Leading Ladies #2 (7 page)

Buster started to do a little impromptu tap dance, but Audriana reached out and whacked him on the arm.

“It isn't funny,” Audriana said. “It's happening again—just like the year we did
Guys and Dolls
. Tal's having a nerve attack.”

“Uh-oh . . . ,” Buster said.

“A what attack? Is she okay?” I asked. “Tally, are you okay?”

She didn't
seem
okay. For starters, she wasn't answering me. When Tally Janeway had nothing to say, chances were good that something was very,
VERY
wrong.

“Audie,” Buster said. “Tell me the
thing
isn't happening again.”

“The thing
is
happening again,” Audriana declared.

“I told you to tell me it wasn't!”

“But it is!”

“But—”

“Will someone please tell me and Paulina what's going on?” Ivy interrupted.

No one said anything for a moment. Ivy and I looked back and forth between the three of them.

“When Tal gets superstressed out, she gets . . . laryngitis,” Buster finally whispered. “Last time it happened was during costume fittings for
Guys and Dolls
.”

“Laryngitis?” I asked.

“It means I can't talk,” Tally said miserably.

Well, she could
talk
. But her voice was unusually husky, the way you'd sound right in the middle of a bad cold.

“You do sound a little scratchy,” Ivy said. “But it's not
that
bad.”

“Not yet,” Audriana said. “But if she doesn't turn it around right now, she's going to be voiceless tomorrow during auditions.”

Tally made a wretched squeaking sound, and her eyes filled with tears.

“Excuse me,” I heard.

Valerie Teale was pushing through our little group to get to the door. Today she was wrapped in a musical-note-decorated muffler. She paused to take in the five of us, tucking a strand of her fine, sand-colored hair behind one ear.

“You all better get in there,” she said. “The workshop starts in ten minutes, and you know how important it is to get a good vocal warm-up, right, Tally? How else will Mr. Barrymore know what we can do?”

Valerie tossed one end of her muffler over her shoulder for emphasis, shot Tally a not-so-nice smile, and pushed open the door with her foot before flouncing through.

“Oh, she's so snaky!” Buster exclaimed when the door had closed. “She must be loving
thissss
!”

Tally made another anguished squeaking sound, and Audriana whacked Buster again.

“You'll just make it worse,” Audriana scolded him in a stage whisper. “Come on—we've got to get in there.”

Audriana pulled the auditorium door open with one hand, steering Tally through with the other.

“Tally, you're going to be fine,” I said. “And tea actually sounds like a great idea!”

Buster followed his friends through the door.

“With honey and lemon,” I called after Tally. But the door was already swinging shut in my face. Whatever Drama was to come would happen in the auditorium, where Ivy and I were not allowed to go.

At this moment, that was somewhat of a relief.

• • • • • • •

When Ivy ran back to her locker to get her bio notebook, I typed a quick, miserable text message to Evelyn.

Moments later the response came.

 

With the auditions off-limits, Ivy and I both decided to go home and get a jump on our homework. My mom was at the dentist with Kevin, and the house was blissfully quiet, which was great because I'd had a headache all afternoon.

I created a list of everything I needed to do, and I divided it into two columns: schoolwork and
4 Girls
. But my mind kept wandering back to what Ivy had told me. I had the same awful feeling in my stomach that I'd gotten last year when Evelyn told me her family was moving. We had been inseparable for years. I didn't think I'd ever find another friend like Evelyn. And then a new girl showed up at school. Ivy Scanlon.

By Christmas, she'll be gone
, I thought. I felt like crying.

I grabbed my phone and hit speed dial number one. Evelyn picked up on the first ring.

“What happened?” she cried, without wasting time saying hello. “How does someone just up and move like that when they just moved into town in the first place?”

“Her mom got some job,” I said, my voice shaky. “Back in the city where they were. I just . . . heading into the first week of school without you was soooo hard, Ev. I was totally miserable. And then I start getting to know Ivy and actually liking her—I mean she's nothing like you—you are totally unique and weird and great and crazy all at the same time, and Ivy's different, but I really like her. And it's just gotten to the point where we're pretty good friends and—”

My voice broke, and I bit my lower lip. I hated to cry. Especially on the phone. At least I could hide it a little.

“I wish I could say something all cheery and full of sunbeams and bunnies,” Evelyn said. “But the reality is, this stinks. It's not fair, you don't deserve it, and I feel really, incredibly bad for you.”

“Thank you,” I said. I never liked it when people instantly took a “look at the bright side” attitude. Evelyn always told it like she saw it, and I loved that.

“Oh no,” Evelyn said as a tiny chime became audible. “My mother is texting me. I'm supposed to be clothes shopping with her right now, and I've been hiding.”

I laughed. Evelyn and her mother did not share a similar fashion sense. Clothes shopping was always an epic drama.

