Stagefright (21 page)

“And we’re only doing the one performance,” Jesus added.

“It’s not nerves,” Roula said. “It’s more like …”

Velvet knew just what she meant. “Dread.”

They all agreed.

Taleb had flatly refused to be Buckingham at first. But there was no other option.

“I wish I was somewhere else,” Velvet said. “In a double Mandarin class, doing detention. Anywhere but here.”

“When are the students coming in?” Hailie asked.

“They’re not,” Mr MacDonald said.

“What do you mean?” Velvet said.

“Slinky rearranged the program. All students that aren’t taking part in the track and field contest have to stay and watch.”

It took a few moments to sink in.

“So this is our audience?” Velvet didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

“He did that on purpose,” Peter said bitterly.

Mr MacDonald nodded. “You still have a performance to do.”

The band took up their positions on the stage. Velvet and Peter were the only ones in costume. Taleb wanted to leave it till the last moment to put on his doublet. He was wearing a black Korn T-shirt, Jesus was just wearing the singlet that he wore under his armour, and Roula and Hailie had ordinary clothes on because they didn’t have to come on till after the interval and had plenty of time to change.

The hall was usually dark and dingy, but it was a sunny day and shafts of afternoon sunlight streamed through the high windows. Velvet felt really stupid sitting there in broad daylight in her dyed op-shop dress with the tablecloth sleeves in front of a keyboard balanced on an ironing board. Not that it mattered. No one was looking at the stage anyway. That wasn’t quite true. A Chinese couple was selecting seats in the middle of the front row. Mei was waving to them from the wings on the other side of the stage.

Taleb waited for a minute or two, as if he were hoping an earthquake or a hurricane would come and put them out of their misery. Then he counted them in. They fumbled through the overture and Hailie only made three mistakes. Velvet dropped her clarinet and missed the first three bars of the wind section. It wasn’t their best performance, but it was passable. Mr and Mrs Qian applauded. Everyone else continued to chat and scoff scones.

Peter crept onto the stage. Drago’s doublet was too short and too wide for him. It looked like he was wearing a bolero. He walked back and forth, trying unsuccessfully to look evil for a full minute. Velvet was sure he’d lost his nerve.

“You can do it, Peter,” she whispered.

He took a deep breath, focused on the two members of his audience and said his first lines. Then the band started up again and Taleb played the introduction to the soliloquy song. Peter sang it in a whispery voice that didn’t fit the words or the rap rhythm at all. He paused after the song as they’d rehearsed, but no one applauded. Then he had to do the prophecy scene. Taleb was as nervous as Peter. Mr and Mrs Qian were watching intently as if they understood every word.

Mr Kislinski came into the hall just as Clarence was being arrested. Mr MacDonald was supposed to be directing, but when he saw the principal, he got flustered and mixed up the pages of his script. He told Mei to go on before they’d done Lady Anne’s scene.

Mei launched into her song. She was the only one whose voice drowned out the chatter and the clatter of teacups. Mr Kislinski froze with a scone held a few centimetres from his mouth. Mei didn’t realise that the principal was watching her; she continued to catapult her words to the back of the hall. Mr Kislinski put down his cup of tea, marched towards the front of the hall and strode up the steps onto the stage. He waved his arms at the band to make them stop. Mei sang on defiantly. At the end of the song, the rest of the cast waited for Mr Kislinski to stop the play, but Mr and Mrs Qian were smiling and applauding.

“They think it’s part of the show,” Mr MacDonald said. “Velvet, do your scene.”

“But it’s out of order.”

“Who’s going to know? Quick.”

Velvet rushed onto the stage and sang Lady Anne’s song. She didn’t even falter when there was a PA announcement saying Mr Kislinski was needed out on the oval to judge the track and field finals. The principal left the stage.

