In the week after that practice, I call Faith a few times. We talk, but she doesn’t usually say much, like she isn’t really into the conversation. She hasn’t answered many of my texts either. We still walk to school each day, but it seems as though she and Nigel talk more to each other than they do to me. On this particular day, as the three of us head into Harrington, there’s a wind whipping around that’s so bitingly cold, no one’s saying much of anything.
In spite of my best efforts, I haven’t been able to convince Mr. J. or the team to add another practice into our schedule. Here we are with zones in only two days—two days!—and all we’ve got left is our regular practice after school today. I could spit.
“Hey,” I call over the wind, “let’s do a word association.”
Nigel grunts. Faith says nothing.
“Come on,” I plead. “It’ll help us in Theme.”
No response.
“Okay, I’ll start. Um…growth.”
Silence. Neither of them so much as looks at me.
Great. Now I can’t sneak in this kind of practice either.
Over the past few days I’ve begun to worry that there’s a real possibility we won’t get to nationals. I nibble on my lip and try to remember the teams from last year’s regional competition. I’m pretty sure we’ve gotten better than we were last year. Even without the extra practices, we’re still a strong team, I think. Aren’t we? And I’ve learned a lot of new and useful stuff…though my teammates haven’t exactly let me share it all with them.
It has to be enough. And besides, there’s still today’s practice…
* * *
I bang my locker shut.
Where the heck is Faith? Improv practice starts in five minutes, but there’s no sign of her. I can’t wait any longer.
I sure hope she’s going to be there. I hope they’re all going to be there! We haven’t had the whole team together in weeks. I head down the hall, trying not to panic and making a mental count of which teammates are at school today. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen them all.
As I reach the room, I hear lots of voices inside—a whole team’s worth? I can only hope.
The conversation dies down as I walk in. Faith is here, but Asha’s not. Again. Next year we should write up a team contract or something. If you can’t make it to practice, you get kicked off the team—simple as that.
“Okay,” says Mr. J. “Let’s start with a different rhyming warm-up.”
Suits me fine. I’m hoping Hanna has practiced her rhyming skills, but we’ll see.
The warm-up flows around the circle, with each of us, in order, calling out a new rhyme for Mr. J.’s starting word, rake. We get around the circle more than twice before we run out of words. Not bad. Next, Mr. J. gives us night. The team claps and hoots for Hanna’s clever rhyme parasite and for Nigel’s gigabyte, but when I offer meteorite, there’s no response at all. Weird. We get twice around with night too.
“Great work,” Mr. J. says. “On to a Style event. Everyone know what you’re doing?” Nods all around. “So, no matter what happens,” he says, his eyes sliding to mine, “let’s keep going.” A few heads turn my way. Nigel is studying his fingernail.
Oh. I get it.
All that talking when I arrived—it was about last week’s practice. And me. Obviously, they’ve complained to Mr. J. about me. I stand there for a second, in shock. A thick, scratchy feeling is growing my throat.
So I guess this means they don’t want my help? I catch Faith’s eye, and she quickly looks away. Her silent treatment makes sense now. And is that why she came to practice without me? There’s no time to think about it—Mr. J. says, “Dragon slayer,” and we’re into our huddle.
I try to push what just happened out of my mind and focus on the scene. Certain thoughts creep back in though. Why didn’t they come talk to me? Don’t they get that this is about making the team better? Are they mad at me? I swallow, and the scratchiness in my throat becomes a lump.
The huddle is quieter than usual. Asha’s not here to take the lead, for starters. With this lump in my throat, I probably couldn’t lead if I wanted to. And I’m surprised to discover that I really don’t want to. A couple of awkward seconds pass before Nigel jumps in.
“I’m pretty sure I can be a passable fire-breathing dragon,” he says.
“Maybe if you look after the front,” Mark suggests, “I could be the body and long tail, and together we’ll be really big and impressive.”
It’s a good idea, except that with Ziggy, Faith and Hanna already doing the music, Vern playing the slayer and Asha away, that only leaves me to play any other characters. I’m not sure they’ll appreciate me pointing that out to them though.
