Raising the Stakes (4 page)

“Uh-huh. I’m good at it, and I love performing for an audience—it’s a perfect fit.”

Dad nods, then says, “You want to be a comedy writer then.”

Here we go again.

“Not all improv artists write comedy,” I say. “I don’t particularly want to, but that doesn’t mean I’m not good at improv. The coaches I’ve worked with say I have talent, and I’m a pretty important part of our team.”

“But Chloe,” Mom says slowly, like she’s talking to a four-year-old, “you don’t like telling jokes. You never tell any.”

“And you’re not funny,” Ned says through a mouthful of dessert.

“It’s not all about being funny! Why does everybody think that?”

Dad waggles his spoon at me. “Those improv shows you watch are funny,” he says.

“Yeah, but there are other things improv artists do. Did you know that lots of business people take improv classes to help them with public speaking, like in meetings at work?”

“Really?” says Dad.

“Uh-huh. I found out about that online. I could be one of those trainers as well as a performer. I figure when our team goes to nationals, I might be seen by some improv scouts. And competing there will look great on my résumé, especially if
we do well. Then I can take a few extra courses after high school and I’ll be set.”

“A few extra courses,” Dad repeats.

“Right. Improv courses.”

“And that’s all the training you’ll need to get a job?” he asks.

I stir my peach froth. “I think so. I haven’t found out all the details yet. I kind of got distracted watching some of the improv videos. They’re really good!”

Mom stares down into her dessert and says nothing. Dad’s jaws are chomping away as if he’s got shoe leather in his mouth instead of froth.

Ned looks from one to the other, a huge grin spreading across his face. “Oh boy, Chloe,” he says.

Grammy Ann holds her bowl out to Mom. “Could I have another tiny scoop, Louise? It’s lovely and light. What all is in it, dear?”

Mom gives Grammy Ann a tight-lipped smile and plops some more into her bowl, ignoring the question.

Dad puts his spoon into his mouth, then realizes it’s empty. “Have you thought this through, Chloe?” he says, scooping another spoonful. “I’m not sure many people are successful at it.”

Mom is nodding like crazy.

Clearly, they’re going to need convincing. “Yeah, but I work hard,” I begin. “And you’re always telling me not to set my goals low, that I can accomplish whatever I set my mind to. Lots of times success is all about how good your training is. I’ve found a great improv school in New York City, or there’s another one in Australia that seems well respected—”

“Australia!” Dad cries, bits of froth flying from his lips. “Like, the-other-side-of-the-world Australia?” Between his horrified expression and the speckles of pink fluff quivering in his beard, he looks like Sasquatch at a country fair.

“Yes, that Australia,” I say. Then I realize what this is about. I carefully place my spoon beside my bowl. “You don’t think I can do it.”

Ned tries to swallow a laugh. “Oh, sure you can, Chloe,” he says. He can barely get the words out between giggles.

“Ned,” Dad barks, pointing to the door.

“But I’m not—”

“Now!”

Ned goes out, grumbling.

“You really don’t believe I can.” Some part of me wants them to admit it.

Mom is shaking her head. “We didn’t say that.”

“We want you to be realistic,” says Dad. “Taking a few courses doesn’t sound like a very solid education.”

Mom jumps in again. “Plus,” she says, “living in New York is
very
expensive, and Australia is so far away. Not to mention that if these programs are the only ones, I imagine they’re quite difficult to get into.”

“And you don’t think I’m good enough.”

Dad mumbles something, but all I can hear is a little voice in my head whispering,
Maybe they’re right
.

No! I snatch my napkin from my lap and plop it onto the table. “So all that stuff you’ve always told me, about how you believe in me, I guess that was a lie.” I stand up. “Thanks for your support!”

They don’t deny it or try to stop me as I rush out of the room and up the stairs.

I fling myself onto my bed, a few angry tears itching on my cheeks. That little voice inside is still
nagging at me.
Maybe they’re right…Maybe they’re right…
I consider calling Faith and pouring out my woes to her. But that would mean telling her about my career plan, and somehow I don’t feel ready for that. Instead I just lie there, feeling alone.

