I'm On Top of the World ...Only not really.

When I am in Sixth Grade, my school has a talent show. This isn't just the ordinary kind of talent show, where you can get up and sing, or play an instrument or whatever. This is a really serious, important one, where you have to go to practices ahead of time, and there are judges who award prizes. I really want to be in it. I like all talent shows, because I like singing. And singing in a talent show is better than just singing in Music Class, or being in Cherub Choir at church. I get to choose what song I sing, and I can do more than one of them if I want to. The prizes make this one better, but I would want to be in it just as much even without them.

I'm going to do two things in this talent show. I'm going to sing a song, and I'm going to play my clarinet. I go to the Music teacher and I ask for a special piece of music to play, one that's different from the ones everyone's learning in class. He gives me a song called “Come Saturday Morning”. The sheet music says it's “from The Sterile Cuckoo.” I've never heard of The Sterile Cuckoo, and I'm not sure exactly what it means. Something to do with sex, I think, which makes the song very grown-up, although it doesn't sound all that good when I play it.

For the song I sing, I choose “On Top of the World,” by a group called The Carpenters. They're so new their songs are still being played on the radio, but my teacher this year is letting us learn it for class. My teacher is kind of a hippie. He has lots of albums in the classroom, some by The Carpenters, and some by John Denver (who is also still pretty new), and some by Peter, Paul and Mary (who aren't new, and what's more they look even more olden-days than hippies on the album he's got: They look like beatniks, I think). He also teaches us to sing “Sunshine On My Shoulder”, which isn't just a new song, it also mentions getting “high” at one point, which always makes me feel very cool when I sing it.

I go to every single rehearsal. I play “Come Saturday Morning”, and I sing “On Top of the World”. The teacher who's running the talent show has a video camera. She videotapes us, so we can watch our performance later on. I think I look pretty ugly on camera, and when I sing, I sound really stupid. One time Mama is there when the teacher shows the videotape. She says it makes me look really, really fat, and it's time for me to go on a diet again.

Finally it comes time for the talent show. I sit with my class and watch, except for the part where I am performing. There are lots of really good acts. There's this group of boys that dance to “Jungle Boogie”. They do dance moves I've never seen before, really good ones. And at one point all the lights onstage go off, and there's this strobe light, and it makes their movements look jerky and cool. There's two girls that lip synch to “I Got You Babe,” which is a song by Sonny and Cher. The girl who plays Sonny is really short and cute. The one who plays Cher is the tallest girl in the Sixth Grade, and her hair is long and gorgeous and shiny just like the real Cher's.

Then it's my turn. I play “Come Saturday Morning” on my clarinet, and I don't think I do very well. It doesn't sound like a real song, even after all my practicing. It just sounds like I'm playing a lot of notes, one after another, and some of them don't even sound very clear. I sing “On Top of the World,” and I guess I do okay. But then I sit down and another group of girls gets up and sings “On Top of the World” all over again. This is not what I'd think of as my best moment.

When all the acts are done, the judges award the prizes. I don't get anything for my clarinet playing, which doesn't surprise me, but I do win Second Place for singing “On Top of the World”. This surprises me. I didn't think I did that one very well either. Besides, ever since Mama said I looked fat in the videotape, all I can think when I'm up in front of people, is how I'm showing off all my fat to them.

A few days later, I meet some of the other girls who sang “On Top of the World”, in the hallway. They say their singing was way better than mine, and they should have won instead of me. I don't know what to say. I didn't think their singing was all that great, but I didn't think mine was either. Besides, they're all way more popular than me. I just go away. I want to cry.

After that, I hate hearing “On Top of the World”. Even hearing the name “On Top of the World” makes me sick to my stomach. Mama takes us to visit our old friend Denise from Westminister. She's got this cute little portable record player, and a whole pile of songs on 45's. She holds up “On Top of the World,” but I yell “Nooooo!!!” I take the record away and run and bury it under a pile of her blankets and pillows, and when she asks why I don't want to listen to it, I won't tell her.