by Lyn Gardner
Despite her fury, Olivia realised that there was something in Cosi’s face and tone of voice that made her believe what she was saying. When she thought about it, there had been numerous times when Cosi had told her that she couldn’t play Wendy in front of an audience, but like everyone else she hadn’t really heard. Maybe she had let her friend down.
She still felt angry with Cosi, particularly for what she had done to Jack, but she also realised that Cosi was a victim of her own powerlessness. She remembered how sad and lonely and angry she had been when she felt that she and Eel had been dumped at the Swan by Jack. She hadn’t always behaved well then, and she hadn’t been much better last term when she had been upset with Tom and Georgia because they’d chosen to be in The Sound of Music rather than Romeo and Juliet on the High Wire. Maybe Cosi felt just as she had then, as if everything that happened to her was out of her control. Cosi could speak up for the trees and the polar bears, but she couldn’t get her own voice heard. Maybe it was possible to be two people at the same time: the selfless Cosi who stood up for injustice and the planet and the cowardly Cosi who had cut the rope.
Cosi was lying very still like a statue, and had gone very pale. Except that unlike a statue Cosi’s eyes were dark with fear and her forehead was pricked with sweat. In a flash, Olivia realised that Cosi reminded her of someone: after his accident, Jack had tried to walk the wire again and had become completely paralysed by fear. He couldn’t go forwards or backwards. He had frozen. Cosi had said that she would freeze if she had to step out on the stage in front of an audience and Olivia believed her.
She suddenly knew what Cosi was suffering from: stage fright. She had heard Alicia talk about it. Alicia had said that a little bit of stage fright was a good thing, it got the adrenalin pumping and helped an actor give a better performance, but some actors were so overcome with stage fright that they became incapable of performing in front of a live audience, though often they could do TV and film work with no problem. Entire careers had been lost to stage fright or badly blighted by it. Even very famous actors such as Sir Laurence Olivier had suffered from it.
“Beginners, please. Beginners, please,” came the call over the tannoy. Cosi gave a squeak of despair and curled up into a little ball. She was shaking all over.
“Get up, Cosi,” ordered Olivia.
“I can’t, Olivia, I can’t. I’m going to be sick.”
“You can get up, Cosi, and you must get up,” said Olivia firmly.
“You’re not listening to me again. I can’t do it.”
“You don’t have to do it. You don’t have to play Wendy. I’m going to go out there and play her for you. I’m going to pretend to be you. The rest of the cast will realise, but by the time they do it will be too late to do anything about it. They’re not going to stop the show, and the audience will never know the difference. They’ll think I’m you.”
“Oh, Livy!” cried Cosima. “You’re such a good friend!”
There was urgent knocking on the door. It was Jon. “Cosi? Cosi? They’ve called beginners.”
Olivia nodded at her friend. “I’m just coming, Jon,” said Cosi.
“You’d better be. Now! I’m going out front to join Alicia.”
“Don’t worry, Jon, we’re on our way down. You go,” called Olivia. Then she turned to Cosi. “Have you got a coat with you?” she asked.
“A coat? Why?”
“Because you can’t run round the streets of London in an Edwardian nightgown, can you?”
“Where am I going?” asked Cosi.
“After the interval, you’re going to go and tell Jack what you did and beg his forgiveness. Then you’re going to race back here in time for the curtain call. I reckon we look so alike in our costumes that we’ll get away with me pretending to be you during the performance, but when they bring the lights up for the curtain call somebody in the audience is sure to twig. So make sure you’re back after confessing to Jack.”
Cosi gulped.
“You did say that you’d put your head in the jaws of a crocodile if I asked you to,” said Olivia. “At least we know that Jack won’t eat you.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jon slipped into a seat in the stalls between Alicia and Eel. Georgia and Aeysha were sitting on the other side of Eel. Eel’s phone bleeped. She saw the message was from Olivia, read it quickly and then showed it to Georgia and Aeysha. Their eyes grew round as saucers. Eel grinned at them. This was going to be fun!
