“What will you give me?”

“I don’t have anything to give you. I’m just asking you to do it because we need you.”

Marlene ground her jaw a little before replying.

“You never ask me to do stuff with you,” she said, still clearly not believing that there wasn’t some catch.

“I know. But I want to change that, starting now. You can come with me, or you can go tell on us, whatever you want. The choice is yours. The door is unlocked.”

Marlene made no move except to turn back to the television. Scarlett’s stomach lurched, and she got up and went back to her room. Either Marlene was going to be lured in, or she had just destroyed the whole idea, and possibly Spencer’s life.

Not that he looked too worried. Neither of them did.

Spencer and Lola were sitting on the floor of the Orchid Suite. Scarlett’s clothes were everywhere, and Lola’s dresser drawers were pulled out. The dresser itself was leaning frighteningly to the left.

“It’s the anti Jenga,” Spencer explained. “You add things until it falls over.”

“We need to talk about the show,” Scarlett said.

“I told Lola. She knows.”

“I know,” Lola said, carefully shoving a handful of Scarlett’s underwear into the middle drawer. “That’s why dresser Jenga seemed okay. Today’s the day when things fall apart.”

“I never thought I’d be able to get her to do it!” Spencer said. His worry had made him giddy. “Oh, I can so top that. Watch…”

Spencer reached for Scarlett’s pajamas, but she snatched them out of his hand.

“You,” she said, pointing at him, “on my bed, now. Over there. And you…”

That was to Lola.

“…get on yours. I need you to listen.”

Like Mrs. Amberson, they were both so shocked at Scarlett’s sudden change in demeanor that they did as she said.

“This show is going to happen,” she said. “It’s ready. There are over fifty agents, writers, and producers coming to see it. All it needs is a place to exist for a few hours. Now, let me explain the whole thing before you interrupt. Our dining room fits a hundred people. Not well, but it does…”

Spencer raised his hand, like you would in class, but she ignored it.

“We can use half the room for seating, and half for performance,” she went on, thinking it through as she spoke. “You can have the entire rest of the hotel for a backstage. It’s empty, for a start.”

Spencer shook his hand impatiently.

“We can put the stage and the platforms on the far wall, under the windows. And with the sliding doors open between there and the lobby, there’s plenty of room for you to ride your unicycles around.”

Spencer couldn’t hold his thought in any longer.

“You may be right. We could probably fit. And it is nice. But—and I don’t think you’ll argue this point—if I said to Mom and Dad, can I bring home the entire cast of Hamlet and maybe do the show right here, tonight, with fighting and unicycles riding around on our nice, shiny floors…”