by Kaye Umansky
‘Ho derry down derry fala lala la,’ he bleated. ‘With a merry down dingle and a—’
‘That’s a choir song. Don’t bother with that,’ cut in Mrs Axworthy. ‘Start with “Well, here I am, Robin Hood, hiding in the forest”.’
‘Well here I am Robin Hood hiding in the forest I wonder what I can eat tonight times are hard—’
‘Excuse me?’ I broke in.
James stopped bleating.
‘Yes?’ Mrs Axworthy sounded a bit weary.
‘Is the tree on stage at this point?’
‘Does it say so in the script?’
I consulted the script. It said: SHERWOOD FOREST. ENTER ROBIN.
‘Not exactly.’
‘Well, there you are, then.’
‘But I should be, surely? It’s a forest. I’m a tree.’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Axworthy. ‘I know you are.’
‘So I’m there, then?’
‘We’ll have to see. Most of the action takes place in the forest. There may not always be room on stage, not when all the Merry Men are there. We may have to make do with the painted backdrop at this point.’
So not only did I speak in rhyming couplets, I was second fiddle to a painted backdrop!
‘Can we get on?’ said Mrs Axworthy. ‘I’m sorry the stage directions are vague, but we can’t help that, I didn’t write them. The dinner bell will go shortly, I’d like to at least finish scene one. Carry on, James.’
James bleated on. There were an awful lot of lines in Robin’s first speech and we were bored into a stupor by the time Little John arrived on page two to challenge him to a duel. Well, I was. I didn’t think much of the lines Robin was given to say, but at least James could have tried moving his voice up and down now and then. I would have. I was dying to jump up, snatch the script out of his hand and put a bit of life into it.
But I couldn’t, because I was a tree.
Little Thomas as Little John was a bit better. At least you could hear what he said and he attempted to put in some expression. But it was an uphill task, given the material he was working with:
ROBIN: Challenge me to a duel would you? Oh ha ha ha.
LITTLE JOHN: I think you are afraid of this big stick. I will win, you may be sure of that.
ROBIN: Oh ha ha ha ha ha.
‘You’re meant to laugh there, James,’ said Mrs Axworthy. ‘You don’t just say ha ha ha. You’re teasing him, in a mocking, merry sort of way.’
She wouldn’t have had to tell me that. I knew exactly how the laugh should go. It should be accompanied by a twinkle and a slap of the thigh. Or even an athletic leap, if space would allow it.
‘Oh, right,’ bleated James. ‘Ha ha ha ha ha.’ It was an unconvincing laugh, like a sheep who’s just been told the world’s corniest joke.
It went on. On page three, the script said: THEY FIGHT
I imagined James and Little Thomas Kite fighting. James is the tallest boy in our school, with really skinny legs. Little Thomas is nine, but has golden locks and appears about six. It would look like a serious case of bullying.
‘We’ll skip that for now,’ said Mrs Axworthy. ‘Let’s move on to Marion’s entry, shall we? Charlotte, the top of page four.’
Charlotte began her bit and Wendy, Shanti and Fatima chimed in.
MARION: Ooh! Well, here we are in the dark forest. Let’s dance.
HANDMAIDEN 1: Ooh yes, let’s.
HANDMAIDEN 2: What fun.
HANDMAIDEN 3: We can dance around that tree.
‘That’d be me, I take it?’ I enquired.
‘I suppose it must be,’ agreed Mrs Axworthy.
‘I’ll just mark it in, then,’ I said. I took out a pencil and wrote TREE ONSTAGE in big letters in the margin.
And that was the sum total of my involvement that day. We never got near my couplets on page 16. Not that it mattered. It was clear that the tree was a ghastly part. There was nothing I could do with it. I would just go on stage, get danced around, maybe get used for a bit of archery practice, deliver a couple of pointless observations in rhyme and that would be it. At the curtain call, I would receive light, scattered applause. Mum and Dad would say I was great, of course, but nobody else would. Some end to my triumphant career as an actor at Eddington Primary. So much talent going to waste.
•
I walked home with Flora. She had a bag of popcorn.
