The Taming by Teresa Toten, Eric Walters Page B

but different.
    “Repeat after me,” I repeated, and he poked me.
    “I am special,” he said.
    “You are special.” I giggled.
    He poked me again, this time harder, much harder, and then repeated, slowly. “I am special—say it.” It wasn’t a request.
    “I am special,” I said.
    “ You made me special,” he said.
    “ You made me special.” I giggled again, but I believed it. He had made me special.
    “So, I am special!” he said.
    “So, I am special!” I said.
    “There!” He squeezed. “I just saw you blossom right in front of me.”
    “Well, you’re a good gardener.” I squeezed his hand and noticed the time on his wristwatch.
    “Yikes, its late, I’ve got to get my special blossoming butt home before my mom gets there!”
    Evan glanced back at the room. “Okay, we can go now.” Most of the kids were still looking but pretending not to. “I’ll drop you off, my blossoming little rose.” And then my prince actually kissed my hand. I could hear every girl in the place sighing. And so could he.

Chapter Twenty
     

     
    T ravis looked anxiously at his watch. Rehearsal should have started fifteen minutes ago, but Josh hadn’t arrived. It made it hard to have a full practice with the lead actor not present.
    I sat off to the side in one of the seats. I guess I could have gone backstage and helped Danny, but he seemed to be doing pretty well without my help. Set design—actually, anything involving tools or manual labour—wasn’t really something I was any good at. And as my father always said, if you earned enough money it was easy to hire somebody to do that sort of thing.
    “Could I please have your attention!” Ms. Cooper yelled as she came into the auditorium. “Could we have all the backstage people come out here as well!”
    This sounded important. Well, as important as anything about this play could be. Slowly I got up from my seat and joined in with the crowd that was forming around her at the front of the stage. Katie settled in beside me. I slipped my hand into hers and I could feel her warmth.
    “What do you think this is about?” she whispered.
    I leaned in close. “Maybe Shakespeare called and said we couldn’t do the play.”
    “No, seriously.”
    “I seriously don’t have any idea … but Cooper doesn’t look too happy.”
    “I want to start off by saying that he is going to be all right,” Ms. Cooper began.
    The level of tension in the room suddenly rose. Who was going to be all right?
    “You’ll all notice that Josh isn’t here,” she continued. “Because as we speak he is still in the Emergency Department of Credit Valley Hospital.”
    Stunned gasps and muffled shrieks shot around the stage.
    “What happened?” Travis demanded.
    “At lunch he was involved in a car accident. He’s going to be fine, but the airbag of his car deployed and it broke his nose and jaw.”
    More gasps and groans from around the room.
    “But what about the play?” Danny asked. “If his jaw is broken then they’ll have to wire it shut, so there’s no way he can say his lines.”
    “They did wire it shut,” Ms. Cooper acknowledged.
    “Are we going to have to cancel the play?” Travis asked.
    “The show must go on.”
    “So we’ll delay … wait for him to recover?” Travis questioned.
    “It will be weeks before they remove the wires, and we can’t wait that long,” Ms. Cooper said. “Josh has to be replaced.”
    “Replaced?” Travis gasped. “But opening night isn’t that far away. December 10 is going to be here before you know it!” Travis started pacing. “There’s no way we can find somebody who can learn the lines in that time.”
    “We already have somebody who knows most of the lines,” Cooper said.
    I felt a chill go through me as I instantly I knew who she meant, and judging from how everybody turned to face me, they all knew too.
    “Well, Evan?” Cooper asked. “You’re the only chance we have.”
    I knew she was right.
    “It’s such