Loudest Beagle on the Block

  “Hrrrmmmmwrrrrooooo,” Trumpet agreed sleepily.

  “I’m just worried about how distracted you’ve been,” Mom said. “I don’t want anything to get in the way of your music.”

  “She won’t,” I said. “I know she won’t. Great-Aunt Golda wouldn’t have left her to me if she thought it was a bad idea, right?”

  “Let me think about it,” Mom said. “I really don’t know if this family can handle the chaos that comes with having a dog.”

  “I think we can,” I said. “I’ll help. I’ll do whatever.”

  “Well, we’re meeting with the lawyers about the will again tomorrow. So we’ll see,” Mom said. Which was ominous. “We’ll see” usually means “No, we aren’t going to Disney World this summer” and “No, you can’t get a second piercing in your ear” and “No, because we said so.”

  I just had to hope that our performance at the talent show would change her mind. Once she saw what I could do — once she saw that I wasn’t distracted, that I could still do my music — once I won the talent show … maybe then she’d agree to keep Trumpet.

  I always have butterflies before a performance, but on Friday they felt more like giant hedgehogs rolling around in my stomach. I was so nervous. There were so many things that could go wrong. Starting with Heidi falling off the stage and ending with nobody laughing at our song. That would be the worst. I was horribly afraid that it wouldn’t be funny, and then Parker would think he was wrong about me being hilarious, and Nikos would stop wanting to hang out with us, and Tara and Natasha would smirk and whisper, and, of course, Avery would say something hurtful and horrible. That thought kept rattling around and around in my head. What if we weren’t funny?

  It was actually a relief to see that Heidi was as nervous as I was. The only one who wasn’t scared was Rory. Like I said before, she’s not afraid of anything. She couldn’t wait to get up on that stage.

  “Three more hours!” she said, bouncing from foot to foot and punching the air in front of her like a boxer. School had just ended and we were standing next to Heidi’s locker, watching Heidi try to get one of her textbooks out without setting off an avalanche of stuff. The talent show was scheduled for six o’clock.

  Tara was across the hall at her locker. She picked up one of her feet and stretched it way over her head in a long split. Then she did a couple of weird bendy things with her arms and legs. It looked like she was just stretching to warm up, but I was pretty sure she was trying to freak us out. I hate to admit it, but it was kind of impressive. Would the judges like her ballet better than our piece?

  Then I saw Nikos coming down the hall toward us. He was wearing a warm brown T-shirt that was kind of the same color as Trumpet. Maybe Tara was showing off for him. That wouldn’t be surprising. But he didn’t even look at her. Instead he came straight over to us. And he smiled at me. He really did! Not that that meant anything. But I could tell that Tara had noticed.

  “Hey guys,” Nikos said. He leaned on the locker next to Heidi’s. “Are you ready for the run-through?”

  “The run-through?” Heidi said, and then dove for a pile of books as they all came sliding out of her locker. I clapped my hand to my mouth.

  “I forgot about that!” I said. “We’re supposed to run through the whole show for the teacher supervisors before tonight. I can’t believe I didn’t remember!”

  “Yeah, I think you’re supposed to be in the auditorium in about twenty minutes,” Nikos said, checking his watch. He knelt down and helped Heidi shove the runaway books back into her locker. She slammed it shut quickly to keep them in there. I made a mental note not to be standing in the way next time she opened it again.

  “Uh-oh,” Rory said. “What about the surprise? How will we keep it secret?”

  “Surprise?” Nikos echoed curiously. “What surprise?”

  “I thought I’d have time to go home and come back!” I said.

  “Maybe Nikos can help,” Heidi said. She looked around at all the other kids in the hallway, some of whom were close enough to hear us. Tara was still bending herself into freaky shapes, but I was pretty sure she was listening. Heidi lowered her voice. “Maybe he can get what we need.” She gave us all a wide-eyed, meaningful expression.

  “Sure,” Nikos said. “What can I do?”

  “Use my cell phone,” Rory said, digging it out of her pocket.

