Rule of Three (2 page)

Alex pretended to drink poison. “‘Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace. . . . A dateless bargain to engrossing death!’” She clutched her throat, then her stomach, then staggered and fell in a heap on the worn corduroy couch.

Drama Queen to the max. Alex is always pretending to faint, fall over, and die of poisoning, snakebite, stabbing, smothering, or beheading.

“I hope it’s
Little Women
,” said Joey. “The musical.”

“You have
Little Women
on the brain,” said Alex. “Besides, it’s too sad, because of Beth —”

She’d been about to blow it, giving it away about Beth dying. Luckily, my hand got to her mouth just in time, so
dying
just sounded like E-I-E-I-O-ing. Never mind that I splattered chocolate peanut-butter banana batter in her hair and almost did a Cyclops on her, practically poking her eye out with my mixing spoon.

“What’s too sad? What about Beth?” Joey shrieked, then covered up her ears. “No, wait, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star!
” she screeched at the top of her lungs, to drown out Alex just in case.

“Sorry,” Alex said when I took my hand away. I thought she’d yell at me, but instead she sucked a glob of cupcake batter from her hair. Joey saw that the coast was clear and cautiously removed her hands from her ears.

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” I told Alex. “You know the play’s going to be a musical.” Even though I knew how much Alex wanted the play to be a Shakespeare drama-not-comedy, I couldn’t help wishing for a musical. I love musicals! It’s kind of my thing to sing along when we watch them on TV, and everybody says I have a good voice.

“Nah-uh.”

“Yah-huh,” said Joey.

“Think about it.
High School Musical. Wicked. Dreamgirls. The Lion King. Hairspray. Legally Blonde.
Even
Young Frankenstein.
Everything’s a musical.”

“The Little Mermaid,”
Joey added.

“Wherefore art thou — doesn’t anybody do Shakespeare anymore?” Alex said, touching the back of her hand to her forehead in a swoon.

“Not unless Shakespeare is a musical,” I told her. “They even make tragedies into musicals.”

“
That
is a tragedy,” Alex said, stabbing keys on the laptop again.

“What’s so bad about musicals?” Joey asked. “I love musicals. Stevie and I know tons of the songs.”

“Duh!” Alex looked up. “Musicals have music, Little Sister, and with music, you have to sing.”

“What’s wrong with that? You sing in the shower all the time.”

“Yeah, but in a musical, you have to sing in front of other people. I’m an actor. Stevie’s the singer in this family. I only sing where nobody but Sock Monkey can hear me.”

“
I
hear you,” Joey and I both said at the same time, cracking up.

“Nobody
important,
” said Alex, wrinkling her nose at us.

“Fink Face!” Joey and I screamed, and we pointed at Alex, which is what we always do when Alex makes her wrinkly pug face. That face is supposed to make us mad, but really it just makes us laugh.

“Shh! Quiet, you guys. I can’t think. Wait, here it is! I think this is it. Mr. Cannon must have posted it. After much discussion . . . blah, blah . . . sure you’ll be as pleased . . . blah, blah . . . we are happy to announce . . . this year’s Drama Club production . . . blah, blah . . .

“
Once Upon a Mattress,
the musical!” Alex announced.

Once Upon a Time . . . to buy earplugs!

WOE IS ME

Starring Alex

Me
: Why did they have to pick stupid
Once Upon a Mattress
?

Sock Monkey
: What’s wrong with that? It’s about a princess. You love playing princesses.

Me
: Not dorky ones!

Sock Monkey
: Whatever. A princess is a princess is a princess.

Me
: Not when her name is Winnifred the Woebegone. They call her Fred.

Sock Monkey
: Ha, ha, that’s funny.

Me
: What do you know? You’re full of stuffing.

Sock Monkey
: Hey, watch it.

Me
: Woe is me.

Sock Monkey
: Don’t you mean Princess Woebegone is you?

Me
: Very funny, you. This is serious! You know how long I’ve been wanting to act in a real play, like
Romeo and Juliet.

Sock Monkey
: People don’t have to die just to make it a good play.

