Leap Day Read online

  Mr. Polansky removes the sign-up list from the wall outside the drama studio. He quickly scans through the list of students who have signed up to audition for his play this afternoon. He is pleased to see some newcomers, along with a few returning students whom he hasn’t seen in a few years, and some regulars. He is not surprised to see that Josie Taylor’s name is the first one on the list in the Juliet category. She must have signed up the moment he thumbtacked the sheet to the bulletin board. He’s never had a student quite like her. Oh sure, he’s had determined kids before, but Josie is different. She had wanted the lead role in the fall musical so badly, he felt he couldn’t possibly deny her. And she did a perfectly fine job as Anna. It’s the air of desperation about it that worries him. Her friend Megan Panopolis has signed up for the audition also, but for the role of Juliet’s nurse. With only three female roles of any substance in the play, he’s going to have to think long and hard about what to do.

  “All right, Mom!” Zoey yells from her bed. She retreated here after calling Katy and hasn’t been able to motivate herself out of it again. “Hold your horses. I said I’ll wash it off.”

  “I don’t understand why you keep doing this to yourself,” her mother responds, leaning her weight against Zoey’s door. “You’re a lovely girl just the way you are. Your brother doesn’t mind being pale.”

  Zoey thinks it’s ridiculous when her mother compares her to Dennis. They couldn’t possibly be more different. She doesn’t bother to respond. Instead, she throws the patchwork quilt over her head and does what she always does when she’s upset. She holds her breath and thinks of things to look forward to. First on her list is the lake tonight and all the new experiences it could provide for her. If Josie doesn’t pass her driving test tonight, Zoey knows there will be no party. At this point the test could go either way. And then what will she have to look forward to?

  Before Zoey’s family moved to Florida, she was so timid that sometimes people would talk to her and she couldn’t even answer them. The words would be right on her tongue, but she couldn’t get them out. When they moved here it was a fresh start. She decided that she would be a new person. A person who had friends. Who had fun. And it worked! Katy came over from next door the day Zoey’s family arrived in Orlando, and then she introduced Zoey to Megan and Josie the next week. She was instantly drawn to Megan, who seemed so exotic and who made every occasion fun without even trying. Sometimes, in the dark moments of the night, Zoey fears that without her new friends, she might revert back to her old self and blend into the woodwork again. If Zoey doesn’t have every experience offered to her now, she’s afraid her time will run out. Her mother knocks on the door and tells her to get in the shower, but Zoey pretends not to hear and burrows deeper into the sheets.

  Mrs. Joy Greenspan checks the clock over the door and sees she still has time before the bell rings. Sometimes she thinks the homeroom bell is the best sound in the world. She knows she should be burned out by now, after twenty-five years of teaching, but she still loves it. Everyone says her first name fits her to a tee. Joy. She hated the name when she was younger but now it pleases her. She goes to the window and pours out the dregs of her third cup of coffee before heading to the blackboard to write, HAPPY 4TH BIRTHDAY, JOSIE! She wipes the excess chalk dust off on her skirt, glad to have remembered her student’s special birthday. Reading the students’ files each August has served her well. She knows who is on Ritalin, who has the highest IQ, who the lowest, and who once started a fire on the playground in fifth grade using a magnifying glass and a leaf. She knows who lives with his grandparents because his parents can’t take care of him, who has diabetes, and by offering to be an unbiased ear, she knows who has gotten pregnant and who is afraid to go home at night. She knows more about them than they know about themselves. She gives them extra homework because she wants them to suck the marrow out of life and learn all they can from this world. They are the only children she has ever wanted.

  8:20 A.M.– 9:35 A.M.

  Chapter 2A: Josie

  These are the things I’m afraid of: an airplane falling on my house, the dark, being in small places, failing my driver’s test, spiders, drowning, snakes, never growing taller, never getting out of this town, alligators, war, anyone in my family dying, having my friends turn against me, eels, getting old, ghosts (including the ones that get in your car at the Haunted Mansion), letting everyone down, and never falling in love. Oh, and I’m also petrified of tornadoes. We get them sometimes here in central Florida and it scares me to death. When my mother was growing up on the outskirts of town, her younger brother was plucked from his very own bed as if the hand of God came down and took him. He was found on the front porch with nearly every bone in his body broken. He didn’t make it through the night. My mother said that next to his body was a whole pile of fish — even though they didn’t live anywhere near a lake — and some smashed tomatoes, which aren’t even native to Florida. Now I’m older than my own uncle ever got to be. It’s weird.

  But on the positive side, I’m not afraid of heights, clowns, or public speaking. The only day of the year when I’m not afraid of dying is my birthday. I mean, the odds of both being born and dying on Leap Day are practically astronomical. Sometimes when I get up in the morning I wonder if I’ll die before I get back in my bed. Today I breathe a little easier. I know I will sleep in my bed tonight. Or at worst, on my floor.

  I wish Katy hadn’t given me her note until after first period. Besides Mrs. Greenspan’s love of homework, she has a nasty habit of confiscating notes and posting them on the bulletin board. I decide not to even take it out of my pocket so I’m not tempted to read it. Last month Katy and I were on this kick where we’d exchange notes with dirty limericks about The Brady Bunch. It’s a good thing no one saw those. They’d have us committed. Katy is a pretty good poet, though. I think she has a future in it.

  Jeff Grand runs in just as the late bell rings and I hand him last night’s physics homework as he passes my desk. He takes it without a word. It’s an unspoken understanding that he didn’t do the assignment and will need to copy mine. I don’t mind. I feel I owe him something. When we were all eight years old, me, him, Megan, and Katy played doctor once, but the three of us refused to show him ours after he had been so gracious as to show us his. We ran back through the woods while he stood there with a red face hurrying to button up his shorts. To this day I can still picture those green-and-blue-striped shorts. Anyway, he’s taking a chance copying from me because I’m what is known as the Typical “B” Student. Do my homework, but not extra credit. Study for tests, but not a second longer than I have to. Every report card says the same thing, “Josie could get A’s if she applied herself.” Let Rob be the smart one in the family. I don’t even think I want to go to college. I’d rather go to acting school. The one class I get A’s in is drama.

  Mrs. G takes attendance differently than any other teacher. “Jared Adams?” she asks, knowing very well he’s sitting right there in the first seat.

  “Ubiquitous,” Jared responds. “Existing everywhere at the same time.”

  “Very good, sweetie,” she replies. “Tara Bantok?”

  Tara pauses for a second and then says, “Reciprocate. A mutual or equivalent exchange or a paying back of what one has received.”

  It goes on like this, all around the room. Every Monday we have to respond with a different SAT word and definition from this huge list Mrs. G gave us in the beginning of the year. If she especially likes your word, she’ll call you sweetie or baby or honey. Mrs. G must be in her fifties but is very perky and energetic. The way she bounces around the room reminds me of Tigger from Winnie-the-Pooh. When she calls out Zoey’s name I debate telling Mrs. G why Zoey’s not here, but what would I say? Zoey turned orange today and will be late?

  “Josie Taylor?”

  I completely forgot the word I had chosen for today. I wrack my brain and think of a word from the theater. “Um, soliloquy? A dramatic monologue that gives the ill