  I glanced at Tara. “Come with me,” I said to Nikos. We ran down the hall back to Mr. Peary’s classroom. It was empty and quiet. I peeked out the window in the door to make sure Cadence wasn’t out there eavesdropping. The coast was clear. I dialed my dad’s number at work, and he answered right away.

  “Dad, I need your help,” I said. “I have to stay and rehearse, so one of my friends is going to come by and get some stuff for the talent show tonight. Is that OK?”

  “Absolutely!” Dad said with great enthusiasm. I knew the phrase “one of my friends” would get him all excited. “We’ll be at the will reading this afternoon, though. We were going to go straight to the show from the lawyer’s office. Can your friend come by before we go?”

  “Yeah, he can come now,” I said. “And then we’ll meet him backstage before the show. We don’t need it for the run-through.”

  Nikos looked like he was bursting with curiosity. He was sitting on Mr. Peary’s desk with this confused smile on his face.

  “Here’s what we need,” I said, and explained it to both Nikos and Dad. Nikos grinned and shook his head. I figured that was probably what Dad was doing on the other end of the phone, too.

  “No problem, honey,” Dad said.

  “Don’t tell Mom!” I said. “It’s a surprise.”

  “You bet. See you at the show.” He hung up.

  “You got all that?” I said to Nikos. “That’s really OK?”

  “Yeah, sounds awesome,” he said, hopping down and shouldering his backpack. “I’ll be back before the show. I’ll find you.”

  “Thanks, Nikos,” I said.

  I hurried back to Rory and Heidi. We decided to do our part of the run-through without the surprise. Hopefully it would still be funny when everyone saw it for real.

  The auditorium was a zoo, like it is every year before the talent show. First- and second-graders were running up and down the aisles shrieking. Danny and his friends were practicing their skit at top volume. Musical instrument cases stuck out from the seats and poked people as they went by. Up onstage, a piano tuner was patiently checking the piano and trying to ignore all the noise.

  We found three seats together and sat down to wait our turn. Miss Caruso came around and gave everyone a printout of the order for the show.

  “I put you near the end, Ella,” she said. “Since I know your performance is going to be wonderful as always.”

  “I’m performing with Heidi and Rory this year,” I said.

  “My goodness!” Miss Caruso said, smiling at them. “I had no idea you girls were musical. You’re always so quiet in my class.” She was being polite. Rory is rarely quiet. But usually she volunteers to crash the cymbals instead of singing, so that’s probably why Miss Caruso didn’t realize she could sing.

  The younger grades were up first. A second-grader sang “America the Beautiful” but forgot the words halfway through and just sang the notes with nonsense syllables for the rest of the song. Two third-graders did a bunch of karate moves, although the teachers wouldn’t let them pretend to fight each other. Then a couple of cute little red-headed kids did a sort of tap dance/soft shoe to an old Frank Sinatra song. When they finished, Rory clapped and went: “WOOOOOOOOO!” We looked at her in surprise.

  “My stepbrother and stepsister,” she explained, rolling her eyes.

  “Aww, they’re so cute,” Heidi said.

  “Oh, yeah,” Rory said. “They’re adorable. They’re adorable twenty-four hours a day.”

  I couldn’t tell whether she was being sarcastic or not, so I didn’t say anything.

  We skipped over Maggie’s act becau
se she wasn’t bringing her cat until later that night. Kristal’s movie turned out to be a video of her little sister that she’d made in her film class that summer. Tara’s ballet performance was right before our act. She was wearing a black leotard and a flowy pink skirt and pink slippers. The beads woven all through her dark braids were pink, too. Natasha was sitting in the front row, and she clapped and yelled, “Go Tara!” when Tara came out onstage.

  As I knew from being in her class all summer, Tara was amazing. She was really precise and her legs seemed a million miles long and her hands were always perfectly elegant.

  “But it’s not funny,” Rory whispered in my ear. “Remember, the judges like funny.”

  “Plus she’s out there by herself,” Heidi said. “But we have each other!” She gave me a quick hug. I felt the hedgehogs in my stomach calm down a little. That was true. Even if the audience didn’t like it, Heidi and Rory would still be on my side.

