26. The actress playing Liesl in The Sound of Music breaks a bicycle.

The play was just about to start when I sprinted toward the community theater. I hadn't been here since the iDKHOW show, and tonight, it was a completely different crowd of people. The audience tonight was mostly the actors' family members and old ladies that didn't have anything better to do. It wasn't hard at all to find Gabe and Ryan in the crowd - they were practically the only teenagers in the room who were there of their own free will.

I got into line with them, ignoring the gray-haired woman who was complaining about me cutting the line. I greeted Gabe and Ryan, but Ryan seemed like he was mad at me. "You're late," Ryan said. "The play's going to start in three minutes."

"You know that these things never start on time," I said.

"You're thinking of rock concerts, not musical theater performances," Ryan said.

"It's not that big of a deal," Gabe said. "Brendon doesn't have any lines until a third of the way through the first act."

"I guess it's okay that we're late then," Ryan said. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm just here to support Brendon. He's going to do so well out there."

"I'm worried about my next vision," Gabe said. "What if it comes true?"

"It won't," I said. "Brendon knows about the visions - he'll make sure that it doesn't happen."

"We've tried that before, and isn't the definition of insanity trying the same thing twice and expecting different results?" Gabe said.

"Actually, I'm pretty sure that you guys have tried letting Brendon figure out how to stop a vision more than twice," Ryan said.

"We must be really insane then," I said. "I don't see how else we'll stop this vision though."

"Maybe we should all just leave," Gabe suggested.

"No!" Ryan exclaimed. "I want to watch Brendon's play!"

All of a sudden, Brendon walked up to us, dressed in his costume and caked in makeup. He was holding Penny Lane and stroking her fur. "Brendon, aren't you supposed to be backstage?" I said.

"I wanted to see you guys before the play started," Brendon said.

"What's Penny Lane doing here?" Gabe asked.

"Spencer saw me walking my dog, and he thought that she was so cute that she should be in the play," Brendon explained. "He somehow convinced Carol that the von Trapp family should have a dog, so now Penny's in the play. She'll be a great actress." Penny Lane yipped, and Brendon scratched her ears.

"I think you'll steal the show, Brendon," Ryan said.

"Thanks," Brendon said. "I just want a different costume next time I do this, since this one is super uncomfortable. Maybe for my next play, I'll get to wear something with high heels."

"Aren't heels supposed to be really difficult to walk in?" I said.

"I can make high heels work," Brendon said.

"Brendon!" someone shouted.

"I should go," Brendon said. "I'll see you guys after the show."

"Good luck!" Ryan called as Brendon ran off.

"Break a leg!" Brendon corrected him.

"Break a leg!" Ryan shouted, but Brendon was too far away to hear him. A few minutes later, the door opened, and all of us entered the theater. Gabe, Ryan, and I quickly found our seats, and once we were all seated, the show started.

The beginning of the show was, in my opinion, boring, not depressing enough, and didn't have enough Brendon. After the first scene, I concluded that musical theater just wasn't my thing. I couldn't understand why Brendon loved all of this so much, but then again, there were a lot of things that I didn't understand about Brendon. Gabe and Ryan both seemed just as bored as I was. In fact, Gabe was nearly falling asleep. I had to elbow him a few times just to keep him awake.

Ryan only started paying attention when Brendon came onstage. As Captain von Trapp introduced his children and the family dog, which I strongly suspected wasn't in any other version of the musical, Ryan watched Brendon intently, making Brendon blush.

During Brendon's first song, it was clear that he was far more talented than any of the other actors. "Why can't Brendon just play every single role?" Ryan whispered to me. "He has the range for it."

"Brendon can't be in two places at once," I said, although I didn't disagree with him.

Penny Lane, on the other hand, was clearly not cut out for acting. She ran in circles around the stage, barking loudly whenever there was an important line, and pretty much never doing what she was supposed to. When she was supposed to be onstage, she would sit just offstage and refuse to move, and when she was supposed to be offstage, she would whimper until Brendon gave up and just let her be in the next scene or picked her up and carried her offstage. She was pretty cute though.

The play went on, and Ryan, Gabe, and I sat through most of the rest of the first act, enjoying Brendon's performance, but very little else about the show. "So Long, Farewell" was nicely done, especially when Brendon hit that high note, but after that, he went offstage and stayed there for the remainder of the first act.

Near the end of the first act, a cloud of smoke floated on stage, causing the woman playing Mother Abbess to start coughing violently. "I bet Brendon's smoking weed backstage," I whispered. Ryan and Gabe both nodded.

"Roll me a blunt, 'cause I wanna go home!" Brendon shouted, proving all of us right.

"Why am I not surprised by any of this?" Ryan said.

"Brendon knows that he has one more act to go, right?" Gabe said. "He still needs to make sure that no bicycles get broken."

"Don't worry, Gabe," I said. "Brendon's been doing a good job so far."

Gabe sighed and leaned back in his seat, and all of us went back to watched the play. However, a few minutes later, we all heard Penny Lane barking, followed by a loud crashing noise. "What was that?" I asked.

"It better not have been the bicycle," Gabe said.

"Maybe it was something else," I said, desperately hoping that I was right. Gabe leaned back into his seat again, but I could tell that he was still worried. He was still panicking all throughout the intermission, looking around for Brendon or anyone involved in the play so that he could get an explanation. However, all of the actors were backstage preparing for the second act. I decided to go into the lobby and see if there were any concessions worth buying, but when I saw that they weren't selling anything good, I returned to my seat. I could wait and get food after the show.

