Behind the Piano

Sixth grade at Pelican Point Middle School has three hundred kids, two lunches, a locker that won't open, and a fall play that needs a piano player. Jonah Pruitt has been practicing the Gershwin at dawn for months. He's ready to audition. He isn't ready for the drama teacher to say, "Lovely. Now sing." While Jonah lands the part of the Caroler and the Boy at the Window, his best friend Dez finds a room full of comic artists and a new friend who understands his drawings better than Jonah ever has. Then, on a rainy afternoon in front of two eighth graders, a little orange robot with a patched-up stomach falls out of Jonah's backpack, and Jonah says the three worst words of his life: "It's not mine." The story runs from the first day of sixth grade to Christmas Eve. Jonah is eleven. A Jonah Pruitt Center Stage story about a sticky piano key, a dawn breakfast at low tide, a comic book contest, a Christmas play where everything goes wrong at once, and learning that friends can have other friends.