Chapter 23

“Kateri… come! This way!” I heard Lily’s voice and I saw her hand waving at me when I arrived at the cafeteria. So I walked over to her, and suddenly she became really serious. 

“Okay Kat. The auditions are in the music room. We were actually supposed to be there a minute ago,” her face shrunk into a guilty expression. “So c’mon!” 

I follow her out the cafeteria and into the music room, where Mrs. Leen and a bunch of other students were waiting. There is also this other girl standing next to Mrs. Leen, Annalise, who was in my art class. She is super smart and always wore glasses, with her brown hair tied up.

Annalise waved to us and smiled, so did Mrs. Leen. 

“Ah, here are the other two judges. Welcome ladies. You can take a seat at this table,” Mrs. Leen points to a plastic table where me, Lily and Annalise sit together. 

I took a better look at the kids who were going to audition. Most looked anxious or jittery, all probably nervous about their performance. Mrs. Leen clears her throat.

“Welcome everyone! Thank you all for coming and participating. If you haven’t already, sign your full name and talent performing skill that you are going to perform,” Mrs. Leen walks around as she talks. “Now, unfortunately, we can’t pick everyone here today to perform in the real show,” the students seem to tighten and hold their breath, “so try to be a good sport, like I know all of you are.

“Great!” Mrs Leen claps, “thank you also to Kateri, who is one of our judges here today -” Mrs. Leen faces me. All I do is try to smile and wave. “-for the amazing idea for this ‘non-staged’ talent show. This is a great idea and I hope to do more in the future!

“And with that,” Mrs. Leen continues talking and sits down next to Lily on my right side. Annalise was beside me on my left. She looked excited. “Let’s get started.”

Mrs. Leen directed all the students back behind a curtain that we had in the music room. It was a long, black one that usually stored all the instruments. Mrs. Leen had a clipboard and she started calling out performers that went to the center of the room. I let my shoulders fall back and allowed myself to feel the back of my seat. This’ll be fun. I told myself. Kinda like a movie. Kinda. 

“Francis M?” Mrs. Leen calls out, “and your talent is watercolour?” She asks it in question form. 

A short guy with blond hair steps out with a long, narrow board in his hands. Almost like a bristol board. I saw the nervousness in his eyes, but he was happy to go first. 

“Um, yes,” Francis shows the painting. All of our jaws drop and we all lean forward. This guy – Francis – was like a professional painter. The strokes looked so full and alive, so 3D and real, almost as if I could reach out, I could touch it. He painted a flower, a purple flower. Which one it was, I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that this guy had real talent, and I loved it. 

Mrs. Leen scribbles something down on her clipboard. “Very nice Francis,” she raises her voice higher so the other students could hear, “hey! It’s getting kind of loud back there! Can we turn it down a few notches!” Mrs. Leen returns to her normal voice, “give us a few minutes Francis. You can go off to lunch now, the results will be revealed in a couple days.”

Francis exited the music room. 

“Okay ladies,” Mrs. Leen lowers her voice even more, like a whisper. “What did you think of that.”

“That was amazing,” Lily speaks first, “I think we should let him do the show.”

“Annalise?” Mrs. Leen says. 

“I liked it,” she speaks quietly, “a lot. I think he should go.”

“Kateri?” 

“Yes!” I snap, “ten out of ten.” 

“Okay then,” Mrs. Leen mumbles and scribbles another few words on her clipboard. She checks the next name. 

“Emma B?” 

A pale 10th grader with long, blond hair steps out of the curtains. She brings a tray of cupcakes along with her, with an exciting smile tugging at her cheeks. 

Emma walked right up to us and carefully put the tray of cupcakes on the table in front of us. They looked like they had a vanilla base, and pink, perfect pink swirls on top with rounded sprinkles. Each one was like a copy of the other, perfect and poise, luscious but stern. 

Each one of us leaned in to smell the cupcakes while Emma stood back and watched nervously. The salty but sweet scent was perfect to me, and I made sure to keep my mouth closed from drooling all over the table. 

“Amazing, Emma,” Mrs. Leen had her ‘teacher face’ on. Emma exhaled. 

But she continued to smile. “Would you like to taste one? Is anyone allergic to any type of nuts?”

We looked at each other. “No,” we all said. But I’m pretty sure we were all smiling because we got to actually taste one. I didn’t look at the others, though, I was too busy being mesmerized by the cupcakes. 

“Super duper,” Emma was like a little kid, but cooler. She started handing them out to all four of us. 

We all started to eat the cupcake, and the first word I could think of was ‘yummy!’. The vanilla cupcake was so moist and soft, I barely needed to chew it. It had a strawberry paste inside too, which was super sweet but went well with the plain vanilla cake. I started to feel like one of those judges on those viral baking/cooking series on Netflix. 

“Very nice,” Mrs. Leen was the only one who didn’t finish the whole cupcake. Me, Annalise and Lily gobbled them all down. Emma reached over and collected the cupcake wrapping and stood back for Mrs. Leen to give her the OK. 

“Okay Emma! You can go and enjoy lunch now.” 

The sweet yet amazing flavour of Emma’s cupcake still stayed in the back of my mouth as I watched all the others audition, too. 

 

Auditions went on for the rest of lunch, we got through about 20 people. But there was still more to go, so we agreed to meet again the next day for another audition session, which was probably going to be the last one. 

Watching other kids perform and show off their talent was fun, but I kept biting my lip. I kept telling myself to not feel jealous, because there’s no reason for me to feel that way. Each and every one of these kids worked hard at what they love to be this good. It just wasn’t worth it to feel jealous. Everyone is their own person, and with that, has their own talent or special skill. 

A lot of people with unique talents stepped up, people who could bake, paint, even write or draw. Fashion designers or sometimes makeup artists. It was so creative and really hard to choose and cut people.

Even when I knew all this, why did I still feel jealous? Why couldn’t I help myself to feel that way? Or maybe that feeling wasn’t jealousy – maybe it was sadness. Why? Well, I don’t know why. 

 

I took the bus home because Aunt Cynthia was in town when school ended. I arrived back with a heavy mind, not only with schoolwork, but with the auditions too. I hated how it bothered me so much. Why couldn’t I just be normal and think normally? Those people that showed their talents weren’t offending me in any way. I was offending myself. And for no reason really, either. 

I lay down on my bed. Yes, I was aware that I still had a bunch of homework to do. And yes, I am also aware how Aunt Cynthia texted me to do the dishes before she got home. But even with these thoughts, I didn’t move an inch. 

Instead of doing the stuff I actually had to do, I grabbed mom’s guitar. I wasn’t good enough to show it off at the talent show, but it still made me feel like maybe I still had a chance. Probably not. 

I started strumming and singing, this time I started singing another song, one I’ve been working on. I was pretty good at playing Superstar, but I wanted to try something new. I also wanted a capo for my guitar, because I researched about those and they make your guitar sound higher on a different note. There are so many more songs that I could play with a capo, so I made a mental note to tell Aunt Cynthia about it. Maybe I could get one for Christmas. 

 

After playing, I felt strangely better. Strangely happier. I felt a load off my shoulders and my heart, even if I didn’t complete any of my tasks. And then I hear the door open and close from downstairs. Aunt Cynthia was back. 

“Kateri!” She yells from downstairs. When I don’t respond, I hear her marching up the stairs. 

“Kateri… I see the dishes aren’t done…”