Finally

In the morning, the swelling in Rory’s face has gone down, but Sawyer still refuses to look at her. She puts on her glasses and the sunglasses on over these. At school, she almost does not recognize Annabelle, who is wearing nondescript clothing and has dyed her hair brown, hoping to blend in at the audition for extras.

Rory is in a bathroom stall when Madison, Jake Harrison’s girlfriend, comes in to make a private phone call. Not realizing that she is being overheard, Madison makes disparaging remarks about Willow Falls and Jake. Kira enters and accidentally bumps into Madison. Kira’s scrapbook falls to the floor. Madison, instantly recognizing that it is full of photos of Jake, speaks harshly to Kira. Rory leaves her stall, scoops up the scrapbook, and returns it to Kira, who runs out of the bathroom.

After school, Rory, Annabelle, and Sari head for the auditions. They are thrilled when Jake and Madison introduce themselves to the potential extras. Most of the students are turned away—including Sari, who is secretly relieved to be cut, because she has bad stage fright. Jake Harrison watches the process, and Rory’s heart pounds at being so near to him. Brenda, the Assistant Director doing the casting, questions Rory about her swollen face. Annabelle jumps in to assure the woman that Rory’s face will return to normal very soon.

Rory and Annabelle are overjoyed when they get chosen to be extras. Rory thinks Jake Harrison gives her a thumbs-up sign. Brenda explains to the group that extras will be on call as long as the movie is filming at their school; if they miss one shooting session, they will be replaced. Their first day will be Wednesday, and the scene will be a soccer game. Rory and Annabelle agree that this means finally learning to shave their legs.

Not knowing the best way to remove their leg hair, Rory and Annabelle buy a wide variety of products. Because Rory is saving to buy Kyle R., Annabelle chips in twice as much, and Rory is touched by her generosity. When Annabelle must return home right away for a dinner party, she believes Rory will be able to figure out hair-removal on her own.

Rory is too embarrassed to ask her mother for help. She gives shaving a try. This results in a bloody gash on one of her legs. Panicking at the blood, she tries to reach for a towel, but slips in shaving cream and falls. She calls Annabelle, who asks whether she looked at the instructions on the can of shaving cream. Rory admits that she did not. Annabelle consults the first-aid portion of the babysitting book from the class at the community center and advises Rory to clean the cut, apply pressure to it, and elevate her leg.

Rory uses eight Band-Aids to stop the bleeding: regular ones and Sawyer’s Band-Aids, which are covered with cartoon figures. She hopes that using the wax will be easier than shaving. This time, she reads the directions carefully—but ripping the wax from her leg is unbearably painful. When blisters appear on her leg, she calls for her mother.

Her mother bandages her blistered leg with some ointment and gauze, and Rory hobbles back to her room. Annabelle texts that she used some hair-removal cream and her legs are now smooth and hair-free. Rory considers getting her teddy bear, Throckmorton, back out of the box in her closet, but she decides that 12 is too old to be seeking comfort from a stuffed animal.

When Rory gets to school on Wednesday, she is still walking with difficulty. As she and Annabelle are talking about the soccer scene, Jake Harrison walks up to them. He tells Rory that her face looks much better today and that he sympathizes, because he had an allergic reaction to a bee sting on his face the previous summer. Rory is so excited at the attention from Jake that she cannot speak. Annabelle kicks her to get her to talk, forgetting about Rory’s battered and bandaged legs. Rory screeches with pain, and Jake asks her what happened to her legs. She tells him it is an old war wound, and he laughs and says he will see her later.

At lunch that day, Annabelle explains that Sari has secured a job working in the movie’s makeup trailer. One of the hair and makeup people was impressed by Sari’s knowledge and offered her a job as an assistant. Later, Sari tells Rory that she spent lunch in the makeup trailer, and that the aestheticians were gossiping about Madison and do not seem to like her.

After school, Rory changes into shorts and heads for the soccer field. Her legs still look shockingly bad, and she is self-conscious about them. She stands at the back of the group of extras, and Annabelle does her best to shield Rory’s legs from view by moving in front of her whenever she can. When filming begins, the extras do jumping jacks and other warmup exercises in the background of the scene. To her horror, Rory realizes that blood is leaking from underneath her many Band-Aids. During a break in filming, Brenda sees the blood. Thinking quickly, Brenda creates a background vignette in which Rory is sitting on the sidelines being tended to by a doctor after a supposed soccer injury. Rory is delighted because she is closer to the main actors now.

When the scene wraps, Kira—also an extra—trips on her way off the field, drawing Jake and Madison’s attention. Jake asks how Rory’s legs are doing, which makes Madison irritated. Then, Madison spots Kira and begins to tell Jake about the scrapbook. Rory quickly interrupts, telling Jake that her legs look worse than they feel. Madison glares at Rory.

As soon as she gets home, Rory excitedly tells her parents all about the experience of being an extra. They are acting strangely, as if they are trying not to smile, and she hears some strange banging and scraping sounds. Rory goes to bed early that night—but she awakens to see two red eyes staring at her from across her room and lets out a blood-curdling scream.