The Talented Clementine

by Sara Pennypacker

We practiced with the leash on for a while, and that went great. Then, while Potato had his nap, I practiced saying, “My act is called ‘Elvis and the Laughing Dog,’” and that went great, too.

  Just before four o’clock, I reminded my dad that I needed a ride to rehearsal. “Oh, and Onion needs to come, too.”

  “First of all, your brother’s name isn’t Onion. And second of all, why does he need to come?”

  So I had to tell my dad about my act. “But don’t tell Mom yet, okay? It’s going to be a great surprise for her!”

  “No, I’m definitely not going to tell your mom. But we’re also definitely not bringing your brother to that rehearsal. Because he’s definitely not going to be up on that stage on a leash!”

  “But he loves it! He thinks he’s a dog!”

  “Trust me on this. It’s out of the question, Sport.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. Now get in the car—it’s almost four.”

  Then I made a big mistake: I got into the car. I was thinking so hard about how this was the unluckiest day of my life that I forgot to think about how much unluckier it could get if I went to the rehearsal.

  When I walked into the auditorium, I saw Margaret’s teacher and Mrs. Rice sitting at the side of the stage on tall director’s chairs. I tried to hide, but Margaret’s teacher saw me. She looked down at her clipboard and frowned. Then she yelled so loud all the kids in the auditorium stopped what they were doing to listen.

  “Clementine, I don’t seem to have you listed here. No matter, we’ll fit you in. What’s your act?”

  I went over there and whispered in her ear that I didn’t have one. I hoped the kids watching thought I was saying I couldn’t choose one because I had too many talents.

  “What do you mean, you don’t have one?” Margaret’s teacher yelled, even though I was right there.

  Okay, fine. Maybe she didn’t yell it. But all the kids were listening so hard, they heard anyway.

  “Hey, Clementine,” one of the fourth graders called out. “Your face looks like it’s burning up! Maybe that could be your act!”

  About a million kids laughed, even though he was N-O-T, not funny. But he was right—when I get embarrassed my face gets red and hot. So I didn’t yell anything back to him. I just stood there with my red, hot face hanging down.

  Mrs. Rice called me over. “Come sit beside me, Clementine,” she said. “You can keep me company during the rehearsal.”

  So I had to sit in between Mrs. Rice and Margaret’s teacher, right there at the side of the stage where all the kids could see me and know that I had no talents.

  The first act was called A Dozen Doozie Cartwheelers. Twelve kids lined up, six on each side of the stage.

  “Wait!” I yelled. I ran into the gym and dragged a tumbling mat back into the auditorium. I placed it on the floor in front of the stage. Then I got some of the Dozen Doozies to help me. Pretty soon we had all the mats piled up.

  Margaret’s teacher was glaring at me. She tapped her watch.

  “They’re going over,” I explained. “No matter how they start off aiming, some of them are going over.”

  And they did. At least half a dozen of the Doozies went flying off the stage and right onto the mats. As soon as we got those kids back up and checked them for broken bones, I saw something else with my amazing corner-eyes.

  “Stop!” I yelled. Then I ran over and grabbed a handful of Saltines from one of the third graders just before they went into his mouth.

  “You’re up next,” I reminded him. “And you’re whistling ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy.’ No crackers!”

  When I got back, Margaret’s teacher gave me a look that said she was going to remember all this nonsense when I got into her grade.

  But Mrs. Rice gave me a thumbs-up. “Thank you, Clementine,” she said. “Those crackers could have been a problem.”

  And you will not believe what happened next: Margaret’s teacher apologized!

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m a little antsy tonight.”

  I wanted to stick around to hear about why she was antsy, but just then I noticed that the Super-Duper Hula-Hoopers had been Hula-Hooping for a while. I went over and asked them how long they were planning to go on.

  The girl on the right said, “I once went for five hours and thirteen minutes.”

  The girl on the left made a face that said, “That’s nothing!”

