Stage Fright

by Ann M. Martin

Overview

Can Sara overcome her shyness to perform in the school play? 
Sara is extremely timid—she only has two friends, and one of them is her cousin. Her mother is constantly pushing her to leave the safety of her room and be more social, but for Sara, being in public is a punishment worse than death.
When Sara's teacher insists that everyone this year—shy or not—participate in the school play, Sara is filled with terror. To top it off, she finds out her best friend, the one person who understands her, might be moving away. More than ever, Sara wants to climb into her shell, but the play is looming and there's no place to hide.
This ebook features an illustrated personal history of Ann M. Martin, including rare images from the author's collection.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781453298053
Publisher:	Open Road Media Young Readers
Publication date:	04/22/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	129
File size:	9 MB
Age Range:	7 - 10 Years

About the Author

Ann M. Martin grew up in Princeton, New Jersey. After attending Smith College, where she studied education and psychology, she became a teacher at a small elementary school in Connecticut. Martin also worked as an editor of children's books before she began writing full time. Martin is best known for the Baby-Sitters Club series, which has sold over one hundred seventy million copies. Her novel A Corner of the Universe won a Newbery Honor in 2003. In 1990, she cofounded the Lisa Libraries, which donates new children's books to organizations in underserved areas. Martin lives in upstate New York with her three cats.
A Corner of the Universe won a Newbery Honor in 2003. In 1990, she cofounded the Lisa Libraries, which donates new children’s books to organizations in underserved areas. Martin lives in upstate New York with her three cats.

Read an Excerpt

Stage Fright

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By Ann M. Martin

OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

Copyright © 1984 Ann M. Martin
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4532-9805-3

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CHAPTER 1

The Birthday Party

"ME, ME, ME!"

"Ooh, ooh, ooh!"

"Pick me, pick me!"

I looked around. Every single girl at Carol's tenth birthday party was waving her hand wildly. They all wanted to be picked as the magician's assistant.

Except me.

I was hoping nobody would even see me. I didn't want to be the magician's assistant. I'd rather have eaten Brussels sprouts for the rest of my life. No kidding.

We were sitting on folding chairs in my cousin Carol's backyard. I was in the last row next to Wendy, my very best friend in the whole world.

Wendy lives next door to me, and Carol lives across the street. Carol turned ten first, Wendy'd catch up in two months, and I'd catch up in four months.

Anyway, Wendy and I were in the back row. I always choose the back row if I can. When you're up front, people can see you, and I hate being seen.

The magician's name was Dr. Sorcery. Dr. Sorcery was standing in front of us. He was wearing a black top hat with a yellow flower stuck in the band, and a black coat with glittery stars and moons on it.

He looked around at all the hands. "Let's see," he said.

"Me! Me, me!" That was Wendy. She was waving harder than anybody. She just loves being seen.

I slumped down in my chair so far I almost slid onto the ground.

Finally the magician made a choice. "Okay," he said. "You in the blue dress."

That was Wendy.

I sighed with relief.

Wendy ran around the chairs to Dr. Sorcery. When she reached him, he shook her hand and said, "Hello, young lady. What's your name?"

"Wendy," she replied, grinning.

I would have died.

But Wendy enjoyed it.

"Well," said Dr. Sorcery, "starting right now, you're not Wendy, you're Magicadabra, my faithful assistant."

Everybody giggled. Wendy grinned even harder.

Sometimes I wish I could be just like Wendy.

Sometimes.

Dr. Sorcery gave Wendy a bright blue cape to wear and a silvery crown-thing for her hair. Then she helped him by holding up rings and scarves and tubes. She pulled a bouquet of flowers out of an empty black velvet bag. She fanned out a deck of cards so he could do mind reading. And she broke an egg into his hat.

At last the show was over. Everybody clapped while Dr. Sorcery and Magicadabra took their bows. Wendy gave back the cape and crown. Then my Aunt Martha, Carol's mother, said, "Thank you, Dr. Sorcery. Now if everybody will come to the picnic tables, we'll have cake and ice cream."

"Yay!" shouted the girls.

I was glad it was time for cake and ice cream, but I didn't feel like shouting.

I caught up with Wendy as fast as I could. I just had to sit next to her or Carol at the table.

We found seats together at Carol's table. There was a yellow plastic basket full of candies at everybody's place. There was also a little box that turned out to be holding a beaded bracelet and one of those snappers that pops when you pull the ends apart.

As soon as we were sitting down, all the girls began snapping their favors.

Pop! Pop! Bang! It sounded like we were in the middle of a war.

