Read an Excerpt
Comedy Girl MSR
Heeeere's ... Trixie!
"I loathe high school. I'm unbearably shy — afraid to speak up in class. I'm not the class clown — I'm the class mime!"
I smiled from ear to ear as the audience burst into laughter. I felt an enormous rush from the packed house. Though I was onstage alone, I found comfort in my best friends: a cordless microphone, a stool, and a glass of water.
Anything could happen in comedy. The audience might not laugh, they might heckle me, they might walk out. But despite those grim possibilites, I felt unbelievably euphoric and alive.
"It's great to be here in Chicago — at Chaplin's, where I got my start. I go to a totally huge high school in the suburbs. It's so big, by the time I get to History class a new president is in office!"
I smiled as they laughed again. "My best friend, Jazzy, is a shopaholic. Always ready for the latest bargain. I walk through the school lunch line with a tray. She walks through with a grocery cart." After the laughter subsided, I continued: "She's the only student at Mason High who buys lunch with a credit card."
I took a sip of water and replaced the glass on the stool.
"I call my mom Sergeant because it's nicer than calling her Dictator. She keeps tabs on me wherever I go, like I was one of her third-grade students. While I was on the road doing comedy, she won the gold medal in the Olympics. She took first place in Women's Long Distance Calling!"
I kept my pace going. "My dad hasn't moved from the couch for years. While other fathers collect stamps, my father collects dust.
"I also have a drugged-out older brother, Sid. We used to wrestle andbox when we were little. Now the only hits he takes are from a bong.
"As for my love life, I'm hoping to marry my major crush — Gavin Baldwin. I have something borrowed and something blue. I just need one more thing — the groom!"
The audience laughed again. I felt an electric connection. I was in the one place in the world where I belonged.
"The weather in Chicago —," I continued.
"Trixie, it's time for supper!" my mother called.
I looked at my seventeen-year-old reflection, then reluctantly turned away from the mirror and my audience of adoring, wide-eyed stuffed animals lined in rows on my dresser. I switched off my tape-recorded laugh track, threw my round hairbrush microphone down on my white fluffy bedspread, and stepped out of my bedroom-back into reality.
Comedy Girl MSR
. Copyright © by Ellen Schreiber. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
