The Show Must Go On! by P.J. Night

has left the school.”
    â€œI won’t miss her,” Tiffany whispered, leaning close to Bree’s ear. “She was weird.”
    Wow, even Tiffany’s being nice to me, Bree thought, smiling.
    â€œAnd so now we come to the question of the fate of the play,” Mr. Gomez continued. Beside him, on a chair, sat a stack of copies of The Last Sleepover . “As you know, all future productions will be put on here in the gym until the repair of the auditorium is complete. Since you have worked so hard rehearsing The Last Sleepover , I thought maybe we could talk about restaging it here. What does everyone think?”
    Before anyone could speak, Mr. Jenkins, the school janitor, walked into the gym.
    â€œSorry for the interruption, folks,” he said, then went about lifting a large plastic bag full of garbage from the gym’s trash can.
    Without saying a word, Bree stood up and walked over to the stack of scripts.
    â€œWe may do a play in the gym, Mr. Gomez, but it won’t be this play,” she said, gathering up the pile of scripts in her arms.
    â€œWait a minute, please, Mr. Jenkins!” she calledout, walking across the gleaming wooden gym floor. Reaching the janitor, she pulled open the large plastic bag of garbage, then turned back toward Mr. Gomez.
    â€œIn fact, Mr. Gomez, no one will ever perform this play again.”
    Bree dumped every copy of The Last Sleepover into the garbage bag before returning to her seat. “Now,” she began. “What play do we all think we would like to do?”

EPILOGUE
THIRTY YEARS LATER  . . .
    Bree slowed her car as she approached the school. She always enjoyed driving up to Thomas Jefferson Middle School. It brought back a flood of good memories about close friends and fun times.
    Today Bree was here to pick up her daughter, Elle, following Elle’s drama rehearsal. Bree was so pleased that Elle—short for Gabrielle—had shown an interest in theater, recalling how much her own involvement with school plays both in middle school and then in high school had added to her years as a student.
    As Bree sat in the car with the window rolled down, she noticed an odd-looking woman standing near the entrance to the school. The woman was tall and had medium-length, jet-black hair. She wore a long, darkcoat. Who is that woman? she thought. The woman turned around, revealing dark circles around her eyes.
    â€œMs. Hollows!” Bree gasped.
    She paused for a moment and caught herself. This woman looked younger than Bree herself. “There’s no way that could be Ms. Hollows,” she said to herself. “That was thirty years ago, and Ms. Hollows would have to be in her sixties now.”
    Still, Bree was surprised, as she watched the woman disappear into the school building, by just how deeply the idea of seeing Ms. Hollows affected her after all these years.
    A few minutes later Elle came bounding out of the school. She ran up to Bree’s car, bursting with excitement.
    â€œHey, Peanut, how was drama rehearsal?” she asked as Elle slipped into the seat beside her.
    â€œFantastic, Mom,” Elle replied. “You’re not going to believe this. My drama teacher found an old play in a trunk in the basement of the school. She told us that no one has put on the play in years!”
    â€œReally?” Bree asked, starting the car. “What’s the name of the play?”
    â€œIt’s called The Last Sleepover ,” Elle explained. “And I’m just dying to play the lead!”



CHAPTER 1
    What happened in the woods that night changed everything, forever, and if the girl had known what was going to happen, she never would have left her house. Never left the safety of locked doors and windows, and the sound of laughter coming from the television, and the good smells of food cooking in the kitchen, and the warm glow of lights in every room.
    But she didn’t know, see? She didn’t