Stage Fright Read online

  “You’re always the best when we play queens at recess,” Caroline said, seeming to agree with Sophie and Erica. “Why wouldn’t you make a great evil queen? And you know Stuart and those guys will do what you say.”

  My shoulders sagged. “Oh,” I said. “That’s right.” No wonder Mrs. Hunter had given me the part of the evil queen! It wasn’t because she hated me. It was so the boys playing the evil soldiers would obey me. I sat next to them all day, didn’t I? Well, me and Rosemary. She probably thought Rosemary and I would keep them in line at rehearsals the same way we did all day in the classroom.

  Well, it wasn’t fair! Just once, I wanted to get to play the part of the pretty princess instead of the tough girl who keeps the bad boys in line.

  But I guess that was never going to happen. At least, not with this play. And not with this teacher. All my hopes had been raised that, for once, things might turn out differently, only to be dashed.

  And I knew exactly who to blame for that. For the raised hopes, anyway.

  RULE #8

  There Are No Small Parts, Only Small Actors

  I found him at our house after school, with his head in our refrigerator—a place, I would like to add, where one could usually find Uncle Jay when he wasn’t in class, delivering pizzas, out with his girlfriend, or watching the show COPS on his TV in his apartment.

  “How long has it been since your parents went to the grocery store?” Uncle Jay asked me when I came into the kitchen. He took a big bite out of an apple. “You’re out of apples. Well, I mean, now. This is the last one. And I really had to scrounge to find it.”

  I slammed my book bag down on the counter and glared at him.

  “What?” he said. He held out the apple, which had a big bite taken out of it. “Did you want it?”

  “I didn’t get the part of Princess Penelope,” I said. “And it’s all your fault!”

  “My fault?” Uncle Jay looked shocked. “How is it my fault? Did you figure out what Princess Penelope had for breakfast?”

  “Yes.” I was practically crying, I was so mad. “Count Chocula. And I still didn’t get the part.”

  “Did you project?” Uncle Jay asked.

  “Yes, I projected,” I said. “And if you ask me, that was the exact problem. I projected so much, I think I probably came off as too loud and queenly, and not soft and princessy enough. So Mrs. Hunter gave Sophie the part of the princess and me the part of the evil queen!” I didn’t mention the part about how she’d probably given it to me so I could keep Stuart and Patrick in line. I figured Uncle Jay didn’t have to know everything. Just enough to make him feel bad for what he’d done. “I have to be the princess’s evil stepmother, who doesn’t believe in recycling or saving the planet!”

  Uncle Jay took another bite of his apple and looked thoughtful. “A character part,” he said. “Hmmm. I could see you in one of those, actually.”

  “What’s a character part?” I demanded. I wasn’t going to let him distract me from being mad at him, though. I had to take out my anger and disappointment over not getting the role of Princess Penelope on someone, and Uncle Jay seemed like the best person for that.

  “A character part,” Uncle Jay said, pulling up a kitchen counter stool and sitting on it, “is a supporting role, often comic in nature. The main character’s sidekick, or sometimes her mortal enemy.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said. My face felt hot from trying not to cry.

  “An example would be Sebastian to Ariel in The Little Mermaid,” Uncle Jay said. “Or Ursula, the sea witch.”

  My eyes filled up with tears. Trying not to cry wasn’t working anymore. I had been holding back sobs all day. And now, finally, since I was home, it was safe to let them go. None of my friends was around, so I didn’t have to put on a brave face any longer. Cheyenne was back at school, having a meeting with Mrs. Hunter; Mrs. Jenkins, the principal; and Mrs. O’Malley over her not getting the part of Princess Penelope. Sophie was frantic that Mrs. Jenkins was going to force Mrs. Hunter to give Cheyenne the role of Princess Penelope. But Erica, Caroline, and I had spent the walk home assuring her this wouldn’t happen.

  And the whole time, all I’d wanted to do was cry myself, over my own disappointment.

  Well, now I finally could.

  So I did.

  “That’s just it,” I wailed. “I don’t want to play a sea witch. Or a crab! I want to be a p-princess!”