“Is everything under control, Jon?” asked Alicia.
“The show will go on,” he said, a little over-brightly.
“You’ve done a good job. It’s not been easy. And just remember that an audience seldom notices mistakes.”
“I sometimes think the whole thing has been a mistake right from the start, although at the time it seemed such a good idea casting the Wood family.”
“Well, it’s certainly brought in the crowds. There’s not an empty seat. Amazing for the first preview.”
“Yes, it’s a completely full house,” said Jon, turning round to have a look. He suddenly groaned.
“What’s wrong?”
“Some press and bloggers are in. Must have paid for their tickets. I’ve just seen a couple of arts correspondents as well as the showbiz diarist of one of the tabloids. The papers and the bulletin boards and the blogs will be passing judgement tomorrow even though it’s still almost three weeks to press night when we let the critics in.”
“Well, let’s just hope everyone rises to the occasion, even Cosi,” said Alicia as the music began and the lights began to dim.
“Especially Cosi,” said Jon.
“Oh, I think she will,” said Eel with a big grin. “I think she’s going to be fantastic.”
“We do too,” chorused Georgia and Aeysha and they broke into giggles until Eel shot them a warning look.
*
Olivia and Cosi were standing in the wings with Tom. Olivia had given him a potted version of what had happened, and he had some concerns. “Are you sure this is a good idea, Liv?” he whispered again.
Olivia nodded briskly. “I’ve got to do it, for Cosi’s sake. Anyway, it’s too late to go back now. Just remember I’m not Olivia, I’m Cosi. Spread the word among the other kids. If anyone asks, they’re absolutely certain that I’m Cosi. But don’t tell the adults. They may try and stop us. Only Pablo knows.”
The curtain swung open, the lights came up on stage and Nana could be seen, folding the children’s clothes. The audience laughed. Mrs Darling appeared and went to close the nursery window and, as she did so, Cosmo’s face appeared eerily at the window as if he was a ghost trying to get in. It was so spooky that the audience gasped and Mrs Darling cried, “Who are you? What do you want?” before he disappeared. Then Tom took Olivia’s hand and pulled her on to the stage, and Cosi, her head bent over as she pretended to be Olivia, slipped away to where Pablo was waiting for her. He hid her out of view in the place where Olivia normally waited to fly while he continued to work frantically to adjust the rigging now that no swapping was necessary.
On stage, the lights were hot and bright. For just a second Olivia’s stomach felt as if it had been popped in a tumble dryer, and then almost as quickly it settled again and she felt a surge of adrenalin. Tom squeezed her hand. Chloe Bonar caught sight of them, stared at Olivia for a beat, but without stumbling just carried on with her next line.
Then Jasper Wood appeared on stage as Mr Darling. He took no notice of the children at all, and instead concentrated on a piece of business with Mrs Darling in which she mothered him like a small child and helped him with his bow tie. The scene continued as Mr Darling suggested that it was mistake to have a dog for a nanny and Mrs Darling confessed her fears about the boy at the window. Even when Michael protested over taking some medicine and Wendy ran to get Mr Darling’s medicine so he could take his, too, Jasper didn’t seem to notice that the girl offering him the bottle and spoon was not his daughter.
Then the scene
was over and the lights in the nursery were dimmed. Cosmo flew in through the nursery window with Tinkerbell, who, to the audience’s delight, was represented by the dancing flame that had been Jack’s idea. Cosmo’s Peter Pan found his shadow in the chest of drawers and Olivia sat up in the bed and asked, “Boy, why are you crying?” After that the scene just sped by and Olivia forgot that she was Olivia Marvell and was instead just a girl called Wendy Darling about to fly off on the biggest adventure of her life.
In Row G of the stalls, Alicia and Jon glanced at each other. Everything was going so well. Chloe Bonar was charming, Jasper was surprisingly comic, Nana the dog was so delightful that Jon was sure they’d be inundated with letters from children offering her a home, and Cosmo was unexpectedly ethereal as if he wasn’t a boy at all but a spark made by rubbing childhood and innocence together to make a flame. But it was Cosi as Wendy who was the real revelation.
