Out of Bounds Page 8

  WHERE ARE ALL THE BOYS?

  Ms. Ciara looked around the room. Then she looked at her list again. “That’s funny,” she said, turning to the other teachers. “I only see one boy’s name on this list.” She showed the list to the other teachers, who seemed equally baffled. “I have to admit that the ratio of girls to boys has always been off at these events,” Ms. Ciara said. “But this is the worst turnout for boys yet.”

  Kiki raised her hand. “I have a boy,” Kiki said, as if both the act and Dillon belonged exclusively to her.

  Maeve winced.

  Ms. Ciara looked relieved. “All right, Kiki, why don’t you and your Hip-Hop Honeys go next?”

  Pausing momentarily to preen, Kiki got up slowly and walked to the front of the auditorium. Anna and Joline flipped their hair in unison. Dillon and Isabel walked a few feet behind them. They both looked as if they were wondering what they’d gotten themselves into.

  Ms. Ciara turned to Dillon and smiled. “Well, I’m glad to see that you are willing to take a risk.”

  Dillon shrugged. “I’m not exactly in the act,” he said, as if it were important that she understand. “I’m just helping them out with the lighting.”

  “Well, whatever you’re doing, Dillon, we’re certainly happy to have you involved. Tell me, do you know any reason the rest of the seventh-grade boys have chosen not to participate?”

  Dillon shrugged again. “Not really.” Some boys in the back row started to laugh.

  “Why is it,” Katani asked the girl next to her, “that boys in the back row always laugh at other people? It’s so annoying.”

  All of a sudden, Kiki started to sneeze. “Sorry, Ms. Ciara,” she said and sneezed again. “I must be allergic to something.” She held out her hand. Some girl ran over to her and handed her a tissue.

  Wow, thought Maeve, Kiki must be related to the Queen of England. She even has handmaidens.

  Anna made a face. “What’s that smell?”

  “What smell?” Joline asked.

  “It smells like a wet animal in here,” Anna said.

  Joline shrugged. Anna was right; it did smell funny up here. But Joline didn’t feel like giving Anna the satisfaction of an answer.

  Katani looked at Maeve.

  “What?” Maeve said.

  “I just can’t believe that Isabel is up there with them,” Katani said in a loud whisper.

  “I can’t believe Dillon is,” Maeve answered.

  “Okay,” Kiki said, taking center stage. She looked around. She walked the length of the stage, counting her steps.

  “What are you doing?” Ms. Ciara asked.

  “I was just measuring,” Kiki said. “We’re going to do a big production number, and I’m just making certain that this stage is big enough.” Kiki paced the rest of the stage as if she were a circus performer walking a tightrope.

  “Does the school have a good projection system?” Kiki wanted to know.

  “It has a projection system, yes,” Ms. Ciara said, amused by Kiki’s entitlement.

  “What kind of sound system do you have? THX would be preferable,” Kiki said.

  Ms. Ciara smiled. “Kiki, you know we have no such thing.”

  “Too bad,” Kiki said.

  Maeve rolled her eyes.

  Even Isabel seemed surprised. Kiki sounded like some kind of rock star demanding special privileges for her trailer.

  “That’s okay,” Kiki said finally. “I can probably rent whatever we don’t have.”

  “I hope she’s paying,” muttered Anna to herself.

  “Suppose we start with you telling us what kind of act you’ve got planned,” Ms. Ciara said. “Then we can all help you decide what equipment you’ll need to rent.”

  “We’re going to do a multimedia, hip-hop routine, with film projection and computer animation.”

  “That sounds interesting,” Ms. Ciara said.

  “And ambitious,” added Ms. Rodriguez, who had just entered the auditorium.

  “Oh, don’t worry about that part,” Anna said. “Kiki’s got it covered.” Her tone was slightly sarcastic, but no one seemed to notice.

  “Yeah,” Joline said, tossing her hair. “Her father produces videos for VH1.”

  Isabel didn’t say anything.

  “Isabel is our set designer, and,” Kiki went on, “she will be doing the computer animation. And anything else that falls into the category of artistic.”

  “That sounds very ambitious,” Ms. Ciara said. “Are you certain you can handle all this, Isabel? And dancing too? I see that you are already listed in another act.”

