Free Beyond Clueless by Linas Alsenas

its way through me. Then my eyes wandered over to my left, where I saw Mall Guy looking at me with a lopsided grin. He had his arms raised in the air, clapping. I held his gaze, and my smile blossomed into full-on beaming.
    Then it was time for my monologue, which also went fine. I ended up choosing Clarence Darrow’s final argument in
Inherit the Wind
, which I figured was both theater-y and unconventional, since I was crossing gender lines. When I finished, I raised my head and gave a quick smile. My corner of friends broke out in cheers again, and I scuttled off the stage, but not without a sidelong glance (or two) toward Mall Guy. He was just so . . . magnetic.
    Next up was Jimmy, and as my nervousness trickled down into calm, he slowly made his way to the stage. I hollered a solid “Whoo!” of support from my seat, but I could tell he was bracing himself for disaster.
    “My name is James Caradonna. I’m a freshman at Bracksville High.” Jimmy cleared his throat, and Christy started playing.
    And his audition was terrible. I wish it hadn’t been, but it was.
Really
terrible.
    Red-faced, he climbed back up to where we were sitting, and I could tell that no amount of our clapping could take away the humiliation. Then I noticed Derek slip Jimmy a cough drop. Jimmy’s hand lingered on Derek’s fingers.
    Then the next name was called out, and Derek reluctantly broke away to make his way down the auditorium steps to the stage.
    “Hi, I’m Derek Mylvaganam, and I’m, uh, a freshman at Weeksburg High.” Derek shifted from foot to foot as Christy pounded out the intro. Clearly, he was in the lowest level of hell. My whole body was clenched in sympathy as he began singing.
    Wow. He was . . . not bad! Not bad at all. I mean, he looked like he’d rather be cleaning toilets at a Greyhound bus station, but his singing was totally great. Even Jimmy was surprised—his mouth was literally open, his slack jaw dangling.
    When he finished, we whooped and hollered as we had for Jimmy. But Derek couldn’t even look up at us, he was so mortified.
    “Uh, and I’ll be reading a monologue from
A Raisin in the Sun
.”
    Except that he looked more like he was removing his own skin with a guitar pick instead. The boy seriously did not want to be on that stage.
    Jimmy reached over and grabbed my hand, giving it a death squeeze until Derek finally stopped. He had barely finished speaking the last word before he zoomed off the stage and back to his seat.
    Kirby grabbed Derek’s shoulders from behind and shook him while the rest of us bombarded him with oh-my-god-you’re-so-good!s. We didn’t even hear Jenny McCafferty call out Oliver’s name the first time.
    “IS THERE AN OLIVER KAPLAN HERE?” she repeated, waving her sign-up sheet at the audience.
    Oliver leapt up from his seat and jogged down to the stage, but not before Kirby had flicked off Oliver’s baseball cap.
    “I’m here! I’m here! Sorry about that . . .”
    He slapped his music in front of Christy and vaulted onto the stage. He flashed his bright white smile at Sister Mary Alice and Mrs. Murray.
    “Hey, there. I’m Oliver Kaplan, I go to Weeksburg High, just like Derek up there. He was good, wasn’t he?”
    “Your song, Mr. Kaplan?” asked Sister Mary Alice. I couldn’t see her expression, but I’d bet it wasn’t amusement.
    “Right—my song. I will be singing ‘Slow Boat to China.’ ” He made a big show of clearing his throat, then swung a pointed finger at Christy. “Christy, take it away!” He gave her a big wink.
    Oh, Oliver. What a card.
    Christy giggled and started bouncing out the intro.
    Oliver’s grin didn’t leave his face for a second. His pitch, on the other hand, was all over the place. The boy was apparently tone-deaf.
    But that didn’t slow him down at all: He did a cute little swaying thing, with his palms out, as if he were some sort of 1940s showman. Actually, he looked like he was having a ball, completely ignoring his own