Same deal with the Sixth-Grade Players. Mike was popular. Anything anyone did to get rid of him—we would have rebelled too.
I still didn’t get why Emma had caused all this drama in the first place, or why Diego had made that PicPoc. If I had a chance, I would ask Clive. All those seasons of Gossip Girl later, he understood human nature better than I did.
Meanwhile, I was way too busy to worry about any of it. The Plattsfield-Winklebottom Memorial Sixth-Grade Players rehearsed all weekend, according to the schedule, with Emma playing the prating knave Polonius and Madeline the glamorous, tortured Ophelia.
Justin, the holy ghost in the booth, turned out to be a tech wizard. With his help, we got the lights and sound operating smoothly, even the cordless mics—lavaliers, they’re called—that were clipped to our costumes. At first they squealed, they rasped, they hummed, defying adjustment both human and supernatural until, at last, they were working fine.
We didn’t see Coach Fig all weekend, till late Sunday afternoon when he showed up like a hero with sodas and two trays of dumplings from Himalaya.
We greeted him with a standing O.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you very much.” Fig raised a hand to acknowledge the crowd. “I’m just happy to be here.”
The dumplings were gone in five minutes. After that, we licked grease from our fingers and finished off the sodas.
Fig was wearing his headset, of course, but for once he was among us, having returned to planet Earth from the faraway realm of the wedding planner.
“You’ve spent a great deal of time on one wedding, Coach,” Mike said.
“Couple o‘ rich kids and, worse yet, their rich parents,” Coach Fig said.
“When does the wedding take place?” Mike asked.
“Next Saturday, two in the afternoon, reception to follow at five,” Fig said. “For directions and details, see the website.”
Mike grinned. “You’ll be relieved when it’s over.”
“Won’t I, though,” Fig agreed. “And speaking of upcoming events, I’ve been meaning to ask, how go ticket sales for the performance? It’s coming up on Friday, correct-o?”
“Ticket sales?” Mike repeated. “Am I in charge of ticket sales?”
“Uh… well, sure. Someone has to do it,” Fig said. “I haven’t had much time, and…” He shrugged.
Mike nodded thoughtfully. “I see. The thing is, though, I don’t know much about selling tickets. I’ve never been asked to oversee the business side of things.”
Clive looked at me. “Uh-oh.”
Emma piled on. “He hasn’t gotten the blood, either.”
Coach Fig made a face. “Blood?”
“For Polonius? For Hamlet and Laertes? How are we supposed to die without any blood?” Emma said.
I had been afraid of this. Emma had been on her best behavior all weekend, but now her native orneriness came out.
“Oh dear, I do keep forgetting the blood,” Mike said. “Perhaps I’ve grown squeamish in my dotage. Anyone have any ideas?”
To everyone’s surprise, it was Brianna who spoke up—anxious Brianna who hates all things gory or sad. “I’ll take care of it. I have an idea.”
Did she? I wondered. Or was she like the rest of us, tired of Emma’s drama?
Either way, Emma gave her a dirty look, and Brianna responded, sweet as pie: “Would you like to help me, Emma?”
“No,” Emma said.
Everyone looked at her.
“Oh, fine, I’ll help,” Emma said.
“Good woman,” Mike said. “And as for ticket sales?”
“I’ll do it,” Mia said. “I have an idea too.”
* * *
I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to do a million math worksheets after two solid days of rehearsal, half a dozen Himalaya dumplings (both veggie and meat), and two full cans of soda.
If not, you’re missing out.
I bet if you’re my smart dad, the physics professor, you think math is as much fun as ShredSauce. Relaxing, even. You would have looked forward to those worksheets at the same time you chowed down on dumplings.
Unfortunately, I am not my smart dad.
Also, I’m not much of an actor, I guess. Not as good as Fuli at least. In fact, so far as I can tell, I have no particular talent at all.
I wouldn’t even make it as an apple picker because, according to Clive, the two things you need to make it as an apple picker are long arms and quickness.
I lack both.
But maybe I do have one talent, if you want to call it a talent. Maybe I’ve always had it, but I didn’t notice till now—till I didn’t get cast as Hamlet, I mean, till I survived that and moved on.
