An Exchange

Chapter Fourteen - Overcoming Stage Fright

Penny

Ryan waited for me by my locker, grinning from ear to ear. He leaped up to hug me. “How are you?”

“I’m pretty good. Yourself?” I narrowed my eyes. He seemed too happy to see me.

“Reasonable.” He beamed.

I laughed as I said goodbye and headed to class. In choir, we practiced for the senior class assembly in two days. As the seniors, Marty, Maria, Ray and I were given the leads and we worked out all the details.

Afterward though, Marty pulled Ray and I aside and frowned down at me. “Penny, you might sing incredibly, but you are as stiff as a pole when it comes to performing.”

Ray nodded beside him.

I glanced between them. “I don’t dance. I’m terrible.”

“It’s not about dancing,” Marty said. “It’s about relaxing. You can move and perform without shaking it.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” It felt like an ambushed. No one had ever mentioned anything like that to me before, but, the times I had performed had always been in choirs or formal settings, so performing like Marty meant had never been appropriate.

Marty looked to Ray for help, so Ray said, “Penny, we will help you if you like.”

“Help me? How?”

“Tomorrow watch us and Maria. Then, after school, we will get together and see if we can loosen you up so you don’t look like you're glued to the floor. Do you think you could do that?”

“I guess so—”

“Good.” Marty beamed and patted my shoulder. “How does an hour sound? We could do it here or at my place?”

“I think here,” Ray said. “That way we can use the stage if Miss will let us.”

“She will. She loves me.” Marty then looked at me sternly. “Let your host parents know you will be home late, all right? We will take you home afterward so they don’t need to worry.”

“Okay...” I'd never thought about my performing before, just singing, but the two of them seemed eager to help me.

Ray shoved his thumbs in his pockets. “You need to look good when we have the assembly. There will be a lot of attention on you.”

“On me? Why me?” I felt alarmed.

Ray grinned. “'Cause everyone knows you; the little wonder from down under that has snatched up Ryan Fisher and yelled at Dylan Malone, and those who don’t know you, want to know you.”

“That’s awful. I don’t want to be known like that.”

“It’s nothing.” Marty waved me off. “It’s your guts they like, not what you’ve done.”

I paused. There were definitely worse things that I had been known for, true or not. Being known as the girl with guts was a drastic improvement from what I was accustomed to, so I'd go with it. We parted, the two of them making me agree to work on my performance in my free time.

At home that afternoon, I shut myself in my room and turned up my music as I tried to figure out what I was, or wasn’t, doing in front of the mirror. At the end of one of the songs, someone knocked on the door. I opened it and Giles stood with a hand on his hip.

“I’m bored.” He pouted.

“I’m not.”

“You sound pretty good. What are you doing?”