Misfit Theater Company (Wattys Winner 2018)

14. The Mystery of the Lampshade Strikes Again

"Help Patti," I yell at him over the commotion. This was seriously the worst possible way Mrs. Permala could have facilitated this.

He nods and start slipping his thin body between the gaps in the crowd. I start pushing through, right behind Gina, until finally, the dam of bodies in the doorway bursts for me too, and I fall into the library.

I imagine that normally this room would look more like any old library—musty-smelling brown carpet, worn wooden tables with matching chairs around them, low bookcases not much taller than me, full of old scripts. But today it's an insane hive of killer thespian bees, stinging and stinging the bookcases until all that's left is a mess of books and scripts all haphazardly thrown onto shelves.

The first thing I notice—after the crazy hive that the theater book room has become—is that Layla Monroe is smiling. Ear to ear, big toothed, and of course, beautiful. She's like a model. I hate her. It's obvious to me who got to "The Mystery of the Lampshade" first. I can tell by the way Layla's group, Gina included, huddles around some pages at one of the tables. They are all smiling like idiots and laughing as each of them read through the lines.

The second thing I notice, the thing that confirms to me that we didn't get the script, is Patti. Her eyes are wide and her mouth is stuck open. She looks like she's just seen a ghost. She doesn't even seem to notice that Moth is rubbing her back, trying to console her. Her hands are positioned as if she held the script at one point, only to have it swiped from her hand, and now she's mourning its loss. I swear she's going to cry.

I push through the dying swarm of thespians toward Patti. "What happened?" I ask.

"I had the script in my hands," she mutters faintly. "I had it, and then your friend," she sneers. "Gina took it from me and ran it over to Layla and their troupe. I had it and Gina took it." She swallows hard and finally moves her face to look at me.

I peer over at Gina, sitting beside Layla and the others, laughing. I wish she would catch me glaring at her, but for once, she isn't worried about how many people in the room are looking at her.

Patti blinks quickly, then twitches her head, like she's flipping a switch from off and crazed to on and focused. "Time to find a new script," she says, though her tone is the most depressed I've ever heard it. Like, no matter what script we find, she has already accepted that it will suck. "Thatcher, you cover Shakespeare. Moth, you cover Greek plays. I will cover comedy. Janie, you cover drama."

We break into our sections, but my familiar anxiety about reading returns. I hope Patti doesn't want a drama.

On a normal day, I hate reading because it's so hard for me. Today, with all the chaos and the noise, there's no way I'm actually reading anything. Instead, I simply look at the scripts in the drama section. I focus on the titles. If something sounds interesting, I check to see how many actors are in it. Most of the scripts have four actors, because that's what Mrs. Permala order more often. But some of them are for the evening theater shows, for the elite and oldest actors in the high school who people pay money to see. Those scripts are easy to put aside.

The others I just make a pile of, so I can tell a little lie to my troupe. These all seem good, look through them to see which ones you like, I'll say to them.

"Troupe, troupe, troupe, troupe," Patti shouts over the buzzing of thespians in the book room. She races toward one of the tables at the center of the room, shaking a booklet script over her head. "I found one, I found a script that's kind of funny," she sings.

I breathe a sigh of relief and leave the pile of scripts I won't read on the top of the drama bookshelf. Moth, Thatcher, and I meet Patti at the table where she's smiling, script in hand. I peer over my shoulder to see if we've caught the attention of Gina or Layla, but both of them are still consumed in their script. Laughing hysterically a what should have been our script. Man, it looks like it must be funny.

"What is it?" Moth asks.

"It's called 'Separation Anxiety,'" Patti says.

"Doesn't sound very funny," Thatcher says.

"Well, it is. I have to run it past Mrs. Permala first, though. It has some... questionable content. I may have to do some edits. But I like it. I think you all will too. Can I go to Mrs. Permala with this now or do you want to read it first?"

"No, man, go to Mrs. P," Moth tells her. First come, first serve.

She smiles and does a little hop before running back to the theater. Now Gina takes notice. She watches Patti basically skip out of the book room, then flicks her eyes back at me. Neither of us say anything from across the room, but we keep our eyes on each other. It's like an old-time cowboy standoff with death glares instead of guns.

Moth says, "I hope our play is good." He chuckles a bit to himself.

I break away from Gina's glare to look at Moth. He rubs his hands together nervously.

"Knowing Patti, it will be," Thatcher says.

I look up at Thatcher, at the freckle on his jawline and how his jaw clenches when he thinks. Then I remember that my official public statement is that we are just friends, so I quickly look away.

"Should we keep looking just in case or...?" Moth trails off.

I look back at my pile of scripts. "I made a pile of cool looking scripts. You all can choose from those if you want," I say.

Thatcher shoots me a look, like he's not buying it for a second.

"Yeah, okay, awesome. Let's take a look," Moth says.

I hurry back to the bookshelf to grab the pile of interesting titles, then lay them out over the table. "These seem good," I say.

Moth and Thatcher leaf through the scripts with straight faces. I can't tell if they like what I've found or not, all I know is that I should imitate what they're doing. So I pick one up and flip through the pages. I run my eyes across the jumbled lines without focus and time about how long it would take me to read if my brain worked the same way as Thatcher's and Moth's. Well... the same way as Thatcher's.

Patti speed walks back into the theater book room, a huge smile on her face. "She said I needed to make a few edits, but we got it. We have a script. It's not the funniest script in the universe—it's no "Mystery of the Lampshade"—but it will be good. I think with our talent here, it will be elevated to a new level of funny. Are you all in?"

"Can we read it?" Thatcher asks.

"Yeah, okay, I'll make copies, but... I sort of wanted one of those teen sports movie moments, where we all put our hands in, you know? Just to really rub in Layla's face."

Moth laughs. "Okay, sorry, dude. Try again."

She cracks a smile. "Are you all in?"

Moth puts his hand in the center of the table. Patti beams and holds her hand on top of his. I join place mine on top of hers. If Patti likes it, I'll trust her. Thatcher smiles. "We are all so weird," he says.

"Yeah, but we rock it," Moth says.

Thatcher sighs. "Alright," he says, putting his hand over mine. "So, what do we yell on three?"

I think about my first impression of the group, and the word Gina used for us when she meant to be offensive. But it's a word that I'm proud to own if it means I'm associated with people like Patti, Moth, and Thatcher.

"Misfits," I say before biting my lip in immediate embarrassment.

Patti smiles. "Misfits on three," she says. "One, two...."

Then all four of us shout, "Misfits!"

I'm so embarrassed by the whole thing, I'm sure my face is as red as Patti's lipstick, the lipstick that's now stuck on her teeth from smiling so much. But I don't look around at the stare I know Gina's giving me or at the stink eyes Layla and her other friends must be sending us. We're in a bubble of our own strangeness and I won't pop it for anything.