9 Stuck on You

CHAPTER NINE STUCK ON YOU Polymers (noun). Big molecules made from a bunch of smaller molecules. They're like a soccer team that sticks together. "THANK YOU, BOYS AND GIRLS," said Mrs. Hansberry. "I was so impressed with your auditions. You all showed quite a bit of enthusiasm. And, frankly, this decision was not an easy one. In truth, any one of you could have played any of the innumerable roles, large or small." Her eyes swept the auditorium, and, for a moment, they landed on mine. No. No. Please. I don't want a part. Or innumerable roles. Sheesh. Mrs. Hansberry loved to use big words. She said if you don't know what something means, then go look it up. Suddenly, someone was shaking me. It was Birdie. "Did you hear? I got the part! I'm the lead unicorn!" I hugged her and gave a high five and a big loud yay.

第九章粘在你身上的聚合物（名词）。 大分子由一堆小分子组成。 他们就像一支团结在一起的足球队。 “谢谢你们，孩子们，”汉斯伯里太太说。 你的海选给我留下了深刻的印象。 你们都表现得很热情。 坦率地说，这个决定并不容易。 事实上，你们中的任何一个人都可以扮演这无数个或大或小的角色。” 她的目光扫视了一下礼堂，有一会儿落在了我的身上。 否。否。请。我不想要一个角色。 或者无数的角色。震惊或印象深刻。 汉斯伯里太太喜欢用大词。 她说如果你不知道某件事是什么意思，那就去查一下。 突然，有人在摇我。 是小鸟。“你听说了吗？” 我得到那个角色了！我是领头的独角兽！”我拥抱了她，跟她击掌，大声欢呼。

Then Birdie was shushing me. "Some other people wanted that part, too," she said, lowering her voice. "We don't want them to feel bad. Since we all have to work together as a cast and crew." Right. Kind of like a polymer. A giant molecule made up of a bunch of smaller ones. Of course, there was nothing wrong with showing my happiness for my BFF. My dad the therapist said if you deny your emotions, it meant you could get messed up. "Own it," I said. Mrs. Hansberry announced a bunch of other parts, as well as all of the tech positions. When she explained that Elijah would do the lights, he hooted. And Jeremy slapped him hard on the back and whispered something to him. "And Kate's going to be our assistant director." "Yes!" I whooped. In front of me, Avery sniffed as if I were being too rambunctious, but I didn't care. Anyway, Mrs. Hansberry didn't seem to mind. She motioned me forward. "Kate, can you stand up?" I bounced out of my seat and gave a quick wave. "Kate will be assisting me and generally helping to keep rehearsal running smoothly," said Mrs. Hansberry. "She will be my second pair of

然后Birdie嘘我。 “还有一些人也想要那个角色，”她压低声音说。 “我们不想让他们感觉不好。 因为我们作为演员和工作人员都必须一起工作。” 正确的。有点像聚合物。 一个由许多小分子组成的大分子。 当然，向我最好的朋友表达我的幸福并没有错。 我爸爸那个心理医生说如果你否认自己的情绪，就意味着你可能会陷入困境。 “承认吧，”我说。汉斯伯里夫人还宣布了其他一些职位，以及所有的技术职位。 当她解释说以利亚会负责灯光时，他大声喝道。 杰里米重重地拍了拍他的背，低声对他说了些什么。 “凯特将成为我们的助理导演。” “是的!”我欢呼。艾弗里在我面前哼了一声，好像我太放肆了，但我不在乎。 不管怎样，汉斯伯里太太似乎并不介意。 她示意我往前走。“凯特，你能站起来吗？”我从座位上跳起来，迅速挥了挥手。 “凯特将协助我，总体上帮助保持排练顺利进行，”汉斯伯里夫人说。 “她将是我的第二副。

