Behind the Curtain by Peter Abrahams

so she could read what he’d written.
    FRD Properties.
    “What’s that?” Ingrid said.
    “Name that whoever owns those cottages across 392 from your grandfather’s place hides behind,” said Mr. Samuels.
    “Are you talking about the old Prescott farm?” asked Ingrid. “Where the Krakens lived?”
    “How’d you know a thing like that?” Mr. Samuels said.
    “Grampy told me,” Ingrid said. She stared at the notepad, tried to make sense of things. “Can we find out who FRD Properties is?”
    “Just watch me,” said Mr. Samuels.
    He started tapping at the keyboard, nose inching closer and closer to the screen. “Hmm,” he said. “FRD seems to be owned by DRF Development…registered in Delaware.”
    “Someone in Delaware tried to get Grampy’s taxes raised?” Ingrid said.
    “ Registered in Delaware,” said Mr. Samuels. “Red flag, far as I’m concerned. If they think that’s going to stop me, they don’t know who they’re dealing with.”
    “Why is it a red flag?” Ingrid said.
    But Mr. Samuels was typing fast now, his eyesshining with light from the screen, and didn’t hear. Ingrid let herself out.
     
    “Welcome, everybody,” said Jill Monteiro at the first rehearsal for The Xmas Revue. “We’re off to see the wizard.”
    Everyone laughed. They sat in a circle on folding chairs on the auditorium stage at Echo Falls High, five kids from Ferrand Middle and Jill. Jill was a genuine artist who’d actually performed off-Broadway and had had a brief speaking role—she’d said “Make that a double”—in Tongue and Groove , a home-renovation spoof with Will Smith and Eugene Levy that had gone straight to video.
    “Ingrid I know,” she said, her big dark eyes taking them all in, “but not the rest of you. Why don’t you introduce yourselves, tell us a bit about your acting experience. Let’s start with the Cowardly Lion.”
    “That’s me,” said Stacy. “Stacy Rubino. No experience. Ingrid dragged me into this.”
    Jill laughed, her black curls glistening under the light. “Exactly how I got my start,” she said. “Kicking and screaming. Scarecrow?”
    Mia raised her hand. “Mia McGreevy. Back at my old school I was in lots of plays.”
    “Where was this?” asked Jill.
    Mia bit her lip. “New York.” She and her mom had moved to Echo Falls after the divorce, but her parents still kept fighting, mostly by e-mail that sometimes got mistakenly copied to Mia.
    “And what do you think of Echo Falls?” Jill said.
    Ingrid knew the answer to that: Mia was bored to tears. But what Mia now said surprised her. “It’s so beautiful. And the kids are great.”
    Jill gave Mia a smile—a strange one, Ingrid thought, almost sad. “Tin Woodman?” she said.
    Joey mumbled his name, incomprehensibly.
    “Missed that,” said Jill.
    “Joey Strade,” said Joey. Jill’s gaze went to that stubborn cowlick at the back of his head. “No experience,” he added. Ingrid was still amazed that Joey had come out for this in the first place. All he’d told her was “Why not? It’s just one little scene.”
    “Can you supply an ax, Joey?” Jill said.
    “An ax?”
    “As a prop for the woodman.”
    “Oh, yeah,” Joey said. “We got axes.”
    “Ingrid’s Dorothy,” Jill said. “So that just leaves the wizard.”
    “C’est moi, amigos,” said Brucie Berman.
     
    “Our scene is the one where Dorothy and her friends meet the wizard,” said Jill, handing out the scripts. Everyone leafed through.
    “Hey,” said Brucie. “Where’s the singing?”
    “No singing,” said Jill. “I adapted this from the book.”
    “Book?” said Brucie.
    “It was a book first,” said Jill, “written by—”
    “But what about me singing ‘Over the Rainbow’?” Brucie asked.
    “The wizard doesn’t even sing ‘Over the Rainbow,’ you dweeb,” said Stacy.
    Brucie gave her what he must have considered a withering look. “I was going to rap it,” he said.
    “You know something?” said Stacy.