Raising the Stakes (5 page)

Vern shakes his head. “I don’t believe this. My own sister. I thought you were supposed to
have
my back, not
stab
me in it!”

Some players find it tough to play the serious side of Life, but not Vern and me.

“Oh yeah,” I reply. “As if you ever have my back. Your friends make fun of me at school, and what do you do? Nothing!”

“Hey, it’s not my fault you’re a klutz. Only you could knock over a whole stack of cafeteria trays.”

We go on, working to strike a balance between entertaining and realistic—and trying to keep the emotion real without pushing it too far and getting all melodramatic. It takes skill, and Vern and I seem to be able to make it work every time. That’s why I think Life is probably my best chance to impress any improv scouts there may be at nationals.

The scene’s not bad. Vern only accepts about half of the offers I throw out for him. I try to blackmail him with some secret that I know, and we each work to strike the best bargain about who’ll take the blame and how we’ll tell our folks. At the end, we reach a compromise. There’s plenty in there that real kids deal with every day, which is exactly what a Life event is supposed to show.

After, when Mr. J. is giving us his feedback, Vern says, “I think it would’ve worked fine without
the hockey tournament.” He looks at Mr. J. “Not wanting to get grounded is enough, right?”

Mr. J. turns to us. “What do the rest of you think?”

He does that a lot—makes us decide. Sometimes it drives me crazy.

“I got grounded once last year and I hated it,” says Vern.

I nod. “I agree—nobody likes being grounded,” I say. “But the improv book says you raise the stakes when you add a specific personal reason why your character wants or doesn’t want something to happen. ‘I don’t like it’ is not very specific.” I know I’m right on this one.

Silence, and the whole team is looking at me. It occurs to me that I may have gotten a wee bit carried away.

“Geez,” says Vern. “What’s up with you?

“I’m…just trying to make the scene stronger,” I mutter.

Nigel looks from Vern to me and reaches for his backpack. “I’ve gotta go. My sisters are home by themselves.”

Mr. J. stands up. “That’s probably enough practice for today anyway. Next Wednesday, people?”

I want to ask if everybody will actually be here next Wednesday, but before I can open my mouth, they’re already out the door.

Seven

I
t’s Friday, a couple of days after practice and half a school day before the weekend. I ditch my morning-class binders and reach into my locker for my lunch bag.

“Wait up,” says Faith, arriving at her locker. “I’ll only be a second. You’re fast today.”

I nod. “Vern hasn’t said much to me since the whole grounding thing the other day. He’s always the first one to the cafeteria, so I figured I’d get there before the rest of the team and try to smooth things over.”

Faith shuts her locker and leans on it, looking at me. “Apologizing is always a good idea,” she says.

I raise my eyebrows. “You think I need to apologize to him?”

“You did kind of stomp all over his suggestion,” says Faith.

“It was hardly
stomping
,” I say as we start down the hall. “Besides, nobody’s ideas are perfect on their own. That’s why we’re a team. Asha changes our suggestions all the time to make them better, or sometimes she rejects them completely. You don’t see me getting all huffy when she doesn’t like my ideas.”

Faith shrugs. “Maybe he takes that kind of feedback better from Asha than from you. He
is
in grade eleven, after all.”

“Yeah, but he’s only been on the team since last year, the same as us,” I say. “I’ll just start a cheerful conversation, to get him out of his mood and remind him that we’re friends.”

Vern and Nigel are the only ones at our usual table when Faith and I join them. Within minutes the four of us are chatting, and Vern seems back to his normal self.

Suddenly Faith sits up straight. “What the heck?” she says, looking over my shoulder.

I turn to see Ziggy standing like a mannequin in a clothing store on one side of the hallway leading into the cafeteria. His body is bent over
slightly, his face is scrunched up, mouth open wide, and his hands are gripping some imaginary object near his chin.

“Ooh!” Faith cries. “He’s starting a tableau! We should join him…but what’s he doing?”

We’ve created tableaus as a team before—where one of us strikes a pose that suggests a scene, like people in a restaurant or something, and as soon as the rest of us recognize what it is, we join in, holding poses that make sense in that scene—but we’ve never done one in the cafeteria before. This could be interesting.

