First string future, p.11
First-String Future, page 11
Rebecca says, “This is my girl, Mach I,” and I turn to make friends with the brindle-coated third dog, thinking that Cody will enjoy her name. They are like dancers, so slim and sleek, and their big, dark eyes are as innocent as a forest deer’s. Oh, I just love them!
Jacy and Tiffany arrive and are introduced, and we all go into an empty studio so Phyllis and Rebecca can show us how to handle the dogs. All three wear wide nylon collars, which we’ll grasp to direct them. No need to bend over to hold the collars of these dogs—their necks are level with our waists! Of course they’ll also be on their leashes, which we’ll wear around our bodies for extra security and to keep them close to us. Phyllis doubles up a leash and slips it over my head and one shoulder. “Come here, Kari,” she calls, and she clips the leash to Kari’s collar. With Kari snugly by my side, I grip her collar firmly and we practice walking, stopping, and turning. Jacy and Tiffany practice with Mach I and Blue Dog. The dogs are so obedient that we get the hang of it in no time.
“They’re such good dogs!” I exclaim, amazed at their gentleness for all their large size. Phyllis and Rebecca agree, and tell us that they work twice a month as therapy dogs.
“What’s that?” Tiffany asks.
“They go to visit and cheer up old people in nursing homes and disabled children in a special school,” Phyllis explains. She tells us the dogs had to pass some tests to work through
Therapy Dogs International.
“What kinds of tests?” Jacy wants to know.
“Oh, to see how they’d behave around people in wheelchairs, and how they’d react if an old person dropped a cane near them or a child hugged them too roughly. Those kids just love them!” How neat! I thought only cats and small dogs did visits like that.
The two women are soon satisfied with our control, so we get to walk the dogs through the building to the rehearsal hall. Of course everyone wants to meet and pet them, but eventually the rehearsal gets underway. The dogs seem a little surprised by the music, but being around a lot of people doesn’t bother them at all. When it’s our turn to take part, they walk and stand willingly with us, and I feel like a proud mama!
* * *
When spring break arrives, I spend the first few days working on my science fair project. On Sunday I lay out my papers and photos on the big three-panel display board to see how they look. Not bad, I decide, but the reports would be nicer if they were done on the computer—the graph, too. On Monday I type up the reports and make the graph, and the whole display does look better.
Tuesday the Great American Bullfrog arrives—in a humongous carton! I call Cody right away to come over and unpack it with me. Together we lift the box onto the kitchen table, and Roni, who’s doing dishes, says, “I bet that box is more peanuts than frog!”
“Got that right, Roni!” Cody says after he cuts the tape and we lift the flaps. We’re staring at enough packing-foam bits to fill a swimming pool.
“We have to send this thing back the way it came,” I remind him, “so we need something to scoop them into—and something to scoop with.”
“What about big paper grocery bags and margarine bowls?” Roni suggests.
“Good idea.” I set us up with a bag and a plastic bowl each, and we start scooping. The “peanuts” we drop are put to good use by Jogger and Little Peach, who get a lively game of kitchen-floor hockey going around and under our feet.
“Here’s the famous archaeological team unearthing a mummy from the desert sands,” Cody announces in earnest TV-special tones. “Careful, Smedley, I think I’ve found the mummy’s toe—or could it be a flipper?”
Soon the bullfrog is revealed, and we lift it out. It is SO COOL! Its two sides are different—on its belly side you can see all its organs and even take off one jaw and remove and open up its heart. On its back side, you can see its bones, muscles, and skin. “Look at all the little numbers,” Cody says. “Someone put those on by hand. No wonder it’s expensive! It’s even signed and dated like a painting—see?”
Roni dries her hands and comes over to admire the outsize bullfrog. She fishes some papers out of the box and examines them. “Here’s the key to your puzzle,” she says, handing over the numbered list of frog parts. “Have fun, kiddies!” She wipes the counter and leaves us to it.