In general, the second act was just as unexciting as the first. Brendon's scenes were excellent, but his talent couldn't make up for the mediocrity of the rest of the cast. "He can sing, dance, and act, even while high," Ryan said. "That's pretty impressive."

"Your boyfriend's a quadruple threat," I told him.

All of a sudden, one of the actors walked onstage with a bicycle, but when I looked closely, I saw that it was missing a pedal. Gabe clearly saw it too, since he leaned over and whispered to me, "I hope that the actress playing Liesl didn't break it."

"Me too," I replied.

"Can you three shut up?" the old woman behind us said. "Some of us are trying to watch the play!"

The three of us stopped talking, but until we got a chance to talk to Brendon, there would be no way to know if Gabe's vision had come true or not. All could I do was watch the stage and hope that Brendon had done his job and that Gabe's vision hadn't really happened.

Brendon played his role perfectly from his first appearance until he took his final bow. I knew nothing about musical theater, but even I could see that. When he appeared in the finale, the audience burst into thunderous applause. Even the lady behind me, who was so opposed to talking during the play, commented on how talented the boy who played Friedrich was. I smiled, proud of my friend, but I couldn't be too proud until I knew the truth about what had happened with the bicycle.

Gabe, Ryan, and I left the theater and waited in the lobby for Brendon. A little while later, Brendon showed up, holding Penny Lane in his arms. He had changed out of his costume and wiped off his makeup, and although he had performed well, he looked distraught. "I'm sorry," he said, before we could tell him how well he did in the play.

"What do you have to be sorry for?" Ryan asked. "You sang so well."

"After we finished performing in the first act, Tracy and I..."

"Who's Tracy?" Gabe asked.

"Tracy's the girl who played Liesl in the show," Brendon explained. "Anyways, we were hanging out backstage, smoking a little bit of weed while we waited for the second act to start, and Penny Lane just came out of absolutely nowhere. She ran into Tracy and made her trip. I tried to catch her, but she fell right on top of the bicycle. We tried to fix it, but the pedal fell off, and it wouldn't re-attach. I'm really sorry, Gabe. We should have been more careful."

"There's nothing that you could have done," Gabe said. "Your dog, on the other hand..." Gabe glared at Penny Lane, and she whimpered.

"It's okay, Penny," Brendon said as he stroked his dog's fur. "We should do more to make sure that Penny Lane doesn't get involved in the visions though. She's cute, but she is kind of unpredictable."

"Let's forget about the visions for now," Ryan said. "You did so well in the play, Brendon."

"Yeah, I was really impressed," I added.

"You were awesome," Gabe said. "We should get smoothies to celebrate."

"Thanks," Brendon said. "Let's go get some smoothies!"

All of us ran out of the theater, and I climbed into the DeLorean and drove to the smoothie shop. When I got there, I saw that there weren't a lot of other people there. Gabe, Ryan, and Brendon weren't there yet, so I ordered a smoothie, sat down at a table for four, and stared out the window as I waited for my friends to arrive.

I didn't have to wait long. A few minutes later, Gabe, followed by Ryan, and Brendon, walked into the smoothie shop and ordered their drinks. Once they had their smoothies, they all sat down at my table. "Sorry we're late," Brendon said. "I had to drop Penny Lane off at my house."

"You're not really all that late," I said. "I only got here a few minutes before you guys."

"I still can't believe that you hit that high note," Ryan said, and it took me a minute to figure out that he was still talking about The Sound of Music.

"It just takes practice," Brendon said. He then sang an absurdly high note while holding up his middle finger.

Ryan, Gabe, and I all laughed. Ryan then said, "You're so talented, Brendon."

"Thanks," Brendon said. He then wrapped his arms around Ryan and whispered, "You know it meant a lot to me that you came to my show. The only reason that I was able to hit all of those notes was because I saw you in the audience."

Ryan blushed and said, "That's so nice of you to say."

"It's true," Brendon said. Ryan gently kissed Brendon, while I went back to sipping on my smoothie.

"You still have a few more shows to go, right?" Ryan said. Brendon nodded, and Ryan said, "I'll go to every single one of them if you'd like."

"I'd like that a lot," Brendon said as I wondered why anyone in their right mind would want to watch the community theater performance of The Sound of Music two more times. Once was more than enough for me, but maybe falling in love with an actor changed that. If Patrick was in the play, I might have wanted to watch it again and again.

"I should probably go home," I said as soon as I finished my smoothie. Brendon and Ryan were cute, but sometimes they were just annoying. Besides, I wanted to forget about the play, rather than revel in it.

"See you later, Pete," Gabe said as I left the shop. I got into the DeLorean and drove home, checking the mailbox on my way in. However, there wasn't anything there - Mikey hadn't replied to my letter yet. I closed the mailbox and went inside, hoping that Mikey would send me another letter soon. I had a lot that I needed to tell him.

I put my headphones on, desperately trying to get all of the show tunes that I had just listened to out of my head. It took a while, but I was able to do it. I needed to move on and figure out how to stop Gabe, Brendon, and I from going to a haunted arcade, but what were the chances of that happening anyways? I was working tomorrow, so it wasn't like we would be going to an arcade, and ghosts were probably about as real as Mikey's precious unicorns. However, I might get to see Patrick again. I pictured his face as I stared at the ceiling, wishing for just one normal day without any visions.