He points in my face and goes, “Good. It’s your move. GET OUTTA DA WAY!” Then he laughs until he wheezes, turns his wheels like a maniac, and practically runs me over.
Max taps the mic a few times to make sure it’s working. “Hello, everyone, I’m Max Finkelstein, and I’ve got a great show for you today.” He sounds as excited as Mom announcing dinner’s ready. “Okay, well, uh…let’s get on with the show.” Then he clears his throat about fifty times. I’m going to have to work with him on his stage presence.
He puts down the mic and picks a few people from the audience for some “pick a card, any card” tricks. Since the residents can’t get up so easily, Max goes to them. They clap every time he guesses their card correctly, but their clapping sounds like drizzling raindrops. Slow, without energy. Max does a few more tricks using cups and paper clips. It’s dead in here.
“Can I get a volunteer?” Max asks. “Anyone?” Yawning silence. “Anyone?” he begs. Finally, a lady gets up, grabs onto her walker, and slowly makes her way toward Max. Thank God. Audience participation. Success.
But no. She shuffles past Max and keeps going, heading for the door, inch…by…inch. Max tries to ignore her and go on with his act, but the lady is taking about nine years to get across the room. The worst part is that the lady’s walker is making this squeaking noise with every move, like a rusty shopping cart. Squeak, step. Squeak, step. Squeak, step. If I were Max, I would climb inside the prop case and hide.
When the walker lady is finally gone, Max starts with the metal rings. He’s juggling, separating, and connecting them. This gets some light applause. It’s going okay until he drops them. Clang! Ping! Pang! One of the old-timers covers his ears. Some of them are asleep. Poor Max.
I scramble around on the floor and pick up the rolling metal rings. Max is sweating, wiping his brow with his sleeve. Now he takes out a metal box, setting up another trick, but he stops to pick up the microphone on the table and say, “Technical difficulties, folks. It’ll just take a second.” He places the mic back down. The chairs creak. The air-conditioning hums.
I make a decision. Max needs my help. I lay the metal rings down, take the mic off the table. “How’s everybody doing today?” I ask brightly.
Somebody coughs. Max is still messing around with the metal box.
I tap on the mic. “Hello? Hello? Are you all still alive? Do I need to do CPR on anybody?”
Max grins at me encouragingly. At least if I fail, most of these people won’t remember me tomorrow morning. Some won’t remember me in ten minutes.
I scan the room for a victim. I spot Simon. Perfect. I go over to him, take his wrist, and feel his pulse.
“How’s my blood pressure?” he asks, playing along.
“I have no idea. I’m just making sure you’re still alive.” Simon clutches his heart, as if he’s having a heart attack. A few people laugh.
Someone is snoring. I scan the room and see that the snorer is a very thin, sickly-looking old-timer. He’s out cold. I hold my microphone up to the man’s mouth, amplifying his snores: pishrrrrchhhssshh, pishrrrccchhhhsssh. “Is there a helicopter landing in here?” I ask.
Now they’re cracking up. One old guy’s head is so shiny I pretend it’s a mirror while I stare into it and put my lip gloss on. I polish it with a handkerchief. It’s a stupid joke, but even the nurses laugh. I may have tanked in front of my classmates, but I’m killing it with these senior citizens.
Max starts rummaging around in his prop case, so I stand behind him and say in this low, educational-documentary-type voice, “Look, ladies and gentlemen, a young nerd, scrounging for food! Let’s see what he finds, nuts…berries…computer parts…a Spider-Man mask…a spelling bee trophy…”
Max stands up and pulls out a three-sided box with mirrored insides. He faces all the old people. “Uh,” he says, “thank you all for being such a great audience. Let’s, um, hear it for the comedy stylings of my very entertaining assistant, Abby Green.” They clap. “Uh…and now for the grand finale, the moment you’ve all been waiting for.” He slips the box over my head. The front is open so I can look out.
Max whips out an electric drill. “This will only take a minute.” Then he whispers, “Just play along. Pretend the screws are hurting you and make sure the back of your head is touching the back of the box at all times. Keep your head at the back. Got it?”