“Go,” I told her. “Listen, text me later or shoot me an e-mail.”

“'Kay,” Evelyn agreed. I heard her start to call “I said I'm coming!” as she switched her phone off.

Well, now I felt a little better. But I had also just wasted valuable homework time. And my head still hurt.

Focus, I commanded myself. Pick
one
thing on the list. Any
thing
. Then do it.

The outline for the social studies paper then.

Or maybe I'd just quickly get my English reading out of the way? Then I could cross a whole item off my list. But I couldn't remember if I'd written the pages down that we had been assigned.

It's okay
, I told myself. Just go to the class page on the school site and look it up. The homework is always posted.

And I did start to do that, but the class website made me think of the
4 Girls
blog, which was getting so many posts these days it was hard to keep up with it. I
loved
reading the blog. I
loved
seeing how we connected with readers and gave girls a place to speak up Every Day.

Just a quick peek
, I thought.
Then on to work.

When I pulled up the page, I gasped. There were six new posts! I thought about coming back to them later, but . . . I opened the first one.

I loved the idea! It wouldn't even take that much time—Ivy or I could easily design it. I forwarded the link to Ivy to make sure she saw it. Then I hit the
RESPOND TO POST
key and typed quickly.

I heard the front door slam and the sound of Kevin talking excitedly. “And they found spider eggs in it, and something that looked like a finger with a bite taken out of it!”

“Kevin, sweetheart, I really don't think that kind of thing happens, even in a fast-food restaurant,” my mother was saying, her voice getting louder as she came toward the kitchen.

“No, Mom, it's a true story!” Kevin exclaimed. He walked into the kitchen backward, waving his hands in the air at my mother as she followed him.

“Says who?” she asked.

“Says the Internet!” Kevin shouted. “Right, Paulie?”

“Right,” I said, standing up and stretching. “I kind of got distracted this afternoon—was I supposed to be helping with dinner tonight, Mom?”

My mother walked over to me and tucked my hair behind my ears. “No, sweetie, I've got that vegetable chili in the fridge for tonight. Are you okay? You feel a little warm, and you look awfully tired.”

I
was
tired, I realized. And my headache definitely seemed worse now.

“I've just been staring at my computer for too long,” I said. “That's all.”

My mother didn't look convinced. “I hope you're not coming down with something,” she said.

“Maybe
I'm
coming down with something,” Kevin suggested excitedly. “Mom, if I get a flesh-eating disease, how much school can I miss?”

“You do not have a flesh-eating disease, Kevin,” my mother said, turning to open the refrigerator door.

“Or bubonic plague or maybe teet-see-fly,” Kevin continued. “I bet you'd have to miss a whole bunch of school for that.”

“I don't think the tsetse fly disease is going around right now,” I said with a grin.

Kevin looked disappointed.

“Well, it might be,” he said. “Maybe we just don't know it yet. Somebody has to go first, right?”

“Somebody has to go make his bed and put his dirty clothes in the hamper since he didn't do it this morning,” my mother countered.

Kevin heaved the enormous sigh he reserved especially for the subject of “Making One's Bed.”

“I just don't see why I have to when I'm only going to get in it again and mess it up,” he said. But he was already halfway to the stairs. Kevin had had this argument with Mom enough times to know he was never going to win.

“You should take a break from that computer,” my mother said to me. “Rest your eyes.”

“I will,” I said, sitting down again. “I just have to finish a few things.”

The little voice in my head, the Always Sensible one, urged me to focus on my English assignment. But
4 Girls
stuff was so much more fun. Plus, I had an idea for the first paragraph of my “Road to
Annie
” article, and I didn't want to forget it. Just a few more minutes wouldn't hurt.

I opened a new document. But before I could get my first sentence down, I got distracted again—this time by an e-mail popping into my in-box.

To:
Paulina M. Barbosa

From:
StarQuality

Subject:
: (

My voice is worse, not better, and the audition is less than twenty-four hours away. I am freaking out!! Valerie Teale's Facebook status says “Look out, Annie—here I come,” which Molly says is something called passin-agressin. Have you ever heard of it? When my eyes cry, no sound comes out of the rest of me! Also don't kill me, but I don't think I can interview Mr. Barrymore like I promised 'cause I can't even talk, and his undercover agent is coming, which might be what gave me the nerve attack in the first place, and my whole life could be ruined if I can't audition, so could somebody else do the question-asking part for me?

 

Never a dull moment. I did feel bad for Tally, but I had to wonder if part of the “nerve attack” was self-induced. I'd never known Tally to be . . . calm.

I fired back a quick e-mail saying we'd figure something out and that she should just focus on resting and trying to get her voice back.

The sound of my own typing seemed strangely loud. My head throbbed and so did my back and my legs. As a matter of fact, my entire body ached. And it was starting to hurt to swallow.

