Peter could hardly keep his hands from trembling with restless trepidation as he scribbled out the words of his audition monologue upon a scrap of notebook paper.  Every few seconds he looked up again at the full-size sheet containing the lines, which had been vertically propped up for his use like a miniature billboard between Erica’s fingers.

                His sibling, as usual, was completely preoccupied with whatever drama was taking place on her group text message app, but she’d agreed to lend a literal helping hand after they’d arrived at the school’s theatre and realized the potential stage stars needed to be able to read from printed dialogue.  As she’d already committed to driving him to and from play practice in the heat of the moment with Suzanne, a gesture that would’ve once warranted eye-rolling complaint from the girl now was accepted silently.

                So here they found themselves, camped on a bench outside the auditorium while Peter tried to keep his nerves in check.  Erica had already signed Peter up on the waiting list to go in, so all they had to do was await the gleeful call of Mrs. Parks’ directing assistant.  Several students hustled by the hall and into the auditorium, preparing to take their turns, while other theatrical hopefuls huddled in chairs or against the walls mouthing the words to themselves, practicing inflections.

                No pair of eyes had paid more than a glance to Peter, so focused was everyone on preparing for their appearances onstage, which he found particularly gratifying, especially given the pressure he already had mounted in his chest.  Mrs. Parks had essentially promised him the equally height-challenged role of Tom Thumb, but that didn’t mean his pre-performance jitters weren’t going to build up all the same.

                “Have you got it down?” Erica droned without looking up from her phone, her hand slowly lowering itself onto the surface of the bench.  “My wrist is getting tired.”

                “Almost.  Another two sentences,” Peter promised, trying to pick up the pace.

                “It’s like one paragraph, twerp,” she groaned quietly, but still picked her hand back up so the words could be easily read again.  Then she added as a hiss: “Plus I kinda gotta pee.”

                “You can go.  I’ll make do,” Peter said earnestly.  “If anybody gives me problems I’ll just practice my opera singing real loud.”

                “Cool,” she said, setting the paper down on the seat and rising up.  She turned to her diminutive sibling before walking back down the hall toward the restrooms, her tone becoming stern as she wagged a finger at him and adopted a close mimicry of their mother’s voice.  “Now don’t go anywhere!”

                “But where am I gonna - har har har!” Peter muttered back with telltale sarcasm, returning to his transcription as a chuckling Erica marooned him on the island of the bench.  The final words went quickly, and the freshman completed with a flourish, proudly plopping onto his haunches with the lines in his quivering hands.

                Sure, he’d just been handed the role because he had the five-inch height requirement.  Peter didn’t care.  He was about to be a part of something for the first time in his life that didn’t involve his mother or siblings.  Another massive weight was able to slide from his shoulders as he began militantly rolling through the words of the audition paragraph, keeping them under his breath so as not to disturb the other students scattered around the hallway.

                To be sure, it had been a roller coaster of a week, and there was plenty to be glad for.  It was only two days ago that the terror trio had been shut down and Lisa had agreed to a date all in one fell swoop, and though it wasn’t exactly a marriage proposal, the anticipation of it felt grander than anything he’d experienced up to this point.

                Now it was Friday, and the tortuous crawl of the past two days combined with the simultaneous free-floating ecstasy of knowing Lisa just might reciprocate his feelings could finally find some resolution.

                In fact, the only thing standing between Peter and the fabled trip to the movies with Lisa was this audition and a couple of hours, which didn’t exactly do any favors for his anxiety or lingering sense of inadequacy in both departments, but the freshman willed himself to keep it together.

                He’d made it this far and things seemed to be going his way now, after all.  There was no sense in dumping on any of it.  Plus, after he’d gotten through sharing with Lisa his nearly-assured role in the play, he’d promised to relay every detail of the experience to the enthused redhead on the drive over to the theatre, so there was that to look forward to as well.

                Peter pulled his gaze away from his lines.  The audition words themselves belonged to the titular Jack of Jack in the Beanstalk, who apparently played a fairly major role in the script, and given the volume of puns stuffed into this short paragraph, Peter felt he had a good idea of how to play it.  Having chewed over the intonation and accentuation he wanted to use, he let his eyes wander around the broad hallway to the people who would presumably become his extracurricular peers in the near future.

                Just across from his bench was a girl he knew he recognized, though he wasn’t immediately sure where from.  Her wavy brunette hair was cut short near the level of her chin, and though she wore a gray sweater, her bright neon pink socks suggested she was doing so semi-ironically.  Somewhat lanky, she sat with her legs crossed and her back straightened like a practiced young yogi.  It took a minute of scrutinizing his memory before Peter realized the girl was in his third period art class, though he couldn’t say he’d ever exchanged a word with her or even knew her name.

                “Hey.”

                The voice surprised Peter, as he’d been so focused on identifying the girl across the way from his bench, especially because it had come from his side.  He peered over the edge of the perch and realized the greeting’s owner was seated on the carpet further down the wall.  It was a short kid with narrow wrists who nonetheless would’ve still looked like a behemoth compared to his action figure-sized classmate, and Peter knew he recognized this student from somewhere as well.  Odder still, though, was the fact that he knew he recognized the boy’s voice before he even saw his face.

