That night I just carried Monty on her walk, depositing her by the bushes she seemed inclined to do her business on. Halfway home it started to rain. Like someone in Greenville saw how far away Monty and I were from home and they decided to just turn on the tap.

And it seemed a fitting end to the day.

I mean, yes, I knew I could sing my butt off and kick ass at the audition, and maybe Greenville suspected this and that was why they were all being jerks. But it sucked to have to go to school with people who were being jerks in order to take the stage and to have to prove to them that they were all wrong jerks.

“It’s a rock and a hard place, Monty,” I moaned.

Monty howled in agreement and I carried her wet dog body home.

EIGHT

The next day I woke up and instead of a voice I had a squeak, which I took as a reasonable response to the day before, which clearly was so bad it actually made me sick.

Or maybe it was walking in the rain after singing ABBA in the bathroom.

Let me just say, the problem with being a dramatic person prone to bouts of. . .dramatics, is that it is sometimes hard to indicate to your audience when the whistle coming out of your throat is symbolic and when it’s you actually sick.

Also, both Lucy and Millie never get sick. Ever. I have no idea why but it’s sort of helpful because they accept many things as symptoms of a cold, like itchy fingers, that I think most habitual cold getters would not buy.

This time, though, I was actually sick.

Millie sat on my bed touching my forehead for ten minutes and finally, giving me a bit of a hairy eyeball, told me she needed to go to get some film developed on the other side of town that day so I would be home alone.

I gave her a thumbs-up.

“If you’re feeling up to it,” Millie said, making her way out of my room through a series of, I’m going to say, well-organized piles of stuff, “maybe you could clean your room and finish unpacking.”

I pulled my covers over my head.

“If you feel up to it.”

I did not feel up to it.

I spent the day watching videos of people disco dancing in the seventies, including several ABBA videos. Let’s say it: TV was just way more interesting in the seventies. Like, we need more shows that are just for dancing where people aren’t competing for a million dollars.