I thought I was going to die. “What dogcatcher?”
“The Rollerblading dogcatcher.” Wallace was getting excited. “With Rory doing his thing around the Lamonts, the moving toy dog, and Laszlo on the moped, it could be pretty spectacular.”
“It’s perfect,” Trudi applauded.
Rory was just as impressed. “Man, I am in! I’ll see you at rehearsal this afternoon. And Wallace, dude, get ready to be amazed, because I’m bringing my ’blades!”
I chomped down hard on my tongue (ouch). It wasn’t my job to tell them that none of this was going to happen. That was why we had a director.
When the bell rang at three-thirty, I raced down to Mr. Fogelman’s office to talk to him before rehearsal. I was so upset that I just started babbling even before I barged through his half-open door.
“Mr. Fogelman, I don’t know how to tell you this—”
I froze. The director was on his hands and knees in the midst of a mountain of crumpled-up paper towels, scrubbing at a stack of colored folders.
He looked up at me. “Somebody poured pancake syrup in my filing cabinet!”
I dropped to my knees, grabbed a towel, and did what I could to help. “Do you think it’s another attack on the play?”
“You bet I do,” the teacher said in annoyance. “Look at this—the only files that are damaged are the ones on Old Shep, My Pal.”
It was a mess. Syrup and paper don’t mix. Poor Mr. Fogelman’s notes were glued together, and soaked through with the sticky slime. In no time, I was in it up to the elbows, and little bits of paper were starting to stick to me. I’d always loved maple syrup until I saw what it could do to a script. (Yuck!)
“Did he break into your office?” I asked.
“Did who break into my office?”
Who? Everybody knew it was Wallace Wallace. But I said, “You know—the person who did this.”
We stared at each other. He didn’t speak, and neither did I.
“I keep my door unlocked,” he said finally. He added, “But we don’t know who did this. Even if we think we do, we don’t.”
All this talking (or not talking) about Wallace reminded me why I’d come to see our director in the first place.
“Mr. Fogelman, I hate to tell you this, but I’ve got some more bad news. You’ll never believe what’s going to happen at rehearsal!”
The Wallace vein in his forehead throbbed as I explained that Old Shep, My Pal now starred Rory Piper as the Rollerblading dogcatcher.
“We’ll see about this!” he roared, cleaning his sticky hands with a Wet-Nap.
He stormed out into the hall, taking steps so large that I had to jog along beside him. Down the corridor, around the bend, and into the gym he swooped like an avenging angel.
Suddenly, I pulled up short, and beside me, Mr. Fogelman did the same. We stared.
Rory Piper was Rollerblading, and he was amazing to behold. He streaked across the stage, his feet just a blur, executing jumps and spins and funky dance steps. In his hands he brandished a large butterfly net, which he waved at Old Shep. Yes, the dog was there, too, mounted on a remote-control car, “running” around the road, narrowly avoiding the dogcatcher’s swooping net. It was so crazy, and yet it was almost graceful, like a ballet. Rory moved on the Rollerblades as if they were extensions of his feet.
All at once, there was a roar of machinery. From the wings Laszlo Tamas sped onto the scene, mounted on his moped, which had been decorated to look like a Harley. He wore hockey headgear instead of a motorcycle helmet, but you could see the pure concentration through the face guard as he aimed his front tire at Old Shep.
Thump!
The stuffed animal went one way, the toy car went another. The bump sent Laszlo’s helmet flying. It ricocheted softly off the curtain, and plopped into the butterfly net. Laszlo kept riding straight down the stairs, and came to a screeching halt under the near basketball net.
The cast and crew leaped to their feet in a standing ovation. My confusion almost tore me in two. Yes, I know, I’d come here to blast this dogcatcher thing out of the water. But a true actress couldn’t help but recognize great theater. This was pure entertainment. I looked to Mr. Fogelman for guidance. Surely a real professional writer would know what to do.
Our director’s expression was unreadable. Then he began to clap, slowly at first, but with growing enthusiasm.
Everton Wu ran out from the wings, triumphantly waving the remote control for Old Shep. “It was amazing!” he howled.