“Wait, there are screws and a drill involved in this trick?” The drill is incredibly loud, and Max makes a big deal out of drilling these screws into the box. I’m freaking out, but I shout “ouch!” and “ack!” I don’t know what he’s going to do to me. I’m assuming it’s all for show and not truly dangerous.
Until Max takes out knives.
KNIVES!!!
I thought he was kidding about the knife thing. What have I gotten myself into?
Max has Simon feel the tip of the knife with his fingertip to make sure it isn’t a fake. “It’s sharp, all right,” Simon confirms. Then Max goes one step further, demonstrating its sharpness by slicing an orange in half.
It truly is a very sharp knife. And Max is coming toward me with it. He stands next to me, tosses his cape behind one shoulder with a flourish, and raises the knife high.
And thrusts it right into the side of my head.
Well, into the side of the box.
Thwack.
A blade springs out in front of my eyes. The audience gasps.
My heartbeat is pounding. “What the?” I rage-whisper to Max. “I didn’t sign up for this. Get me out of this thing.”
“Relax, they’re trick knives,” Max whispers out of the side of his mouth. “When I stab the box, the blade retracts into the handle. The blades that are popping out in front of you are soft plastic. They’re inside the walls of the box. Make jokes.”
So I shout, “Thanks, I was due for an eyebrow trim!” after the next blade springs out in front of me. I point at Simon’s bushy eyebrows. “You’re next, Simon, you really need it.” Laughter fills the room. It’s louder now, there’s energy.
Max raises his hand, poises the knife, and throws it at my head. THWACK.
The knife lands in the hidden slot on the box. Whew.
Suddenly, I realize that Max had it right all along. This is fun. And I’m great at it. Why did I resist for so long?
Max’s finale is inserting a bunch of knives in the box super-duper fast while more fake blades crisscross and pop out. I wince with every thwack. The effect is probably scary because the inside of the box is mirrored, and I’m sure it looks like more knives than it really is. At the end, Max pulls out the fake knives, then carefully removes the back wall of the box so I can get my head out of it, and takes my hand. We bow together to pretty decent applause.
It doesn’t feel weird that he’s holding my hand. It’s professional, like a curtain call. “I knew you could do it,” he says, dropping my hand.
As the audience rolls toward the cookies and juice, Simon calls out, “Great job, you two.”
“Thanks, Simon,” we say. I add, “I look forward to seeing you next weekend!”
I mean it. Right now, Simon Eppelmeyer is the most adorable little old guy in the universe. So what if tiny balls of white spittle collect in the corners of his mouth, like little saliva Q-tips? The poor man just needs a glass of water.
People should be more sensitive toward old-timers, like I am.
Bonnie comes up to us and says, “You two were terrific.” She holds up her phone. “I’ll send the pictures and video to you, Abby.”
Max looks down at me. I finally did something right. So did he. We both accomplished something special today. I know he feels it too.
I’m bursting with ideas: a website, maybe a local news interview, social media advertising, marketing videos, plus a special YouTube-project surprise for Max. I can’t wait to get started. Being Max’s assistant is performing experience, for both comedy and acting. Who cares what Caitlin or anyone else thinks? I think it’s cool.
And
when I picture the laughing, wrinkly faces of the Millennium Lakes residents (the ones who were awake), and their smiles (the ones with their teeth in), I feel pretty good about myself. Max and I put those smiles on their faces. We brought a room to life, entertained them.
Maybe I do have talent, after all.
At school, I wait for Max outside before class starts. As soon as he gets out of his dad’s car, I pounce. “My brother Drew said he’d film us for promotional videos. Plus, you need to be active on our social media sites. We’ve got major work to do.”
“Abby—”
“I was thinking you could mess up a few tricks and then I could do them and get it right, you know, like we pretend the assistant knows more than the magician?”
“Abby—”
“And there’s this dress I think would be perfect if my mom will give in and buy it for my brother’s bar mitzvah, and—”
“Abby, stop interrupting me!”
“Sorry.”
