Diary Of A Wimpy Kid Book Series (23 page)

He mus+ Kave fouhd ou+ X was sih^ihg, ahd Ke couldh+ resist +Ke cKahce to see me embarrass nyself.

YKe play was supposed to start at
8
-'
00
,
but it

You’d figure tKat soneohe wKose Job i+ was to sit oh tKe stage ahd do hotKihg could Just suck it up •for ohe perfornahce. But Rod hey wouldht budge, ahd eveh+ually, Kis non K*d +o carry Kin off.

XKe play fihally got started arouhd S'
30
. Kiobody could renenber tKeir lihes, just like X predicted, but Mrs. Kjortoh kept tKihgs novihg alohg wi+K Ker piaho.

The kid who played To+o brought a s+ool and a pile of conic hooks onto the S+a^e, and that totally ruined the whole do^" effect.

VJhen i+ was +ine for the forest scene, ne and

Great. X have beeh able +o keep that nickname <|uiei
for
five years, and how all
of
the suddeh the whole towh khew it. X could feel about
300 pairs of eyeballs poihted my way.

So X did Some ^uick ad-libbihg ahd X was able to deflect the embarrassmeht over to Archie Kelly.

But the major embarrassmeht was still oh the way. VJKeh X heard Mrs. Mortoh playihg the first few bars of Vie Xhree Trees,” X felt my Stomach jump.

X looked out at the audiehce, ahd X hoticed Rodnck was hold'h

X knew that if X Sang the song and Rodrick recorded it, he would keep the tape forever and use ft +o humiliate me for the rest of my life.

X didn’t know what +o do, so when the time came to Start Singing, X just kept my mouth sKut.

For a few seconds there, things went OK. X figured that if X didn’t technically sing the Song, then Rodrick wouldn’t have anything to Fold over my head. But after a few seconds, the other Trees noticed 1 wasn’t singing.

UO

I ^uess ihey muS+Ve +Kou^K+ I khew Some+Kihg +U+ +Key didn't, so +Hey S+op^ed sih^ih^, +oo.

Mow +Ke +Hree
of
us were jvs+ s+ahdifig +Kere, ho+ saying a word. Mrs. Mor+on nos+ We +hoogn+ we forgo+ +Ke words +o +he song, because sKe came over +o +he side of +he s+age and wKis^ered +Ke res+
of
+Ke lyrics +o us.

'The song is only abou-t -three minu+es long, bu-t +o me i-t /eli like an hour and a hal/. X was jusi prayihg -the curtains would go down so we could hop
off
+he S+age.

"Thais when X no+iced Pa+iy Farrell standing in -the wings. And
if
looks could kill, us Trees would he dead- She probaby -though* we were ruining her chances
of
making i+ +o Broadway or something.

Seeing Pa-Hy standing -there reminded me why X signed up -to be a Tree in -the first place.