NINETEEN

“Your father will pick you up after drama club to go whale watching,” Mom said, driving me into the city the next morning. “I have no idea what time I will be done today but if everything goes well I should make it home from the hospital in time to meet Alex.”

“Mom, I swear he is not an ax murderer. If you don’t make it home in time, it’s no big deal.”

“Now that I think of it, I do have a favor that needs to be called in from Dr. Rent, maybe I should ask if he will take over for me, the second half of the day, just to make sure.”

I sighed. I lived with crazy people. They hardly pay attention to me the first fifteen years of my life, but I get a couple of dates and suddenly they are all over protective. This did not bode well for my social life.

I hated taking the day off from our hunt for Franklin. The longer it took us to find him the lower his chances of survival. It killed me to think that that freckled face wouldn’t show up in any more vacation photographs because of my failure as a spy. But the U.E. was adamant that today was business as usual–my day off would not be canceled. I felt a twinge of guilt when I remembered how grateful I would be later when I still got to go out on my date with Alex.

The rec center came into view. Drama club. A U.E. requirement. Wasn’t the purpose of being a spy, in general, not to attract a lot of attention to yourself? There might be certain times where you need to create a distraction or something but overall spies were supposed to blend. Acting in front of a room full of people did not qualify as blending. Though I had never actually acted in front of a room full of people, outside of class. The closest to a role in one of our performances I had ever had was doing sound effects behind the curtain, which suited me just fine. Making clip clopping horse hooves noises was really much better.

We pulled into the parking lot of the rec center and Cora, my fellow spy and drama clubber, who previously held the title of Spy Most Likely To Drive Me Up The Wall, but who now came in a close second after Jaisen, walked over to our car and tapped on the driver’s side window. Mom rolled down the window.

Hello, Cora. It’s nice to see you,” Mom said and probably meant it, because Cora happened to be a very good actress and had my parents hoodwinked into thinking we were buddies and she was just the sweet should be friends with your daughter girl next door.

“Good morning, Dr. Carlyle,” Cora said, smiling sweetly. “I was wondering if you would mind if I borrowed Katie on Sunday. I know it’s a school night and all but my parents are going out of town and I get so nervous spending the night by myself. Would it be possible if Katie stayed over? I promise we wouldn’t stay up late talking or anything.”

“You are more than welcome to stay over at our house on Sunday Cora, if you don’t want to stay home by yourself,” Mom said.

Cora smiled. “That is such a sweet offer. The only thing is that my mom’s miniature poodle, Fefu, is staying behind and I need to be there to let her out. My mom’s dog walker doesn’t do weekends and this trip kind of sprung up on short notice so they didn’t have time to find anyone else.”

Something was definitely up. I knew this and it infuriated me that I didn’t know what. Cora inviting me to stay at her house? Suspicious. Using the old dog trick because of my mother’s extreme dislike of furry creatures? Also, very suspicious.

As I expected, Mom did not extend her invitation to Fefu. “Oh, I understand why you need to stay home. I’ll have to talk with her father about it, but I don’t see any reason why Katie can’t stay over.”

I had the thought that my mother would sell my soul to the devil. At least she would if he were good looking like Jaisen or threatened to invade her existence with a furry creature like Cora.

“Thanks Dr. Carlyle,” Cora gushed while I opened my door and grabbed my backpack.

“Bye, Mom,” I said, as I maneuvered out of the car.

“Bye, honey, have fun at drama club,” she rolled up her window. I stood next to Cora until Mom’s car had pulled away.

I turned to Cora. “What was that all about?”

“What do you think it’s all about?” Cora arched one of her brows. Then she flounced into the rec center.

So Cora must have gotten orders to invite me over for a “sleepover” on Sunday. What was that all about? How was she in the loop, when I so obviously was not? And on my assignment too. I guessed it would avoid any explanations about my getting up before dawn on Monday. But they certainly could have told me the plan instead of telling Cora.

I ran to catch up to Cora before she opened the door of the rec center.

“Cora,” I began, ready to demand that she give me all of the information I was entitled to.

Cora cut me off, “Katie, try checking your phone now and then. You might just learn something useful.”

This did not even merit a response.

