Told by Manda
I’d never seen our parents as proud as the day Shady asked to go see the school play.
It was the first time he’d talked to anyone in our family since Svenrietta went missing—so that was a relief for Mom and Dad—although he wasn’t talking to me yet. I guess he was still mad about the muffin and the fit I’d thrown in his bedroom the week before. Every time I tried to apologize, he stared straight through me.
“This is so exciting,” Mom said, settling into a plastic chair and looking around the gym in awe, like we were at a fancy opera. The fact that she’d barely left the house that week must have been affecting her brain. She was supposed to be homeschooling Shady, but I don’t think she was cut out for it. Three times I’d come home and caught her staring wistfully at her briefcase while Shady played video games upstairs.
“Didn’t the kids do a great job decorating the gym, Shady?” She pointed out a few sad paper snowflakes. “It looks like a winter wonderland in here. That must have been a fun art class.” She all but winked at Dad. As I suspected, she was desperate for Shady to agree to go back to school after the holidays so she could go back to work.
If Shady caught her hint, he didn’t react. Not that he’d usually talk to any of us anywhere near the school. (Someone might overhear.) But he didn’t seem to have his usual vacant stare either. Instead, he was watching the front of the room intently, like he was excited for the play to start. I didn’t want to burst his bubble, but based on the school’s track record, it wasn’t going to be outstanding. The music teacher, Mr. Consuela, always messed up the notes on the piano, and then there was the year Tabitha Shubert got so nervous that she threw up in Santa’s sleigh.
“There are Lili and Mitra!” Dad said, waving Pouya’s moms over to the two seats we’d saved for them.
Just then, the gym doors opened and about ninety kids dressed in red and green shuffled in and filled the spaces between the rows of benches in front of the stage: the chorus. Right away, cell phone cameras lit up.
“Oh, look!” Mom pointed to a spot on the far side of the gym. “There’s Pouya.” She stood up and waved. So embarrassing. “What’s he doing in the chorus? I thought he was playing the Christmas tree. Isn’t he the tree, Lili?” Mom asked, leaning across me and Shady to talk to her.
“I think so, yes,” Lili answered, looking puzzled.
I glanced over. Was that the barest hint of a smile on Shady’s face?
The lights went down. Mrs. Mackie stepped up to the microphone to welcome everyone. And then the best and worst Christmas play in Carleton Elementary history got underway.
It all began outside Santa’s workshop.
“You guys!” Pearl Summers was standing center stage in a sparkly elf hat. She seemed kind of stunned, and for a second I thought she’d forgotten her next line, but then she blinked a few times and went on. “It’s almost the most magical time of the year again.”
“You mean reindeer games playoff season?” another elf answered with a corny wink. The audience laughed.
“No, silly! Christmastime,” Pearl answered. The other elves on the stage made cheerful agreeing noises, and I tried not to roll my eyes. I didn’t mean to be critical, but after watching so much classic cinema over the last few months, it was more obvious than ever that grade-school plays had rock-bottom standards.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I slid it out from under my program to check the text message—glad for something to pass the time.
I have an idea for another film. Not as great as the last, but pretty good. Come back to film club?
This was the first I’d heard from Pascale since last Thursday, when I’d told her we couldn’t do a duckless duckumentary and that I was quitting the club. She’d since passed me twice in the halls without saying hello, and I’d honestly never expected to hear from her again. Between her ignoring me and Carly and Beth continuing to ghost me, I was basically resigned to my new lunch-hour routine of eating all alone then hanging out in the library doing homework. It was a quiet, lonely existence, but at least it was drama-free.
I hesitated a minute, then started typing.
Really sorry, but I’m not coming back. Shady needs me home after school. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t.
Before I could send it, I felt a short, sharp nudge on my arm. It was Shady.
“Shady’s right, Manda,” Mom whispered. “Put that away. It’s rude to text during a performance.”
I turned my phone off and tucked it under the program on my lap. By then, the kids in the chorus were singing a song about Christmas cheer—loudly and off key.
Mr. Consuela hit some very wrong notes, and half the kids got thrown off and forgot the words. I sighed. It was going to be a long hour. I was just starting to nod off when I felt Shady grab the concert program off my knee, and my phone along with it.
He propped the program up for cover from Mom’s eyes, then started tapping the phone. I sighed at the unfairness but left him to it. He was obviously bored to death too. He was probably playing Woody Word Finder.
“Manda.” Mitra was whispering my name, but I didn’t hear her at first. Not until Lili tugged at my sleeve and pointed down the row. Mitra was holding up her cell phone. “I want to send video to Pouya’s aunty, but my battery ran out,” she whispered. “Can you?” She wiggled her dead phone back and forth. “And send to me?”
I nodded and took my phone back from Shady. At least it would give me something to do. The chorus had just finished their third holiday song—something about gifts from the heart—when I hit Record, and almost on cue, the commotion started at the front of the gym.
“Ouch!”
“Hey!”
“Excuse me.” Pouya was standing on one of the chorus benches. “Excuse me. Coming through.” I watched through my phone screen, keeping him in the center of the shot as he stepped over people, making his way to the stage.
Was this part of the play? Two of the reindeer had their mouths wide open, and Santa looked downright confused. Lili was leaning over, saying something to Mitra in Farsi. Meanwhile, Mrs. Carlisle was stepping forward like she was about to intervene.
Before she could stop him, though, Pouya hopped onto the stage and stood directly in front of the kid who’d been playing the tree. “Can I have those for a sec?” Without waiting for an answer, Pouya took the branches the kid had been holding and shoved them down the sleeves of his shirt so just the bushy green tips stuck out.
“A poem!” he announced loudly, facing the stunned audience. “Written by Shady Cook and recited by me, Pouya Fard.”