Wendy pulled hers apart with a satisfying crack! and examined the prizes inside—a paper party hat, a red ring for her finger, and a fortune on a folded slip of paper. The fortune said: Spend your money wisely now, and you will be rich later.

"Wow," said Wendy. "Rich."

She looked longingly at my party favor.

"Want to pop it?" I asked gratefully.

"Really?" asked Wendy. "I can pop it? I'll give you all the stuff inside, okay?"

"Okay," I said.

Wendy snapped mine open and gave me the hat, the ring, and the fortune. My fortune said: You won't be lonely for long. A handsome stranger will sweep you off your feet by the end of the month.

Wendy and I giggled. "A handsome stranger," she teased. "Wooo-weee, your first boyfriend!"

"Oh, Wendy," I said. I was probably blushing, but I was laughing, too.

It was right then that Carol suggested, "Hey, let's go around the table, and everybody read your fortune out loud so we can all hear, okay?"

I froze. My tongue glued itself to the roof of my mouth, and my stomach dropped about a foot.

I must have looked awful, because Wendy said, "Sara? What's wrong?"

I glanced at her but didn't say anything.

"Don't you want to read your fortune?" Wendy guessed. She knows me pretty well.

I certainly did not. It's bad enough having to read aloud, but all that stuff about a handsome stranger—the girls would tease me from here to next year.

I managed to shake my head.

"Okay," Wendy said. "I'll take care of it."

I didn't bother to ask how. Just as long as someone was going to take care of it.

Carol read her fortune out loud and everybody laughed. Then Annie, sitting next to Carol, read her fortune, and everybody laughed at her. Two people to go and it would be my turn. What was Wendy going to do?

Ha ha. Hee hee. Everyone was laughing again.

Now it was my turn.

"Okay, Sara," called Carol. "What does yours say?"

Before I could even look at Wendy, she jumped in and said, "You'll never guess what happened. I ate Sara's fortune. It was an accident. It was stuck to this piece of candy—"

"Wendy!" exclaimed Aunt Martha suddenly. She was walking around the table putting a scoop of ice cream on everybody's plate. She stopped with the scooper in midair. "You ate the paper? That could be dangerous. Maybe—"

"Oh, it's all right," Wendy interrupted quickly. "I didn't swallow it or anything. I just sort of chewed it up. I spit most of it out."

"Well, if you're sure ..."

"I am. Listen, my fortune was great." She read it out loud.

Everybody had forgotten about me and my fortune, and Wendy had saved me from another mess.

What would I do without her?

When we were through reading the fortunes, Aunt Martha and Uncle John brought Carol's cake to the table. We sang three different verses of "Happy Birthday." First we sang the regular "Happy Birthday to you" verse. Then we sang the "How old are you?" verse. The last verse we sang went like this:

Happy birthday to you.
You live in a zoo.
You look like a monkey,
And smell like one, too!

Aunt Martha and Uncle John looked disgusted at that part, but Carol just laughed and cut the cake. After we'd stuffed ourselves, it was time to go home.

Aunt Martha handed out goody bags, which we filled with our candy and fortunes and prizes. Wendy and I called goodbye to Carol and wished her one more Happy Birthday. Then we started across the street to my house.

I had survived another party.
But I still had to face my mother.

CHAPTER 2

Fighting

WENDY AND I RAN through the front door of my house. I was so glad to be home, even if I had just been across the street. Home was safe—at least safer than a party.

In the living room, Star and Lucy were curled up on the big couch. They were sleeping as close together as they possibly could. In fact, Star was draped across Lucy's back with his tail in her face. Lucy didn't seem to mind at all.

Next to my parents and Wendy, Star and Lucy are my favorite people, even though they are cats. We got Lucy first. She has long, fluffy fur and came from a pet shop. She's lazy and loveable and purrs practically nonstop. Star came later. We opened the front door one winter morning and he was just sitting on our porch. It was as if the house and Mom and Daddy and I belonged to him already. So we invited him in and he stayed. Star is not very handsome—he's lumpy and sort of fat, and he has spots in all the wrong places, but he makes up for his looks by being the world's biggest show-off.

I dashed across the living room and plopped down on the couch with a bounce. Lucy didn't budge. Star opened one eye, looked at me, and closed the eye again.

"Hi, Kiddos," I said. I have about half a million nicknames for the cats. Star is called Starbo, Starfur, Staz, Stazzy, Starro, and sometimes Mouse. I don't know why. Lucy is called Lucille, Luce, Lulu, Looie, Looz, and Purr-woman. Together they are called Kiddos, Babies, Cat People, the Cat Kids, and the King and Queen of Fur.

I bent over and buried my face against Lucy. "How are you guys? Did you miss me?"