  Isabel nodded. But she was starting to have her doubts. This was the first she’d heard of the computer animation. Was Kiki crazy? Isabel had only taken two animation courses at the Brookline Arts Center. It was just like Kiki to spring things on you in front of everyone. What was she supposed to say now? I’m sorry, I can’t do all of that. There were too many people watching her.

  “Okay girls,” Ms. Ciara said. “Let’s hear your music.”

  Kiki walked over to the CD player and slipped in a disk. It was an old ballad that morphed into hip-hop. Kiki demonstrated the moves provocatively, as if Dillon was the audience. She danced up to within inches of him. His face turned bright red. When he looked like he couldn’t stand the embarrassment another second, Ms. Ciara stopped the music.

  Kiki did her best to look surprised.

  “I thought you said that Dillon was not in the act,” Ms. Ciara said.

  “That was for demonstration only,” Kiki said. She was speaking to Ms. Ciara, but she was looking right at Maeve.

  Maeve stared back at Dillon. She couldn’t believe how badly he was blushing.

  “Well, the music is acceptable, although it wouldn’t be my first choice. But tone the dancing down,” Ms. Ciara said very firmly. “I want you to come back and show us new dance steps in a few days.”

  Suddenly, Kiki let loose with a huge, very loud snurp. There was dead silence, and then the whole auditorium broke into applause, which was followed by a few whoops and cheering from the boys in the back. Henry Yurt got up and did a little Yurt dance.

  Kiki shrugged her shoulders and walked off the stage with the Queens of Mean trailing behind.

  “Nice finale,” Katani said. “You actually have to admire her, nobody seems to make her feel uncool.” She was trying to make Maeve smile, but it wasn’t working.

  “Maybe she’s allergic to Dillon,” Avery whispered to Maeve.

  “I wish he were allergic to her,” Maeve sighed.

  Kiki, Anna, and Joline took their seats in the front row and waited to see the next entrant.

  Ms. Ciara read from the list. “Our next act is the Beacon Street Girls Magic Show.”

  Isabel didn’t go sit with the Hip-Hop Honeys, but stayed on stage to help Charlotte set up.

  The stage did smell kind of funny, Charlotte thought as she set up her props. It didn’t smell like a wet animal, but it smelled kind of musty. Charlotte pulled a stool from behind the curtain. On it, she set up the magician’s hat, the magic wand, and a cardboard mockup of the box they were planning to use for the guillotine trick.

  Avery had surprised everyone. In the half hour between the time school ended and the auditions began, Avery sprinted over to Charlotte’s house, and abracadabra! Marty’s little head was poking out of Avery’s sports bag. “Shh,” Avery said to him. He leaned forward and nipped her nose. Avery giggled. It was something they did. In her early training sessions with Marty, Avery had tried to get him to give kisses to the Beacon Street Girls. But Marty was too macho for kisses. The closest he had come to kisses was the nose nip, and he only did that to Avery. There were no teeth involved, and in that way it seemed more like a human kiss than a doggy kiss (although Marty didn’t really have any lips). Anyway, it was as close to a kiss as Marty would ever offer.

  “Quiet,” Avery whispered into the sports bag. As if understanding her perfectly, Marty pulled his head back inside the bag. Marty�
��s presence was meant to be a surprise. Not even Charlotte knew he was here.

  “We’re doing a magic show,” Charlotte said, coming to the edge of the stage. “Here is the list of tricks.” She handed the list to Ms. Ciara. “Isabel is doing the sets and Katani is making the costumes. Maeve is the assistant and I am the magician.”

  As Charlotte spoke, Katani began to pull the endless scarf out of her sleeve. It was already almost thirty feet long, and quite elegant. It flowed across the set as Katani backed up first to center stage then to stage right. The look on Katani’s face was one of surprise…as if it were really magic and she had no idea the scarf was that long.

  Everyone clapped enthusiastically.

  “Very impressive,” Ms. Ciara said.

  “And it’s not even finished yet,” Katani admitted.

  The bewildered expression on her face made everybody laugh. Everyone, that is, except the Hip-Hop Honeys, who didn’t like being upstaged at all. They scowled like the wicked stepsisters when they found out that Cinderella had gone to the ball and met the handsome prince.