In daylight, it didn’t feel like a performance at all and the tackiness of their makeshift props and costumes was revealed for all to see. In the bright sunlight, Roula’s seaweedy streamers of fabric were hardly visible, and Mr MacDonald forgot to lower the bloodstained cardboard angel. The songs were lifeless, the acting dull. There was no spark, no magic. But it didn’t really matter, because hardly anyone was listening.

All Velvet’s lectures about pausing for dramatic effect went out the window, and they rattled through Act I in twenty minutes. The little princes hadn’t turned up, and the scones had run out, so the rest of the prospective parents left to watch the track and field finals.

“There’s no point in going on,” Taleb said.

“Yeah,” Jesus said. “Let’s go home.”

Velvet looked over at Mr MacDonald, who was sitting in the wings with his head in his hands.

“Mei’s parents are still here,” Velvet said. “Remember what Slinky said? If they aren’t happy, and they don’t donate money for the electronic scoreboard, Mr Mac could lose his job.”

“But I don’t know Buckingham’s lines.”

“Okay. Let’s just do the songs.”

Everyone agreed.

“And the battle scene,” Jesus insisted.

Mr MacDonald wouldn’t play his part, and they had to use a bundle of rags with the crown perched on top for the king. The coronation song sounded more like a funeral march, the queens were too nervous to do their dance steps, and the ghosts looked about as spooky as a Grade 3 choir.

The battle scene finally came. Taleb had only played the first two chords of the battle music, when Jesus knocked Peter’s sword out of his hand with his first blow. Mr Kislinski returned in time to see Peter die with a sense of great relief. He lay on the stage and Jesus looked around wondering what he should do next. Taleb cut the battle music short. The curtains wouldn’t close, there were no lights to fade, and no one applauded. Peter got up and the two of them left the stage.

Mr and Mrs Qian realised the play had finished and clapped enthusiastically. They went over to shake Mr Kislinski’s hand. He smiled grimly at them, and went backstage.

“What is the meaning of this, MacDonald? I asked for a Shakespeare play, not a pop concert!” He wasn’t waiting for answers. “How dare you use school funds for this sort of thing? In fact, you couldn’t have used all that money on such a travesty. I want it repaid. Every cent of it.”

Mr Kislinski stormed out. The bell rang and the rest of the school went home. The members of Stagefright sat miserably on the edge of the stage and in the front row of seats. Mr MacDonald plinked discordantly on the Yamaha DX7.

Taleb unbuttoned his doublet. “That’s it then.”

“Yep,” Peter said.

“I can’t believe we spent all year working our guts out for that,” Hailie said. “All that effort for nothing.”

“Less than nothing,” Jesus said. “We owe the school a hundred and fifty dollars.”

“That’s nearly twenty bucks each.”

“I’m not paying twenty bucks,” Roula said. “Drago should pay it all. He lost it.”

“Where’s he going to get that much money?” Velvet said.

“He can earn it,” Taleb snarled. “Get a newspaper round or a night-fill job in a supermarket.”

“Wait till I get my hands on him,” Jesus said.

Jesus was about to storm off and find Drago, when Velvet had another of her ideas.

“I know how we can earn the money.”

“Not another cake stall.”

“No.”

“What then? What brilliant plan have you got this time?”

“We can put on another performance. Only this time, we sell tickets.”

“No one came when it was free,” Hailie said. “Why would anybody pay to see it?”

“The only people in the school were parents who want to send their kids here next year. They didn’t know us. They weren’t interested.”

“My parents like,” Mei said. “They watch the whole show.”

“Yeah, but they’re loopy.”

“They just wanted to see Mei.”

“Corduroy’s right, as usual,” said a voice from the side door.

Everyone turned round.

Mr MacDonald and Taleb managed to restrain Jesus from leaping off the stage at Drago.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m not much good at maths,” Drago said, “but even I can work out that if we charge three dollars a head, we only need to sell fifty tickets.”

Hailie wasn’t convinced. “So we get maybe a dozen parents, if we’re lucky.”