Instantly, he was set upon by his fellow stagehands with backslaps of congratulations.
Flushed with victory, Rory took a Rollerblading suicide leap off the side of the stage into the arms of a wildly celebrating Laszlo.
Naturally, Trudi was the first person to gush all over Wallace. Right in front of everybody, she threw her arms around his neck and planted a humongous kiss on his smarmy cheek. I was humiliated on her (idiotic) behalf.
My disgust was interrupted by Vito’s voice: “Wait a minute! It isn’t fair!”
Nathaniel jumped all over this. “Right! Right!” he cried. “You bet it isn’t fair! Vito and I object! Tell them, Vito!”
“How come Rory gets to have all the fun?” Vito demanded. “I want to be on Rollerblades, too.”
The color drained out of Nathaniel’s face. “What?”
“Yeah!” Trudi shrieked. “All the Lamont kids should be on Rollerblades for the first scene! Wallace, can we do it?”
“We’ll try it at tomorrow’s rehearsal,” Wallace agreed. Then, as an afterthought, he looked at Mr. Fogelman. “Okay?”
“Thank you for asking,” the director said with sarcastic politeness. He thought it over. “If you people can Rollerblade around the stage without bumping into one another and breaking your necks, I suppose it’s worth a try.”
Nathaniel was sputtering with rage and dismay. “But—but—I’ve never been on Rollerblades!”
“Yo, man, this is your lucky day,” Rory assured him. “Because I am a one-man clinic on wheels! Step right up, and I’ll have you hot-dogging in no time!”
“But I don’t want to hot-dog!” Nathaniel wailed.
Enter…
MR. FOGELMAN
MEMO: A director must never lose control of his play.
I didn’t actually see the moment when Wallace officially took over Old Shep, My Pal. Oh, it definitely happened. But I must have been in the bathroom, or adjusting a spotlight, or bickering with Wallace over his book review.
It didn’t really sink in until that Friday morning. When I passed Trudi Davis in the hall, she called out, “Way to go, Mr. Fogelman! You’ve done it again!”
In my mind, I went over everything I’d accomplished so far that day. I woke up, had breakfast, walked the dog, drove to school. I stopped and filled the car up with gas, but that hardly seemed worth a “Way to go!”
In my mailbox at the office I found a note on the subject, whatever it was: Great idea! Can’t wait for the next rehearsal!—Everton.
On the way to third period it happened again. As I fought the usual class-change crowd, Vito was waving and cheering. “You’re aces, Mr. Fogelman!”
“Why?” I cried in frustration.
As I stood fuming, Laszlo Tamas walked up and shook my hand.
“Laszlo, wait!” I yelled at his back. “Please tell me what’s going on!”
He turned. “You are a wonderful director to have Wallace Wallace on your side.”
At that moment, Rachel Turner passed by. She looked at me with such deep pity that I knew. Wallace had come up with another “brilliant” idea for the play. And as usual, I was the last person to know about it.
I thought of the famous Chinese water torture. A prisoner is tied up and blindfolded, and every hour or so, his interrogators allow a single droplet of water to fall on the top of his head. There is no pain, but the victim actually drives himself crazy waiting for the next drip. Well, there was a drip out there with my name on it.
; I could only cringe when I imagined what terrible changes might be in store. For all I knew, Wallace had moved the play to prehistoric times. Old Shep was now a saber-toothed tiger who’d been stepped on by a woolly mammoth. It was more than I could bear.
MEMO: Stay calm.
“Mr. Fogelman, can I go to the bathroom?”
“No!” I bellowed. “If I can’t put on a simple little school play, why should everybody else be able to get on with their lives?”
My class of quiet sixth graders stared at me, stunned. I apologized and sent them to the library to work on research papers. I moved to the teachers’ lounge to calm my nerves by grading essays.
“Problems?” Coach Wrigley sat down on the couch beside me.
“Oh, no,” I said quickly. If the people of Bedford knew how much time the coach spent in here drinking coffee, they might blame the Giants’ terrible season on something other than the absence of Wallace Wallace. “Why do you ask?”
