Play It Again (6 page)

Mariah arrived in the auditorium at four o’clock. She and Madison went into a room together backstage to work with the home and careers teacher, Mrs. Perez. A group of kids was assembling some of the costumes.

“Excuse me.” Mrs. Montefiore poked her head into the room where they were working. She needed to use the old practice piano in the corner so the three witches could run through their solo numbers.

Mrs. Perez moved her fabric, sequins, and other assorted garments into the corner. “Okay, we’ll finish over
here.”

With everything that was going on in practice, it became difficult for Madison to focus on clothes. How can you help glue sequins on shirts when your best friend and worst enemy are singing scales ten feet away from you?

The only clothes Madison could seem to pay attention to were the ones on Ivy and Aimee. They were both wearing platform sneakers, canvas pants, and multicolored power bead bracelets. Aimee’s blond ponytail perfectly matched Ivy’s red one.

“Maddie!” Aimee called from the piano. “You’re gonna love this. Listen up.”

Madison waved over as if to say, “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

“Maddie?” Aimee was raising her voice like she always did when she talked way too fast. “Didn’t you hear what I—”

“Aimee, we ALL heard what you said,” Ivy quipped. “Uh … could you talk a little louder?” They were semi-snotty words, but she didn’t say them in an obnoxious way. Ivy actually sounded like she was kidding around.

Ivy never kidded around like that.

“Oops! Bigmouth alert!” Aimee joked. “But is it me or … YOU?”

She made a funny face and Ivy laughed—one of those deep belly laughs. Their ponytails shook from side to side.

“Takes one to know one!” Ivy spit out, laughing.

Ivy never laughed like that.

Madison didn’t see what was so funny.

“Now, remember how we did it last time, Addaperle….” Ivy said.

“You bet, Glinda,” Aimee said back.

Was this really happening?
This trio should be sparring, not singing. And definitely not
smiling.

Fiona leaned on the piano the whole time, laughing as hard and as long as Aimee and Ivy. Listening to their laughter was like coming down with chicken pox.

Please go away, Madison told herself. She itched all over.

“Tut, tut. Let’s start, girls.” Mrs. Montefiore hit a few piano keys.

Mariah also tapped Madison on the shoulder and reminded her they had a lot of work to do and not a lot of time to do it. She handed her a bag of big blue beads and asked Madison to string them on a long piece of cord. Madison sat down with her legs crossed and pulled the cord with both fingers. She could bead
and
keep her eye on the singing witches at the same time.

Mrs. Montefiore played Ivy’s solo number from the end of the show next. But halfway through the introductory melody, she stopped abruptly.

“I just got a wonderful idea,” she said. “Aimee, I want you and Ivy to sing this one as a duet. You’re together in the scene. I think it makes sense. And your voices do sound lovely together.”

“But it’s my solo,” Ivy barked.

Aimee rolled her eyes. “Solo, polo, rolo …”

They were kidding around again.

“Miss Daly,” Mrs. Montefiore said. “Most solos have been turned into group numbers. This is about working together. To-geth-er.”

“Can’t Fiona sing, too?” Aimee asked.

Mrs. Montefiore shook her head. “Just do it the way I am asking, please. And Miss Waters is not in this scene, Miss Gillespie. She’s the bad witch Evillene. At this point, she’s dead.”

Fiona giggled. “Oh yeah, I forgot.”

Ivy tilted her head to one side like she had her head in an imaginary noose.

“Yeah.” Fiona laughed even though it was a creepy gesture.

Mrs. Montefiore banged her fist on the side of the piano for attention. She plinked out a few more piano chords that sounded a little out of tune, but Ivy and Aimee’s voices trilled right along into the first stanza.

“‘Believe what you fe-eeeee-el,’” they started to sing again. “‘Because the time will come aroooooooound …’”

As they got louder, Madison had to admit that they
did
sound good together. Not as good as Lindsay, but better than Egg. By the second verse Aimee and Ivy were standing so close together at the piano, they looked practically attached.

