Banana Pants! Read online

  Hmmmm, Maude thought. If Michael-John did something like her and it worked, maybe she should try doing something like him. After all, she wasn’t having much luck doing things like herself lately. Michael-John had loads of friends, and without Miranda, Maude was just a lonely onion (or was it garlic?) who was too weak to raise (or lower) a theater curtain. Waiting for her eggs, Maude opened a dictionary. She flipped through it, not paying attention, until a word jumped out:

  Forgery: noun: the crime of falsely making or changing a written paper or signing someone else’s name.

  Maude read the entry again. Forgery?

  “Is a letter ‘a written paper’?” she asked, even though she knew the answer.

  “Absolutely,” Walt said, putting a steaming plate of scrambled eggs in front of her. “The writer Lewis Carroll once said, ‘The proper definition of a man is an animal that writes letters.’”

  Maude took a bite of egg, closed the dictionary, and put her head on top of it. She’d signed “Princess Miranda Rose Lapointsetta” so many times she’d probably forgotten how to sign her own name! She felt sick. Was something wrong with the eggs Walt had just made? Or was it that she, Maude Brandywine Mayhew Kaye, social justice activist extraordinaire, was a criminal!

  22

  THE DRESS REHEARSAL

  Monday morning, an exhausted 3B walked into the auditorium. They looked around at the empty seats, the stage with the curtain that was neither up nor down, and the enormous sets that still needed to be lifted onto the stage. It seemed impossible that, in just ten hours, there’d be an actual audience!

  “OKAY, PEOPLE!” Hillary Greenlight-Miller hollered into her megaphone. “THIS IS OUR ONE AND ONLY DRESS REHEARSAL. FIND YOUR PLACES!” She clutched her Things to Do List.

  Slowly, Donut walked to the front of the stage, opened his mouth, and said . . . absolutely nothing.

  “DONUT!” Hillary bellowed.

  “I can’t do it,” Donut whispered. “The play is still too long, the dances are still too hard, the pants have way too many buttons and are still much too tight.”

  Hillary looked around. “DIDN’T ANYONE MAKE ANY CHANGES THIS WEEKEND? I GAVE LOTS OF DIRECTIONS.”

  “The play is not too long,” Norbert said. “It’s perfect.”

  “I have fifty-five lines, Norbert,” Agnes said. “And I’m not even a lead.”

  “My dances aren’t too hard,” Fletcher said. “Everyone should practice.”

  “We’ve been practicing,” Agatha and Desdemona whined.

  The class looked at Donut’s pants, but it was impossible to deny their tightness and the ridiculous number of gold and yellow buttons.

  “Yellow buttons are stylish,” Agatha mumbled.

  “Gold ones are better,” Agnes said.

  “And what’s going on with the curtain?” Norris asked.

  3B looked at Maude and then at one another with almost as much dread as they felt before taking a practice exam. If they didn’t do something, Banana Pants would be a disaster, and Principal Fish would never let another class have a creative endeavor.

  Hillary Greenlight-Miller looked at her cast and crew and tried to remember what things had been like before Banana Pants, back when 3B was just 3B. Hillary thought about that long-ago Monday morning when Desdemona happily shared about her gymnastics show and Donut talked about his French crullers, and Agnes and Agatha, the very best of friends, were thrilled with their simple, tiny animal clothes.

  And then something unexpected happened.

  Hillary Greenlight-Miller put her megaphone down. She walked down the aisle, got on the stage, and walked over to Donut, who was trembling. The class held their breath, but Hillary did not yell. She did not say anything as she very dramatically tore up her Things to Do List.

  3B gasped.

  “What are you doing?” Norbert asked, his voice cracking. “That list was so long! There were so many words.”

  Hillary looked out at the class. “I,” she said loudly, “am endeavoring.”

  No one said anything.

  “Remember when we first learned what a creative endeavor was?”

  The class nodded.

  “Our purpose was to put on a class play, right?” Hillary asked.

  “Right,” Norbert and Fletcher and Desdemona said.

  “Well,” Hillary continued, “the playwright George Bernard Shaw said that ‘the quality of a play is the quality of its ideas.’”