What is that talent? I can make the best of things, like playing Marcellus, Rosencrantz, Gravedigger One, and Fortinbras. And one day, maybe, if I paid attention to the way Fuli inhabited the character, the way Madeline became sad, crazy Ophelia, even the way Clive dug deep and found his inner villain—maybe one day I’d get a bigger part.
When I got the chance, I’d ask Mike about that. And I’d ask him a hundred other questions, too, like how is it in the afterlife, really? Are the Jews right or the Christians or the Muslims or who?
Then there was the gin-joint question. What’s a formerly famous Broadway director, now a five-star ghost, doing in Plattsfield, New York?
But all that was for later. Right now, Sunday night, I was a person failing math and facing the horror of summer school.
“Help me, Obi-Wan,” I said to the poster on my wall.
And then I sharpened a pencil and leaned back against the pillows on my bed, notebook on my knees, and slogged through worksheets one by one.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Monday, Rehearsal Week Six, 4 Days till Performance
Finally, we had a nice warm day, and the school opened the caf so, if we wanted, we could sit under the shelter outside at the old picnic tables and benches. They are made of wood. Having soaked up the damp all winter, they felt sticky, but we didn’t care. It was glorious to be in clean air with the smell of clean air, instead of cooked vegetables, wet wool, and the skin of fellow humans.
That day the caf rotation delivered hot dogs, either regular meat or the fake kind. By the time you’re a sixth grader, you know that, with mustard, they taste totally the same.
Fuli, Clive, and I sat down. Madeline came out with her tray. I waved her over. I didn’t bother to get permission. I knew it would be okay.
Madeline was talking before she got halfway to our table. “You were awesome at rehearsal yesterday.”
“Hey, thanks,” I said. “Which part did you like best? In my humble opinion, I really shine when I’m Rosencrantz and I say, ‘My lord, you must tell us where the body is.’ ”
“Not you, Noah,” Madeline said, settling in. “Fuli. When you say that part in the soliloquy, that part about the undiscovered country? You make me see it in my head, like I’m on a boat at night, heading for rocks a long way away.”
“That’s just Vermont,” I said.
“Funny guy,” Clive said.
“Thank you, Madeline,” Fuli said. “Do you want to know something? Hamlet means death is like a visit to the undiscovered country. But when I say it, I’m thinking of Plattsfield. When my family moved here—to us, that’s what it was.”
I shrugged, sipped my milk. “Plattsfield? Death? Same difference, right?”
Clive was next to me and shoved me. “Is everything funny to you, dude?”
I believe I mentioned already that Clive is my best friend. And now he’d made me feel stupid. Again. He’s good at that. I took a bite of my dog, wiped mustard off my lips, listened to the awkward quiet. Then I had a thought. “The thing with Emma wasn’t funny,” I said. “I really thought she might get Mike in trouble, wreck the show. I didn’t want that to happen. What is with her, anyway?”
I had chewed another bite before I noticed it was quiet. I looked up. Was I imagining things? Or were Fuli, Madeline, and Cli
ve trading looks? “Okay, what?” I said.
“Earth to Noah,” Clive said. “Seriously?”
“I thought you knew,” Madeline said, which was pretty funny coming from Madeline, who, till lately, I considered queen of the airheads.
“Even I know,” Fuli said.
“I cannot believe this,” I said. “I cannot believe you. Will somebody please—”
“She likes you, Noah,” Clive said. “Emma does. That’s why she always sits next to you. That’s why she smiles like Christmas when you’re around.”
“Like Hanukkah, you mean,” I said.
“It’s kind of sweet, actually,” Madeline said.
“No! It is not sweet!” I said.
“And do you want to know what else?” Fuli asked. “Diego likes her. And sometimes when you like somebody, you seek their attention.”
“Even their bad attention,” Clive said.
“It is just as it is in the play,” Fuli went on. “When Hamlet is so mean to Ophelia? He loves her. But his life is falling apart, and he is afraid to show it. He treats her badly, and that’s why.”
