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.

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

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."

"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.

"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.

"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.