Free Somebody on This Bus Is Going to Be Famous by J. B. Cheaney Page B

‘That’s great, Penelope, we’ll put you on the list, and, Dylan, are you ready?’ Dylan’s doing a stupid lip sync. They should ban all the lip syncs next year—they’re boring and they don’t take any talent whatsoever.”
    â€œI agree,” Miranda agreed.
    â€œBut when Shelly gets onstage, she’s got her tech crew . Pul-leese. Mr. Manchuso is doing the sound for her and Barton Joy is doing lights, and she gets to go through her whole song.”
    â€œEwww,” said Miranda.
    Penelope stabbed her organic roasted veggie wrap with a fork. “Then Mrs. Jarvis talks up how great everybody is but there’s a few she has to leave out because of time.”
    Miranda gasped. “Pen! She didn’t cut you , did she?”
    â€œOf course not!” Penelope looked outraged at the very idea, and Miranda almost apologized. “Most of the fourth-graders get cut, but she still leaves in a bunch of lip syncs, and Daniel Kenner’s lame magic show comes next to last, and guess who’s last? The act Mrs. Jarvis thinks is so great she puts it there to wrap up the whole show?”
    â€œUh…Shelly?”
    â€œ Shelly .” Penelope took a savage bite out of her veggie wrap. “I should’ve just left. I should’ve not signed up for the stupid show, but my mother made me.”
    Miranda thought she remembered Penelope’s mom advising against it, but maybe she’d heard wrong. Penelope went on, “If I’d brought my Firebird costume—which makes that silver outfit of Shelly’s look like a pillowcase—and lights and everything, it would have been a totally different story. That’s mostly what Shelly has going for her, anyway: tech support.”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    â€œIf you pull the plug on her, she’s nothing.”
    â€œRight.”
    Penelope suddenly put down her veggie wrap and sat up straighter. “Wait a minute. I have an idea. What if we actually pull the plug ?”
    By “we,” she meant Miranda.
    What if Miranda slipped backstage just before Shelly’s turn (“The back door is open all the time”) and sneaked over to the sound equipment, and while Mr. Manchuso’s back was turned (“He’s always reading comic books— X-Men is his favorite”), she could knock out the plug to the speakers (“It’ll look like an accident! If you move fast enough, they won’t even know it’s you!”).
    Friendship is easy if all you have to do is nod and laugh at the right times. But when you have to actually do something, it’s like being called up to give an oral book report, when all she wanted to do was read the book. (Mr. Cavendish in the fourth grade was always making her stand up and read her reports because he thought they were so good. So she started writing crummy ones, just to make him stop.)
    Miranda stalled. “Why can’t you do it? Since you’ll be backstage already.”
    â€œBecause I’ll probably be changing. That costume takes a lot of time to get out of—it’s got all these tricky hooks and stuff. Can’t risk it.”
    But you can risk me , Miranda thought.
    Penelope was going on: “…after all these months and coming over to my house and taking you shopping, I ask you to do this one thing as a friend—how can you say no?”
    Easy , Miranda thought. Just two letter sounds, en and oh . But somehow it wouldn’t come together. And neither would yes .
    â€œHow will I know which plug?” Miranda felt her throat going dry.
    â€œI’ll figure it out ahead of time and mark it somehow. I’ll even loosen it up, so it’ll be easy to knock out. Nobody will see; they’ll all be watching Awesome Shelly . And as soon as the speaker cuts off, it’ll take them a while to figure out why. You’ll have plenty of time to get away. Come on, it’ll serve her right.”
    Miranda