“We have a gig this weekend. As in money.”
“Really?! What is it?”
“A kid’s birthday party.”
“Whaaaat? Awesome! How much?”
He grins. “A hundred dollars.”
“Wow!” A second later I remember I’m his partner. “I’m getting fifty.”
“Twenty-five.”
“Keep dreaming. My grandpa gives me that for scratching his back.”
“Thirty-five.”
“Forty.”
“Deal.”
We shake on it and go to class. I’m making money to perform for people!
It feels right.
Later, we’re all outside at our picnic table, copying Amy’s study guide. If we show a study guide for our quiz this afternoon, we get five extra points. “Amy, I don’t know how you got a bad grade in English,” I tell her. “Your outlines are awesome.” Although the rest of us probably should start doing our own at some point.
Trina doodles in the margins of her outline. “Yeah, you’re such a good student. How did you flunk?”
“I didn’t,” Amy says.
“What do you mean, you didn’t?” Trina asks. “Why are you here?”
Silent Amy thinks for a few seconds, smoothes out her skirt. “I got a D, not an F, but my parents still made me come. Mr. Finsecker was way too hard for me. I didn’t keep up with the work. I didn’t outline or study like I’m doing now. I didn’t understand Mr. Finsecker most of the time, so I didn’t try. So that’s how I got a bad grade, I guess.”
Trina, Max, and I gape at her. For Silent Amy, that was the equivalent of Abe Lincoln’s “four score and seven years ago.”
“I’ve never heard so many words come out of your mouth at one time,” I say.
Amy bursts into tears.
“I’m so sorry,” I backpedal. “Did I say something wrong?” I hug her, because I don’t know what else to do. She smells like a vanilla candle. “Don’t cry. You surprised us, that’s all. Conversation isn’t your thing. I’m sorry for what I said.”
“No, it’s n-not that,” she sobs. Naturally, we all ask her what’s wrong.
“I’m not good with people. I don’t know what to say to them,” she sniffles. “I never know what to say. That’s why I don’t have friends.”
Max, Trina, and I look at each other, bewildered. “Amy, we’re your friends,” I assure her. “Aren’t we?”
“Definitely,” Max says.
“Of course,” Trina adds.
I hug her again. “We don’t care that you’re quiet. I kind of like it. The rest of us can’t shut up, right, guys?”
“Truth,” Trina says, putting her arm around Amy. “Especially you, Abby.”
“Yeah,” Max agrees.
I scowl at both of them.
Trina gives Amy’s hand a squeeze, like Amy did for Max. “Maybe you just need to relax. Then you’ll know what to say. It’s just us.”
Amy sniffs, shakes her head. “It’s not you. It’s me. I just…” She shrugs, sobs. “I never know what to say. I can never think of anything.” She looks at each of us. “That sounds crazy, right?”
“Not crazy,” I say. “My brother Drew is like that.” Really, Drew doesn’t seem to be that interested in connecting with people. Amy wants to, but can’t.
The last thing I ever thought I would feel for Amy is pity. But I do. I feel sorry for her. I’ve always lumped Amy in with the popular crowd because of the way she looks, but now that I think back on it, she was always alone whenever I saw her outside of class. I don’t even know who she ate lunch with. I never once imagined that someone as picture-perfect as Amy didn’t have friends.
I thought that was just me.
“You’re all so fun and interesting,” she says, still crying. “Abby, you always know exactly what to say to make everyone laugh.”
“I don’t,” I tell her. “Sometimes I make people cry, like now. Or I make people furious. I apologize for my big mouth every day.”
Amy sniffs. “And, Max, you’re the best magician I’ve ever seen. Trina, you’ve got your art. What do I have? Nothing. I’m nothing.” Her voice is louder than I’ve ever heard it, raw with pain. Tears stream down her face. “I don’t have a talent. I can’t even talk.” She crumples up into her own lap, sobbing.
Now it’s Trina who hugs her. “You don’t have to talk. Your vibe attracts your tribe. That’s us. We’re your tribe, and you are not nothing, Amy.” Max and I nod. “I’m sure you do have a talent. Everyone does. You just don’t know what it is yet.”