  “Hey.” Uncle Jay looked concerned—and super surprised—at my outburst. “It’s okay. It’s much cooler to be a queen than a princess, anyway.”

  “An ee-ee-evil queen!” I reminded him, choking a little on my own tears.

  “What are you so upset about?” Uncle Jay wanted to know. “Everyone likes Ursula much better than they like Ariel, anyway.”

  “No, they d-don’t. She’s the evil witch who takes away the little mermaid’s voice. Everyone hates Ursula. When she dies at the end, everyone is happy.”

  “That means she did a fantastic job at her performance,” Uncle Jay said. “Don’t you get it, Allie? Ursula isn’t real. She’s a character played by an actress. An actress who did such a good job developing her character and then performing her that she makes the audience hate her. That’s an incredible skill. It’s easy to play someone everyone is naturally going to love right away, just by the nature of who she is, a beautiful princess. Anybody can do that. But the fact that your teacher saw something in you that told her, ‘Hey, this little girl could do something really challenging—make people hate her,’ means that she must think you’re the best actress in your whole class.”

  I stared at him through my tears. The truth was, I had never thought of the evil queen that way—as a challenging role. I had just thought of it as the worst role in the whole entire play. Which it was, naturally. Unless…

  “Really?” I wiped my eyes with the back of one of my wrists. “Do you really think Mrs. Hunter thinks I’m a good actress?”

  “She must,” Uncle Jay said. “Directors don’t assign character roles to bad actors. They’re extremely difficult to pull off. What exactly happened during your audition? Think. Did Mrs. Hunter do or say anything unusual?”

  “Well.” I tried to think. “She laughed once…”

  Uncle Jay snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “That’s it. She laughed. Did she laugh when anyone else auditioned?”

  “No,” I said. “It was a serious scene. It wasn’t supposed to be funny.”

  “So you must have good comic timing,” Uncle Jay said. “Let me see the script again.”

  I unzipped my backpack and handed it to him. “I still don’t see,” I said to him, “how getting the role of someone evil is a good thing.”

  “Shhh,” Uncle Jay said as he flipped through the script. “Yes.” He nodded as he read over my lines. “Oh, yes. I can see what she’s doing.”

  I leaned forward on my counter stool. “What?”

  “You realize,” he said, “that you have a lot more lines as the queen than you would have had as the princess?”

  “I do?” This piece of information caused my eyes, still teary, to bug out a bit.

  “A lot more,” Uncle Jay said. “I’d even go so far as to say that the evil queen, and not Princess Penelope, is the real star of the show.”

  “But she’s evil, and she dies at the end,” I informed him.

  “That’s right,” Uncle Jay said, brightening up even more. “You have a death scene, don’t you? That’s even better! You ought to really be able to milk that. Allie, this is brilliant. You’re going to steal the show.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, my shoulders sagging. “I have to play a stinking evil queen who doesn’t recycle. Are you even listening to me?”

  “Of course I am,” Uncle Jay said, handing the script back to me. “Now, here’s what you need to do first. Find your character’s motivation. Figure out what made Princess Penelope’s stepmother so evil in the first place. Get to the heart of her evi
lness, find out what makes her tick—and you’ll be able to give the performance of your lifetime.”

  I stared at him some more. “I don’t understand anything you’re talking about,” I said. “Nothing made her evil. She’s just evil.”

  “Of course something made her evil,” Uncle Jay said. “No one is born evil. People learn to be evil because of things that happen to them in their lives. What happened to Princess Penelope’s stepmother that made her the way she is? And by the way, I think you need to give her a name. You can’t just keep calling her the evil queen. You need to get to know her if you’re going to play her properly. Find out—”

  “—what she eats for breakfast,” I said tiredly.

  I couldn’t believe Uncle Jay was making such a big deal over an evil queen. Who even cared what she had for breakfast or what her real name was? She was evil! I was the one playing her, and I didn’t even care. I was still mad about the whole thing…that I wasn’t going to get to wear my gold flower-girl dress now. What kind of costume would an evil queen wear, anyway? Something black, I supposed. What was he getting so excited about for, anyway? People were going to boo, not clap, for me. Because I was evil. Couldn’t he see the unfairness of it all? I had worked so hard, and not gotten the part I wanted. I mean, that wasn’t how things were supposed to go. I didn’t agree with Cheyenne’s calling her mother, and her mother’s demanding a meeting with Mrs. Hunter and the principal.

