Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Girl Talk #8: Stealing the Show


By L.E. Blair. Published 1990.


Bradley Junior High is putting on Grease, and Sabrina is going to try out for Sandy. Of course, so is Stacy the Great. Stacy points out that she looks more like Sandy, and that Sabrina can’t sing. Sabrina figures she can learn, it doesn’t seem to concern her much. Sabrina can’t convince her friends to audition, but they might help out behind the scenes. She gets super excited when she finds out her current crush, Cameron, is auditioning for Danny.

After school, Sabrina and her friends beat out Stacy in renting Grease, and go to her house to watch it. Sabrina’s mom goes out and buys Sabrina the soundtrack, so she can practice her singing. Her brothers think she sounds terrible, but she doesn’t care. She even gets her parents to teach her some dances, like the hand jive. She also finds a poodle skirt, saddle shoes, and a long blond wig in the attic.

At auditions, they do a cold reading first. Sabrina gets out of sorts because she doesn’t get to read for Sandy, but Frenchy instead. Stacy reads for Sandy, but she does so with no emotion. They move on to singing, and Stacy is great at that. Sabrina puts on her costume before she goes up. And she sings pretty badly. She hopes her mad acting skills get her the part.

Then she decides she can do one more thing. She can dye her hair blond. But she only succeeds in turning it bright orange. She calls her friends, and they rush to her aide. Randy, who apparently knows all about dying hair, stops and gets new hair dye. She does it for Sabrina, and they luck out, it looks exactly like her real hair color. How convenient.

The next day, Sabrina thinks a more sophisticated look will help, and wants try it out on a trip to the mall. She puts on a bra, and stuffs it with blue tissues. She tops it with a white turtleneck. Of course, it rains on the way, and she gets soaked. By the time she gets to her friends, the bright blue tissues are showing through her shirt. They tell her to go to the bathroom and fix it. When she reaches the bathroom, she hears Stacy inside, and opens the nearest door to hide. It’s a janitor’s closet, and she gets locked in. She pounds on the door, and Cameron opens it. Sabrina is totes embarrassed.

On Monday, the cast list is put up. Sabrina gets Frenchy, Stacy gets Sandy, and Cameron gets Danny. Her twin Sam and his friends get cast as T-Birds. Sabrina is pretty bummed, but after her friends talk to her, telling her how great she’ll be, and that you need to be really talented to play that part, she starts to get excited.

Rehearsals begin, and Sabrina finds herself really enjoying them. It’s just a challenge to pretend to be Stacy’s best friend. After two weeks, they’re expected to be off-book at the next rehearsal. Sam has all of his friends and Cameron over to work on their lines, and Sabrina and her friends work on them with them. They have a really good time, but they work hard, too. And Cameron sits beside Sabrina during their pizza break.

The whole group does really well at the next rehearsal. But Stacy the Great is not so great. She tries to say it’s because she has the biggest part, but Cameron’s is just as big. She gets in trouble, and then starts screaming at the director, and stomps out. Diva, much?

The girl playing Marty has to quit because she has to get her tonsils out, so Sabrina volunteers Katie to take her place. She knows all the lines from helping Sabrina. Luckily, Katie doesn’t mind.

The two of them go through Sabrina’s mom’s old clothes to look for their costumes. They find some, but not everything they need. They decide to ask for Randy’s help, and find out what she and Allison are wearing to the Sock Hop that will be held after the show’s opening night. Randy finds a vintage clothing store, and they find everything they need there.

When Sabrina gets home, her mom tells her she and Sabrina’s dad are going to be chaperones for the Sock Hop. Sabrina freaks out unnecessarily over this.

Opening night goes really well. Stacy even remembers all her lines. But at curtain call, Sabrina gets a standing ovation, and more applause than Stacy. Stacy, of course, gets really pissed.

At the Sock Hop, Sabrina’s parents don’t embarrass her at all, and her friends actually think they’re really cool for dressing up.

But the best part is, Cameron dances with Sabrina the whole night, tells her she has pretty hair, and kisses her on the cheek. Sabrina sees Stacy looking really annoyed, but she doesn’t care. Sabrina ended up stealing the show and the leading man.










o   I think I would have gotten in trouble if I had dyed my hair without permission when I was twelve.

o   They have homeroom right before lunch. That seems weird to me. I always had it at the beginning of the day.

o   I don’t get why Sabrina thought dying her hair and everything would help. She does that Friday night and Saturday, and the cast list went up Monday morning. There was no time for that to affect the director’s decision.

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