Shine! Read online

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  Mr. Lemoncello’s Great Library Race

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  THE WELCOME TO WONDERLAND SERIES

  Home Sweet Motel

  Beach Party Surf Monkey

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  Beach Battle Blowout

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  COAUTHORED WITH JAMES PATTERSON

  The House of Robots series

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  The Max Einstein series

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  Word of Mouse

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2019 by J.J. and Chris Grabenstein

  Cover and interior art copyright © 2019 by Leslie Mechanic

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web! rhcbooks.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Name: Grabenstein, J. J., author.

  Title: Shine! / by J. J. Grabenstein & Chris Grabenstein.

  Description: First edition. | New York: Random House, [2019] | Summary: When seventh-grader Piper’s father is hired by Chumley Prep, a school where every student seems to be the best at everything, she gets the chance to compete for the prestigious Excelsior Award.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017022751 | ISBN 978-1-5247-1766-7 (hardcover) | ISBN 978-1-5247-1769-8 (hardcover library binding) | ISBN 978-0-593-12392-8 (international) | ISBN 978-1-5247-1768-1 (ebook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Conduct of life—Fiction. | Middle schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Contests—Fiction. | Single-parent families—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.G698 Shi 2019 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  Ebook ISBN 9781524717681

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v5.4

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  More Favorites by Chris Grabenstein

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: Starry, Starry Night

  Chapter 2: The Stiff Competition

  Chapter 3: My Hero!

  Chapter 4: Dad’s Rising Star

  Chapter 5: Big Mama Bear

  Chapter 6: The Dog Days of December

  Chapter 7: Holiday Surprises!

  Chapter 8: Post-Holiday Shopping

  Chapter 9: All About the Benjamins

  Chapter 10: Welcome to Chumley. Can I Go Home Now?

  Chapter 11: Crushed

  Chapter 12: Scientific Possibilities

  Chapter 13: Mr. Van Doozy

  Chapter 14: Who Do You Want to Be or Not to Be?

  Chapter 15: The Great Timdini

  Chapter 16: Ainsley the Painsley

  Chapter 17: Some Assembly Required

  Chapter 18: Excelsior!

  Chapter 19: Blastoff

  Chapter 20: Lost in Space

  Chapter 21: The Magician’s Magnificent Mansion

  Chapter 22: Flipping the Calendar and Flipping Out

  Chapter 23: On Top of Spaghetti

  Chapter 24: Game On

  Chapter 25: Shooting Marbles at the Moon

  Chapter 26: Having a Blast

  Chapter 27: Brainpower

  Chapter 28: Achieving Orbit

  Chapter 29: Bursting My Bubble

  Chapter 30: This Stinks. Literally.

  Chapter 31: More Black Holes

  Chapter 32: Decisions, Decisions

  Chapter 33: Trash Talk

  Chapter 34: Course Corrections

  Chapter 35: Connecting the Dots

  Chapter 36: Event Horizon

  Chapter 37: Crashing to Earth

  Chapter 38: The Fault Is Not in Our Stars

  Chapter 39: Breaking Up the Magic Act

  Chapter 40: A Barrel of Not Laughs

  Chapter 41: Absolute Zero

  Chapter 42: Retrograde Orbit

  Chapter 43: Talent Quest

  Chapter 44: Stars in My Eyes

  Chapter 45: Stars in the Garage

  Chapter 46: Jitters

  Chapter 47: A Stage Full of Stars

  Chapter 48: Presto Chango

  Chapter 49: The Great Timdini!

  Chapter 50: Panic Attack

  Chapter 51: Bye-Bye, Excelsior Award

  Chapter 52: Happy Excelsior Day!

  Chapter 53: Mysteries Revealed

  Chapter 54: Shine Time!

  Thank You!

  About the Author

  For two of the brightest stars in our life, Ronna & Jordan Earnest

  Some people are meant to shine.

  Others are better off blending in.

  Me?

  I’m a blender. But tonight is one of the biggest nights ever for my dad, so I’m here to help.

  Dad’s singers are onstage at the Municipal Auditorium, waiting for the curtain to rise. I’m off in the wings, dressed in black, trying to disappear.

  My dad, Marcus Milly, is a music teacher at Fairview Middle School. His a cappella group has finally, for the first time in recorded history, by some sort of miracle, made it all the way to the biggest show in town: the finals of the Winter Sing-Off.

  The place is packed. The local news crews are here, too, taping reports for their eleven o’clock broadcasts.

