Claudia and the Genius of Elm Street Read online

  It was supposed to be a joke, but hardly anyone even smiled. “I have to leave in an hour,” Jessi said.

  “I have to be home by three o’clock,” Stacey said.

  Kristy stood up. “I guess we’d better get started.”

  We went outside. Sure enough, the garage was a major disaster area. We started our work by bundling up the newspapers, and I promised to ask my parents to take the piles to the recycling center. Then we collected the useless-looking stuff, like a snow shovel with a broken handle and all those tires. We put them against the wall so I could ask Dad about them.

  Needless to say, this was not one of the most fun Saturday afternoons in BSC history. And soon the complaints started.

  One of the tires left a black mark on Stacey’s new jeans. “Ucchh,” she said. “I just washed these.”

  “I don’t know where you intend to put all the stuff that’s hanging on the hooks,” Dawn said.

  “I think the lighting is too dim,” Mal remarked.

  Mary Anne let out a sigh. “It looks so … grungy in here.”

  “It’ll be fine,” Kristy said impatiently. “Let’s just get it done so we can enjoy at least part of the day.”

  That did it. This project was important to me, and everyone was acting as if we were in prison. I had to say something. “You know, if you don’t like doing this, then why are you doing it?”

  I must have seemed angry, because everyone gave me a concerned look. “We have to, Claud,” said Mary Anne. “You need us to.”

  “But everyone’s in such a bad mood,” I said. “All I hear is complaining. If it’s not going to be fun —”

  “Oh, Claud, don’t take it personally,” said Mary Anne gently.

  “Every fun project begins with some dirty work,” Stacey added. “But you do it because it has to get done. There’s no law that says you have to like every single thing you do, right?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “I guess,” I mumbled.

  Stacey’s words were tumbling around in my head. They made a lot of sense, but for some reason, I was thinking of Rosie.

  I pictured her sitting glumly over her crossword books, plastering a smile on her face while she tap-danced, reciting her list of achievements.

  There’s no law that says you have to like everything you do, Stacey had said.

  What an interesting choice of words.

  Maybe Rosie did her activities because she felt she had to. And just maybe none of us knew Rosie — really knew her — at all.

  “What’s ‘A Tennessee Williams classic: A Streetcar Named Blank,’ a six-letter word ending with E?”

  It was the third question Rosie had asked me. And it was the third question that made absolutely no sense to me.

  Rosie had decided to study in the kitchen that evening, which was a Tuesday. At first I was very patient. Jessi had told me what Rosie had said about me, so I figured this was Rosie’s way of getting closer.

  But the minute I arrived at the Wilders’, Rosie began tormenting me.

  “Charlie?” I suggested.

  Rosie shook her head. “That’s seven letters.”

  “I don’t know … how about Bobby?” I tried.

  Rosie rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t end in E. Okay, how about this one … ‘A four-sided figure with only two sides parallel’? Nine letters, the first two are T, R, and the seventh is O.”

  “Let me see,” I said. I looked closely at the puzzle (as if that would help). After a moment I said, “I’m not that great in geometry.”

  “Trapezoid!” Rosie announced. “That’s what it is!” She began scribbling madly.

  “Rosie, if you already knew the answer, why did you ask me?”

  “I didn’t know it right away,” she insisted. “It just came to me!”

  I let out a sigh. My plan had been to work on a full-color sketch at the kitchen table. Now it looked like the kitchen was going to be a torture chamber the rest of the evening.

  “Ten Across, ‘A bi-valve mollusk,’ seven letters, the second letter is Y,” Rosie said.

  I just shrugged.

  “Hmmm, Ten Down is ‘A Norse god,’ four letters, ending in I, N,” Rosie barged on. “I know that! Odin, and that makes the other word begin with O, Y … it’s a mollusk … I think that’s like a clam … oooh! Oyster! That’s got to be it!”

  “Great, Rosie,” I said.

  “Now, how about Twenty Across, ‘A —’ ”

  That was all I could take. “The opposite of yes,” I said. “Two letters, beginning with N!”

  “Huh?”

