Stage Frightened Page 2

  But Molly always kept her word. Everyone said that about her. If she promised something, she did it. She did not back out. Rat’s knees! Why had she been so quick to answer those ads?

  When she got home, she told her parents the problem.

  “You should keep your word,” said her dad.

  “Even though Roger usually doesn’t keep his,” her mother said, frowning.

  “Why don’t you write a funny poem anyway?” said her dad. “Then you get to be on the stage three times, you get a badge for your writing talent, and you get to go to Minnesota Magic. What could be more fun?”

  When her dad put it that way, it made sense. Then why did Molly feel so worried? What could go wrong?

  Before long, the talent show was only one day away. The flyers had paid off and ticket sales were brisk.

  “We’re almost sold out!” Mrs. Peters announced at the Pee Wee rehearsal.

  Molly said she wouldn’t sit on Roger’s knee for the rehearsal, just for the real thing.

  “What if you’re too heavy?” said Roger. “What if you break my knee?”

  “Too bad,” said Molly. She’d keep her word, but she wouldn’t make it easy on Roger.

  Rachel was dancing on tiptoe in her lavender tutu. Sonny was having trouble with a card trick. And Jody was trying a new song on his guitar that he had written himself. Jody has talent to spare, thought Molly. She wished she could borrow some of his.

  Mary Beth had decided to dance the hornpipe with the Bakers, even if she wasn’t part of their family.

  “We really needed four,” said Patty.

  Rat’s knees, why didn’t they mention that before I signed up to be a dummy? thought Molly.

  Molly had written four poems. She couldn’t decide which one to use. One was about how much fun it was to be a Pee Wee Scout. Another was about earning badges. One was a nature poem, and one was about her dog, Skippy. Finally she decided on the Pee Wee Scout poem. She changed some words and then read it to her parents.

  “I like it,” said Mrs. Duff.

  “That’s my girl,” said Mr. Duff. “The talented author and poet.”

  Molly giggled. Her dad would like anything she did. She hoped he would still be laughing after her three stage performances!

  On the day of the show, it was cloudy. By the time Molly and her family left to go to the auditorium of the elementary school, it was pouring. Thunder boomed and lightning flashed. Molly wondered if it was a warning. An announcement of bad news. But what bad things could happen?

  When they arrived, the auditorium was filled with ticket holders. It looked as if Mrs. Peters was right. There would be plenty of money to go to Minnesota Magic. Molly must have been mistaken about the storm warning.

  Tracy came running up to Molly. “We go on first!” she said. “You have to get into this plastic smock, and I have to wet down your hair!”

  Wet down her hair? Rat’s knees! Molly didn’t know she’d have to be onstage three times with dripping-wet hair!

  While Tracy was spraying her hair with a laundry bottle, Roger ran up.

  “We go on second,” he said. “You’re going to have to do a fast costume change offstage!” He held up a suit that looked as if it was for a clown. It had red suspenders, a bow tie with dots, and a hat with a small visor.

  No way am I wearing that! thought Molly.

  “Hey, you can’t be my dummy with dripping-wet hair!” he shouted. “You’re going to ruin my act!”

  Molly had been right. The storm was a bad omen.

  CHAPTER

  5

  Pee Wees Onstage

  The lights on the stage were so bright that Molly could hardly see the audience. Mrs. Peters was announcing the acts, starting with Tracy’s hair act. Molly was scared stiff. She had real stage fright.

  The crowd applauded when Molly walked onstage, dripping water. She sat on a stool while Tracy combed through her wet hair.

  “First,” said Tracy to the audience, “I am going to show you a hairstyle called a fluff.”

  Tracy combed and brushed and brushed and combed. It felt to Molly as if she was combing her hair backward. She was! It took Tracy the hairdresser a long time to get the hairdo the way she wanted it. When the hair began to dry, Tracy took a can and sprayed some pink mousse onto her hand. It felt thick and gooey when she rubbed it on Molly’s head.

  Finally Mrs. Peters came out with a hair dryer. Tracy blew Molly’s thick, gooey, pink hair dry. It felt to Molly as if her hair was standing up on end in chocolate syrup—but she had to be wrong. No hairdo stood straight up. And this was not chocolate mousse, after all!

