"Why is this here?" I asked.

"Who the hell knows?" Ryan replied. "Do you know what a chimney climb is?"

Rules Are Rules
50. The Clip On Your Hip

 

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Part 50
 

I can't say that the time flew. The days ran like regular days. Saturday I went to a movie with Jerry. We spent a lot of the time kissing and whispering. The week that led up to Veteran's Day was a week like any other week.

It was odd for me, everything going along as it always went, and at the same time knowing that my time was short. Even though everyone knew I was leaving, nobody seemed to feel it but me. I mean, at lunch, I'd look at Carla and Eden and think, "I might never see them again," while they would be talking and acting like I'd be there forever.

Well, Jerry knew that our time was slipping away. He was the only one who felt the same ache that I did... that it was all finishing... that I might never come back again.

On Veteran's Day, Friday, I went on a picnic with the Auburns.

I bought a pair of jeans for the occasion. I also got them because Jerry said I'd need a pair for stage crew. "You have to climb ladders and stuff," he said. "Unless you want to put on a show for everybody, you'll wear jeans."

It was kind of a special event or a milestone or something, buying my first pair of jeans as a girl. Eden came with me to help pick them out. I'm really going to miss her. Carla, too, but not in the same way. Carla was my first friend at Tierson High, but Eden was my best and closest girl friend.

The picnic with the Auburns was so nice. I like them so much, I almost wanted to cry! Is it crazy for someone as young as me to wish that someday I could marry Jerry, and have his family as my in-laws?

Nina sat near me, and I could tell she was sorry I was going. I put my arm around her and she leaned into me. It was so special! I never felt that much trust and acceptance... from anyone, really.

Nobody mentioned the move directly, but it was always right there, behind everything we did and said. The Auburns must have agreed not to bring it up.

Cassie didn't tease me much, and Mr. Auburn only asked me *one* embarrassing question. Both of those things were so unusual that it just underlined the strangeness and finality of the day.

Saturday and Sunday of that weekend were taken up by day-long rehearsals of Bye Bye Birdie. There was a lot of work to do, mostly crowd control.

You probably don't know how high-school musicals work. A big part of it is fund raising, which means selling as many tickets as possible.

The way you get parents and relatives to buy tickets and come to the show is to put their children in it. So there was a huge chorus. There was the dancing chorus and the singing chorus, and the "extras" chorus for people who can't sing or dance. All these people needed to be stored somewhere when they weren't on stage, and they had to be quickly moved on and off as needed.

Professionals brought our sets to the theater and hung them. On Saturday, they taught us how to work everything. On Sunday, they watched us do it.

The show was held in the Academy of Music, which is a very grand name for a small-town theater. Still, the place was impressive. The stage was incredibly deep, and the area above the stage, where the unused backdrops were hanging, was so high you couldn't see the top.

---

Sunday, I had a wardrobe problem. "Mom!" I called, "Do you know where my jeans are?"

"In the laundry. They were filthy! You should have put them to wash after that picnic. It looked like you played football in those pants and rolled all over the ground! Grass stains, dirt, mud... Then you got dust and grime all over them in that theater yesterday. Don't they ever clean that place? Now they won't need to, since you cleaned it for them with your jeans!

"You've got to take care of your pants the way you take care of your skirts. Wearing pants is no excuse for being messy..."

"Okay, Mom! I get it!" I sang out.

She still had one more phrase aching to get out: "I had to wash those pants before they got up and walked away by themselves!"

"Oh, Mom!"

There was nothing to be done. There was no way on earth that they'd be clean and dry in time, and no way could I wear them wet. It was too cold out, for one thing, and my mother wouldn't have let me out of the house.

I picked out a gray wrap-around skirt. It was my least favorite and most functional skirt, and I figured it could afford to get dirty. Besides, in spite of Jerry's warning, so far I hadn't done any ladder-climbing or anything that made a skirt impractical. Pants would have been more comfortable, but I didn't have that option.

When I arrived and met up with the the rest of the stage crew, it was easy to see that something was afoot. The boys were huddled in a group, looking at me.