eyes. So that's it, children. However, I'm going to need some volunteers to help pass out the scripts." Mrs. Hansberry handed me a small stack of scripts. "We're going to have great fun working together," she said with a wide smile. "Definitely! Do you have a list of my duties?" I asked. "You're just going to have to follow my lead, and we'll make it up as we go along. I've never used a student assistant director before, so this is a first." She winked. "I think you'll do a terrific job." As I passed out the scripts, my stomach twisted. The actors had scripts and lines to follow. They had a set of directions as clear as steps to an experiment posted by Dr. Caroline. What did I get? I was supposed to make things up as I went along. What if I didn't know what to do? What if my making it up was all wrong? As I handed a script to some of the kids who were cast as dragons, Elijah put out his hand. "Hello. I need a script, too!" "What do you mean?" I asked. "Not just unicorns and dragons get scripts. I need to follow the script for the light cues." "Of course." I handed Elijah a script. "I knew that."

眼睛。就是这样，孩子们。 不过，我需要一些志愿者来帮忙分发剧本。” 汉斯伯里太太递给我一小叠稿子。 “我们在一起工作会很有趣，”她笑着说。 “当然!你有我的职责清单吗？”我问。 “你只要听从我的指挥，我们会慢慢解决的。 我以前从未使用过学生助理导演，所以这是第一次。” 她眨了眨眼。“我认为你会干得很出色。” 当我分发剧本时，我的胃一阵痉挛。 演员们有剧本和台词要遵循。 他们有一套指导方针，清晰得就像盖茨博士发布的实验步骤一样。 卡洛琳。我得到了什么？我应该边走边编故事。 如果我不知道该怎么办呢？ 如果我编的都是错的呢？ 当我把剧本递给一些扮演龙的孩子时，以利亚伸出手来。 “你好。我也需要一个剧本！”“你是什么意思？”我问。 “不只是独角兽和龙有剧本。 我需要按照剧本来做灯光提示。” “当然。”我给了以利亚一个剧本。 “我知道。”

"Yeah, right." Elijah squinted at me. "And unicorns are real. Along with singing dragons. They live in the land of happy rainbows." "Ha-ha," I admitted. Then I whispered, "Okay, I seriously didn't know about the lighting cues." "I know," said Elijah. "I'm making this up as I go." "We can tell," said Jeremy, who had one of the lead dragon roles, along with Julia and Rory Workman. "Just don't make up lines," I warned. "I'll be checking the script." "Now I'm scared," said Jeremy in a mock quivery voice. "Good," I said, then marched away, wondering, Could I do this? Could I make this up as I went along? I really didn't know. During a break, after doing a read-through, I hurried to Birdie to see how she was doing. "I don't think Avery is very happy," she said, pointing over to where she was frowning at her script. "She's only got three lines. Bet she was hoping to be lead dragon. Even though she's great as dance captain. They say she's the best in her jazz class at Dance Academy." Avery was always saying how her dance class helped her soccer skills. She was definitely sure-footed on the field.

“是的,对。”以利亚眯着眼睛看着我。 独角兽是真实存在的。还有会唱歌的龙。 他们生活在快乐的彩虹之地。” “哈哈，”我承认。然后我低声说：“好吧，我真的不知道灯光线索。” 以利亚说：“我知道。”“这是我边走边编的” “我们能看出来，”杰里米说，他与朱莉娅和罗里·沃克曼一起担任主角之一。 “别瞎编台词，”我警告他。 “我会检查剧本的。” “现在我害怕了。”杰里米假装颤抖地说。 “很好，”我说，然后大步走开，心里想着，我能这么做吗？ 我能边说边编吗？ 我真的不知道。在休息的时候，通读了一遍之后，我急忙跑到伯蒂那里去看看她怎么样了。 “我觉得艾弗里不太高兴。”她指着自己皱着眉头看剧本的地方说。 “她只有三条台词。 她肯定想当领头龙。 尽管她当舞蹈队长很棒。 他们说她在舞蹈学院的爵士课上是最好的。” 艾弗里总是说她的舞蹈课帮助了她的足球技巧。 她在球场上的步伐绝对稳健。

