Free manicpixiedreamgirl by Tom Leveen Page B

it was her turn. She was studying her script so seriously she was biting her lower lip. Gotta say—it was kind of sexy.
    “What? Oh. Becky Webb, I’m playing Scout.”
    “Everyone knows Becca,” some girl said, not quietly, and nearly everyone laughed. Becky didn’t. She just went back to her script.
    That maybe should’ve been a clue. But let’s see: Male? Check. Teenager? Check. In love? Check. Yep, those clues were destined to rocket straight over my head.
    It was the first time I discovered she called herself Becky rather than Rebecca. I didn’t understand why someone would then call her Becca, but didn’t quite want to ask in public.
So that’s what she goes by
, I thought. A new facet to ponder.
Becky. Becky
. It felt like a spotlight had been shined on her, revealing something new and wonderful.
    It sort of made up for the fact that she hadn’t seemed to notice that I was there. I mean, we’d seen each other at the meeting … in the hallway every day … but at that first rehearsal, she just kept her face buried in her script.
    I’d read
To Kill a Mockingbird
before, for an English class, and the play stuck to the book’s story pretty closely. I guess I liked it. I mean, it was a great book and all. But mostly I kept my script up in front of my face just high enough to somewhat conceal my spying on Becky. The Neapolitan chick and a couple of other girls Syd had talked to at the Massengill meeting seemed to keep an eye on
me
, but when I looked at them, they just looked away. I gotdizzy trying to balance my spying on Becky with not getting caught doing it by Syd’s friends.
    I spent the next two weeks after school getting a crash course on the lighting system in our auditorium from the stringy guy, Nick. He was cool, though. Pretty laid-back. I had trouble concentrating sometimes, because from the booth—the upstairs room at the back of the auditorium, where I’d control all the lights—I had a clear view all the way down to the stage, where Becky was more often than not.
    It wasn’t until after Nick moved away that I spoke to Becky for the second time in my life.
    I was on a ladder onstage, struggling with a wrench to attach a lighting instrument to a black steel pipe, when I heard her voice.
    “Hey.”
    I damn near fell off the ladder. Becky slid slowly across the stage, which was bare except for some colored tape on the floor showing where the set was going to be built.
    We were alone.
    “Hey,” I said back, trying to sound casual. Like
hell
I wasn’t an actor!
    “So you’re the new Nick,” she said, letting her black backpack slip off her shoulder to the ground. She sat down right in the middle of the stage next to it, watching me.
    I cleared my throat. “Um, yeah. I guess so. I don’t have a cool hat, though. Or a vest.”
    She nodded in mock seriousness. “I think they issue them on opening night.”
    I laughed, probably too loud, and Becky smiled. She looked tired, as if the impression she gave of serenity was actually just exhaustion.
    I climbed down from the ladder and forced myself to walk over to her. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears, feel it thump in my toes. I wondered if Sydney could hear it all the way in the debate room, where she was at that moment preparing a case or an argument or whatever against the death penalty.
    “So, I guess technically we haven’t really met,” I said to Becky, stopping about five feet away. “I’m Tyler Darcy.”
    “Mistah Dahcie,”
Becky said with a British accent.
    I nodded helplessly. A lot of girls have seen and adore all those
Pride and Prejudice
movies, with various hot guys playing Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy. And of course in the movies they all have these silly accents.
    Although when Becky said it, it felt a little different.
    “I’m Becky,” she added.
    “Becky. Hi.”
    “Hi.”
    “So, wait, is it Becca or Becky?” I asked, because I’d continued to hear other drama students refer to her as Becca.
    “Becky,”
she