Free How to Get Ainsley Bishop to Fall in Love With You by T. M. Franklin Page B

why—”
    “Doesn’t matter why. We can figure that out,” Hank said, waving a hand. “Maybe she demands to use the boys’ locker room so she’s treated like an equal and then realizes maybe that wasn’t such a good idea.”
    “Like she . . .” I chewed on my lip and thought for a moment. “She almost passes out when she gets a first whiff of the smell?”
    “And she’s appalled by the urinals, or—” He snapped his fingers. “She doesn’t know what the urinals are at first and tries to wash her hands in them!”
    I snorted. “And she’s too proud to say she made a mistake, so she stays with it, and . . . and . . . there’s no place for her to really change her clothes, so she climbs into a locker to do it—”
    “—and some guy comes by and slams it shut, not realizing, and they all gather around when she starts calling for help, and she tries to tell them the combination to get her out, but they can’t hear her too well, so they keep getting it wrong—”
    “—and when they finally do get the door open, of course Bo’s right there in front.” I could almost picture it—Ainsley wrapped in a towel and trying to maintain her dignity as she tumbles out of the locker, her legs having fallen asleep. “And she falls right on top of him, and they get tangled up in some smelly football gear.”
    “Now you’re getting it!” Hank said, barking out a laugh. “Like Mel Brooks said, ‘Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.’ ”
    I blinked and opened my mouth to comment but wasn’t actually sure what to say.
    Hank laughed. “Comedy’s all about exaggeration,” he explained. “You want to make everything bigger . . . more ridiculous. That’s what makes people laugh. This—” He tossed the script onto the table idly. “It’s trying to be serious, which makes it silly. The audience won’t be sure if they’re supposed to laugh or not. What your friend needs to do is make it more silly, so they know it’s okay.”
    “ More silly?” I couldn’t quite wrap my head around how that was possible. Then I remembered Viney and I setting it to music and laughing hysterically. “Like a musical?”
    Hank clapped his hands once and pointed at me, a broad grin on his face. “Exactly! Well, maybe not a musical. I don’t think you have the time for that. I mean, you’d have to come up with the lyrics and a score, and it’s not really practical, but that’s the idea. Push it past the line of silly into hilarious.”
    My shoulders fell. “But how do we do that? I’m not really funny.”
    “Well, first of all, I think you underestimate yourself. You did pretty well with the whole locker room thing,” Hank said with a slight shake of his head. “But you don’t have to be funny to know what is funny. And I’ll help you.”
    “You will?” I brightened.
    “ ’Course, I will. It’s been years since I got my teeth into a good script. Well, not that I’d call this one good, exactly.” He picked it back up again and thumbed through it. “But it can be. It will be.”
    I tried to meet Hank’s enthusiastic smile, but I wasn’t sure if I felt excited or nervous or scared or maybe a combination of all three. Because no matter what we came up with, in the end, it was all up to Ainsley.
    And a little voice inside me said convincing her wasn’t going to be as easy as I hoped.

6.Be a Good Friend
    Establish trust. Be there for her during tough times. And maybe it’ll grow into something deeper.
    I stood on the landing between the first and second floor of the library and cleared my throat, then cleared it again, my fingers tapping anxiously against my leg. Ainsley’s play—now dog-eared and covered with scribbled notes—crinkled as I clutched it in my sweaty hand. I’d debated over when and how to tell her about Hank’s suggestions—during school or at play practice, or maybe trying to intercept her in the parking lot after practice