I was so busy poring over my copy of the script, I didn’t even hear the bell for recess ring. So I didn’t have any idea what was going on until I noticed Caroline, Sophie, Erica, and Rosemary all standing around my desk, holding their coats.
“Oh,” I said, looking up. “Hey, you guys.”
“Aren’t you coming outside?” Erica wanted to know.
“Yeah,” Rosemary said. “Are you just going to sit there all day?”
“Huh?” I said, embarrassed I’d been so absorbed in what I’d been doing. “Sorry. I guess I didn’t hear the bell.”
“I guess not,” Sophie said with a laugh. “You must really like that play.”
But I noticed she was still holding her copy of Mrs. Hunter’s script as well. Even though we were supposed to be going outside to play.
“I do,” I said, getting up and going over to the coatrack. “It seems really good. Right? I mean, did you get a chance to read it?”
“I did,” Caroline said. Caroline is one of the fastest readers in our class. She read each of the Harry Potter books in a day. Even the really long ones. “It’s good.”
“Which part do you think you’re going to try out for?” I asked as I put my coat on.
“I’m going to try for the fairy godmother of reusable cloth shopping bags,” Erica said. “Because I’ve always wanted to be one. A fairy godmother, I mean.”
I wasn’t actually surprised to hear this. After all, Erica loves doing nice things for people. She’s always breaking up arguments and telling everyone how nice they look, even when they look awful (that’s actually one of my rules: that you should always tell people they look nice, even when they don’t. This makes people feel good, so they’ll like you better. Erica is very good at this rule).
“You’d be really good as the fairy godmother,” I said to Erica.
“Wouldn’t she?” Sophie said. “That’s what I told her! But she doesn’t think she’s going to get the part.”
“Oh, I’m not a good enough actress,” Erica said. “I tried out for The Sound of Music when they did it in the community theater last year, and my sister, Missy, made it to callbacks, but I didn’t.”
“You’ll get it,” I told her. “I just know you will.” I couldn’t imagine anyone else in our class getting the part of the fairy godmother. Mostly because I couldn’t imagine anyone else wanting that part. I mean, who would want to play the fairy godmother when she could be a princess?
But I didn’t say that out loud, because it’s rude to tell someone they’re only going to get something because no one else wants it, not because they earned it (that’s a rule).
“Oh,” Erica said, her eyes filling up with tears of gratitude. “Thanks, Allie!” She reached out and gave me a hug. I hugged her back.
See? Just like I said. Total fairy godmother. Or godmother, anyway.
“I want to play one of those evil soldiers,” Rosemary said, her dark eyes flashing with relish. “Maybe I’ll get to carry a sword! And kill Princess Penelope for trying to escape the Castle of Plastic Doom.”
“Princess Penelope doesn’t die at the end,” Caroline said as we went down the stairs to the playground. “The evil queen does.”
“Oh.” Rosemary looked disappointed. “Well, I still want to play an evil soldier. Maybe I can stab Patrick. What about you, Caroline?”
“I’ve never really been interested in acting,” Caroline said, to my surprise. “I’ll maybe try out for the unplug-when-not-in-use unicorn or something, if we have to be in it. But I’m more interested in running the lights or set design or something.”
I was shocked. I couldn’t imagine anyone not wanting to be in a play. Who wouldn’t want to be up onstage, wearing a costume, pretending to be someone else in front of everyone? That seemed insane to me. The only thing better, if you asked me, would be to be a veterinarian and save baby animals.
Then again, Caroline is a very practical kind of girl. And acting isn’t the most practical kind of thing.
“Who do you want to try out to be, Sophie?” Caroline asked.
To my surprise, Sophie looked shy.
“Oh,” she said. “I don’t know.”
“You do so know,” Rosemary said. “Spill it.”
“No,” Sophie said. “I don’t have any idea. Really. There are so many great parts, it seems like.”
Which was when it hit me:
Oh, no! Sophie wanted the role of Princess Penelope!
Of course! That’s why she was acting so shy…She didn’t want to admit it, because she was too modest to say she thought she was a good enough actress to get the lead role.
But that’s exactly what she was thinking—the same as me!
