Just Grace, Star on Stage Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Just Grace, Star on Stage

  What Grace Will Be Thinking About In Her Next Book

  Coming Soon from Charise Mericle Harper

  Read More from the Just Grace Series

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2012 by Charise Mericle Harper

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

  Houghton Mifflin Books for Children is an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

  www.hmhbooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file.

  ISBN: 978-0-547-63412-8

  eISBN 978-0-547-63413-5

  v1.1012

  For Linda Costelloe, who is a shining star! I am happy to know you.

  FIVE THINGS (GOOD AND BAD)

  Being called Just Grace when your name is really just Grace. When there are three other Graces in your class at school, this is the kind of bad thing that can happen. I made a comic about it. (Bad Thing)

  Having your best friend live right next door. (Good Thing)

  Having an amazing grownup friend who is a flight attendant living in a fancy apartment in your basement. (Good Thing)

  Having a dog named Mr. Scruffers. (Good Thing)

  Having the teeny tiny superpower of empathy. (Mostly Good Thing)

  When your Good Things list is longer than your Bad Things list, this means that you are lucky, and probably mostly happy.

  WHY I WAS EXCITED ABOUT MISS LOIS ON A MONDAY MORNING

  Monday mornings are not my favorite, and that’s because Miss Lois, my teacher, always starts Mondays with spelling and math. It’s hard to be excited about school when you are starting the day with the world’s most boring subjects. Miss Lois says it’s good to tackle the important stuff while our brains are fresh and rested from the weekend, but I know what the real truth is. Our brains might be rested, but more than that, they are in shock!

  MY BRAIN

  When your brain is in shock, it’s hard to make trouble.

  OWEN 1 (CLASS TROUBLEMAKER)

  The two people in our class who have perfect brains for Mondays are Sunni and Marta. They are super smart and always know the right answers. On Monday mornings, Miss Lois mostly lets the two of them answer all the questions. This is lucky for the rest of us, because it gives us extra time to get our brains awake. I wish this would happen for the rest of the week, but it doesn’t. By Monday afternoon Miss Lois is back to her normal self, ignoring Sunni and Marta and picking on people who don’t even have their hands up. I wonder how that feels? Being ignored on purpose. I bet they don’t like it.

  It probably makes them like Monday mornings more than any other time of the week.

  My kind of brain is an imagination brain—it’s not super excited about facts. That’s why it was a surprise for me to be excited. But this wasn’t a regular Monday. On this Monday Miss Lois said something she had never said before, and it changed everything. I never knew it, but one good sentence can do that—it can change everything.

  WHAT HAPPENED NEXT

  Everyone put their hands up and waved them around like crazy. Now we were all like Sunni and Marta. Nothing like this had ever happened on a Monday before.

  Even though there were lots of people to pick from, Miss Lois did her usual thing and picked Sunni first. Usually when she does this no one cares, but today there was lots of groaning and complaining. Owen 1 even said, “No fair—she always gets picked.” But Miss Lois didn’t change her mind. She just looked at him and said, “Don’t speak out of turn.”

  Normally Sunni’s kind of a showoff when she talks in class, but today was different. When Miss Lois pointed to her, Sunni just sat looking nervous and stayed quiet. Finally Miss Lois had to walk over to her desk and ask her, “Sunni, do you have a question?” We all waited for what seemed like forever, and then finally she spoke.

  I was surprised about her question, and I wasn’t the only one surprised because suddenly everyone was talking. Miss Lois waved her hand for us to be quiet, and said, “No one has to be in the play. If you don’t want to act, you don’t have to. There are going to be lots of ways to help with the play without being on stage. But don’t think you can just watch and do nothing. This is a class project. Everyone has to participate.” After she said that, there were even more questions than before. Sometimes answers are like that.

  WHAT IS GOOD ABOUT MISS LOIS

  Some of the people in our class don’t pay attention. I know this because every time Miss Lois talks about something new, the same thing always happens. Someone asks a question, and then two seconds later, right after she finishes answering it, someone else asks the exact same question. Miss Lois spends a lot of time saying the same stuff over and over again. It would drive me crazy, but I guess she’s used to it.

  Today the four most popular questions were...

  Can I have one of the star parts?

  Who chooses the parts?

  Are we going to have to sing?

  Do we get to wear costumes?

  There were lots of other questions too. The funniest question was Valerie’s:

  The best part about talking about the play was that it took up almost all of our morning. We still had to do spelling, but everyone was so happy and excited that we hardly even noticed how boring it was.

