The New Normal Read Online Free Page B

original.
    â€œThis is the audition piece for female cast members.” She handed me a sheet of paper. It was Dorothy’s ramble at the very end, about how it wasn’t a dream, it was a real live place. And you and you and you…and you were there.
    â€œI don’t know, Ms. Jane. I can’t really carry a tune.”
    â€œThat’s all right, actually, because we’re doing the nonmusical version.”
    â€œOh.”
    â€œJust promise me you’ll consider it.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œFabulous! Auditions will be held here in the theater at four o’clock this Friday.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œHope to see you there!”
    I folded the piece of paper and put it inside 1984 , the book we were reading for English. Then I pushed through the theater doors and out into the crowded hallway, where hundreds of students scurried around like rats in a maze.
    I found five bucks someone had dropped in the cafeteria and shoved it in my pocket. Only $ 995 to go. By Friday. If only I could find a way to get every kid in school to give me a dollar, I’d have a grand by the end of today. Maybe I could set up some kind of booth. Have a bucket and a bell like the Salvation Army Santas. For the price of a bag of chips you can save a bald girl from her dead sisters’ drug dealer!
    After school, I went to the bank and cleaned out my savings account. Ninety-two dollars and seventy-six cents. It was everything I’d saved from birthday and Christmas money, odd jobs and allowance. And now I had to give it all to some dipshit dealer. It was amazing to me that Abby and Alia could still manage to piss me off and screw me over from their graves.

    On Tuesday I went to chess club and played against Roy, even though I knew I would lose. I told him I might audition for The Wizard of Oz .
    â€œThat’s cool, Tamar. I think you’d be great.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œFor sure. Well, better than you are at chess anyway.” He laughed.
    â€œYou’re a jerk,” I said. But I didn’t mean it.
    After Roy won, I started a game with Brian Walton. Brian’s a nervous little grade-eleven guy with greasy glasses, shaggy hair the color of straw and tragic acne, but no one denies that he’s probably a genius. My mom met Brian once at a school fundraiser thing. She said he was cute in a supergeek kind of way, and to be extra nice to him because he might end up being my boss someday.
    â€œHow are you, Tamar?”
    â€œNot too bad, Brian. How’s it going?”
    â€œGood, and you?”
    â€œUm, you already asked me that.”
    â€œOh. Sorry.” He moved his knight out, and we didn’t speak again until the end of the game when we both said “Good game” at the same time and shook hands. His hand was slimy and gross, and I didn’t want to shake it, but those were the rules of the chess club. Every game had to end with a shake. Brian beat me too, but not as badly as Roy had. They say that every game makes you a better player, no matter if you win or lose, so I guess it wasn’t a total waste of a lunch hour. I decided to go outside and get some fresh air before my next class. I walked out the back doors, where all the kids with their puffy jackets and sideways hats and dark bandanas huddled around, smoking and spitting and talking trash. I walked onto the field, turned around and realized they were all staring at me. It’s probably my bandana, I thought. They’re probably thinking I’m down with a rival gang or something. Shit. Maybe it’s time to get a wig. My heart hurt when I thought that, because it was like admitting defeat.
    There were still some long, stringy pieces of hair clinging to the back of my skull, creating the illusion that I had hair, but up top I was as bare as a baby’s ass. I was losing more and more hair every day, and soon I would be completely, utterly, undeniably bald. I sighed and looked up at the