  Ms. Ciara looked down the list. “Good, good,” she said. “This all looks very entertaining…but what is this guillotine trick?” Ms. Ciara looked concerned as she stared at Charlotte’s list of tricks.

  Charlotte always chose descriptive words; it was the writer in her. She regretted using the word “guillotine” as soon as she heard Ms. Ciara say it out loud.

  “It’s not really a guillotine,” Charlotte said. “I mean, there are no real blades or anything. It’s all done with mirrors,” she said, hoping to convince Ms. Ciara the same way she convinced Maeve earlier.

  But from a distance, the trick looked a little freaky. As Charlotte demonstrated with Maeve, it really did look as if Maeve’s hands were gone. Even when you knew how the trick was done, it still looked real.

  The boys in the back, who included the Trentini twins, shouted “Awesome!”

  But Kiki Underwood said loudly, “I hate scary things like that!”

  Everyone knew that was untrue. Kiki always went to Frankenstein Fest, and Scream was her favorite movie. Maeve, who was about to add in her special effects noises, caught sight of the look on Ms. Ciara’s face and thought better of it. It was clear that the guillotine trick was heading right for the cutting room floor.

  “You don’t like it?” Charlotte said, reading the look as well.

  “It’s a standard magic trick,” Avery added. “All the great magicians do it.”

  There were snickers from the Hip-Hop Honeys.

  “The set is going to be really beautiful,” Isabel volunteered. She felt bad that she hadn’t even started to paint the box. It might have made a difference if the box had been as pretty and fanciful as Isabel imagined it would be when it was done.

  “It’s not that it isn’t a good trick,” Ms. Ciara said. “And I think it’s impressive the way you have it all figured out. I just think it might be a bit too…graphic for some of our younger audience members.”

  “Audiences have seen the trick before,” Avery said. “Millions of times.”

  “But there will be children in the audience,” Ms. Rodriguez volunteered. “They might actually believe it’s true.”

  “In the end, we put everything back together,” Avery volunteered. “So there is a happy ending.”

  “Yes, but…” Ms. Rodriguez said.

  “You wouldn’t want to scare the children,” Ms. Ciara said.

  Katani thought of Kelley. Ms. Ciara might be right.

  “No,” Charlotte said.

  “But it’s a really great trick,” Avery insisted.

  “I have no doubt that it is,” Ms. Ciara said. “Tell you what. Show us some of the other tricks you have planned, and let’s all take some time to rethink this one.”

  Charlotte looked confused. The fact was they didn’t have anything else prepared.

  Avery stepped forward. “I have a trick I want to demonstrate,” she said. “I’m going to pull a rabbit out of a hat!”

  “What are you doing?” Charlotte whispered to Avery.

  “Don’t worry,” Avery said, putting the sports bag up on the stool. “Pretend this is a hat,” Avery said, pointing to the bag.

  “But it isn’t a hat, it’s a bag,” Kiki said. “The hat is over there.” She pointed to the magician’s hat that Charlotte was holding.

  “Suspend your disbelief,” Avery said dramatically.

  “But…” Kiki started up again, but Ms. Ciara held up her hand to silence her. “Go ahead, Avery.”

  Avery reached into the bag and fiddled with something. Then, satisfied, she borrowed Charlotte’s magic wand.

  “Abracadabra,” Avery said, waving the wand over the bag three times. Then she tapped the side of the bag, and, very slowly, two rabbit ears began to protrude. As they emerged from the bag, the audience realized that they were attached to Marty’s head.

  As soon as she saw the look on Marty’s face, Avery realized that she should have practiced the trick more. Over the last few days, she had mastered the trick of pulling Marty out of the bag, but the rabbit ear headband was something she had just added this morning when she found it in an old box of Easter decorations in the coach house.

  As soon as he was out of the hat, Marty began spinning in circles, pawing the rabbit ears until he got them off. He jumped on them a few times as if they were an animal he was trying to knock unconscious, then he held them in his teeth and began shaking them. When he was finished, Marty lay down on the floor and ripped the ears apart.

  It was mayhem. The whole auditorium was hysterical, even Ms. Ciara. Except Kiki, who was sneezing violently.