  MISS LOIS’S ANSWERS TO THE FOUR MOST POPULAR QUESTIONS

  The star parts are going to be decided after everyone does an audition.

  Ms. Perry is the director of the play, so she is going to choose the cast. We are very lucky to have her here for this special project. She is also a very good actress.

  No, there will not be singing.

  Yes, there will be costumes.

  WHAT HAPPENED AT LUNCHTIME

  Mimi and I talked about the play. There was a lot to talk about. We made a few guesses about what kind of play it could be, but really we had no idea. The only thing we were sure of was that it probably wasn’t going to be a love story or a fighting story. Miss Lois said that the school had decided not to do those kind of plays. Both girls and boys were disappointed about that, but it was the same amount, so that was fair.

  Even though Mimi and I are best friends, we sometimes like completely different things. I was excited about the being in the play, and Mimi was excited about the helping with the play. Her feelings about the play were a little more like Sunni’s than mine, but that didn’t matter—the amount of excited we were was the same amount.

  Just thinking about it made us both smile.

  OUR PLAY DAYDREAMS

  DAYDREAMING

  Daydreaming is very different than night dreaming. Night dreaming is like riding on an amusement park ride that you know nothing about. Daydreaming is like riding on a ride that you made up yourself.

  THE GOOD THINGS ABOUT DAYDREAMING

  You can do it whenever you want.

  It can be about whatever you want.

  No one can stop you from doing it (even if they want to).

  THE BAD THING ABOUT DAYDREAMING

  Even though daydreaming is fun and good, there’s one bad thing: the wanting-it-to-come-true part. Not all dreams can come true. Impossible dreams never come true.

  WHEN HOPING YOUR DREAM WILL COME TRUE IS A GOOD IDEA

  When you are the only one having the dream.

  WHEN HOPING YOUR DREAM WILL COME TRUE IS A BAD IDEA

  When lots of other people have the exact
same dream as you.

  THE DREAM OF BEING A STAR ON STAGE

  My dream was not a good idea—I was 100 percent sure of this. Even though no one else was talking about it, there was no way that I was the only one in my class having the star on stage dream. Probably ten or maybe even eleven other people were having the same dream too.

  SOME THINGS THAT ARE TRUE ABOUT PLAYS

  Plays have starring parts.

  Not every part is a starring part.

  Not everyone gets to have a starring part.

  Knowing this made me know some other things.

  THE OTHER THINGS

  Not all of us who wanted starring parts were going to get starring parts.

  The ones who didn’t get starring parts were going to be disappointed and sad, and maybe even crying.

  Mimi was lucky. Her dream was not a super popular one. She had a better chance of it coming true than I did. That’s probably why she could smile without having sneaky eyes.

  WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN A GOOD THING TO DO

  Pick a different dream.

  WHAT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DO

  Pick a different dream.

  Once a dream is stuck in your head it’s hard to change it, even if you know that keeping your dream could make you sad, jealous, unhappy, angry, and a whole bunch of other not-good feelings.

  It’s worth it.

  WHAT HAPPENED AFTER LUNCH

  PATTERN OF THE FIRST TWENTY MINUTES

  At first Miss Lois was good about answering questions, but after a while I could tell that she was getting mad. She was trying to teach us about triangles and angles, but all anyone wanted to do was talk about the play.

  Miss Lois has two faces: her normal face and her upset face. And now her normal face was slowly changing into her mad face. No one noticed it happening except me. Even though I didn’t mean to, I said, “Uh-oh” out loud. Miss Lois didn’t hear me, but Owen 1 did. He sits right behind me. “What’s wrong?” he said. “Did you burp?” Owen 1 is not a nice, quiet boy. He is a loud, annoying boy! That’s why I did not feel one bit sorry for him when Miss Lois told him to go to the quiet desk in the hall.

  HOW RULES ARE MADE

  When Miss Lois gets mad she doesn’t scream or yell. What she does is worse. She makes up new rules! Rules are worse because screaming and yelling only lasts for a few minutes. Rules can last forever!

  OUR NEW RULES

  No talking about the play unless Miss Lois says we can talk about the play.

  No questions about the play unless Miss Lois says we can ask questions about the play.

  Five minutes later, after she had given us the new number one rule and the new number two rule, Miss Lois had to give us a new number three rule. The new number three rule was all Brian Aber’s fault.

  3. No pretending to be in the play while still in class.

  Mostly this was a rule for Brian Aber, Robert Walters, and Owen 1, because nobody else in class was going to swing their pencil around and pretend it was a sword.

  Brian Aber didn’t care about Miss Lois’s new rule. I could tell this because instead of drawing triangles like the rest of us, he was staring straight ahead at nothing.

