Raising the Stakes (9 page)

A chalkboard sign says
Drop-in Improv,
and an arrow points to a room on the right. Inside, I see a small stage and some people sitting in mismatched chairs, chatting. I count four girls and six guys. Most of them look to be only a few years older than I am, thank goodness.

A tall skinny guy with a beard comes over and sticks out his hand. “Hi,” he says. “I’m Adrian. This your first time here?”

“Hi. It’s Chloe,” I say. “Yeah, first time here, but I’ve been doing improv for a couple of years.” I decide not to add “at school.”

“Awesome,” he says, then turns to the group. “Everybody, this is Chloe.” He points to each of the others, running through their names—I manage to catch Trish, Bill and Lydia.

Right away, Adrian gets us in a circle for a round of good ol’ Zip, Zap, Zop. I concentrate—I don’t want to embarrass myself by making mistakes in a beginner warm-up. But no one else seems too concerned over the occasional slip.

We start another game I’ve played before, and I relax a little. A few of these people seem to know each other, but the rest are new like me.

We move on from warm-ups and Adrian explains that scenes are really informal here. We’re welcome to jump in as the mood strikes us.

It’s different, this improv. For starters, there’s no huddle, and there are no large-group scenes. Most involve only two or three people, since the stage can’t hold more than about four at once. It takes me a little while to get the hang of jumping in with no planning at all, trying to pick up on my scene partners’ clues—read their minds, really—to keep us all heading in the same direction.

The other thing I can’t help but notice is that most of these people are funny. They’re not cracking joke after joke or anything, but I have to admit, they make me laugh. A lot.

I do a scene with Trish and a curly-haired guy named Paul. Trish and I are lost inside a haunted castle, and Paul’s the spirit haunting it. I decide I’ll be a high-powered business executive who doesn’t believe in ghosts. It takes a few minutes to find our rhythm together, but then we click, and suddenly it’s really fun.

The scene builds higher, and I feel that incredible rush of becoming someone else, of completely giving myself over to a character.

It feels amazing.

This is why I’m desperate to keep doing improv, to make it my career—so I will get to feel
this
for the rest of my life.

It seems like a really long time since I last felt it.

When the scene ends, I find myself wanting to get home to do some improv with my teammates. Then the memory of zones rushes back, and a physical ache burns in my chest. Will I ever do this with them again?

I push the thought from my mind as Bill and Lydia go up to start a scene. They’re two ants marching through a meadow.

“Where’d the rest of them go?” asks Bill. “We’ve got work to do.”

I’ll accept that offer. I rush back up with a guy who has black curly hair and eyes exactly like Nigel’s. “Time to stock up for winter?” I say eagerly.

“Yes!” says Bill. “We don’t want to be cold
and
hungry.”

The Nigel-guy starts talking about how all six of his feet hurt as the three ant workers pass food down the line for me to stack. The flow of supplies coming my way begins to slow, and Lydia and Bill are looking tired.

“Do we have enough yet?” Bill asks.

I peer into our storage space. “Already half full!” I chirp, but the others groan.

“Only half?” asks Lydia. “I’m tired of working.” She turns to Bill. “Hey, let’s go play instead!”

“Play?” I cry. “But if we run out of food, we’ll starve!”

They all look at me. Even Nigel-guy seems skeptical. “Half full might be enough,” he says.
“Last winter we ended up with more than we needed.”

“Yeah, I bet it’s plenty,” Lydia agrees, and she and Bill start to drift away.

“But this winter might be longer,” I call after them. “So we should stock up as much as we can.”

I struggle to carry more than my share to the storage space. Only Nigel-guy is still there, watching me. “Help me, please!” I beg. “I can’t do it by myself. And it’s important!”

That’s when it happens. This boy looks at me with his Nigel eyes and shrugs.

“Important to you, maybe. But us?” he says. Then he grins. “We’d rather just play.”

My mouth falls open.

It’s like he’s picked up a bow and shot the words at me.

Zing
.

Straight into my heart.

Thirteen

I
had a lot of time to think on the bus ride back to Harrington, but it didn’t make any difference. I couldn’t get my thoughts straight. Now, in bed an hour later, I still can’t. They’re buzzing around in my head like a swarm of angry bees, never settling, never letting me get a clear view of any one of them. The little-kid part of me would love to talk it all through with my mom, like I used to do. But young-adult me knows she won’t be home for days.

