I knew we were performing a play in front of people. Obviously. We didn’t write, rehearse, build props, and prepare amid a million panic attacks to perform in front of a crowd of mice. But still. There is a huge, vast, cavernous difference between thinking of a crowd and actually seeing one waiting for you.

I peek through the curtains. The auditorium is full. Standing room only.

I’m not in the play, thankfully. There would be absolutely no way I could perform in front of this many people.

Eric looks petrified. But he volunteered for it!

“Quite a turnout,” says Lacey, smiling. I nod. My knees shake just looking at the throngs of parents and people waiting for our performance. Every fifth-grade parent in the school must be here, plus brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and who knows who else.

They are here to see our play, which starts in six minutes.

Gulp.

“This is so exciting,” says Lacey, standing beside me. “Oh, and Paige and I created a couple of new work sheets. I know we don’t have to, with winter break starting and everything else, but we wanted to try. It was fun, but hard. I don’t know how you did it all by yourself.”

I nod, grateful for her comment. “It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be,” I admit.

“I’m glad I’m a kid and not a teacher,” says Lacey.

I nod. “Yeah. Me too.”

I continue to stare through the curtain. So many people are here just to see my play. To watch my directing!

But to be honest, even though the programs (Jasmine designed them and they are lovely) list me as the director, that’s not totally correct. Mr. Wolcott deserves the credit. His direction saved the day. But he refused to be listed in the program. He said, “Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.”

As usual, I had no idea what he meant.

In the end, my contributions mostly consisted of getting out of the way and allowing Mr. Wolcott to take charge.

I have to admit that I’ve learned a lot from this entire experience. Funny, isn’t it? I planned to do the teaching, and here I am doing the learning. I think I might have learned more from not having a teacher than I did having one.

I’m not talking about learning math and reading and academics, obviously. But I’ve learned how to be a better leader, for sure. I learned that being a great leader means trusting others. People can surprise you when you let them do stuff, like Kyle writing a play and Samantha finding Mr. Wolcott to help us and quiet Eric finding his voice.

Those are lessons that are far more important to learn than math.

Well, maybe not far more important. Math is vital to a solid education. But I’m already a whiz at math.

As I stand in the theater wing scanning the audience, I pat my pocket, which has one of the letters our class wrote. We’ll share it after the play is performed.

I mailed the other letter, right after school ended, as planned. It should arrive at its address tomorrow.

Behind me, the actors get ready. Giovanna and Samantha push the final props into place. Mr. Wolcott takes the entire cast through some vocal warm-ups.

“I thought a thought, but the thought I thought was not the thought I thought I thought,” the group chants together. These exercises are supposed to loosen lips and help actors speak better onstage.

“The free thugs set three thugs free! Say it!” commands Mr. Wolcott. “Enunciate! Tonight is the time for you to shine. Remember, be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them!”

“That’s what I always say,” says Cooper. We all look at him, perplexed. He shrugs. “I mean, you know, that’s what I would say if I had any idea what it meant.”

I inhale deeply, soaking in the excitement of being backstage, the buzz from the crowd, and the smell of vomit wafting through.

Barf. Upchuck. Ralph.

Wait—the smell of what?

That’s when I hear the unmistakable and entirely disagreeable sound of someone getting sick. I think it must be nerves. It’s an extremely unpleasant reaction to the excitement of performing, but not an entirely uncommon one. Many actors and athletes get sick before big performances or games, or so I’ve read.

It’s Lizzie who is sick, but she doesn’t look sick with nerves. She just looks sick. She’s been groaning all day, but I assumed it would pass. She kept insisting she was fine, even while she ran to and from the bathroom. But she is not fine, not at all.

Lizzie is clutching her stomach and leaning over. Mr. Wolcott presses his hand against her forehead, and when he looks up, he appears as ill as Lizzie. “She’s as sick as a dog! The show must go on, but our Martha Washington cannot.”

But she has the second-biggest part in the entire musical. We need her. First Adam and Jade can’t perform, and now Lizzie? We’re dropping like swatted flies. Meanwhile, the crowd beyond the curtain waits for us. We’re supposed to perform in four and a half minutes! We’re doomed.

I look at Mr. Wolcott. He was a famous theater director. This sort of thing probably happens all the time. He must have some ready-made solution, some tried-and-true formula all great theater directors rely on to save the day when actors get sick.

A plan. A scheme. A stratagem.

“What do we do?” asks Kyle.

Mr. Wolcott scratches his head. He doesn’t look like he has a plan. But then he opens his mouth. He will recite a quote that none of us will understand but will turn gray clouds into blue skies. “Do we have an understudy? Someone else who has learned the part?”

“I don’t think so,” says Kyle.

Mr. Wolcott coughs. “Then I have no idea. Sorry.”

I scream. I can’t help it. I stand there and let loose a high, earsplitting yowl.

My doom is complete.

When I finish my wail of anguish, everyone looks at me. My legs quiver. I feel like everyone is waiting for me to solve our problem. I should do something. I’m the class leader.

I take a deep breath. I open my mouth. I remember what I’ve learned about teamwork and asking for help. Trevor stands next to me, and I think he’s about to roll his eyes, regardless of what I say. He’ll probably say I’m bossy. I look at him. “What do you think we should do, Trevor?” I ask.

He steps back. I guess he wasn’t expecting me to say that.

“Me?” he asks. I nod and hope that maybe he does have a solution. Trevor shrugs. “How should I know? You’re the one in charge.”

I look around to the rest of my classmates. I realize that if we fail, I could still go to Harvard. Of course I could. I’ve got a whole lot of years left to impress them, and I’m only a kid right now. But still, I wanted our class to shine tonight. We all worked so hard.

“Can’t we just skip her parts?” asks Jasmine.

“I don’t see how,” says Kyle. “She’s in a lot of scenes.”

“And I won’t know when to say my lines,” complains Cooper.

“Me either,” says Gavin, although he only has his one line and he still can’t remember it, anyway.

We’ve all formed a circle, a circle of doom I suppose, when Samantha steps into the middle. She clears her throat. Her daddy can’t buy us out of this one, although I wish he could.

“I’ll do it,” she says. “I know the part. I’ve read the script about a million times, and I have the entire thing memorized. Even the new parts.”

She does? She will? My mouth is open in shock, and when I scan the rest of us in our circle, all of their mouths are open in shock, too. Samantha is the last person I would have expected to volunteer. I guess I’m still learning lessons about trusting people.

I used to think all of my classmates were blockheads. But that’s not true at all. If anything, I’m the blockhead for thinking that.

“Then let’s get you dressed,” declares Mr. Wolcott. “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York.”

“Sure, I guess,” I say, confused.

“Can we skip the romantic parts?” Samantha asks Eric.

Eric looks relieved. “Yes! Please!”

I remove the wig from Lizzie’s head and lower it onto Samantha’s while Mr. Wolcott ties the Martha Washington frock around her waist.

“Good luck,” I tell her.

“Never good luck,” Mr. Wolcott declares. “In the theater we say, ‘Break a leg.’ ”

“I don’t want her to break her leg!” I insist.

“It’s meant to be ironic,” says Eric.

“Fine. Break a leg,” I say with a shrug as the curtains part and the actors hurry to their places.