  There weren’t many people in the audience still paying attention when we went on. We ran through our number pretty quickly. Miss Caruso looked puzzled, but she had to hurry on to the next act. It was getting really close to six o’clock.

  Finally the rehearsal was done. We were all herded into the first three rows so the audience could come in and sit down. Miss Caruso made us sit in the order we were going to perform, so I wound up right next to Tara. She fluffed out her skirt and pointed her toes and looked at me sideways.

  “I like that song you’re doing,” she said. “It’s so … different. For you, I mean.”

  “And I like your ballet piece,” I said. “It’s so much like the one you did last year.”

  She gave me a sharp look, but I kept smiling like that was supposed to be a compliment. Two can play this game, Tara Washington.

  “I saw you talking to Nikos,” she said. “You’re not, like, dating, are you?”

  I started to say no, but Rory leaned over and shushed us. “Miss Caruso is about to start!” she hissed in a stage whisper that was louder than most people’s shouting voices.

  The lights dimmed on the audience and brightened onstage. Miss Caruso made her yearly speech about how much talent there is in the school and how excited everyone is about the new year. Then she introduced the first act: a trio of first-graders showing off their “gymnastics” skills, which meant a lot of somersaults across a mat and some wobbly cartwheels. It was cute because they were so little. I wondered if I had seemed that cute and that mediocre when I sang my first talent-show song in first grade. I hoped I was better now.

  During the intermission we went backstage to get ready. Nikos was there waiting for us.

  “As requested,” he said, handing me a bag and patting the large covered box beside him.

  “What’s that, Nikos?” Tara said, sashaying up to him. She tried to peek under the blanket, but Rory swatted her away.

  “You’ll find out,” Rory said.

  “Good luck!” Nikos said. “I’ll be watching!”

  “Thanks, Nikos!” Tara trilled like he had been talking to her.

  We waved and he went back out into the audience. Then we just had to wait. We waited through Kamala’s piano performance. We waited through Danny’s goofy skit about a couple of monkeys who decided to audition for a soap opera. We waited while Maggie’s cat stretched and yawned and blinked and looked pretty. We waited through Tara’s ballet.

  And then, finally, it was our turn.

  Heidi and I carried the box out onstage and put it next to the piano while Miss Caruso was announcing us. I was wearing a pink skirt and a leather jacket I had found in my dad’s closet. It said The Smashing Mozarts in metal studs on the back. I also had on his giant class ring from high school. I hoped it wouldn’t get in the way of me playing the piano.

  Heidi and Rory wore bouncy ponytails and 50s-style poodle skirts. They stood on one side of the stage, pretending to whisper and look at me. There was a murmur of curiosity from the audience. At least, I hoped it was curiosity.

  I sat down at the piano as Miss Caruso stepped offstage. Putting my hands on the keys calmed me down right away. This wasn’t any different from any other performance. I could do this.

  I hit the first chord and started humming. That was Rory’s cue.

  “Is she really going out with him?” she said to Heidi.

  “Well, there she is, let’s ask her,” said Heidi, pointing at me. She said it in kind of a rush, but you could still understand the words. They crossed the stage and came up to me. I pretended to stare dreamily into space as I played. Heidi and Rory leaned on the piano behind me.

  “Betty, is that Jimmy’s ring you’re wearing?” Rory said to me.

  “Mmm-hmm,” I said, and hit the chord again.

  “Gee, it must be great riding with him,” Heidi said at the top of her lungs.

  “Is he picking you up after school today?” Rory asked, kicking Heidi behind the piano.

  “Mmm-mm,” I said, shaking my head.

  “By the way, where’d you meet him?” they said together.

  “I met him at the candy store,” I sang. “He turned around and smiled at me — you get the picture?”

  “Yes, we see,” they said.

  “That’s when I fell for —”

  “The leader of the pack!” we all sang together. At the same moment, Heidi whipped the blanket off the box. Trumpet immediately poked her head out. She didn’t even hesitate. She didn’t care that bright lights were shining on her, or that there was an audience full of people staring at her. She knew she was born to be a star.

  “AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO​OOOOOOOOO!!!!!!” she howled, right on cue.

