Julia begins collecting items for her scrapbook as play rehearsals continue. Shawn Barr teaches Julia and the other Munchkin cast about movement as an actor, and Julia uses these lessons to analyze her family members based on their movement style. Julia resonates with this body-focused way of interpreting people’s personalities, and she decides that her own movements imply that she doesn’t want to take up space or be noticed.

At the second rehearsal, Shawn Barr plays a short scene from The Wizard of Oz movie with the sound on mute and directs the cast to pay attention to the Munchkins’ movement. After the viewing, Shawn Barr asks the cast members to pair up with one another for a mirror exercise, also known as a shadow exercise. Julia, wanting to make new friends, does not pair up with her brother but instead asks Olive to be her partner. Olive and Julia mirror one another through a series of steps, and Julia admires how intentional and bold Olive is in her movements. Following this exercise, Shawn Barr begins teaching the show’s choreography, which Julia realizes comes much quicker to her because of the previous exercise. Julia is enraptured by the music and the choreography, ending rehearsal excited about the next day of practice.

The following week in rehearsal, Julia and the rest of the Munchkin cast learn their songs and the blocking for their positions on stage. Julia understands more of how play productions work, picking up theater vocabulary like, “Watch your back,” “flats,” and “marks” (57); she also feels more comfortable around Shawn Barr and the assistant director, Charisse. At the Saturday rehearsal, Shawn Barr is directing the cast to sing louder when he falls from the ladder he is standing on, landing hard on the floor. An ambulance arrives for Shawn Barr, and Julia picks up a paramedic’s sterile glove for her scrapbook. As everyone leaves rehearsal—cut short by Shawn Barr’s accident—Julia wonders about Olive, Quincy, and Larry’s ability to drive and what accommodations they might use.

At rehearsal the following Monday, Charisse, who is now directing the play in Shawn Barr’s absence, tells the cast that Shawn Barr has a broken coccyx (tailbone) and is in recovery. Julia notices several differences between Charisse’s and Shawn’s directing styles: Charisse doesn’t engage the cast in acting exercises, she doesn’t have the same piano or singing talent, she interrupts the performers, and she makes the cast practice songs from seats in the audience instead of on the stage. Shawn Barr has written for the cast, which Charisse reads aloud, but when Julia asks if she can have the note for her scrapbook, Charisse doesn’t give it to her. Instead, Larry steals the note from Charisse’s clipboard to impress Olive. Julia accepts the note, but when she puts it into her scrapbook—the “Book of the Life of Julia” (68)—she notices that all her entries have been about negative events. Julia wants others to see her as a “happy person,” so she resolves to create “a page that shows something smiley” (69).

Julia’s plan to create a positive page for her scrapbook leads her down the street to Mrs. Chang’s house to ask for flower cuttings. Mrs. Chang is an older woman, relatively new to the neighborhood, and Julia hasn’t ever officially met her. Mrs. Chang offers Julia an ice cream bar and begins to ask questions about her life. When Julia mentions the play, Mrs. Chang gets excited and volunteers to make costumes for the production. Mrs. Chang gives Julia a piece of paper with her phone number on it, but Julia decides not to share the number and instead glues it into the scrapbook alongside the ice cream bar stick. Later that evening, when Mrs. Chang shows up at Julia’s house, Julia hides in the bathroom while her mother gives Mrs. Chang a set of Julia’s clothes for measurements. Julia is outraged that her mother has done this, and she’s embarrassed that Mrs. Chang may come to the next rehearsal with a homemade costume.

The following day, Julia takes a walk carrying Ramon’s collar in her back pocket and singing songs from The Wizard of Oz to herself. She accidentally passes Mrs. Chang’s house, and before she can walk past, Mrs. Chang calls her inside to try on the Munchkin shoes. Surprised that Mrs. Chang finished the shoes so quickly and concerned about the quality, Julia reluctantly enters Mrs. Chang’s home. The house is not what Julia expected: The decor is colorful, there is a collection of elaborate animal puppets, and each room is intricately designed. When Mrs. Chang reveals two incredibly well-made Munchkin shoes that fit Julia perfectly, Julia is overwhelmed with excitement. Julia and Mrs. Chang dance and sing together until it’s time for Julia to return home.

In the morning before the next rehearsal, Julia goes back to Mrs. Chang’s house to pick up her new costume piece: a flowerpot hat. Mrs. Chang designed it based on the costumes from The Wizard of Oz movie. When Julia arrives at rehearsal, she sees that Shawn Barr is back, though on medication and stretched out instead of sitting upright. She presents her new shoes and hat to him, and he is impressed by the quality and the movie-inspired design. He praises Julia for her initiative, but Julia feels uncomfortable given that Mrs. Chang was responsible for the costumes. As a reward, Shawn Barr names Julia the lead Munchkin dancer. Julia, convinced of her own lack of talent in comparison to others, is immediately anxious about this decision.

The next day, Julia decides to quit the play to avoid being the lead Munchkin dancer. Instead of telling her parents or Mrs. Chang, Julia calls Olive to talk about her decision. Olive is taken aback and asks Julia to meet her for ice cream at a local shop, Dell Hoff’s. Julia notices that people are staring at Olive due to her size and steers them toward a table underneath a tree away from the front door. Olive tells Julia, “I don’t care if people look at me” (103), but agrees to sit where Julia leads. Julia expects Olive to try and talk her out of her decision to quit or to make a speech about being bold and brave, but instead, Olive just sits quietly with Julia while they eat their ice cream. As they are finishing up, Olive tells Julia that she will see her in rehearsal that afternoon. Julia interprets this statement and the ice cream meet-up as Olive believing in her and decides not to quit the play after all.

Two hours later, after Julia has memorialized her ice cream meet-up with Olive in her scrapbook using an olive jar label, her mother drives her and Randy to rehearsal. Crushing Julia’s hope that “lead dancer” may be a pointless title, Shawn Barr asks Julia to dance at the front of the room as an example to the other Munchkins. Olive notices Julia’s nervousness and joins her at the front of the room, telling her to “just follow [Olive’s] feet” (117). Just like in the mirror exercise in the earlier chapter, Julia can precisely copy Olive’s movements, and Shawn Barr praises her work. After dance practice, Shawn Barr announces additional parts; Randy, Larry, and Quincy all receive extra roles in the Munchkin cast, and Olive and Julia are added to the cast of flying monkeys. Moving forward, the featured performers will have more rehearsal time with Shawn Barr than the rest of the Munchkins. Julia decides that rather than get to know the other child featured performers, she will continue to spend time with Olive, Larry, and Quincy because “they have more to teach [her] about the world” (115).