Dunces Anonymous (10 page)

TWELVE
STAR-CROSSED LOVERS

G
irls crowded into the change room at Oakview Public School for the Saturday morning dress rehearsal. There were girls in long dresses and high-heeled silk shoes, girls with elaborate braids and sparkly clips in their hair. All of them were chattering nonstop as they fixed each other's hair and costumes. Magnolia could barely turn around without being stabbed by a safety pin or choked by a cloud of hairspray.

In one corner, a horde of girls swarmed around the rack of dresses from the Drama Club's costume collection. Plastic plates and goblets, spray-painted gold for the Capulets' party scene, lay scattered underfoot.

Magnolia elbowed her way to the dress rack and dug out her costume: a flouncy, floor-length white gown, embroidered with fake diamonds, and a huge silver tiara. Then she staked a place among a crowd of girls in front of the mirror, found a hook to hang up her dress and started putting on her makeup. She'd just finished the left eye and was starting on the right when Hannah Flynn popped out of the thicket of ball gowns and appeared beside her.

“Oh, Magnolia!” Hannah exhaled. “Is it really, truly true that you're going out with
Josh Johnson
?”

“Maybe,” said Magnolia, casting Hannah a mysterious look. The scandal had thrown Emmett into a state of confusion, and that confusion could only help Magnolia's plan.

“Emmett is
so
jealous!” said Hannah. “I heard he was going to challenge Josh to a
duel
!”

“I don't believe it!” said Magnolia. The idea of a boy who wore purple knickers dueling anyone seemed ridiculous.

“You're so lucky, Magnolia! You've got two boys fighting over you!” Hannah sighed. “All I want is Emmett, and he won't even look at me!”

Magnolia finished with her eyeliner and shoved the tiara on her head. Then she looked back at her understudy, who was dressed in a sweater and capri pants.

“Hannah, what are you doing? Where's your princess dress?”

“Oh, Magnolia, I'm not wearing a dress. I'm just the understudy!”

Magnolia crossed her arms. This was not going to help their plan at all.

“You have to wear a dress, Hannah! What if I keel over on stage? Then you've got to play Juliet!”

“Do you think you might keel over?” Hannah perked up. “I've practiced really hard! I've memorized my lines and everything! I wouldn't call Romeo a werewolf again, I swear I wouldn't! But”—she pouted— “nothing's going to happen to you, Magnolia!”

“Don't be so sure,” said Magnolia darkly. She grabbed Hannah's hand and bushwhacked through the girls in poofy dresses to the dress rack at the back of the change room. The rack was nearly empty, but luckily Hannah was a tiny girl, and a beautiful blue dress in her size, embroidered in glittering jewels, still hung amid the coat hangers.

“Oh, Magnolia, I can't wear this! I'll look just like Juliet!” Hannah breathed, fingering the velvety fabric.

“Hannah, you dodo, you're
supposed
to look like Juliet!”

“Oh, yeah.” Hannah hugged the dress. “I guess you're right.”

Magnolia helped Hannah into her dress and styled her hair in romantic ringlets. She added pink lip gloss, eye shadow and a touch of mascara, then stepped back to admire Hannah's transformation into the perfect Juliet. Magnolia nodded, just as Mrs. Karloff came into the change room, calling, “Five minutes, girls! Five minutes to curtain!”

The girls poured out of the dressing room. Magnolia hustled Hannah backstage and planted her beside Josh, who was standing by the pull-cord, waiting to open the curtains.

“Now stay here,” Magnolia instructed Hannah. “And if anything happens to me, remember,
you're
Juliet!”

Squeezing around Josh, Magnolia peeked out into the gymnasium from behind the curtain. The chairs had already been set up, row upon row, where the audience would sit on the night of the show. The chairs were empty now, except for the one in the middle of the front row where Magnolia's mother sat, flowered scarves draped around her neck, awaiting the beginning of the performance.

Magnolia took a deep breath. Everything depended on this: Could she act convincingly enough to fool her mother? What if she flubbed it? What if she forgot her lines? She couldn't allow that to happen! Operation Free Juliet mustn't fail now. It was her only chance.

“Two minutes, people! Two minutes!” Mrs. Karloff called. A whispered commotion ran through the crowd backstage as girls adjusted their high-heeled shoes and boys searched for their swords in the piles of props. “One minute!” The lights in the gymnasium went off, silence fell, the stage lights came up and Josh, heaving on the rope, swept the curtains open.