  “Wow,” Maude said quietly. “That’s something my dad would quote!”

  “I think our idea, Banana Pants, is of good quality.”

  “Thank you,” Norbert said.

  Hillary shook her head. “But we took our own ideas too far.” She picked up a handful of the torn-up list and threw it in the air. “And I put too many things on this list,” she said. “I forgot about the people—the people who had the good ideas for the play.”

  3B nodded.

  “Donut,” Hillary said almost gently. “Close your eyes.”

  “What?”

  “Trust me,” Hillary said.

  Donut closed his eyes.

  “Now, imagine that the audience isn’t people. Imagine that the audience is doughnuts.”

  “Doughnuts?” 3B said.

  “Doughnuts,” Hillary repeated. “Imagine chocolate doughnuts, jelly doughnuts, coconut doughnuts, delicious rainbow-sprinkled doughnuts.”

  Donut imagined hundreds of doughnuts eagerly waiting to hear what he had to stay. I could be king of the doughnuts, he thought. His mouth started to water, and his tongue got unglued from the roof of his mouth.

  “Once upon a dark and stormy night,” Donut said loudly and clearly. “There was a pair of extremely yellow pants.”

  3B cheered. If Hillary could put down her megaphone and rip up her list, and Donut could say the opening lines, there was nothing they couldn’t do. Right away, Norbert cut the entire first act. Although he shed a tear here and there, he had to admit that, without act one, the actors could learn all of their lines and there was much less of a chance that the audience would fall asleep. Inspired by Norbert’s willingness to cut his words, Fletcher simplified his dance numbers and agreed that Desdemona could do a front handspring at the end of each one. By lunch, Agnes and Agatha had doubled the width and length of Donut’s pants and removed almost all of the buttons, and Felix had sawed his mountainous sets in two so the stage was visible.

  Now that Miranda was able to put her props in the correct places on the more reasonably sized sets, and her already small role of Silent Mysterious Woman with the Fish was even smaller, she had only one thing left to do. Which was the hardest thing of all. Taking a deep breath, she walked behind the stage and over to Maude, who was still trying to raise the curtain. Miranda’s heart began to race, and she felt as thirsty as Donut had been on the stage. Apologizing to Maude seemed impossible!

  But then she remembered what Maude had said that first early morning. Miranda could clearly hear Maude saying, “It’s not impossible! When you do something wrong, you apologize. You say, ‘Sorry, that was a terrible idea. I won’t do it ever again’!”

  “Maude,” Miranda said, her heart thumping wildly, “I am sorry. My secret letter writing was a terrible idea.”

  Maude let go of the curtain rope and turned to look at her friend.

  “I won’t do it ever again,” Miranda said. “You asked me not to and I did it anyway. That was wrong.”

  Maude smiled. “I didn’t want you to write love letters,” she said. “But I think . . . I think it might be good for my dad to make friends. You were right about that.” She shrugged. “Love is not my cause. But it doesn’t mean it can’t be yours. But no more secret love letters,” she added.

  “Never,” Miranda said, full of relief. “I promise. I don’t want to write any more letters. At least not on my own. But I did think of another cause.”

  Maude gave Miranda a doubtful look.

  “Composting!” Miranda squealed. “Shouldn’t Mountain River Vall
ey compost?”

  Maude’s eyes grew wide. How had she never thought of that? Composting was a terrifically amazing idea!

  “I thought of it when I was throwing out my lunch,” Miranda explained. “Now that the Styrofoam trays are gone, there’s less garbage. But there could be even less if Mountain River Valley composted the leftover food.”

  “Wow,” Maude said.

  “Speaking of food, or rather candy, this came for me the other day. I have no idea why.” Miranda held out a packet of Rainbow Sweeties.

  Maude stared at the candy.

  “There are five big boxes of them at the castle, too. I don’t know why I’m getting so much candy. I thought everyone knew I don’t like sweets.”

  Miranda pushed the packet closer to Maude, but Maude didn’t take them.

  “Is it because of rule sixty-eight?” Miranda asked. Rule sixty-eight stated that candy could not be eaten in school unless it was a national holiday. This made no sense, since school was never open on national holidays.