  “Well, you need to have an ending tonight,” I said. “There are a lot of acts after yours.” I borrowed the jump-ropers’ CD player and explained about how they could Hula-Hoop to the music and then S-T-O-P, stop when it was over.

  And I didn’t even get to sit down again for the rest of the afternoon because everybody needed my help for something. Finally, after everyone had a chance to practice their acts, I went over to Mrs. Rice.

  “May I go into your office and use the phone? I need to call my parents and tell them not to come.”

  “I think it’s a little late for that.” Mrs. Rice showed me her watch and then called out, “Take your places, people. Five minutes to showtime!”

  Everybody ran to their places. I ran to the curtains and peeked out: every seat in the audience was filled.

  Margaret’s teacher clapped her hands for attention.

  “Before we get started,” she said, “I just want to thank you all for being part of the show. Each and every one of you is helping to raise money for the big school trip next spring. Except Clementine.”

  Okay, fine, she didn’t actually say, “Except Clementine,” but you could see everyone was thinking it.

  Just then, the secretary came over and handed her a note.

  “Oh! Oh, my goodness!” she cried. She jumped up out of her seat faster than I thought a grown- up should. “Oh, my goodness gracious, it’s now! My daughter’s having her baby! My first grandchild!”

  “Go,” said Mrs. Rice. “It’s all right. We can handle the show. Just go be with your daughter.”

  “Oh, thank you!” Margaret’s teacher said. And then she left so fast she really did lose one of her bobby pins. It didn’t look like lightning, though. It just looked like a bobby pin falling to the floor.

  “Wow,” I said to Mrs. Rice. “So now you have to run the whole show by yourself.”

  “No, not by myself,” Mrs. Rice said. “I have an assistant. And that’s you.”

  “Me? Oh, no. I can’t!”

  “You can. And I’m certainly not doing this alone.”

  “I really can’t. I don’t pay attention, remember?”

  “You do pay attention, Clementine. Not always to the lesson in the classroom. But you notice more about what’s going on than anyone I know. And that’s exactly what I need tonight.”

  “I don’t think this is a very good idea at all.”

  “Well, I do think it’s a good idea. I’ll prove it to you.” Principal Rice called over one of the Hula-Hoopers. “Hillary, what’s the second act after intermission?”

  Hillary looked around. “I don’t have a program,” she said. “Do you want me to get you one?”

  Mrs. Rice told her No thanks, then she turned to me. “Clementine, what’s the second act after intermission?”

  “Caleb from the fourth grade is going to burp ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’,” I told her.

  “Does he need any props?”

  “A two-liter bottle of root beer.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “Forty-one seconds. Forty-eight if he has to stop to drink extra soda at the ‘rockets’ red glare’ part.”

  “I rest my case,” Principal Rice said. She pointed a “no buts” finger at the empty director’s chair.

  When a principal orders you to do something, it is impossible to refuse. Some part of you always gives in. So I climbed into the chair.

  “Open the curtains!” Principal Rice said. And the worried scribbling feeling exploded all through my body.

  Well, you would think those kids had never had a rehearsal.


  First thing: all Dozen Doozies cartwheeled off the edge of the stage. Well, except for one girl, who forgot to move at all. Maria and Morris-Boris-Norris, from my class, went on next, and they cart-wheeled right off the stage, too.

  Nobody had to go to the emergency room, though, and the audience thought the whole thing was supposed to happen that way, so it was okay.

  The next act was the O’Malley twins. Lilly had convinced Willy not to do the thing with his lunch, and to play a duet on the piano with her instead. But when Lilly got up to the mike to announce the act, she got so nervous she threw up.

  I looked at Willy, sitting on the piano bench. Willy does everything Lilly does. And sure enough, he was getting ready.

  “Not on the piano!” I yelled. Just in time.

  Then I ran over and closed the curtains quick, so the whole audience wouldn’t get started, too.

  When the janitor came running out to clean everything up, I had a good idea.

  “Send Sidney out now, in front of the curtains,” I told Mrs. Rice.