I stare at my improv shrine in the glow of my bedside lamp and think back to tonight’s ant scene. Is that why my team was angry with me? Because I sucked all the fun out of improv? Maybe I did. I must have, I realize, now that I
think back through everything that’s happened. No wonder they refused to talk to me after zones.

But I was only trying to help us get better!
How noble of you
, says a little voice inside my head.
Helping the team get better so
you
can become a star.

All that criticizing, all that fussing and pushing, was to get us to nationals, but we’ll never get there now, with our team in tatters. It was all a huge mistake.

What’s worse, I’m starting to doubt my career plan too. Once the club’s drop-in session was over, Adrian said he’d loved my business-woman character. I was flattered and told him my dream of becoming a performer. He gave me all kinds of advice about building a career in improv. And about doing stand-up comedy. So I asked him how important the comedy part of it is.

“
It’s true you don’t
have
to be funny
,” he said, “
but it’s really hard to make it in improv if comedy’s not your thing
.”

So that’s fantastic. All aspects of my life are officially a disaster.

I’m still awake, trying to make sense of it all, when I hear a muffled knock, and Grammy Ann opens my door. She must have seen my light.

“You didn’t have to wait up for me,” she says. Then she sees my face. “Oh, dear. What’s this now?” She sits on my bed. “I knew I should’ve stayed home.”

Seeing Grammy Ann’s concern makes tears spring to my eyes, but I shake my head and force them back. “No, it’s good that you went out,” I say. “Otherwise I never would have got to learn all the important stuff I learned tonight at the—” I stop, then decide I might as well tell her. “I took a bus to Toronto to go to an improv club.”

Her eyes open wider, and she asks, “By yourself?”

I nod.

For a second she looks like her head might explode. But then she tucks the covers around me as though to reassure herself I’m actually home safe and, without a word, calms down. “And?” she asks.

“And I realized I…Oh, Grammy Ann, I’ve made such a mess of everything. I was pushing
the team really hard. That’s why they were mad at me at zones.” Now that I’ve started, more words come tumbling out.

“I only did it because we weren’t good enough. I knew I had to push or we wouldn’t stand a chance of getting to nationals, and I really need nationals on my résumé if I want to make an impression and get into a good improv-training program, especially since I’m not funny.” I’m babbling now. “I thought it was the right thing to do, but the way it’s turned out, we’ll never get to nationals, and I’m starting to realize that I shouldn’t have pushed them that hard. It made improv no fun for them.”

No fun for me either, I suddenly realize.

Grammy Ann shakes her head. “Hold on. I thought your team came in third,” she says. “That means you
do
go on, doesn’t it? To regionals?”

“Yeah, but the team would have to be fantastic to move on from there to nationals, and I just don’t think we’re good enough. And me pushing them only made things worse.”

“So you don’t think you should keep pushing them?” Grammy Ann asks.

“It doesn’t matter what I think anymore,” I say, realizing it’s true. “They won’t want me there. They probably want nothing to do with me. Faith wouldn’t even ride home with us”—tears are dribbling out onto my cheeks, but I don’t care—“and she’s my best friend! That’s the worst part—they’re not just my teammates; they’re my friends. But now they all hate me.”

“Hate you?”

I nod, sniffling. “Because I was a giant, obnoxious control freak about it.”

“I see,” she says, rummaging a tissue from her pocket. “Did you realize before tonight that they didn’t like you pushing them?”

I think back. There were times it was pretty clear. “I guess I did.”

She raises her eyebrows.

“But I wanted us to get to nationals! I
couldn’t
give up—I had to keep trying. Like on that improv show. They kept going and one brilliant idea turned everything around.

Grammy Ann looks at me and tilts her head. “Hmm,” she says.

“What?”

“Chloe, dear, it
is
important to keep trying. Perseverance is an admirable quality, but there’s more to some situations than simply trying hard.”

Yeah. I should have known that.

“I guess my dream of nationals and of doing improv for the rest of my life blinded me a little.”