‘How did the read through go?’ she asked. A bit of popcorn shot from her mouth and landed on my shoulder. ‘Sorry.’
‘No problem,’ I said, brushing it off.
‘Many lines to learn?’
I told her about my lines.
‘It’s all in rhyming cupcakes?’
‘Couplets.’
‘I know. I was being funny. Oh, well. You’ll just have to swish and sway a lot. Use body language, so people will notice you.’
‘I don’t have a body. I have a trunk.’
‘Twig language, then. Do you want me to help with your costume again? I could make you a bird’s nest or something. I’ve got a cuddly squirrel at home. We could stick it on one of your branches.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Don’t sound so fed up. I’m sure you’ll make a great tree. Hey, you could make it funny. I know some tree jokes. You can add some extra lines of your own.’
‘I’m not allowed. Mr Cunningham wrote the script. Mrs Axworthy says we’ve got to stick to his vision.’
‘Mr Cunningham?’ Flora sounded shocked. ‘I didn’t know he wrote plays.’
‘Well, he wrote this one.’
‘Why? I thought he was too busy buttering up Ofstead Inspectors.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
‘Is it any good?’
‘Well, put it like this...’ I said. And I went on to describe the 32 pages of turgid twaddle that was Our Leader’s vision of Robin Hood. ‘...and then everyone sings a song with a lot of ding dongs and they’re married and that’s the end.’
We walked on.
‘Heard about the two cannibals eating a clown?’ said Flora. ‘One says to the other, does this taste funny to you?’
I sniggered at that. Well, it was quite good.
That evening, the phone rang. I picked it up and said: ‘Who’s speaking, please?’
‘You are,’ said Flora, and rang off.
She can be a bit weird.
Chapter Three
Rehearsals began. Every day, at lunchtime. To be honest, I didn’t enjoy them. It wasn’t just that the play was no good and I was a tree. It was other stuff. Charlotte, for a start. Usually she’s nice to me in drama club. We often get paired for improvisation and we work well together. But now she didn’t seem interested in talking to me. She always sat next to James and Dillon and Little Thomas Kite and they tested each other on their lines. I knew my lines already, of course. Well, there was hardly a lot to learn.
Mrs Axworthy seemed a bit fed up too, as though her heart wasn’t in it.
I did an awful lot of standing around, which I suppose was good preparation for being a tree. Although real trees don’t have to endure watching a load of badly cast actors deliver badly written lines badly, which was all I seemed to do.
Things weren’t going well. The Merry Men were about as merry as a bunch of undertakers. They couldn’t raise a titter between them. Dillon’s Sheriff of Nottingham sounded as menacing as Father Christmas. Prince John was no better. Friar Tuck, a part written for comedy if ever there was one, was as flat as a pancake. It wasn’t really their fault. It was the script. The lines didn’t live. They didn’t flow. Some of the time they didn’t even make sense!
Even Charlotte was struggling with Maid Marion. Mr Cunningham had written her as a medieval fruitcake. He gave her a lot of silly squeals and a morbid desire to dance all the time. If I were Robin, I would have run a mile. Her handmaidens were the same. Still, at least they weren’t trees.
Until we started working in the hall, we had no idea of how much space we needed, so Mrs Axworth
y never knew whether I should be present in a scene or not. I just played it safe. Whenever there was a scene set in the forest, I obligingly stood up and stretched my arms. Occasionally, just out of boredom, I would swish a bit, but nobody took any notice because someone else was always talking and I was just a tree.
Finally, the great moment arrived when we got to my first speech. As you know, it comes just before the interval.
‘Right,’ said Mrs Axworthy, trying to sound bright and positive. ‘Tim’s big moment. The tree speaks. Go for it, Tim.’
‘Just a minute,’ I said. ‘Let me get in character. I need to think Tree.’
‘Just get on with it.’
‘So Robin and his merry men
As happy as can be
Now spend a night...’
I broke off. ‘Look,’ I said, pleadingly. ‘Look, do I have to say this?’
‘Don’t start,’ said Mrs Axworthy, clutching her head.
‘It’s just that nobody else has to speak in rhyming coup—’
‘I know! I know! But that’s how it’s written. Say the stupid words and don’t give me grief, all right?’