  “N, O. No,” I said. “I’m not going to answer any more questions. I never get them right, and I don’t know why you keep asking me. Besides, you’re much better at this than I am, and I have things of my own to do!”

  Whew. That was the first time I’d ever talked to Rosie like that. For all I knew, it was the first time anyone ever did.

  But you know what? I didn’t care. For three weeks my friends and I had been bending over backward to please her. And all she did was antagonize us. It was time someone stood up to the great Rosie Wilder.

  I expected Rosie either to stomp out of the kitchen furiously or cry. She did neither. She just nodded meekly and looked back at her book.

  Then I felt guilty. For a minute I thought about apologizing to her.

  But only for a minute.

  Instead I reached into my backpack, which was beside my chair. I pulled out a couple of sketch pads, some pencils, and a bag of junk food.

  I was working on four different sketches — a lollipop, a marshmallow, a bag of Doritos, and a Mounds bar. I opened one of my pads and turned to the lollipop sketch.

  This one was going to burst with colors. With big, circular strokes, I drew broad swirls in the lollipop.

  “A Streetcar Named Detour … Design … Derail …” Rosie muttered. Pages shuffled loudly as she leafed through her dictionary every few seconds.

  The lollipop finally looked right. I tried out color combinations with my pencils. The background would be white, to make the colors really stand out.

  Soon I had completely tuned Rosie out. I moved on to the Doritos sketch. First I had to get the model just right. I crunched and bunched the bag to give it the right angles. I discovered I could make it into a shape that was almost human. That’s what I would draw.

  As I was sketching, I noticed that Rosie had stopped working. Not only that, she was staring at me.

  I figured she was stuck on a ten-letter word for some obscure European writer or something. And I wasn’t going to give her the opportunity to ask me, so I pretended not to see her.

  Next thing I knew, she was reaching across the table. She took one of my sketch pads and ripped a page off the top.

  She’s testing me, I thought. Taking one of my pieces of paper just to get a rise out of me. I kept on working.

  Not until about ten minutes later did I notice that Rosie was acting a little unusual. She would pause, look straight ahead, scribble something. Pause, look, scribble. Pause, look, scribble.

  Then I saw her adjust the Mounds bar.

  Finally I glanced at her. To my surprise, I realized she wasn’t working on her puzzle at all.

  She was drawing.

  An outline of a Mounds bar was on her paper. Her lines were delicate and very accurate. The letters of the word MOUNDS were wrinkled along with the wrinkles in the wrapper.

  My jaw practically dropped open. Rosie was good!

  I shouldn’t have been surprised. Rosie was talented at everything else. Why shouldn’t she be good at drawing?

  But I’ll tell you what really interested me. Her face was relaxed, concentrated, and happy. She wasn’t grim and scowling, the way she looked when she played the piano or the violin, or super smily, the way she looked when she tap-danced. She actually seemed to be enjoying herself.

  “That’s great, Rosie,” I said. “You have a real flair for this!”

  “Thanks,” Rosie replied with a
shy smile. “This is what I really like to do.”

  I couldn’t believe it. Rosie looked like a modest little … seven-year-old girl!

  Suddenly I understood why she only wanted me to baby-sit for her. She wanted to watch me draw. But why didn’t she ever say so? Why did she always run up to her room and —

  “Rosie,” I said, “all those times you’ve gone up to your room to work on a project … have you really been practicing your drawing?”

  Rosie’s eyes lit up. But before she could say a word, the front door slammed.

  “I’m home!” called a deep, cheerful male voice.

  I rose from the table and began to answer, but Rosie waved her hand and said, “Ssshhhh!”

  I turned back around. Rosie was shoving her Mounds drawing across the table, burying it under my pile. Her eyes were wide with panic.

  Frantically she opened her crossword book and her dictionary. She grabbed a pencil, hunched herself over the book, and called out softly, “Hi, Daddy.”

  Hmmmm, I thought. Something is going on here …

  “ ’Bye, Mom! ’Bye, Janine!” I called over my shoulder.

  “ ’Bye!” I heard them answer.

  The Wilders’ station wagon was parked in front of my house. Rosie was waving from the backseat. It was four-thirty on a Thursday, and they were picking me up to take me to …

  Uncle Dandy’s Star Machine!