Jon and Alicia leaned forward in their seats. This Wendy wasn’t just the Edwardian “little mother” of Barrie’s original. She had Wendy’s softness but somehow she seemed far more contemporary, infinitely more spirited, and touched by something sadder too, as if she already knew that her days in the nursery were numbered and that if she didn’t fly to Never Land this very minute she never would. The audience was entranced. Both puzzled and astonished by Cosi’s unexpected transformation into such a consummate actress, Alicia and Jon leaned further and further forward in their seats. Alicia’s jaw suddenly dropped open. They turned to each other at the same moment.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” asked Jon.
Alicia nodded. “I certainly am,” she whispered.
“What’s going on?” asked Jon. He went to stand up.
But Alicia placed a restraining hand on his knee and shook her head. “Leave it, Jon,” she said gently but firmly. “Whatever will be will be.”
“We’ll have to make an announcement at the interval,” hissed Jon.
“Ssh,” said the man sitting behind him, who was one of Peter Pan’s angel investors. Without his money, and that of his fellow angels, a production would never get off the ground. He was in a very good mood because a production and acting this good guaranteed a hit and he’d get a big return on his money. He particularly liked Cosima Wood’s Wendy. That girl was a real star. “It’s lovely. You’re spoiling it making all this noise.”
“It is lovely,” agreed Eel in a whisper. “Cosmo is fab and Cosi is amazing.” Jon stared at her. Couldn’t Eel see it was her own sister up there? He went to open his mouth but Alicia gave him a look that silenced him. He sat back in his seat, deciding to enjoy the show and worry about conspiracies later.
The scene before the interval was coming to a close. Peter and Wendy were perched on Marooner’s Rock in the middle of the lagoon as the waters rose threateningly around them. In a few minutes, they might both drown.
“Go, Wendy,” cried Peter, placing her hand on the tail of the kite that would carry her to safety.
“I won’t go without you,” she cried desperately.
“You must,” cried Peter. He pushed her from the rock and the kite lifted Wendy off her feet and carried her out over the auditorium, the music soaring with her. The audience gasped with pleasure, but then their attention was cleverly directed straight back to the stage where the waters were beginning to lap over the edges of the rock and Peter’s feet. A huge white moon rose in the sky and the stars came out, winking against the midnight-blue backdrop.
“To die will be an awfully big adventure,” cried Peter, and as he did so, a dozen mermaids appeared in the water as if by magic, the music rose to a crescendo and the curtain fell for the interval. For a moment you could have heard a pin drop and then the audience cheered and clapped loudly.
“It’s fantastic, Jon. You should be very proud,” said the man sitting behind them.
“It is,” agreed his wife. “The Wood twins are great. Particularly Cosima. Who’d have thought from that TV show she does with her brother that she could ever be so good?”
“She’s the best,” piped up their children, still clapping furiously.
Olivia, who had landed in the box furthest away from the stage, unclipped herself from her harness, and raced down to the front of the theatre and round to the stage door. Then she ran full pelt up to Cosi’s dressing room where Cosi was waiting. The applause was still coming over the tannoy.
“You’re brilliant, Livy. I can hear it,” said Cosi.
“No, you’re brilliant, Cosi,” said Olivia, firmly stressing the “you”. “You’re giving the performance of your life.”
There was a knock on the door and Tom, Cosmo, Will Todd and some of the other children crowded into the dressing room. They were all up to speed with what was happening, and happy to go along with it. They all liked and respected Olivia and as far as the Lost Boys were concerned, anything Tom said was all right by them. He was a bit of a hero in their eyes. Besides, all of them, even the very youngest, had experienced that tickle of fear that heralds stage fright and knew what might happen should the tickle get out of control.
“Watch out! I saw Jon James and Miss Swan heading this way,” said the boy who played Nibs.
“Right,” said Olivia. “Is everyone ready? You all know what to do?” They all nodded. “I want Oscar-winning performances from all of you. You particularly, Cosi. Don’t blow it, now.”