Me
: I know. But it helps. I’m no good at comedies, anyway.

Sock Monkey
: What do you mean? You’re funny.

Me
: Yeah, right. I think you have me mixed up with Joey. Everybody knows Joey is the Funny One in the family.

Sock Monkey
: How about that time you tripped over the volcano and went flying across the stage? Everybody laughed, didn’t they? That was funny.

Me
: I broke my toe! That was
so
not funny.

Sock Monkey
: Why don’t you just try out for Lady Larken, then? She doesn’t have to act silly.

Me
: And let Jayden Pffeffer steal the show? I don’t
think
so. If I’m going to be in the play at all, I have to at least
try
for the lead. Then if I don’t get it, maybe I could still be a minor character, like Larken.

Sock Monkey
: C’mon, you know you’re going to try out, and you just said you’re going for the lead, and you know you’ll be great, so why not just admit it?

Me
: I so do NOT know that.

Sock Monkey
: Which?

Me
: I don’t know for sure that I want to go out for the lead. I mean, what if I do, and I’m not great? Don’t forget, it’s a
musical.

Sock Monkey
: So, you’ll have to sing. But it’s not like you have to be a soprano like Stevie. At least the princess role is an alto. You can handle that, easy. And besides, “Happily Ever After” is really the only song you have to sing all by yourself, without anybody.

Me
: A solo? That does it. I am
so
not going out for the part!

Joey was holding a ruler up to her hair,
trying to measure her own ponytail. Mom was doing research on the laptop, stressing out and making herself jealous over all the other, way-more-famous cooking shows on TV (Hello! Maybe because they actually know how to cook, whereas Mom is an actor who fakes the cooking part) and I (Yours Truly) was dreaming up highly new and original recipes for the World’s Most Divine Cupcake.

Lately, I’d been baking cupcakes whenever I had stuff on my mind. Baking is a great escape — I can take everything I’m feeling and put it into making cupcakes. It’s easy to lose myself in a batch of Brownie Perfection with Buttercream Frosting.

And except for the burned batch of Don’t-Bug-Me cupcakes and the disgusting dozen of mint ones that came out puke-colored, most of my creations are edible. I’d even been thinking about entering the First Annual Cascade County (Move-Over-Betty-Crocker) Cake-Off.

I added the Move-Over-Betty-Crocker part because bake-offs are old-school and cake-offs are way-cool. Experimenting is the best part, and any that don’t turn out gross (or get eaten) I squirrel away in the freezer.

The only problem was that I, Yours Truly, had to work up the courage to get Fondue Sue (i.e., Mom) and Mr. Cheapsteak (i.e., Dad) to cough up one hundred clams-smackers-greenbacks-buckaroonies-dead presidents for the entry fee.

“Hey, everybody,” Alex said, sliding into the room in her sock feet. “I have an announcement.”

“The Hat!” said Joey. “You have to put on the Hat if you’re going to make a family announcement. It’s the rules.” Joey was referring to the old jester hat from
King Lear
. It’s a Reel family rule that you have to wear the Hat whenever you have something big and important to say.

“No way. I am not wearing that smelly old fleabag,” said Alex.

There she goes again. Always breaking the rules.

“I’ve been thinking —”

“That’s a first,” said Joey, cracking herself up. Joey never seemed to get tired of that joke.

Alex was wearing this necklace she hadn’t taken off since her thirteenth birthday. It had two silver charms of the drama masks Comedy and Tragedy, kind of like good-luck charms. She nervously slid them back and forth on the chain.

“As I was saying, I’ve been think — I mean, I thought it over and I decided I’m not trying out for the play.”

My heart did a double-triple, mini-somersault flip-flop inside. The happy-not-nervous kind of flip-flop, like just before you open a shiny-wrapped Christmas present. Alex NOT trying out for a play? I wasn’t sure I’d heard right until everybody asked, “Why not?” at the same time.

I glanced over at Alex. Comedy seemed to be winking at me.

“C’mon, guys. It’s
Once Upon a Mattress
. (a) It’s stupid and (b) It’s for kids.”