Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls: Stage Fright Read Free Page B

the Brooklyn Bridge when she turned sixteen, to play Romeo.
    Ew!
    I could tell the same thought had occurred to Rosemary since she had wrapped her hands around her own neck and was pretending to strangle herself, with her tongue sticking out. It was kind of hard not to laugh. I mean, it’s not like Patrick Day is as cute as Sophie’s crush, Prince Peter, or anything. I have actually seen Patrick pick his nose. And eat it.
    “Thank you for that suggestion, Cheyenne,” Mrs. Hunter said, and for a minute I was worried she was actually considering it. Then she added, “But I’m not sure we’re ready for the Bard just yet.”
    Cheyenne looked super disappointed. I guessed from her expression that the Bard must be Romeo and Juliet , and felt super happy. Yay! We weren’t doing Cheyenne’s play!
    “Instead,” Mrs. Hunter went on, “I took the liberty of writing my own play…one with a part for every single person in this class. Allie, would you mind passing out the scripts you’ll find on my desk?”
    I got up and went to Mrs. Hunter’s desk (I sit in the last row with all the worst boys in our class—with Rosemary to help me manage them. Our desks are right next to Mrs. Hunter’s desk, so Mrs. Hunter can help supervise the bad boys. So Rosemary and I end up passing things out all the time. It’s completely routine for us).
    “The play is called Princess Penelope in the Realm of Recycling ,” Mrs. Hunter explained (which I could already tell because I was reading the title as I passed out the scripts). “It’s about a princess named Penelope who runs away from her father’s castle after he dies and Penelope learns that her stepmother, the evil queen, is going to try to kill her so she can inherit the throne instead of Penelope. While trying to reach the home of her beloved fairy godmother, with whom Penelope knows she’ll be safe, she wanders through a strange and wonderful land, the Realm of Recycling. There she meets many odd creatures, such as compact fluorescent bulb fairies, public transportation elves, recycled paper dragons, water conservation mermaids, unplug-when-not-in-use unicorns, and reusable water bottle wizards, who teach Penelope all about ways she can help save the environment so that her father’s kingdom, which has begun to be destroyed by pollution and her stepmother’s wasteful habits, will be able to be enjoyed by many generations to come. The creatures of the Realm of Recycling then help Penelope escape from the evil soldiers her stepmother sends to kill her.”
    Wow! This play sounded way better than Romeo and Juliet. Elves and dragons? Fairies and wizards? And a princess? I totally wanted to be in this play. It sounded fantastic! I couldn’t believe Mrs. Hunter had written it. It seemed like something a professional writer would have come up with.
    And I could tell the rest of the class was excited about it, too, if the way people snatched the scripts out of my hands as I passed them out was any indication. Not just the girls, either. The boys, too.
    “Of course,” Mrs. Hunter went on in a warning voice, as if she could feel the tremor of delight that was going through Room 209, “this isn’t going to be an easy play to put on. There are a lot of lines that will have to be memorized, and a set that will have to be built, and costumes to make, and stage lighting to design, and…well, it’s going to take all of us pulling together if we’re going to make this work. We’ll be spending all of our art and music classes from now until the open house working on Princess Penelope in the Realm of Recycling. ”
    Cheyenne raised her hand again. She had a copy of Mrs. Hunter’s script in front of her, because I’d already passed them out to her row.
    “Oooh, Mrs. Hunter,” Cheyenne said. “Mrs. Hunter!”
    Mrs. Hunter looked over at her. “Yes, Cheyenne?” she said in a sort of tired voice.
    “Mrs. Hunter,” Cheyenne said, putting her hand down. “I just want to say, on