Ellen Dockerty dragged her banjo out of retirement; for a lady with blue hair, she played a mean breakdown. And there was hootchie-koo after all. Mike and Jim persuaded the rest of the football team to perform a spirited can-can wearing petticoats and bloomers down south and nothing but skin up north. Jo Peet found wigs for them, and they stopped the show. The town ladies seemed especially crazy about those bare-chested young men, wigs and all.
For the finale, the entire cast paired off and filled the gymnasium stage with frenetic swing-dancing as “In the Mood” blared from the speakers. Skirts flew; feet flashed; football players (now dressed in zoot suits and stingy-brim hats) spun limber girls. Most of the latter were cheerleaders who already knew a few things about how to cut a rug.
The music ended; the laughing, winded cast stepped forward to take their bows; and as the audience rose to its feet for the third (or maybe it was the fourth) time since the curtain went up, Donald started up “In the Mood” again. This time the boys and girls scampered to opposite sides of the stage, grabbed the dozens of cream pies waiting for them on tables in the wings, and began to pelt each other. The audience roared its approval.
This part of the show our cast had known about and looked forward to, although since no actual pies had been flung during rehearsals, I wasn’t sure how it would play out. Of course it went splendidly, as cream-pie fights always do. So far as the kids knew this was the climax, but I had one more trick up my sleeve.
As they came forward to take their second bows, faces dripping cream and costumes splattered, “In the Mood” started up for the third time. Most of the kids looked around, puzzled, and so did not see Faculty Row rise to its feet holding the cream pies Sadie and I had stashed beneath their seats. The pies flew, and the cast was doused for the second time. Coach Borman had two pies, and his aim was deadly: he got both his quarterback and his star defenseman.
Mike Coslaw, face dripping cream, began to bellow: “Mr. A! Miz D! Mr. A! Miz D!”
The rest of the cast took it up, then the audience, clapping in rhythm. We went up onstage, hand-in-hand, and Bellingham started that goddam record yet again. The kids formed lines on either side of us, shouting “Dance! Dance! Dance!”
We had no choice, and although I was convinced my girlfriend would go sliding in all that cream and break her neck, we were perfect for the first time since the Sadie Hawkins. At the end of it, I squeezed both of Sadie’s hands, saw her little nod- Go on, go for it, I trust you -and shot her between my legs. Both of her shoes flew into the first row, her skirt skidded deliriously up her thighs… and she came magically to her feet in one piece, with her hands first held out to the audience-which was going insane-and then to the sides of her cream-smeared skirt, in a ladylike curtsey.
The kids turned out to have a trick up their sleeves, as well, one almost certainly instigated by Mike Coslaw, although he would never own up to it. They had saved some pies back, and as we stood there, soaking up the applause, we were hit by at least a dozen, flying from all directions. And the crowd, as they say, goes wild.
Sadie pulled my ear close to her mouth, wiped whipped cream from it with her pinky, and whispered: “How can you leave all this?”
And it still wasn’t over.
Deke and Ellen walked to center stage, finding their way almost magically around the streaks, splatters, and clots of cream. No one would have dreamed of tossing a cream pie at either of them.
Deke raised his hands for silence, and when Ellen Dockerty stepped forward, she spoke in a clear classroom voice that carried easily over the murmurs and residual laughter.
“Ladies and gentleman, tonight’s performance of Jodie Jamboree will be followed by three more.” This brought another wave of applause.
“These are benefit performances,” Ellie went on when the applause died down, “and it pleases me-yes, it pleases me very much-to tell you to whom the benefit will accrue. Last fall, we lost one of our valued students, and we all mourned the passing of Vincent Knowles, which came far, far, far too soon.”
Now there was dead silence from the audience.
“A girl you all know, one of the leading lights of our student body, was badly scarred in that accident. Mr. Amberson and Miss Dunhill have arranged for Roberta Jillian Allnut to have facial reconstructive surgery this June, in Dallas. There will be no cost to the Allnut family; I’m told by Mr. Sylvester, who has served as the Jodie Jamboree accountant, that Bobbi Jill’s classmates-and this town-have assured that all the costs of the surgery will be paid in full.”
There was a moment of quiet as they processed this, then they leaped to their feet. The applause was like summer thunder. I saw Bobbi Jill herself on the bleachers. She was weeping with her hands over her face. Her parents had their arms around her.
