The seventh graders trooped off the stage and outside the theater to study the two scenes.

David pulled Troy into a corner. "You remember the stuff we did at my house?"

"Yeah," said Troy.

"Just do it like we practiced and we're in."

"Right," said Troy.

David patted his shoulder and walked over to talk to Yolanda. Troy sat down and read through Lennie's lines. He felt pretty well at ease with them, so he let his eyes wander.

Across the hall, Kathy Templeman was reading her scripts. Although he'd been hearing about this girl all through fifth and sixth grade, he knew very little about her. He noticed with some amusement that as she went over some of lines she mouthed them to herself, her facial expression changing with each attempt. He knew Yolanda would be doing the same thing while she was reading. He thought he and his sister were the only ones that did that.

In fact, Kathey was like Yolanda in some ways. Neither of them seemed to care about what they looked like on stage, as long as every hair was in place when they were off it. In The Wizard of Oz in the sixth grade Kathey won the part of the Cowardly Lion with a show-shopping growl delivered from a comically twisted mouth. Before their drama teacher got sick and they had drama at their own school, Kathey was an old lady in a skit. She remained in character through the whole day, from grey wig to supphose. Of course, they had the skit on a Saturday; she didn't have to walk through school like that.

But in regular class, on the bus, on an early morning callback, Kathey looked as she did now, her dark brown hair curled in neat layers, as much makeup as her mother allowed, a sweatshirt usually some brand like Guess or Forenza and neat jeans with a matching belt and shoes. She wasn't a nail polisher, but he'd heard her exclaim to her best friend that she'd never leave the house without earrings. She also had several Swatch watches that coordinated with her clothes. Troy thought that was her most useful feature. She always knew what time it was. But sometimes it wasn't worth knowing the time because she acted dumb whenever he asked her anything. Plus half the time she answered in Spanish, and he had to figure out what she meant, which forced him to talk to her longer. Kathey's mother was from Peru, and she was never done showing off how she knew two languages. Troy supposed it would be cool to know another language so you could talk about people, but he hated show-offs. He thought a lot of drama people were show-offs. Unfortunately, Kathey happened to look up and catch him watching her. He flicked his eyes to a spot over her head, his heart thumping and ears burning.

The door opened and everyone turned. Jeff poked his head out.

"Okay, everybody back in, we're ready to start."

Everyone went back to the theater and up on stage.

There were now six desks on stage. There were rearranged in small rows and slanted so they still faced outward, but towards stage left instead of straight down the middle. The first row was just one desk, drectly behind it was a row of three desks, and behind those were two more.

"Who knows what blocking means?" asked Jeff.

David raised his hand. Jeff nodded at him.

"It means when you figure out entrances and where everybody is going to stand, stuff like that," David said.

Jeff nodded. "Great. Thanks. So we're goin to black this scene really quick before you start reading the scene. Mr. Rome then stepped up and told them where to enter and which desk to sit at when they came in.

Linda, as Alice, was to sit in the front desk. She raised her hand timidly.

"Um, I can't find any lines for Alice in the Act II scene."

"Alice isn't in Act II," Mr. Rome said.

"Oh, sorry I didn't know," said Linda.

"And when we all read through the play before rehearsal time, we'll know why, yes?"

Linda nodded. "Yes."

"Good girl. Okay, let's figure out the rest of you," Mr. Rome said. He told Yolanda, Kathy and Kelly to come in and sit in the three desks behind Linda. Troy and David, as Lou and Lennie, were to "clown around" in the two back seats. Michelle, who was reading the teacher's part, stood in front of the chairs to Linda's right.

"Okay," Mr. Rome said when this was finished, "let's do it. Just read your parts don't worry about the other people-Jeff, Jess and I will read all the parts we haven't assigned.

David, as Lou, hand the first line, which was a greeting to Michelle, the teacher. Troy came in right after him, and the scene started.

Yolanda had to admit everyone was looking pretty good. As a rule, she thought that she, Troy, David, and sometimes Kathy, were the best ones in the class. But for the first time since the drama class officially started, everyone seemed to be working together. After they got settled at their desks, Yolanda, Kelly, and Kathy leaned in to pretend they were gossiping as if they were the Three Degrees, and Michelle gave them realistic teacher's looks from the front. Linda was playing Alice as the goody-goody student, politely ignoring their notes and whispering. David seemed to be everywhere at once, playing the class clown. Troy seemed quieter than David, as usual, but not in a shy way. David's voice seemed really loud, while Troy sounded like he was talking regularly.