  By the time Tracy had finished drying the fluff, her time onstage was over. Mrs. Peters said she was sorry to say they had to move on to the next act, because Tracy’s ten minutes was up.

  The audience seemed to like Tracy’s act. They were applauding loudly. Molly heard Roger whistling through his teeth.

  “It’s darling!” said Tracy to Molly. “You look so cute! You should wear this fluff all the time!”

  When Molly got offstage, she saw herself in a mirror. Her hair was fluff, all right! It stood straight up in the air. Molly appeared to have three times as much hair as she really did have. It looked as if she was caught in a windstorm! When she tried to comb it down, it popped right back up.

  “Hey,” said Roger, “comb your hair. My hat won’t fit on your head that way.”

  “I did comb it,” said Molly, wanting to cry.

  Roger was right. The hat didn’t fit. It sat high on top of the fluff hairdo, not even touching Molly’s head! This whole thing was embarrassing.

  But there was no time to think of her hair. Roger was rushing her into the dummy costume.

  “Now, when I pretend to pull a string in the back of your neck, you move your mouth like you’re talking,” he said.

  Mrs. Peters announced “our very own Pee Wee ventriloquist,” and Roger pulled Molly onto the stage. He plopped her down on his knee. “Now don’t move,” he whispered loudly, and the audience laughed.

  “You’ll never guess what happened to me on the way to school,” said Roger to Molly and to the audience.

  “What?” asked Molly.

  The whole roomful of people laughed and clapped.

  “No, you aren’t supposed to answer, dummy!” said Roger. “You can’t say ‘what.’ I answer without moving my lips! That’s what ventriloquism is!”

  This made the audience laugh even more loudly.

  “It seems silly to me,” said Molly. “I can talk better with my mouth open than you can with yours closed. Now what happened to you on the way to school?”

  By now Molly could see her father bent over laughing, and his face was red.

  Roger was red too. And he had forgotten his lines. He forgot the punch line of his own joke!

  “Well?” said Molly. “We’re waiting to hear what happened. Did you step on a crack and break your mother’s back? Did you meet Little Jack Horner sitting in a corner? What happened?”

  The more Molly talked, the more the audience laughed. And the more they laughed, the more she talked! This was fun! It was fun being funny! And fun stealing the lines from Roger! And best of all, it made Molly almost forget that her hair was still standing straight up in the air.

  “Next time, I’m saving my money and buying a real dummy!” said Roger. “One that isn’t alive!”

  Then Roger pushed Molly off his lap and got up and walked offstage. The audience seemed to think it was all part of the act and kept applauding.

  “What a good show,” shouted a man in the audience. Probably Roger’s father, thought Molly.

  “You two should win a prize for the funniest talent,” said Mary Beth when Molly walked backstage. She stared at Molly’s hair, but she didn’t say anything.

  People were telling Roger how good the act was too.

  “They think he planned it,” said Tracy.

  “I have lots of talent,” Roger was telling them.

  “He h
as no talent,” said Mary Beth in disgust. “If it wasn’t for you, no one would have laughed.”

  The next act was Jody. He played and sang a song he wrote himself.

  Then Tim showed how to make lightbulb ornaments.

  Before Sonny could pull his rabbit out of the hat, it jumped out of a box and ran away. It ran off the stage and through the audience and out the door. Sonny ran after it. By the time he came back, Mrs. Peters had gone on to the next act, which was the hornpipe dancers.

  “I think your poem is last,” said Rachel to Molly. “Right after my ballet dance.”

  It meant Molly did not have much time. She took her comb and combed and combed. She wet her hair again and combed. But the fluff was there to stay. Instead of hearing my poem, the audience will be looking at my hair, thought Molly.

  Lisa did her paper folding, and Rachel danced. Then Mrs. Peters said, “And now for the grand finale, we have Molly Duff, our own Pee Wee author, to read a poem she wrote.”

  There was nothing to do but go on.

  CHAPTER

  6

  Encore! Encore!

