When I got home I put Jenny right in the middle of the kitchen table. I wouldn’t lose her there. Gloria started buzzing around like crazy. She scrubbed out the toilet and she vacuumed up the carpet. She gave me a rag and some blue water, and I sprayed Chicken’s drool off the walls. Then she mixed eggs and butter and cherries and flour and other stuff and put it in the oven and out came a cake. She even did icing. That was Telly’s number one favorite.

“Telly’s going to be there, Bids. Front row, I bet. And then he’ll come back for a slice, won’t he?”

I nodded.

“Yes, he will. He’ll see what he’s been missing.”

I followed her upstairs and she pulled on a red dress that went low on her front. There was a lot coming out the top. Her mouth was red too. She smiled at herself and rubbed at her teeth with her finger. Then she brushed her hair. It used to be brown but now it was yellow.

“You got your costume in the bag? You’re going to be amazing,” she said. “Do you know when I was your age, I was quite the actress myself? My teacher even thought I should go out for auditions. Real auditions. But my mother pooh-poohed it all. Never saw my talent. Not like I see yours, sweetheart. As a child, I mean, you really don’t stand a chance without someone in your court.”

Gloria kept talking and talking and the more words she said, the more my middle knotted up. When we walked to the school, Rowan put his arm around me and said, “You’re going to be great, Turtle.”

“Now, you,” Gloria said to Rowan when we were almost there. “You better act sharp when you see your dad. You understand me?”

Rowan frowned and shook his head. But he said, “Yeah.”

Everything next went fast. We got to the school and I went to my classroom and my teacher helped me get changed. I was the mother flower sprite. She put pink circles on my cheeks. Then I was waiting and then the curtain came up and there was no spit in my mouth, and then two hands were on my back pushing me on the stage. I looked out at everybody. A lot of people looked back. I could see Telly right next to Gloria. They were in the front like she said. Even with the lights burning my eyes, I could see her waving and grinning and pointing and clapping her hands. I tried to swallow but nothing went down my throat.

“Go, Maisy,” someone said. “Go!”