"What's up?" I asked, feeling a little uncomfortable.

"Nothing bad," Jerry whispered. "Listen, we want to get under the stage. It is the coolest place! It has trapdoors and special effects and stuff. There's a door by the light board, but it's locked."

"And?" I prompted.

"There *is* a way in, but you have to go through some funny hallways and passages. Ryan can go some of the way, but there's a place where the hallway gets really narrow. You're the only one small enough to fit through. Once you're inside, you can open the door for the rest of us."

Ryan was the smallest guy, just a little bigger than me. He explained, "I can almost make it through, but my head is too big. Last year I could do it."

"Almost doesn't count," someone said.

I nodded, and Jerry, Ryan and I went off stage left, down the hall, past the dressing rooms, into the properties room. This was a huge, messy place full of interesting stuff. We weren't supposed to be in there, so we moved quickly.

Following Ryan, we went to the far corner where there was a small door, about three feet high. Instead of a knob, it was held shut by two turnscrews. Ryan opened them with his Swiss army knife. This led to a narrow, dead-end hallway lit by skylights. The ceiling was very high above us.

"Why is this here?" I asked.

"Who the hell knows?" Ryan replied. "Do you know what a chimney climb is?"

I did. It's when you plant your back against one wall and put your feet on the opposite wall, and walk yourself up.

"No peeking," I cautioned Jerry, before I agreed to the climb.

"Don't worry," Ryan said. "He needs to keep a lookout, so we don't get caught."

Jerry rolled his eyes.

"I'm not kidding, man," Ryan insisted. "If we get caught now, we'll be closed out—"

"Okay, okay," Jerry acquiesced in a huff, and exited to the properties room.

It was easy until we got about twenty feet up. "Here's the shelf," Ryan grunted.

Above and behind us was an opening. He went first, resting his elbows on the ledge, then his hands, and finally, in a quick (but scary) movement, his butt.

"If you don't think you can do it, better go back down," he said, but I quickly copied his movements.

"Excellent!" he complemented, nodding sagely. "I figured that if you could scale the building, you wouldn't have a problem with this."

My heart was pounding a bit, but I just nodded.

From there, a ladder took us down to a dimly lit hallway. Ryan made me climb down first. "You won't be able to get in front of me down below, unless you want to climb over me."

I passed on that offer, and carefully descended the ladder. Once on the ground, I slowly felt my way down the hallway, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Soon the passage ended at a narrow gap.

"I can't get through there," he said from behind me, "So you'll have to go it alone. Once you're through at the other end, you'll be on a landing, and you'll find a light switch on your right. Go down the stairs. You'll see a door with a sign that says Don't shut this door so damn tight that you can't open it. Open that door, switch on the light inside, and turn off the light on the stairs. Now you'll be under the stage. Go left. Just follow the wall. It turns a corner, and a little ways after that you'll find some stairs going up. That leads to the door by the light board. If you hear someone tapping on it, tap back, and open it quietly. Okay?"

I made him repeat the whole thing three times, until I was sure I got it.

"How did you guys find these passages?" I asked.

Ryan shrugged and smiled. "Just poking around. You ready?"

"Yeah, I'm ready," I said. I gulped and began pushing through the gap.

It was pretty tight, especially around my hips and breasts. I was sure I could get through, so I kept going.

My skirt was getting pulled by the rough wall. It rode its way up my thighs. If Ryan had been in front of me instead of in back, he would have gotten an eyefull. Since he wasn't, and no one could see, I didn't worry about it. At least my skirt wasn't falling off.

I hope this place isn't *too* dirty, I thought. I really have to get more pants. This is probably going to ruin my skirt. Oh well, it is my least-favorite.

Then, as the skirt pulled even more, I thought, This better not get my underwear dirty! How would I explain *that* to Mom!

While I talked to myself I kept pushing on. I came to a lump of rough concrete in the wall behind me, just at the level of my butt. It was probably a patch.

