This was the longer version of the improv scene between Em and Dev in Dramatically Ever After, which was cut for timing. I hope you enjoy reading a little bit more about the adventures of "Meangirl and Llamaman!"

              “Ready?” Mr. Landry asked and, taking a deep breath, I nodded and looked over at Dev. He’d just finished shaking himself out, loosening up. “Good. Remember, whenever you hear me say ‘save me,’ you switch to the superhero character and when you hear ‘coast is clear,’ you switch to the secret identity. I want you to try to make the two personas as different as you can while still signaling that they’re the same person.”

              “Got it,” Dev said, a wide, goofy grin spreading across his lips, proof that my best friend’s dork of a boyfriend had already come up with something completely ridiculous.

              “Okay. Your secret identities meet in a coffee shop for a date. And… go.”

              Dev mimed opening a door and pretended to look around the “coffee shop” before striding towards me in a posture that reminded me of Mike Lyons, the school quarterback. “Hey, I’m Mike. Are you…?”

              I shrunk into myself, pushing up a pair of imaginary glasses, and gave off my most nervous-sounding giggle as I tentatively stuck out my hand. “Violet. H-hi.” I rubbed the toe of my shoe into the ground and added, without actually looking up at him. “Thanks for meeting up with me.”

              “Yeah, whatever, this place looks cool. I just got off practice and I’m starving. How about we—“

              “Save me!” Mr. Landry called out in an awful falsetto, and I let out a snicker before running behind a pretend something, then ran back to face Dev, straightening my spine and tossing back my hair. “Ugh. Fine, Meangirl is here.” I pulled an imaginary nail file out of my pocket and started miming filing my nails. “What is it now?”

              “Dude, I think it’s a giant robot attacking Lambertfield,” Dev said, pointing towards the window.

              “Seriously? I just got my hair done.” I waved a distracted hand at him. “Just get down or what-ever so you don’t get crushed, okay?” Before Dev could say something else, I cupped my hands around my mouth and yelled, “Hey, ugly. Robots are so 2000. My grandmom’s walker is higher tech than you. Go rust or whatever stupid metal things do.” I didn’t put on a superhero posture, instead crossing my arms and, with a roll of my eyes, pretended to throw my file in the direction of the “robot.” I shook my head and looked over at Dev, who was pretending to hide under a table, miming holding an imaginary baseball bat. “Is it gone?”

              “Coast is clear.”

              Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kris propping himself up stage right on the apron, mid-flirt with Maya, our soundboard operator. He was looking straight into her eyes and she talked, and quirked one of those practiced crooked smiles lots of girls fell for. The boy really needed to wait for Matt outside of our practices or Matt needed to get another ride. I threw in another eye roll just for him. “Gotta go. A mani-pedi is calling. And this place smells awful.” I pretended to duck behind the same imaginary whatever as before, then timidly tiptoed out as my civilian character. “Is-is that robot thing gone?”

              Dev pretended to throw whatever he had in his hands over his shoulder, then dusted his hands together like he’d just finished a hard job. “You totally missed it. It was epic. I even broke a chair leg off to—”

              “Save me!”

              Dev pretended to spin in place really fast. Apparently, Dev’s superhero transformation involved whirlwind powers. “Llamaman is here to save you, fair citizen!” He yelled out, following it with something I guessed was supposed to be a llama sound. I had to fight to keep a look of abject terror on my face at the prospect of facing a supervillian instead of dissolving into giggles like the rest of the people on stage.

              “I don’t want to die, Llamaman,” I wailed, and curled myself into a pillbug-style little ball on the ground. Dev gave off another llama-call and my sides hurt as I silently burst into laughter, shoving my face into my knees so no one else could see. Added bonus: my shaking would look like I was trembling in fear.

              “You are safe with Llamaman,” he said, then a sound just like my grandfather trying to hock up spit filled the air and Dev’s next words sounded like he had something in his mouth. “Llamaman Spit Attack!”

              “Dev, no, no--the coast is clear,” Mr. Landry yelled out.