The Dial Room

The lighting booth at the Little Lamp Theatre is tiny, warm and full of knobs. Everyone calls it the Dial Room. Four friends meet there most afternoons, because it’s the one place in the building where nobody tells you to be quiet.

That Tuesday, a new boy called Sami climbed the ladder, sat down in the corner and said, to nobody in particular, “Nobody wants me in the play.”

It came out flat and heavy, like he’d been carrying it around all day. The four friends looked at each other. They knew that kind of sentence. Each of them had carried one.

Rheo went first, because switches were his thing.

“That’s a big sentence,” he said gently. “Can I check something? Is it a switch or a dial?”

Sami frowned. “What do you mean?”

Rheo put his hand on one of the big black knobs. “A switch has two settings. Everyone or nobody. Always or never. A dial has all the settings in between. ‘Nobody wants me’ sounds like a switch.”

“It feels true,” said Sami.

“It probably feels completely true,” said Rheo. “Switch thoughts always do. That’s why we check them.”

Tolly pulled out her silver clicker. “Let’s count. Who doesn’t want you in the play?”

Sami thought. “Max said the cast was full. And Leah rolled her eyes when I asked if I could help with props.”

Click. Click. “That’s two,” said Tolly. “Who else?”

Sami opened his mouth, then shut it. “I… don’t know. That’s all I can think of.”

“Okay. Has anyone said they do want you?”

Sami hesitated. “The director said I could come to rehearsal. And the costume lady asked my size.”

Tolly didn’t click for those. She just turned the counter round so he could see the little number. Two.

Ellery unwound his old tape measure along the desk. “Compared with what, though?” he asked. “When you joined football, what was the first week like?”

Sami almost smiled. “Awful. I didn’t know anyone. Nobody passed to me.”

“And by the end of term?”

“I was in the team photo.”

Ellery set a pencil down at one end of the ribbon. “Football, week one.” He set another at the other end. “Football, end of term.” Then he pointed at the space in between. “Where’s the theatre now?”

Sami looked for a long moment and put his finger down near the football-week-one end. “About here,” he admitted. “It’s my first week.”

Odelia slid the wooden bead on her strip of card all the way up to the top. “When you came in, you sounded this sure,” she said. “Like you’d bet anything that nobody wants you.”

“Yeah,” said Sami.

“So how sure are you now? Really?”

Sami took the card and looked at it. Two people had been unhelpful. Two people had been welcoming. It was only his first week. He slid the bead down, slowly, past the middle, and stopped about a third of the way up.

“Not very,” he said. “I think Max was just stressed. And maybe Leah was rolling her eyes at something else.”

“What would help you find out?” asked Odelia.

“Asking Leah if I can actually help with props. Properly. Not mumbling.”

Rheo turned the big black knob a little and the warm light in the booth glowed softer. “So,” he said. “Let’s turn it to the true setting. Not ‘nobody wants me in the play.’ What’s the true one?”

Sami thought about it. He wanted to get it right.

“Two people weren’t very welcoming,” he said, “in my first week, and I’m not sure why.”

The four friends nodded. That sentence was still a bit sad. Being new is hard, and two unwelcoming people is two too many. But it was a sentence you could do something with. You can’t fix nobody. You can ask Leah about props.

The next day Sami asked her properly, and Leah, who it turned out had been rolling her eyes at a broken glue gun, handed him a paintbrush. He helped paint the castle towers all afternoon.

The four friends never tell anyone their feeling is wrong. They just help it find its true size. One switch becomes a dial. One nobody becomes a number. One worst ever gets laid beside something real. One definitely becomes I’m not sure yet.

Then, Rheo says, you can see what to do next.