  But I understood how she felt.

  It was kind of funny that right then, my mom walked in from outside, where she’d apparently been doing some gardening. At least, she was pulling off her gardening gloves and windbreaker.

  “Oh, hello, Allie, I thought I saw you come home,” she said. Then she noticed my face and looked sort of alarmed. “Honey, what’s the matter?”

  “She didn’t get the lead in her class play,” Uncle Jay answered for me. “And she’s a little upset. But I told her not to worry. All she needs to do is find her character’s motivation, and she’ll be fine.”

  “Oh, Allie,” Mom said, coming up and putting her arms around me. “I’m so sorry. You must be so disappointed. Is there anything I can do?”

  Even though it felt good to be hugged, I tensed up.

  “Don’t call the school!” I cried. “I don’t want you to call Mrs. Jenkins to complain!”

  “Why on earth would I call your principal to complain?” Mom asked, letting go of me.

  “Because that’s what Cheyenne’s mom did,” I said. “They’re having a meeting in Mrs. Jenkins’s office with Mrs. Hunter right now, all because Cheyenne didn’t get the part of Princess Penelope.”

  “Was that the part you wanted?” Mom asked, pushing a loose strand of my hair out of my eyes.

  “Yes,” I said. I was trying to keep a brave face on. It was pretty hard, though. “But Sophie got it. Which is good, because she deserved it. She was really good at the audition. And she looks like a princess.”

  “So do you,” Mom said, laying a hand on my cheek.

  “Well,” I said. I suddenly felt like crying again, but I tried really hard to hold it back. This, by the way, is called acting. “I guess Mrs. Hunter doesn’t think so. She gave me the part of the princess’s evil stepmother, who spends the whole play trying to kill her, and then gets killed at the end with her own evil pollution ray.”

  My mom got a funny look on her face, kind of like she was trying not to laugh. But I didn’t exactly see anything humorous about the situation.

  “Oh, honey,” Mom said. “I’m so sorry. You’ve had a terrible day, haven’t you?”

  “Well,” I said. “It hasn’t been great.”

  “Tell you what,” Mom said. “I was thinking about going to the mall. Why don’t you come along? We’ll make it a girls’ afternoon out.”

  This caused me to feel a little bit better. “Really?” I brightened up. “No boys?”

  “No boys,” Mom said. “Just you and me.”

  I jumped off the counter stool and ran to get my coat, joining Mom at the back door, where she was grabbing her purse and car keys. Uncle Jay, not done giving advice, called after me, “Don’t forget…Stanislavsky said there are no small parts, only small actors!”

  “What does he mean by that?” I asked as I followed Mom out to her car.

  “Well,” Mom said, “that you should be happy with the part Mrs. Hunter gave you. Otherwise, you might seem ungrateful.”

  Oh. So There are no small parts, only small actors was a rule.

  I got into the car and pulled my seat belt tight. “I’m happy I’m in the play,” I said. “I just wish I had Sophie’s part. Or even Cheyenne’s part. She’s playing a fairy queen.”

  “I know, honey,” Mom said as she started backing the car out of the driveway. “Sometimes we don’t get the things we want. That’s just the way things work out. So we have to try to find the good in the things we do have. There must be something good about playing the princess’s stepmother.”

  As hard as I tried, I couldn’t think of anything good about playing the evil queen. And said so.

  “Try harder,” Mom said. “What kind of character is she?”

  “Well,” I said, “she’s a queen.”

  “There you go!” Mom said brightly from behind the wheel. “A queen. Well, that’s terrific! You love queens. We’ll make you a fabulous queen costume. With a really big crown.”

  “I should probably have a cape,” I said as I watched the houses near where we live go by. “Queens always have capes.”

  “We’ll make you a cape,” Mom said. “How about the cape Dad wore when he was Dracula for Halloween a few years ago? We could cut it down to fit you.”