“Let’s set this guy up on his stand so I can take his picture,” I tell Cody. I place the frog against a plain background of kitchen wall and snap his front and back views. Cody asks what I have in mind for the photos.
“Come and see. I’ve got my board out on the dining-room table. I have to move it every time we eat!”
“Same at our house, only we’ve been eating in the kitchen all week. My mom can’t wait for Monday to get here!” Cody says, laughing.
I give him a “tour” of my display board. “I’m putting the reports and the graph on the center panel and leaving the right-hand panel clear to hang Freddo on. On the left-hand panel, I’ll have the photos of the bullfrog with information under them about borrowing the model. Some of the sixth graders might want to plan to do that next year. Hey! I could put the Hotline’s frog bumper sticker on that side, too—good thing we didn’t stick it on the car yet.”
“Your board looks great! Our frogs came out well,” he says, studying the photos of the three kinds we met at the pond. I’ve put one on a corner of each of my three reports. The first report is on the disappearance of frogs around the world—the graph goes with that one. The second is on the suspected causes—pollution, acid rain, ultraviolet light from the damaged ozone layer, destruction of their habitats by land development, and capturing for dissection. (I yellow-highlighted that part!) The third is on the chain of effects the lack of frogs will cause—the increase in insects, which will cause crop damage, which will increase pesticide use, which will cause pollution, which will poison animals—including us. When I was reading about all this stuff, I was thinking I might want to be a biologist and investigate things in nature. I wonder if biologists have to be good in math?
“I’m going to cut out some of the pictures from the PETA kit and the Hot Line booklet and stick them here and there around the board,” I tell Cody. “Can I use the stripey frog logo from your Humane Society packet, too?”
“Sure. Do you want to borrow my small tape player for your ‘mood music’?”
“No, I’ve got one, thanks, but remind me to take extra batteries for it. I’m not going to include Freddo when we hand in our boards on Monday. I’m afraid to trust him to Mrs. Stengle’s loving care!” The science teachers are going to set up our projects in the media center. “I’ll add him when we go Tuesday night.”
“Good idea. Want to walk back with me and see mine now?” Cody invites.
“Sure.” I fold in the side panels of the board to close the display.
Just as we get to the door, a loud quacking starts up outside. It sounds like an angry duck, but we both know it’s not. It takes some looking around, though, to find the owner of the big voice—a teeny little tree frog. There he is, clinging to the front porch wall with the little suckers on his toes. He’s brownish green and only about the size of my thumbnail—where in the world does that amazing lung power come from?
“Cody! Don’t let him get away while I get the camera!” I beg.
“What am I supposed to do, entertain him?” Cody asks, amused. “Hurry up!”
I’m back in ten seconds with camera and field guide, and the frog hasn’t moved. “I’ve been talking to him,” Cody says, “that’s why.”
“Saying what?” It’s my turn to be amused.
“Quack, quack, quack,” he demonstrates in a soft mutter. “I have him hypnotized.”
I get my picture quickly, and then we look him up in the tree frog section of the guide. It says he’s a squirrel frog, so-called because his rain call sounds like a squirrel’s chattering. When we put a finger near him, he stretches out his long, slender legs and edges away.
“They’re the racing models of the frog world,” Cody says admiringly. “They can change color, too, like those little lizards.”
“Those are anoles,” I lecture him, schoolmarm style.
“I know, but everybody just calls them lizards.”
“I certainly do,” I agree, laughing. ”I bet he’d turn greener on those plants by the railing. Make him jump.”
“He won’t go that far,” Cody predicts, and he’s right, but still it’s a spectacular leap for the size of the leaper.
“I’ll use up the film tomorrow so I can get it developed in time to use this shot and the ones of the bullfrog model on my board. I can put the tree frog’s picture on the corner of the graph,” I plan aloud. Then, without warning, I turn and shoot a close-up of Cody. He grins and holds out his hand for the camera. He shoots one of me and hands it back. Now we’ll always be thirteen—for each other.