  The stage seemed very big to Molly. It’s because I’m all alone this time, she thought. She had managed to get the dummy suit off and get back into her own clothes, but she could not get back into her own hair. The mousse had done its job. She was able to flatten down the top a little, but the rest was still sticking straight up. She would have to live with standing-straight-up hair forever, or have her head shaved.

  “ ‘What Pee Wees Mean to Me,’ ” read Molly. Her voice sounded loud and hollow, as if she were in a deep pit.

  “ ‘Pee Wees are fun at Halloween. And at Christmas and days in between. Pee Wees are fun when we go on a trip. Or play tag or crack-the-whip.’ ”

  “We don’t play crack-the-whip,” Molly heard Rachel whisper.

  “She needed whip for the rhyme,” said Kevin. “That’s poetic license.”

  Good for Kevin, thought Molly. No one says a poem has to be true.

  “ ‘We had fun at Camp Ghost-Away, and fishing with our dads in May.’ ”

  “That was June,” shouted Roger. “It was Father’s Day.”

  Molly ignored Roger and went on. May, June, what was the difference? Molly wished Roger would try to write a poem. It wasn’t easy.

  “ ‘We skate and slide and swim and rake, and when we’re through we eat a cupcake. We help out others every day, and when we’re through we get a badge.’ ”

  The Pee Wees made faces. “That doesn’t rhyme,” shouted Sonny.

  “No word rhymes with badge,” Molly shouted back from the stage. “It’s not my fault.”

  “Madge does,” said Lisa. “I have an aunt named Madge. You could use her in your poem.”

  “But she isn’t a Pee Wee, so how can she be in Molly’s poem?” demanded Ashley.

  Mrs. Peters clapped her hands, and Molly went on.

  “ ‘The Pee Wees’ days are very sunny, except sometimes with Roger and Sonny.’ ”

  “Hey, we’re in Molly’s poem!” shouted Roger. “We’re celebrities!”

  “ ‘It’s no fun when our meeting ends, but the best part of Pee Wees is doing stuff with friends.’ The end.”

  Molly gave a little bow and walked off the stage. She had done it! It was over! It wasn’t the greatest poem in the world, but she’d written it herself. And that took some talent.

  Everyone clapped and whistled.

  “That was great!” said Mary Beth when Molly came backstage. “My favorite line was the one about doing stuff with friends.”

  “Mine too,” said Molly.

  In the audience, people were shouting, “Encore! Encore!”

  “That means they want more,” said Jody.

  “Who would like to do an encore?” asked Mrs. Peters with a worried look on her face. She’s worried, thought Molly, that none of the Pee Wees has an encore.

  “I can play another song,” said Jody.

  “Wonderful!” said their leader. And Jody took his guitar and wheeled himself back onto the stage while everyone clapped and clapped.

  It turned out that most of the Pee Wees wanted to go back onstage!

  “Rat’s knees, I sure don’t!” said Molly.

  The Bakers and Mary Beth did their hornpipe all over again, and Rachel did another dance, a tap dance this time. Tim painted more ornaments, but Roger and Tracy did not volunteer, Molly noticed. Finally the encores were finished, and the Pee Wees all held hands and made a long line across the stage. They bowed several times.

  Then, just before Mrs. Peters herded them offstage, Molly’s dad ran up to the stage with a flower for every Pee Wee.

  “Just like in the real theater in New York,” said Rachel, throwing kisses to the audience.

  “Do we get our badges now?” Sonny asked Mrs. Peters.

  “His magic show was kind of a flop,” whispered Lisa to Molly. “I don’t think he should get a badge!”

  “Not tonight,” said Mrs. Peters to Sonny. “I think we’ve all had enough excitement for one day. We need to get rested up for our big trip to Minnesota Magic. And I have to count our money to be sure we can afford it!”

  The next day they found out that not only did they have plenty of money for the trip, but they also had money left over to put in the bank for future projects, like making baskets of food and gifts for the homeless or for children in the hospital at Christmas.

  “I know one project I want to work on right away,” said Molly to Mary Beth that afternoon.

  “What?” asked her best friend. “Giving our talent show at the senior center?”

  Molly shook her head. “That’s not a bad idea,” she said. “But mine is more important.”