  “The finals!” I hear the reporter from Channel 8 say into a camera. “You can’t get much closer to the big finish than that!”

  Dad’s group sailed through the first two rounds with their mash-up of “Let It Snow” and “Winter Wonderland,” which, by the way, sounded even better on a stage sparkling with glittery spray-can snow. Now they just have to do one more song for the judges. And they’ll do it without instruments or even a piano because that’s what “a cappella” means. It’s all vocals and schoop-schoops and mouth noises.

  I don’t go to Fairview. (I’m a seventh grader at Westside.)

  That’s a good thing.

  Music is Dad’s life. And even though I’m related to the director, I don’t sing well enough to make the Fairview choir. Or any choir.

  Because I can’t carry a tune in a lunch box.

  At home, I don’t even sing in the shower.

  And we definitely don’t do carpool karaoke.
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  Anyway, like I said, Dad has never come this close to winning the big countywide holiday a cappella contest, and I’ve never been more excited for him.

  That’s why I volunteered to be his assistant and help out backstage. Dad and his singers are the main attraction. I’m just a moon orbiting their planet.

  “This is it, Piper,” says Dad, his eyes twinkling with excitement.

  “You’ve got this!” I tell him.

  We fist-bump on it.

  The curtain will go up for everybody’s final songs in seven minutes. I can see other choirs waiting in the wings. Some are in red-and-green outfits. Others in sparkling blue and silver. The backdrop is a row of Christmas trees flanked by a cardboard menorah and a Kwanzaa candle set.

  Dad’s group is totally focused, doing their vocal warm-ups.

  “Ah-oh-oo-oh-ah…”

  They limber up their lips with a tongue twister.

  “Red leather, yellow leather, red leather, yellow leather…”

  Suddenly I hear a cough!

  Dad twirls around. Now there’s panic in his eyes.

  One dry throat in the soprano section could ruin everything! That’s exactly what happened at the Nationals last year. Dad and I watched it on YouTube. A coughing fit took down the top team in the country. (A girl up front was hacking so much during “Let It Go” that she sounded like a high-pitched Chihuahua.)

  “Water, Piper,” Dad says. From the tremor in his voice, I can tell: he remembers that disaster, too.

  “Room-temperature water!” I add, because my scientific brain knows that room-temperature water is much better for vocal cords than cold or hot.

  Cold water could actually hurt a singer’s voice—tighten the cords when they need to be loosened. You don’t want hot water, either, because it can cause your pharynx to swell slightly. You should also avoid dairy.

  I take off, looking for a water dispenser with one of those hot taps for making tea, so I can quickly pour the perfect mix of hot and cold to achieve room temperature. On the far side of the stage, I think I see one.

  It’s right behind a competing a cappella group.

  But they’re not doing any last-minute vocal warm-ups.

  They’re too busy pointing, laughing, and making fun of Dad and his singers!

  “Fairview Middle School shouldn’t even be allowed to enter a competition as important as this,” I hear one girl say. “They are such amateurs.”

  She has her hand propped on her hip and is very huffy.

  “It’s so close to the holidays—perhaps the judges were feeling charitable,” says a boy sarcastically. “ ’Tis the season, and all that.”

  “Actually, Ainsley,” another girl says to the huffy one, “I think Fairview deserves to be in the finals. Their mash-up of ‘Let It Snow’ and ‘Winter Wonderland’ was amazing.”

  “Are you kidding, Brooke? It was more like ‘Winter Blunderland’!”

  Some of the other kids snicker. Brooke, the girl who complimented Dad’s singers, drops her head a little and slumps her shoulders.

  The kids in this group look a lot slicker and more polished than Dad’s group. All the girls are wearing the exact same plaid skirt, white blouse, and navy-blue blazer with a fancy crest. The boys are in khaki pants, white shirts, striped ties, and the same blazers.

  Dad’s choir is in whatever white shirts, black pants, and black shoes everybody could find. Dad, too. His boys are wearing holiday ties. Dad’s features a very operatic Santa.

  I tilt the twin taps on the water dispenser and check my watch. It’s still five minutes to curtain. I have time to eavesdrop.

  “We are Chumley Prep,” boasts a boy. “We are the best, no matter the endeavor.”

  “Hear, hear,” says another boy.

  Chumley Prep is the school over in the part of town where there’s a country club with a golf course and where all the homes look like palaces surrounded by gigantic oak trees. Sometimes on Sundays Dad and I drive around over there and gawk at the houses. Tuition to Chumley Prep is superexpensive. That would explain why I don’t know anybody who ever went there.

