Top 8 (14 page)

I spent the next two hours staring at my script and muttering the oddly Midwesternized Shakespeare.

 

The next day in English, I was trying — and failing — to pay attention to Mr. Underwood talking about
The Mousetrap
, an Agatha Christie play we were supposed to have read. But since I'd been up until two memorizing Felia's song, “Ham, Let Me In,” and the mad scene, I hadn't had time to do much more than skim the play.

I had the text open under my notebook, and I hoped it looked like I was really concentrating on my notes, and not trying to catch up on my homework. Not to mention mulling over my brother's possible role as my hacker.

Jimmy was still glaring at me occasionally from under his black PHS hoodie, but he seemed to have lost a little of his anger toward me. His feud with Liz had seemingly only intensified, however, at least as far as I could tell from their screen names. Liz's had changed to
Matthew Was Much Much Better Than You'll Ever Be
and Jimmy's had changed to
You're A ************* Slut.
Matthew, on the other hand, had changed his own to
Please Leave Me Out Of This.

“The longest-running play!” Mr. Underwood yelled, his sudden volume increase making me look up from where I had been trying to figure out whodunit. “Isn't that something? This play is all over the
Guinness Book
of World Records
. An understudy worked on this play for fifteen years. Can you imagine that? Fifteen years as an understudy?”

I looked down at the script on my desk, thinking, but not about
The Mousetrap
.

“Fifteen years without your own chance in the spotlight. If there had been a real Christie murder mystery at the theater, I wouldn't have been surprised. I mean, has
All About Eve
taught us nothing? It's always the understudy. They can't be trusted.”

I almost gasped out loud at how blind I'd been. It had been right in front of me. Right in front of me, and I hadn't seen it.

The hacker wasn't Travis.

It was Sarah Donner.

It had to be.

She had motive — she was jealous about all the times she had to understudy me, she was especially upset about losing the part of Felia, and she wanted her revenge. She wanted to make me hated by the other theater kids, get me kicked out of Thespians, and make it uncomfortable enough that I would drop out of the production.

She would have known enough, from things I'd said to her and other theater kids, to fake most of the information. I wasn't clear on how she managed to get my password, but maybe she'd just guessed.

I pulled out my increasingly worn list and added to it.

 

Mad's Friendverse Hacker/Possibilities:

As Mr. Underwood had now seemingly forgotten all about
The Mousetrap
, and was ranting about how his ex-wife had loved
All About Eve
, and that should have been his first clue that she was not to be trusted, I stared at the paper more openly.

I had
Dane
rehearsal in — I checked the clock — two hours. And I was certainly going to be having a conversation with Sarah Donner.

After classes mercifully ended for the day, I grabbed a Diet Coke and my SweeTarts (I'd picked out all the blue ones in AP History) and walked through the Student Center, texting my friends as I went, to let them know the sitch.

 

SENT 1 of 63

To: Schuyler Watson, Lisa Feldman, Ruth Miller

Date: 4/10, 3:05
P.M.

Okay, it's def not Kittson. Am going 2 try & talk 2 Sarah Donner. THINK IT WAS HER. Wish me luck!!

 

I immediately received texts back from Schuyler and Lisa.

 

INBOX 1 of 86

From: Schuyler Watson

Date: 4/10, 3:06
P.M.

Really? Not Kittson? Why? What happened? Good luck with Sarah! Want to get coffee later??

 

INBOX 2 of 87

From: Lisa Feldman

Date: 4/10, 3:07
P.M.

Non — it was TOTALLY Kittson! She's just wily & has convinced u otherwise. Cherchez la femme!

 

I waited a moment, looking down at my phone, for the text from Ruth. When it didn't come, I figured that she must have had one of her technological mishaps. Or maybe she was still in study mode, or busy.

But that didn't quite feel right to me. There was really no occasion that we wouldn't respond to a text if we hadn't made it clear first that we were going to be occupied. We had texted from dentists' chairs, illegally on airplanes and while driving, during movies, in class, and once, in Lisa's case, during a makeout session with Dave.

So I was sure there was a good reason Ruth wasn't getting back to me. I'd just have to wait until after rehearsal to find out what it was. I had other things to concentrate on — like how to accuse someone I'd once thought of as a friend of willfully trying to wreck my life.

What with all the texting, I was a little late in getting down to rehearsal. The green room was empty, except for Mark Rothmann, who was pacing around the room muttering Larry's lines from the scene where he and Claude plot to kill Ham with an ear of poisoned corn.

Trying not to disturb Mark, I dropped my bag quietly, took out my script and a sweater — the blackbox was always cold — and headed into the lightlock.

Because a blackbox is a theater with no wings or backstage area, the lightlock was a small hallway with doors on both sides designed to keep light from the hallway from spilling out onto the stage. The door to the stage wouldn't open unless the door from the hallway was closed, and there was a switch you could flip that would lock the door from the hallway, in case
the door to the stage had been left open.

