The Hanging Hill

86

Derek Stone was starting to panic.

He was having trouble breathing and it had nothing to do with dust, dogs, dandelions, or dander.

He was stumbling around the piles of junk in the basement, trying to remember where he had hidden his secret script. They were supposed to meet outside the basement door for the party with the director in less than forty-five minutes.

Mr. Grimes had said he wanted this new scene memorized by tonight. His mother had said he needed to change clothes and put on his tuxedo, which she always insisted he pack, wherever they traveled, just in case somebody wanted to give him a key to their city or something.

It never happened. Nobody ever thought he was that good of an actor.

Except Mr. Grimes. He was the first person ever to believe in Derek.

Wait a second.

He was an actor!

He could fake it!

He could use his training in improvisation, all those Acting 101 classes he hated, where he had to pretend to be a strip of bacon sizzling in a frying pan or a pebble in somebody’s shoe.

“Oh, magnifying Malarkey!” Yes. The first line went something like that. “Oh, magnificent Mucus!”

He could do this. He could pull it off. The words were such phonetic mumbo jumbo, who would even know if he was saying them correctly?

Derek was feeling good again. Confident.

He heard a noise in the stairwell. Someone was coming down the set of steps that led up to everybody’s bedrooms. Fast!

Derek decided it was time for him to leave. He dashed over to the spiral staircase, grabbed hold of the banister, and raced up to the lower lobby as swiftly as he could—taking the steps two at a time.