The Show Must Go On! (5 page)

“Okay,” Bree said cautiously.

“You're going to
hate
playing the lead,” Tiffany spat out, contempt dripping from every word. “In fact, you're going to be sorry that you ever even tried out for this play.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“The amount of work is intense,” Tiffany continued, stepping up right next to Bree. “Learning all those lines. All the pressure of the whole play revolving around you. Everyone is depending on you, you know. That's what comes with being the lead. And it's so easy to let down the whole cast . . . the whole school, actually. One little mistake, one tiny thing done wrong, and you could ruin the play for everyone.”

Bree was startled, and for the moment, speechless.

“I'd quit now if I were you,” Tiffany said as she brushed past Bree. Then she stopped and turned back toward her. “But fortunately, I'm not you.”

Bree watched Tiffany disappear into the driving rain and darkness, stunned and confused. She got onto the late bus for students who were involved in after-school activities, her mind still reeling from the bizarre encounter with Tiffany.

Was that a threat?

After dinner, Bree hunkered down at her desk and dove into what felt like a week's worth of homework. As she plowed through her math and science assignments, she wondered how Megan had managed to be in all those school plays, for all these years, while remaining a straight A student.

“Have a good day, Superstar?” Megan asked, poking her head into Bree's room, startling her.

“Pretty good,” Bree said. She was not about to share all that had happened with Tiffany that afternoon. Megan would probably say that Tiffany was right.
I'm not giving her any reason to put me down again. I'm sure she'd love to see me flop . . . or even better, quit.

“Well, be sure to let me know if you need any acting tips,” Megan offered.

“Yeah, right, Megan,” Bree replied sarcastically. “You'll be the first one I'll go to.”

Megan shrugged and closed the door.

After another hour of homework, Bree began to feel sleepy. She had gotten a good chunk of her assignments done and felt satisfied. Slipping into bed, she read for about five minutes before drifting off to sleep.

In her dream, Bree found herself sitting in the front row of the school's auditorium. The props and scenery for
The Last Sleepover
were set up on the stage. “How did I get here?” she wondered aloud.

A crowd of people filed into the auditorium and took their seats.

“What am I doing sitting in the audience?” Bree wondered. “I should be backstage, or up on the stage, or . . .”

At that moment she noticed that something was wrong. Glancing around at the people entering the auditorium, she realized that they looked strange.
What are they all wearing? And what's with that hair? They all look like they stepped out of another era.

Was it an eighties theme night at the school? But why would they do that on the night of a performance? And why would they ask the audience to also play dress-up? None of it made any sense.

The lights went down and the actors made their way onto the stage in the dark. Dim stage lights set the mood, and the play began.

RACHEL: Nice, Carrie. The place looks like it was decorated by a wrecking ball!

CARRIE: Cute. You know we only moved in a few weeks ago. My family and I haven't had a chance to fix it up yet. I just couldn't wait to have my first sleepover. It helps to make it feel like home.

LAURA: Yeah, if your home's been condemned!

That's the scene we just rehearsed today,
Bree thought. Then she focused on the girls up onstage.
Okay, now this is officially weird. Even the actors have hairstyles from another era.

As the play continued, Bree grew more and more confused.

(SUDDENLY LIGHTNING FLASHES AND THUNDER RUMBLES.)

LAURA: Eiii!

CARRIE: Laura?

LAURA: Sorry, I'm just a little afraid of thunder. I—

(THE THUNDER SOUNDS AGAIN . . . LOUDER THIS TIME. LAURA SCOOTS OVER NEXT TO CARRIE. SUDDENLY THE CHANDELIER OVERHEAD FLICKERS ON AND OFF, AGAIN AND AGAIN.)

RACHEL: Okay, now I'm officially creeped out. I—

CARRIE: Look!

(CARRIE POINTS TO THE CHANDELIER. A FLASH OF LIGHTNING REVEALS THAT THE CHANDELIER IS SHAKING.)

Bree heard a sharp snapping sound that seemed to be coming from overhead. Looking up, panic flooded through her as she realized that a stage light had broken loose and was plunging down from above. The light was headed right for the girl playing Carrie!

“Look out!” Bree screamed, leaping from her seat.

The stage vanished, as did the girl and the falling light and the audience. Bree was sitting upright in her bed, her heart pounding and her hands shaking. After a few seconds, her mind cleared and she realized that she had just awakened from a terrible dream. She was in her room at home, and the sun was shining through her window.

It was like I was right there, when the play was first performed. And that poor girl getting hit by the light. Thank you, Tiffany, for planting that vision in my brain.

Trying to shake off the effects of the dream, Bree pulled herself together and headed downstairs for breakfast.

“You look horrible,” Megan said when Bree joined her at the kitchen table.