The others join the discussion, offering some semi-decent ideas, and I’m tempted to add my own bits.
But I don’t. Not this time.
Nigel sums things up, and with a “Break!” we’re off.
Ziggy and Faith give us a tune, and right away Hanna points out our dragon—Nigel and Mark, who become a completely believable flame-throwing monster. Vern strides in as the arrogant slayer. Like always, I start critiquing the scene inside my head, noticing things that could be better. But this time it’s different. Today, finding fault with their efforts seems to make me feel better somehow, as though this has become me against them. Maybe I won’t help at all and let them see how that turns out. That’ll show them, a little voice inside me says.
The beast and slayer spend an awful lot of time dancing around each other fighting while nothing much else happens. In her song, Hanna suggests only two characters for me to become, so I do. But that’s all I do.
Mostly, Hanna sings a lot of verses about who’s hitting whom. By the end of the four minutes, our likable dragon is dead on the floor and his slayer is patting himself on the back.
Not exactly a crowd-pleaser.
There’s a smattering of halfhearted high fives at the end. Mr. J. gives us a few notes about making sure our story has enough of an arc. Any arc at all, I want to add, but I say nothing.
We start another Style scene with the suggestion “baker.” This time the huddle is less awkward. The others dive right in with their ideas. I’m tempted to join them, but now that I’ve started my personal rebellion, it’s hard to stop. Again, I keep my ideas to myself. Hanna weaves a slightly sketchy tale of a baker—Mark—who baked four and twenty blackbirds into a pie. Not very original. Apparently, he made a few plum tarts for Little Jack Horner as well—that’s Vern, who sticks his thumb in one. No big surprise there either.
When it’s over, the rest of the team members are pretty pumped. They don’t seem concerned that some of Hanna’s lines didn’t rhyme or that most of what we’ve presented is stuff from actual fairy tales.
Afterward Mr. J. doesn’t even mention those things!
“I know Hanna is the narrator,” he says, “but any of you can jump in as your character and add a rhyme or two of your own. Hanna, don’t be afraid to pass the story to someone else if they’re the focus at that point.”
Good idea. That way we don’t have to rely on Hanna for all the rhymes.
“The rest of you,” he continues, “stay on your toes. When Hanna throws you an offer, take it! For example”—he turns to me—“Chloe, Hanna said that the baker’s assistant, which was you, put up a fuss. You could have jumped right in with your own rhymes to explain more about why you were making such a fuss. Everybody got that?”
I feel my neck getting warm. Seriously? Out of all the problems with that last scene he’s only criticizing me? There is plenty that desperately needs fixing before we go to zones! I can’t keep quiet any longer.
“Mr. J.,” I say, “do you think it’s okay that most of that scene was from actual fairy tales? I’m pretty sure the improv book says not to copy stories that already exist.”
He adjusts his glasses. Somebody mutters something about “that book.”
“What I think is that the scene had good rhyming and a strong story arc. So let’s build on those strengths and many more original ideas will flow, I’m sure,” he says.
He picks up a paper from his desk and heads toward the door. “I need to go and make copies of the permission form for zones on Friday. You guys sort out whose parents can drive there, all right?”
And he’s gone. I look around at everyone as they start chatting. No matter what they said to Mr. J. about me, they’re still my best shot at getting to nationals. I’m going to have to suck it up and try to make this work.
“What’s everybody doing tomorrow?” I ask. They stop talking. “Maybe we could have another practice,” I say. “You know, try some scenes with everybody here.”
They look around at one another for a few seconds.
Finally, Mark says, “I’d love to do that, but Thursdays I work after school.”
“I have to babysit.” That’s Nigel.
“And I’ve got voice lessons,” says Hanna. “My mom can drive on Friday though,” she adds.
At that moment Asha arrives, and the team launches into a full-scale driving debate. And that’s the end of my extra-practice idea.
So. Everyone seems to be talking to me again, but we’ve got maybe half an hour left of today’s practice—which has done nothing to make our Style event any stronger, if you ask me—and then it’s zones on Friday.
Our odds of doing well are dwindling by the minute.