After a little while, though, a thought hits me: What do my parents know about improv anyway? Not much, really. I sit up straight and dig through my backpack for the improv book. As I pull it out, a blue cartoon ad for a weekly drop-in improv session comes with it. I turn the paper over. It’s the brochure from Ms. Quinn.

Tossing it on my desk, I flip open the book. I’ll review everything about the four events our team is doing. There must be ideas in here I’ve missed or forgotten, suggestions we can use to make our scenes stronger. There are still three weeks left before zones, the first level of competition.

I look up at my bulletin board. Sandra Oh’s brown eyes gaze back at me.

We’ll see who’s not good enough.

Six

I
t’s Wednesday again, and I’m at practice, knee-deep in a Story scene. For the past few days, ever since my parents’ heartwarming display of support, I’ve thought a lot about how to be the best possible improviser I can be. The answer has to be in that improv book, so I’ve been practically glued to it, most recently rereading all the parts that talk about Story.

Every Story event has to have a narrator who guides the story. For our team, that’s me, and the book’s been reminding me of ways to give my teammates solid offers and ideas they can use to develop the story. Today I’m getting my chance to try them all out.

The whole idea of improv is that there’s no script. Every scene is brand new because you
have to think up stuff as you go. For most events, teams ask for a suggestion from the audience. Our Story event is always about an unlikely hero—usually played by Asha—who saves the day. That much we’ve planned, but we ask the audience to suggest an unlikely hero, and their suggestions make our Story scene different each time.

We know that sometimes an audience member will suggest a hero who suits another team member better than it suits Asha. Mr. J. has given us “Super Geek.” Ziggy is clearly the best team member to play that, and Asha’s not here today anyway.

“Thirty seconds,” calls Mr. J.

For three and a half minutes, Ziggy has been tearing around the stage, with Faith as his trusty sidekick, using his geeky know-how to save various characters from their crashed computers and slow Internet connections. Super Geek also has to save them from our accidental villain, Ignorant Man, played by Vern. For each problem, Nigel’s turned himself into whatever the scene needs—first a mainframe computer, then a software virus and now a satellite dish.

“From two rooftops away,” I say in a serious scientist sort of voice, “Super Geek watches helplessly as Ignorant Man turns the carefully tuned satellite dish away from the building upon which its focused beam has been directed. Meanwhile, inside the building—”

“Oh no!” Faith cries, jumping in. “Without a signal, the family that lives there won’t be able to watch the
Jeopardy!
finals!”

Ugh. Those stakes hardly pass the “so what?” test.

“Wait!” cries Ziggy. “Rip up that piece of sheet metal. I’ll use it to deflect the signal back where it belongs.”

Faith throws her hands up in despair. “You’ll never get the angle right in time,” she wails.

I step toward the imaginary audience. “Can Super Geek triumph and save the day yet again?” I say, all melodramatic. “Or is the innocent, law-abiding Thompson family doomed to spend the rest of their lives without
Jeopardy!
?”

“Never fear,” cries Ziggy. “I have”—with a flourish, he pretends to pull something from his pocket—“a protractor!”

It’s an obvious final moment.

“Aaaaaaannnnd scene!” we yell together.

Not a bad scene. Probably not good enough to get us to nationals though. I wish I could watch a recording of it to see, but Mr. Jeffries nixed the idea of filming anything other than competitions. Still, I know a few things we should fix.

Mr. J. seems pleased with it. “Very nice! Nice work, all of you! Chloe, I think you’ve been practicing your narration.”

“You were like this whole other science-fiction narrator person!” Faith says.

“It totally flowed,” says Nigel. “Logical and everything!”

I grin. “I
have
been doing some extra reading.”

“Attagirl!” Ziggy gives me a high five.

I turn to him. “And your ending was inspired! A protractor—nice!”

He grins.

He didn’t do a perfect job, but he definitely had moments of darn good. I hesitate, then decide to say what I’m thinking. “I’m really glad you went to the math-angles thing at the end,” I say. “I kept trying to steer you guys away from computers.”

They look at me.

Ziggy’s grin fades. “You did? Why?”

“To fit in some more variety. Being a geek doesn’t have to be all laptops and networks. He could be good at science and math. And he could really be into remote sensors and futuristic stuff. I tried to point you guys to some of those possibilities. But every time, we’d end up back at good ol’ monitors and cables.”

