The best man (or woman) for the part had won. That was all.

  “Thanks for rescuing me,” I said to her.

  “Oh,” Sophie said, laughing. “It was nothing.”

  But it hadn’t been nothing. Sophie had saved me from Missy’s evil clutches. And all I’d done was entertain mean thoughts every now and then about her possibly falling down the stairs and breaking her leg and me getting to play Princess Penelope at the last minute.

  Well, not anymore. Because best friends don’t think those kinds of thoughts about each other. Best friends rescue each other when someone’s evil sister has them trapped.

  That’s a rule.

  RULE #10

  You Can’t Make Someone with a Bad Attitude About Something Change Her Mind and Have a Good One. Unless You Try

  On Monday, when the time came for art class, Mrs. Hunter asked everyone to take out their scripts for what she called our first “read-through.” We were supposed to read through the script of Princess Penelope in the Realm of Recycling out loud, with everyone saying their lines the way they would during the play, but while just sitting at our desks, without doing what Mrs. Hunter called “the blocking,” which was the moves we would make on the stage when we said our lines.

  Not to brag, but I thought Rosemary, Erica, Caroline, Sophie, and I did the best jobs of anyone reading out loud.

  This was obviously because of all the practicing we’d done over the weekend. It had really paid off.

  Some people, though—it became clear as the week progressed, and we moved from doing read-throughs to actually doing real rehearsals downstairs on the stage in the auditorium slash gym slash cafeteria—weren’t taking their parts very seriously. You would think I’d be talking about the boys, such as Patrick Day and Stuart Maxwell, but I actually mean Cheyenne. The only thing I could figure out was that she still hadn’t gotten over not being given the part of Princess Penelope, and so she just read the lines of the compact fluorescent bulb fairy queen in a singsongy
voice that almost seemed to say, “Yeah, I’m here, and I’m reading these lines, but I’m not actually going to act them out, or put any effort at all into playing this part.”

  Marianne and Dominique did basically the same thing (only they were such bad actresses anyway you couldn’t really tell).

  I, on the other hand, really went for it, each and every rehearsal—though I was still bothered by what Uncle Jay had said about how I had to figure out what Princess Penelope’s stepmother’s motivation was. I honestly didn’t have the slightest idea. Why was she so evil—especially if what Uncle Jay had said was true, that no one is actually born bad? And why did the queen hate recycling so much?

  I still wasn’t sure what had happened to Princess Penelope’s stepmother to make her the way she was.

  But thanks to what had happened at Erica’s house, I was pretty sure I had figured out what her name was: It was Queen Melissa the Maleficent!

  In fact, every time I read her lines out loud (Queen Melissa the Maleficent had a lot of lines, it turned out. Uncle Jay was right. I wasn’t sure how I was going to memorize all of them by next week), I sort of found myself imitating Erica’s sister, Missy. Just a little. This, I noticed, made Rosemary, Sophie, and Caroline laugh. A lot. Even Erica tittered a little once in a while.

  Soon other people in the class started laughing, too…although they didn’t know who I was imitating. Mrs. Hunter even laughed. But she looked like she was trying not to. The corners of her mouth were twitching as she said, “That’s very nice, Allie.”

  Making people laugh—especially when they don’t want to—is a really nice feeling, it turns out. I don’t know for sure—only Sophie can say—but I think it might be an even better feeling than playing a princess.

  It started to dawn on me that maybe I had been looking at this evil queen thing all wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t be mad I wasn’t getting to play the beautiful princess, but happy I was getting to play a part that could, potentially, make people laugh.

  Except…wasn’t the evil queen supposed to be scary? See, that was the problem: I just didn’t know for sure. I was still confused about the whole thing. I knew this was part of the whole “motivation thing” Uncle Jay had been talking about. I had to figure out what happened in Queen Melissa the Maleficent’s life to have made her so evil in the first place! Why did she drink so many juice boxes and just toss them into the garbage instead of the recycling bin, and drive such a big, gas-guzzling car such short distances that she easily could have walked? Why had she bought a pollution ray with which to kill Princess Penelope in the first place?