A List of Cages(46)

“Oh, all right! All right! But honestly, Adam, if he can’t do it, he can’t do it. I don’t want him getting up on that stage and embarrassing himself if he can’t.”

“He can.”




I take a seat on an overturned crate in the hallway that runs alongside the auditorium. The corridor has been blocked off with a few partitions and is serving as a dressing room since we can’t all fit backstage. At least fifty yelling kids are getting dressed and putting on makeup around me.

Yesterday Miss Cross told me she’d thought it over, and she was willing to give me another chance. And I could actually say my lines! I was so…relieved, but now that the play is about to begin, I’m just nervous. I can hear families crowding into the lobby outside the theater, and every minute or so, a boy or girl appears to deliver carnations to a different actor. Parents can buy them for two dollars and have them sent backstage before the show.

Suddenly, a panicked voice shouts loudly enough to be heard over all the chaos, “Why are the seniors here?”

“What?” someone else yells.

“Seniors! A big group of them.” A crowd of ninth graders run to the partition and peek around it.

“Oh shit,” one boy moans. “They’re gonna do something to us. I know it!”

“Oh god, it’s them.” Kristin sounds horrified. “Why are they here?”

Curious, I get up and peer though their necks, but it’s too congested for me to see anything. Then I hear my name. The kids part just enough for me to see Adam grinning and waving me toward him. Everyone in the entire hallway stares at me. I pretend not to notice as I ease through the crowd of ninth graders into the even bigger crowd of families.

Adam and Emerald are smiling and holding hands. Beside them are Charlie, Allison, Camila, Matt, Jesse, and a lot of Adam’s other friends.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

Adam gives me a look, a cross between amused and exasperated. Charlie is wearing a harsher version of the same face. “Why do you think?” Adam says.

“I don’t know. You said the plays are horrible. You said students never come.”

“We’re here to see you, stupid,” Charlie says, but he’s actually smiling.

“Oh.”

“Don’t you need to put your costume on?” Adam asks.

“Yes.”

Charlie points back toward the dressing area. “Go!”

“Okay. Bye!” I wave, then weave back through the swell of people. The sick nervous feeling I had just a minute ago has disappeared. Instead I feel something warm spread through my body. People I love will be watching me. Their eyes like safety nets, I can’t fall.




The play is as awful as they ever were, so about five minutes in, I’m fidgeting.

Charlie stomps on my foot.

“Asshole.” I wince, but this just seems to make him happy. Five seconds later, I’m squirming again, not intentionally trying to piss him off, but it’s a nice side effect.

As each terribly executed scene drags on, I get a little more agitated. I can’t stop thinking about what Ms. Cross said, how she didn’t want Julian to publicly humiliate himself. Maybe I made a mistake in pushing him. If it doesn’t go well, who the hell knows what’ll happen?

Then finally, in act IV, Julian steps out onto the stage. He’s wearing a puffy velvet jacket, little pants that end at his knees, and god-awful purple tights. Charlie laughs, and it’s my turn to stomp on his foot.

I hold Emerald’s hand as Julian says his first line. Easy part down.

Hamlet’s mother responds, then I squeeze Emerald’s hand harder, reciting his lines in my head as if I can send them to him telepathically. Julian answers, maybe not with the best projection, but all his words are correct and clear.

As he’s exiting stage left, I break into noisy applause, totally inappropriate for the somber scene. Emerald looks at me with a startled laugh, then she claps too, and soon Charlie, Camila, and every other senior we dragged along stands and cheers.





JULIAN AND I are on our convoluted walk to Dr. Whitlock’s when he says, “Do you want to know where I eat lunch?”

I glance over at him, surprised. “Sure.”

“I can show you, but…”

“What?”

“It would have to be a secret.”

“Okay, now I’m really curious.”

“You couldn’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t.” He still looks uncertain, so I repeat, “I won’t.”

“Okay.” He smiles suddenly. “Follow me.”

We head into the auditorium, and I follow as he flies up a ladder backstage into the prop attic over the theater. He heads behind an old bureau, and slides back two loose boards like a magician.

I bend, peering into the dark. “There’s another room!” I say, amazed. But I don’t see how you could get there without risking a deadly fall. There are too many missing floorboards above thirty feet of darkness.

Julian squeezes into the narrow space and steps onto a plank. When he gets to the end and bends his knees like he’s going to jump off a diving board, I say, “Julian, wait!” But he’s already leaping through the air.

He lands in the other room, then turns around, looking a little worried now. “Maybe you shouldn’t,” he says. “You’d have to jump and…”