wardrobe and makeup and was one of the sweetest, most even-tempered people I knew. Until she got drunk, that is, on nonalcoholic beer at every cast party.
âOmg Mad,â she said in a stage whisper, appropriately enough. âAre you okay? Everyone is saying you had a breakdown or something. Do you think you can still do the show? Because Sarah was saying you probably couldnât ââ
âNo,â I said, trying not to get frustrated with Ginger. Even though she could be a little bit annoying sometimes and way too chatty, I couldnât alienate her. She was my closest theater friend.
The theater kids were nice, but they had far too much of a tendency to start breaking into soulful renditions of Jason Robert Brown songsâin publicâfor me to be super tight with most of them. And I almost never sat at the theater table at lunch, unless I really felt like joining in on a Sondheim medley. Of course, Iâd told my friends and Ginger and maybe some other people my real feelings about the theater kids, but I would never tell them . They were way too emo to handle it.
âIâm fine,â I told Ginger as I dropped my bag in the corner of the green room and fished around for my script. âMy Friendverse got hacked, thatâs all. I didnât write any of that stuff.â
âOh,â she said, sitting on the floor next to me. âSo did Schuyler Watson really get a nose job? Because I totally thought so, and everyoneâs wondering.â
âUm, Iâm not sure,â I stalled as I flipped through my script, realizing just how many lines I had and how few of them Iâd learned. âIâm actually late for my scene, so ââ
âOh thatâs okay, I think Sarahâs handling it,â she said cheerfully.
Great. That was what I had been afraid of. âBut I ââ
âHi Ginger ,â Mark Rothmann said pointedly as he passed us on his way out the door, not acknowledging me at all.
âWhat was that about?â I whispered to Ginger as soon as he was out of earshot.
âWell,â she said, leaning forward, âyou kind of wrote a lot of mean stuff about the theater kids in your Friendverse profile.â
âWhat?â I asked, horrified by how far this hackerâs reach had gone.
âYeah,â she said. âYou wrote a blog making fun of the whole emo, black-wearing, reading-Chekhov-for-fun thing. You know, the kind of stuff youâve told me before. When I saw it on Friendverse, I thought it was kind of strange, but if you were hacked, I guess it makes senseâ¦.â
I tuned Ginger out and looked around the green room (which was actually beige). Sure enough, most of the heavily eyelinered eyes, both guysâ and girlsâ, were narrowed at me.
âBut I didnât write any of that stuff!â I protested. âThis whole thing is a misunderstanding!â
âI believe you, Mad,â Ginger said. âBut do you still think youâll be able to do the show? Because Sarah said ââ
âFelia!â the assistant stage manager called, sticking her head in the classroom.
âHere,â I said, scrambling to my feet.
âWe need you onstage,â she said.
âRight,â I said, grabbing my script and heading to the blackbox, my head spinning.
This hacker had clearly done their research. Since I didnât really hang out socially with the theater kids, not everyone knew that I was even involved in all the plays. When Iâd told Justin on one of our first dates that I was a thespian, heâd misunderstood me and there had been a lot of confusion that didnât get cleared up until our makeout session later that night.
I walked through the lightlock and onstage, where, luckily, my scene hadnât started yet. Sarah Donner, sitting in the front row in her ârehearsal clothesâ â overalls and character shoes â with her long brown hair