by Robin Klein
None of them could think of any good hospital jokes, except Barry Hollis. And even Mrs Wentworth paused in her knitting when he told it. ‘That’s quite enough, Barry,’ she said indignantly, not even calling him ‘dear’. ‘That sort of joke belongs in a hotel bar.’
‘That’s where I heard it,’ said Barry.
It was unbearable listening to my play being mangled and studded with questionable jokes. ‘Aren’t you feeling better yet?’ Jason demanded. ‘We can’t read your writing and no one knows what to do next or what to say or anything.’
I left the window and sat in the middle chair in the front row. ‘What’s needed is a director,’ I said. ‘We’ll leave out the part of the matron for the time being.’ And my voice worked perfectly while I read out everyone’s lines and told them what to do. I even managed to get Barry Hollis down out of the chimney and onto the stage.
‘Who says I’m acting in any dumb play?’ he jeered.
‘I say so. I wrote this play, and I should know whom to give parts to. If you don’t take the part of the drunk visitor coming in from the football match, I’m going to have to cut it right out. There’s no one else loud-mouthed and grotty enough to act it except you.’
Barry Hollis took that as a compliment, and oddly enough, he didn’t fool around. He learned the words off by heart after only a few attempts, and was really good in the part. That stunned the others into trying harder.
‘I reckon this play’s going to be all right,’ Jason said. ‘Let’s do it again from where the matron comes in. Only you can’t just sit there in the chair reading it. It’s too confusing.’
I immediately stopped feeling capable and energetic. Once more the Kangas became an audience. ‘I can’t be expected to write this play and direct it and do every little job single-handed,’ I said quickly. ‘I’m going to need a temporary stand in. Someone else will have to act the part of the matron during rehearsals till I’ve got the whole thing worked out. I’ll take over on Drama Night, of course.’
‘Alison, then,’ said Jason.
‘I couldn’t act a big part like the matron,’ Alison said. ‘Even if it’s only during rehearsals. I’ve never done any acting in my life. I’d feel embarrassed.’
Fantastic! I hoped that the same panicky stage fright would engulf her, too, and she wouldn’t be able to pretend she’d swallowed a fly. Not even Mrs Wentworth would believe that twice. ‘There’s no need to be embarrassed,’ I purred in a fairy-floss voice. ‘This is what the matron has to say: “I’m here to make my ward inspection. Nurse Jackson, what is this patient doing on the floor? How dare you leave patients lying around untidily like that during visiting hours! Kindly put him back into bed this minute.” Only of course you have to put in a lot of expression and actions and everything. Go ahead, Alison, there’s absolutely nothing to it.’
‘I’ve never acted before,’ she said humbly. ‘Can’t I just be a patient like Margeart?’
‘It doesn’t matter how stupid you sound reading out this part now,’ I said, ‘because it’s not going to be you doing it on Drama Night. I’ll be acting it then. Hurry up, we’re all waiting.’
Alison, for the first time since I’d known her, looked flustered. Something terrible is going to happen to you in public, Alison Ashley! I thought triumphantly.
Alison self-consciously opened an imaginary door and walked onstage. ‘I am here to make my ward inspection,’ she said. ‘Nurse Jackson, what is this patient doing on the floor? How DARE you leave patients lying untidily around like that during visiting hours! Kindly put him back into bed THIS MINUTE!’
Word perfect! Without even a script in her hand, memorised just from me gabbling it at her once. Voice perfect, too, loud and clear and filling the whole common room and making us all jump. And the actions just right, the walk and everything. I blinked, and of course there wasn’t a real hospital matron standing there, just Alison Ashley, the rat, who’d pretended she couldn’t act and hadn’t ever done any in her life. Just so she could put on a sneaky, brilliant performance like that and make me feel a fool!
‘Did I say it right?’ she asked.
‘Not bad,’ I muttered.
‘What do you mean, not bad?’ Jason demanded. ‘She was fantastic! This play’s going to be a knock-out on Drama Night, with Alison acting the matron!’
‘She’s only the understudy!’ I said fiercely. ‘I thought I made that clear. I’ll be the one acting that part on Drama Night!’
‘Yes, sure, Yuk,’ said Alison Ashley.