  Except, of course, my mother.

  Twenty-some years ago, she won a full music scholarship and went to Chumley. My mom was basically the opposite of me. Everything she touched sparkled. From what I’ve heard, she never disappeared into the background. Ever since she was little, people called her a musical prodigy. She could sing, play the cello, and even juggle maracas. Seriously. I’ve seen pictures in her yearbooks. (I’m not sure how useful maraca juggling is—but still!)

  “Did you see the shoes the Fairview director is wearing?” Ainsley sneers. “Can someone say ‘fashion mistake’? They’re not even dress shoes. They’re gym shoes! Black gym shoes—with white socks!”

  Several of the Chumley singers chortle and snort.

  I can’t stand hearing this girl making fun of my father on his big night. He’s been working to be here since forever. Who cares what kind of shoes and socks he’s wearing? I’m really, really proud of him. Mom would be, too.

  But she’s not here.

  More about that later.

  I finish filling the water cup. I’m trying to muster up enough courage to give the Chumley Prep a cappella group a piece of my mind.

  Fortunately, I don’t have to.

  Somebody slips out of the shadows to do it for me.

  An elderly man in a blue blazer scampers out of the darkness.

  He may be old, but he’s feisty. Judging from his outfit, I’d say he must also be a Chumley Prep booster or alum. He’s dressed just like the kids, only his blazer is kind of baggy, his khaki pants kind of saggy. I think he might be eighty years old.

  “Children?” he demands. “Where is Mr. Glass? Where is your director?”

  The kids ignore him. They keep chattering about what’s wrong with the other finalists.

  He stamps his foot down, hard. “I said, where is Mr. Glass?”

  Finally he has their attention.

  “I sent him to go talk to the judges,” says Ainsley. “They’re letting Fairview Middle School go on first in the final round, and that, sir, is one hundred percent unacceptable. We need to be the first group on that stage so we can set the bar so high no one will ever be able to top it!”

  “Hear, hear,” says the boy who, if you ask me, says “hear, hear” too much.

  The old man narrows his eyes and says what I’m thinking.

  “You, my friends, are not the center of this or any other known universe.”

  Wow. He’s quoting Nellie DuMont Frissé, one of my favorite astronomers.

  But the group from Chumley Prep isn’t as impressed as I am. Several kids roll their eyes when the man isn’t looking in their direction.

  He takes a small step forward.

  “Think hard about who you want to be, children,” he tells them. “Think very, very hard.”

  The group is stunned silent.

  For maybe two seconds.

  “Who do I want to be?” says Ainsley. “How about a winner?”

  Other members jump in and pile on.

  “I want to be famous!”

  “I want to be a person who goes to Yale and sings with the Whiffenpoofs!”

  The old man shakes his head and walks away.

  Me?

  I race across the stage with my cup of room-temperature water. I need to make sure all of Dad’s singers are at their absolute best.

  Because I’ve never wanted them to win a competition so much in my whole, entire life!

  My new favorite song of all time?

  “A Merry Holiday Medley”—snippets from thirty different holiday songs in four minutes (everything from “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” to “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree” to “Kwanzaa Celebration” to “The D
reidel Song”) all done Pentatonix-style by twenty middle school kids.

  That’s what Dad’s a cappella group did to win (for the first time ever) the Winter Sing-Off!

  Woo-hoo!

  They call the group onstage to take a bow. The judges give Dad a trophy. His singers present him with a dozen roses wrapped in green tissue paper and a bright red bow.

  “Yay, Dad!” I shout from the wings.

  He looks so happy. I swear he’s not seeing the Municipal Auditorium when he looks out at the crowd. In his mind, he’s on a Broadway stage, just like he’s always dreamed about. I clap till my hands hurt. Because I know Dad gave up that dream for me. He wanted to write musicals and conduct Broadway orchestras. But that’s a risky career with no guarantees. You need a ton of talent and lots of lucky breaks. Dad definitely has the talent. The lucky breaks? Not so much.

  After Mom died, he had to find a steady job so he could take care of me. Winning the a cappella competition? For him, that’s even better than taking a bow on Broadway. Well, that’s what he tells me on the ride home, anyway.

  * * *

  —

  The next night, we host a big party at our house to celebrate. All the a cappella kids are there, making up funny schoop-schoop songs about the punch. (They do an amazing four-part harmony on “Sherbet and ginger ale, don’t add any kale, ba-doop-ba-doo-ba-dooo!”)