The kids coming in are stopping to stare at him. Something about his posture looks familiar. I look again at the expression on his face and the thing he’s holding near his mouth…and I get it.

“He’s a rock star with a microphone,” I say, jumping up from my chair. “So I’ll be…a backup singer who wants the spotlight. Come on!”

The three of us rush over to Ziggy and take up our own silent positions around him—musicians, fans, whatever. Soon Asha and Mark and then Hanna arrive and add to the tableau. Each addition makes the picture clearer, and it’s a pretty good picture. I feel a ripple of pride in my team.

Judging by the comments I can hear, the students watching think we’re insane, which is fine by me. It’s hard to keep a straight face as they struggle to understand what we’re doing and why. I notice that a few kids from improv class linger, trying to figure out what role each of us is playing in this frozen scene.

Finally, Ziggy bursts back into action and hops out of the tableau. “That was a blast, but I’m starving,” he says. “Let’s go eat.”

The rest of us break the pose and follow him. Hanna giggles. “You’re the last person I expected to see standing perfectly still.”

“That’s me,” says Ziggy, walking backward to face us. “Defying expectations is my life.”

“Such a nutbar,” Nigel says, shaking his head.

As we each grab a spot at the table, Hanna asks, “Do you guys do improv tableaus in the caf very often?”

“Nah,” says Mark. “Only when the rest of the school starts to think we’re normal.”

“For a minute there,” Faith says, “I thought old Mrs. Pilker was going to send us down to the office, but then she backed away.”

Mark nods. “She never gets too close. I think she’s afraid the crazy might be contagious.”

Nigel asks Asha about the chemistry test they had last period, and we settle into our usual lunchtime routine. Between sandwiches, carrot sticks and cookies, the conversation skips around the team, covering everything from favorite classes to boring teachers to which school projects we’re dreading.

Asha starts rhyming off the assignments she has to complete this semester. “Ten pages—and on Shakespeare!” she says. “I can’t believe Mr. Dietrich won’t let me write about some other playwright, but he refuses to budge.”

Ziggy shudders. “I hate writing essays.”

“At least it’s not due until the end of April,” says Nigel.

“You’d better get a head start then,” I say. “You’ll lose a whole week if we make it to nationals.”

Mark looks at me. “Nationals? We haven’t even had zones yet.”

“You’re thinking about nationals already?” asks Vern.

“Yes,” says Nigel, nodding. “Yes, she is. She was pressuring me about it last week.”

“Hey, we have to plan if we’re going to make it work, right?” I say. “Especially if we all have assignments that’ll be due.”

“I can’t possibly think about April,” Asha groans. “I’m just trying to make it through this week.”

“Good news!” cries Ziggy. “You’re only two classes away.”

As we pack up to leave, Hanna says, “That tableau was fun. We should do it every lunchtime.”

Now there’s a thought. Tableaus would be great practice for starting our Style scenes. “Good idea, Hanna,” I say, turning to the others. “Why
don’t
we do it every lunch? Or maybe after school or something, for fun.”

“But after school, there’d be nobody here to see it,” says Nigel. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“I’m sure there’d be at least a few people here,” I say. “And so what if there aren’t? It could still be fun. What’s everybody doing after classes today?”

“Student council for Hanna and me,” says Vern.

“I’ve got prom committee,” Asha says. “Nigel, you have to come too. Celeste is bullying everyone
into voting for her horrible color scheme. Seriously, who puts orange with blue? Ever?”

As he and Mark leave, Ziggy calls over his shoulder, “Be ready! Who knows when the tableau fairy will strike again?”

I sigh and turn to Faith. She’s looking at me, one eyebrow raised.

“These tableau practices,” she says, “and the stuff with Vern and higher stakes and everything—is all that about us getting to nationals?”

“Yeah. Not that it seems to be doing much good.”

“You must really want this,” she says.

“I do! And games and warm-ups can make a big difference. Tableaus help us practice picking good characters. Even if there’s only two people doing it,” I say, turning my pleading puppy-dog eyes on her.

She laughs. “Sorry, Chloe. Not a chance,” she says. “A two-person tableau is totally boring. Besides, I’ve only got a couple of chapters left in the novel I’m reading, and I can’t wait to finish it.”

