The Sisters Club (2 page)

Joey:
Toe jam!

Me:
It’s a Health and Beauty Tip. I read it in a magazine. Put marshmallows between your toes, and it makes it easier to paint your toenails.

Joey:
Glitter toenails — cool!

Stevie:
Like I really care about toenails. And just one time I’d like to see one of these famous magazine articles you’re always quoting. Like how to eat pizza without smearing your lip gloss.

Me:
Check my locker. They’re there.

Stevie:
You just say it’s in a magazine to make it sound important.

Joey:
C’mon, Stevie. It sounds like fun. And we can remember it later.

Stevie:
What about the Sisters Club? Marshmallow feet are not in the charter. There are rules.

Me:
New rule. Joey, write this down. “All members of the Sisters Club must try putting marshmallows between their toes if they want to be in the club.”

Our Town

Starring Alex

I come from a family of actors. Not just Mom and Dad, but a long line.

I love, love, love living in Acton, because we have a one-hundred-year-old theater and this town has had plays 4-ever (as Joey would say).

It all started with our great-great-grandmother, Hepzibiah McNutty Reel. Yep, that’s her name, for real. My dad has the family tree to prove it.

When I star in a play, people say, “That’s Hezzy’s girl,” like she’s my real-life grandma living down the street or something, even though she’d be like a million years old.

Stevie says how can I be happy about being descended from anybody with the name Hepzibiah? She thinks our whole family is Mc-Nutty!

I think old Hezzy is cool. They say she rode a horse for thirteen hours through so much snow that her feet froze right to the stirrups. Bugs and bears and stuff didn’t stop her. Not one bit. But the coolest thing? She wore bloomers so she could look like a lady but ride horses like a man.

Hey, maybe that’s where I get my fashion sense.

Acton wasn’t anything but a wide spot in the road back then, so Hezzy put on plays at the old Raven Theater just to give people around here something to do.

Mom wants a
real
house someday, which means a
new
one. But this house has
history.
I mean, Hezzy’s ghost could be hanging around in the rafters with the spiderwebs, watching over me. I like thinking Hezzy might have looked out the same window I do, practicing lines for a play.

How could I not love acting, right? As Dad says, “You’re a Reel. It’s in the blood.”

My whole family is crazy about acting, but
I hate standing up in front of an audience. I once told my dad I was missing the Reel acting gene.

“Hogwash!” (He actually said that.) “Everybody likes a good story. Just because you don’t want to perform in front of people, like Alex, doesn’t mean you don’t have an actor in you.” Dad says, “All the world’s a stage, even the living room!”

He’s the set builder for the Raven, so he’s always making stuff for this play or that. We’ve had dinner with the Mad Hatter, a giant Nutcracker, and Santa’s reindeer (all eight). Our dining room has been an underground rabbit hole, a Kansas tornado, a Civil War battlefield, a fire station, and a medieval castle where you have to cross a moat just to eat at the table.

And he lets us put on
King Lear
in our own living room anytime we want.

That’s why
King Lear
is the only play I like.

King Lear
is Dad’s favorite play, too. I wonder why. It’s about this guy who has three daughters! They have weird names.

If you think Stevie’s a funny name for a girl, try Goneril, Regan, or Cordelia. Cordelia’s not so bad. (That’s Joey, the youngest, and the good one — King Lear’s favorite. Joey never lets me be Cordelia. Not once!) At least Cordelia sounds like a flower. Not a president or a yucky worm.

Each daughter tells him how much they love him so they can get his kingdom, but the older ones are just faking. Really they’re super-greedy. They each keep pretending the other one is trying to murder King Lear, and they try to poison each other (YES!). People get stabbed (with a dagger) and eyeballs come out (POP!).

So King Lear goes outside and yells at a thunderstorm (a.k.a. cookie sheet!).

He gets to say lots of funny-sounding words like “Alack” and “O nuncle!” and stuff.

The play is a tragedy. It’s supposed to make you cry, but it doesn’t. It usually makes us laugh our heads off. (No heads really come off — just eyeballs!) Or we end up in a fight. King Lear (Dad) usually lets Cordelia live and get the kingdom, which makes Alex and me mad. Then we say, “How come Joey always gets her way?” (So true, even though Joey says it’s so NOT true.) Then Alex quits, then I quit, and Joey yells, “The end!”

KING LEAR

Starring Alex

TIME:
OLD-TIMEY ENGLAND

SETTING:
THE KINGDOM

(A.K.A. THE REEL LIVING ROOM)

CHARACTERS:

KING LEAR (THE FATHER)

THREE DAUGHTERS:

GONERIL (THE OLDEST . . . THAT’S ME!)

REGAN

CORDELIA (THE YOUNGEST)

Before the curtain rises: King Lear is preening himself, waiting to be flattered. He sits, looking at a map.

King Lear:
(Why do I have to remind Dad three times? Stage directions say ‘Point to map’!)
’Tis time I remove myself from public life. I wish to give each of thee, my three daughters, a parcel of my kingdom. This will depend upon how much each of you loves me.

Goneril:
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
(Good line!)
Thou art more —

Stevie:
Alex, quit showing off!

Me:
What? That’s a real line from Shakespeare.
(I should know!)

Stevie:
Well, it sounds like
Romeo and Juliet,
not
King Lear.

Joey:
Sick! It’s from an ooey-gooey love poem!

Dad:
Are we going to do this scene or not?

Regan:
OK, I love thee more than all four of the seasons, not just one day in summer.

Goneril:
I love thee more than meat loves salt.

Regan:
Well, I love thee more than meat loves special sauce, lettuce, and a bunch of other stuff on a sesame-seed bun. My love is supersize!

Me:
Hey, no fair. Dad, she’s making it sound like an old hamburger commercial, not Shakespeare.
(Since when is Stevie the Shakespeare expert?)

Stevie:
Don’t look at me. You’re the one who loves Dad like meat. I’m just following your lead. You always say to ad-lib.

Goneril:
(Getting down on one knee in front of King Lear.)
I love you more than the ocean has water, more than the sky has stars.