“What Hamlet did to Ophelia was abusive, Gillian says,” said Clive. “And Diego should learn better ways to show he likes someone.”
I ate the last bite of hot dog, drank the last gulp of milk, looked around for the cookie that was supposed to be dessert, then remembered I’d eaten it before I sat down. Finally, I had a thought. “Maybe if Shakespeare were alive today, he’d be making PicPocs like D. Avventura.”
“Good one, dude!” Clive said. “You’re comparing Diego to Shakespeare?”
Fuli backed me up. “The art teacher, Ms. Mock, she believes Diego is a genius. I thought it was only because she likes those hats he wears, those round glasses, but perhaps she is correct.”
I shook my head. “Want to know something funny? I started sitting with you so I could avoid episodes of Lunchtime Drama.”
“Brought to you today by the caf’s world-famous hot dogs!” Clive said.
“You cannot avoid the lunchtime drama,” Fuli said. “It is fundamental.”
Clive nodded. “The girl knows whereof she speaks,” he said. “And because of that, you should come over to my house sometime, catch some Gossip Girl with Gillian and me. You’d definitely learn a lot.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Clive was always telling me I should go over to his house sometime, catch some Gossip Girl, get educated about human behavior.
Was he right? Or was I better off the way I’d always been—ignorant?
After lunch, when I should’ve been paying attention to a PowerPoint about Japanese temples, I thought about the play. In spite of all the spying, Polonius was probably the most ignorant character. He didn’t get it about Ophelia and Hamlet, or about Claudius being evil either.
And what happens to Polonius? He loses his daughter and his life.
So maybe there was a moral to Hamlet—to that part of it at least.
And maybe, knowing Hamlet, I could skip Gossip Girl.
Last period that same day, Monday, I turned my math sheets in, expecting a standing O (at least!) from Mr. Garrier. What I got was thumbs-up and a question: “Can you help me get tickets for the show, Noah? Do you have the inside track? I need four.”
“Aren’t there loads of tickets? The auditorium is huge.”
Mr. Garrier shook his head. “Maybe in previous years, but not now, not this year, not when the director of the show is a ghost!”
I was speechless, which, you will have noticed, doesn’t happen often. “W-w-wait. Wh-who told you that?”
“Common knowledge in the faculty lounge,” said Mr. Garrier.
I stalled for time. “And you believe everything you hear in the faculty lounge?”
“Look, Noah.” Mr. Garrier got serious. “It doesn’t really matter if this ghost thing is mathematically provable. What matters is the story, and given the story, no self-respecting teacher would dare let their family miss out.”
I could not argue with Mr. Garrier’s logic, if “logic” is the right word, and I said I’d do what I could and then, one more time with feeling, I hotfooted it to the aud, where I found, in the lobby, a long line of people waiting for the box office to open.
“No way!” I said. “All of you are in line for tickets? Tickets to Hamlet? The show featuring me, Noah McNichol, as Fortinbras, King of Norway?”
A fifth grader who lives on my street said he’d never heard of Norway, but his mom had told him to get in line. Someone else asked if it was true about the ghost and when was the box office supposed to open? She didn’t have all day.
“Ghost?” I said. “Ha ha ha—ridiculous. There is no such thing.”
A parent who makes sandwiches at Sal’s winked and nodded. “I knew it, and there’s the proof. Why bother to deny it if it isn’t true?”
I opened my mouth but had no answer. “Let me find out about the box office,” I said, and went inside to look for Mia, who I finally found down in the dressing room rehanging the costumes.
“Are you some kind of ticket-selling genius, or what?” I asked.
All fake modest, Mia said, “Oh, did that work?”
Mia’s idea had been what’s called a whisper campaign. First, she told her BFF (best frenemy forever), Nick Frank, that Mike, director of the Plattsfield-Winklebottom Memorial Sixth-Grade Players’ production of Hamlet just might maybe be a ghost.
Of course, Nick Frank said, “Yeah, right,” so she told him about floating Diego and the mysterious flickering footlights and the bats and the switched scripts and the mind reading and how Mike was a famous Broadway director, and the famous Broadway director was dead.
