TWENTY-FIVE
Practice Makes Perfect. I Hope.

Once ole Isabel assigned that part to me, I dreaded that play and all the rehearsals leading up to it every waking hour of the day. I kept trying to get out of it.

“Listen, Isabel,” I said at supper the very next night after tryouts, “I’ll make you a deal.”

She looked up from her salad and raised one crazy eyebrow. “Oh?”

“I will wash your windows and make your bed and mop your floors and scrub your toilet for the next twelve years if you will not make me be in that play.”

“Why, April Grace!” Mama said as if she was surprised, when she knew I did not like getting up in front of people and reciting.

Isabel patted her lips with her napkin and blinked seven or eight times real fast.

“My dear child,” she said, all important-sounding, “I am depending on you to carry that part.”

Oh brother.

“Nancy Burke is a nasty, mean person. I might be a little sassy sometimes, but I’m not nasty and mean.”

“You have to pretend,” Myra Sue piped up. “Think of the nastiest, meanest person you know and then pretend to be that person pretending to be Nancy Burke.”

Ole Isabel clasped her hands and looked at Myra Sue in pure delight. “Darling! You are absolutely right.” As if ole Myra had come up with all that on her very own. Good grief.

I looked at Mama and Daddy, hoping they’d step in and say something like, “Isabel, April Grace really shouldn’t be getting up in front of people because she might throw up or pass out.”

But they didn’t. They just smiled. As far as I was concerned, a gigantic volcanic tornado-blizzard could come and carry us all to Oz or the North Pole, whichever was closer.

The following Sunday afternoon, I rode along to church with Myra and Isabel, dreading the whole entire first practice that was about to take place. I envied ole Melissa, who got to play the part of one of the Miller children, and she did not have to say a single line except “Merry Christmas.”

When everyone got to the church for that first rehearsal— and I do mean everyone ’cause I think they were too scared to stay away—Isabel had us stand in a circle on the platform and read. We read that whole entire play from first word to last. We were purely awful.

When we were finished reading, before anyone had a chance even to sneeze or sigh, ole J.H. stood up all straight and tall and spoke like he was about forty instead of in junior high. Do you want to know what that rotten boy said? Well, I’ll tell you.

He said, right out loud in front of that entire bunch of kids, “Mrs. St. James, ma’am, I think in that one place where Jim Burke gives his wife, Nancy, that diamond necklace she’d been wanting, he should kiss her. I mean, it would make the whole scene more realistic.”

Isabel didn’t have time to answer because I narrowed my eyes at him and yelled, “J.H. Henry, if you even try to kiss me, I will slug you so hard, you won’t come back to earth till you reach the Texas border. I promise you I will.”

He looked at me all surprised, like I shoulda been dying to let him smooch me, but no thank you very much forever!

Well, you can imagine how everyone laughed and howled at all that, but I just kept staring at ole J.H. with my fist ready for action. He looked around at all those snickering kids, then he got all smirky his own self and winked at ole Lottie. I glanced at Lottie, and she was giving me the dirtiest, meanest stink-eye look you ever saw.

Let me tell you a little something about J.H. Have you ever seen that old, old TV show Leave It to Beaver? If you haven’t, you should, because J.H. is exactly like Eddie Haskell, who thinks he’s way cool, but is in fact a Total Creepazoid. For instance, both Eddie and J.H. swagger instead of walking like normal humans. And they both are real polite to adults but all smirky behind their backs.

Why Lottie Fuhrman clearly likes J.H. Henry is beyond me, but as far as I’m concerned, they can have each other.

“People! I will have silence!” Isabel projected so loudly, the overhead lights shivered in fear. “There will be no kissing whatsoever, on this stage or off it, during these rehearsals. You, young man.” She fixed a poisoned-dart glare on ole J.H. “You’d better behave yourself.”

We all stood in our circle and stared at Isabel. You know what? I figured ole Isabel was not going to have one bit of trouble controlling her dance classes at school next semester. I figure if you can scare teenagers just with dirty looks and projecting loudly, you have a natural gift.

The next thing we did that afternoon was read the script again, but this time, Isabel broke us up in little groups, where we practiced the same bits over and over. By the end of that practice, I think everyone kinda was beginning to know how to say their parts.

Before she dismissed us for the day, Isabel said, “Begin learning your lines, people. Soon you will not be reading from your books.” There went that Look again. She passed it to every one of us, even me and Myra Sue, then she said, “Next rehearsal will be Sunday afternoon.”

On the way home, ole Isabel said, “April, dearest, you were wonderful! I knew you had a natural talent.”

“Thanks,” I said, sorta sadly, because I did not want her to get the idea that I was all enthused about being in a play, ’cause I was not, I promise you!

Ole Myra Sue crossed her arms over her chest and pooched out her lower lip.

“What about me?” she said, all dreadfully despairing and utterly undone.

“Oh, darling,” Isabel said, glancing from the road to Myra Sue, “you’ll be fine. Don’t be afraid to project.”

“I thought I was projecting!” she said.

“Perhaps you need some brush-up lessons, Myra, darling. We’ll drop April off at your house, then you come home with me and we’ll work on that.”

Ole Myra brightened so bright, you would’ve thought the sun was shining inside that old pickup.