  “Why?” she asked. “There’s no microphone out there.”

  “That’s okay. Sidney’s really loud. And she’s going to recite a poem so there’s no cartwheeling, just standing still. Besides, she’s got really skinny feet, so she can fit out there if she stands sideways.”

  So Sidney went onstage and stood sideways and yelled her poem. By the time she was done, the stage was all mopped clean.

  Next came the Hula-Hoopers, and they completely forgot what I’d told them about stopping. The music ended, but they just kept on going. Finally, I had to close the curtains to pull them off the stage so the jump-ropers could go on.

  The jump-ropers must have figured that if the Hula-Hoopers didn’t have to stop at the end of the music, neither did they. So I had to close the curtains on them, too.

  Then came Margaret.

  She did fine at the walking-on-stage-on-time thing, which not everybody did. But just as she got to the microphone, Alan took a picture of her from the audience. Which was a bad mistake.

  Whenever anyone takes a picture of Margaret that she isn’t expecting, she freezes. She says it’s the horror of not knowing if she looks perfect or not. Which I don’t understand, because Margaret always looks perfect.

  No matter, there she was, frozen on the stage with her mouth hanging open. For one tiny second, a little part of me thought, Good! No showing off for you tonight!

  But then my empathetic part took over.

  I ran over to where Margaret could see me and waved until I got her eyes to unfreeze. I pointed to my hair and pretended to brush it.

  Margaret nodded like a robot. She turned to the audience. “First, always brush your hair. Even if it’s cut off like mine.”

  She looked back at me. I pretended to do up some buttons, then I pointed to my right.

  “Always make sure you’re buttoned up right,” Margaret told the audience.

  Then I lifted my foot and crossed my fingers over my sneaker.

  “Never wear green sneakers!” Margaret said. “Green sneakers are the worst!” Then she shook herself, as if she’d been asleep. She went up closer to the mike.

  “Wait a minute,” she said. “I was just kidding about that one. You can wear any color sneakers you want. And green is the most fashionable of all.”

  She zoomed me a smile so huge all her teeth-bracelets sparkled like diamonds in the spotlight. I zoomed her one back—except with no teeth-bracelets because I don’t have them yet. After that, Margaret was okay.

  I went back and climbed up onto the director’s chair, and Principal Rice gave me a huge smile, too. She leaned over and said, “I have the answer for you now, Clementine. About why you can’t have a substitute. It’s because there is no substitute for you. You are one of a kind!”

  And that’s when I realized I didn’t have the worried feeling anymore. Instead, I had the proud feeling: like the sun was rising inside my chest.

  The proud, sun-rising feeling stayed with me all through the rest of the show. And no matter what went wrong, which was plenty, Mrs. Rice and I just fixed it.

  Finally we got to the last act, which was Joe and Buddy. Joe blew one note into his harmonica and Buddy started howling. The audience went wild for them, and kept calling for more, which was good because Buddy kept howling as if he’d been waiting for this all his life.

  I felt a little jealous thinking about how great Spinach would have been up there with that fancy leash, and how much the audience would have loved my act, too. Especially my parents. Now that the last act was over, I guessed they were out there in the audience, going, “Hey! Wait a minute. Where was our daughter?”

  Mrs. Rice and I closed the curtains and herded all the kids back onto the stage the way we had practiced. Then she opened the curtains again and everybody took their bows, and only a few kids cracked their heads together.

  Mrs. Rice and I stepped back into the wings and climbed up onto our chairs to watch.

  The audience kept smiling and clapping, and the kids kept smiling and bowing. And I was mostly happy, even though a little part of me was sad. Someday, I’d like to know what it feels like to have people clapping for me, too.

  “We did it,” I said to Principal Rice. “It’s over, and we did it!”

  “Yes, indeed, we did,” said Principal Rice. “But it’s not quite over. I have one more thing to do.”

