And This Is Laura. Ellen Conford

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ was. I thought they were all really amazing people. The thing was, I couldn’t help wishing that a time would come when they would think I was amazing.

2

      JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL is no big deal.

      Back in the sixth grade they kept telling us how different things were going to be once we got into Junior High, and how we would be expected to act mature and be responsible and self-disciplined, but so far the only thing they were right about was when they told us there would be a lot more work.

      The teachers keep saying we’re supposed to act like young adults but they keep treating us as if we were still in sixth grade. We move around from class to class instead of staying in one teacher’s room for most of the day, but then, in elementary school we went to different teachers for things like Art and Music and Gym and Library. The only big difference is that in Junior High you have hardly any time between classes, because they allow three minutes to get from one class to the next, and unless you have roller skates and a perfectly clear hallway, it is physically impossible to make it from one end of that building to the other in three minutes. And you couldn’t roller-skate up two flights of stairs, anyway.

      This particular day I was sitting in French class waiting for the teacher to arrive. The bell had rung already, and he was late. (I guess he forgot his roller skates.) It was the last class of the day and by the time I got to it I was pretty well up to here with school and feeling more like a caged panther than an enthusiastic learner.

      As I sat there wishing for a bomb scare so they would have to clear us out of the school in no time flat and send us home, Beth Traub leaned over and asked, “Are you going to join the dramatics club?”

      Beth was also in my English class, but I hardly knew her. We hadn’t gone to the same elementary school. There are four elementary schools in our district but we all go to one junior high, which means that I didn’t know about three-fourths of the kids in the seventh grade.

      “Yeah, I guess I will.” By this time the thought of staying in school an extra forty-five minutes, even for a club, didn’t thrill me, but I had announced to everyone that morning that I was going to, so I felt sort of trapped.

      “I am too,” said Beth. “I’ll meet you after homeroom, okay?”

      “Okay. What room are you in?”

      “108. What room are you in?”

      “114.”

      “Wait for me, will you?”

      “Sure.”

      Our teacher hurried into the classroom, panting slightly.

       “Bonjour, mes élèves.”

       “Bonjour, Monsieur Krupkin.”

       “Ouvrez vos livres à la page quatorze, s’il vous plaît.”

      He wrote “p. 14” on the board, because we were just beginning to learn numbers and hadn’t gotten past dix (10) yet. Mr. Krupkin tried to speak only French in class and sometimes it got kind of confusing. After all, how much French could we understand after three weeks?

      The period dragged by. We took turns reading aloud the parts of Pierre and Juliette, who go to école supérieure every day, where they étudient such subjects as la géographie, l’histoire, l’anglais, etc. After école they come home and have a glass of lait and some petits gâteaux. Then they do their devoirs. On Sundays they go for walks dans le parc.

      It sounded like a very dull life.

      I waited for Beth outside my homeroom. She got there a couple of minutes after the dismissal bell, staggering under a load of books, an instrument case and a gym suit half-stuffed in a brown lunch bag.

      “They ought to give us wheelbarrows,” she grumbled, “along with lockers. I don’t know how they expect us to carry all this stuff.”

      “Do you think they even care?”

      “No. No, of course they don’t care.”

      There were about thirty kids in Mr. Kane’s room when we got there. Twenty-eight of them were girls.

      Mr. Kane surveyed the group and smiled.

      “Welcome to the Hillside Junior High School Drama Club,” he said. “I’m delighted to see so many budding young thespians with us. I’m sure we’re all going to have a lot of fun in this club as we learn some of the rudiments of acting. For those of you who are new to the club I want to tell you that we put on two plays a year so you’ll have a good opportunity to develop your talent in front of live audiences. What I thought we’d do today is a little improvisational pantomime. Pantomime is acting without words; you use movement and action to convey what you’re doing or feeling to the audience. We’ll do simple, everyday things you’ve done all your lives, but you’ll use no props, no words, just your imagination. Who wants to start?”

      There was some foot shuffling and a few nervous titters, but no one volunteered. We certainly were a shy group, considering that we should have been eager to get up in front of an audience and act our hearts out.

      Finally Mr. Kane said, “Why don’t we have one of our old members start off, so you’ll have an idea of what I’m talking about? Jean, would you? And let’s introduce ourselves as we perform.”

      A plump, very pretty girl with light brown hair walked to the front of the room. She didn’t look nervous at all. She looked perfectly at ease in front of twenty-nine pairs of eyes.

      “I’m Jean Freeman,” she announced.

      “Jean played the lead in Sweet Sixteen last year,” Mr. Kane said. “Jean, why don’t you do brushing your teeth?”

      She nodded.

      Facing us, she took an imaginary toothbrush out of its holder and stuck it in her mouth. She held it there, her mouth slightly open, while she picked up an invisible tube of toothpaste and twisted off the cap with two fingers. She took the brush out of her mouth and squeezed toothpaste on it. Then she put the tube down on the side of the “sink” and reached for the water faucet.

      It was amazing. Her movements were so realistic you could almost see the water running and the toothbrush in her hand. She put the brush under the water a couple of times and even examined her teeth in the mirror above the sink as she brushed them. She rinsed off the brush and stuck it back in the holder, then turned off the water. She peered into the “mirror,” baring her upper lip and running her tongue over her teeth. She even picked at the spaces between two teeth with her fingernail, as if she’d missed something. Then she gave a little satisfied nod of her head, capped the toothpaste and put it back on the side of the sink.

      “That’s it,” she said, and broke the silence.

      Everyone burst into applause.

      Jean walked back to her seat and Beth whispered, “Isn’t that something? I could almost hear the brushing noise.”

      “Me too. She’s really good.”

      “Thank СКАЧАТЬ