The play began with a fight scene between Romeo's family, the Montagues, and Juliet's family, the Capulets. From backstage, Magnolia watched Wang's performance in admiration. He was an acrobatic sword-fighter, jumping and rolling to avoid his enemies' blades, then leaping to his feet to thrust and parry with his own weapon. The scene ended when the prince came onstage to break up the fight and warn that anyone else caught fighting would be sentenced to death.

The action continued through the party scene, where Romeo first met Juliet and fell in love with her. When Emmett came to the line about giving Juliet a “tender kiss,” his lips swooped close to hers. He'll do it for real on performance night, Magnolia thought. She shuddered. Operation Free Juliet
had
to work.

The party scene ended. Next was the balcony scene. As she waited for her cue to enter, Magnolia rehearsed her lines in her head. This was it—the moment when all would be revealed. Magnolia looked around to make sure everyone was in place. Hannah beside Josh on the edge of the stage. Check. Emmett sneaking through Juliet's garden on the way to her balcony. Check. Magnolia's mom enraptured by the action. Check.

“‘Oh, that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek!'” Emmett sighed, gazing up at her balcony.

That was Magnolia's cue. She stepped out and delivered her first line.

“Emmett, you've been living a lie!”

Emmett stepped backward. He looked like he'd been hit on the head with a sledgehammer.

“Huh?” he spluttered.

Magnolia continued. “I know you love me, Emmett. I've seen it in your eyes. In the way you look at me across a crowded room. I know your heart is burning with passion. But, alas! I cannot love you the same way!”

With a sweep of her princess dress, Magnolia jumped from the balcony and landed in front of Emmett. He took another a step backward, stunned.

“It's no use pretending, Emmett. It's no use going on like this!” she cried. “All the time that you've been yearning for me, another girl has loved you with a true and faithful heart! Someone a hundred times more worthy of your love than I am! Yes, Emmett, your Secret Admirer!”

“My Secret Admirer!” Emmett gasped. “Who is she?”

At that moment, Josh nudged Hannah in the back. Off balance in her high-heeled shoes, Hannah stumbled onstage.

“You!” Emmett exclaimed.

“Me?” Hannah breathed.

“The poems, the gifts, the flowers!” Emmett cried.

“The poems, the gifts, the flowers?” Hannah repeated.

“I cannot tear these two young hearts asunder!” Magnolia announced. She lifted the sparkly tiara from her head and placed it on Hannah's. “Hannah, you are Emmett's true Juliet.”

“Oh, Magnolia!” Hannah turned to her, eyes filled with tears. “I couldn't!”

“You must, Hannah!” Magnolia insisted. “You and Emmett are meant to be together! Nothing can stand in the way of True Love!”

At that moment, Magnolia's mother burst into tears.

“Bravo! Bravo!” she applauded, rising from her chair.

But Mrs. Karloff's voice blared like a siren from the back of the gymnasium. “Magnolia Montcrieff! What in the name of the Immortal Bard of Avon is the meaning of this?”

Magnolia froze as Mrs. Karloff's high heels drummed across the gymnasium floor, getting louder and louder as she approached. The drama teacher pounded up the stairs into the glare of the stage lights. Her eyes gleamed like daggers.

“I was handing over the role of Juliet to Hannah.” Magnolia mustered her courage under Mrs. Karloff's stare. “She and Emmett are fated to be together!”

“Actors do not
hand over
roles!” Mrs. Karloff huffed. “Directors
hand over
roles. And, as you appear to have forgotten,
I
am the director of this play! For the past six weeks, Magnolia, I have coached you on every ‘whence' and ‘wherefore' of Shakespeare's romantic masterpiece, and I expect you to stand up and deliver your lines on performance night. Is that clear?”

Mrs. Karloff glared at her.

“You…you mean Hannah can't play Juliet?” Magnolia stuttered.

“Thank you for your insight, Magnolia. That is exactly what I mean!”

“But, it's True Love!” Magnolia and her mom exclaimed simultaneously.