* * *
The rest of spring break is pretty much devoted to Giselle. Wednesday afternoon is the technical rehearsal at the theater. The dancers just wear practice clothes, and we three “dog girls” wear our street clothes, because a tech rehearsal is just to get all the technical details down, such as the stage lighting. Our places are marked on the stage, and we run through everything to make sure we know where we enter and exit. This will help tomorrow’s dress rehearsal run smoothly, with as few stops and starts as possible. I had wondered what the dogs would think of the theater, with its unfamiliar world of backstage and wings, but they seem happy to go anywhere with us, trusting us completely.
On Thursday we get to wear our costumes—and so do the dogs! Jacy, Tiffany, and I wear pretty peasant skirts and blouses with little triangular head scarves to match. Kari, Blue Dog, and Mach I wear gold-fringed turquoise silk capes with the duke’s “royal insignia” in gold on each side. The whole cast lets them know how handsome they look!
The progression of rehearsals has been perfect for the dogs. In SBT’s own rehearsal hall they got used to the action and the music. At the tech rehearsal they became familiar with the theater itself. Now they’re used to our costumes and their own. Apart from Blue Dog’s occasional tendency to want to turn in circles and Mach’s interest in the stuffed animals the hunters have supposedly caught, they’re perfect in their parts.
Friday, Opening Night, is special because Cody is in the audience and I know how eager he is to see the greyhounds onstage. He met them one Saturday afternoon when he came with Dad to pick me up from rehearsal. Since then he’s done a lot of research about greyhounds on the Internet. We both had wondered why the grey in their name. We figured it was the British spelling for gray, though we knew that greyhounds aren’t all gray—in fact, the “blues” are fairly rare. It turns out it’s from the older word grehund, but there are different ideas on what that meant. Some say the gre showed rank, as in “great hound.” Others claim it came from gaze—“gaze hound” being another way of saying “sight hound.” Sight hounds track things by using their keen eyesight, rather than by following a scent, as most dogs do.
Cody also found out about a lot of adoption groups that find homes for greyhounds being retired from racing. Thank goodness for these groups! Otherwise the poor things are killed, or even worse, sold to research labs. If they don’t die from the painful experiments, they’re killed afterward. How could people be so cruel to these gentle dogs?
Cody and I were all happy about the adoption idea until we found out that the greyhounds that go to homes are only a tiny percent of those the racetracks get rid of. The dogs race only five years max, and some “retirees” are only eighteen months old! But nonracers make no money for owners, so out they go. On the Internet, the Greyhound Protection League says the only solution is to end dog racing altogether. Most states have already banned it—I wish Florida would, too.
I look down at Kari, warm and happy by my side as we wait in the wings. It’s hard to believe that she and Blue and Mach, who seem like any other dearly loved house pets, were once racers who lived in a track kennel, but they were. They got lucky. They could just as easily have ended up in a heap of corpses by a Dumpster or in the cold steel cages of a medical lab. Unthinkable!
I shake off the thought and concentrate on the ballet as the overture to Giselle begins. The very first notes turn on the magic for me, that “This is it!” excitement of a live performance. The rustlings and occasional coughs from the other side of the curtain make it clear that this is no dress rehearsal but the real thing. People out there have bought tickets, dressed up, and come to the theater tonight looking forward to being entertained by a wonderful story. Now it’s up to us to create it for them.
The curtain rises, and the audience’s presence can be felt even more as they react to the beautiful set of a Rhineland village. Giselle’s cottage is at one side of the stage, and at the other is the empty cottage where Count Albrecht, out hunting with the duke of the region, will hide his fine cloak and jeweled sword so he can pretend to Giselle that he’s a peasant named Loys. In the distance, on a mountain across a river, stands the castle he has come from.
The music changes to a dreamy introduction to the story, saying as clearly as words, “Once upon a time, in a kingdom far away…” Soon the peasants appear from their cottages, and happy dancing breaks out to celebrate the grape harvest. I especially enjoy watching real dancers perform the variation I’ve done so many times in class, and I wonder if Cody recognizes it from my birthday party.
