Showstopper (5 page)

Susan's response was a big sneeze. I took that to mean
she agreed with me.

“I'll go upstairs and get the broom and some rags. You can start moving those bins and boxes.” I took the set list and the wardrobe suggestions out of the Drama-o-Rama box and handed them to my sister. “Go through these first to see if there's anything we can use for props and costumes.”

Then I ran up to the kitchen and gathered the cleaning supplies. I was glad my mom was too busy packing to notice; she'd definitely get suspicious if Susan and I suddenly took it upon ourselves to clean the basement without being asked.

With a roll of paper towels tucked under my arm and a broom and dustpan in my hand, I clambered back down the stairs.

“Look!” said Susan, holding up a plastic pitchfork left over from the time Dad had dressed as a devil for Halloween. “All we have to do is spray-paint it. A little metallic gold, and Poseidon's got his trident.”

“Excellent,” I said. “Put it aside and we'll give it to Maxie on Saturday.”

I dropped the cleaning stuff and helped Susan with the boxes. We found some fuzzy old bathroom throw rugs in various colors, which Susan thought Maxie might be able to turn into a Cyclops costume. Since the costume list called for a fair amount of togas, I was excited to find a whole pile of
mismatched sheets.

“Wasn't there a pair of silver sandals mixed in with all the stuff Mrs. Quandt donated?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Susan. “But I don't think Odysseus is exactly the sling-back type. I mean, Penelope, maybe, but only with her best Lilly Pulitzer toga.”

“Stretch your imagination.”

“I just imagined morphing some old bath mats into a mythological beast! How can I stretch my imagination any further than that?”

We had a big laugh when we found Dad's high-school yearbook (a mullet? Seriously, Dad?), and an even bigger one when we discovered Mom's prom dress.

“Taffeta?” quipped Susan. “More like ‘laff-at-ya.' ”

Where does she come up with this stuff?
I thought.

“Let's hold off on the costume search for the moment,” I suggested, grabbing the broom. “Maxie can hunt through these boxes over the weekend.”

By the end of the day we'd managed to clear out a good-size space and eradicate most of the spiderwebs and dust bunnies. We'd also located an old portable CD player. Susan plugged it in while I removed the sound effects CD from its case.

“ ‘Track one,' ” I read from the liner notes. “ ‘Wind.' ”

Susan hit play, and the basement filled with the whooshing sound of 150-mile-per-hour gusts.

“Whoa,” said Susan. “These Drama-o-Rama guys don't mess around, do they?”

Track two was “Rain.” It began with a gentle pitter-patter sound but quickly upgraded to monsoon.

“I'm beginning to feel sorry for Odysseus,” I said. “Vicious monsters and catastrophic weather conditions. Not exactly my idea of a fun trip.”

Next we listened to “Groaning,” which was followed by “Moaning,” which was followed by “Howling,” which was followed by “Goats.”

“Goats?” said Susan.

“That's how Odysseus escapes from the Cyclops's cave,” I explained. “By clinging to the underside of a goat.”

“Clever,” said Susan. Her face lit up. “Can we cast Sophia as the goat?”

When I frowned at her, she gave me an innocent look.

“Okay, so it was a b-
aaaaaah
-d idea.”

I tried not to crack up. “Let's listen to the sound track.”

I popped out the sound effects CD just as the “Battle Noises” track was about to start, and inserted the performance CD. Most of the songs had a strong Greek motif, featuring that plinky string sound I remembered from listening to my
dad's original cast recording of
Zorba the Greek
. But there were other genres represented as well. When the goddess Athena, for example, appears to Penelope in a dream, she sings a disco number called “You Will Survive.” And Penelope's rugged, toga-clad suitors perform a big Broadway-style dance number entitled “Everyone Goes!” And Telemachus, son to Penelope and Odysseus, sings a soulful country-western ballad called “My Young Greek Heart's in Ruins.”

“Check out this one,” said Susan, handing me a lyric sheet. “It's the Sirens' song.”

I took the page and scanned the words to the song as Susan skipped to the next track on the CD. This selection was in the style of a 1960s Motown girl group, and the lyrics were hilarious:

I could already picture Madeline, Elle, and Jane singing this song, wearing sixties dresses and sporting matching bouffant hairdos, sky-blue eye shadow, and shimmering pale-pink lipstick. I described my vision to Susan.

“Perfect!” she cried. “Anya, this show is worth every penny we paid for it.”

I was in total agreement.

CHAPTER

4

On Friday afternoon Nana and Papa arrived. And a few hours later Mom and Dad left for the airport. There were a few teary moments as we said bon voyage. It made me think of how Odysseus must have felt saying his farewells to Penelope and Telemachus as he set off to war. Of course, Mom and Dad were going to Paris, not Troy, and they weren't likely to encounter any mythical beasts or battles along the way. And I was pretty sure old Odysseus didn't have a set of matching luggage, like Mom did.

Still, she hugged Susan and me tighter than we'd ever been hugged before, and gave us all a final recap of the house rules, including a few I was sure would be obvious to a seasoned grandmother like Nana Adele: no chocolate chip cookies for breakfast, no staying up past midnight, no going outdoors without sufficient amounts of sunscreen. No purposely
ingesting poison, no jumping off the roof with umbrellas, no running off to join the circus.

