Before It Rains

“I’m busy. Go do it yourself.” The day after the auditions, Max was in my room at eight thirty. It was our first weekend since school had started and I had very much intended on sleeping in. Max, apparently, had other plans. He wanted to see the cast list, which would be posted at nine, and he insisted that if we didn’t get there early, we’d end up waiting all day to see.

“You’re not busy, you’re just lazy,” Max protested. Actually he was wrong. I was still lying in bed, but only a small part of that was due to laziness. Okay, so I was nervous. I hadn’t seen any of the other auditions, but I had heard they had gone on for hours. The first rehearsal was going to be this afternoon, Mr. Samuels had said. Or, rehearsal for those who made it. Max had estimated the cast to be somewhere around thirty.

“Max, I wanna go back to bed. You go and look and come back and report.” He sighed, but I think he got the feeling that I wasn’t moving. “Go!” I hissed. We were trying to be quiet on account of Ruben sleeping in the other bed, but I was pretty sure we had already woken him up. Sure enough, as soon as Max was gone, Ruben rolled over to face me.

“Why are you nervous? I’m sure you were fine.” Yeah, he could read me like a book.

“I’m not.”

“Lie.” Damn.

“Fine. I don’t know. It’s just that everyone here is so much better at everything than the people in Florida. People say I’m good, but I don’t know if I’m this good.”

“Didn’t you say Mr. Samuels asked you to audition?”

Well yeah, but…” He cut me off.

“Sammy, he wouldn’t have asked you to waste your time if he didn’t think you were good enough.”

“Whatever.” I rolled over and faced the wall, pulling the covers up around my neck. I was a Florida girl and it was a lot colder in New England.

Twenty minutes later there was a pounding on the door. “Sam, Ruben, come on, open up!” Not Max… Will, it sounded like. Ruben got up and went to the door. As soon as the lock clicked, the door swung open and Will and Austin came in.

“Sam, Max is on the phone,” Will said groggily. “It better be important, ‘cause he woke us up.”

“It’s not really a big deal,” Austin said, holding out the phone, which I promptly snatched away.

“Hello?”

“Hey, get down here!”

“Max, I’m not even dressed. Can’t you just come up?”

“No way, I’m not going anywhere.”

“Fine, I’ll come down in five.”

“Two.”

“Whatever,” I sighed, and hung up. The three guys looked at me. “What?”

“Well, what did he want?” Will pried as I walked over to the dresser and pulled out a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt.

“I dunno,” I told him, walking into the bathroom. I changed and pulled my hair back into a bun, hoping to conceal the tangles. Somewhat satisfied, I stepped back out into the bedroom. “I’ll be back,” I announced.

“And I’m coming,” Ruben said. He was wearing the pair of shorts and shirt he had worn to bed, but it wasn’t really that noticeable. And maybe I was imagining that Will and Austin wanted to come too, but they weren’t dressed and headed back over to their room across the hall as Ruben and I headed out to find Max.

When we got the main office, I realized what Max had been saying. It was only ten minutes after nine, maybe earlier, and kids were flooding into the building. All the kids who had auditioned no doubt. The cluster of kids at the bulletin board made it obvious where the list was posted, but there wasn’t any way to see it, so instead we set about looking for Max. We found him sitting at the opposite end of the room. When he saw us, he jumped from his seat and grabbed my hand.

“Come on, come see!” he said, somehow managing to drag me to the front of the group with a few “Excuse me”s. He pointed to the list. “Look.”

I looked. Starting at the top of the list, I moved my eyes down the paper. It didn’t take long.

ADO ANNIE CARNES……………………………………….SAMANTHA PRINDLE

Seeing all I needed to, I moved out of the crowd back towards my brother, who was staying out of people’s way. I smiled at him and walked straight out the door and back to our dorm room, the boys right behind me. When I was back in my room safely, I yelled at the top of my lungs.

“Yes! Thank you God!” Max laughed and Ruben just raised his eyebrows. I didn’t like to brag in front of other people, so I usually saved it until I was alone… or almost alone.

Suddenly, the door, which we apparently hadn’t locked, burst open, and Austin, Will, Kai, and Shane were in the room. “What was that? Is something wrong?” Kai asked.

“How’d you know that was me?” I asked.

“Well, you know, when a girl screams in an all boy’s dorm, usually you assume…” Will explained.

“Oh, right.” Sometimes I forgot.

“So what’s up?” Austin asked.

“I got a good part in the play, that’s all.”

“That’s all? She got like the major supporting role!” Max burst. Hey, I wasn’t going to brag about it, but if he wanted to, I wasn’t stopping him.

“No way! Good job, Sam!” Will came over and picked me up in a hug. The only problem was that he put me down too soon.

“This calls for celebration,” Max said, glancing out the window. Clouds were rolling in and the sky hinted of rain.

“Not now!” Shane whined. “It’s gonna f’n rain!”

“No one cares what you think, Shane,” Will told him.

“What are you guys talking about?” I asked.

“Sam, go get Asia and tell her to meet us at the hill,” Austin told me.

“What hill?”

“She knows.”

“Aren’t you going to tell me?”

“Nope.”

And before I took off for the elevator, someone whispered in my ear. “Congratulations, Sammy.” No one called me that except my brother, but I knew it wasn’t him. When I turned around, I couldn’t tell who had said it.