“Loys” appears and romances the shy Giselle, who trustingly falls in love with him. In her joy, she outdances all the other girls, though her mother begs her to remember her weak heart.
Then hunting horns are heard, and our three boys appear in a short dance. Soon the duke’s hunting party sweeps into the village, looking for refreshment, and we’re on. I can hear a little gasp of astonishment go up from the audience as Jacy, Tiffany, and I lead the dogs onstage—surprise! The people watching are probably more nervous than we are about the dogs making some kind of mistake. But Kari, Blue, and Mach are perfect. Good as gold. I feel as proud as if they were my own.
The duke’s daughter, Bathilde, is charmed by Giselle’s dancing, and Giselle’s mother invites the duke and Bathilde into her cottage for refreshments. The rest of the hunting party goes off to other peasant cottages, and we girls turn the dogs around and lead them off. Phyllis and Rebecca are in the wings ready to take them from us, looking very pleased. The three canine stars spend the rest of their time in the big rehearsal room offstage getting their pictures taken with one and all. Everyone loves it that each dog wears its own official backstage pass. Blue’s, for example, says “Blue Dog, Extra, Backstage Only.” Cool!
Onstage, the ballet goes on without us, and I ask to be allowed to watch the rest of Act I from the wings. Maybe I’ll be dancing in it one day, and this is my chance to study the roles. I wonder if I’ll ever dance the part of Giselle. They say it’s one of the hardest for a ballerina because it requires great acting ability. When Giselle finds out that Loys has deceived her—that he’s really Count Albrecht and betrothed to Bathilde—she loses her mind with grief. In the “mad scene” at the end of Act I, she snatches his sword, and the horrified villagers are all afraid she’ll stab herself with it. At last Albrecht manages to take it from her, but as he does, her heart fails, and she falls dead at his feet. Act I, which began so happily, ends very sadly.
How would it feel, I wonder, to have your heart broken so badly you’d want to die? I try to imagine Cody betraying me in some way, and how empty my life would seem if he were no longer in it. What if he even died? It could happen. Tears come to my eyes just thinking about it. I realize how lucky I’ve been so far—nothing really bad has ever happened to me. But most of my life is still in the future. What will the years ahead of me bring? Does a dancer need to suffer real tragedies in order to be able to act them convincingly, or would a good imagination be enough? I watch the ballerina portraying Giselle’s agony and wonder if she’s felt real agony in her own life. And the people in the audience—do they feel Giselle’s pain because they’ve felt pain themselves? Certainly some people, even children, have terrible things happen to them. Does everyone, sooner or later? Will I?
When I go out front to watch Act II, I take Cody’s warm hand in the dark. “Your hand is freezing, Tori,” he whispers. “Are you okay?”
I nod. “Yes, it’s just…I was watching the rest of Act I from the wings, and I was thinking…”
“I know,” he says. “So was I.”
In Act II, Giselle rises from her moonlit grave to join the Wilis, spirits of girls who have been betrayed and died before their wedding day. The Wilis kill any man who enters their forest by dancing him to death. Giselle, however, still loves Albrecht and does all she can to protect him from the Wilis’ merciless queen until dawn breaks her cruel power. At the end, when Giselle’s spirit must return to her grave and Albrecht is lost in sorrow, my eyes are wet and so are Cody’s. I guess we both have good imaginations.
* * *
The other two performances go equally well, though a near-disaster occurs on Saturday evening. We’re standing calmly onstage with the dogs when, for no known reason, Blue Dog shrugs out of her collar! Quick-thinking Jacy gets a firm grip on the neck of Blue’s costume, and the big dog continues to stand calmly. I don’t think anyone in the audience even notices. At the Sunday matinee, feeling very much at home by now and maybe a little bored, Mach I starts to nibble on the stuffed pheasant swinging near her nose. Luckily, Tiffany is able to discourage her without attracting attention. The only difficulty for the three of us is stifling the giggles—we don’t dare look at each other!
