Free A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban Page B

mistakes."
    "Your lowest score is dropped," says Mona.
    "That's right," says Judy. "So you won't have to worry about one judge having a prejudice against your style or selection. Only the three best scores are added up."
    "The top five kids in each age group get trophies," says Mona.
    Judy pulls out the competition schedule.
    "There are ten eleven-year-olds playing this year," she says.
    "Is Mika here?" asks Mona.
    "He is," says Judy.
    "He's cute," says Mona.
    "He plays well, too," says Judy.
    "Yeah," says Mona. "And he's cute."
    "Margaret Barstock is back again, too."
    "Oh, she 's really good. Last year she took second," says Mona.
    Judy keeps reading the names of the eleven-year-olds and Mona keeps saying stuff about who is good and who is nice and who one time forgot his music in his hotel room and had to run up three flights of stairs to get it and barely made it back by the time his name was called and had to play while he was panting like a dog and he still won a trophy.
    Now I am nervous.
    I wasn't before, but now I am.
    I never thought about other kids playing.
    I thought about me and "Forever in Blue Jeans" and winning and getting invited to play at Carnegie Hall and Mom in the audience cheering and thinking that maybe I could be the next Horowitz.
    But there are other kids here.
    Kids who have done this before.
    Kids with trophies.
    "There's an hour before you girls have to play. Do you want something to eat?" asks Judy.
    Eat? Is she kidding? Maybe trophy kids can eat, but just the word
eat
makes my stomach twist. In a bad way.
    "No, thank you," I tell Judy.
    "I packed plenty of sandwiches. Mona? You want salami?"
    "Salami?" says Mona. "Are you kidding? I'll hurl!" She reaches for two cans of pop: one for herself and one for me. "Can you imagine that? Getting up to play and launching salami?"
    My stomach twists again. I try very hard not to imagine launching anything. "That doesn't happen, right? Nobody has ever thrown up at a competition before?"
    "I never saw anybody puke," says Mona. "But one year a kid fainted. He was playing 'Green Acres' and then he started tilting to the side and then
whoosh!
Slid right to the floor. It was awesome."
    Awesome?
    "He hadn't had anything to eat all day," says Judy. She edges a zippy bag of sandwiches toward us.
    Mona edges it back. "So his mom went rushing to help him, but before she got there he was back up on the bench again playing 'Green Acres' like nothing ever happened. Awesome."
    "Did he get a trophy?" I ask.
    "No, but he got a standing ovation," says Mona. "Moral of the story?"
    "Eat something," says Judy.
    "Just keep playing," Mona says.

What It Is Like at Carnegie Hall
    There are balconies at Carnegie Hall.
    People who sit in balconies wear shiny ball gowns and have their hair twisted up fancy on their heads and carry purses that are just big enough for a pair of tiny binoculars that they use during the concert to get a closer look at your brilliant fingering. The men wear tuxedos.
    When the balcony people first get to Carnegie Hall, they can't see the stage. All they see is a huge velvet curtain with golden fringe and tassels.
    The lights dim.
    The curtain rises.
    And there is a glossy black grand piano.
    Nobody says a word.
    They don't even breathe.
    They wait.
    They wait.
    And then a spotlight hits the stage and you walk out and everybody cheers and you glide gracefully to the piano and stand in front of it while the crowd goes wild and you smile a gracious smile and curtsy and raise your dainty hand to wave and the crowd gets even louder and you curtsy once again.
    This is called making an entrance.

What It Is Like at a Perform-O-Rama
    You don't make an entrance at a Perform-O-Rama.
    Because when you finally find Meeting Room G, where you are supposed to play, there are already a bunch of people there who are left over from the Children Age Ten competition and there is no stage and no velvet curtain so even if you wanted to make an entrance, you couldn't.
    And