Her face was as innocent as a bonneted face in a pram, but I didn’t let it fool me for one minute!
After rehearsal we had free time until the next activity session. Everyone clawed biscuits hungrily out of the tin Mrs Wentworth fetched from the kitchen, as though they hadn’t eaten for a month. Alison Ashley nibbled daintily at an apple, which she’d washed under the tap for about five minutes. I thought of how the Queen gave Snow White a poisonous apple causing her to fall into a deep coma. I wished that something like that would happen when Alison bit into her apple, or that at least she’d come across a worm.
Margeart Collins asked me to play table tennis with her on the terrace. Neither of us were exactly championship material. I picked up a bat and served Margeart the ball. She missed and we had a long hunt in the lantana bushes down her end. Then she served and I missed and we had another long hunt in the lantana bushes down my end. Then I served, and the ball pinged straight up to the awning and got stuck in the electric-light fitting.
After that it was time for bushcraft with Mr Kennard. He didn’t seem to be all that expert at it, really. He had a little paperback book, with a Barringa Regional library sticker on the cover. It was titled Bushwalking and Camping: a basic safety guide for beginners, and he kept sneaking it out of his pocket and looking up things when anyone asked questions.
In the free time after lunch I sat on my bed and finished writing the hospital play. I wrote Curtain under the last line and clipped all the pages together with a clothes peg. It looked messy, but I couldn’t have felt prouder if Mrs Orlando herself had typed it all up on her new electric golf-ball typewriter. While I was reading it through for the tenth time, Wendy Millson, the group leader of Dingoes, stuck her head in through the window.
‘Yuk, they said you wrote a terrific play for the Kangas,’ she said, crawling like mad.
‘Just a knack,’ I said. ‘I often write plays when there’s nothing else to do. There’s not much to it, really. Anyone can think up an idea for a play.’
‘We can’t,’ said Wendy humbly. ‘We tried half the morning. We even had a go at Robin Hood and his Merry Men. Couldn’t you do us one?’
‘I don’t know if I could spare the time. As well as writing the play Kangas are putting on, and directing it, I’m going to play the leading role.’
‘I’ll clean up your room for inspection every single day.’
‘It’s funny how people at this camp think I’ve got nothing better to do than write thousands of words just to save them the trouble. It doesn’t seem to occur to anyone that I might like to spend my free time playing table tennis.’
‘But no one except Margeart Collins ever picks you for a partner because you’re so hopeless,’ Wendy said tactlessly. ‘I mean, you’re better at writing compositions than you are at sport, that’s what I meant, Yuk. If you help us out, I’ll do the kitchen roster when it’s your turn.’
It was a nice sensation, having the great Wendy Millson grovelling at my feet. ‘It would be very hard writing anything the Dingoes could put on,’ I said. ‘With Kangas, we had a whole lot of talented people, with the exception of Alison Ashley. But Dingoes just don’t have anyone at all worth mentioning. Just think of Oscar, for a start.’
Once, when I was in the sick bay, Oscar came limping in with a sore knee from playing soccer. Mrs Orlando told him to roll his jeans up so she could have a look, but Oscar couldn’t get them past his shins because his legs were so fat. Mrs Orlando felt his knee through his
jeans, but she couldn’t decide if one was more swollen than the other, since both his knees were the size of cauliflowers. ‘I’d better ring up your mother,’ Mrs Orlando said, and Oscar agreed. ‘Knee injuries shouldn’t be neglected,’ Mrs Orlando said, and Oscar agreed. ‘Will your mother be home if I ring?’ she asked, and Oscar said she would. Mrs Orlando went away to get a bit of paper and a biro to write down his phone number. When she came back and asked Oscar what it was, Oscar said they didn’t have the phone on at his house. A sort of male equivalent of Margeart Collins.
Dingoes also had Karen, Vicky and Bev, and they were the closest thing to science-fiction cloning you ever met. They all had blonde hair styled the same way, and if they were in a comic strip, their conversation bubbles would contain identical words.
‘We’ve got Karen and Vicky and Bev,’ Wendy said helpfully. ‘And they can all tap dance, and they’re in the Marching Girls, too.’