However, Mr. Rome liked how loud David was speaking. He stopped the scene at one point to say, "Projection! Does everyone hear how...what's your name, blocking boy?"

Everyone laughed. "David," David answered with a wide grin.

"Does everyone hear how loud David is? That's the level I want. Practice getting that loud, without sounding like you're yelling. Again."

Troy thought privately that David was pretty loud, but he raised his own voice after Mr. Rome singled David out. He was excited to see everyone work together, this was exactly what he and David had pictured when they were thinking up the class. With all the reports and fights they were starting to wonder if they would be able to pull the idea off. Now that everyone was getting a chance to actually do some acting, they turned out not to be too bad. At that moment he liked everybody, and hoped they all got into the play.

They moved to the scene from Part II, where everyone but Linda and Michelle were supposed to act like they were putting suggestions in a class suggestion box. Mr. Rome gave Linda and Michelle new parts from Act II at the spur of the moment.

"Let's see how you do with a cold read," he said. Stricken, Linda and Michelle looked at each other with widened eyes, but stepped up and read their parts well. Kathy and Yolanda immediately wished they were given cold readings as well.

"Oh man, do you know how good that makes them look?" whispered Kathy as they played the gossipy girls again.

"We could do that easy," agreed Yolanda.

Finally the drama class finished their scene from Act II and waited, as Mr. Rome, Jeff and Jess all scribbled notes. They whispered for a few minutes as the seventh graders stood onstage, exchanging looks. David, still in his class clown mode, cleared his throat loudly. Everyone covered their mouths to suppress laughter.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," said Mr. Rome. "Hold on."

Finally the three of them looked up and Jeff said, "Boys, thank you very much, that's all we need. We'll let you know. Girls, we've got one more reading for you. Take a break and get lost for a few minutes and we'll call you when we're ready. Good work today everybody."

He looked back down, and that was that. Troy felt letdown. Why didn't they want to him and David to read anything else? Had they already decided that they didn't want them? The seventh graders filed offstage. Troy waited for David to take his coat and scripts and followed him outside. "You aren't staying?" Troy asked him when they got out of the theater. He didn't want to be left alone with the girls, those traitors who all still had a chance to be in the play.

David shook his head. He headed towards some pay phones in the hall. "Nope. My mom said to call her if we finished early because I gotta go somewhere."

Yolanda overheard him. "You going to a hippy demonstration?" she asked.

"No, I have a dentist appointment, Smarty." David said as he fished for change. He reached down and gave Yolanda a little pinch on the side of her waist, laughing as she squealed, "Daaavid! Quit!"

Troy ignored his sister. "So why do you think they don't want us to read anymore?"

David looked over at Troy. He stopped teasing Yolanda when he saw Troy's face. "I don't know. Do you think that's bad?"

Troy shrugged. "How should I know? You're the one who's done this before." His worry made him sound more snappish than he intended, but David seemed not to notice. Across the room, Kathy and the Three Degrees were excitedly going over the audition and speculating on the parts they might be up for.

"Well, don't look at me, I don't know. Maybe they figured out who they wanted to play what all ready," David said.

"You guys, maybe it's good, maybe they like you all ready," Yolanda said. "Plus, there's more girls, we may not all get in." As she said this Yolanda began to worry herself. Maybe the boys had their parts all ready and the girls were still trying out.

"Yeah, maybe," said Troy. He and David started talking about how well they thought they did during the reading and the possibility that they did so well that didn't have to read anymore, and Yolanda didn't feel like hearing it.

She headed back towards the other girls, even though she wasn't sure what to say to them either, and almost ran smack into Melissa.

"Hi," said Melissa. "I'm done with the Math Meet. Are you guys in the play?"

"I don't know," said Yolanda. "I still have to read again."

"Can I watch?"

"No, it's a closed audition," answered Yolanda.

"Ohhh," said Melissa. She sounded somewhat impressed with the whole thing, which made Yolanda feel a little better.

"Do you know where the gym is?" Yolanda suddenly asked her sister.

"Of course I do, I come here all the time," Melissa said.

"Good for you. Now show me," Yolanda said.

"Where are you guys going?" Troy asked, walking up. They all waved to David, who was headed out the front door.

"Troy, c'mon," Melissa said, tugging at his sleeve. Melissa headed off towards the gym, not noticing the uneasiness between the twins.

"We'll be right back!" Yolanda said over her shoulder to the others.