  Rosie was going to be on the show!

  I know, I know. Uncle Dandy isn’t exactly big-time. Still, I was really happy for Rosie. And I was excited to be going to a TV station.

  You know what else? I was the only guest Rosie had invited, and it felt nice to be asked. As impossible as it seemed, Rosie and I were becoming friends. Since I had found out about her hidden artistic talent, she had really loosened up.

  But one thing bothered me. I couldn’t understand why in the world she had to keep her talent a secret. Obviously her parents had encouraged her other abilities. Why did she have to hide the one thing she liked best?

  I tried not to think about that as I got in the car. Rosie and her parents seemed excited. Mrs. Wilder had asked her sister to stay with their mother for the evening, and Mr. Wilder had left work early.

  “Hartford, here we come!” Mr. Wilder said. He looked back and winked at us with his dark, dark eyes. I wondered if he had ever wanted to be a performer.

  “Now Rosie, before we get to the highway, are you sure you have everything?” Mrs. Wilder asked. “Your music? Your pitch pipe? Your tap shoes?”

  “Mom,” Rosie said. “I’m not dancing. Just singing and playing, remember?”

  “Well, you never know when you might be asked to,” Mrs. Wilder said. “It’s always good to be prepared.”

  “Ginger, you’re such a stage mother,” Mr. Wilder said with a smile.

  Mrs. Wilder laughed. “Sorry, I’m just being swept away with excitement!” Then she turned to her husband with a mischievous grin and said, “You should talk, George!”

  “Mea culpa,” Mr. Wilder replied, and Rosie smiled, as if she knew what that meant. (Janine told me later that it means I’m guilty in Latin.)

  The ride was fun. We played Guess the License Plate and a bunch of other car games. But when the Wilders started singing songs (in harmony), they sounded so good I just listened.

  The TV station was actually outside of Hartford. It was in a pretty dull area, with squat brick buildings and parking lots full of trucks and buses. The TV station looked like every other building, except for the huge antenna on top.

  We stepped into a small waiting room with a worn linoleum floor and a water cooler. Not exactly glamorous.

  A woman with a beehive hairdo and a telephone headset said, “You here for the Dandy show?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Wilder replied. “This is one of the talents.” He gently pushed Rosie in front of him.

  “Hi, sweetie,” the woman said. “Just go through the door and look for Studio Four. It’ll be on your right.”

  “Thanks,” we all said together.

  Inside the door was a long, wide corridor, with dozens of cables snaking along the floor. Men and women passed by, rolling enormous video cameras. I recognized one or two local TV newscasters and boy, did they look older than they do on TV! The walls were lined with studio doors. One of them swung open and I could see the set of a game show I used to watch when I was a kid. That made me shiver.

  I wished Stacey or Kristy were with me. We’d have looked in each other’s eyes and known we were squealing inside.

  Rosie didn’t seem fazed at all. She was mouthing the words to her song and following her parents.

  I couldn’t resist saying, “You are so calm!” to Rosie.

  She shrugged. “This is nothing compared to some of the network studios in New York.”

  “Here it is, girls!” Mr. Wilder called out. He opened the door marked STUDIO 4 and let us go in.

  What a place. Half of the room was a madhouse. People wearing headsets were running around like crazy, muttering in low voices. At first I thought they were talking to themselves, until I realized little mikes were attached to the headsets. There were cameras standing on tripods, a camera hanging from the ceiling on a crane, cameras shoved against the wall. Along a table on the other side of the room were two coffee urns and four plates of cold cuts and breads. Uncle Dandy waved to us from a corner, where a man and a woman were combing his hair and putting makeup on his face.

  The other half of the room was completely empty. It was the set for the show. In the center was a polished wooden floor. Off to the side were curtains, pulled open, and a grand piano. Hanging above the set was a huge sign that said UNCLE DANDY’S STAR MACHINE in neon lights. A few rows of folding chairs faced the set (they were for the studio audience).

  “Hi, what’s your talent?” someone asked.

  I looked around to see a girl smiling brightly at Rosie. Her parents stood behind her, smiling brightly at her.

