My Homework Ate My Homework (15 page)

I give her a hug. She sure is tiny. “It’s normal to be freaked out. You know the lines. You know your cues. You look great. Now just get out there and do it.”

She swipes her face with her fingers. “Can you tell I’ve been crying?”

“Yes,” I say, and chase her away. Then I sashay in my enormous pink dress over to my place backstage.

The buckskin jumpsuit is too big on her. It would fit me better. I know her lines. I know her cues and marks. I bet we could convince Josh to let us swap roles. But that wouldn’t be right. It’s Josh’s call.

“All right,” Josh says, then pauses for silence. When he has it, he yells
“Action!”
and runs out onstage.

He’s wearing a buckskin outfit, too, and a wig of long curly brown hair He’s not wearing his glasses. He must have contacts. The first scene is all his.

“ ‘Ladies and gentleman, my name is James Butler Hickok, but my friends call me Wild Bill. This ain’t the tale of the legendary Wild Bill Hickok, though, as interestin’ and deservin’ of a delightful musical play as my life is. No, this here play is the tale of one Martha Jane Canary. You probably know her as Calamity Jane. We begin when she was jus’ thirteen years old, crossin’ the prairie in a covered wagon with her family. They’d left behind their home in Princeton, Missouri, and were headin’ to Virginia City, Montana, over a thousand miles away, which is an awful long way when you’re travelin’ by stagecoach with a sick mama through treacherous territory.’ ”

This is the cue for the covered wagon to be pushed out. The actors playing the Canary family pretend to bump along in it.

“ ‘Are we there yet, Ma?’ ” Lije Canary (Cooper) says.

“ ‘You ast that question twelve million times, Lije Canary,’ ” young Martha (Eden) says. “ ‘Cain’t ya see Ma’s feelin’ poorly?’ ” And she faux-conks Cooper on the head.

Eden’s not talking nearly loud enough, or sassy enough, and the conk looked more like a tag.

“ ‘Ow!’ ” Cooper says, which is his line exactly as written.

When I get a chance, I grab Eden and tell her to speak up.

“I’ll try,” she mutters, but her mind seems far away.

She doesn’t speak up. She stammers and flubs her lines, or forgets them. She drops her gun three times.

“You have to play Calam,” Wain whispers to me. “She’ll ruin the show.”

I don’t answer. At this point I don’t care about the show. It’s Eden I’m worried about. She’s a wreck. I need to help her.

Hold on just a second!
Did I, Zaritza May Dalrymple, just say that I didn’t care about the
show
?

What in the world is happening to me?

We’re supposed to be at the theater/cafeteria by six fifteen. My mother made an early dinner, and it’s my favorite: tacos. The table is covered with small dishes and bowls filled with grated cheese, spicy beef, refried beans, salsa, sour cream, guacamole (yuck), and chopped lettuce. I take a taco shell and fill it with (the order is important): beans, meat, a ton of cheese, and a little lettuce on top. My mother goes vegan: no meat, no cheese, no sour cream. My father likes the works. Abby has a plastic bowl of beans and cheese.

“Spoon, Abby,” Mother says, when Abby drops her face into the bowl.

“I’m worried about Eden,” I say. “She’s a wreck.
She was shaking so hard during dress rehearsal her teeth chattered.”

“Too bad,” Mother says. “She’s such a nice girl.” She bites into her taco, and it explodes. That’s the problem with vegan tacos: they don’t hold together. You need cheese for glue.

“She’s
too
nice,” I say. “She’s terrified to let loose. I think it’s her mother. She totally freaked out when I made Eden scream.”

My mother gives me the hand-on-hip, chin-pulled-in look, like I did something wrong.

“What? We were
acting
.”

“It sounds as if she let loose when you told her an Asian couldn’t play Calamity Jane,” Mother says, as she picks at her broken taco.

“Yeah,
that
was totally out of charac—”

Hey!

“Mother, you’re a genius! She had no problem telling me off that day. And in front of everybody, too.”

“Are you concocting some fiendish plot?” Father asks. He rubs his hands together. “Because if you are, count me in!”

“Stop it, Paul. Zaritza, you are not to say
offensive things to your friend in order to get her riled up enough to play a character in a play.”

Sometimes she’s so psychic it’s scary.

“I was only kidding, of course,” Father says sheepishly. “Now, no fiendish plots, Zaritza. If we’ve told you once, we’ve—”

“Are you listening to me, Zee?” Mother says, leaning toward me.

“Abby has her face in her food again,” I say, which is classic subject-changing. Baby sisters are handy as distractions.

“Spoon, Abby!” Mother says, turning away from me. “Spoon! Spoon!”

“Poo!” Abby says, and waves it in the air.

I lean over and start a conversation with Father about his day while Mother mops up Abby’s mess.

“I don’t see why my students keep asking to sing their favorite pop songs in choir,” Father says. “Are teenagers not into madrigals anymore?”

“I don’t know. What’s a madrigal?”

“I guess that’s my answer.”

Out of nowhere, Wormy pops up onto my lap, drags my taco off my plate, and then jumps to the
floor, where he licks the meat and cheese out. He leaves the lettuce.

“Devil ‘dog’!” I screech (with finger quotes).

He runs from the kitchen. I fly after him.

“Zee, we didn’t finish our conversa—” I hear Mother call after me, but I pretend I can’t hear.