“‘Believe in the magic that’s inside your heart,’” the pair harmonized. “‘Believe what you seeeeee …’”

Madison couldn’t believe what
she
was seeing at all.

“Pssst!” Mariah leaned down to speak. “Señorita Finn, how are those beads coming along?”

There were only seven blue beads on the cord.
Whoops.

“Madison!” Mariah said. “Mrs. Perez is gonna throw a fit. What’s your problem?”

Madison wanted to point at Ivy and Aimee and yell, “THEM!”

Instead she slid another bead onto the string.

For the rest of the day, Madison couldn’t get the faces of Aimee and Ivy singing and smiling out of her head. And when Aimee didn’t return Madison’s phone call that night, it only made her feel worse.

Friday, Madison was feeling more of the same.

She didn’t see Aimee all morning, which wasn’t unusual since they didn’t really have that many classes together, but her imagination started doing back flips.

What if Aimee was being nice to Ivy outside of rehearsal, too?

What if they were all laughing together
right now?

What if they decided to become best friends and the joke was on Madison?

When Madison didn’t see Aimee or Fiona at lunch, either, she got more upset. And although she ate with Egg and Drew that afternoon, Madison barely said a word the whole meal.

Mr. Gibbons took time to go over the master prop list with Madison during the day’s rehearsal, and by then Madison was really bummed out. Luckily, his compliments temporarily put her in a better mood.

“What a great job you’re doing,” he praised.
“The Wiz
wouldn’t be the same without you.”

“Thanks, Mr. Gibbons,” Madison replied sheepishly. She was pleased that at least her stage manager duties were working out. She wished doing good prop work would translate into an automatic A on all of Mr. Gibbons’s English assignments. That would be something else.

“Gotcha!” Aimee shrieked as she came up behind Madison during the rehearsal break.

Madison nearly leaped out of her sneakers.

Aimee threw her arms around Madison’s waist. “Where have you been?”

“Where have
you
been?” Madison asked.

“Me? You’re the one who’s so busy, you can’t call me.” Aimee poked at Madison’s side. “I wanted to play you that song again from my new CD. It is so awesome, I can’t stop listening to it.”

“You called? When?” Madison asked.

“Last night. Before I walked the dog.”

“But—”

“I left a message with your mom, but she said you were busy. I wanted to see if you wanted to walk Phinnie, too.”

“You did?”

“Yeah!” Aimee was dancing around while she talked.

“I didn’t get any message,” Madison said.

“What? Did you think I blew you off or something?”

“No. Of course not.” Madison paused.

“So what else is new?” Aimee asked, twirling around.

“I heard you doing that duet with Ivy yesterday.”

“Oh yeah? What did you think? Pretty good, huh? Mrs. Montefiore is a big pain, but you know what? Ivy has a good voice, so it’s actually working out,” Aimee seemed pleased by the whole thing.

“Are we talking about the same Ivy?
Poison
Ivy?”

“Yeah, Poison Ivy. But she’s really not so bad as far as the show goes. You know, when we’re singing. She has a high voice. We were practicing today together during lunch.”

“Oh?” Madison looked up at Aimee. “You had lunch with Ivy? Alone?”

“No,” Aimee said. “Fiona was there.”

“I wondered where you guys went.”

Suddenly Aimee saw the sad, left-out look on Madison’s face.

“I’m sorry,” Aimee said. “I should have told you. I forgot. Things are busy since
The Wiz….”

“You really had lunch with
Ivy?”
Madison said for a second time.

“It’s just ’cause of the play, Maddie. We’re in the play. You know how it is.”

Madison realized she
didn’t
know how it was.

From across the auditorium, Mrs. Montefiore and Ivy motioned for Aimee to go over to the piano. Everyone was standing there: Egg, Hart, Fiona, Lindsay …

Everyone.

“Why don’t you come over too, Maddie?” Aimee said.