  And right on cue, the audience started laughing. I nearly missed the next bar because they were laughing so loudly. But I stayed with it, bringing up the tempo and launching into the next verse. Heidi lifted Trumpet onto the top of the piano. Trumpet didn’t miss a beat.

  “AAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUO​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O!!!!!!!” she warbled as I sang: “They told me he was bad — but I knew he was sad — that’s why I fell for —”

  “The leader of the pack!” Heidi and Rory chimed in.

  This was my plan. I had found a songbook with “Leader of the Pack” in it, and I knew right away that it would be a perfect song to sing with Trumpet. Her long wild howls fit perfectly with the melodramatic song. I could sing most of it with Heidi and Rory backing me up. And we could all throw ourselves into overacting so it would be really funny.

  I glanced up at Trumpet halfway through the song and realized that someone had dressed her up, too. She had a black bandanna around her neck and tiny black leather wristbands around her front paws. She looked like a motorcycle rebel, if motorcycle rebels can also have long floppy ears and be ridiculously cute. Had Nikos done that?

  We ended with Trumpet’s howls fading off into silence. She lowered her head and looked around like, That’s it? I thought I got a whole fifteen minutes of fame! What’s our encore?

  The audience erupted into applause. Trumpet stood up on the piano, wagging her tail. She seemed to like the applause as much as we did. She barked and barked. When I went to pick her up, she draped her front paws proudly on my shoulder and licked my face.

  “Yes, you were fabulous,” I said to her. “By far the most talented dog this stage has ever seen.”

  We had to come back onstage and bow a second time because the audience kept clapping and hooting for us. That had never happened to me before. I didn’t remember it ever happening to anyone else at the Welcome Back Talent Show either.

  “We did it!” Heidi shrieked once we were backstage again. She threw her arms around me and Trumpet. “We made it! And I didn’t fall off the stage or any —” She tripped and fell backward over a pile of chairs. They all went clattering in every direction with a humongous crash.

  Onstage, Cadence was playing the violin. She jumped a mile, lost her place, and had to start her piece over. The w
hole time she kept sending death glares our way, but we were busy helping Heidi up and trying not to laugh.

  Trumpet wanted to jump down and explore all the dark corners backstage, but I kept a firm grip on her. At the end of the show, everyone went back onstage for the final bow. And then the judges came onstage, too. Principal Hansberry was one of them. She smiled right at me and Trumpet. I wondered if she liked dogs.

  Heidi grabbed my elbow and held on tightly. Rory patted Trumpet’s head and let her lick her hand. My heart was racing. Don’t get too excited. Stay calm, I told myself.

  “Congratulations to all our performers tonight,” Principal Hansberry said into the microphone. “I am so thrilled to be joining such a wonderful school, with so many talented students. I’m really remarkably impressed.”

  Danny whooped loudly and Mr. Peary gave him a stern glare. Principal Hansberry went on.

  “And now I am delighted to announce the winners of this year’s Welcome Back Talent Show, by unanimous vote: Ella Finegold, Heidi Tyler, Rory Mason, and their surprise guest singer!” Principal Hansberry held out a bunch of flowers to us. Heidi screamed and jumped up and down. Everyone in the audience was standing up and clapping and cheering.

  I was holding on to Trumpet, so Heidi and Rory stepped forward to take the flowers. We waved to the audience. I saw my mom and dad smiling. Even Isaac looked happy. I couldn’t believe I’d really done it at last. We won the talent show!

  “Thanks, Trumpet,” I said in her ear. She wagged her tail and licked my face. It was like she was saying Well, you were pretty good, too.

  The auditorium was a madhouse after the talent show. About a million people came up to me to say hi to Trumpet. I didn’t think I knew most of them, but they all knew my name. The first- and second-graders were really excited to pet her. Trumpet didn’t mind at all. She wriggled around and licked their hands, which made them squeal and giggle. Maggie’s cat hissed at us from Maggie’s arms, but he seemed to be the only one who didn’t like Trumpet.

  Parker and Danny and Danny’s sister, Rosie, came up and patted her, too. “That was awesome,” Parker said. “That was maybe the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. Sorry,” he said to Danny.