  I thought about Dad’s Dracula cape. It had a high pointy collar at the neck that stood up on its own. Come to think of it, it looked quite queenly.

  “Yes,” I said. “That would look really good. And I think I should wear that dress you wore to the Hausers’ pool party last year.”

  Mom looked at me in the rearview mirror. Both her eyebrows were raised. “My black pool cover-up?”

  “Yes,” I said. It was made of terry cloth. But it looked like velvet. And on me, it was a long dress. As I had discovered one night when I’d tried it on when Mom wasn’t home and Caroline, Erica, Sophie, Rosemary, and I had played fashion show with her clothes.

  “Well,” Mom said, “I suppose you can wear that. If you really want to…”

  By the time we got to the mall, we had my evil queen costume all planned out. We didn’t even have to buy anything because everything I needed we already owned or could make with things we had at the house. We went into the big department store, because there were a few things Mom wanted to pick up for herself, though. She headed right to the makeup counter.

  “Hi,” a very pretty lady behind the makeup counter said to her. “What can I do for you today? You know, we’re having a special on—”

  “That’s very nice,” Mom interrupted, even though she says it’s rude to interrupt people. That’s a rule. “I need something to make my eyes look…more defined.”

  “Oh, that’s easy,” the lady behind the counter said. “Here, let me show you these new products we just got in. You’re going to love them. They’re hypoallergenic and completely smudge-proof, but very easy to remove at the end of the day.”

  My mom sat down on the stool the makeup lady pulled out. She said, “Allie, don’t go far,” when I wandered over to a display of headbands and started looking at them.

  “I won’t,” I said. “But I might go over to the pet shop and see if they have any of those new breakaway collars. Because those are better for cats than the one I got for Mewsie when he was a baby.”

  “No,” Mom said. The makeup lady was already putting stuff on her eyes, so Mom had to hold still. “We’ll go look at them when I’m done. I’ll just be a minute.”

  “Okay,” I said, and went over to a nearby counter to check out the sparkly jewelry, pretending I really was a queen (not an evil one,
though) and could afford to buy whatever I wanted. I was deciding between a fancy watch that showed the sun, moon, and stars on the face, and a diamond pendant shaped like a French poodle when I heard a familiar voice go, “But, Mom! I want them!”

  I froze where I was standing and looked across the aisle. Sure enough, there she was: Cheyenne O’Malley, the fairy queen herself, shopping with a lady I was sure had to be her mother.

  RULE #9

  Best Friends Rescue Each Other When Someone’s Evil Sister Has Them Tragged

  Cheyenne and her mom were looking down at a glass case of jewelry just like the one I was standing next to.

  Only Cheyenne hadn’t noticed me yet, since all of her attention was on the earrings she was looking at. I shrank behind a spinning rack of jewelry on top of the case beside me, so she hopefully wouldn’t see me. I just didn’t really feel like talking to Cheyenne right then. I mean, I didn’t feel like talking to her when I was in school. Why would I feel like talking to Cheyenne outside of school?

  “Those earrings are a hundred dollars, Cheyenne,” Mrs. O’Malley said. “That’s too expensive.”

  “I don’t care,” Cheyenne said in a rude voice—the kind of voice that, if I’d ever used it with my mom, would have gotten me sent to my room. With no dessert. “They’re really cute. And they’ll be perfect with my purple top.”

  “But you have a pair just like them,” Mrs. O’Malley said.

  “Yeah,” Cheyenne said. “But I lost them. Remember?”

  “Oh, Cheyenne.” Mrs. O’Malley let out a sigh. “Why can’t you learn to be more responsible?”

  Cheyenne got a look on her face that I recognized. It was her Now I’m going to start crying look. I wondered if she was thinking about the Jonas Brothers concert her mom had failed to get tickets for.

  “Mo-o-om,” she practically yelled. A couple of people shopping nearby looked over. I hoped they didn’t wonder why I was crouching behind a jewelry stand. I pretended to be really, really interested in a pair of earrings shaped like violins, even though I don’t have pierced ears. Or play the violin.