Free Rule of Three by Megan McDonald Page B

because I slept on a marble doesn’t make me —”
    “Yah-huh. It was a test. You passed. Alex flunked. That means you’re the princess. You get the part.”
    “And what does that make Alex? Princess Runner-Up?”
    “I don’t know. I was thinking a . . . porcupine.”
    “Porcupine, huh?” Joey watched me as a slow smile crept back onto my face. It was just a made-up test, but I couldn’t help getting a shiver. A maybe-I-have-a-real-chance-at-getting-the-part shiver.
    “You just gave me a great idea, Duck. Now I know what to name my new batch of cupcakes. Want to help me?”
    “What are they?”
    “OK, how about pumpkin cupcakes with dark icing and almond slivers for quills. My-Sister-Is-a-Porcupine cupcakes!”

 
    Whoever thought up pins and needles should have called it bed of nails. Waiting all day Wednesday for Mr. Cannon to post the cast list was like sitting on a bed of nails. A Prickle of Pinecones. A Murder of Marbles.
    It was way worse than a pea under twenty princess mattresses, I can tell you that. I thought three o’clock might never come. But even though the day seemed to take a year and a half, the bell finally rang.
    By the time I got down to the auditorium, a Gaggle of Drama Club kids crowded around the bulletin board outside Mr. Cannon’s room. The list was posted, but I couldn’t see it. I tried standing on tiptoe and peering around this tall, skinny white eighth grader with baggy pants and a big mop of curly hair.
    After lots of pushing and squinting, I spotted the name at the top of the page. It might just as well have been flashing in neon lights, because once I saw it, I couldn’t stop seeing it.
PRINCESS WINNIFRED: Alex Reel.
     
    My heart thudded. A wave of nausea hit me in the middle of my chest. My arms and legs suddenly felt heavy.
    I ran my finger down the list, looking for my own name.
QUEEN AGGRAVAIN: Jayden Pffeffer
PRINCE DAUNTLESS: Alvin Albertson
LADY LARKEN: Zoe DuFranc
SIR HARRY: Scott Howell
     
    My eyes started to blur. Maria Martinez. Kirsten Dunbar. I kept scanning down the list, but I didn’t see my name anywhere.
    “Hey, you got Chorus: First Soprano. That’s great,” said a girl next to me. I could barely eke out a simple thanks.
    Chorus! After all that, I hadn’t even gotten a real part! I was just one of a whole Shrewdness of Singers.
    My ears were ringing. I tried to squeeze through the clump of tall kids in front of the bulletin board.
    “Alvin’s perfect for Dauntless!”
    “Who’s Zoe?”
    “Fluffernutter was born to play Queen Aggravain.”
    My head was spinning. Like when you’re a little kid on one of those playground merry-go-rounds and it’s scary to stand up. I needed something to lean on. I went over and stood against a Raft of Lockers, hoping the solid, cold steel would prop me up. I slid down the lockers, crumpling to the floor.
    I’d been doing my best not to get my hopes up, but then along came Joey’s princess test, which turned my head around.
    It wasn’t till my head stopped spinning that I glanced up and saw Alex. Her eyes were blazing green, but when they landed on me, they seemed to pale to an almost dull leaf brown. They were no longer the green-eyed monsters of jealousy I’d come to know so well these past few weeks.
    I tried to forget my own heart-sinking disappointment for a moment, willing myself to smile. But my mouth didn’t seem to be working.
    My sister sprang to action. She somehow wrestled her way out of the pressing crowd and slid down next to me on the cold, hard floor of the school hallway.
    Alex started talking super-fast, like the people on one of Dad’s old vinyls that we used to spin by hand around the turntable so they’d sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks. “You should have at least gotten Larken. Or Queen Aggravain. Jayden Pffeffer can’t act the warts off a toad. And that Zoe girl, what was Mr. C thinking? It’s like she came out of nowhere. She’s only been in Drama Club for like a few weeks and