‘A tap-dancing march,’ I said. ‘Fantastic. I’m sure that would hold an audience glued to their seats for three-quarters of an hour.’
‘There’s no need to be like that. You said just now it was easy, dashing off a play.’
‘It is when you have an inspiration. And there’s nothing inspiring about Dingoes. It’s not as though writing a play’s as easy as waving a magic wand around in the air . . .’
My right hand twitched, and as though it had a mind of its own, picked up a pen.
‘Cinderella,’ I wrote on a fresh sheet of paper. ‘Cast: Fairy Godmother – Oscar; Three Stepsisters – Karen, Vicky, Bev; Cinderella – Erica Yurken.’
ext morning I rang up home. Mum was overwhelmingly maternal – perhaps she was feeling guilty because she’d yelled at me when I’d phoned before. She told me to hang on while she rounded up Harley, Jedda, Valjoy and Norm so I could say hello to them.
‘I can’t wait that long,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to go to rehearsal. I have the main part in both the plays. I’m a hospital matron in one, and Cinderella in the other.’
‘Really, love? Oh, I can hardly wait to come up and watch you Friday night! Just fancy, playing the lead in both plays!’
‘Well, there’s no one else here who can act,’ I said.
‘What are you going to do about glass slippers? If I’d known in time, we could have hired a costume from one of those theatre-costume places. I want you to look your best, seeing it’s your first stage appearance. I wonder, if I sprayed your old sandals with adhesive and broke up some bottles and stuck the pieces on, would that look like glass slippers? What do you think, love?’
‘We have to make our costumes in art and craft. It’s part of the camp programme.’
‘Well then, you could wrap Gladwrap round your sneakers. Would that look like glass, I wonder? Erk, seeing you’re the leading lady, could you wangle us some good seats in front? I’ll get Len to buy some flash bulbs for the camera. I just feel so proud, you being in both the plays!’
‘It’s nothing,’ I said modestly. ‘See you Friday.’
I gave Wendy the finished script of Cinderella.
‘Why’s your name down in the cast?’ she demanded. ‘You don’t belong in our group. You have to be out doing sport with Kangas.’
‘There’s no way you could possibly follow that script unless I was here supervising,’ I said. ‘No one can read my writing, for a start. And I haven’t written any of the actions in. I’ve got to be here in person to show you.’
‘I guess so,’ said Wendy unwillingly.
‘I’m telling you so. While I go down and get my name marked off the roll with Miss Belmont, you make Dingoes put the chairs out of the way in the common room. I’ll be back here in a couple of minutes.’
It took longer. Miss Belmont didn’t even listen, because she was organising Kangas into team games on the tennis court. The human body, in my opinion, looks its best glittering with diamonds and stepping into a silver Rolls. Or lying on a velvet couch plucking grapes out of a bunch. Miss Belmont’s ideal of physical perfection was different. She thought people looked better wearing cricket pads, tennis dresses, muscles, tracksuits and zinc cream. And zigzagging sweatily around after a ball.
‘Erica Yurken, you’re late,’ she said. ‘Get into line at once.’
‘Can I please be excused from sport?’ I asked. ‘Dingoes are rehearsing this play . . .’
‘Dingoes and what they do aren’t your concern.’
‘I come out in eczema if I touch a netball,’ I said.
‘There’s nothing about eczema on your school medical report.’
‘It only started over the weekend. I was going to tell Mrs Orlando when we get back to school so she can write it down on my card.’
‘If Mrs Orlando bothered to write down every one of your imaginary ailments, you’d need a complete filing cupboard all to yourself. Now, kindly join Jason’s line and stop wasting time.’
Jason didn’t look happy at the prospect. We played that demented game where everyone has to take turns out front throwing the ball to a person, and that person throws it back and bobs down. Then we played tunnel ball, and Roa tripped over and got a gravel knee. (Or got sabotaged by Barry Hollis, depending on which side you were on.) Miss Belmont told me to take Roa in to Mrs Wentworth for first aid.
Next to being injured myself, I liked fixing up other people. So I didn’t bother Mrs Wentworth. I took Roa (he was very small, skinny and bashful) into the teachers’ sitting room where they kept the first-aid box. I filled a bowl with warm water and antiseptic and began sterilising his knee. He didn’t like it very much, but as he didn’t know much English, he just sat and fidgeted.