“True Love!” Mrs. Karloff threw her hands in the air. “Magnolia, darling, I am trying to put on a production of
Romeo and Juliet
with a pack of semi-literate middle graders. I can assure you that True Love is the furthest thing from my mind. Now, will you take your place, please? We'll start at ‘What light through yonder window breaks.'” Mrs. Karloff clapped her hands briskly and spun on her heel. “All right. When you're ready!”

Magnolia shot a despairing glance at Josh. She looked at her mother, sitting in the front row, sobbing into a handkerchief. They had come so close. Everything would have been perfect if it hadn't been for Mrs. Karloff. Then a voice rang out, clear, loud and confident.

“No!”

Emmett Blackwell stepped forward.

“No?” Mrs. Karloff turned to him. “What do you mean,
No
?”

“No! I cannot play Romeo if Magnolia is Juliet!” Emmett swept a hand to his forehead. “Yes, once I thought I loved her! But it was a cruel deception! Hannah is my true love!”

“Emmett, what sort of folly is this?”

“No folly, Mrs. Karloff, but the sweet folly of love! If Magnolia stays, I go!”

Mrs. Karloff looked at Emmett, then at Hannah, who was on the verge of tears in her oversized silver tiara, and then at Magnolia. She threw up her hands in disgust.

“All right! Have it your way! Emmett, Hannah, the balcony scene! Now! And I want you here for three-hour rehearsals every afternoon until the performance! Magnolia, you clean up that mess backstage! And there had better not be one thing out of place on performance night because if anyone—anyone—walks out onstage without their props in hand, you will never act in a play at Oakview Public School again, Magnolia Montcrieff!”

Mrs. Karloff turned on her spiky heel and thundered down the stage stairs. Josh slumped in relief against the wall backstage. Emmett swept Hannah into his arms. Magnolia's mother wept into her handkerchief.

“True Love, my foot!” Mrs. Karloff exclaimed as she strode toward the back of the gymnasium. “Next year I'm staging a murder mystery!”

“A murder mystery,” Magnolia repeated under her breath, as she tiptoed downstage and descended the steps to the gymnasium floor. She crept over to her mother and put her arm around her shoulders, weaving her hand through the flowery scarves. Her mom was still sniffling, whether over the romance of the situation or the fact that her daughter would no longer be playing Juliet, Magnolia wasn't sure.

“Don't be upset, Mom,” she whispered as the balcony scene resumed onstage. “There's always next year's play. And you know what? I think I'd make a pretty good murderer.”

THIRTEEN
THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

W
ang sat in the car's front passenger seat on Sunday morning, watching out the window as they sped along the highway toward the Traveler's Repose Hotel. Next to him in the driver's seat sat his dad, stony silent, eyes locked on the road. He'd hardly said a word to Wang since the night before, when he'd found out about the board of directors' meeting.

Wang had been planning to attend the meeting alone and, hopefully, never tell his parents about it at all. But his dad had discovered the secret when Mrs. Singh, the teacher who organized the school chess club, had called Wang's house to make sure they knew the time and place of the meeting.

“But Dad! What Mr. Binkle says about me—it's not true!” Wang had protested when his father put down the phone. His dad had only looked at him and said, “We'll see.” His stern expression put an end to the conversation—temporarily. If the board of directors found him guilty of lying and cheating, Wang didn't even want to think about what his dad would say.

Josh's plan had better work, thought Wang. Or I am dead. Really, really dead.

They turned into the parking lot of the Traveler's Repose Hotel, parked the car and walked silently through the main doors into the lobby. Wang looked around. He'd expected a meeting at a hotel to be more glamorous, with a red carpet and a chandelier hanging from the ceiling and a valet to open the door and say, “Allow me to escort you to your room, sir.” But the lobby of the Traveler's Repose looked pretty much like a doctor's waiting room, only bigger. There was a counter where people checked in, a few brown chairs grouped into a square, and some newspapers and magazines lying around on coffee tables.

His dad strode toward a board, where the day's events were listed, and scanned it. He nodded once, without speaking and set off up the stairs. Wang trailed behind him.

The meeting room was filled with rows of chairs with scratchy-looking seats, all facing the front, where a long rectangular table stood on an elevated platform. That was where the board of directors was supposed to sit, Wang guessed—the people who would decide if he was guilty or innocent. At the back of the room was a long table filled with trays of donuts. Wang's stomach growled, but he knew his dad wouldn't let him have any. This was much too serious an occasion for donuts.