“Right,” Max puts in. “You’re super organized and great with outlines. You dress like you came out of a magazine. You’ll figure it out.”
“And you can talk to people, Amy,” I assure her. “You’re talking to us right now.”
She shakes her head like she doesn’t believe any of us and wipes her nose and eyes with a napkin.
Maybe I can give her some advice. “There was this girl Totally Cindy on the Poco rec league soccer team—” I start.
“Totally Cindy?” Max repeats.
“Her real name was Cindy Miller,” I explain. “I called her Totally Cindy in my mind because all she ever said was the word totally. Did you know you can say totally no matter what people are talking about?”
Amy sniffs. I take this to mean she wants me to keep going.
“Someone start a conversation with me,” I say. “Give me a random comment that isn’t a question, but one where you’d expect an answer. Make something up.” Max is suddenly busy texting back and forth with someone, not paying attention, which is pretty rude. Amy needs us. “Trina, you start.”
“Abby, your parents don’t understand the way things are,” says Trina.
“Totally,” I say, grateful she jumped in.
Silent Amy’s puffy face has the beginnings of a smile. I point to our Shakespeare book. “This book stinks,” I offer.
“Totally,” she whispers.
“It is so hot outside,” Trina says.
“Totally,” Amy repeats.
“See?” I tell her. “It works.”
“Totally,” she whispers. Slowly, she smiles. “Thanks.”
(There is no Totally Cindy. I made her up to make a point. But wouldn’t she make a good character for The Abby Show someday? Totally.)
Max looks up from his phone. “Abby, could you stop shaking the picnic table?” His voice is sharp. He shoots me a nasty look.
I stop wiggling my foot. “I can’t help it. It’s more difficult for me to sit still than it is for most people.”
“So try harder. I’m getting motion sickness,” Max says, shoving my papers at me.
“What’s your problem?” I shove the papers back toward him. What did I do?
“Your stuff is taking up the whole table,” Max says, shoving them back at me. This time they fall onto the ground. He grabs his backpack and storms off, heading into the building.
Who was Max texting? Why did he get so mad at me?
Amy picks my papers up off
the ground and hands them to me.
“Well, that came out of nowhere,” Trina says.
“Totally,” Amy says.
I text, FaceTime, and call Max after school to find out what his issue is. He doesn’t answer. Then, just before I get into bed, my phone beeps with a text. It’s him.
Can u call me now?
I take my phone and go inside my closet to make sure no one can hear me. He picks up right away. “Why are you so angry?” I want to know. “What did I do?”
“I’m not. My dad sent me a text that really ticked me off. I took it out on you. I’m sorry.” He sounds stuffed up, like he’s been crying.
“Shoving my papers off the table like that? Yelling at me for shaking the table? That was messed up, Max.”
“I know.”
“Remember when you made me promise not to embarrass you in front of people? You did the same thing today.”
“Well, do you have to shake your foot all the time?”
“I don’t know when I’m doing it. You don’t have to make me feel bad about it.”
He’s silent for a moment. Then he says, “I’m really sorry.”
Something in his voice turns my knees into marshmallows. “I forgive you. What did your dad’s text say?”
He takes a long breath, blows it out. “He said he wasn’t going to send me back to Pennsylvania to visit my mom. She wants to see me. He told her no.”
“He told you that in a text?”
“That’s my dad.”
That’s cold. “Now I get why you were so mad,” I say. “Maybe she’ll come here?”
“She can’t. Not anytime soon. My father won’t talk about it with me. He doesn’t talk about anything with me.”
“Your mom got in touch. That’s good, right? It’s a start. You’ll see her soon.”
“Yeah,” he answers. We don’t say anything for a few seconds. “Thanks for making me feel better. You cheer everyone up, like you did with Amy today. I wish I could be like you.”
“No, you don’t.” No one has ever wished they could be like me. “Hey, I’m working on something that will really cheer you up.”
“What is it?”
This Is Not the Abby Show Page 12