Wendy rolled her eyes. She likes Lucy and Star okay, but not the way I do. Maybe it's because she doesn't have any pets at home. She has a brother and sister instead.

Wendy sat down next to me and patted Lucy. Luce's fur really is fantastic. I wonder if old Starbo ever gets jealous of it.

Wendy and I were sitting, still patting the cats, when Mom and Daddy came in.

"Well," said Mom brightly. "Hi, Wendy. How was the party, you two?"

I paused.

Here's the thing about parties: I don't like them.

Here's the thing about my mother: she wants me to love them.

Here's the thing about Wendy: she loves parties, and my mother thinks that's just wonderful.

Finally I said carefully, "It was okay."

"Oh, Sara," said my mother. "Can't you be a little more enthusiastic?"

I sighed. If I got all enthusiastic, I'd be lying.

When I didn't say anything, my mother let out a pretty big sigh of her own.

She'd never understand that I simply didn't like parties. I knew she only wanted me to like them because she thought I should have more friends and do more things. Besides, she likes parties an awful lot herself. It must be hard for her to imagine someone not liking something she enjoys so much. I tried to imagine not liking Star and Lucy. I couldn't. So there you are.

I guess I'm more like Daddy. He's not crazy about parties or having to give talks or having people look at him. But he's not as bad about it as I am.

Sometimes I wish I had a brother or sister. Then maybe a little of Mom's worrying would bounce off me onto another kid.

"Did you have a good time, Wendy?" asked Mom. She was determined to hear one of us say the party had been fun.

Wendy wasn't fooled. She knows all about Mom and me and this party thing. She didn't want to do anything that would make me look bad. So she didn't say whether she had had a good time. Instead she said, "There was this magician at the party, Mrs. Holland. What was his name, Sara?"

"Dr. Sorcery," I replied. "And Wendy got to be his assistant."

"Yeah," said Wendy. "I broke an egg into his top hat, only he didn't mind. It turned into a birthday cupcake for Carol.... I wonder if I should try that in Dad's golf hat."

"I wouldn't," I said.

"And the cake was yummy," Wendy went on.

"Oh, Mom, yeah, you should have seen it!" I cried. "Uncle John put pink frosting on it and decorated it with blue and white flowers." Uncle John is this terrific baker. The only baker I know who is more terrific is Daddy. He's Uncle John's brother.

Star woke up with a start and leaped off the couch, bounding toward the den. Lucy followed. They do that sometimes and I don't know why. It's as if a silent cat alarm clock goes off somewhere.

Daddy got up from the blue armchair and sat down where the King and Queen of Fur had been. I climbed in his lap and leaned against him, feeling his beard tickle my cheek.

For a while the four of us sat quietly. Then Mom broke the silence by saying, "So what games did you play at Carol's party?"

That did it. Now we were really treading on thin ice.

Wendy stood up. "Gosh, I have to go. See you, everybody." She escaped out the front door. I didn't blame her.

"Come over after dinner," I yelled. "Bring your Malibu Barbie. We'll make a new bathing suit for her."

"'kay," she yelled back.

"Well, did you win any prizes?" asked Mom, getting back to the awful subject without wasting a second.

"No," I said, squirming uncomfortably in Daddy's lap. He patted my hand.

"What were the games you played?" Mom asked again.

I took a deep breath. "Musical chairs, egg relay races, drop-the-clothespin-in-the-bottle, and blind man's buff."

"Did you play?" asked Mom.

"Liz," said my father quietly.

"Honey, I'm just curious." Mom looked a little hurt.

"No, I didn't play."

"Oh, Sara." Mom sighed. You'd think she'd found out I'd robbed an entire town or something.

I hung my head. Daddy wrapped my hands in his.

"What did you do while the other girls played games?" asked Mom.

I didn't say anything. I was too close to tears. It hadn't been any picnic not playing the games (although it was better than playing). Now I was feeling bad about it all over again.

I started to struggle out of Daddy's lap, but he held me tight. "Don't you think you're being a little hard on Sara?" he asked my mother.

"For pity's sake, Chris, all I want is for her to have some fun at these parties. It's not supposed to be torture."

"But she doesn't enjoy them," said Daddy, sounding annoyed. "Why force it?"

"Well, why can't she exert herself a little? She doesn't make any effort. She spends half her time up in her room doing who knows what—"

"She's very creative," Daddy said loudly. "Who says she has to be with people all the time?"

"It's not normal," exploded Mom.

Not normal? I wasn't normal? Mom and Daddy were talking about me like I wasn't even there. No, scratch that. They weren't talking about me; they were fighting about me. Again.