  “Really?” said Mary Beth.

  Molly nodded. “It’s getting this darn mousse out of my hair!” she said. “I don’t want to go to Minnesota Magic with my hair standing straight up!”

  Mary Beth giggled. “I’ll help,” she said.

  The girls got lots of shampoo—and they needed it. Molly leaned over the laundry tub in the basement, and after three shampoos, her hair finally agreed to lie down.

  “Ahhhh,” said Mr. Duff when they came upstairs. “I kind of miss the fluff. It gave you a windblown look.”

  The girls giggled. They knew he was kidding. No one, not even a person’s own father, could like to look at someone with their hair standing straight up!

  CHAPTER

  7

  All Aboard for

  Minnesota Magic!

  The night before the big trip, it was hard for the Pee Wees to sleep. The thought of a roller coaster as high as the sky (even if it really wasn’t) was scary. It gave Molly goose bumps, thinking about it!

  In the morning the Pee Wees all met at Mrs. Peters’s house. Mr. Peters and baby Nick were coming too. And some of the parents were coming to help out. It takes more than two adults to handle all of the Pee Wees, thought Molly. On their last trip, Molly’s parents had been helpers. She was glad they weren’t coming along this time. Things just were not quite as much fun when your mom and dad were watching. Mary Beth’s parents were coming, but she didn’t seem to mind.

  Mr. Peters checked to be sure they had first-aid equipment, emergency tools, and snacks for the drive. Then half the Pee Wees climbed into the Peterses’ van, half into Mr. Kelly’s station wagon, and they were on their way. They drove through their neighborhood, then across the Mississippi River, onto Highway 494, and out of town. Soon they got off the freeway and onto a country road. They went up one hill and down another and around two curves. Suddenly Jody shouted and pointed out the window.

  “There it is, the Mile High roller coaster!”

  Sure enough, Jody was right. Just looking at those tracks in the distance made Molly’s stomach ache. It was definitely a mile high. It looked as if it touched the sky. Or at least a cloud.

  And it was long. The cars on the track rose over the tops of the trees and then swooped down and disappeared behind buildings. Then t
he cars chugged up the track slowly and plunged down again.

  “I’m not going on that thing,” said Tracy. “I’m going on the bumper cars.”

  “Bumper cars are for babies,” scoffed Sonny. “My little brother and sister go on them.”

  “You can go on bumper cars back home at our park,” said Lisa to Tracy. “We have to try something daring and dangerous.”

  Molly felt the way Tracy did. She did not want to go on the dangerous roller coaster.

  “I read that it isn’t really a mile high,” said Jody to Molly as they got out of the van. “And it’s not dangerous. If it were, they wouldn’t let kids go on it.”

  Molly nodded, but she wasn’t convinced. Even if it was perfectly safe, she didn’t want to go near it. At the very least, it would make her stomach ache. At the worst, she would throw up. Or their car would get stuck a mile up in the air. Or she would fall out of the car as it was plunging downward around a curve. What if all those things happened?

  “Let’s sit together on the roller coaster,” said Jody to Molly. “Okay?”

  Just when Molly had made up her mind to avoid the roller coaster, Jody wanted her to sit with him! Now she was tempted to change her mind. How often did a boy you liked ask to sit with you on a scary ride?

  Molly liked Jody. A lot. If Roger or Sonny had asked her, she’d have said no on the spot. But how could she say no to Jody? To ask someone to sit with you is a big deal. You don’t ask someone you don’t like to share one of those little seats.

  Rat’s knees! Why couldn’t Jody have asked her to do something like share a seat on the Ferris wheel? Why did it have to be something so scary?

  Molly heard herself say “Okay” to Jody.

  “Good,” he said.

  Which meant that he was counting on her. If Molly changed her mind, he’d have to sit alone. Molly could not back out. She had said okay. Just like she had when she told Roger she’d be his dummy. She kept her word, even when she was scared stiff. Rat’s knees. Why was she so dependable?

  They pulled into the parking lot, which was already full of cars and buses. Mr. Peters pinned name tags on the Pee Wees, with the car license number and parking space number.