He pointed to the paper in front of me. “You just gave some kid an H. Let me guess. Does this have anything to do with a certain football player?”
“I—I need a word with Wallace, yes.” And as soon as I said it, I remembered that this was a faculty meeting Friday. Rehearsal was canceled. I’d have to wait three whole days to learn of Wallace’s latest “improvement.” An entire weekend of Chinese water torture.
The coach read my mind. “Page him out of class. Guidance has all the student schedules. They’ll find him for you.”
MEMO: Know how to spot a great idea!
The guidance secretary said Wallace was in math. As I headed for the main office to place the page, three figures blocked the doorway. One was Joey Quick from my seventh-period class. The others were older boys, probably from the high school.
“Hey, Mr. F.,” Joey greeted me.
“Excuse me, boys,” I said, trying to sneak through, “but there’s something very important—”
They continued to bar my way. “It’s us!” crowed Joey.
I cleared a path with my hands. “You don’t understand. This has to do with the play.”
“Right!” Joey exclaimed. “We’re the Dead Mangoes!”
“The what?” Then I remembered. Joey played lead guitar in his brother Owen’s rock band. The kid wrote essay after essay about the hit songs the Dead Mangoes would record, the huge stadium concerts they’d perform, and the millions of dollars they’d earn. The high school boy on the right looked like an older Joey, so I assumed this was Owen.
“Actually,” Owen admitted in a deeper version of Joey’s voice, “we were the Dead Mangoes until our singer quit. So me, Joey, and the Void are looking for our next gig.”
“The Void?” I regarded the third member of the group, a boy with stringy black bangs that completely covered the top half of his face.
“Our drummer,” Joey supplied.
The Void shook his head, and the bangs parted, revealing scornful, beady eyes. “My real name is Myron Muckenfuss,” he grunted.
“Last week,” Joey enthused, “I took a shortcut through the gym. And I saw something truly cosmic going on there. It was like a Rollerblading, dogcatching, mopeding party! And I said to myself, ‘Joey, what these guys need is a soundtrack. They need the Dead Mangoes.’”
“Now, Joey,” I chuckled, “the production is in two weeks. It’s far too late to attempt a major change like—”
“But it’s a done deal!” Joey interrupted. “Wallace says the whole cast is totally psyched! We start on Monday!”
It all came crashing down on me. This was what all the fuss was about! Wallace was taking my entire play, and setting it to the music of a teenage rock band!
MEMO: Put your foot down!
But how could I? If I said no, there’d be another cast revolt, and the play would end up canceled. So when I got rid of Joey and company, I sat down in the faculty room and weighed my options. There was only one course of action.
MEMO: Do something drastic. And fast.
Enter…
WALLACE WALLACE
Parker Schmidt’s E-News Page
Lions 40, Giants 6
I thought I was going to have a heart attack. What I’d really said to Parker when he called was “The Giants always do their best.” The guy was a menace!
Ever since Parker made me a secret agent, I’d sworn off the Bedford Middle School Weekly Standard. But now that I couldn’t go to the games anymore, my only source of news about the Giants was Parker’s Web site, which the kids all called porkzit.com. Not that there was much news about the team in his column.
What a crock! Funny how Parker remembered my touchdown so well, but the season I spent on the bench never made it into print. No wonder Cavanaugh was in a permanent bad mood. According to the stats, he’d gained ninety yards and kicked two field goals, but Parker never said a word about that. Everyone was fixated on me, the absent benchwarmer-star.
Just then, something whipped by my bedroom window. I rushed over and leaned out. It was Nathaniel Spitzner, rocketing down my street on Rollerblades. He was flailing his arms in terror, but his legs weren’t moving at all. They must have moved at some point, though. Either that or somebody gave him an atomic push, because he was flying—and screaming. What was he saying?
“He-e-e-elp!”
Rory Piper flashed by in hot pursuit, shouting encouragement. “Bend your knees, dude! Watch out for that tree!”
For me it was the first sign that Old Shep, My Pal was getting out of hand. If a stinkbug like Spitzner was learning in-line skating to keep up with the play, that was something Zack Paris himself never would have dreamed of. Then again, Zack Paris was, is, and always will be the world’s lousiest writer, so who cares about his boring dreams anyway?
