CHAPTER 35

 

Riley swings by the church on her bike to take over the Emma watch.

“I’m ready to take over my part of the shift,” says Riley. “I think I found the bathing suit I need. Come on, Emma.”

Emma props her hands on her hips. She learned to be defiant around the age of two.

“You guys keep passing me around like a hot potato!” she whines.

“Because it’s summer, Emma,” I say. “Everything’s hot.”

“Hey, you want French fries?” says Riley. “Those are hot potatoes.”

“Okay,” says Emma, with a gleam in her eye. “French fries and cheese pizza.”

Another thing she learned at the age of two? How much she loves cheese pizza.

Riley looks at me. I dig into my pocket. “Will two dollars help?”

“Couldn’t hurt. All I have is fifty cents.”

She takes my money (yes, I will spend the entire summer broke, I’m sure of it) and leads Emma off to the boardwalk.

Meredith and I head down to the church basement, ready to rehearse. Meredith is feeling confident that she can handle the speech we’ve been working on. There’s only one problem: The Fairy’s scene is with Puck. Travis Wormowitz.

“‘How now, spirit!’” says Travis at the top of the scene. He strikes this pretty goofy pose. “‘Whither wander you?’”

Meredith launches into her lines, adding some willowy and mysterious modern dance moves. “Over hill, over dale, / Through bush, through briar, / Over park, over pale, / Through flood, through fire.’”

She gets her lines right, but to my amazement, she puts an awesome spin on them, like she’s half singing, half rapping them. With her beautiful voice, it really makes you think she’s a fairy, because humans don’t sound that good!

“‘And I serve the Fairy Queen,’” says Meredith. “‘To dew her orbs upon the green.’”

“Cut!” shouts Travis. “Excuse me, Meredith, but this isn’t some kind of hip-hop show starring LL Cool J or Run-D.M.C. This is supposed to be Shakespeare—not amateur night at the Apollo Theater! Do it right or go back to Harlem where you belong!”

Every adult in the room is staring at him. Some have their mouths hanging open. Latoya Sherron has her arms crossed over her chest. She looks mad. Very, very mad.

Even I know the Apollo is a world-famous theater in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. Tons of African-American performers got their start there, like Diana Ross, the Jackson 5, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, and Mariah Carey. Shakespeare would’ve been lucky to see his plays performed there!

But for Travis Wormowitz to say those horrible things to Meredith, like she’s doing something wrong and doesn’t deserve to be here? Well, there’s only one thing for a best friend to do.

As I’m marching over to the stage and rolling up my sleeves to sock Wormowitz right in his wormhole, I see Scott, the director, looking at Ms. O’Mara. She nods. He nods back.

“Travis?” says Scott. “Let’s take a walk. Outside.”

“What? You have notes? For me? I only said, like, one line and I said it absolutely perfectly!”

“Outside,” says Scott. “Now.”

“Fine. Whatever.” Travis stomps up the steps. He doesn’t prance, skip, or fairy-hop. He stomps.

And he never, ever comes back to that church basement.

Ms. O’Mara comes over to me.

“Jacky?”

“Yeah?”

“Have you been doing your homework?”

All I can do is nod and try to remember how to breathe.

“Good. Because you’re our new Puck.”

“Okay,” I say. “Wh-wh-who’s my understudy?”

“Nobody right now. So, Jacky? Don’t mess this up.”

I nod again.

So, my darling daughters, as you can see, not getting the part of Puck wasn’t my colossal mistake that summer because, eventually, I did.

But hang on.

Mom’s big, embarrassing belly flop is still on its way.