“None of the other kids were allowed to come and watch,” Velvet said. “They all had to be out on the oval breaking world records, or in the gym doing double backflips. I reckon a lot of the other kids would come.”

“Dream on, Velvet. You don’t really think anyone would come after school hours.”

“My old soccer team would come,” Jesus said.

“All the girls in our class wanted to see it when I told them Peter would be wearing tights,” Hailie said.

“I’m not wearing tights!”

“I lied.”

“The rest of Toxic Shock will come so they can slag off at me afterwards.”

“You mean you’re going along with this, Taleb?”

“Why not?”

“The play sucked, by the way,” Drago said.

“You saw it?” Velvet said.

“Most of it.”

“We’d have to be a bunch of masochists to want to go through that again,” Peter said.

“There’ll be one big difference in the next show,” Drago said.

“What’s that?”

“I’ll be in it.”

“But you’re not allowed in the school grounds.”

“This performance will be at night.”

“So when will it be?”

“It’ll have to be soon. Half the school breaks up the week after next.”

“But what about Slinky?”

No one had noticed that Miss Ryan had come into the hall. “The principal will be away all next week. He’s coach of the rowing team and there’s a competition in Nagambie. Then he’s got a principals’ conference the following Monday and Tuesday.”

They all stared at Miss Ryan. Was she really suggesting they deceive the principal?

“I’ll be acting deputy principal while he’s away. I can sign off on permission to hold the performance. We can have the concert on the Tuesday night.”

“Okay. We’ll charge five bucks for adults, three for kids,” Peter said.

“And this time we’ll try harder,” Taleb said.

Velvet knew that Taleb didn’t care about the money that was owed. He just wanted another chance to make the musical better. So did she.

“We’ll need a poster to advertise it,” Mr MacDonald said.

“Something with a really eye-catching graphic,” Velvet said. “Can you do that, Roula?”

“Sure.”

“We’ve got just over a week.”

The members of Stagefright gathered around, admiring the poster. It featured a bloodstained sword sticking up out of the ground with a crown hanging on the hilt. Taleb’s dad had printed fifty of them.

“It’s ace, Roula,” Jesus said.

Peter read out what was written on the bottom. “‘Encore Performance, by Popular Demand.’ Is it okay to lie on posters?”

“It’s essential,” Velvet said.

They were all wearing purple T-shirts with Roula’s design on the front and
Stagefright Presents: Richard the Third
on the back with the date and the time.

“Why did they have to be purple?”

“Dad’s got a stack of them from an order that fell through,” Taleb said.

Miss Ryan had given them permission to stick up the posters around the school and to wear the T-shirts over their uniforms. Even Taleb was wearing one. Peter had paid another visit to Velvet’s mum and Mrs Anagnostopoulos, and they had agreed to serve refreshments during interval.

Taleb didn’t mind if the acting was terrible, but he was nervous about the music. His reputation depended on it.

“The band needs more practice,” he said. “Every lunchtime.”

They all groaned. Except Velvet. “And rehearsal after school, so Drago can come,” she added.

Actually, Drago was the least of Velvet’s worries. He knew all his lines and he only had one song. It was the others who needed to work on their performances. She wanted it to be as good as possible. Her blabbermouth mother had invited half her family. Her Aunt Evelyn, various cousins and her grandmother were all coming to the performance.

Velvet was punctual as always, only stopping at her locker to get her sandwiches on the way to the practice room. Taleb was there before her though. He looked up when she came into the room, but went back to tuning his guitar without saying anything. Velvet didn’t speak either. She took the cover off the Yamaha and plugged it in.

When Jesus arrived, Velvet was dusting the keys of the electric piano and Taleb was tidying up the spare strings and plectrums that he kept in his guitar case. Jesus set up his cymbals, drum, bells and shakers.

“Come on, you guys. You have to speak to each other. You can’t play music together and not talk.”

“Who says we’re not talking?”