The day trudges by as all Mondays seem to do. I drag myself out of seventh period, struggling to keep myself from running headfirst into a wall. Now I have to go to rehearsal, and I am not happy about it.

I shuffle down the hallway glumly, watching my feet. I am so not in the mood for singing and dancing and generally making a mockery of myself. What did I get myself into?

Suddenly, an arm is wrapped around my shoulders. "Hey, grumpy-pants." I don't even have to look up. "How come you're so down?"

"Don't wanna go to rehearsal," I grumble, still staring at the ground.

"Aw, come on." The arm squeezes me a little. "Grey skies are gonna clear up..."

"Dutch, you continue singing that fucking song and I will put my fist in your happy face."

He laughs and steers me toward the drama room.

"Oh, good," Medda says with a grin, clapping her hands in front of her chest as Dutchy and I walk in. "Our two romances are complete!"

Dutchy and I look at each other, eyes wide. We look back at Medda. Are we figured out?

"Alright. Now that everyone is here, we'll get to work. We have a lot to accomplish today, and I don't want to waste a second. Everyone, please go pick up your songbooks from the front table, and then I want all the teenagers in one group over here and all the adults in another over there." Medda points to two different corners. "Hugo," she says, pointing to me. "You will be working on 'Lot of Livin' to Do' with the rest of the teenagers, since you'll be in it for the finale and I've got nothing else for you to really do right now. And my dear Albert, you will be practicing 'Happy Face' by yourself." Dutchy grins at me and I roll my eyes.

I go up and grab a songbook and go and stand in the corner (that makes it sound like I've been a bad little boy...). While I wait for everyone to come over, I flip through my songbook. I have minimal singing. This pleases me. And it will probably please everyone else in the audience, cast, and crew as well.

Okay, so I figure this play will be fun, but if you've never seen Bye Bye Birdie, you are lucky. "The Telephone Hour" is the most obnoxious fucking song I've ever heard. And it gets stuck in your head for years at a time.

And I get to listen to it every day for the next three months! Lucky me.

Kids gather around me and start looking at the music for "Lot of Livin' to Do." Some are singing quietly to themselves, some are humming, and some are just staring and mouthing the words as they play the music in their heads.

"So do you all want the CD or the piano to practice?" Medda walks over to us, holding a CD in one hand and with Caroline, the Robin to Medda's Batman (minus the tights on both parts), who is carrying sheet music.

"I think we'll all do much better with the piano," this girl, whose actual name I can't remember but I know she plays Alice, looks around the group, nodding. "Easier to pick out individual parts that way, you know."

Medda nods and leaves us with Caroline, who promptly sits down and gets us working on vocal warm-ups. For a junior, Caroline's kind of a Nazi when it comes to drama. She stops playing the piano if she hears anything wrong, and glares until someone squeaks an apology. Uh, yeah, she's a little crazy.

We finally get into the song and it's not so bad. Everybody seems to really know what they're doing, and they're all really good singers, and loud, so they kind of drown me out and no one has to really hear me.

I guess rehearsal isn't so bad after all.

"How're we going to block the Ice House?" Mush and Blink are back to this again. They're little more than just background noise to me right now while I'm reading my English textbook on Dutchy's bed, taking notes.

"I was thinking we'd put everyone into a big group in the middle of the stage, like, two or three lines of people and just have them dance." Blink says, a proud smile evident in his voice.

"Are you retarded?" Mush replies. "First off, they won't all fit in the middle of the stage, and secondly, if they're all facing one direction, then only the people in the center of the audience would see their faces."

"I'm not retarded," Blink says, pouting.

"For Christ's sake, you're both retarded!" Dutchy spurts out. "I'm so tired of hearing you two argue about damned dancing! Either shut up or leave!"

I look up, and Blink and Mush are just staring at him, dumbfounded. Then, scowling, they get up and leave. "Douchebag," I hear Blink mumble as he closes the door. I laugh and go back to my note-taking.

Dutchy goes back to cleaning his camera for a couple minutes, then sets it aside and lays down with his head in my lap and thus in my textbook. "Can I help you?"

"Bored," he says, smiling up at me. "You've gotta be, too."

"Well, yeah," I shrug. "But I have homework. Which I have to do."

He stays there, pouting. It's pretty much the cutest thing ever. "Dutchy," I say softly, "in case you didn't catch it, that was a hint that I want you to sit up."

"No, I caught it, I just chose to ignore it," he says with a mischievous grin. "Come on, you can take a break. Wanna do somethin'?"

I sigh. "Like what?"

"Um..." He bites his lip, thinking for a moment. "Wanna go run around the city for a while?"

"School night. Plus it's already seven o'clock. We'd never make it back before curfew."

"Ice cream?"

"Not hungry."

"Wanna make out?"

"That's not fair."

"Wanna watch Chicago?"

"Um, not particularly."

He sits up. "Make out it is, then." And he pushes my textbook aside and tackles me.

I walk into my room, still rolling my eyes, but entirely satisfied. The home-plate thing happened again. I'm really hoping I get to make regular at-bat appearances.

Anyway, enough of the baseball references.

So I walk in, and Racetrack's in my room, but no one else. I have no idea where everybody is, and I look around before looking at Race in confusion.

Well, you'd be confused, too, if your friend was randomly in your room with no shirt and his hair messed up.

"Um... Race?"

He turns around, startled at first, then laughs. "Hey, Specs. What's up?"

"I could ask you the same thing."

"Huh?"

"Oh, nothing," I shake my head. "I commonly stand around half-naked in other peoples' rooms. I just forgot for a second that it's perfectly normal."

"Y'know, Specs, I bet you do," Race says, pulling his shirt over his head. I cock an eyebrow at him and he smirks. "You smell like sex, pal."

I laugh a little, kind of nervously, and kind of because it's funny. "Look who's talking, Race."