Okay, so maybe she didn't mention the last three, but that was kind of how it felt.

“Mom,” Susan said with a huff, “we're going to be fine.”

“I know, I know.” Mom sniffled and hugged us again. “But remember . . . no cutting your own hair. And no tattoos.”

We all laughed because we knew that last one was just a joke.

Luckily, Mom didn't say anything along the lines of “no play rehearsals at the house.” I was still operating on the right side of the law—technically, at least.

When Mom and Dad were finally out the door, Susan and I enjoyed a terrific Caesar salad, courtesy of Nana, and Papa shared his butterscotch candies with us.

“This might turn out to be one of the best weeks of our lives,” Susan observed, popping a third candy into her mouth.

“Let's hope so,” I said.

I was so excited to get started on
The Odd-yssey
, I barely slept at all. Knowing what I knew now about producing and directing and handling diva-size egos and guiding reluctant
performers, I was sure this show would be as big a hit as our first one had been, if not bigger.

I just wished we had a home.

Because the clubhouse theater really had become exactly that: our home.

Odysseus would understand
, I thought, rolling over in bed to see 6:45 a.m. displayed on my alarm clock. After all, that was what
The Odyssey
was all about—someone finding his way home.

I slipped out of bed, threw on a sweatshirt, and stepped into my sneakers. Then I tiptoed downstairs. Quietly, I opened the door, crept outside, and walked briskly toward the clubhouse. The sky was misty lilac, with a ribbon of deep pink along the treetops. I saw a few neighbors out for an early morning stroll and Mr. Davenport walking the family dog, a cocker spaniel named Patches.

I also saw Mackenzie Fleisch, which shocked me. She was dressed in a pair of running shorts and a baggy T-shirt, jogging along at a pretty good clip. Even her running was graceful. When she saw me, she stopped to catch her breath.

“Anya! I didn't know you were a runner.”

“I'm not,” I said. “I couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd walk over to have a look at the theater.”

Kenzie smiled. “Well, I'm just about ready for my
cooldown. I'll come with you.”

She fell into step beside me. “Do you run every day?” I asked, trying to imagine rolling out of bed on a summer morning to sprint around the neighborhood. Don't get me wrong. . . . I like exercise as much as the next girl, but I prefer to do it after the sun comes up. Especially during summer vacation, when sleeping in is practically mandatory for middle schoolers.

“Not usually,” Kenzie replied. “But my mom was worried I might have put on a pound or two, so she thought I should get ahead of it. You know . . . more exercise, fewer carbohydrates.”

I wasn't sure what to say to this. Mackenzie was as slender and fit as she'd always been as far as I could tell. If she'd gained a pound, I sure couldn't see it.

As we walked on, something occurred to me. “Hey, Kenz, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Well, I know you've been dancing, like, forever, and you plan to become a professional ballerina someday, but . . . do you actually like it?” I shrugged. “I mean, do you love it?”

Mackenzie looked at me as if I'd just asked her if she believed the world was round. Then she laughed. “Nobody's really ever asked me that before,” she admitted. “But yeah, of
course I do.”

I smiled. “I kind of figured,” I said. “I guess I just wanted to be sure.”

Mackenzie shrugged. “I mean, I don't always love the long drives into the city, or how snippy and competitive some of the other dancers can be. And I can really do without the sore muscles and bloody toes. But I'm really good at it. And it's fun to be good at something.”

“Right,” I said.

When we reached the clubhouse theater, I wasn't surprised to see the entire lawn was cordoned off with yellow caution tape. Even at this early hour there was a crew of workers on hand. I could see they'd set up a huge pump and were using it to siphon the water out of our basement. Men in neon-orange reflective vests were examining the storm drains; parts of the asphalt of Random Farms Circle had been torn up to give the engineers access to the broken pipe beneath the street.

It was a pretty gloomy scene.

Mr. Healy, who was talking to a man in a yellow hard hat on the front steps of the clubhouse, caught sight of me and waved. Then he gave me a shrug as though to say he still wasn't sure about the repair timeline.

I supposed a shrug was better than a negative shake of the head. A shrug meant there was still hope. So I waved
back, and Kenzie and I left.

At the corner we went off in separate directions, saying we'd see each other at my house at ten. We both knew we'd rather be seeing each other at the clubhouse, but there was nothing to be done about that.

I had only taken a few steps when I heard Mackenzie call out, “Anya?”

I turned back. “Yes?”

“Do
you
think I've put on weight?”

I gave her what Mr. Healy hadn't given me: a definitive head shake. “No,” I said firmly. “Not even an ounce.”

Even in the pale morning light I could see how grateful she was to hear it.

The fact of the matter was that if anyone was carrying around some extra weight, it was me. Not physically, but emotionally. Thanks to the water-main disaster and the almost-lie I'd told my parents, I was beginning to feel as if the entire weight of the world were on my shoulders.

With a sigh, I headed home to get ready for the day.