  “Singing and piano,” Rosie answered.

  “I’m dancing —” the girl said.

  “Introduce yourself, dear,” the girl’s mother interrupted.

  “I’m Crystal.”

  “I’m Rosie.” Rosie smiled tightly, then stared straight ahead.

  Crystal got the message. She nodded a little, frowned a little, then walked away with her parents.

  I dared to say to Rosie, “She seemed pretty nice.”

  Rosie shook her head. “It’s important not to make small talk on the set. That kind of thing can destroy your concentration, especially before a performance.”

  “That’s right, dear,” Mrs. Wilder said, putting her hand on Rosie’s shoulder.

  I thought that was a little weird, but I didn’t say anything.

  Soon Uncle Dandy came racing across the set with a clipboard in his hand. His hair (or toupee) had so much spray in it, it looked like a helmet. “Where are all the kids?” he shouted.

  “Some of them are in the green room, Mr. Beasley,” a bearded guy replied from behind us.

  “What are they doing there?” Uncle Dandy demanded. “We’re at half hour. Get them in here!”

  Then he turned to Rosie and Crystal and gave them a huge smile. “Howdy. ’Dya have a nice trip here?”

  “Uh-huh,” Rosie and Crystal said.

  Uncle Dandy looked up to see the bearded man talking to someone. “Now, Bickford!” he ordered.

  He kept doing that — practically barking at the adults, but using this sugar-sweet voice for kids.

  When the other talents came in, he led them all onto the set. The Wilders, the other families and friends, and I squeezed into the studio audience chairs.

  We listened to Uncle Dandy’s pep talk. “Wow, here we are!” he exclaimed with a goony smile, clapping his hands. “Is everybody excited?”

  “Yes!” the kids screamed.

  Then he put on a serious expression. “Boys and girls, this is a super-duper big day. It’s our premiere show! Believe me, I know how you must
feel. All these lights and cameras, everyone in Central and parts of Southern Connecticut watching … but I want you to know Uncle Dandy is behind you a hundred and a half percent. I want you all to have the bestest, funnest, Uncle Dandiest time! Remember, we’re one big, happy family!”

  The speech was so corny, I don’t know how the kids kept from cracking up.

  As Uncle Dandy spoke, beads of sweat formed on his forehead. He was smiling broadly, but his eyes were darting all around. He was making me nervous, and I wasn’t even on the show! After the speech he announced the order in which the performers would appear. Rosie was going to be last, with her two songs.

  “They always save the best for last,” Mr. Wilder whispered to his wife and me.

  Soon the performers were taken into a waiting room, out of sight. Ms. Yu arrived late, waved to us, and stood against the wall. The audience lights dimmed and these huge spotlights lit up the stage so brightly I had to squint. Then this incredibly loud, tinny-sounding music started. Uncle Dandy ran onto the stage so fast he almost fell over. “Who-o-oa! Har har — that was a close one! Well, hello out there, boys and girls! It’s time for Uncle Dandy’s Star Machine!”

  He pointed to the neon lights, which flashed on and off. But two letters were dead, so when it lit up it looked like UNCLE ANDY’S TAR MACHINE.

  Off to the side, a woman held up a sign that said WILD APPLAUSE. We all applauded loudly.

  “Yes, well, we have quite a show for you today …” As Uncle Dandy bounced to the beat of the music, his shirt came untucked. And then I discovered he was wearing a toupee, because it began to slip forward on his forehead. I almost burst out laughing.

  Did I ever breathe a sigh of relief when the first act began. A little girl danced to some rock music.

  She was pretty good, and so were most of the other acts — a ventriloquist, a ballerina, a few singers, a tap dancer (which caused Mrs. Wilder to whisper, “She’s no Rosie!” to Mr. Wilder), and a kid who walked on stilts and juggled.

  When Rosie went onstage, I felt a chill race through me. My stomach churned. I looked at the Wilders. They were holding hands and smiling calmly.

  As Rosie played a complicated classical song, two camera people rolled toward her. They swooped close to her face, then her hands. The camera on the crane swung above her. I don’t know how she could keep concentrating.