Chapter 13

"You do realize that Tony wrote himself into kissing four different girls?" Robbie pointed out suspiciously.

"I noticed that," Tami said, giving me a small glare.

"I did?" I gave them my innocent face. It usually worked with Mom. "How'd that happen?"

They ignored me.

"He wanted to make it six," Traci pointed out helpfully, just when I was starting to like her.

"Or seven," Mikee added.

I was thinking about making a break for it.

It was Saturday afternoon, and we were all sitting in my living room again. I was in Dad's chair with Tami on my lap. Robbie was sitting in the other chair with her new laptop in her lap, making notes. Traci, Mikee, and Kelly were sharing the sofa.

"Let's get back to business," I said, trying to change the subject. "We've got until Friday."

Mr. Mulino had decided that all the projects had to be organized by Friday, with major casting, stage plans and budgets. When he saw how many there were, he'd decide if all of them got to stage their productions, or just a couple.

So far, we were sure that Tommy and Kirk were going to do musicals. And Leslie Villers was talking about a comedy. And the rumor was that Jimmy Waters and Angelina Gomez had talked about doing something.

We were guessing that Mulino might let three projects stage. So if there were six, half would get eliminated just on their plans. We didn't want to be in that half. We thought that doing an original production might give us a little edge, but a very little one.

"The things we need to decide right now are cast and musicians," Robbie said.

"That means the first decision is whether you want to be girl number one, girl number two, girl number three, or the angel," I told her.

"What if I want to be the nurse?"

"Why do you think we made the nurse a non-singing role?" Tami said and we both grinned.

Robbie stuck her tongue out at us. "The angel would be a good role if you come up with some decent songs for her."

"I'm workin' on it." I'd done three so far, stealing music and writing my own words, but nothing I'd admit to yet.

"That or girl number one."

"That's kinda what we were figuring."

"Are you going to give her a name, or is she going to stay girl number one to save money in the budget."

Tami and I looked at each other. "We work our fingers to the bone writing a musical..." I lamented.

"And all we get is sarcasm," Tami finished.

Robbie looked up at the ceiling.

"Actually, we thought we'd let the cast choose their own names for their characters."

"That's kind of cool," Robbie agreed.

Tami held her hand to the side of her mouth, as if to keep me from hearing. "Actually, we couldn't agree on any of the names."

Robbie smiled. "Any ideas for girl number two?"

"Well, she has to be cute," I said, holding up one finger.

"Unh huh," Tami agreed with a sharp look at me. "And she has to sing. She has two songs."

"Yep," I agreed, holding up a second finger. "Oh, and she has to have an even cuter sister named Kelly." I held up a third finger.

"WHAT?" Mikee exploded as Kelly giggled.

"Can she sing?" Robbie asked with a wicked grin.