“Yeah,” says Ziggy, “but I was trying to make him a computer geek.” He looks at the others. “That’s valid, right?”

Since they’re all nodding, I decide I’d better drop it. I can’t be too hard on him. After all, he hasn’t had many chances to play the hero—that’s Asha’s job.

But she’s not here. Again. And Mark’s missing too.

“The only thing I want to mention,” says Mr. J., “is the stakes.”

“Right,” I say, nodding. “The improv book says the problem should be super important to make sure the audience cares.” I turn to Faith. “Watching
Jeopardy!
? Not exactly a matter of life and death.”

Faith looks from me to Mr. J.

“
I
was going to say,” I go on, “that the building was a hospital and the brain surgeon inside was operating with instructions he was getting by satellite, but you jumped in with
Jeopardy!
, so…”

Her cheeks pink up a little, and I feel a flutter of guilt. Should I maybe have talked to her about this privately?

“Well,” she says, “I didn’t—I mean,
TV
was the first thought that came to me.”

Mr. J. nods. “That’s what improv should be. And, hopefully, the more we practice, the stronger those first thoughts will get.”

At least he’s sort of agreed with me.
And
he’s brought up practice.

“Yeah, more practice would be great,” I say, grabbing the opening. “Zones are less than three weeks away, and it’ll be tough to compete when we’re only here on Wednesdays. And we’re not even all here. A few of last year’s teams said they train three or four times every week, sometimes more.”

“But Chloe,” says Mr. J., “we’re not those other teams. We’re
this
team. All of us are busy, and practicing on Wednesdays is what seems to work
best for everybody’s schedules. Usually, anyway. We agreed it would have to do for now, and we’ll add more if we make it through zones to regionals.”

I love Mr. Jeffries, but just when I think he sees what this team needs, he stands right smack in the way of us getting it. No extra practices. Ugh. That means we’re going to have to make the couple we have left really count.

“So,” he says, “another Story event?”

The others agree, but I can’t. There’s too much at stake. “Isn’t that kind of a waste of our time without Asha here?” I ask. “Since she’s usually the hero?”

Mr. J. looks at me funny—what is with him lately?—and nods.

“All right, Life then. Everybody into the huddle while I think of an object in a teenager’s life.” That’s what we ask the audience to suggest for this event.

Like I said, in our team’s Life event, Vern and I are always the two main characters—friends, or maybe a parent and child, whatever—who need to resolve some sort of problem. The rest of the team still tosses in ideas for the scene, though, and we all get ready to do that now.

“Your object is…” says Mr. J., thinking, “…a broken vase.”

We drop into our huddle.

“You could be brother and sister,” Hanna suggests.

“Chloe knocks over a vase,” says Nigel, “that was their great-grandmother’s.”

“And Chloe’s worried,” Faith adds, “’cause she knows she’ll get in big trouble for it.”

“Right,” says Ziggy, “but she can’t afford to be grounded because she’s going on a date.”

I jump in. “My first date ever, let’s say. And with a cute guy I really like, which is why I decide to pin the blame on Vern.”

A Life event is supposed to present a serious situation in a realistic way, so my idea brings murmurs of approval from the team.

“And I don’t want to take the blame,” says Vern, “because I hate being grounded.”

Hmm. Stronger stakes would be better. “What if,” I say, “there’s also a big hockey tournament you don’t want miss?”

He hesitates, then shrugs. “I guess, if you want.”

Geez, why is everybody so touchy?

“Your idea’s part of it for sure,” I say, switching to gentle mode. “I’m only suggesting the tournament so it matters even more to your character. Okay?”

Vern looks at me for a second, then nods. “Sure, whatever. And I think I should be older than you.”

The others make more suggestions, and we launch into our scene.

“Chloe,” says Vern, “
you’re
the one who broke Mom’s vase. I saw you knock it over with my own eyes!”

“That’s strange,” I say innocently. “I’d swear I saw you send it flying with your humongous hockey bag.”

“You know that’s a lie,” he says. “And Mom and Dad’ll know it too. You’re the clumsy one, not me.”

“Yeah,” I reply, “but they caught you lying to them just the other day about those cigarettes in the laundry. They won’t trust you.”