I said the stupid words. And I didn’t just rattle them off, though that’s all they deserved. I spoke them clearly and efficiently. I like Mrs Axworthy, even if she had made me a tree. The last thing I wanted to do was give her grief.
I decided then and there to deliver a workman-like performance and leave it at that. I wouldn’t let her down, but I wouldn’t bother with any more swishing or subtle dipping of branches off my own back. It was clearly not appreciated. Or even noticed.
•
Preparations for the play were going on elsewhere, of course. The school orchestra was tooting and banging and scraping away with Miss Joy on the piano. Well, not on the piano, obviously. I mean Miss Joy accompanied them.
And the choir was always practising in the hall. I heard them. There were a lot of riddle-me-rees and jilly-jolly-jingles. It was very old-fashioned sort of music, but then, of course, it was the Middle Ages, when rhythm hadn’t been invented.
The Leaf Dancers were learning their routine. They did a lot of fluttering, Flora said. I asked her if she liked fluttering and she said she’d rather not talk about it. She did say she wished they could do a bit of disco, which Mrs Axworthy somehow manages to work in every play, to liven things up. Not this one, though. In fact, there was hardly any action at all. One small fight in scene one, then nothing until the Fayre, when Robin wins the archery contest. The rest was talking about history and singing and the odd skippitty dance.
I asked Mrs Axworthy how she intended to stage the Fayre scene. Mr Cunningham hadn’t written anything helpful in the script. It just said: ARCHERY CONTEST. ROBIN WINS. Mrs Axworthy said she didn’t know yet, she’d have to come up with something. I mentioned magnets and elastic as possibilities. Or, maybe, a fake dartboard from a joke shop, if there is such a thing. She didn’t think school funds would run to that, but promised to consider the elastic. We had quite a nice little chat. I think I cheered her up. She seemed a bit stressed.
Mr Cunningham occasionally looked in on the rehearsals. When he did, things got worse than ever. People fell to pieces. They fluffed their lines and forgot everything they’d practised, like speaking up and not talking with your back to the audience. He never said anything. He just stood in the doorway, arms folded, listening and watching. Mrs Axworthy got in a tizzy, too. I know, because her neck went red. None of us liked it. We were always relieved when he went back to his office.
•
‘So have you thought about your costume?’ asked Flora. We were walking home. She was eating cheese and onion crisps. I was trying to stay out of accidental spitting range.
‘No,’ I said.
‘Come round to mine tonight. I’ve got some cardboard and paint and stuff. I think we’ll make a brown, painted cardboard tube for your trunk and droopy, green material to drape over your arms.’
‘Have you got droopy, green material, then?’
‘I’m a leaf, remember? You can have what’s left over from my costume.’
‘You’ve already made your costume?’
‘Mum did. She insisted.’
‘That was nice of her.’
‘Mmm.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Thanks. I’ll come after tea.’
We’re not good at things like costume making in our house. We’re not equipped. We don’t have things like pins or needles or glue. Kenny likes eating pins. He rolls in paint, too. Much better to go round to Flora’s. Her mum’s got a sewing machine. She makes a lot of Flora’s clothes. Actually, I have to say they’re not very nice clothes. They never seem to fit quite right. But you can’t go wrong with sewing up seams on branches, can you?
Anyway, it hardly mattered what I looked like.
I was a tree.
Chapter Four
‘This should work,’ said Flora. We were in the living room. It’s smaller than ours, with old-fashioned furniture. She was on her knees at my feet, pinning brown material around my legs. ‘It’ll give you more flexibility. You’ll be able to bend your trunk in the wind. And your feet are free to kick away marauding rabbits.’
She was right. The brown material was better. We had tried the painted, cardboard tube idea, but it kept tearing when I tried to walk.
‘Marauding rabbits?’ I said. ‘I didn’t know trees were threatened by marauding rabbits.’
‘Badgers, then. Squirrels. Whatever eats roots.’
‘Warthogs eat roots, I think,’ I said, although I didn’t really know.
‘Did they have warthogs in medieval times?’ asked Flora.
‘I think so. I know they had wolves.’
