Everyone's a Critic (10 page)

“I know. How about tomorrow after school?” I asked.

“Sure. Can it be a little later, like four thirty? I have practice. Want to meet me back at my house?”

“Only if you make your amazing cinnamon buns,” I said.

“Sure, just for you, Snacky,” he said. I laughed. Maybe the nicknames were okay. He didn't call anyone else these things, ridiculous as they were.

When I got there the next day, right at four thirty, Michael's mom let me in. The house smelled so good. How did he even have time to bake cinnamon buns after practice? I was touched that he had gone the extra mile for me.

I went into the kitchen. Michael had oven mitts on, looking as cute as can be as he took a couple of buns out of the toaster oven.

“I keep a few in the freezer, in case I ever have a Snacky emergency such as this one,” he said.

Did he really keep cinnamon buns in the freezer for me? I knew I was blushing. “They smell terrific, as usual,” I said. “In fact, I wish I could just bottle the smell and spray it on as perfume whenever I get into that cinnamon-bun-craving mood.”

He laughed, got two plates, and put a bun on each. Then he poured two glasses of milk
and brought them to the table. No matter what happened with Michael, he was a good friend.

After we'd scarfed down our snacks, we started outlining the article.

“Okay, so I wrote this checklist about all the areas we want to cover,” I said, showing Michael my list and the notes I had taken during the two shows.

“Of course you did, Listy,” he said.

“Ha-ha.”

“But wait,” he said, looking more closely at my notes. “I wrote that the scenery fell down in act two on Saturday night.”

I took my notebook back and read over what I'd written. “But it says that the scenery fell during the first big dance number. So that had to be during act one.”

Michael checked over his notes. “It definitely fell during the song ‘America' in the matinee.”

“That was act one,” I said, flipping the pages back and forth in my notebook. I was suddenly worried that I hadn't taken careful enough notes. And what if Michael hadn't either?

“Do you think it matters?” Michael said, sitting back in his chair.

“Do I think what matters?” I asked.

“Which act this stuff happened in?”

“This is how I see it,” I said, trying to muster up some confidence while wiping a bit of icing off my chin. “We're going to have to be critical, no way around it. There were a lot of mistakes. Too many, in my opinion, for a drama club that has won so many awards and has such a strong reputation. Trust me, it would be easier if we could just say everything's great. But if we are going to pick it apart . . .”

“. . . then we'd better be accurate,” Michael said, reading my mind.

“Exactly,” I said, and smiled. “I might need another cinnamon bun to get through this.”

“Coming right up,” he said, and went to the freezer.

That night I looked over what we had. We still couldn't agree on when certain mistakes happened, based on our notes. I wasn't sure how we were going to figure it out before Friday.
I couldn't ask Allie. She'd freak out knowing I was actually going to write about these things. I lay down on my bed and stared at the ceiling, exhausted. I guess writing a play review isn't so simple after all.

The next day we met right after school in the
Voice
office. We started drafting the beginning so we'd have at least something down.

“How are we going to fact-check this stuff?” I said, running my hands through my hair. I was starting to get stressed out. It was already Tuesday and we weren't much closer to a finished piece than we were yesterday.

Michael leaned back in his chair and chewed on the end of his pencil. It's something he likes to do when he's thinking. I noticed that all his pencils had little bite marks around the erasers. He suddenly leaned forward and pointed his pencil at me.

“Of course! The school always records DVDs of the shows and keeps them in the library. We
can fact-check that way,” he said.

“Right!” I said, equally excited, but then thought about our time constraints and slumped in my chair. “That's going to take a long time, going through all that footage for each performance,” I said. “How are we going to get it done in time?”

“I think we need to get busy. What are you doing tonight?” he asked me.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Great, it's a date!” he added.

I looked up from my notebook, surprised.

“I—I mean, you know, as an expression,” he backpedaled, and then started nibbling on his pencil again.

“Yeah, of course,” I said hurriedly. “I knew you meant it that way.” But I wondered if he
knew
he meant it that way.

“But you know, maybe some other time, we . . .” And then he stopped.

“We what?” I asked, my heart suddenly racing.

Then the door swung open and there was Mr. Trigg. He put down a stack of books he was carrying and plugged in his electric teapot. Aarrgh!
Advisor of School Newspaper Ruins Great Romance!

“Cheers, fellow journos! How's my modern Woodward-and-Bernstein team doing?” he said while getting his tea things together. In a moment he would offer us some tea, and then we'd be stuck here with Mr. Trigg in the middle for at least another ten minutes.

Michael and I quickly glanced at each other. I stood up and started clearing my stuff quickly. Michael started to do the same.

“We're great, but I just forgot something that I have to do,” I said, and went to the door. My head was about to burst.

“Yeah, me too. We have to get to the library before it closes,” Michael said quickly.

“Right! That's absolutely right!” I said loudly. Both Michael and Mr. Trigg looked at me, seeming alarmed.

“You okay?” Michael asked.

I nodded. “So I guess we'd better go,” I tried to say more calmly.

