Page 38 of Sending Love Letters to Animals

I stared at him in horror.

“It’s so sad,” Mr. Melvin said. “We’re going to devastate two of these poor kids today.”

“We could just let all ten perform,” I whispered. “It’s not much different than eight.”

Mr. Melvin gasped. “I will not pander to these students. I have too much respect for our kids here to do that.”

Frowning, I said: “But why? We could still make the show less than an hour long even with ten people performing?”

“Because then what’s the point?” He asked.

Mrs. Watson, the music teacher, was settling in at the piano on stage as Mr. Melvin explained his crazed logic to me.

“If everyone gets to perform, there’s no point in auditions. And no one gets to feel special.”

“No one has to feel like crap, either,” I said.

Mr. Melvin sighed and took a giant gulp of coffee from his cup. He considered what I’d said for a moment, then nodded.

“Let’s just see,” he said. “If they’re all decent, we’ll just let all ten perform. Okay? If two are clearly awful, we’ll cut them.”

I shrugged.

“Okay,” he said. “Now, keep your ears and eyes open. We want the very best eight if it comes down to that, yeah?”

I indicated that I understood, even if I didn’t fully agree. Mr. Melvin had the option to stand up, address the waiting auditioners, and tell them all that due to the small turn out, everyone was going to be accepted. Then we could show them the approved song list and everyone could begin fighting over who got to perform which song.

Of course, I’d only selected and turned in a list of eight songs to Mr. Melvin on the date he requested. However, I could easily tell him two more songs that would work for the recital. I could give him at least twenty, if he needed them. Broadway was my thing, after all.

The songs that made the cut were: Suddenly Seymour, Tomorrow, Anything Goes, Ease on Down the Road, Being Alive, Popular, The Room Where It Happens, and All That Jazz. If any of the performers were decent singers, they could find a song on the list that matched up with their abilities. All of the songs were familiar enough that parents would be entertained listening. None of them were controversial. Well, none of them were controversial by 2021 standards.

When I’d presented the list to Mr. Melvin on the assigned day, he had given it a considerable gaze, then said it was “perfect.” Maybe that was an overstatement on his part—since it could have been much better if I could have chosen my absolute favorite tunes—but that was good enough for me. We had eight songs and ten auditioners. Whatever happened was Mr. Melvin’s decision, not mine.

“Are you ready Mrs. Watson?” Mr. Melvin hollered up at the stage.

Mrs. Watson tickled a few keys playfully, then gave him a thumbs up. With a sign, Mr. Melvin read the first name on the sign-up form on his clipboard.

“Elle Markum!” He announced. “Let’s start with you!”

Sinking back in my seat, mimicking Mr. Melvin’s body language, I waited for Elle Markum—who I had barely knew existed until the day of auditions—to take the stage. She handed her sheet music to Mrs. Watson and for the next three-plus minutes, we were treated to Elle mostly managing to get through Memory from Cats. She wasn’t an extraordinary singer, and she missed a few notes badly enough that I cringed, but she managed to get through it.

Mr. Melvin and I whispered our thoughts throughout the performance. He had noticed the missed notes, since it would have been impossible not to, but I let him know that her range was good enough for any of the songs I had provided. Elle had obviously picked the wrong song for her abilities. After considering this for a moment, Mr. Melvin put a check by her name on the sheet. I assumed that meant he was going to let her perform at the recital.

“Thank you, Elle!” Mr. Melvin dismissed her the second the music ended. “We’ll have a list up tomorrow.”

Elle grinned enthusiastically and pranced off stage. She practically ran down the aisle and out of the righthand double doors at the back of the auditorium. Apparently, Elle was confident that she had nailed her audition.

“Next…Rory Emerson!” Mr. Melvin read from his list.

A freshman boy—I think—slunk shyly up on stage. From his body language and slight build, I was not optimistic about Rory’s abilities. He stood as though he was trying to make himself look as small as possible, to be invisible to everyone. However, when the music to Johanna from Sweeney Todd started, Rory came alive, as though the music and performing was his armor against the world.

Mr. Melvin didn’t even ask for my feedback. Thirty seconds into Rory’s song, he had enthusiastically put a check next to his name. While it didn’t matter, since I would have done the same, I grumbled to myself that Mr. Melvin hadn’t even asked me my thoughts. I did my best to ignore that feeling and enjoy Rory’s performance.

When the song was over, Mr. Melvin gave Rory the same information he’d given Elle—though a little more enthusiastically—and Rory slunk out of the auditorium via the backstage door. Obviously, he was not the most confident of our performers. It didn’t really matter, though. As long as he could sing his song during the recital, he could be in it.

The next three performers, two junior girls and one sophomore boy, all nailed their versions of Buenos Aires from Evita, I Know Things Now from Into the Woods, and I Can Do That from A Chorus Line. Three more checks were placed next to names on the list. It was beginning to look as though Elle Markum might actually have been our weakest auditioner.

When a senior boy—Grady Morehouse—took the stage and performed a dying alley cat version of Music of the Night from Phantom of the Opera, the first name on the list got a line drawn through it. Mr. Melvin gave Grady the same response as he had given everyone else, but the lack of enthusiasm in his voice should have been apparent to anyone with a brain. Of course, Grady had convinced himself that he could sing, so he seemed confident when he left the auditorium.