I took a breath and tried to squeeze my hips smaller. Of course it didn't work. Some points in the concrete scratched my butt through my clothes. The skirt was going to be filthy for sure.

I wiggled and shifted to get my hips around the pointy parts, and for a moment I was afraid I was going to get stuck inside here and not be able to get out. Then what would happen? Would they call the fire department? If they did, what could they do? Would they have to break the wall to get me out? Would it hurt?

"Ryan? Are you still there?"

"Yes," he replied. "Everything alright?"

"Oh, yeah," I said. "I think so. There's just something poking me in the butt."

I heard him sigh in a way that meant, Oh, brother! Girls can be so dumb!

At least that's how it sounded to me. I got a little irritated, and *then* he said, "Can you speed things up? Or are you afraid to go on?"

"I'm not afraid!" I told him, and felt the rough concrete rub against me.

Whatever damage my skirt was going to suffer was already done, I figured. I could always throw it away, and Mom would never see it. I had to get out of this stupid passage!

So I gave a quick tug with my hips, to get past the rough patch. I heard a pop! and a tick-tick as something small hit the ground and bounced once.

Immediately I knew what it was: the button that held my wraparound skirt had come off and skipped away. I was sure from the sound that it hand landed ahead of me, in the direction I was heading.

I moved forward quickly now, and as I did, my skirt worked its way completely off me. I had to grab it to keep it from falling to the floor. And then I was through.

I could hear Ryan's feet shifting anxiously in the darkness. "Everything okay?" he asked. "Can't you find the light?"

I saw the switch quite plainly, but I wasn't ready to turn on the light. "Hang on," I told Ryan. I gave my skirt a good shake and wrapped it around me, holding it with one hand. Then I switched on the light. "Looks good," I said.

"All right," he said. "I'll wait here until I see the light go off."

"Good." I repeated. Then I started looking around for the button.

Ryan asked, "What's wrong? Why aren't you moving?"

"I lost a button."

"Oh," he said, in a dismissive tone. "They must have plenty of buttons upstairs. I mean, it wasn't made of gold or something, was it?"

"I've got to find it," I said. "It's the button that holds my skirt closed."

"Oh," he said. His little face lit up with interest.

Ignoring him, I looked carefully. There wasn't much area to search, but the button was nowhere to be found. I looked at the floor in the narrow gap, but the button wasn't there, either. I made my way slowly down the concrete stairs, looking everywhere, but still didn't find it.

Since there wasn't any place else left to look, I had to give up. There wasn't any point. The button was lost. Ryan was right: there were probably plenty of buttons upstairs in the costume area.

I opened the door, turned on the understage light, and turned off the light on the stairs.

After shutting the door — being careful to not shut it "so damn tight" — I took my skirt off again and gave it a good look. There was some dust on it: concrete and ordinary dust. I shook it out hard, and brushed it with my hand. It didn't look too bad. I picked off the threads where the button used to hang, and wrapped the skirt around me again.

I could hear people walking overhead. It was quite clear that I was under the stage. It was a huge space, and seemed bigger than the stage itself. It was a spooky place. Strange machines lurked in the middle of the room, and I couldn't make out what they were. The bare beams that held up the wooden stage were supported by endless rows of columns.

I wasn't really afraid, but I wanted to get out of there. I walked quickly along the wall until I found the stairs up. I turned on the stairs light and turned off the lights in the big room. Then I tore up the stairs.

There was a soft tapping on the door, so I gently opened it. The guys all ran inside, hardly letting me by.

Jerry was the only one who waited. "Hey, babe. How'd it go? I can see by your face that something's wrong."

"This stupid skirt," I said. "It's a wraparound, and I lost the button."

"Ah," he said, getting it in one. "So if you let go, it'll wrap around your ankles?"

"Mmm," I replied. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

He grinned. "How did you guess?"

He looked around, then spotted a script sitting on top of a trunk. The script was held together by a big metal clip. He took the clip, put an empty coffee mug on the papers (to weigh them down), and helped me get the clip in the right place to hold my dress shut.

