The original draft was written on a mechanical typewriter, single-spaced, with no right margin. When I was in the 8th grade in Lincoln Jr. High School, I was a pretty good male soprano singer. There were tryouts for the Madrigal Singers, the school's elite 16-voice choral group; the auditions were held in quartets, singing Praetorius' "Psallite, Unigenito" (an a capella piece we'd learned in the not-as-elite period 2 Senior Chorus). As a quartet, each of us sang a different part designed to blend together in harmony. Normally, I never had a problem keeping to my own part when singing alongside someone who was singing one of the other lines. But in these auditions, my soprano self was paired up with alto-voiced Debbi Daly, a ninth grader whose voice was strong enough and clear enough that it actually threw me off. She made it into the madrigal singers. I didn't. And, rightly or wrongly, I blamed her for it. When she later got in our school's talent show with a rendition of "What I Did For Love" from A Chorus Line, and I failed to get into the same talent show, my bitterness only deepened. And then came the dream....
All spellings, punctuation, capitalizations, strings of exclamation points, etc. are as in the original. Unfortunately, the original original of this story was destroyed by an unscrupulous classmate later that same year, who had no connection to Debbi Daly whatsoever. What you see before you is an attempt I made immediately thereafter to recreate the original as close to accurately as possible, from memory.
Preface:
Oh, man, I mean like, oh, this is such a good nail *clap*! Oh, I mean — I'm really gonna socket at her this time! This started out as a dream, and now it's gonna be a great story....
THE START:
"Migod, she's done EVERYTHING!!! She doesn't deserve all that credit!" Unfortunately, someone heard me mumbling under my breath. And wouldn't you know, it was Tracy White! (You know, I think she has eyes for me.)
"It's not so bad", she said. "Besides, she's in 9th grade!"
"You see?!? She's even beaten me there!!!", was my response.
Tracy asked, "By the way, who are we talking about?"
"Debbi Daly, god damn her!!!"
Then it happened. Tracy said, "Oh, yeah, that girl on the talent show".
That was it. I couldn't stand it any more. I had to get her somehow; someway. It was impossible for me to do anything at the time, so all I could do was continue onto period two — the battlefield — where Debbi was! I couldn't possibly bear to watch her stride into the room, sing her solo, and probably be cheered on like a star — a star!! That's it!! Of course!! If a star can be untruly exploited, then so can Debbi! I'll exploit her, alright — I'll exploit her in my OWN STYLE!...
THE DREAM; THE MIDDLE:
A contest! All stars are exploited in contests of one type or another. A look-alike contest, usually. I went to room 601 — print shop. I needed at least 50 "Debbi Daly Look-Alike Contest" posters run off in a hurry. This they did, with enough time for me to go to Miss Lederer's class; room 43; Debbi's class. This was where I hung up most of the posters.
"What the?!?", was Debbi's response.
"That's right! Boy, are you gonna get it!!!"
Debbi Just stared into space with her mouth open, then turned around, slowly faded into an amazed smile, and said, "God!!!", speaking to everyone around her.
I needed a judge, for reasons explained later. Why not Miss Lederer? That way,
it could also be a sound-alike contest. I posted the rules, which read,
"RULES: 1) Debbi Daly cannot enter, but will be the basis for this contest 2)
No Bribing the judge 3) Anyone can enter." I needed to stay around for a while
with Miss Lederer to study Debbi — for the judging mostly, but also for
the entry — yup, you guessed it, I was entering the contest too!!
That night, I changed my clothes around, adjusted my voice to "alto", and I even did my hair so it would be in place when I wanted it to!!!!
The next day, I went to period 2 after homeroom as usual, with the contest on my mind. THIS WAS THE DECIDER!!! I had to make good; I just had to. I got up in front of the class, made my little starting speech, and the contest was on!!! The first entrant was Ellen Leaf. Not Bad. Well, at least the "Alto" part was good!! the next entrant was a girl who looked exactly like Debbi. She didn't sound like Debbi, though!
After about three more, it was my turn. I got up on stage, and sang Debbi's solo as the sound-alike part. As I went through it, I imitated Debbi's every aspect — making my mouth smaller, etc.
Then the contest ended, and miss Lederer sat around tallying the entrants....
THE FINISH:
The next day, the winners were announced in 2nd period. "The most look-alike and sound-alike of Debbi Daly is..." I tightened up as she continued, "Roger, here! In fact, I think you did better than Debbi."
"Yahoowee", I shouted. "I've done it, I've finally topped her! Yahoo-yow!!!" I had reached & climbed the high point of my life. Now, it was downhill all the way, except for 3 bumps:
TTTTT H H EEEEE EEEEE N N DDD T H H E E NN N D D T HHHHH EEE EEE N N N D D T H H E E N NN D D T H H EEEEE EEEEE N N DDD