"Hurry up, Tyler! My mom's waiting in the car." Matt Whitman gathered up his backpack and sleeping bag.
It was Saturday morning, and the two boys had just spent the night at their friend Brian's house.
"Great sleepover, Brian," Matt said. "That movie was the scariest one yet!"
"It was pretty good," Brian said. "Even I was frightened!"
Tyler was still fumbling with his sleeping bag. "Well, I wasn't scared at all."
Brian grinned at Tyler. "No, you just happened to go into the kitchen for more popcorn at the exact moment when those kids were walking into that haunted house."
"Okay, maybe I was a little scared," Tyler admitted. "But you should have seen your face when that zombie jumped out of the bushes."
They all laughed. Brian's phone buzzed.
He frowned as he quickly read the text message. Then he put the phone back in his pocket.
"Who was that?" Tyler asked.
"Just Becky breaking up with me."
"Didn't you two already break up twice this week?" Matt said.
"Yeah, but we got back together."
"Apparently you forgot to tell her," Matt said.
Brian scowled at the joke, but Tyler laughed. Outside, Matt's mother honked the car horn.
"See you later, Brian." Matt opened the front door. Tyler followed Matt as he ran down the walk and jumped into the back seat of the car.
"Hi, guys," Mrs. Whitman said. "Did you get any sleep last night?"
"Of course not, Mom. No one sleeps at a sleepover."
"Especially when we're watching really scary movies," Tyler said.
"Now you admit they were really scary," Matt teased his friend as they drove away. "I thought you were just a little scared. really
Oh, wait a minute. Weren't you the one hiding your face in your pillow when the monster grabbed those kids? I thought you—"
"My pillow! I forgot my pillow!" Tyler cried.
"I couldn't find my backpack this morning, so I took off the pillowcase to use as a sack. We have to go back."
Mrs. Whitman turned the car around and drove to Brian's house. Tyler ran in and soon returned with his pillow and backpack.
"Brian's mom found my backpack underneath a chair," he explained happily as he buckled his seatbelt.
"Are we all set now?" Mrs. Whitman turned on the car radio.
"Matt, it's almost time for your favorite program. They're doing Don Carlo today." Don Carlo
Matt's eyes widened in horror. He couldn't believe his mother had just said that in front of Tyler.
"What's wrong with you?" Tyler pointed at Matt. "You look like you just saw a ghost."
"Nothing." Matt concentrated on staring out the window. "Did you ever notice how many silver cars there are?" he said quickly.
"That's probably the most popular color, don't you think?"
But Tyler wasn't about to be distracted, especially after Matt had just been teasing him for being afraid.
"What's your favorite show? Who's Don Carlo, and what are they doing to him?"
"Don Carlo is the main character in an opera," Mrs. Whitman explained. "It takes place in the 1500s, during the Spanish Inquisition, but it's really a tragic love story."
Matt stayed silent. It was bad enough that his mother had jumped into the conversation, but did she have to embarrass him too?
"You like opera?" Now it was Tyler's turn to widen his eyes in horror.
"Matt loves opera." Mrs. Whitman corrected him. "We always listen to the opera program when we're driving around, doing errands on Saturdays. Right, Matt?" loves
Matt just grunted. His mom was making things worse. They needed to get onto another topic immediately.
His mind whirred with possibilities, but he quickly settled on the local baseball team, the Philadelphia Phillies. "Did you see that outfielder—"
"You do mean opera as in . . ."
Tyler cleared his throat, clasped his hands together, and made a serious face.
"Mi-mi-mi-mi-mi," he sang, imitating an opera star warming up.
"Something like that?" He looked at Matt with a huge grin on his face.
"Not exactly." Matt could tell that Tyler was enjoying this way too much.
"Or is it more like this? La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la." Tyler used as deep a voice as possible to sing down the scale.
"No. Not at all."
"You should try listening to an opera, Tyler," Mrs. Whitman said as they arrived in front of Tyler's house. "You might actually enjoy it."
"No, thanks, but thanks for the ride," Tyler said.
He pulled his backpack and the pillow and his sleeping bag and the bulging pillowcase from the car.
He struggled up the driveway, but Matt didn't offer to help.
Instead Matt got out of the car and switched to the front seat.
"How could you do that to me, Mom?" he said in a loud, angry voice. "Now everybody knows I like opera!"
"Not everybody, just Tyler," Mrs. Whitman said as she drove away from the curb.
"Believe me, it'll be everybody soon enough. I'm sure Tyler can't wait to tell people."
"I'm sorry I embarrassed you, but liking opera is nothing to be ashamed of. Plenty of people enjoy opera."
"Adults like opera," Matt corrected her. "Kids think it's weird. Weren't you listening to Tyler?
Everyone will be making fun of me as soon as he starts spreading the news. I don't want to go to school on Monday."
"Oh, Matt, that's two days away. I'm sure Tyler will have forgotten all about it by then." Mrs. Whitman looked over at Matt.
"What's that old expression? 'He'd forget his head if it wasn't attached.' That's Tyler. Now let's enjoy the opera."
The orchestra was playing the overture, which ended in an ominous thunder of drums.
"I can already tell from the music that this is going to be a dark opera." Mrs. Whitman smiled at Matt.
"You know you'll like this once it gets started."
"I don't even know who's singing today," Matt grumbled.
"And thanks to you and Tyler, I missed the synopsis of act 1, so I'll have no idea what's going on until they give the synopsis of act 2."
"Well, Don Carlo is the son of the king of Spain, and his father—"
"Never mind," snapped Matt. "I'll figure it out as we go along."
"But it's in Italian!"
Matt rolled his eyes. "I don't have to understand the words to enjoy the music!" He reached over and turned up the volume on the radio.