“Dogs” can be great distractions, too.

It’s dark out when we get to the school, which always feels creepy and exciting. Kids from my class are arriving with their families, too. I spot Wain and run over to him.

“Opening night!” he says, and puts up a hand for a high five.

I slap it. “Let’s get inside. I’ve got a fiendish plot to save the show, but I don’t have much time.”

The theater/cafeteria looks more like a theater tonight. There are rows of chairs facing the stage, the first set is ready, and someone is tinkering with the stage lights. Hannah, probably. Aaron’s mother is warming up on the piano. She’s dressed in a long black dress with a white lace collar and
is wearing black high heels. I’ve never seen her look so snazzy.

There’s a table set up with a roll of tickets, a cashbox, and a stack of programs. Caitie and Tristan will sell tickets till showtime, then run backstage. Family members don’t get in free, not even parents. When I make it big, I’ll buy my parents all the tickets they want so they can see me in every one of my many, many performances. They may have to buy their own movie tickets, but I’ll be sure they get to attend my premieres in Hollywood.

Wain and I leave our families in line and rush off to find Eden, but we don’t see her anywhere. Neither has anyone else. I wonder if she faked a sore throat or something and stayed home. I don’t want that to be true, but I can’t say I’d be crushed.

“We should get in costume,” Wain says.

“I’m going to wait for Eden.”

“Just in case you’re asked to put on buckskins?”

“No,” I lie. He knows me too well. “I just want to be sure she’s okay.”

At six thirty the seats are half-filled and Eden
is still not here. I see Ms. Tsots schmoozing with parents, and some of the teachers hanging out together over by the wall, probably comparing notes on bad kids. I wonder if they are truly excited for the play, or if they feel put out having to work on a Friday night. At least Mr. O. had an easy week.

“Anyone seen Eden?” Josh calls out, concern in his voice.

“I haven’t,” I say.

After he’s gone, I smile. I can’t lose tonight. If Eden doesn’t show up, I’ll get to play Calam. If she does, I’ll act upset and finally confess the “truth” I’ve been hiding: I’m angry that she stole my part; I’ve never seen worse acting than hers in my life; I don’t really like her; and I only helped her because my mother made me. Oh, yeah—and that an Asian girl can’t play Calamity Jane. I don’t mean any of it, of course, but it will make her blow her top, and she will give the performance of a lifetime, and our play will be a smash success. Plus I will be credited with saving the show.

Either way, I win.

Josh passes by me again later. “Why aren’t you in costume, Zaritza? Curtain’s in fifteen!”

“It is?” I say, pretending I haven’t been checking the cafeteria clock every ten seconds. “Don’t worry. I’m an expert at getting into costume fast.” And I snap my fingers.

This was my very clever way of letting Josh know that, if need be, I could get into
Eden’s
costume at a moment’s notice. Which is why I haven’t gotten dressed yet. Why get into it if I’m just going to have to get out of it again? How hard can it be to slide a buckskin over your head and smudge your face with damp cocoa powder to make it look dirty?

It looks like that’s just what I’m going to have to do. I can’t see Eden being late like this without a reason. And she wasn’t sick today. Not physically sick, anyway. She is emotionally sick. Afraid sick. She might be throwing up for all I know.

At six fifty I go into the girls’ bathroom, which is our temporary dressing room, and start undressing … real … slow.

Then I hear someone say, “She’s here! Eden’s here!”

Eden bursts into the room, breathless, flustered, her eyes red and puffy.

“Hey, Eden!” I say with a big, faux smile. “Glad you ma—”

“Can’t talk,” she grunts. She grabs her buckskins off a hook and locks herself in a stall.

“Curtain is in—” I start to say, but she cuts me off. “Not
now
, Zee!
Leave me alone
!”

Hmm. Maybe I won’t have to make her mad after all. She’s plenty worked up already.

Before I finish getting into my costume, she busts out of the stall. She rushes over to the mirror and starts smudging on her makeup.

“Everything okay?” I ask.

“Perfect!” she shouts. “I made up one excuse after another, but
no-o-o-o-o
! My mother said I had a responsibility to do the play. So here I am!”

“Ooh, I hate the R-word,” I say sympathetically.

“I hate
acting
!” she snarls.

This is good. I don’t need to do a thing. Unless she cools off, of course. Then I’ll have to insult her. As her acting coach and friend, it would be my duty.

Minutes later, the lights overhead flicker. The audience claps. It’s showtime.

Josh and Hannah move through the backstage area making last-minute checks and shushing everyone. Hannah is dressed up tonight: a purple, sequined gown and black high heels. She leaves Josh behind and steps onstage, to a big round of applause.

“Hello and welcome, everyone, to tonight’s performance of
Calamity Jane
. My name’s Hannah and I’m one of the directors of tonight’s show. Josh, the other director, will be out in a moment. You’ll recognize him. He’ll be the tallest actor in the play tonight.”

Mild laughter. I wonder how many times
she’s told that joke. Not enough to get the timing right …

She goes on to talk a little bit about the troupe and its mission, and reminds everyone to turn off their electronic devices, and not to take flash pictures, and
blah blahbity blah
while we are all going quietly crazy in the tiny, cramped backstage area. At long last, she says, “And now, enjoy
Calamity Jane
!”