Page 41 of The Game Is Afoot

The sign on the doorreadsPARENTS PLEASE KEEP OUTin large, typed letters. And then underneath it, added in loopy handwriting:and allow your children the freedom to explore the arts and express themselves without pressure to please!

I went around the back of the auditorium partly to avoid the crowd of parents already waiting out front and engaging in the dreaded small talk and partly to see if I could slip into theAnnierehearsal covertly. But apparently I’m not the first person to try it.

I mean, that sign doesn’t really apply to me, though. I’m nothere as a stage parent. I’m a concerned citizen—a freelance investigator! Just here to make sure everything is aboveboard with casting and the mystery assigned to me by my client (i.e., my almost-eight-year-old daughter). Really, I am acting in the spirit of the sign andencouragingher to express herself, if you think about it.

I look around to make sure no one is watching, in case their interpretation of the sign differs from my own, and turn the knob. It’s not even locked. Which means I don’t have to use a credit card for another round of B and E. This is just E—and that’s totally legal. Of course, that’s not gonna stop me from playing it up for Pearl later and milking every ounce of the Cool Mom cred I’ll deserve after this.

Slowly, I pull the door open, wincing as the hinges creak. The sound feels ear-piercing, even over the tinkle of piano playing and kids chatting, so I freeze and wait to see if I’m going to be caught by the stage-mom police Mr. Forest hired to guard the door. But no, the piano continues uninterrupted. I recognize the song from thatAnnieadaptation that had the cute girl with the afro. “Maybe,” I think it’s called. It must be concealing any noise I’m making back here, but still, I softly close the door, pausing just before the latch, and then tiptoe into the room.

I’m behind the large burgundy curtain on the stage in the auditorium. I’ve always been on the other side of it, for kindergarten holiday pageants and contentious PTA meetings. And I feel a little thrill as I look around—my second secret lair of the day. Except this one has a lot less stuff that could be used for murder. There’s a case of La Croix (probably leftover from Trisha’s reign), plus a tangled pile of extension cords and a wide red dust mop—very anticlimactic. I guess that’s what you want in an elementary school auditorium, though.

“Okay, orphans, stage right!”

I jump at Mr. Forest’s voice and trip over two backpacks, steadying myself right before I fall on my face. One is covered in spikes like Bowser’s shell, and the other looks like the knapsack a Depression-era kid would use when running away (and probably cost more than my car payment). The orphans follow Mr. Forest’s directions, and their clattering footsteps hide any sounds I made, thankfully. Pearl is one of them. She was cast as Tessie—a grave mistake, a miscarriage of justice on Mr. Forest’s part, in her opinion. I’m about to figure out just how dramatic my kid is.

“Theotherstage right!” Mr. Forest clarifies, and there’s another stampede of orphans on the other side of the curtain. He keeps playing the piano lightly. “Annie and Molly, you’re downstage. Good. Yes. And now we’re going to run through that again. Anabella, are you ready?”

He pauses, waiting for her response, and then begins to play more enthusiastically.

At first, I think Anabella has frozen, which would be an answer to Pearl’s mystery, but a pretty sad one. Maybe the girl just has a little stage fright (and my girl is just being an asshole). But then I hear it.

“She’s sitting playing piano, he’s sitting paying a bill—”

It’s a monotone, breathy whisper, like someone gave Billie Eilish a couple of sedatives. I creep closer to the curtain and risk a peek through the folds, to confirm that this strange sound is really coming from Anabella. And yep, there she is—and she’s doing a strange body roll dance move to accompany it.

Is this some…experimental version of Annie? Like is Annie a TikTok girlie who sings in cursive instead of a scrappy, curly-headed orphan?

But I maneuver slightly so I can see the orphans’ faces, and they look just as confused as me. Well, except for Pearl, who isglaring at Anabella as if her eyeballs are a magnifying glass and Anabella is an unlucky ant.

The piano abruptly stops. “Um, yes. Good.” Mr. Forest’s voice is slow, slightly strangled, as if he’s trying to pluck out the right words from a squirming mass of wrong ones. “Let’s do that once more. With…feeling?”

Anabella looks Mr. Forest up and down, like he’s the one who screwed up that last take, then nods. A groan from the audience, where the non-orphans are sitting, catches my attention, but when I try and find the source, I realize I’m right in their line of view. I jump back again before I’m caught—because being discovered hiding in the auditorium curtains would definitely hurt rather than help my Cool Mom cred.

So I can’t see Anabella when she starts singing again, but I can hear her. Everyone in the city of Beachwood can probably hear her. She’s taken Mr. Forest’s “with feeling” note to heart, and now instead of Billie Eilish, she’s Fergie—if she drank a few Trenta Frappuccinos and decided to give that National Anthem one more shot.

Mr. Forest’s hands hit a sharp note on the keys. “Okay, okay maybe…with a little…lessfeeling?” He looks pained at the thought. “Actually, look at the time. Your parents are probably waiting. Why don’t we stop here and pick this up next rehearsal? Please practice!Please.And don’t forget your backpacks if they’re backstage! Jonah, Icannotlet you in after hours again!”

He’s talking fast, clearly ready to get the hell out of here, and the orphans and the kids in the audience were already up and moving as soon as he said to stop. Their chatter and exiting footsteps echo in the room, and I’m picturing what Pearl’s face is going to look like when I’m not immediately out there to greet her, so that’s why it takes me an extra beat to process what he’s said. Backpacks. Like the backpacks I tripped over sneakingaround here. The ones I’m currently standing just a few feet from.

Axel and another boy leap onto the stage and dash toward the curtain. Just in time, I spin around and wrap myself up in one of the folds like a mummy, hiding myself from view.

“It’s not fair! I wanted to be Annie.” I hear Axel stomp his foot and can picture the same face he made on the soccer field when it didn’t feel like an aquamarine day.

“You can’t be Annie. You’re a boy!”

“My mom said I could be any part I wanted! And I would be a better Annie than Anabella. But now I’m just the stupid Star-To-Be.”

There’s a giggle and a snotty “Oh-kay” followed by a rustling. Then one set of footsteps takes off back across the stage, quickly followed by another. I can hear the big double doors at the front of the auditorium slam behind them.

They’re gone. Here’s my chance. I need to get out right now—so I don’t get caught, but also because Pearlstillbrings up that one day I was two minutes late to get her in kindergarten with burning fury in her eyes.

I take two silent steps toward the door. Then another few. I’m almost there, and then—

“I need a fucking Tylenol.”

Mr. Forest suddenly appears through the curtain, his leather satchel hanging from his stooped shoulders and a defeated expression on his face like he’s rethinking all of his life choices.

I jump and knock over the tall dry mop. It loudly clatters to the ground.

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