Madison thought about it. If she went over to the piano, she’d be right there, crammed together with all the other seventh-grade singers, even Poison Ivy. Maybe around that crowded piano, she’d really and truly feel like a part of the cast.

Madison put down her stage manager clipboard and started to walk over.

“Uh, Madison,” Mr. Gibbons called out. “I need you to run down to the basement and get me some small props. Here’s the list. Can you do that for me, please?”

“Right now?” Madison asked.

“Of course. We need to do a little set painting later on, and I want to get things ready. Just ask Mr. Boggs for the key to the basement space. He’ll help you.”

“But I have to—” Madison started to say, looking over at the piano. Mrs. Montefiore had already started to play.

“Maybe Drew can help you,” Mr. Gibbons suggested. “He’s up working on the lighting board.”

“Forget it,” Madison said, walking out of the auditorium. “Just forget it. I’ll be fine by myself.”

She turned around once at the auditorium doors to look back and see everyone singing at the piano.

Not even Aimee seemed to notice she had gone.

The Wiz


Rude Awakening:
Why do they call it a play when it’s so much work?


Friday Mr. Gibbons made me go into the hideous dark dungeon that is our school basement. It was like walking into a bad movie. Mr. Boggs, the janitor, wasn’t around, so I started looking through boxes on my own.


BIG mistake.


There was a spiderweb near the boiler room that was bigger than my head.


Now, I love animals of all kinds and I don’t really mind spiders, either. Most people don’t even realize how good spiders are because they eat all the bad bugs. But that web freaked me.


Mr. Gibbons keeps sending me around the school building to get all these things he needs. Most of the time, I bring these “props” up, and the box just gets shoved in the corner of the stage. He isn’t even using all of them!!!


I thought being stage manager was important. And fun. But it’s mostly just hard work. And I’m running around doing all this stuff like I’m invisible or something while everyone else sings and dances. The show feels like a nightmare sometimes—with the spiders
and
without.


But I didn’t give up on the school election Web site, I didn’t give up when I fell off a horse at camp two summers ago, and I won’t give up on
The Wiz.


M
ADISON COULDN’T REMEMBER A
weekend that whizzed by faster than this one. All day Saturday she worked to cross off items on the prop and costume list.

Mom was a huge help. Madison was luckier than lucky to have a mom with connections through Budge Films. Mom called a few friends from a costume company, and they agreed to loan Far Hills some of the more complicated costumes like the Lion suit and the Tin Man’s limbs, even in smaller “junior high” sizes.

Saturday night, Mom had to run over to the Tool Box hardware outlet at the mall to buy lightbulbs and a new broom. Madison tagged along.

“Look at all this stuff,” Madison said as they walked in the store. Madison’s brain nearly blew a fuse when she saw an entire wall with just hammers and spied paint cans piled into pyramids. There was even a special aisle just for nails.

Normally, a hardware store would make Madison say “Boring.”

Something was different today. Being stage manager made her think differently.

Against one wall were samples of floor tiles. A sign on one bin read
SALVAGED LINOLEUM.
Madison plucked out some yellow squares. They glistened when the light hit them the right way.

“Mom,” she said. “Do you think we could use these for the yellow brick road?”

Mom gasped. “What a
great
idea, Maddie.”

In addition to the tiles, Madison found a bowl that looked like a fortune-teller’s crystal ball when you turned it upside down, a tin can for the Tin Man, and a clear plastic rod that could double as a magic wand for Glinda.

“You could decorate that, too,” Mom suggested.

“With glitter glue, maybe,” Madison said. Every new idea she had was leading to two or three other new ideas.

The Finn living room turned into a prop room once they got home and unpacked the bags.

“Just think, Maddie, two weeks ago you weren’t even going to be a part of the show, and now look.” Mom pointed to piles.

Later on, Madison went online to surf the Internet for even more brilliant ideas. TweenBlurt.com had a search link on its home page. She plugged in some key words to see what interesting sites would turn up.