Copyright 2009 by Kirsten.
The Matthews Girls and the Talent Show part one
For half the year, the Matthews girls, Elizabeth, Kirsten and Chrissa, lived in Tennessee with their cousins Aprilynne, Violet-Courtney and Sonali, being homeschooled.(Violet-Courtney, Sonali and Aprilynne also had the last name Matthews becasue their dads were brothers.)
All of their parents were traveling professors, so for the other half of the year, the girls lived wherever the dads were teaching and the moms helping. When they were traveling, the Matthews girls went to regular school werever they were. This year they were in France.
One day at school, all of the students were called to an assembly in the auditorium.
"I wonder what we're being called for," Elizabeth said to her friend Kitty.
"Well, I hope it's a contest!" Aprilynne said before Kitty could answer.Contest and competition were Aprilynne's favorite words.
After every class arrived at the auditorium and was seated, the principal walked onto the stage and started to talk, of course in French.
"Welcome, students! As you know, every year we have a talent show. You can perform anything you like on the stage. But this year, we're trying something new!
"This year, our talent show is going to be through video! Each of you intersted will fill out a form, make a video of you doing your performance, and then we'll judge them. The winner will be the video that has the best performance, like a talent show, but winning will also be based on how good your video is, technically. To do well, you must have good lighting and sound, and also good editing. Does that sound like fun?"
"YEAH!!" the students shouted.
"Well, if you want to participate in the show," the principal said, "pick up an entry form on your way out of the auditorium, have your parents sign it. Then bring it back tomorrow and drop it off to your teacher.Also, there are rules to the show/contest! Please pick up a rules sheet on your way out as well. They're beside the entry forms."
After that, the teachers started to usher the students out of the auditorium and back to class. Most of the girls picked up both flyers.
As Sonali bent down to grab one, she heard Caroline Bek say as she was glancing over the rules page, "Whatever. Who cares about rules? Winning this is going to be so easy."
Then, Sonali heard Aprilynne reply, "Ha! That's what you say. You may have won last year, but this year you're going down!"
Caroline started to say something, but just flipped her ponytail and flounced away.
Back at the house after school, the girls made sandwiches and brought them up to the attic of the house, which they had discovered made a great hideout and started to discuss the talent show.
Elizabeth raised her hand and jumped into the special chair the cousins shared, used for making statements.
"I think," she said, "We should-"
but before she could finish what she was saying, the attic door burst open and a light flashed on! There was Kirsten's friend Emily.
"Shh! Turn out the light and close the door. We're trying to come up with ideas for the talent show contest," Aprilynne said, "and we don't want anyone to hear us!"
Emily shut the door quietly, flipped off the light and plopped down. "So, any good ideas so far? Hope so, because my idea tank is a little low."
Aprilynne replied, "No, none so far. But we're trying to think of a real good one, one that'll put that Caroline Bek in her place!"
"What was that all about earlier, anyway, Aprilynne?" asked Violet-Courtney. "I heard you talking to her after the assembly and it didn't sound nice."
"Oh, I saw on the bulliten board earlier this month that Caroline Bek has won most every contest there is to be won in our school, especially the talent ones, and she's really cocky about it, too. I even talked to some of the other girls in our classes and they said she cheats to win. If there's something I can't stand, it's cheating and cockiness. Espicially if I know we can beat her fair and square!"
Still on the Statement Chair, Elizabeth said slowly, "Yes... I think that's good reason to try to come up with a great idea, but we shouldn't let that be our main focus on trying to win. The talent show is suposed to be fun!"
"And beating a snob isn't?" Aprilynne said.
Chrissa had been looking at the rules paper she had put into a binder. "Wait a minute, "she said, "The guidelines say that we should do something that we're good at, that we can have a person that'll film us, but what we're doing should be the main focus of the film each of us makes.Plus no making fun of others or saying bad stuff about them on tape."
"Not many rules, but I think we should stick to having fun and getting experience in what we're doing."
"Yeah," said Sonali, "And let's start thinking of things we can perform, and not just the reason we we're doing it. So what are we each picking?I'm going to get someone to tape me performing a Mozart violin piece."
"I think I'll write an essay about the history of American railways," Elizabeth said.
Eventually, everyone picked something to do, and Chrissa wrote them in her binder. Even Emily got an idea. It turned out like this:
Violet-Courtney would do a dance she choreographed herself while singing and would do the taping for everyone in the Matthews family, Aprilynne decided on doing a half-pipe routine on her skateboard, a few rainbows with a soccer ball and some tumbling gymnastics moves. Sonali and her violin playing Mozart, Kirsten said she would do a "cooking show" and cook a thanksgiving turkey with gravy.Elizabeth told Chrissa what she was planning on (the essay) Chrissa wrote down for herself that she was to fix up a bike with four simple art supplies.
Once everything was planned out and written down, all of the Matthews girls were excited about the talent contest and went down to dinner looking forward to starting on their videos.
"I'm still going to beat that Caroline," Aprilynne muttered.
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