  “I should have known that there was a dog in here!” Kiki shrieked. Her first sneezes had been genuine. It wasn’t that these weren’t, but she had certainly taken it up a notch. Kiki rushed forward and grabbed the box of tissues. “I am deathly allergic to canines!” she announced.

  It was over the top, and everyone, including the teachers, knew that Kiki was putting it on. Still, even Maeve had to admit that Kiki’s eyes were getting red and allergic looking. She’d been sniffling for the last twenty minutes. Something certainly was going on, if not anything nearly as dramatic as she was pretending.

  “I CANNOT share the stage with a dog,” Kiki said and stormed out of the auditorium.

  “Oh dear,” Ms. Ciara said. Pulling Marty out of a hat was the trick that Ms. Ciara liked best. Even with the chewing and stomping.

  Charlotte was about to mention the guinea pig trick they had planned, but she thought better of it.

  Kiki’s dramatic performance cut the auditions short. They were almost finished anyway, with the exception of the gymnastic routine and the dramatic reading of Robert Frost’s poem. Since none of the teachers would have any objection to that material, Ms. Ciara dismissed the group. They all had their assignments, she said. Everyone should let her know in the next few days what changes were going to be made to their acts.

  Avery was told to take Marty home. The rest of the girls followed. No one spoke for a long time.

  “Looks like it’s back to the drawing board,” Charlotte said finally.

  “Looks like,” said Katani.

  Avery was too angry to speak. When she finally said something it was, “My mother is allergic to dogs. But we were sitting way in the back. And Marty was in a bag! It wasn’t Marty that she was allergic to. Kiki didn’t start sneezing until she went up on the stage!”

  “Now what are we going to do?” Isabel asked.

  “I don’t know,” Charlotte said glumly.

  Isabel had set aside this afternoon to design the sets for the magic show. If she didn’t do it today, she didn’t know when she’d have time to fit it in. But she didn’t want to say that. Things were bad enough already.

  No one felt like talking. The Beacon Street Girls Magic Show was clearly a bust.

  When they got outside the building, Dillon was waiting for Maeve. “Can I talk to you?” he asked.

/>   “I guess,” she shrugged.

  “I mean by yourself?” he said, giving the girls an apologetic look.

  Maeve hung back to let her friends go ahead.

  “You know, when I signed up for Kiki’s act, I thought you were going to be in it,” Dillon said.

  “I’m not,” Maeve said.

  “That’s the only reason I said yes.”

  Maeve looked relieved.

  “Do you think I want to be the only guy in the show?” he asked.

  “Then quit,” Maeve said.

  “I can’t do that. They’re counting on me.” Dillon meant it. It wasn’t like him to break a commitment.

  “Kiki lied to you,” she said.

  “No, she didn’t,” Dillon said.

  “If she said I was going to be in the act, then she lied,” Maeve said.

  “She said she had asked you…I figured you would just say yes,” Dillon said.

  Maeve actually might have been tempted to say yes if she had known that Dillon was in the act. But Kiki hadn’t told her that part, and it was hard for Maeve to be phony anyway.

  “Never assume,” Maeve said. It didn’t sound nearly as good when it came out of her mouth as it had in her head. In fact, it sounded kind of mean. But she couldn’t exactly take it back now. She mumbled that she was sorry.

  They stood there silently for a minute, then Dillon started to walk away. “I gotta go,” he said over his shoulder.

  Maeve walked slowly to catch up with the others. If she felt bad before, she felt worse now.

  “What’d he say?” Isabel asked.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Maeve said. She couldn’t look at Isabel, so she just looked away.

  Avery had to get to soccer practice. Charlotte wanted to get home ASAP to start researching some new tricks. Since the Beacon Street Girls didn’t have an act yet, Isabel thought she should switch her schedule around and get started on Kiki’s video background. Good thing the teachers were cutting back on homework or she would be toast!

  That left Maeve and Katani.

  “So, do you want to talk about it now?” Katani asked after they’d walked a few blocks.

  Maeve told the story to Katani as they walked.

  “He was trying to be nice,” Maeve said. “And I wasn’t very nice at all. I feel really bad about it.”