I guess the tree missed Spitzner, because I didn’t hear any ambulance sirens or anything like that. What I did hear was a knock on my door. It was probably Rick or Feather, come to moan and groan about the game. I knew it wouldn’t be any other Giant, because those guys weren’t speaking to me anymore. Kevin wouldn’t even look in my direction when I passed him in the hall at school. I was getting kind of sick of staring at the backs of heads. Cavanaugh would talk to me, of course—but only to rub it in that I was Public Enemy Number One.
But it was my mother who poked her head inside. “Wally, telephone. Some boy named Vito. He says it’s really urgent.”
What was Vito’s life-and-death emergency?
“Wallace? Great, you’re home. Listen—when Morry Lamont is Rollerblading in Scene One, should I still be playing with the yo-yo? Because I’ve been working on skating and yo-yoing at the same time. It’s a little hard to see where you’re going, but the doctor said the swelling should go down by the performance.”
Doctor? Swelling? I didn’t ask. I just told him to stick to Rollerblading, and he could yo-yo in some other scene.
Amazing! Old Shep, My Pal, which had started out as the floor show for my detentions, was creeping into every part of my life. In a weird way, I was even starting to feel I had a stake in it.
That’s why I jumped at the chance to have Joey Quick’s band provide music for the play. Everybody knew that Joey was the best musician at Bedford Middle School. And the Dead Mangoes played great rock-and-roll—raw-edged, but with a real funky beat. They were every bit as good as a professional adult band.
I mean, I was no drama freak. But why should the play be lousy when it could be great?
By the time I got to rehearsal on Monday, the Dead Mangoes were best friends with most of the cast. Laszlo had the Void locked in a bear hug. The band’s demo tape was playing on Joey’s boom box, and there was a lot of clapping and dancing going on.
Mr. Fogelman walked in. “Attention, everybody! I have an important announcement!”
Joey switched off the tape, and we all quieted down.
I was surprised at how calm our director looked. I was expecting a big stink over the Dead Mangoes, a real crab-o-rama, with Spitzner whining backup, and maybe even a litt
le screaming opera from Rachel.
“As you know,” the director went on, “Wallace has been with us for well over a month, and even though he still hasn’t turned in a review of Old Shep, My Pal, he’s given us a lot of valuable suggestions. I think we owe him a round of applause.”
It was pretty embarrassing. They cheered like I was Michael Jordan. Vito and Rory slapped me on the back. Trudi kissed me. But through all the admiration, I was suspicious. This didn’t sound like the Fogelman I knew. What was he up to?
“His help on this play amounts to far more than a simple book review,” the director continued. He smiled at me. “And so, Wallace, as of today, your detention is officially over. You can go back to your friends on the Giants.”
I snapped to attention in the shocked silence. Over? Go back? I guess I’d been on detention for so long I’d forgotten why I was there.
Unbelievable! I was getting everything I wanted! And how did I feel?
Angry!
That lousy Fogelman wasn’t letting me off the hook. He was letting himself off! He had figured out that the only way to regain control of his crummy play was to get rid of me. Now he could ax the music, water down my changes, and turn Old Shep, My Pal into the boring waste of time it was always destined to be.
On the other hand, what did I care? I was free. I was a Giant again. I’d get my friends back, my life back, Cavanaugh would have to shut up, and detention would be nothing more than a rotten memory. I’d still be a benchwarmer, of course. But I was never a star, no matter what Rick said.
I was mobbed by a crowd of well-wishers. I had to duck to avoid Rory’s flailing elbows. Laszlo nearly squashed me to death. Vito had tears in his eyes.
“Stop!” I chuckled. “You’re crushing me!”
I slapped all their high fives. For some reason I couldn’t stop laughing. Partly because it was funny that a detention had made me so loved. But mostly because their good wishes were 100 percent genuine.
Fogelman called everybody away for Scene One. Reluctantly, Trudi, Rory, Laszlo, and Vito left the crowd around me, and climbed up on the stage.