"Shut up!" I yelled, twisting off of Daddy's lap.

"Sara!" exclaimed my father. "You may not speak to us like that."

And you can't tell me I'm not normal, I wanted to say.

For a few seconds we all just stared at each other. Finally Daddy said, "Look, it's almost dinnertime. What do you say we take Hugh and go to Burger King?"

Hugh is our Volkswagen.

Mom smiled and appeared to relax. Her face softened. "Sara?" she asked me.

"Okay," I said, feeling a tiny bit better. I mean, I really love Whoppers. But a Whopper doesn't exactly make up for what just happened here. And as we bumped along in Hugh a few minutes later, I only halfway forgot about not being normal.

CHAPTER 3

Six Hundred and Forty Eyes

IT WAS ON TUESDAY, three days after Carol's party, that the most horrible thing in the world happened. Wendy and I were sitting in the back of Mrs. Fischer's classroom passing notes as carefully as we could. We were really hot and bored. I kept looking from the thermometer to the clock. The thermometer said ninety-one degrees and the clock said 2:05.

Ninety-one degrees at 2:05 on Tuesday, May 29, in 4-B, Mrs. Fischer's fourth-grade class, in Riverside Elementary School, Riverside, New Jersey, U.S.A., North America, Earth....

Poor Mrs. Fischer. It wasn't her fault we weren't paying attention. Who can concentrate on fractions when the thermometer reads ninety-one degrees? I wondered if Carol was hot and bored in 4-A, and if her teacher was making her class learn fractions, too.

"Ssst," whispered Wendy under her breath. She leaned down to the floor, supposedly to pick up her blue owl eraser.

I glanced at her and dropped my hand to my side as she straightened up. My fingers closed over a wadded-up piece of notebook paper. Staring straight ahead at Mrs. Fischer, I opened the paper inside my desk. The paper was all creased and soft from being passed so much. It hardly made a sound as I unfolded it.

Mrs. Fischer turned her back to put a new problem on the board, and I peeked at the note. It said: Mrs. Fischer's bra strap is showing.

I looked up at Mrs. Fischer. Sure enough, the shoulder strap was sticking out past her sleeveless blouse.

I started to giggle silently, which is sometimes very hard to do. I was in danger of snorting. I forced myself to calm down.

I felt a little bad about laughing, anyway. First of all, Wendy and I don't usually fool around in class. Fourth grade was the first time we'd been in the same classroom since Wendy's family moved to Riverside the summer before second grade. So all this year we'd wanted to giggle and pass notes and draw pictures, but we tried to keep a lid on it. We felt lucky just to be allowed to sit next to each other in the back row.

The other reason I felt guilty about laughing at Mrs. Fischer's bra strap is that I really like Mrs. Fischer. She's my all-time favorite teacher. Mom says she's been good for me. I guess she has. All I know is that this is the first year I've liked school. I think Wendy has something to do with that, too, though. She makes everything easier for me.

I don't like many things about school—for instance, oral reports, reading aloud, talking in class, group projects, and especially gym. But with Wendy around, things are different. When Mrs. Fischer calls on me, Wendy looks at me and smiles. Then I feel better. In gym, Wendy chooses me to be on her team. She never throws the ball at me in dodgeball, and sometimes in baseball she covers for me. She says it's good practice for her. We always try to be in the outfield together. I pay her back by showing her how to do lots of things—make doll clothes, draw horses, string beaded jewelry. Those are the things I'm good at and Wendy's not so good at. Once, I got this idea for making lots of stuff and selling it at a sidewalk stand. Wendy and Carol thought it would be fun, so they pitched in. We made $4.83 each.

Anyway, back to school. This year's been pretty good. Wendy and I teamed up for the social studies project. We made a stained-glass window. We copied a picture of a window that's in a big church in Paris. I figured out how to glue the colored tissue paper to make it look like stained glass. Wendy read our report while I stood next to her in front of the class and held up the window. Wendy didn't mind doing the reading, and we got an A on our project. We still have the window, too. It spends a week in my bedroom, a week in Wendy's, and so on. Only now there's a hole in an angel's ear where Wendy's sister poked it accidentally.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Stage Fright by Ann M. Martin. Copyright © 1984 Ann M. Martin. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

1. The Birthday Party,
2. Fighting,
3. Six Hundred and Forty Eyes,
4. Wendy's Disaster,
5. No Deal,
6. Tryouts,
7. Playing Nellie,
8. Nothing but Trouble,
9. Dress Rehearsal,
10. The Day before the Play,
11. "Uncle Elmer's Fabulous Idea",
12. After the Play,
A Personal History by Ann M. Martin,