“Thanks. I didn't sleep well. Bad dreams.”

“About what?” Megan asked.

“The show,” Bree replied through her sleepy haze. She immediately regretted having shared that with her sister.

“Stage fright, huh?” Megan said casually, shoving another spoonful of cereal into her mouth.

“No,” Bree replied defensively. “I'm fine when I'm onstage. It's just the play itself. It's hard to explain, but it gives me the creeps.”

“It's a scary play, Bree,” Megan said, shrugging her shoulders. “Giving people the creeps is what it's supposed to do.”

“Yeah, but it's supposed to give the
audience
the creeps,” Bree pointed out. “Not the actors. I've had a nagging feeling that something isn't totally right with the play. Then Tiffany told us that story.” Even mentioning the story sent a shiver through her.

“Story?” Megan asked, leaning in toward her sister.

Bree recounted the tale of the play as it had been performed thirty years earlier and the death of the girl playing the lead.

“And then last night I had a dream about it,” she said, finishing her story. “And I saw it happen, Megan.
I was right there, sitting in the front row when the light fell down on that girl. It seemed so real.”

“Sounds to me like that play is
really
getting to you,” Megan said. Bree thought that her sister almost sounded glad. “You know, some people just aren't cut out for the theater. There's no shame in that. Maybe acting isn't for you.”

“Thanks for being so sympathetic,” Bree snapped, shoving her chair away from the table. “You're a big help.”

She stormed back up to her room to get dressed.
That's the last time I go to her with my problems,
she thought.
I'm just going to get through this play and everything is going to be fine. It was just a dream. That's all. A dream.

At school that day, Bree felt more focused than she had in a long time. The dream faded from her mind, and she didn't think about the play at all.

When the last bell rang, Bree hurried to the auditorium for rehearsal with a renewed sense of purpose. After her fight with Megan that morning, she had managed to push aside her uneasy feeling about the play and was once again excited about playing Carrie.

“You look positively perky,” Melissa said as she and Bree headed to the stage.

“Perky, huh?” Bree echoed. She decided not to tell Melissa about her dream, preferring to forget it. “I guess I have been a bit serious about all this. I let that story Tiffany told us get to me, but I know she was just making up all that stuff about it being cursed to get me to quit the play. This is just a play.”

“Uh-huh,” Melissa said, looking at her friend a bit strangely. “Right, and this is just a stage, and this is just a chair, and this is—”

“Okay, okay,” Bree said, sighing. “Never mind.”

Ms. Hollows hurried into the auditorium.

“All right, ladies and gentlemen,” she announced. “Let's run the Carrie and Rachel scene, please.”

Bree was thrilled to notice that the set for Carrie's room was looking more like a real room than it had the day before. The set decorators had added more touches. Clothes, books, and general junk were strewn everywhere around the room. A few old, worn-out sleeping bags were arranged in a circle on the floor.
A complete mess,
Bree thought.
Perfect for the scene of a haunted sleepover.

“Ooh, the sleeping bags are here,” Melissa cooed when
she stepped onto the stage. “Now it looks like a sleepover!”

The scene they were about to rehearse featured only Carrie and Rachel. Bree was thrilled to be alone on the stage with her real-life best friend. They walked onstage, and Bree immediately let herself be transported into character. She was no longer Bree, she was Carrie. Melissa was no longer Melissa, she was Rachel. This was not the stage in the auditorium, it was Carrie's bedroom.

(RACHEL RUSHES TO CARRIE'S BEDROOM. CARRIE IS PACING, OBVIOUSLY UPSET.)

RACHEL: All right, Carrie. Spill it! What was so urgent that it couldn't wait?

CARRIE: Remember when I told you that I thought someone was following me?

RACHEL: Uh, yeah. It was just yesterday.

CARRIE: Right. Well, it happened again. Only now, it's happening everywhere.

RACHEL: What do you mean, EVERYWHERE?

CARRIE: Every time I walk down the hallways, I can feel someone following me. On every walk home
from school, I'm certain I can hear footsteps behind me but no one is there. Even when I go from one room in my house to another, I feel it.

RACHEL: Hold on. Hold on. You “feel” someone following you. I'm not sure I know what that means. Have you actually seen anyone?

CARRIE: I hear footsteps all the time, and when I turn around, no one is there. But I know it, Rachel. I just know it! And what's worse—

RACHEL: There's a worse part?

CARRIE: I'm positive that whoever is following me means to do me harm!

Walking toward the front of the stage, still fully in character, Bree heard a snapping sound from above. She really didn't want to break out of her character, but something told her to look up, even though it wasn't in the script.

Glancing toward the track of stage lights above her, Bree saw that one of the lights had broken off and was plunging right toward her.