It was worth a try. And there’s always improv class. Maybe the five of us can squeeze in some practice there.

*
*
*

It looks like Monday’s improv class is not going to be my chance for some practice after all. Over the weekend, I reviewed the improv book again, and I’m itching to try out the new details I’ve noticed, but Mr. J. has had us doing nothing but warm-ups for the first half of the class.

At the moment, we’re standing in a circle. Mark makes eye contact with an athletic-looking boy across from him named Tom and starts walking toward him. Wordlessly, Tom meets my eyes and heads my way, as I, in turn, lock eyes with Gina from my math class, who’s opposite me, and start toward her spot. We look like zombies trudging silently toward one another.

This is the switching warm-up, where we transfer the focus from one person to the next as we trade spots. Sure, it helps teammates recognize and watch for each other’s signals, but who cares? I don’t need to get to know the improv habits of this group. And I’m not learning anything that can make me or the team better either. I’d really hoped to spend at least part of this period working with Mark, Ziggy, Faith and
Vern on skills that’ll help our Style event. It’s the toughest one, and we’ve hardly worked on it at all since the semester break.

No one’s moving now, and I realize that the banana tosser is staring at me, waiting to walk my way.

“Chloe,” calls Mr. J., “you’ve got to be watching. All right, let’s move on to some word associations. Get in your groups of six.”

Another warm-up. I can’t stand it any longer, so I go to Mr. J.’s side. “I was wondering,” I begin, “if maybe the five of us on the team could do a few Style events for the class.”

But he’s already shaking his head.

“For the last fifteen minutes of class, maybe?” I plead.

“Chloe, these kids are doing fine without you guys demonstrating.”

“I know—but zones are less than two weeks away! This would give us some extra practice.”

He resettles his glasses on his nose. “Why don’t we have a chat after class.”

So back to my group I go for another warm-up. Oh joy.

*
*
*

“Improv class is important, Chloe,” Mr. J. tells me once everyone else has left. “It gets kids up in front of people and brings the shy ones out of their shells, gives them confidence. For some of them, it’s the only time they feel like anyone really listens to them.”

“Yeah, the class is great, Mr. J. But what about the team?” I say, getting to the real issue. “We’ll do fine at zones. It’s regionals I’m worried about. I think we need more practice to be good enough to win there.”

He looks at me for a minute. “I admire your determination, Chloe, and I know you’re trying to make the team better. Unfortunately I can’t think only about the team. While we’re in this class, it’s my job to do what’s best for all the improv students. Every single one of them. That’s who I’m teaching—individual kids.”

I stand there, stunned, as he gathers up his stuff. He’s our coach and his first priority
isn’t
the team? Doesn’t that violate some kind of coaches’ oath or something?

He must see the shock on my face, because he stops and heaves a big sigh. “We still have two practices left,” he says. “And you’re all really strong players already. How about we do our best and see what happens.”

Do our best? With no extra practice and no tough feedback from him to challenge us?
Right.

Whatever. As I hustle to my next class, I mentally cross Mr. J. off my list of allies. Clearly, the only person left to whip this team into nationals-worthy shape is me.

Eight

B
y practice on Wednesday, I realize that boosting this team from mediocre to great is going to take serious effort. We’re finally working on our killer Style event, but I’m starting to wonder if it really
is
killer. This particular attempt, about a poor medieval cobbler, is anything but.

“Thirty seconds,” calls Mr. J. over Ziggy’s mandolin and Faith’s recorder.

Hanna, our Style’s singing narrator, finishes up a verse about the cobbler’s magic shoes and then launches into her repeated chorus. As the rest of us join in, I dig around in my brain for a good way to close this scattered scene, but I’m stumped. I cannot think of a way to tie up all the loose ends.
From the start, we’ve been bouncing from idea to idea like a Ping-Pong ball on the loose.

“And that’s time,” calls Mr. J.

Asha thumps down into a chair. “
That
was awful.”

“I guess they can’t all be winners,” says Mark.

“Maybe I was wrong,” Nigel says. “Maybe a medieval troubadour song isn’t a good style.”