I don’t know how I knew. But I knew, all right. Because I wanted the exact same role.
“Oh, my gosh, Sophie,” Erica said. We were outside by then. The sun had finally come out and was drying up the mud puddles. “You just have to try out for Princess Penelope!”
“That’s right, Sophie,” Caroline said. “If anyone could beat out Cheyenne for that part, it’s you.”
What? I couldn’t believe Caroline had just said that. What about me? Couldn’t I beat out Cheyenne for the part?
“I mean, everyone knows you’re the prettiest girl in our whole school,” Caroline went on.
“Oh, now,” Sophie said, looking embarrassed. “Not the whole school.”
“Well, at least in our grade,” Caroline said. “Right, Allie?”
The truth was, I had to agree. With her dark, curly hair and big brown eyes, Sophie was extraordinarily beautiful. She might not have looked like a traditional golden-haired storybook princess, but then, neither did Cheyenne, since she had dark hair, too (Cheyenne just acted like a traditional storybook princess, always brushing her long hair at recess, over and over again, and putting it into various sparkle clips).
But Sophie looked like some kind of princess, anyway. When we played queens at recess, Sophie was always the queen the evil warlord was in love with, because it was so easy to picture someone falling in love with Sophie. She was just that beautiful.
“Yeah,” I said grudgingly. I mean, as much as I wanted to play Princess Penelope myself, I had to admit Sophie did look more like a princess than I did. If looks were what Mrs. Hunter was going for, Sophie was definitely going to get the part over me. Besides, I like Sophie. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings or anything. “Yeah, Sophie. You should try out for Penelope. You do really look like a princess.”
“And you’re kind,” Erica said to Sophie. “And sweet like a princess, too.”
“And intelligent,” Caroline said, “like a princess, too. Way more than Cheyenne.”
“Oh, you guys!” Sophie said, laughing. “Stop it! You guys are too nice to me!”
The thing was, everything Caroline and Erica had said was true. Sophie is beautiful, kind, sweet, and intelligent.
But.
But what about me? I mean, I know I don’t necessarily look like a princess. I’m not as beautiful as Sophie, or as kind or as sweet.
But I’m just as intelligent—maybe more so! I did way better than her in the spelling bee! And I get better grades than Sophie in math and science!
Plus, I’m a very good actress. At least, I think I am. True, I only had that one line in first grade.
But everyone thinks my death scenes during queens are very realistic.
And yet no one had mentioned me trying out for Princess Penelope! What was going on?
“You’ve just got to audition for Princess Penelope, Sophie,” Caroline said. “Otherwise, Cheyenne will get it. And she’ll drive us all even more nuts.”
“Yeah,” Rosemary said. “No way am I putting up with Her Royal Brattiness.”
“Well,” Sophie said, tucking some of her curly hair behind her ear, “maybe I will.”
“What about you, Allie?” Rosemary asked. “Which part are you going to audition for?”
Of course I couldn’t say I wanted to try out for the part of Princess Penelope. Not now, when everyone had been going on about how fantastic they thought Sophie would be in that role. Because that would seem like I was bragging that I was just as pretty as Sophie, or something. Which everyone knew I wasn’t. Most of all me.
So I just shrugged and said, “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll go out for the part of one of the creatures who live in the Realm of Recycling, or whatever.”
“You don’t sound very excited about the play,” Caroline said.
Um, why would I be, when all my friends had basically just declared that the only girl in the whole school pretty enough to play the part I wanted was Sophie? Not that I didn’t love Sophie—because I totally did—but it might be nice if people would just give me a chance to audition for the part before they all decided Sophie was so perfect for it.
But of course I couldn’t say any of that, either.
“Oh, I’m excited,” I said instead. “I just haven’t had a chance to read the whole thing yet. I’ll look it over and find a role for me. I’ll know which one I want by tryouts tomorrow.”
Except that of course I knew that by tryouts tomorrow, nothing was going to change. I was still going to want to play Princess Penelope, the part Sophie wanted and the part everyone thought she was so perfect for.
And if I auditioned for that role, too, everyone was going to be mad at me for trying to steal Sophie’s part.
What was I going to do?