Stagefright

by Carole Wilkinson

  Hailie sat backstage holding a hot water bottle against her stomach and groaning. “I feel sick.”

  “This is it, Hailie, what you’ve been waiting for,” Velvet said unsympathetically.

  “Seriously,” Roula said, “this is your life every month till you’re ancient.”

  Hailie groaned again.

  Drago produced a small bottle.

  “Want some of this?”

  “What is it?”

  “Rakia. My grandma brews it from plums.”

  “I thought your breath smelled of alcohol!” Now Velvet knew why he’d been so confident in the first act.

  Hailie took a swig.

  Velvet opened her mouth to yell at them both, but before she could get any abuse out Taleb came up to her.

  “I want to talk to you, Velvet.”

  When she didn’t move, he took her by the hand and led her away from the others, out through the side door and onto the oval. Led her in fact to the very same spot where she’d thrown up in the rubbish bin five months earlier.

  Velvet felt weird being outside in her long dress and sleeves. It was a strange night – hot and still, but with occasional flashes of lightning.

  “Velvet …”

  “Yes?”

  “So …”

  “So what?”

  Silence.

  “You’re the one who dragged me out here.” Velvet’s heart was thudding again. “And I’m supposed to do the talking?”

  “You know.” Taleb stared at the orange freeway lights in the distance.

  “Maybe I do, maybe I don’t, but just for once I’d like you to say what you’ve got to say, and not just wait for me to say it for you.”

  Velvet’s outburst was followed by another silence while Taleb cleaned out his fingernails with a plectrum.

  The orange freeway lights reflected off the layer of low cloud that hung over the city like a ceiling. Even though the sun had set, Velvet could see everything in fine detail – the dandelions on the oval, the woodgrain on the bench, the pearl buttons on Taleb’s doublet. It was like they were in a scene from a futuristic movie.

  Taleb looked at Velvet. He hadn’t put his glasses back on after the first act. His brown eyes were dangerous without the glasses in front of them. What remained of Velvet’s anger drifted up to join the clouds. She reached out, grabbed Taleb’s doublet and pulled him towards her.

  She kissed him on the mouth.

  He slid his arms under her voluminous sleeves and around her.

  Ah, well, Velvet thought, as his tongue gently explored her mouth, maybe some people don’t need words.

  The audience members were all in their seats before Act II started. In contrast to his previous reluctance, Mr MacDonald decided to milk his death scene and staggered around the stage before dying to loud applause. They’d picked the smallest Year 7 boys they could find to be the little princes, and Miss Ryan had made sure they turned up. They came on wearing green tights and embroidered vests (borrowed from the Indian shop where Hailie’s mum worked) and looked petrified, which was fine as they were about to be murdered. Velvet was watching from the wings. The routine with Richard admiring the crown was going well.

  “Oh, no!” Velvet grabbed Taleb’s sleeve.

  “What now?”

  She was pointing to the back of the hall, but Taleb couldn’t see what was bothering her.

  “It’s Slinky.”

  Mr MacDonald had overheard. “It can’t be.”

  “It is.”

  Mr Kislinski was standing at the back of the hall with his arms folded. Everyone panicked for a moment, but he didn’t do anything to stop the performance. Peter’s fans in the audience cheered when Buckingham pledged his loyalty to Richard, and then gasped in horror when he came back on stage with Hastings’s head to prove it.

  Then things started to get out of hand. Drago went into full overacting mode while Peter was convincing a crowd (the audience) that Richard should be king. He acted out exaggerated modesty and reluctance in the background.

  When Drago left the stage, Mei was waiting in the wings with a jug of water, which she threw over him to sober him up. The sequence for the coronation song kept skipping and Hailie decided to do a solo dance and fell off the stage. Two parents picked her up and chairlifted her out of the hall with Miss Ryan running behind them.

  Velvet was convinced that the show was about to grind to a halt. But Taleb got the Yamaha working again and they all (minus Hailie) sang the coronation song harmonies and did their choreographed movements around the stage. A rather damp King Richard re-entered and finally got to wear the crown.

  Things settled down again in the next scene. Hailie came back. Miss Ryan told them her ankle was sprained, not broken. She joined the other girls on stage for the queens’ song, and was only slightly hampered by the moon boot on her left foot. The audience clapped along, cheered and wolf-whistled. Lady Anne announced she wasn’t well and died quite gracefully. Buckingham, who hadn’t got his promised earldom and who was regretting helping Richard become king, played a sad flute melody. Everyone booed when Drago came back on and ordered Buckingham to be beheaded.