“But, Nick,” she continued. “You absolutely cannot tell anybody. This is just between us. I mean, probably it isn’t even true. How could it possibly be true?”
Nick swore absolutely he would not tell anybody.
And he didn’t. Instead, he texted—first his friend Jen, who texted Clare, who texted Jason, who is one of those good kids who tells his parents stuff, so he did tell his parents, and within hours, it was all over Plattsfield-Winklebottom Memorial, even in the faculty lounge, how this movie star had come back from the dead to direct Hamlet, or possibly Hamilton, and the performance was Friday night, and it was going to be awesome and supernatural—live bats!—and you’d better get tickets now or miss out.
Mia said she’d save tickets for Mr. Garrier in the interest of my math grade; then she told me what to tell the people waiting.
Back in the lobby, the line snaked out the door. “Box office opens at three forty-five,” I recited. “Tickets are five dollars each, four-ticket limit. Festival seating. One performance only, this Friday at seven. Be there if you dare!”
All during rehearsal, Mia sent runners out to the lobby to keep us players updated. “Seventy-five tickets sold!” was the first report. Then 150, then 310, and after that the reports became a countdown of seats remaining: Ninety-nine! Sixty! Ten!
And finally, after only one hour and forty-seven minutes, the Plattsfield-Winklebottom Memorial Sixth-Grade Play had sold out for the first time in recorded history!
Who deserved credit?
Mia for her marketing?
Mike for being a ghost?
Mike’s opinion was neither, at least not entirely. “Hamlet is a beloved classic,” he told us. “You kids are a top-notch cast. Naturally, the theatergoing public has responded.”
* * *
On Tuesday, Brianna brought the blood.
The no-budget alternative blood, that is—a trash bag half-filled with plastic packets of ketchup, which Brianna, Emma, and her friends had sneaked one by one from tables in the caf and, when those ran out, from the burger places of Plattsfield.
“Clever,” Mike said, regarding the heap of ketchup packets Brianna had dumped onstage. “Potentially very messy, but clever. Mr. Arcati?” Mike looked around, caught Diego’s eye.
“I won’t go near ’em, I swear,” Diego said.
/>
“See that you don’t, Horatio,” Mike said. “In point of fact, you are one of the few characters that survives the play unbloodied.”
“Heck yeah!” said Diego.
His beret was orange that day, and I guess he’d recovered from the whole levitation thing because he seemed as energetic as normal.
Clive said, “If Mrs. Winklebottom had a friend in the caf, she’d know now we ditched that No-Trauma stuff.”
Marley said, “That is bats, Clive. Stage blood isn’t the only explanation for disappearing ketchup.”
Clive said, “Oh yeah? Name another one.”
Marley said, “I’m thinking.”
Mike said, “I think it unlikely the dear lady has a cafeteria friend. Has anyone heard any concerns from her recently? I haven’t even seen Coach Fig since Sunday.”
None of us had, and Fuli said, “I guess that means we’re out here on our own.”
Right on cue, the minor-key organ chord sounded, and there followed the usual shebang: lightning, bat shadows, flickering haunted candles.
Justin, the holy spirit in the booth, typically played games on his phone unless we were actually rehearsing. That day, though, he must’ve been paying attention.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Thursday, Final Dress Rehearsal, 1 Day till Performance
The sun went away. The clouds came back. By Thursday, the May weather was typical and unlovely in Plattsfield, the sky solid gray, the air—as Shakespeare might have said—nipping and eager. (Act one.)
Seated in the first two rows of the house, we Sixth-Grade Players barely knew and didn’t care. We’d been living in the aud so long that we might as well have been mushrooms, oblivious to the wide world beyond.
Mike was upstage right, pacing along the ramparts of Elsinore. Mia was downstage left, beside the open drawbridge, consulting her clipboard.
“Now, don’t you worry if today’s full dress is a full-dress mess,” Mike told us. “A thousand and one things will probably go wrong. Never mind! Keep going! Think of errors as good luck. The worst run-throughs often precede the best performances! Mr. Arcati?”
Noah McNichol and the Backstage Ghost Page 12