Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls: Stage Fright Read Online Free PDF Page B

Mrs. Hunter once told my grandma I was a joy to have in the classroom. That was a little like being a princess. Sort of.
    “All I’m saying,” Uncle Jay replied, “is that we don’t know. And neither do your friends. So you might as well try out for the role if you really want to, because otherwise a part of you will always wonder, ‘Could I have been Princess Penelope, if only I had tried?’ And you don’t want to go through life wondering what might have been, do you?”
    “No,” I said, shaking my head. That would be terrible. But not as terrible as Sophie and those guys being mad at me.
    “And how do you even know your friend is going to get the part?” Uncle Jay asked. “Some other girl might get it—not you or your friend.”
    I sucked in my breath.
    “Cheyenne O’Malley wants to try for it, too!” I cried. “And if she got it, it would be awful! We all hate her!”
    “It’s wrong to hate people,” Mark said automatically. But only because he’d heard it on TV, not because he actually knows Cheyenne O’Malley.
    “So the fact is,” Uncle Jay said, “some other girl could get the part, some girl you don’t even particularly like. Wouldn’t your friend be happier if you got the part rather than some girl you didn’t like?”
    I had never even thought of that, but Uncle Jay was totally right! I mean, what if Mrs. Hunter ended up giving the part of Princess Penelope to Cheyenne? How would Sophie and those guys feel then?
    And it could totally happen! Because clearly Cheyenne wanted the part just as badly as Sophie and I did.
    “You should totally try out for Princess Penelope, Allie,” Kevin said to me. “I’m sure Sophie will forgive you.” He added thoughtfully, “Someday.”
    “Yeah,” Mark said. “And since you’re probably not going to get it, anyway, who even cares?”
    “Hey,” Uncle Jay said disapprovingly. “Let’s not be unsupportive of one another’s dreams, okay? If we aren’t there for each other, who else will be?”
    “Yeah,” I said, giving each of my brothers a dirty look.
    “I have an idea,” Uncle Jay said. “Let’s show our support for Allie by helping her practice for her audition.”
    “Okay! How will we do that?” Kevin wanted to know.
    “We’ll take turns reading all the other lines, while Allie reads Princess Penelope’s dialogue,” Uncle Jay said. “That way she’ll be prepared for the audition tomorrow, because she’ll have an idea how the lines she says should sound.”
    “I’d rather play indoor football,” Mark grumbled.
    “Just for that you get to be the evil queen,” Uncle Jay said, smacking Mark on the top of his head with the rolled-up script.
    So we spent the next hour doing what Uncle Jay had suggested. He and Mark read all the other lines in the play, while I read all of Princess Penelope’s. Occasionally, Uncle Jay let Kevin “read” a line (meaning that Uncle Jay whispered the line into Kevin’s ear and Kevin said it aloud with great dramatic flair).
    “‘Americans used fifty billion plastic water bottles last year,’” Kevin read out loud (or repeated what Uncle Jay whispered to him). “ ‘Seventy-six percent of which were not recycled. It will take over one thousand years for them to decompose!’”
    “‘Oh, no, reusable water bottle wizard,’” I cried. “ ‘I had no idea!’”
    “‘Yes,’” Kevin said. “‘That’s why you should reuse your water bottles, or better yet, just drink out of a glass!’”
    By the time we’d finished the whole play, I felt like I had a real grasp of Princess Penelope’s character, like I knew what made her tick, as Uncle Jay put it. He said it was important for any thespian (which means actor or actress) who knows her craft to have such a feel for her character that she could tell the director what kind of cereal that character had for breakfast.
    I decided that Princess Penelope would eat Count Chocula, because she’s a princess and can have whatever kind of