CHAPTER 18: The Awards Dinner

On Friday after breakfast, I saw the Everetts pushing Jason in the wheelchair toward the SUV. "Jason has his follow-up with the doctor today," Steve explained when I saw them.

"Good," I said. "Do you think he won't need the chair anymore?"

"He shouldn't," Steve said.

"Good luck," I called as they left.

When I got back to our room, I sat down at the computer. It was time to send an e-mail to Sam:

Hi, Sam. How is everything? Tomorrow is the awards dinner. Wish us luck!

Oh, there's something I forgot to tell you: Jason had his appendix out last week. You see, he hadn't been feeling well for a while, and when we stopped somewhere for lunch, he collapsed outside the restrooms, and was rushed to the hospital. He only had to stay there for three days, and saw our performance on TV at the hotel. That's why I told him, on national TV, that we loved him. He's doing much better now, even though he had to sit in a wheelchair while we were sightseeing. Hopefully, he should be out of it by now.

Well, I should go now. Tell everybody I love them.

Karen

I hit the "Send" button, and hoped that Sam would get it as quickly as possible.

That's when I felt a headache coming on. I took off my glasses and closed my eyes for a minute. Luckily, this headache was nothing like the ones I'd had before I got glasses. I also started to feel very sleepy, so I sat on the bed, and started taking my shoes and socks off as Mom came out of the bathroom, wearing her bathing suit and carrying a towel and her copy of Oliver Twist. "Are you all right, honey?" she asked, laying a hand on my forehead. "You feel a little warm."

"It's just a headache," I told her, laying my glasses on the nightstand and lying back on the bed.

"Oh," she said. "I was just going for a dip in the pool. Do you want me to stay here with you instead?"

I shook my head. "I just want to take a nap. Wake me when the Everetts get back, okay?"

"Sure," Mom said, feeling my forehead one last time before leaving the room.

I turned onto my left side and was asleep in less than a minute. If only this headache would just go away, I thought as I drifted off.

The next thing I knew, I felt a hand on my forehead, and heard Jason's voice saying, "Karen?"

I opened my eyes, and there he was. "Hi," I said.

"Are you all right? You feel a little warm."

"I've just got a headache," I told him, "but that's about it."

"Oh," he said. "I'll be right back."

He got up and went into the bathroom, only to return a minute later, shaking one of those old-fashioned mercury thermometers. After placing it in my mouth, he sat with me for those three minutes, alternating back and forth between brushing my hair out of my face and laying a hand on my forehead.

When he removed the thermometer, he looked at it. "99.8," he read. "Hmm...do you feel up to going out to lunch with us?"

"Sure," I said as I sat up, and he handed me my shoes and socks. After I put them on, I reached over to the nightstand for my glasses and looked at the clock. It was almost noon! "How'd you get in?"

"When we were coming down the hall, we saw your mum at the cappuccino machine," he answered. "She told me you might be coming down with something, and asked me to check on you."

"Oh, okay." I tried to stand up, but couldn't.

"Here, let me help you," Jason said, grabbing my arm and helping me up. That's when I noticed that he wasn't in the wheelchair.

"I'm glad you don't need the wheelchair anymore," I siad.

"Aye," Jason agreed as he put his arm around my shoulders, and we walked out of the room. Hopefully, some lunch would give me my second wind.

All that night and the next day, Mom constantly worried about me. "Mom, I'm fine," I kept saying, and feeling like a broken record.

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Yes."

The dinner, which was that evening, was going to be held in the gym at Roosevelt High, and all the groups that had competed were going to be there. When we were getting ready to pack, Mr. Drubek reminded us to pack some nice clothes for the dinner. I put on my favorite navy-blue dress, which Nannie had given me last Christmas, nude pantyhose, and black dress shoes with tiny heels, my first pair ever. Mom French-braided my hair, and even let me wear some of her perfume. "Just this once, okay?" she reminded me.

Before we left the room, Mom took my temperature, which was pretty normal, and made sure to put some Children's Tylenol in her purse. (I don't think she believed me when I told her I was feeling better. Hopefully, she won't turn into Mr. Spier.)

We assembled in the lobby later on, and I had to admit that we looked pretty nice. The boys had on short-sleeved shirts and dress pants. Some of them even had ties, but they were all wearing sneakers. Oh, well. The girls had on either dresses or blouses and skirts, pantyhose or tights, and dress shoes. Dru's outfit really stood out, though. She had on a white long-sleeved blouse, black pleather miniskirt, fishnet pantyhose, and black flats. "Well, here we go," she said.

"Yup," I agreed. I think we all wondered how we'd do.

The gym looked spectacular. There were streamers in all the colors of the rainbow hanging from the ceiling and running along the tables, black and white balloons were tied to the basketball hoops, and the white tablecloths were sprinkled with glitter and confetti of the same colors. There were even bowls of candy set between every four places at the table. The food was pretty good, too. They served Caesar salad with egg-salad sandwiches, Salisbury steak with mashed potatoes and canned carrots, and iced tea, soda, water, or punch.

After dinner, the principal stood behind the podium. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," he said. "First of all, I'd like to welcome you to the awards dinner. Before we start presenting the awards, I'd just like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you for competing. You've all done an excellent job, and we hope to see you again next year."

With that, he started presenting the awards. First, each group was given a participation certificate, then the real awards were presented.

The first one was the Audience Favorite, which went to the Company. None of us were surprised, but we were surprised when we won for Best Costumes, and later on, Class C Champion. Essence won for Best Director, and we all thought for sure that Mr. Drubek would win that one.

There was even an award for Best Individual Performer, which meant that it would go to one person from each group. That really bothered me, because I knew that only one person would get that award. Anyway, the winners of that award that I remember are the girl from The Dream Team who sang "I Don't Know How To Love Him", a girl from Fire & Ice who sang "Reflection" from Mulan, Andrew from our group, and Manette from the Company.

In the Runner-Up division, Fire & Ice won for Class C (as you may have guessed, their theme had been Disney), The Inferno from San Diego won for Class B (their theme had been Rock'n'Roll History), and the M & M's won for Class A. (By the way, M & M's is short for Melodymen & Melodettes, and they're from a town in Ohio called Cuyahoga Falls.)

Finally, they presented the really, really important awards. The Third Runner-Up went to Strike Force from Miami; the Second Runner-Up went to Essence; and the First Runner-Up went to the Sound System. The Grand Champion went to the Company, who also won for Best Vocals.

I think we made really good on the awards, and I was especially proud of Andrew. He deserved that award.