Cooper by Ellen Miles

Author:Ellen Miles
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2014-06-28T16:00:00+00:00

“We’re raising the roof, raising the roof! A home for our family, raising the roof!”

Charles sang along, grinning as he hit the high notes. Everything felt right, now that Cooper was back onstage with him. He looked down at the little dog. As usual, Cooper seemed completely comfortable. He smiled his own doggy smile and howled along happily. His bat ears twitched as he gazed up at Charles.

Isn’t this fun?

The roof-raising song was in the first scene of the second act. The stage was full of people: all the men and boys in the Smythe family, plus some distant cousins and other settlers who had come to help.

In the play, the Smythes were moving up in the world, building a real house to live in instead of their tiny, rough cabin. After this song, the spotlight would shift to a scene between two boys: Joseph Smythe and a boy named Patrick, who was a bit of a stranger. The twist here was that Patrick was not a boy. It was Faith Wetmore, dressed up to look like a boy so she and Joseph could see each other even though their fathers had forbidden them to meet. The audience would understand when they saw her hair spilling out from beneath her cap as she and Joseph kissed behind the barn.

“Raising the roof, raising the roof!” Charles sang the last notes of the song as loudly as he could, smiling down at Mrs. Davies. She winked at him as she pounded out the final chords on the piano.

In the audience, Mr. Green clapped loudly. “Fantastic!” he said. “Exactly what I’m looking for. I love the energy, and you’re all hitting your notes perfectly. Terrific. Now, let’s move on to Joseph and Faith’s duet. Everybody else offstage for now.”

Mrs. Davies played the introduction to the next song as Charles and most of the other actors headed down into the audience. Jillian Dembowski pulled off her cap and let her hair tumble out. “A love like ours,” she sang, “can’t be hidden forever. A love like ours must bloom someday.”

She had a sweet, high voice, but Charles did not really like this song. It was too goopy and embarrassing, all that love stuff. He gestured to Maribel as he headed to the back of the auditorium. “Let’s play with Cooper,” he whispered.

As they walked up the aisle, he saw someone sitting alone in the very last row. “Charles!” the person called. When he was close enough, he saw that it was Mary Thompson.

“Hi,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“Taking some notes,” she said. “Mr. Green called me a little while ago and asked me to come down. He wants me to do a little rewriting on the play.” She reached out to pet Cooper. “He was right about this pup. What a cutie.”

“He told you about Cooper?” Charles knew that Mary Thompson was a dog lover.

“He sure did,” said Mary. “In fact —”

“In fact, she’s going to write Cooper into the play,” said Mr.

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