“So what do you think you’ll do now, dear?”

I think through my options. One: Return to the team and convince them to keep pushing to get to nationals. Two: Forget about nationals, and my dream, and beg the team to take me back. Three: Forget the team and find a new group of friends, like maybe the banana-tossing guy. Oh yeah, and I might have to drop out of improv class too.

I sniffle. “Run away and join the circus?”

Grammy Ann chuckles. “Ned would approve of that, I’m sure. But at this particular moment, I recommend sleep. Things often seem brighter in the morning.” She kisses my forehead, then stands up. “As your grandfather always said, when in doubt, be honest with everyone”—she touches the end of my nose—“starting with yourself.”

Yeah, I think afterward as I lie there in the dark, but sometimes that’s the hardest thing in the world to do.

Fourteen

I
t’s Wednesday after class. I started to text Faith three times on Sunday, but each time I gave up. What could I say? For two and a half days now I’ve walked to school on my own, gone to my locker by myself and eaten lunch alone on the other side of the cafeteria. I’ve hardly spoken to a soul in the hallways—except for the kids from our improv class, who I’ve discovered are surprisingly friendly. The class itself has been awkward, with Mr. J. staring at me like he’s trying to figure out what went wrong and Faith staying as far away from me as possible. The rest of my teammates—ex-teammates, that is—look anywhere but directly at me. Mark’s sad eyes are the only ones that will meet mine.

Fortunately, I’ve managed to avoid seeing Asha altogether.

Being ripped apart from my team and my best friend has been worse than awful. But all this solitude has given me plenty of time to think about what I want and what I should do—about the
right
thing to do. And I’ve made up my mind. Really, there was only ever one option. I remind myself of that now as I approach the drama-room door, my heart thumping in my chest like some kind of hip-hop bass line. If I can just get through this…

I hear their familiar voices as I step into the classroom. All eyes turn to me, and smiles fade as everyone goes quiet.

“Hey, Chloe,” Mark says.

Mr. J. stands up. “We were wondering if you’d come to practice.”

I suck in a big breath and drop my backpack on the floor. “Yep. I’m here,” I say, walking to the center of the room. “And I’d like to do a Story scene. Without any ask-for.”

Mr. J. pulls at his ear and looks at me through his dark-rimmed glasses. “Well,” he says slowly, “I guess that would be all right.”

“What?” Asha says from the far side of the room. “Mr. J., I thought—” But he holds up his hand, and she stops talking.

He nods at me. “All right. A Story scene with Chloe, and no ask-for,” he says, sitting back down.

Asha crosses her arms, and somebody else groans.

No ask-for means there’s nothing to discuss and no huddle, which is exactly how I want it. I take another deep breath, ignoring their whispers, and begin. “There was once,” I say loudly, “an evil villain named Chloe, the Criticism Queen.”

All whispering stops. I definitely have their attention now.

“Chloe was determined to get her team to the improv national championships. She decided to push and criticize all the time, at every practice, to make each of them better and make the team stronger. But what she never told her teammates…”

They’re all watching, waiting for my next words. I wonder what they’ll think of me when they hear them.

This is harder than I thought.

I lick my lips and try again. “What she didn’t admit to them, ever, was that she wanted to get
to nationals for the team, yes, but mostly…for herself.”

They look at one another, trying to figure out where I’m going with this.

“You see, nationals was Chloe’s big chance to prove to everyone that she had what it took to be an improv performer—not at school, but as an actual career.” I rush on, talking quickly so I won’t be able to hear if anyone laughs. “Chloe knew that if she could get her team to nationals, she would perform well there. Because—because that’s when Chloe performs best. With her team. Her friends.”

All eyes are focused on me as I sweep across to where they’re standing.

“So Chloe kept pushing, harder and harder, to be sure that the team—that
she
—would get to nationals. She picked on old members as well as the newest of them all.” I look for Hanna, and she appears right beside me.

“You were—” She stops. “Oh! Right,” she says, turning from me to the imaginary audience. “I mean,
Chloe
was terrific at improv. I was learning a lot from her, but then it started to seem like she was mad all the time, and she never
talked about anything except better rhymes and raising the stakes higher.” She looks at me. “I just wanted the old Chloe back.”