Since there was (obviously) no light in the lightlock, it was a favored makeout spot among the theater kids, and a lot of the time, you had to try and move as quietly as possible past people kissing in the dark, when all you wanted to do was get onstage. This was particularly challenging in period costume.

The lightlock was deserted. But just after I'd gone through the door from the hallway, it swung open again and Sarah entered, looking surprised to see me.

“Mads,” she said. “Hey! I didn't think you were coming to rehearsal today.”

Without really thinking about it, I flipped the switch that locked the door from the hallway, and stood blocking the door to the stage. I faced Sarah in the narrow, dark space. I was going to get some answers.

“What are you doing?” Sarah asked. “Don't we — I mean, you — have to be onstage? I think they're doing Ham's “Oh, Felia” song.”

“Why did you think I wouldn't be at rehearsal?” I asked. My eyes were adjusting to the lack of light. I could see Sarah, but not clearly, and there were weird spooky shadows all around us.

She shrugged. “I don't know. You were late? Why does it matter?”

“Oh, it matters,” I said, my conviction that she had been the hacker growing even stronger. “You have been
trying to sabotage me in this part from the beginning,” I said. “I guess I just didn't think you'd go this far.”

“What?” Sarah scoffed. “The meeting yesterday? Well, thanks to your little e-mail, it got derailed.”

“I'm not talking about the meeting,” I said. “Although that's part of it. I think you were the one who hacked my Friendverse over spring break, and said all those things about the Thespians.”

“Madison, you were the one who said those things about the Thespians.”

“Yes, but not on the
internet
!” I yelled. Why was nobody grasping this distinction?

“I didn't hack your profile!” she yelled back. “Why would you think I'd do something like that?”

I was getting really frustrated that people kept asking me this. It was putting my skills as a detective into question. Nobody ever asked Miss Marple that. “Because —” I started.

Sarah shook her head. “God, Madison, give me a little credit. If I have a problem with someone, I tell tell them. I discuss it. I don't have to hack into people's profiles.”

A banging on the hallway side of the lightlock made both of us turn. “Hey!” I heard Mark yelling through the door. “Whoever's in there, stop making out and let me in. I have to be onstage!”

Sarah moved to unlock the door, but I stepped in front of the switch. “I don't believe you,” I said. “I mean,
you clearly have some sort of problem with me, but you're not telling me. You're calling secret meetings to try and get me kicked out of Thespians.”

“Hey!” Mark yelled again, this time louder. “Seriously. I have to be onstage, now. Wrap it up in there!”

Sarah crossed her arms. “Fine,” she said. “I don't think you deserve this part. I think I'd do a better job. And I'm not going to pretend there wasn't a little bit of
schadenfreude
” (not an SAT word, but one we theater kids all knew from repeated plays of the
Avenue Q
soundtrack) “when you got hacked. But I didn't do it.”

As I studied what I could see of Sarah's face in the dim light, it looked like she was telling the truth. I certainly knew what her acting looked like at this point, and this was much more natural, with far fewer hand gestures.

“Really?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “But the thing is, I was kind of glad when it happened. Because you do say things about people behind their backs. And a lot of the Thespians were really hurt when they heard what you'd been saying.”

My stomach gave another little guilty twist, the kind I'd been feeling a lot of lately. “Yes, but I didn't say it to
them
,” I murmured. Truth be told, my argument wasn't sounding so convincing to me anymore.

Sarah shook her head. “It's the same thing. As the Bard tells us, ‘Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.'”

“Right,” I said quickly, trying to stop her before she got going. Things were bad enough without her quoting
Hamlet
at me. I sighed. I had been so sure the hacker had been Sarah. Deep down, I was relieved it wasn't, but all I'd really wanted was an answer. “Sorry.”

She stuck her hands in her overall pockets. “Me too. I don't think I've been handling losing this part all that well.”

“Hey!” Mark was pounding on the door now, his voice breaking. “Seriously, whoever is in there, please let me in! I'm missing my cues!”

Sarah and I looked at each other. “We're okay, right?” I asked.

She hugged me in response. (Theater kids hug a lot.) “We are,” she said. “Good luck with finding out who really did it.”

“Thanks,” I said, reaching around her and flipping the switch. A second later, a wild-eyed Mark barreled in.

As he took in Sarah and me hugging in the lightlock, his kohl-rimmed eyes widened.

“Sorry,” he stammered. “I didn't know that…that you two…”

“No worries, Mark,” I said with a small smile at Sarah. He let the hallway door close, and we were able to open the door to the stage. “Also, I like your eyeliner,” I added in a whisper.

He smiled at me a little warily. “I can give you tips if you want.”

“Maybe!” I said as enthusiastically as I could.

We entered the stage to find Mr. Allan livid, not because we had missed our cues (we hadn't) but because the third scene, with Trudy, Ham, and Claude, had come to a halt. Megin and Jamie, who were playing Trudy and Claude, had apparently broken up the night before and were refusing to stand next to each other, much less kiss the way the script called for them to.