  Paranoid King Richard sat worrying in his tent. Then came the scene with the ghosts, which Sofia somehow managed to make look genuinely spooky. Jesus had decided to make the most of his muscles and oil up his arms with some salad dressing he’d found in the staffroom fridge. The sword fight looked exciting with strobe lighting. Drago couldn’t resist a final flourish by pretending that Jesus had stabbed him in the balls, staggering around holding his genitals and taking a full two minutes to die. Jesus found the crown behind a tree, put it on and declared himself the King of England. Drago crawled off the stage to put on his mauve ghost outfit (Velvet hadn’t been able to find another white sheet) and came back to join the rest of the ghosts on stage. Velvet and Taleb played the backing music for the finale which, considering they’d only rehearsed it three times, sounded pretty good. Then they sang the finale song together.

  Taleb stepped forwards and his soaring guitar solo filled the hall. He caught Velvet’s eye and she flicked a switch on the Yamaha and joined him with an improvised organ solo, complete with the famous chords from Phantom of the Opera. Taleb smiled at her. On stage. In front of practically the whole school.

  They all sang the chorus again.

  “Live, love, dream, strive.

  Be proud of who you are.

  Be brave, be true, be strong, be you.

  Be yourself and you will star.”

  Velvet wasn’t the only cast member with tears in her eyes.

  Everyone in the audience was on their feet clapping and cheering. Without anyone saying a word, the members of Stagefright all held hands. Even Drago. He grabbed Jesus’s hand and they all bowed together as they took in the applause and the cheers and Eddy yelling “Drago, you loser”. They did three curtain calls.

  When they had taken off their costumes (except for Drago who refused to be parted from his doublet), parents and friends gathered round congratulating everybody. With all the excitement, they’d forgotten that the main reason for the performance was to raise the money they had to pay back to the school. Mrs Anagnostopoulos counted up the takings. They’d made over five hundred dollars.

  Velvet and Taleb held hands. Even when Velvet’s St Theresa friends came to congratulate her. Even when Taleb introduced Velvet to his parents.

  Hailie’s mum had sent out for pizza and she went around handing it out to everyone.

  “Come on, Dimi,” she said to Roula’s uncle. “No time to be a sourpuss. We should be proud of these kids, all of them. They did a great job, didn’t they Maria?”

  Drago’s grandma nodded. Within a few minutes, Hailie’s mum had them both laughing and talking to each other.

  “The music was wonderful, Taleb,” said Velvet’s mum. “Just like Andrew Lloyd Webber.”

  Taleb smiled graciously. Velvet’s father offered to lend him his Bon Jovi CDs.

  They nominated
Drago to hand over the $150 to the principal. With everybody watching, Mr Kislinski was forced to shake Drago’s hand. Then he had to say a few words himself and he announced rather bitterly that Mei’s parents, who were there nodding and smiling as always, had been so impressed with the play that they’d decided to sponsor a new music and drama program instead of the electronic scoreboard. It was to be called the Golden Pigeon Electrical Products Arts Program after Mr Qian’s company. Mr Kislinski smiled grimly and declined the offer of the last slice of capricciosa. Mr MacDonald did a little dance. He was the music teacher again.

  Hailie had mistaken Peter’s concern for her wellbeing for romantic interest and clung to his arm like she owned him. Her mum was busy flirting with Mr Axiotis.

  Taleb told Eddy he was leaving Toxic Shock to start a jazz trio. Eddy asked Mei if she would be the band’s singer, and she said yes. The greasy singer sulked until they decided he could be the new guitarist, even though he didn’t own a guitar yet.

  After Slinky had slunk off and all the parents and admirers had left, Stagefright gathered by the Hawker Hardware swimming pool. Predictably, everybody got thrown in, except for Hailie who was spared because of her delicate condition. They all signed each other’s programs. Velvet sat between Taleb’s knees on the steps while they dried off and finished the pizza. Sometimes it seemed as if it had been the longest night of her life, then a few minutes later it seemed like it had all happened in a flash.

  Mr MacDonald and Miss Ryan went to make coffee. Drago’s crown ended up at the bottom of the pool and Jesus stripped down to his undies to dive for it.

  “Where’s Peter?” asked Hailie, looking around for the one missing member of Stagefright.

  “He left already.”

  “Without saying goodbye?”

  Hailie sulked. Peter’s sexuality was as big a mystery as it had ever been.

  Velvet was thinking that Roula had gone home as well, until she appeared, beaming. “I finally found someone who’s my type!”

  She was holding hands with Sofia Ritano.

  “You did an amazing job with the lights and the sound, Sofia,” Velvet said, and she meant it.

  Sofia shrugged. “I work for a sound equipment place on weekends. I want to be a sound engineer when I leave school.”