  Maude shook her head.

  “Are you still mad?” Miranda sounded worried.

  Maude shook her head again.

  “But you love candy. And Rainbow Sweeties are your absolute favorite.”

  “That candy is part of my heinous crime!” Maude shouted, dashing out from behind the curtain and across the stage just as Donut, Desdemona, and Agnes were finally getting the hang of Fletcher’s easier version of the jitterbug.

  23

  FORGIVENESS IN A TREE

  Without thinking about all the rules she was breaking, Miranda followed Maude across the stage, down the hallway, and over to the trunk of Maude’s favorite tree in front of the school.

  “Don’t come up,” Maude called to Miranda through her tears.

  “Why not?” Miranda yelled.

  “You’re afraid of heights.”

  Miranda nodded. She was afraid of heights, but if she could apologize, then she could climb a tree! Holding her breath, Miranda hoisted herself up to the first branch. And then she stopped. Maude was several branches up, but Miranda wasn’t going any higher. She also wasn’t going to look down.

  “You committed a crime?” She gazed up at Maude, who was staring at her hands.

  Maude nodded glumly. “Forgery. It’s a noun and a crime. It means to fake. I forged a signature.”

  “Whose signature did you forge?”

  Maude wiped her tears with a bright yellow bandana. “Yours.”

  “Mine?”

  “I signed your name on the letter I wrote for the recyclable lunch trays. I snuck the letter into Principal Fish’s office.”

  “And it worked.”

  Maude nodded sadly.

  “But aren’t you happy that the Styrofoam is gone? You’ve been writing those letters forever.”

  “I’d be happier if I’d signed my own name,” Maude said. “And who knows if it was because of the forged letter. Maybe the trays just arrived that day. I’ll never know.”

  “One letter isn’t that bad,” Miranda said generously.

  Maude groaned. “It wasn’t one letter. I got so excited by the lunch trays that I wrote . . .” She took a deep breath. “I forged your name on ninety-seven letters.”

  Miranda was quiet.

  “And some of those letters weren’t even for good causes . . . the Rainbow Sweeties . . .”

  It didn’t take long for Miranda to figure out what Maude had done. She thought about this for a minute. It was weird to think that her name was on so many letters!

  “Are you mad?” Maude asked.

  Am I mad? Miranda wondered. Maude had taken something from her—her beautiful name—without her permission! Ninety-seven times!

  “Yes,” Miranda said. “I’m mad.”

  “You have every right to be,” Maude said. “I’ll really miss you.”

  “Where are you going?”

  Maude clenched her bandana to her heart. “Nowhere, but we can’t be friends anymore . . . not after what I’ve done.”

  Miranda’s heart jolted. Not be friends? That would be worse than forgery! And definitely not what she wanted.

  “I’m mad you forged my name,” Miranda yelled. “But I still want to be friends. Don’t friends forgive each other?”

  Maude nodded. “I think so.”

  Miranda shifted slightly, making sure she didn’t look down. “You won’t forge again?”

  “Never ever!” Maude scrambled down the tree branch. She sat next to Miranda and looked right in her eyes. “I am so sorry. Forging your name was a terrible idea. I won’t do it ever again.”

  The girls looked at each other. They felt different. Their friendship felt different. A little bit bruised, but also a little bit stronger.

  After a while, Maude said, “Who knew that Hillary would turn out to be such a good director? Letting her direct was one of my best ideas ever.”

  “Speaking of directing, do you want me to join fly crew?” Miranda asked. “I can help you lift up the curtain.”

  “You’d do that?”

  Miranda nodded. “After the play is over, do you want to see the typewriter I found? We can type the compost letter.”

  “Let’s do that tomorrow,” Maude said. “Do you think it’s too late to have a cast party at my house? I’ll invite everyone. That way, my dad will have lots of people to talk to. And we might even run out of soup!”

  “I don’t think you’re ever going to run out of soup,” Miranda said sympathetically.

  The girls looked at each other and laughed, until Hillary Greenlight-Miller ran out of the school looking for them. She didn’t have her megaphone, but she was definitely yelling.

