Maybe I Will Read Free

bear!
    â€”A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, Act V, Scene i, Lines 18-20
    E ACH MINUTE OF the afternoon was like an empty boxcar on a slow-moving train to nowhere. I was ready to audition and be done with it.
    I actually hate auditions. Sure there’s the adrenaline and the vision in my mind of the perfect performance and the absolute knowing that I can do it, but it is really painful to watch other people totally crash and burn. At try-outs, everyone has to act all nice and proper, but you know the people competing against you for the part, plus all of their friends, are secretly hoping that you will screw up big time.
    Once all of the parts were assigned, the cast would start to pull together as a team and really support each other. Hamilton really preached cooperation over competition once we all had our parts. I just needed to get through today.
    I had study hall last period. This worked out great when we had plays and musical productions in full swing because I could get a pass from Hamilton and get a head start on rehearsals. Hamilton wasn’t handing out passes today, though. So I signed out to go to the library in search of the real
Peter Pan
.
    I went straight to fiction and started looking for the last name Barrie. I was pretty sure Mom and Dad had read
Peter Pan
to me when I was growing up, but I didn’t really remember the book compared to the play or the movie versions. I came across a well-worn copy of the classic by J.M. Barrie and started flipping through the pages. Very near the end of the third chapter, these words jumped out at me: “I solemnly promise that it will all come out right in the end.”
    The words somehow reassured me. Of course, they weren’t talking to me about my life. They were promising a “happily ever after” for Wendy and John and Michael Darling. Still, I wanted to believe these words for myself, too.
    It was the kind of promise you’d never get from Shakespeare. Exactly the opposite. Shakespeare only guaranteed that things would NOT come out right in the end. He put it right in the title:
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar
,
The Tragedy of Macbeth
.
Hamlet, King Lear, Othello
… all tragedies. Talk about your truth in advertising. Everybody always dies in the end.
    â€œIt will all come out right in the end.” Maybe if it doesn’t seem right, it’s not really the end. But right for who? My father’s face appeared frowning before me in my mind.
For whom. It’s the object of a preposition.
I had so many voices in my head, even then, before my own tragedy struck.
    I checked out the book and found a seat at a table where I could read until the bell rang. Things I learned in those last few minutes before try-outs:
    1. Barrie actually wrote the play first and the book seven years later. Like Shakespeare, Barrie was really a playwright.
    2. The library clock was three minutes fast.
    3. Barrie was a very short man and a very unhappy adult. He loved childhood and children, but never had any of his own. Children that is. I’m pretty sure he had a childhood.
    4. Mrs. Randolph, the librarian, was way more disruptive hushing people than the people that she thought needed hushing.
    5. The name Wendy didn’t exist before
Peter Pan
. There was a little girl who tried to call Barrie “my friendy,” but it always came out “Wendy.”
    Finally, the bell sounded. Students erupted into the hallway from every room. I resisted the flow toward the exits and began making my way to the auditorium.
    â€œHey, Sandy,” a voice called from behind. “Wait up!”
    I glanced backward and saw Shanika Washington. She played the Motown Bad Girl last year in
Seussical
. She was really good, too, and a senior this year. “Hi, Shanika,” I called back. I held my ground as Shanika pushed her way toward me through the mass exodus. “Are you on your way to auditions?”
    Shanika nodded. I turned to walk beside her. “Are