I opened the door and went in ahead of her. Checking my U.E. phone hadn’t been at the top of my list of priorities that morning. I had a lot of stuff on my mind just now. Like Alex and our upcoming date.

And Chuck. He sat slumped against the wall chatting with some of the drama girls. Chuck Who Had Taken My Best Friend Out Last Night. I headed straight for him.

The inside of the rec center was dismally dismal. Our practice space was an empty room. One wall was lined with piles of chairs. We didn’t actually practice in a theatre. We didn’t even have a theatre. We went out to perform at other people’s theatres or at the old folk’s home. This was it, this empty room with old thin carpeting on the floor and horrid fluorescent lights above, no windows to add a little daylight to the drama that unfolded here every Saturday morning. There was even the slight musty smell of a church basement.

I weaved my way through actors warming up and plopped myself down across from Chuck on the hard unpadded carpeting. Before I could start grilling him about his date with Emma, Mr. Svink brought the room to order.

“Class, quiet down.”

I was never going to find out how the date had gone.

Mr. Svink was a thin nervous man who bounced up and down on his feet when he talked even though he was always telling us how we needed to drop our personal physical habits like bouncing up and down on our feet when we talked.

“Choose a partner. Today we’re going to work on stage sparring.”

I grabbed Chuck before anyone else could.

“The first step is to practice working as partners. Begin following each other’s body movements. Take turns leading and following.” Mr. Svink gave a final bounce on his toes and began walking around the room nodding his heads as pairs started echoing each other.

“So?” I whispered at Chuck.

“So…what?” He followed the movement of my hands.

“Class, remember that sparring onstage is a partner activity, much like what you’re doing now. There is give and take.”

“How did it go last night?”

He cocked his head to the side, forcing me to follow his movements.

“With Emma? My best friend?”

“Oh,” he smiled. “That.”

“OK,” Mr. Svink said. “Move into sparring. Remember, no one should get hurt in stage sparring. Watch your partner closely so that as a hand comes forward, you are simultaneously stepping backwards. Be subtle, class. This should look real. Receive the strike.”

Our movements changed from mirroring to sparring.

“So?” I whispered again.

“Why don’t you ask Emma?” Chuck punched forward and I fell back.

“Because Emma isn’t a morning person and no one who values their life would call her early in the morning.”

“I’ll have to remember that.”

“And she’s spending the rest of the day at her grandmother’s.” I sent a kick to his head. Gently. He turned.

“That’s right.”

“Come on, Chuck. I’m dying here. I really really want to know.” I was starting to get worried. Had it gone that badly? “You didn’t pull any stupid practical jokes on her, Chuck, did you? Emma is very sensitive, she wouldn’t take something like that very well.”

“Well…” He paused and sent a flying punch at me. Before I could stop myself, I had flipped him over my shoulder and had him pinned to the ground.

He laughed weakly. “It went fine, Katie. Really, we had a great time.”

“Oh.” I relaxed my hold on him.

Mr. Svink hovered nearby, his smile big and nervous.

“Everything OK?”

“Everything’s just fine.” Which it was–I don’t know why Chuck had been holding out on me, all I really wanted to know was whether or not it had gone fine. Well that and every little detail, but I could get those from Emma later.

“I think you can let Chuck up now, Katie.” Mr. Svink wrung his hands.

“Oh, right.” I helped Chuck back up.

“Katie.” Chuck ran his hands through his hair. “No practical jokes—I was a perfect gentleman. If I were going to mess with someone’s best friend, believe me, it wouldn’t be yours.” He rubbed his chest where my knee had recently been.

“Good thinking.” I said and moved back into position.

After two hours of using all of my will power getting through the exercises on stage sparring without doing any actual sparring moves, I was relieved to hear Mr. Svink say, “That’s enough for today.”

He stood in the center of the room and clapped his hands. “Everyone, before you leave I have a very exciting announcement. The Veterans’ Society has asked us to put on a production of The Tempest for their annual Veterans’ Day celebration in November. Auditions are next Tuesday afternoon—we begin working on the piece next Saturday. Please have a dramatic monologue of five minutes prepared. We will have two performances, one in the afternoon and one in the evening, so each role will have two actors. That’s all.”