  24

  THE WORLD PREMIERE OF BANANA PANTS

  Tickets for the world premiere of Banana Pants, which were free, sold out in record time. Despite the suggestion from their director that they remain unseen, 3B couldn’t stop peeking out from behind the stage curtain, which was finally raised and then lowered, thanks to Miranda and Maude’s combined strength. In the audience were all the students and teachers of Mountain River Valley Elementary. Principal Fish was in a center seat, clutching not only the Official Rules of Mountain River Valley Elementary, but also another book called Official Rules for Elementary Theater. Donut looked at his mom several times. He was very happy to see her, but he was mostly checking on the boxes next to her.

  There were five big boxes of Rainbow Sweeties from Miranda, a large container of tiny cupcakes from an anonymous supporter of the arts, and an enormous box of doughnuts that Hillary had bought with her own money. Everything was going to Maude’s house for the cast party after the show, but secretly Donut planned to eat most of the doughnuts himself.

  Maude and Miranda were happy to spot their families in the crowd. QM and KD were there, along with Blake and Chef Blue. Walt was next to Michael-John, who was next to a group of kids who didn’t go to Mountain River Valley. Rosalie, in Michael-John’s lap, was making herself as small as possible, since chickens were not allowed in school. For one second, Miranda imagined Walt moving closer to Miss Kinde, but she threw that idea right out!

  Which was kind of what had happened to Miss Kinde’s letter. The girls didn’t know it, but Miss Kinde had never even seen her secret love letter. Despite Miranda’s perfect placement, it had gotten mixed up in a bunch of old practice exams and was, at that very moment, getting shredded at a recycling center far, far away.

  Just before showtime, Miss Kinde, in a fashionable banana sweater, strolled behind the curtain and gathered 3B around her. “No matter what happens tonight, I am extremely proud of you,” she said. “You worked very hard on the ideas you were passionate about.” She smiled. “But I am most proud of the ways you came together.”

  3B nodded. They’d endeavored! All together!

  “Are we ready?” Miss Kinde asked.

  3B looked at one another nervously. But then Hillary smiled at Donut, who beamed at Fletcher, who smiled at Desdemona, who beamed at Agatha, who smi
led at Agnes, who grinned at Norris, who smiled at Norbert, who beamed at Miranda, who grinned at Felix, who smiled at Maude, who actually grinned at Hillary. The truth was, 3B knew they weren’t really ready. Who could put on a play in two weeks? But as someone once said, “The show must go on,” and there wasn’t any more time. The audience was waiting.

  “We’re ready, Miss Kinde,” Hillary Greenlight-Miller said, with more confidence than she probably had. “Places, everyone.”

  Taking a deep breath and imagining all the doughnuts in his future, Donut walked to the center of the stage, his yellow pants billowing around him. The rest of 3B scurried to their spots.

  Hillary looked at Maude and Miranda. “Fly crew: Curtain!”

  Maude and Miranda saluted Hillary, looked at each other, and together, putting one hand over the other and pulling with all their might, Princess Miranda Rose Lapointsetta and absolutely not a princess Maude Brandywine Mayhew Kaye raised Mountain River Valley Elementary’s curtain high above the stage.

  Perched on a rafter in the back of the auditorium, Norris shone a spotlight on Donut as Maude and Miranda secured the curtain.

  “Break a leg!” Hillary Greenlight-Miller whispered. “But not really,” she added, crossing her fingers as tightly as she could.

  Maude and Miranda clasped their hands together, smiled at each other, and waited for Banana Pants to begin.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am fortunate to have an amazing crew that helped with this book. Thanks to Rachel Orr at the Prospect Agency, who has defended my writer rights for years.

  Thanks to everyone at Abrams, especially Siobhán Gallagher, Andrew Smith, Jody Mosley, Evangelos Vasilakis, Erin Vandeveer, Nicole Schaefer, Patricia McNamara, Jenny Choy, Elisa Gonzalez, Rebecca Schmidt, Mary Wowk, and Michael Jacobs. An especially loud and clear thank you to Erica Finkel, editor extraordinaire, who brilliantly directed me to cut act one in this book. Thank her if you didn’t fall asleep while reading.