"She's so perfect as one of the dancing dragons," I said. Those were the dragons without big speaking parts. They sang a couple of songs and had two dance numbers. After the morning break, we sat around in a circle on the stage and talked about how the read-through went. I noticed that Birdie's voice wasn't loud enough. But I figured it was too early to say something. It's not like there was an audience yet. Jeremy said that we should work hard on keeping it realistic. "What do you mean by that?" I asked. "The dragons need to be intimidating," he said. "If we do it just for laughs, it won't be as much fun. We've got to scare the first graders a little bit." He snarled and roared. And a few kids screamed. "Like that," said Jeremy. "He has a point," said Mrs. Hansberry. "That can be something for us to work on." That gives me an idea. "We can have the dragons breathe real fire!" "Did you say real live fire, my dear?" asked Mrs. Hansberry.

“她就像舞龙一样完美，”我说。 那些是没有大的说话部位的龙。 他们唱了几首歌，跳了两段舞。 上午休息后，我们在舞台上围成一圈坐着，讨论通读的情况。 我注意到小鸟的声音不够大。 但我觉得现在说什么还为时过早。 那时候还没有观众呢。 杰里米说我们应该努力保持现实。 “你这话是什么意思？”我问。 他说：“这些龙需要令人生畏。” “如果我们只是为了笑，那就没有那么有趣了。 我们得吓吓一年级的学生。” 他咆哮着。几个孩子尖叫起来。 “就像那样。”杰里米说。“他说得有道理，”汉斯伯里太太说。 “这可能是我们需要努力的地方。” 这让我有了一个想法。“我们可以让龙喷真正的火！”“你说的是真枪实弹吗，亲爱的？”汉斯伯里太太问。

"Yeah! Like Jeremy says, it will make it more realistic and scare people. A lot." Mrs. Hansberry swept her arms dramatically over her face. "I'm afraid it will be too much of a real scare for the audience—and for your director." My mind sifted through all the shows I've watched on Dr. Caroline's YouTube channel where she made stuff explode. "Hey, what about lycopodium powder?" "Oh, well, that sounds vaguely familiar," said Mrs. Hansberry. "Please tell me more." "It's what circus performers use to blow fire. It looks like the dust on my dad's workbench. And it's supposed to work really well." "Aha! I'm not so sure I know enough about it. The circus performer part sounds a bit intimidating. So for now, I'm going to give you a conditional no. But I promise to look it up when I get home. We need a very safe yet exciting solution." "What if we use smoke instead of fire? We could project a video of smoke onto a screen..." "Hmm." Mrs. Hansberry squinted her eyes. "Now, that's a creative solution. What if our dragons exhale blizzards instead of fire?" "Is that scary enough?" asked Elijah almost to himself.

“是啊!就像杰里米说的，这会让它更真实，更吓人。 很多。”汉斯伯里太太戏剧性地用双臂捂着脸。 “我担心这对观众和你的导演来说都太吓人了。” 我在脑海中筛选着我看过的所有电视节目。 卡洛琳的YouTube频道，她在那里制作了一些爆炸的东西。 “嘿，石蒜粉怎么样？”“哦，好吧，这听起来有点眼熟，”汉斯伯里太太说。 “请多告诉我一些。”“这是马戏团演员用来吹火的东西。 看起来就像我爸工作台上的灰尘。 它应该会很好用。” “啊哈!我不确定我对它了解得够多。 马戏团演员的角色听起来有点吓人。 所以现在，我要给你一个有条件的否定。 但我保证回家后会查一查。 我们需要一种既安全又令人兴奋的解决方案。” “如果我们用烟代替火呢？” 我们可以把烟雾的视频投射到屏幕上……” “嗯。”汉斯伯里太太眯起眼睛。 “这是一个创造性的解决方案。 如果我们的龙呼出的不是火，而是暴风雪呢？”“够可怕了吗？”以利亚几乎自言自语地问。