It took a little doing, but once in place, it worked great. It felt a little funny, but it did the job.

"Thanks," I said, and gave him a peck on the cheek. He ran downstairs and I went to look for someone with a needle, thread, and an extra button.

I hadn't gone two steps, when the director called everyone to attention. I was in the wings, so I couldn't see him.

As I moved forward to get a better view, someone ran into me, someone with a coffee mug in hand. He look at me, and he didn't even apologize!

A little miffed, I moved to the right so I could see better. I rested my hand on a huge fan whose support was six feet high.

The director was still calling people to attention, and as he called, "People! People! Can I have some silence, please?" my head started to itch. It felt like some dust or a bug or something was caught in my hair. I wasn't sure whether it was moving, or just making my skin crawl. Either way, I tried to not freak out. I just wanted to get it off me.

It was no surprise that something got into my hair. That funky, dusty basement-like area I'd just gone throught... it would be odd if there wasn't some dirt, or worse, on me someplace. I'd have to get someone to look me over before I went home, so Mom wouldn't ask where I'd been.

As I reached with my left hand to brush the possible spider or dust or dust-spider-yuckiness-thing from my hair, (Ew! Ew!) I unconsciously moved my right hand as well. That unaware hand hit the big fan in the worst possible place: the ON switch.

As the fan revved up, the breeze ruffled the pages of the script. Inevitably, the coffee cup that weighed them down was gone, carried off by the rude person who'd bumped me.

I stood there, mouth open, one hand reaching for the cobweb in my hair, the very picture of a ditzy teenage girl.

The top sheet fluttered, lifted slightly, and suddenly shot onto the stage. It didn't go far. The next sheet followed more quickly, and sailed halfway across the stage. The third and fourth followed even more quickly and flew even farther, and soon pages by the dozen were flitting across the stage, landing everywhere.

It looked like paper being shot from a firehose, and the pages covered the stage like snow. Stupidly, I ran directly into it, arms in the air, trying to stem the flood by standing in the way.

I got plastered with paper and my hair blew into my face, until at last I had the sense to step out of the way. The last few dozen sheets blew out behind me as I stood there with my arms open like a perfect idiot.

All the sheets had gone. The fan was tearing into my hair and skirt, pressing my clothes against me, and softly shifting some of the pages on the ground.

"Shut the fan off!" the director shouted. "Shut the fan off! WILL SOMEBODY SHUT THE GODDAMN FAN OFF!"

Someone offstage did so. Silence descended.

The director said, "Young lady, what is your name?" Red faced, I told him.

"Well, then, Miss Donner," he said in a syrupy, sarcastically polite voice, "Would you please be so kind as to pick up my script from the floor? Could you do me that great favor? And once you've done that, would you be a dear and put the pages back in order? If it's not too much to ask?"

He added in an abrupt shout, "And can you do it QUICKLY?" I jumped, and a few people laughed.

Then, in a normal, irritated tone, he asked, "Now, you wouldn't happen to know what happened to the clip that was holding the script together, would you?"

"I lost the button on my skirt," I said quietly, "and–"

"What are you saying?" he shouted. "Do you see, students? You must PROJECT your voice to be heard. PROJECT your voice.

"Now tell me, Miss Donner, where is the metal clip? PROJECT your voice as you speak."

I sighed, and pointed to my hip.

"And why, pray tell, is the clip on your hip?"

I explained, that it was a wraparound skirt and I'd lost the button.

My explanation provoked howls of laughter, hooting, and whistling.

The director called for silence, then said, "Will someone who can help Miss Donner repair her skirt please do so?"

Needless to say, there were several offers that left me quite red in the face.

I crouched down with my back to the crowd and began collecting papers. A few other people, including Eden, helped me gather them.

Then, while I sat at a desk in one of the dressing rooms, with a shawl wrapped around my waist, I put the pages back in order, as somebody's mother sewed the button back on my skirt.

She paused every so often to guffaw or to wipe her eyes, but in spite of that, she was done before I was.