  Rule number 3 was going to be a hard one for Miss Lois to make happen. If someone is behaving perfectly good on the outside, there’s nothing you can do about what they are doing on their insides.

  Even though we weren’t supposed to, Brian Aber and I probably weren’t the only ones daydreaming.

  That’s probably why nobody got much done for the whole rest of the day.

  WHAT MISS LOIS DID THAT WAS GOOD

  Finally Miss Lois noticed, because for the last thirty minutes she gave up trying to teach us stuff and said we could talk about the play instead. It was only for a little bit, but still, it was better than doing work. Everyone had different ideas about the play. After each question Miss Lois just mostly shook her head no. It was almost impossible to find any yes answers.

  SOME OF THE QUESTIONS OUR CLASS ASKED

  Can we do fighting on the stage?

  Is there a part for a princess riding a unicorn?

  If we do fighting, can we use ketchup for fake blood?

  Is there going to be dancing?

  Is there going to be a slide to play on?

  Is there one of those spotlight things? Can it shine on just me?

  Can my dog be in the show? She knows a really cool trick, but we have to give her a hot dog.

  Are there pirates in the show?

  Can we have glow-in-the-dark costumes and turn out all the lights?

  Do we get to wear makeup?

  Do we have to wear makeup?

  Is it mostly a girl kind of show?

  How many people can fit on the stage? Will it break if everyone jumps up and down at the same time?

  Is there going to be an intermission thing and snacks?

  Do we get flowers at the end of the show?

  My favorite question was the flower one. I liked that idea—for sure I was going to tell Mom about that. I even had a little daydream about it.

  WHAT MISS LOIS NEEDED TO DO

  I had a feeling that some kids had never seen a play before. At least that would explain why Sarah and Isabella were thinking there were going to be swings and slides on stage. For sure Miss Lois needed to help them with that, and maybe even explain what a play was.

  WHAT HAPPENED ON THE WAY HOME

  Both Max and Sammy said they wanted to be in the play. This was a surprise. Some people you can imagine being on the stage, and some people you can’t. Sammy was a “can’t.” He has trouble remembering regular school stuff, so I didn’t know how he was going to remember a whole bunch of words that in his own brain hadn’t thought up. It seemed pretty impossible, but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to be the person to break his dream bubble.

  The only part of acting that I was sure Sammy would be good at is the not-getting-embarrassed-in-front-of-an-audience part. For that he was perfect. Sammy doesn’t care one bit what other people think.

  WHAT IS HARD TO DO

  It’s hard to wait for something to happen when you are excited about the something that is going to happen but don’t know very much about it. This sounds confusing and it is—both for your brain and your feelings.

  When I got home I wanted to tell Mom about the play, but that was impossible to do right away. Mr. Scruffers always wants all my attention the minute I walk in the door. She barks like crazy and acts like she hasn’t seen me in months. It’s usually around 450 minutes, but for her I guess it seems longer. Dad says dogs don’t have the same sense of time as humans do. It takes me 450 minutes to walk to school, spend the whole boring day there, and then walk home. It sounds more impressive if you change the time to seconds. When I told Mom the seconds number even she was impressed.

  Mr. Scruffers’s most favorite thing to do is to chase squirrels, but by now the squirrels know this, so they don’t really come into our yard anymore. I think she misses them. Now she only gets to see them when we go on a walk. When we are at home she mostly just has to be happy chasing Crinkles every now and then.

  WHAT MOM TOLD ME ABOUT ACTING THAT WAS A SURPRISE

  When I told Mom about the play she was really excited and surprised, and then she had a surprise for me too. She said that before Augustine Dupre became a flight attendant she used to be an actress. She said some more things too, but I sort of stopped listening because my brain was still thinking, Wow! An actress!

  Usually when Mom knows that I am thinking about going downstairs to visit Augustine Dupre she starts saying things like

  “Why don’t you wait until you see her outside?”

  “Maybe you should call first.”

  “I’m sure she is busy—you can see her tomorrow.”

  The whole reason for this is that Mom is worried that Augustine Dupre will think I am a pest, but this is impossible because friends aren’t pests and Augustine Dupre and I are friends. I’ve told Mom this about a thousa
nd times, but she still doesn’t believe me—at least she didn’t until today. Today she surprised me, because instead of saying the usual, she said, “Why don’t you go and see if Augustine Dupre has any acting tips for you?” I know Mom, so before she could change her mind and go back to normal, I turned around and ran straight downstairs to Augustine Dupre’s apartment.

  WHAT I ALWAYS DO