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“A show? What do you mean?”

He waves his nugget at me. “You know, like you guys do at the store. Could you gather up the people on that list and sing something in front of the principal? Maybe that’ll show how much interest there is?”

Hoshiko gasps. “Lucas, that’s brilliant!” She turns to me. “You could choose a song, or maybe even more than one, and put together a performance. I bet Miss Sahni would let us use some of the old theater costumes.” She takes my list and scans it, pointing at names. “You have enough people here that you could cast a few as leads with more for a chorus. This would be amazing, Riley!”

I look between Lucas, Hoshiko, and Anthony, who leftthe group of girls he was chatting with to sit down at our table. “Do you think I have time?”

“Absolutely. You have three weeks. You can do anything in three weeks.”

I look back down at the interest list, my heart beating quickly. This would be ahugeundertaking, and I’d have to find the time to stay after for rehearsal without my parents catching on…but it could be really amazing if we can pull it off. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize there’s no better way to convince the administration to keep the musical. It’s one thing to talk about theater hypothetically. It’s a totally different thing to experience it. Tofeelit. That’s what we need to do.

I squeal and Hoshiko starts dancing in her seat. Lucas bows over his nuggets and fries.

“My evenings are too busy to add anything else,” Nathan says to John as they approach the table. “But thanks for the offer.”

“I swear you’ll have fun,” John argues.

“What’s going on over here?” Nathan asks, and sits down next to me. “I saw dancing.”

“Lucas had the great idea that we should put together a performance to convince the principal to keep the musical,” I explain. “What are you two talking about?”

“I’m making a last-ditch effort to convince Nathan to join my LARPing group,” John says. He meticulously pulls out a sandwich from his TMNT lunchbox and takes a bite. “I was hoping he would since the others turned me down.”

Hoshiko squints at me in confusion. “What’s LARPing again?”

“Live-action role-playing,” John says.

“Oh, right!” I grin. “Don’t people get dressed up in costumes for that?”

“Yeah. It’s a little like D&D but in real life.”

“Wait,” Hoshiko says. “So, like, you carry swords and wear armor?”

“Well, we try to make it as realistic as possible, but we all have a pretty strict budget.” He shrugs. “I love it.”

“Sorry to change the subject, but we have something elseextremely important we need to discuss,” Lucas announces. He puts his palms on the table and leans forward. “I had an epiphany—we need to introduce the girls to Monty Python.”

“That’s anexcellentidea,” Anthony says.

Nathan nods from my left, where he sits every day now. “Required watching.”

“Actually,” I say, “we already know about Monty Python. Wearecertified theater geeks and they’re the ones who inspiredSpamalot.”

The guys exchange glances. “Have you seen that show?” Nathan asks.

“Well, no,” Hoshiko admits.

“And have you seen any of the Monty Python movies?”

“Not exactly,” I say with narrowed eyes.

“That’s what I thought. We have to start withHoly Grail,” Lucas says, not missing a beat. “If they see only one movie, then it should be that one.”

“But that’s the best one,” Anthony argues. “It’ll be downhill from there.”

John gasps. “Sacrilege! Everything they made is a classic!”

“How oldarethese movies?” I ask.