Still holding the phone steady, I glanced over at Pou’s moms. They looked as surprised as I was. Shady, meanwhile, was busy tap-tap-tapping one foot against the floor. His long hair flopped down, hiding his face.
“I am a tree. An old, gnarled tree,” Pouya began. “So very green and prick-ely.
“And you might think that I’m not fit…for Santa’s workshop, ’cause I’m a bit…” He looked around at the audience. By now, Mrs. Carlisle was at the edge of the stage, giving him a death glare.
“Ugly…and weird…and dripping sap.” Pouya pulled two little squirt bottles out of his back pockets, aimed them at the front row, and sprayed—I guess to symbolize tree sap? Someone’s grandma threw her hands up over her face, but a bunch of the little kids laughed.
“But wait a second!” Pouya yelled. “Look at that!”
He ran across the stage and retrieved something from behind the curtain. A huge, blinking, battery-powered star on a headband. He placed it on his head and returned to center stage.
“I have a light that shines so bright.”
He grabbed two of the kids playing reindeer by the hand and launched them forward.
“It guides the reindeer through the night.”
He paused dramatically.
“And also, as you plainly see…” Pouya gave a little bow as he finished up.
“I’m the world’s most epic poe-tree.”
There was a hush in the room that lasted several seconds. Then someone in the front row started clapping. The person next to them finally joined in, and eventually, it spread through the gym.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Carlisle was gesturing furiously at Pouya to get down from the stage. He didn’t budge. Instead, he took another bow, then held one hand out toward the audience. “Shady Cook!” he said again. “The best poet in the fifth grade.”
A few people sitting around us turned to look at my brother. I panned the cell phone camera over to catch his reaction. He was still looking down at the floor, but now I could see the corner of a smile through his hair.
Finally, after the applause died down, Pouya handed the branches back to their rightful owner and jumped off the stage, but nobody seemed to know what to do next.
“Pearl!” Mrs. Carlisle whispered loudly. Then she said it at full volume. “Pearl! Pick up from your next line.” But Pearl Summers was standing at the front of the stage blinking like she couldn’t quite remember where she was—let alone what she was supposed to be saying.
“Maybe this old tree is just what Santa needs after all,” Mrs. Carlisle prompted, loud enough for the whole gym to hear.
“Maybe this old tree is just what Santa needs after all,” Pearl repeated.
“Exactly!” a reindeer said. “It only needs a few finishing touches! And I know just the thing.”
Most of the audience had settled down again, but some of them were still watching Pouya, who was at the side of the room being told off by the principal in a hushed voice.
The reindeer walked across the stage toward a pile of presents. She picked one up off the top and started to carry it back.
“No! Wait!” Pearl yelled. “Don’t give Santa that one!”
The boy who was playing Santa shot her a puzzled look, then grabbed the present from the reindeer anyway.
“I said! Not that one!” Pearl yelled even louder. “The one with the star is marked with an X. Look for the X, stupid! She grabbed hold of the box Santa was holding and tried to tug it away. “Connor! Give it to me now!” But Santa wouldn’t let go.
“What are you doing?” he said through gritted teeth.
“Give. It. Here.” Pearl pulled harder on the box. Finally, she managed to tug it out of Santa’s hands, falling backward.
“Oof!” She fell on her butt. The box flew out of her hands and landed with a thud on the stage.
“You idiot!” Pearl yelled at Santa, as she scrambled onto her knees. “You might have killed them both!”
I zoomed in to get a better shot. This was a thousand times more dramatic than any play Carleton Elementary had put on before.
Pearl was ripping furiously at the wrapping paper, throwing bits of it everywhere. She opened the flaps of the box, took a shuddering breath, and sank back on her heels. “Oh, thank God,” she said. “They’re in another one.” Then she got up, walked over to the big pile of presents, and started lifting them up and shaking them gently, like an impatient kid on Christmas morning. The fourth box was the one that finally seemed to satisfy her. She ripped into the paper.
Meanwhile, the audience, now thoroughly confused, had started to shift in their seats and mutter to one another.
“She’s here!” Pearl yelled. “They’re both here. I think they’re okay!”
Then all the kids on stage broke out in shouts as Pearl lifted a wriggling, flapping duck from the box.
Svenrietta!
Before my parents or I knew what was happening, Shady was on his feet, making his way down the row of crowded-in plastic chairs and straight to the front of the gym.
When Svenri caught sight of my brother, she went quackers. Pearl could hardly keep hold of her because her back end was wiggling madly. Shady climbed onto the stage and took her from Pearl’s outstretched hands.
The duck buried her beak deep in my brother’s armpit, her favorite place in the world. Meanwhile, he burrowed his face into her feathers, and they both stood there, oblivious to everyone around them as the gym broke into a flurry of confusion.
It was only because I was still zoomed in, filming the remarkable reunion between a boy and his duck, that I happened to notice Pearl Summers reach into the box behind Shady, take something else out, and run from the gym crying.
Then this popped up on my screen:
Great! So glad you’re coming back. C U next Thursday.
What?! I hit End on the recording and scrolled back, looking for the message I’d written to Pascale—but hadn’t gotten around to sending. Had I sent it by mistake? According to the phone, a message had gone through, but instead of the original—Really sorry, but I’m not coming back. Shady needs me home after school. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t.
I found this version where more than half of my words had been deleted:
I’m coming back. Shady needs me to.
I blinked at the screen as it hit me: maybe Shady wasn’t mad about the muffin—maybe he was mad about me putting my life on hold for him. Maybe he didn’t need me to. Maybe he didn’t want me to. And, worse still, maybe all this time, as much as he’d been hiding behind me, I’d been hiding behind him too.
But by the time I looked up from the screen to try to find my brother, he was already gone.