I did a beautiful job on that gravel rash, cleaning it thoroughly with cotton swabs dipped in the antiseptic. In case there were any germs left, I squeezed on a large amount of Medi Creme. Then I covered it with a big square of gauze.
‘I go, plizz?’ asked Roa in his little flutey voice, but I still had to put on a splint and a knee-to-ankle bandage. I rolled the bandage just so, with each spiral covering exactly two-thirds of the one before, and pinned it neatly in place with safety pins, tucking in the wadding of cotton wool that I’d lined the splint with. It was a really beautiful job and I was very proud of it.
Mrs Wentworth came in to collect her knitting. ‘My goodness, Erica, why didn’t you call me at once for an injury like that!’ she said. ‘Oh, poor little Roa, I just wish I could speak his language! Don’t you worry, Roa, there’s a very good medical centre down at the shopping centre.’ She knelt and undid all the bandages so she could have a look herself. ‘Really, Erica!’ she said. ‘It’s only a small graze. Why on earth did you use up all that expensive cottonwool? You’ve used enough for a whole ward full of chickenpox cases.’
Roa was looking puzzled at having his bandages taken off again so soon, but he didn’t need any English to respond to Mrs Wentworth’s compulsive mothering. Even a small graze, in her eyes, was worth two black jelly beans. While she was fossicking around in her bag for them, I slipped out into the common room to see how they were getting along with Cinderella.
They weren’t.
I stood on a chair and said that Miss Belmont was coming up in ten minutes to see how much of the play they’d learned, word perfect. Then in the panic-stricken silence, I got them sorted out and standing where they should for the opening scene.
‘Wendy’s probably explained why I’ll be acting the part of Cinderella,’ I said. ‘It’s very hard to write a complete play at a moment’s notice so I’m going to have to add speeches as we go along. Also, none of you can read my writing, and that’s another reason why I’ve got to be in it.’
‘But not acting Cinderella,’ said Karen. ‘She’s supposed to be real pretty.’
Some people just haven’t got any finesse or tact.
‘I’ve got you and Bev and Vicky down to be the three ugly stepsisters,’ I said. ‘I’ve made them real twits in the play, so twitty sort of people have to act them.’
(Actually, when you come
to think of it, the biggest twit of anyone in that family was Cinderella herself. Fancy sitting around bawling while everyone else went off to a party, and not having the gumption to pinch some of your sisters’ gear and take off somewhere on your own and have a good time.)
But I still wanted, more than anything else in the world, to be Cinderella on Drama Night. And the matron in the hospital play as well. I’d be the only kid, ever, in the history of Barringa East to take the leading role in two separate plays at camp.
I thought about my attack of nerves during the hospital play rehearsal, and composed the following list inside my mind: 1) Every actor suffered from nerves and stage fright, 2) It was nothing to worry about at all, 3) Anyone could overcome anything, especially me, Erica Yurken, with my talent, though maybe not Margeart Collins, 4) Being in the same room as Alison Ashley caused yesterday’s slight problem, and 5) As she wasn’t here, now was a fitting time to begin my dazzling career as an actor.
‘You were only supposed to write the play and get us started,’ Vicky said aggressively. ‘You’re not allowed to barge into other people’s activity groups. Chuck her out, Wendy.’
‘It seems to me,’ I said. ‘That some people have the idea that I’m handing out valuable scripts of original plays for nothing. Writers usually get paid for their work. Of course, I can take this play back and sell it to next year’s grade six, if you don’t want it. You can always do Robin Hood and his Merry Men.’
Mrs Wentworth came back from mothering Roa and settled down to her knitting. She didn’t even notice I was there.
‘Let’s start,’ said Wendy. ‘Seeing Yuk did all the writing, and seeing she’s giving up sport now to help us, she can be in the play if she wants to. And I’m group leader of Dingoes, Vicky Picone, and every kid in Dingoes better do what I say, otherwise they’re not showing the proper camping spirit. Also, I’ll belt them one. Go on, Yuk, show us what we have to do.’
So I went out centre stage and started to play the part of Cinderella.