Stealing The Show (Such Sweet Sorrow Trilogy, Book One)

Part Two: Words, Words, Words - 6

"OH! THIS IS the greatest thing ever!" Shoe says when I tell him about the letter at lunch the next day. He's showering me with bits of the Sloppy Joe bite that he just took.  

"Shoe. My grandfather is dead, you realize. It can't be the greatest thing ever."  

"Right. Sorry, dude. But, like, he's so awesome it's like he isn't dead. Paps figured out how to live longer without living. To live with words for forever. That's awesome. We've got to figure it out." 

Words again. I think my theory is right, that they aren't as powerful as we'd like them to be, that there are some things they just aren't good enough for. This is one of them. Whatever the letters say, they aren't good enough, because they aren't Paps alive. 

Thinking things like this will make you not say anything. I just sit there. 

"Dude. Lewis. Wake up. You have to go talk to Blevins." Shoe inhales about half his Sloppy Joe as he tells me this.  

"What does he want?" 

"You. To be in Our Town." 

I make a sound like I'm hocking up a gallon of snot. Because, I know why Mr. Blevins wants me to be in the next play, and it's the dumbest thing, like, ever. 

For whatever reason, since the play the other night, I've become a minor celebrity around school. People look at me in the halls now. I'm actually recognized for the first time. Nobody's asking me for autographs or anything, but I get a few nods and some of the younger girls who hang around Dramatical giggle at me while she does a gratuitous pirouette around a corner.  

And nobody seems to realize that my favorite person in the universe has died in the meantime and I don't actually feel like being their minor celebrity. 

Apparently Mr. Blevins is one of my fake groupies, too. Great. He probably just wants me so he can use what Shoe did, all that publicity and all that work to put on one awesome play, to make himself look like he does some actual work.  

I have this theory that people who are failures shouldn't be teachers. Blevins wanted to be an actor, and here he is, teaching high school drama. He isn't happy and he's supposed to be some model for us of how to act as an adult. It's like we're being taught to be miserable our whole lives. People who are failures bleed Fail on everybody. 

"So are you gonna?" Shoe asks. He's inhaled his entire tray. 

"Gonna what?" 

"Go see Blevy-kins? He already has your part picked out." 

"Probably not." I don't even touch anything on my tray except for the cookie. I still don't feel right about anything. I miss Paps and I know I'm going to let him down because I can't see how I'll be able to spread his ashes. Now Shoe wants in, saying 'we' have to figure it out.  

It isn't his Paps, it isn't his job. It's mine. But I wish it wasn't. Shoe would be much better at it. 

"Come on, Lew-lew. He's got everybody from my play trying out. We're like The New Lord Chamberlain's Men. Except we have girls. We're The New Lord Chamberlain's People. We've got to keep it going, man. You were great, you know?" 

"I wasn't great. I can't do it again, anyway. I don't want people looking at me right now." 

As if on cue, the talented little Dramatical walked by just then with her little gaggle of girlfriends. She waved at me and I looked at her without waving back or anything, and for some reason they all giggled and huddled together more closely. Like I said: Girls. Wow. I mean, that huddle was as powerful as any football team's. They're younger and tiny and pretty and I'm not even in love with any of them, and still that giggle makes me nervous enough that I want to vomit up my liver.