‘There you are, then. You’re safe from ravening wolves. Woe betide any root-eating wolf who comes sniffing around you.’
‘I’ll kick him with my flexible feet,’ I said. We were both giggling a bit.
‘Perhaps I need an umbrella, in case of medieval acid rain,’ I went on.
‘Let’s just hope there aren’t any stray dogs,’ said Flora.
We both rocked with laughter.
‘Yeah,’ I went on, spinning it out. ‘If any stray dog comes near my flexible foot, I’ll kick it right up the... Oh, hello, Mrs Ferguson — didn’t see you there.’
Flora’s mum had poked her head around the door. She walks with a stick. Something wrong with her leg, I don’t know what. Flora’s never said. She doesn’t have a dad. I think he died or something, when she was small.
‘Hello, Tim, how nice to see you. Would you like some lemonade and biscuits?’
‘Yes please, Mrs Ferguson,’ I said.
‘Isn’t it exciting?’ she said, giving a little shiver.
‘What?’ I said. I like lemonade and biscuits, but I don’t exactly get excited.
‘The play!’
‘Oh, right,’ I said. ‘That.’
I gave her a tired little smile, rolled my eyes a bit, and then waited. I expected her to go on to say how surprised and shocked she was to hear that I was merely a tree. I mean, she loyally turns out to all the school plays, even though Flora isn’t in them and she doesn’t have to. She knows my abilities in the acting department. She was one of the first to congratulate me on my God.
But she didn’t.
‘I can’t believe Flora’s in The Dance. I thought she’d be too shy. I didn’t know what to say when she told me she’d auditioned and got in. I’m so proud of her. Only two weeks to go. I’ll have to get my best hat out for that night all right.’
‘Right,’ I said, vaguely. ‘Yes, it’s great, isn’t it?’ I glanced down at Flora. She had gone a bit pink.
‘It’s not the dance,’ she said. ‘There are lots of dances. I’m in one, that’s all.’
‘Yes, darling, but you’re in it. That’s the main thing. I’m going to see you on stage! And I always love the dancing. I was a dancer once, did you know that, Tim? You wouldn’t know it to look at me now. But I think dancing makes a p
lay, don’t you? And this time I shall enjoy it even more because Flora’s taking part. Shall I get your costume to show to Tim?’
‘No, don’t bother,’ said Flora. ‘He’ll see it at the dress rehearsal.’
‘Oh, all right. I’ll just leave you to it, then.’ And, beaming, she withdrew.
‘That’s the trunk pinned,’ said Flora, standing up. ‘I’ll run it up later on the machine and paint a tree pattern on it. Do you think we should paint your face green? Or shall we make a mask?’
‘Paint,’ I said. ‘I don’t want my couplets to be muffled.’
‘What about some sort of hat? I’ve got an old, green swimming cap. We could stick some boughs on it.’
‘Made of what?’
Flora considered.
‘Wire, covered with crepe. What d’you think?’
‘Sounds good to me.’
I was happy to leave the decisions to her. She’s quite arty. She draws great cartoons. I’ve seen them. They’re mostly about ducks and an evil swan called Swan Hilda, who tries to take over the pond.
‘Do you want a bird’s nest? I can make one out of straw and sew it to your shoulder.’
‘Why not? Let’s live a little. All the best trees have shoulder nests.’
‘Grey, cuddly squirrel? Or is that going a bit far?’
‘A bit far, perhaps.’
‘What about acorns? You can be a nut tree. We could stick on some cut-out acorns.’
‘Acorns would be good. I’m nuts about acorns.’
‘And I’ve got a couple of stuffed doves in the Christmas decoration box. We could paint them to be wood pigeons.’
‘Bring ’em on!’ I roared. ‘Let’s get this tree decorated!’
Her enthusiasm was infectious. I might be a tree, but by golly, I could still look good.
We had quite a fun time. We rummaged through boxes in the attic and experimented with face paints. Flora found her book with tree jokes in it and we read them out. Most were awful, but a few weren’t bad. We cut material and glued stuff. When I left, at eight o’clock, the carpet was covered with bits of cotton and scraps of cloth and a big damp patch, where we’d spilled lemonade.