Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls: Stage Fright by Meg Cabot Read Free Book Online Page B

photographers always seem to catch me smiling all goofy)?
    Anyway, Mrs. Hunter saying my mother looked wonderful on TV was a good sign that I’d gotten the part of Princess Penelope. I mean, wasn’t it? Otherwise, wouldn’t she have just said my mom had done a good job or been nice or whatever? Wonderful means delightful, which is like joy, and Mrs. Hunter had once said I was a joy to have in the classroom. So that’s practically like saying I got the part.
    Then Mrs. Hunter was asking us to please take our seats, that she had an announcement to make. We all knew what that meant:
    She was going to announce the cast list for Princess Penelope in the Realm of Recycling.
    You could have heard Uncle Jay microwaving leftover pizza in his apartment over on campus six blocks away, that’s how quiet it was in Room 209 as Mrs. Hunter unfolded the cast list. Everyone was dying to hear what part they had gotten.
    “First,” Mrs. Hunter said, “allow me to tell you what a spectacular job I thought all of you did at the auditions yesterday. You were very prepared, and you tried very hard, and I really appreciate that. I wish I could have given all of you the parts you wanted, but I couldn’t, so instead I gave each of you the part in which I believe, knowing all of you as well as I do, you will most excel, and give the best performance. I really hope you will accept my decisions. Now, I’ll start with the evil queen’s soldiers.”
    There were hoots and fist pumps of excitement as Stuart Maxwell, Patrick Day, and a few other boys plus Rosemary all discovered they’d gotten the parts they’d wanted (well, Patrick and Stuart weren’t too stoked to find out Rosemary was going to be a soldier along with them, since that meant they wouldn’t be able to get in as much trouble as they would have liked. But she was sure excited).
    Mrs. Hunter then moved on to the reusable water bottle wizard, the part Joey Fields had really wanted. Not surprisingly, given that Joey F was the only one who’d auditioned for it, he got the part. Joey closed his eyes and gave a silent Yessss!
    Next, Lenny Hsu learned he’d gotten the part of the recycled paper dragon (again, he’d been the only person who’d auditioned for it). He barely looked up from his book on dinosaurs upon learning this.
    Caroline looked relieved when she found out she was playing the unplug-when-not-in-use unicorn. This was the part she’d auditioned for. It had very few lines, exactly what Caroline wanted. She just had to prance around the stage and point Princess Penelope in the right direction through the magical woods with her horn, then explain that unplugging electronics when not in use saves one thousand pounds of carbon dioxide and $256 per year per household. I guess Mrs. Hunter had been as impressed by Caroline’s prancing as we all were, since she gave Caroline the part.
    But then Mrs. Hunter read off some names of people who most definitely were not happy with the parts they’d gotten…like some of the girls who’d auditioned for the part of Princess Penelope. They were stunned to discover that, instead of the princess, they’d been awarded parts as public transportation elves or water conservation mermaids. Dominique and Marianne looked like they were about to cry upon learning that they were compact fluorescent bulb fairies. I saw Cheyenne throwing them fake sympathetic smiles. I knew they were fake because Cheyenne is incapable of feeling real sympathy for anyone but herself. I knew she was just waiting to hear her own name read off, along with the words “will be playing the part of Princess Penelope.”
    Well, as far as I was concerned, Cheyenne could wait until the cows came home, but Mrs. Hunter was never going to say those words. Because that part was mine.
    Then Mrs. Hunter said, “The part of the fairy godmother of reusable cloth shopping bags will be played by Erica Harrington.”
    Erica gasped and then twisted around in her seat to look at me.