CHAPTER 63
We keep rehearsing our Battle of the Bands number at every Midsummer Night’s Dream rehearsal.
We have only a week to work out our routine, complete with break-dance moves.
Break dancing, by the way, was a very acrobatic style of dancing where you did all sorts of crazy moves and stunts and usually ended up breaking something. An arm, a leg, a wrist.
Jeff Cohen and I work on the lyrics for our Toxic Sludge number. Meredith finds some backing samples to scratch out on a turntable. Bill turns his mouth into a beatbox.
Fortunately, our scenes for the Shakespeare show are all in pretty good shape. We open ten days after the Battle of the Bands—on the same stage.
When our “Toxic Sludge” parody rap is also in good shape, I get ambitious. On the night of the big Battle of the Bands show, I arrange for Sophia and Victoria to accidentally (on purpose) show up backstage to wish Schuyler and Jeff luck.
“I’m sorry Jacky said all those mean and horrible things about you,” Sophia tells Schuyler.
“Me too,” says Schuyler, who’s dressed all in black leather like a punk rocker. “But she and I are cool now.”
“What about us?” asks Sophia, batting her eyelashes.
“We’re super-cool.”
“Good. Then, since we’re officially dating…”
Schuyler looks a little nervous when Sophia says that. Boys usually do.
“… I have to be honest with you, Schuyler. I don’t like what you’ve done with your hair. That spiky Mohawk with the blue tips? I hate it. Sorry. I do.”
Schuyler laughs. “It’s part of the costume. For the show tonight.”
“Oh. Right. You’re in showbiz. Like Jacky. Well, we can work on that.…”
They drift off, so I go make sure Victoria and Jeff are doing okay, too.
“You’re not dressing up as a cow for this evening’s performance?” Victoria says when she sees Jeff in his hip-hop costume.
“No. Tonight, I’m DJ Jazzy Jeffrey.”
“Oh. It’s a whole new role?”
“Yep.”
“My. You are extremely versatile and talented.”
“That I am!” says Jeff, wiggling his eyebrows.
And then, gag me with a spoon, he and Victoria kiss. I’m serious.
“Jacky Hart?” calls out a guy wearing a headset and carrying a clipboard. I figure he’s the stage manager for the Battle of the Bands.
“Yes, sir?” I say, grateful to have something to look at besides Victoria and Jeff’s smooch-fest. By the way, I could totally tell that Victoria had been studying how-to-kiss manuals to prepare for her big moment with Jeff.
All the couples are back together. It’s like Shakespeare said, “All’s well that ends well.” Actually, he didn’t say it. He just used it as a title for a play.
“You’re up next,” says the stage manager, ticking a list on his clipboard. “This is your five-minute warning.”
I grin because the stage manager should really be warning Ringworm and Bubblebutt.
We’re about to spring our mousetrap on ’em!