The rest of the day, all I could think of was that sign-up sheet. What play would Davidson pick? Most high school teachers were still solidly in the Shakespearean column but a person with his taste in jumpers and a thing for Grease could possibly be down with Mamma Mia!

A girl could dream.

Mamma Mia! did require a pretty big cast of singers. What about Guys and Dolls? Mmmm. Also a big cast. Also you need some solid voices. Guys and Dolls is a classic high school musical, which, while sexist, also contains winner numbers like “Fugue for Tinhorns” and “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat.”

“Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat” was vibing pretty hard with me, for obvious reasons. Was I going to rock the boat I had literally just committed to not rocking with a week of normalcy? Although, clearly, if I was taking my plan of normalcy forward, I was going to need more than one white shirt.

Signing up for the auditions was not “weird,” but given my short but potent history with Greenville High and its higher-ups, it was clear it could be. . .a problem. If I was going to get up on the stage, it was going to get attention. It was going to be a thing.

Because that’s theater. The nature of theater is that it is a t hing.

But already in my head I was putting together a medley of musical numbers, maybe something from Waiting for Guffman and then a theatrical monologue? Tony Kusher’s untouchable masterpiece, Angels in America? I had plenty of time to ruminate on this because the next period we had Gym and we all had to play soccer.

Berry was in the goalie net because Berry can really play soccer.

When she walks out of the locker room, she’s a warrior. Like usually she seemed reserved and thoughtful. Like graceful but not like aerobic? But once she was in her gym uniform, she got this stance, this like vaguely aggressive posture. It’s like there’s, like, killer robot beams coming out of her eyes. Beams that kill soccer balls.

Not because she didn’t look like someone who could, but because it hadn’t come up, at first I was surprised to find out she was kind of a jock at heart. “Wait. You like soccer?”

“Sure,” Berry noted, adjusting her green sweatband, on the field, “I destroy in soccer.”

“Then. . .Wait. Then why don’t you play on the team?” I asked.

Berry rolled her eyes. Coach Harras tweeted in our direction, mostly I think because that was her only mode of communicating.

TWE EEET!

“Does that tweet mean we start playing?” I asked. “Or is it just an angry whistle?”

“We start playing,” Berry said, jogging in place. “And you should be in the play.”