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Emma stuck out her tongue then jumped up onto the platform and did a pirouette. She laughed at Chloe’s dour expression then continued to spin and dance around until Tammie called us together.
Perdita sat at the back of the room and read a book while Tammie tried to explain how things would work.
“This is temporary,” she said, “and we don’t have our set pieces to guide us.”
“Then how can we do anything?” Emma complained. “We should just give up.”
“You complained about the set pieces being old and crappy before the fire,” Tammie said in a warning tone. “Maybe you could stop moaning for five minutes, Emma. Nobody’s making you be here.”
“My parents are,” Emma muttered under her breath. Chloe nudged her in the ribs.
“As I was saying,” Tammie continued, “we have no idea how long we’ll have to rehearse, so we might as well be prepared for anything. We’ll probably have to take part in some fundraising to help with the repairs, but for now, let’s try to find a new normal here.”
Some of the group murmured their complaints while Tammie tried to mark points on the stage.
“Shut up,” Chloe snapped at Emma. “Please, just shut up already.”
“What?” Emma looked dissatisfied. “This is never going to work. We should go home.”
“We’re not giving up that easily,” Tammie declared, though she gave off the impression she was trying to convince herself.
Things grew more unsettled with the appearance of some teen members of the pack. They sat at the back, scattered around Perdita who kept a close eye on them. They remained silent, but they watched us so intently that most of the group grew nervous. Alison in particular gazed at us as we ran through old warm-ups in an attempt to get comfortable. I wondered if she could be interested.
“Come on! This isn’t your first day.” The frustration in Tammie’s voice was obvious. “Why are you all so nervous?”
“They keep staring,” Emma said. “It’s embarrassing.”
“If you can’t handle this, how are you going to handle the whole town watching?”
“It’s so empty on stage,” Kian, an older boy who often acted as Tammie’s assistant, spoke out. “And then there’s this massive space between us and our only observers. Come on, Tammie. Even you would be rattled.”
“We have to make this work,” she said. “It was so hard to get permission to start this drama club. If I give up now, I’ll never get it going again. We’re going to have to move around an empty stage without most of the equipment that we’re used to.”
“But do they have to gawk at us like that?” Chloe complained. “Either join in or get out.”
“Would you let them?” I asked. Everyone looked at me. “I’ve been thinking that they could help us out if we included them. With more hands, we could make our set pieces, borrow the materials we need. We have most of the costumes, right?”
“Well, yeah,” Tammie said. “I always keep the costumes at home so I can work on them. Do you think they’d help us out?”
The others stared at me in silence.
“Why not?” I shrugged. “It was just an idea.”
“It could work,” Kian murmured to Tammie.
She glanced over at Perdita. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to bring it up.”
“I’ll ask,” I said. “I’m not in the next few scenes, so you could carry on here.”
“Run along then,” she said with a sigh. “Don’t push it though, all right?”
I hurried towards the back, inwardly thankful when I noticed Dorian arrive. After all, I had made my suggestion with him in mind. He’d wanted me to get to know the pack, so here was my chance. Without breaking my stride, I gestured for him to follow me. We reached Perdita at the same time.
“So I had an idea,” I said. “I wanted to run it by you in case you thought it was a bad one.”
I knew the teens could hear me, but I wanted to direct the question at Perdita because her response might influence theirs.
She set down her book. “What is it?”