  Then she got off her chair and went onstage to join the crowd of kids. I heard her take the microphone.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming to Talent-Palooza, Night of the Stars. And now I would like to introduce the person who made it all possible…our very talented director. Without her, we would have had no show here tonight.”

  So Margaret’s teacher had come back! It was good news babies could be born so fast, in case I ever decided to have one, which I will not.

  Mrs. Rice came over and put her hand on the side curtain. I jumped off the director’s chair to make room for Margaret’s teacher, even though I still didn’t see her.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Mrs. Rice said, “please give a big round of applause for…”

  She pulled open the curtain.

  “…Clementine!”

  I was so surprised I just stood there staring. All the third and fourth graders were staring back at me…with thank-you eyes and big smiles.

  Then they started clapping, regular at first, but then harder and harder. Pretty soon they were clapping so hard I was afraid some of the skinnier kids would break their wrists.

  Then the audience started clapping like crazy, too, and it seemed they were never going to stop. The sound grew so loud it practically peeled the ears right off my head. But I didn’t care, because now I did know what it felt like to have people clapping for me: G-O-O-D, good.

  On the way home, my mother kept shaking her head from being so astoundished. “I can’t believe you kept that a secret all week, honey! You were so amazing!”

  My dad caught my eye in the mirror and winked. “She even more amazing than you know,” he told my mother. “Yep, we have a very talented daughter here. Sport, we are so proud of you.” Then he looked over at my mom and raised his eyebrows. She nodded and smiled.

  “Are you tired, Clementine?” she asked. “Or do you think you could stay up a little later than usual?”

  “I’m not tired,” I said. “Do you need me to spy on the sitter? Make sure she doesn’t smoke cigars? Or order things from the Shopping Channel? Do you think she’s making phone calls to Australia?” I might be a private detective when I grow up.

  “No,” said my dad. “The sitter’s fine. We were wondering if you wanted to come to dinner with us at the Ritz, instead.”

  “Really?” I asked. “What about the peanuts?”

  Usually, when my parents go out, it’s my job to make sure the babysitter doesn’t bring any peanuts and leave them around. Broccoli is allergic, and if he has even one tiny peanut, he might have to go to the hosp
ital with his neck all blown up or something.

  “We’ll talk to the sitter,” my dad said.

  “I don’t know,” I said. My brother had never been left with a sitter without me to save his life.

  “It’ll be all right, Clementine,” my mother said. “We can trust the sitter to remember. We’d really like you to come. After all, we wouldn’t even be going if it weren’t for you.”

  So I said okay, and we went home and my parents got more dressed up. I didn’t, because I already looked so great. My mom put on her new shoes, and I thought my dad was going to hurt his head from smacking it and saying, “Wow!”

  When the babysitter came, my parents told her and told her about the peanuts. And then I told her and told her and told her, too. Then my dad looked at his watch and said, “We have reservations…” so we said good-bye.

  But when we got to the lobby, I couldn’t leave.

  “Wait here.” I hurried back to our apartment, got one of my mom’s permanent markers, and wrote on my brother’s forehead, NO PEANUTS FOR ME! in big, blue capital letters.

  Then I felt all right.

  On the way to the restaurant, my parents asked me what I wanted for dinner. They always do this so I don’t have to look at a menu and have the not-choosing problem.

  “A hamburger and mashed potatoes,” I said.

  “I’m on it,” said my dad.

  And he was. My parents ordered food I had never heard of. Then the waiter said, “And for the young lady?” which was me. My dad ordered some more food I had never heard of. But when it came, it was a hamburger and mashed potatoes!

  “Um, excuse me,” I said, very politely. “May I also order some crackers?”

  The waiter shook his head. “Sadly, there are no Ritz crackers at the Ritz. It is one of the deepest mysteries of the universe.”

  I didn’t want him to feel embarrassed about that, so I told him I still liked his restaurant. “And I think you’re a really good waiter, too. Very empathetic.”

  Which he was, because all night long, he figured out everything I was going to want and I never had to go up to the counter to ask for more anything, even ketchup.