There was a sharp knock at the door and Jon James strode in, followed by Alicia, Eel, Georgia and Aeysha.
“What on earth is going on—” The director broke off. The children were surrounding Cosi and cheering her wildly.
“You were fantastic, Cosi!” said Tom.
“Inspired,” said Cosmo. “Dad and I are so proud of you, sis.”
“I’m very proud of you, too, Cosmo. I’m glad you’re my twin.” Cosi met her brother’s eye and a look of understanding flashed between them. Cosmo smiled.
“You were awesome, Cosi,” said Eel. “I know that Jon and Gran are really impressed.”
“We are,” said Alicia with a twinkle in her eye. “It’s like some kind of miracle. And you too, Cosmo. You have surpassed yourself. You’re a real actor.” For once Cosmo seemed to be lost for words.
“Isn’t Cosi good, Mr James?” said Will, turning to Jon and looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.
Before Jon could reply there was another knock on the door and Pablo walked in. “I just came up to congratulate you on your magnificent performance, Cosi. All of us on the technical side, we watch you very closely and we are very admiring of your talent,” he said.
Jon looked at Pablo as if he had gone raving mad. A little smile of amusement began to play around Alicia’s lips.
“Thank you,” said Cosi charmingly. “All I can do is my best.”
Pablo turned to Livy and gave her an almost imperceptible wink. “Your flying, Livy, it is good tonight but not as good as Cosi’s acting. But you and Cosi and Cosmo are our little stars.” He turned to Jon. “You must be very proud of them all.”
Jon, who was feeling ever more confused, opened his mouth. “But … but …” he started.
At that moment Jasper Wood – now dressed as Captain Hook with a wig that looked like black candles had melted over his head – burst into the room without knocking and said delightedly, “No buts, Jon, it’s going swell. Everybody says so. This is going to be a Wood family triumph.”
The children looked at each other, and Alicia raised an eyebrow. Had Jasper really not noticed what was going on? The five-minute bell rang, signalling the end of the interval. Jasper swept Jon out of the room with him and Tom, while Cosmo and the other children followed, leaving Alicia alone with Olivia and Cosi. She looked at them both very hard.
“You do realise that what you’re doing is utterly unprofessional, don’t you? But no doubt you have a good explanation and I will of course expect to hear it eventually.” She gave her granddaughter a piercing gaze. “But it is by any standards a most remarkable performan
ce. Keep it up, girls.” She left as the three-minute bell rang and the call went out over the tannoy for “beginners Act IV”.
Cosi immediately put on her coat and pulled a hat that Pablo had lent her down over her eyes.
“Ready?” asked Olivia. “You’ve got the torch?”
Cosi nodded.
“You must be back in time for the curtain call,” Olivia reminded her. “I can’t carry that off. The audience will realise I’m not you.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be back,” said Cosi. “Do you think Jack’ll be very angry with me?”
“I can’t answer that,” said Olivia. “All I know is that he deserves to hear from you what you did to him.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Alicia and Jon settled into their seats again. Jon had wanted to stay backstage and watch from the wings, but Alicia, with a little help from Eel, Georgia and Aeysha, had firmly steered him back to his seat.
“You realise we are colluding in a con, Alicia,” hissed Jon. “We’re deceiving the audience. They think they’re seeing one thing and they’re really seeing something else entirely. I expect we could be arrested under the Trade Descriptions Act. I really should make an announcement.”
“But, Jon,” said Alicia smoothly, “what would you announce?” She waved her arm around. “That all these people are having a fantastic night at the theatre and really enjoying themselves?”
Aeysha said, “My mum always says that all theatre is a kind of deception, and that it only works because the audience wants and allows itself to be deceived.”
“That’s why it’s so magic,” said Georgia with a little shiver. “The audience has to join in. We have to want it to work for it to work.”
“Yes,” said Eel. “When I was in The Sound of Music I used to think that it was like being a magician. You make people see what you want them to see, so they believe it’s all magic. That’s what a theatre director does too.”