Andrew snarled, shoving me back into the practice room and slamming the door behind us. I stumbled backward, nearly falling over in my sensible heels.
“You fucking bitch,” he said. “I’ve been waiting all week to find you.”
He was wearing his competition suit; his name tag said he was from Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.
“I know you’re behind it. You and Blaize and all the losers you hang out with. Well, I’m not going to let you win. You think you’re so fucking smart; you engineered that whole thing against me—I had to go back to live with my goddamn uncle in Ohio afterward, I couldn’t even come back to school. Guess what, though? They have speech in Ohio, too.”
“Yeah, I’m putting two and two together now,” I said, backing farther into the room. “Just so you know, I recorded yours and Thomas’s speeches. I didn’t even upload it to YouTube since I figured I didn’t need to destroy you on a viral level, but I guess now it’s become appropriate.”
“Thanks for letting me know.” He smiled. “I’ll be taking your phone, then.”
I pulled it out, hitting a button. “Take one more step and I’ll upload it right now.”
He laughed. “Have you ever uploaded a video to YouTube? It takes like thirty years.”
Shit.
“I’ll scream.”
“Everybody’s in the theater. Besides, you don’t want to hurt your voice, right?” He lunged for my phone, and I darted out of the way.
Andrew was thin, but he was tall and quick, and wasn’t going to have much trouble cornering me and ripping my phone out of my hands. I backed up toward the far wall as he snatched an extension cord from an outlet. “I think I’m gonna tie you up and leave you here while I perform; I think that’s poetic justice.” He coiled the electrical cord like a rope, shifting back and forth in front of the door like a boxer. I kept my phone up.
“You’re just going full villain now?” I said. “Monologuing?”
“As you know, I’m really good at monologues.” He feinted forward—
Just as Thomas burst through the door.
Andrew backed up immediately, holding the electrical cord like a wriggling snake. “You deserve everything you got. Writing a shitty play—you were so in love with me it was laughable, dude.” Thomas clenched his fists. “What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do, you pussy? I thought you didn’t believe in violence.”
“You’re right,” said Thomas. “I don’t solve my problems with violence.”
“But I do,” I said, punching Andrew in the face.
I wish I could say that I knocked him the hell out, but despite Lakshmi’s five-second demonstration two months ago, it wasn’t UFC quality. Andrew was more startled than injured, but he tripped backward over the cord and landed on his butt. Thomas was on him in a second, pinning his arms down. It only took us a few minutes to drag Andrew to a chair, tie him up, and stuff his tie in his mouth to shut him up.
“Wow, you’re pretty good at that,” I said afterward.
“My dad forced me to wrestle when I was younger. It was the only sport I was any good at.”
Andrew struggled, but he lacked the upper-body strength to escape his bonds. Maybe he should’ve done more pull-ups.
“Thanks for coming to my rescue,” I said.
“Starting the video chat was a nice touch.”
“Technology for the win.”
He smiled. “All right, you go out there and do your thing. I’ll stay here with this guy. The hell if I’m gonna let him perform that speech on the livestream.”
“Right.” I nodded. “I have to admit, though—you actually do have worse taste in men than me. How are things going with Hanson?”
Thomas smirked. “Here’s how it’s going down…”
Two weeks ago there was a small disturbance right outside the main office of Eaganville School of the Arts—not a big deal, of course, just a minor thing when the secretary happened to be called away from her desk because a skinny red-haired boy tripped. That would not normally be a problem, but this boy was carrying an entire armful of papers, notebooks, books, and supplies for the latest improv comedy show, which went flying everywhere. The secretary rushed from her computer to help—some of these artsy kids are so clumsy—and failed to notice that the athletic Indian girl sitting in the office, waiting to see the nurse about a stomachache, had swiftly and silently repositioned herself in front of the secretary’s computer. The red-haired boy could barely pick up all his papers—the secretary wondered why they didn’t have lockers these days—and to make matters worse a blond girl and a husky Black boy just walked through the whole mess, scattering everything everywhere.
The secretary helped the boy gets his things together—he really was so clumsy—and was back at her desk within forty seconds, which, coincidentally, had been enough time for the other girl to open up the attendance file on a senior, find an emergency contact, and write down a phone number.
Which led to an elderly woman named Edith Bridges answering a phone call (because old people really do answer the phone) from a woman who sounded a lot like Judy Garland after she’d been used and thrown away by the studio.
“Congratulations! This is Mabel Thompson in the main office of Eaganville School of the Arts. We just wanted to let you know that your grandson has qualified to compete at the National Speech and Debate competition in Kansas City, Missouri.”
“Oh, my goodness!” said Edith; she had no idea her grandson even competed in Speech and Debate. Too bad she lived in Iowa, which was too far away from Kansas City to make the trip.
“And good news! The school has decided to make sure that you can get a chance to see him compete, and we’ll be sending you a driver to pick you up on the day of the performance. Just keep it a surprise!”
Which is why, at five thirty in the morning, on the day of the final competition, Sylvia/Lakshmi got into her SUV, drove 193 miles to Edith’s home in Des Moines, Iowa, presented her identification as Najima, and drove Edith 193 miles back to Kansas City, Missouri, just in time for the final round of humorous interpretation.
Of course, the auditorium was packed to the gills at that point, so it was lucky that the Scarlet Witch had spent part of the morning securing a special VIP seating spot for Edith Bridges in the very first row, and it was also extra kind of Sparkles the Unicorn to give Edith a large, glittery sign that read LET’S GO, HANSON, GRANDMA LOVES YOU for her to wave just as he stepped onto the stage.
And Hanson, as he stepped onto that stage, could not really see anything in the audience, except for the fact that the glitter in the sign caught the light just right, illuminating his grandmother’s face, which also reflected off the very large and very conspicuous cross she wore as a necklace, and also perhaps—and this might have been his imagination—the control of the pacemaker his grandma kept in her purse, because his grandmother’s heart condition was perhaps the only thing that Hanson Bridges hadn’t lied his ass off about.
And at that moment, when the announcer said that “Hanson Bridges, from Eaganville, Minnesota, performing… The Bible,” perhaps young Hanson caught sight of the joy in his frail grandmother’s eyes that he was going to be performing the Word of the Lord for all these well-dressed young people in the audience.
And Frodo, watching on the livestream, saw Hanson Bridges stare in dumbstruck horror and terror, before fleeing without saying a word.
And Frodo said, “BOO-YA, MOTHERFUCKER.”
And it was Good.