  They all had coffee and cake and turned their thoughts to the future.

  “We could do another production next year,” Hailie said.

  “Yeah,” Roula said. “We’ve already got over three hundred bucks for costumes.”

  “What will we do?”

  “Something with more songs,” Taleb suggested. “A big musical.”

  “We should write our own story,” Hailie said.

  “But half of us won’t be here. Drago’s expelled, this is Jesus’s last year and Velvet’s going to Endeavour.”

  The mood changed as they realised they couldn’t recreate the same experience, and that next year would be different.

  “Maybe I’ll fail and have to repeat Year 12,” Jesus said hopefully.

  Velvet thought it was entirely possible, as he had sat his Year 12 exams among all the rehearsal and performance mayhem.

  “I’ll get my social worker to grovel to Slinky.” Drago draped an arm over Mei’s shoulder. “And my foster mother to bawl in his office. I’ll be back.”

  They all looked at Velvet.

  “What about you, Corduroy?” Drago asked.

  “Oh, I decided to stay anyway. Endeavour is too far away. I’d have to catch two trams and a bus to get there.”

  Drago winked at Taleb. “Very sensible.”

  At midnight parents came back to collect the performers. They all hugged each other, not just the girls, even though they’d all be back at school the next day. Taleb kissed Velvet goodnight in front of everybody, including her parents.

  “I hope you haven’t given up your plans to go to university, darling,” Velvet’s mother said.

  “Don’t worry, Mum, I’m not going to fail. I finished most of my assignments during the holidays. I’ve just got a Mandarin test, and Miss Ryan’s given me an extension for my humanities assignment.”

  Miss Ryan had also told them they would be getting grades on their reports for cultural studies, instead of the “pass” that students had got in previous years. She said they would all get As – even Drago.

  As they drove out of the car park, the school looked better in the dark, with the orange streetlights reflecting in the windows. Taleb rode past them on his bike with his guitar slung across his back. Velvet clutched her autographed program and the plectrum he had given her for luck. It hadn’t been such a bad year after all.

  CAROLE WILKINSON is the author of the internationally bestselling and award-winning Dragonkeeper series as well as over thirty other much-loved books. Carole embarked on her writing career at the age of 40, happily leaving behind her previous employment as a laboratory technician in jobs involving blood and brains. She has been making up for lost time ever since. Carole is married and has a daughter, and she lives in inner-city Melbourne.

  Carole’s website is carolewilkinson.com.au

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Not many authors get the chance to rewrite their very first novel. I did with this book.

  It was Maryann Ballantyne who gave me my “big break” by commissioning Stagefright for the Rave series, published for the educational market back in 1996.

  Fast forward fifteen years to 2011 and Maryann, now my publisher, was cleaning out her office and came across a copy of the original Stagefright and reread it. “I think you should update it, Carole,” she said, the next time she saw me.

  I didn’t need asking twice. And I had a lot of fun revisiting Yarrabank High and its least favourite students.

  So firstly, I want to thank Maryann for starting my writing career, for commissioning both editions of this book, and for everything in between.

  My daughter Lili hasn’t quite forgiven me for stealing this story idea from her teenage life (how was I to know she’d end up being a YA author?). Nevertheless, she did read an early draft and made many insightful comments. I’d also like to thank Anna-Grace Hopkins for sharing her vast knowledge of musical theatre with me, and Miles Kelly for helping me out with slang.

  I should probably also thank Miss Ellis, my fourth-year high-school English teacher. She was fresh out of teachers college and the boys gave her hell, but she managed to make Shakespeare’s Richard the Third stick in my mind.

  When I discovered that Mary Verney had seen the recent production of Richard the Third starring Kevin Spacey (twice), I knew I was in good hands. Thanks to Mary for her editing skills and also to Amy Daoud for her lovely design.

  This edition first published in 2013

  by Black Dog Books

  an imprint of Walker Books Australia Pty Ltd

  Locked Bag 22, Newtown

  NSW 2042 Australia

  www.walkerbooks.com.au

  First published in 1996 by Addison Wesley Longman Australia Pty Ltd

  This ebook edition published in 2013

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Text © 1996, 2013 Carole Wilkinson

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

  Wilkinson, Carole, 1950–

  Stagefright [electronic resource] / Carole Wilkinson.

  2nd ed.

  For young adults.

  A823.3

  ISBN: 978-1-922179-47-0 (ePub)

  ISBN: 978-1-922179-48-7 (e-PDF)

  ISBN: 978-1-922179-49-4 (.PRC)

  Cover image © andrea michele piacquadio/Shutterstock.com

  TO JOHN AND LILI

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