“Um, yeah. See ya later, Mr. Trigg,” Michael said.

Mr. Trigg gave us a salute and we both hurried out the door. We rushed down the hall. “I'm glad you remembered that. What time is it? The library closes at four.”

“It's exactly four!” he cried.

The library was on the other side of the school. We made a left and ran down another hallway. When we got to the end, we saw that the janitor had blocked off the next hallway for cleaning.

“Follow me!” Michael called out, turning around and going back to where we'd come from and down another hallway. Now we had to go the long way around. I followed as fast as I could, but the floor was slippery and I certainly didn't want to have a wipeout now. We arrived at the library, breathless, just as Mrs. Osborne, the librarian, was coming out.

“Wait!” Michael called to her.

“Please! We have a library emergency!” I said, catching up.

She glanced over her shoulder slowly as she was turning the key in the lock of the library door.
She seemed tired. Her bag looked heavy on her shoulder, and her glasses were slipping down her nose. I hadn't really thought about it before, but maybe it was hard to be a librarian, with kids asking you questions all day long.

“Tomorrow's another day, folks,” she said, going back to her lock and key.

We both stood in front of her and started to explain our problem, right at the same time, loudly.

“Whoa, whoa! Slow down. You need the DVD for
West Side Story
?”

“The school production,” Michael and I both said at the same time.

“So we can fact-check for our review,” I said.

“That's due this Friday,” Michael said. Now we were filling in each other's sentences.

Mrs. Osborne grumbled something I couldn't hear, and then she got her keys out of her pocket.

“You have two minutes to find it,” she said, and opened the door.

We yelled out thank-yous and fled to the dark DVD section, since the lights were all off. We ran our eyes over the cases, which were arranged
alphabetically. Luckily, it wasn't a huge section. If someone had the DVD out already, or if they hadn't put it in the library yet, we were toast.

“Here!” Michael said, holding up a red case. On the front was a picture of the cast. I saw Allie's smiling face near the middle of the lineup. We ran back to the counter, and Mrs. Osborne checked it out quickly. We all walked out together.

“We appreciate it, Mrs. Osborne,” I said in my sweetest tone.

“Well, write a good review,” she said. She hauled her bag over her shoulder and went down the hall.

“Man, that was lucky,” Michael said when we got outside.

“Yeah. So what time tonight?”

“Maybe seven?” I said.

“Great, see you later,” he said, and we walked off in our different directions.

Chapter 11

Back home that afternoon, I realized we never actually said whose house we were going to. I figured that since Michael had asked, it would probably be his, but I didn't want to just show up at his house without making sure. I didn't know if I should call him or wait for him to call me.
Boy Asks Girl to Watch Movie at Unknown Location.
What I really wanted to know was what he had planned to say to me before Mr. Trigg burst in and ruined it all. I knocked on Allie's door. She had calmed down since sleeping practically all day Sunday. When Allie was in a decent mood, she gave me good boy advice. She was almost normal last night at dinner. She didn't even get
mad or sing or try to text her friends.

“Yeah?” she called.

“It's me. Boy trouble,” I said, knowing that would get her going.

I could hear the springs in her bed creak as she bounded up to answer the door.

“Trouble in paradise?” she said, grinning.

We both flopped down on her bed, me lying on my stomach at the foot, my face held up by my hands, Allie propping herself up with pillows at the head.

“Not much of a paradise, and if you make fun of me, I'm not going to tell you anything,” I said, raising my head and glaring at her.

“Okay, okay. It's just so tempting. But seriously, what's going on?”

I told her about Michael asking me to meet him tonight, but not exactly asking me over.

“I mean, do I show up at his house at seven? What if that's presumptuous? Should I call?”

Allie chewed on her thumbnail as she thought for a moment, then shook her head. “No, he asked you. That means it's at his house. You're
overthinking things, as usual,” she said. “Now, I've got a ton of homework—I'm still catching up on everything I didn't do last week because of the play. So skedaddle.” She waved at me.

“Well, nice spending this quality time with you,” I said, getting up and walking toward the door.

“Anytime,” Allie called as I closed her door.

I went into my room, sat on my desk chair, and took a few spins. That always calmed me. I checked out some of my favorite news blogs and looked at the clock. It was only five thirty. I tried to do my math homework, but could hardly concentrate and kept staring at the clock. Even though Allie's talk was short and sweet, I think she was right. I wanted another opinion, so I thought of e-mailing Hailey, but I kind of wanted to leave her alone for a while with all my Michael stuff. I can understand that when your love life hasn't been that interesting, you might not want to hear about someone else's. Then, like a beacon in the night, an IM blinked on the screen.

Can we watch at ur house? Parents r having friends over for dnr.

No problemo!
I zinged back a half a second later.

Thank goodness. Problem solved!

I asked my mom if Michael could come over, knowing she would be fine with it, and rushed through our dinner. Mom said there was ice cream for dessert, or we could make popcorn.

When Michael knocked on the door, Allie came flying out of nowhere and was opening it before I'd even gotten up from my seat.