                “Uh, hi,” Peter said back amicably, knowing it couldn’t be too early to try and befriend his probable costars.  “What’s up?”

                “Nothin’ much.  You’re Peter, right?” the kid questioned politely.  Refreshingly, this stranger looked on the miniscule freshman with the same lack of prying as the few friends Peter had made so far, which automatically told him this at least wasn’t an exploitative conversation starting up that would lead, as so many in his life had, to a ham-handed request to try holding him.

                “Yeah.  And you’re…”

                “I’m Calvin.  Sorry.  I probably could’ve said that at first,” the kid said, throwing up a hand with regret.

                “No, it’s okay.  I knew I recognized you,” Peter admitted.

                “Art class,” Calvin said.

                “Oh.  Wait, so you’re-”

                “I was the one who told Mandy to stop,” Calvin said sheepishly.  “Not like it did anything, though.  Sorry about that.”

                “That’s all right.  I appreciate it anyway,” Peter said, filled with renewed gratitude as he remembered that this kindred spirit of a shrimpy freshman had, indeed, spoken up on that first day when Mandy had taken it upon herself to involve Peter in her art project with an over-abundance of thoughtless creativity.

                “Don’t worry too much about her.  I went to elementary and middle school with her.  She’s… just kind of like that,” Calvin said, hushing himself, as if Mandy might accidentally hear, wherever she was in the world at this moment.

                “I’ll try,” Peter promised, feeling utterly unconvinced of the girl’s harmlessness, but nevertheless glad someone cared enough to help put him at peace with the situation.

                “I hope I’m not bugging you or anything while you’re learning the words, but you’re trying out for the play?” Calvin asked quietly.

                It was odd for Peter to speak to someone who so clearly had the same bursting desire to be liked yet was still hopelessly bogged down by insecurities.  Had Calvin not been sitting right there, plainly at a height of at least five-foot-five, the freshman could’ve sworn his compatriot stood at his own distinctly low eye level.  No matter who Peter spoke to, no matter how much they cared for him or wanted him to feel comfortable, he was near-constantly reminded of the titanic proportions of everyone he met, but this kid was making the puny fifteen-year-old feel he was in easy company.

                “Yeah, I am,” Peter said proudly.

                “That’s really cool, man,” Calvin answered with a nod as his eyes returned to the page.  “I hope you do well.”

                “Same to you,” Peter exhaled, having braced himself for what he was certain was an oncoming “how the hell is someone like you supposed to be seen on a stage?” probe.  To his delight, though, such confusion hadn’t even crossed Calvin’s face: he apparently had immediately accepted the possibility of it.  As insignificant a redaction as it was, Peter felt a surge of confidence.

                A clearing of a throat and the stomping of rubbery sneakers abruptly commanded Peter’s attention as he turned back toward the main thoroughfare of the expansive hallway and felt that momentary burst of can-do attitude liquefied into adrenaline as Mandy sauntered by.

                The exchange lasted a few heartbeats as she passed the bench, but for the churning in Peter’s innards, it could’ve gone on for several elongated minutes.  Her dark hair, as-ever tied back in a messy ponytail, was twirled playfully around her index finger as she militantly trained her gaze on him: a walking contradiction that made her even harder to read.  The hazel eyes bore through him, eliciting an involuntary cringe.  Far flung from the cold stare of the school’s queen bee that Peter had been enduring the past two weeks, Mandy’s eyes left nothing to the imagination.

                A smile curved over her lower lip as she finally turned her attention back to where she was walking and proceeded further onward.  Peter slumped back, feeling his heartbeat pounding just a little faster than before.  He flashed a glance over to Calvin, who apparently hadn’t noticed the girl at all.

                “Yo, did they call your name yet?” Erica’s voice sounded, suddenly right behind Peter, as her thumb lightly nudged him in the hip.  Flinching from the survival instinct of expecting Mandy instead, he swiveled back around to face her, accompanied by an audible intake of breath that instantly put a bewildered frown on his sister’s face.

                “Yo,” he repeated back, forcing a smile and calming himself down.

                “What was that?” she asked, sitting back down on the bench.  She retracted her hand back into her lap with some jilted reverence.  “Are you seriously this nervous about-”

                “Yep,” he said a little too quickly.  “Just nervous.  I’ll be fine in a second.”

                “Right,” Erica said, her eyes narrowing deductively as she observed him with obvious disbelief.  Her lips parted to voice what Peter had to assume was a snarkily worded objection to his lie, when the theatre doors swung open and the hyper presence of Mrs. Parks’ curly-haired director’s assistant cut off the interrogation, which the freshman frankly couldn’t have been more grateful for.

                “Next group is up!” the senior student announced cheerily as the previous audition hopefuls filed past, some looking more pleased with themselves than others.  “Peter Clark, Calvin Simms, and Bluebell Hathaway, c’mon in!”

                Peter turned, watching Calvin as well as the girl across from his bench rising to their feet, then returned with a shrug to his sister’s face far above.  Frowning, she cupped her hand in front of her brother, and silently he embarked into her ascending palm, furtively wiping a hand over his brow for having avoided a full-blown questioning for the time being.  Taking a deep breath then, Peter allowed himself to arrive at a remarkable place of peace as Erica carried him into the cavernous, velvety theatre, following closely after Calvin and Bluebell.