My mother had this strange way of being right about things before I even knew about them. It looked like she'd done it again.

Most of Friday was a blur of trying to get comfortable in my bed, eating a little of the hot soup my mother brought me, being too hot and too cold at the same time, and wondering if I was asleep when I was really awake. Finally when I dozed, I had bizarre dreams—like one where I took this huge bite of pie right as Benny Novak asked me a question, and I couldn't say anything back to him because my mouth was full.

On Saturday, I slept—as they say—like the dead. I didn't even wake up until lunchtime. When I opened my eyes, I saw Kevin looming over me.

“Mom says you have a nasty virus,” Kevin said, peering down at me like an alien about to experiment on a new human subject. “Can I have some?”

I groaned and pulled the covers over my head.

“Go away,” I croaked.

A shaft of sunlight reached my face when Kevin lifted the blanket.

“Take this stick of gum and chew on it a little,” he whispered. “Then give it back to me when it's got some good germs stuck in, and I'll chew it.”

“Please leave me alone,” I groaned.

“Just breathe on me then,” Kevin persisted, pushing his face so close to mine he was a blur of freckles and Cap'n Crunch breath.

“Kevin Barbosa, are you in your sister's room?” I heard my mother call.

Kevin bolted from my room.

“No!” he called from the hallway, with the self-righteous outrage of the wrongly accused.

I closed my eyes and tried to go back to sleep, but the damage was done. I was awake.

I lay there like a lobster in a tank, making a little movement every once in a while to make sure I was still alive. Eventually I found the strength to grab the remote from my bedside table, and I switched on the little TV by my bookshelf. I found a station showing a classic movie marathon, and I stared at it while I zoned out. At one point I actually dozed off again.

When I had watched too many movies and consumed enough soup and Flu-Away to satisfy my mother, I switched off the TV, opened my laptop for the first time in two days, and waited for it to start up.

Now that the house was quiet I didn't like it. I didn't like that Miko had left us or that I had to help Tally with her share of the magazine work or that Ivy was leaving me. I hated that. I got a lump in my throat, which hurt a lot because my throat was already sore. I couldn't help but feel sorry for myself. Two days and had one person even thought to call or come see me?

I suddenly remembered my cell phone. The battery was dead. I found the charger and plugged it in next to my lamp.

Finally, my computer booted up, and I logged into my e-mail account. “Hey, I've got e-mail,” I murmured. “And Facebook messages.”

Two e-mails and a Facebook message were from Evelyn, sending more pictures and a video labeled “Tour of my house and life.” My phone buzzed as it came back to life. I had a text, too.

I owed Evelyn a long e-mail. And a phone call. Maybe even a visit . . . because I definitely did not feel okay.

I turned back to the computer. Four e-mails were from Ivy, ranging from “Are you okay?” to “OMG I just called and your mother told me you have the flu” to “Call me when you're back in the land of the living.” A one-line e-mail from Tally said she had not been able to audition. Another e-mail alerted me to a new post on the
4 Girls
blog.

I wanted to answer before I passed out again.

Just typing the post was exhausting, like I'd jogged up ten flights of stairs. I lay back on my pillow and relaxed, watching some more of my favorite old movies. By late that night, I was starting to feel a little more like my old self.

I spent what was left of my weekend working on finishing the homework I'd abandoned on Thursday. When I was done, I scrolled through the auditorium pictures Ivy had sent. I loved them and thought there were two or three that would make a great cover image.

“Paulie, you really shouldn't be on your computer anymore,” my mother said Sunday night.

I looked up to see her standing in my doorway, holding a tray laden with juice, crackers, something in a bowl, and a teapot with steam wafting from it.

“It was only a little,” I said, looking at the tray with interest. This was my favorite part about being sick—the point where I finally started to feel better, but my mom was still fussing over me and bringing me interesting things to eat. She made me feel like royalty.

“Your teachers aren't going to expect your homework to be done when you've been down with such a nasty bug,” my mother told me, placing the tray on the table next to my bed.

Ooh, vanilla ice cream!

“I brought you a little of everything,” she said as I pounced on the ice cream. “But take it slowly. And I know your inner clock is probably all confused from sleeping during the day, but it's getting late. Focusing on a computer screen at this hour—”

“Will give me disturbing dreams, I know,” I said. I closed my laptop with one hand and ate a spoonful of ice cream with the other. “Thanks, Mom.”

As usual, she was right. Because when I finally fell asleep that night, I dreamed that it was opening night of
Annie
, and when the lights came up, it was
ME
onstage. I didn't know any of my lines, and instead of having on the
Annie
costume, I was dressed as a giant ham, and Mr. Barrymore was hovering backstage yelling “Something isn't right!” over and over again as the audience laughed their heads off.

And Benny Novak sat in the front row eating vanilla ice cream.