Chapter 6.
The next rehearsal was the ghost one from Hamlet, although we had lots of skeletons and things moaning around as well to make it a bit more realistic. That was mainly because all the boys were keen to be ghosts. It meant they didn’t have to learn any words, unless you counted a bit of moaning and wailing. It also meant they could leap out shrieking and scare totally innocent little kids in the corridors and say, ‘I’m only practising for the Christmas production,’ when they got told off for it. Some of them wanted to bring impressively bloodthirsty looking torture instruments and show people dying before they became ghosts but Ms Cutter put a stop to that idea smartly. The boys all wanted to be in the fight scene as well, and could hardly wait for that.
Mr Murdoch came in to help as we were putting the CD in the sound system. It was some weird sounding stuff that Joey and Mike had put together on Joey’s computer. They did it last year when they were experimenting to make a new computer game but they assured us it would be perfect for the ghost scene. It sounded like the background music you hear on TV before someone is murdered with a chainsaw then cut into small pieces and thrown into a mincing machine. Not that I’m actually allowed to watch programmes like that, but it’s what I imagined it would sound like.
‘Joey, I’ll show you how to operate the strobe lights,’ Mr Murdoch said. ‘You can use them for effect in this scene. You will be able to hook them up in the hall to use when you do the actual performance.’
He flicked a switch to turn on the speakers and flickering lights came on and off in time with the music.
‘There you go. I’ll be back later to see if there are any problems.’
‘Wow, okay. Hey everything looks really spooky already,’ Joey said in wonder. The rest of us were really impressed as well.
‘I feel like a character in an old black and white movie,’ said Ty and started doing a jerky walk around the room.’
‘The lights hurt my eyes,’ complained Brian.
‘Don’t be such a baby,’ scoffed Aaron. ‘These are brilliant. You shouldn’t be on the stage anyway.’
That shut Brian up briefly. They rehearsed the ghost scene, which wasn’t too bad for a first attempt, although all the boys were overacting like mad and groaning realistically as if their throats were being cut.
‘You guys will have to cut the moaning back a bit,’ Brian said. ‘We can’t hear the lines.’
‘Just as well,’ muttered Aaron.
‘Let’s try it again,’ said Brian, ignoring him.
The problem was that Ms Cutter had chosen Simon Southcombe to be Hamlet. Unbelievable! I mean, I’ve got nothing against Simon personally. He’s okay, for a boy, and not nearly as obnoxious as some of them, like Eric for instance. But he lisps. That’s right, he lisps! I don’t know what his parents were thinking of when they named him, as he always calls himself Thimon Thouthcombe. Mind you, to be fair, I guess he couldn’t talk when he was born. Still, you think they would have played safe and called him something like John, which would at least have given him half a chance. They had obviously learned by the time Simon’s little sister was born, because they called her Megan. She doesn’t know how lucky she is. It could have been Sylvia or Sally or even Cecilia!
So there was Simon struggling through Hamlet’s speech and the rest of us trying not to laugh every time he came to an ‘S.’
‘To be, or not to be: that ith the quethtion:
Whether ‘t ith nobler in the mind to thuffer
The thlings and arrowth of outrageouth fortune
Or to take armth againtht a thea of trouble
And by oppothing end them?’
‘How many of the words in this speech have an ‘S’ in them?’ Sarah whispered to me.
‘Lot’s, unfortunately,’ I replied. Sarah shuddered as Simon continued.
‘To die: to thleep:
No more; and by a thleep to thay we end
The heartache and the thouthand natural thock
That fleth ith heir to, ‘tith a conthummation
Devoutly to be with’d.‘
‘Chelsea, this is ghastly. Can’t we choose someone else for Hamlet?’ Brian asked me in an undertone.
‘Can’t. Ms Cutter said we had to have Simon.’
‘Why?’
‘She says it’s to increase his confidence,’ I replied and clapped my hand over my mouth so I didn’t laugh outright at Brian’s look of horror.
‘She must be mad.’
‘Could be worse,’ I shrugged. ‘At least he doesn’t stutter.’
‘Moan a bit louder,’ Brian promptly instructed the rest of the boys, who needed no further encouragement.
‘They are too loud. I can’t hear mythelf thpeak,’ protested Simon.
‘Just keep going, you’re doing fine,’ shouted Brian above the noise.
Simon glowered and bellowed the rest of his lines.
‘To die, to thleep;
To thleep: perchanthe to dream: ay, there’th the rub;
For in that thleep of death what dreamth may come
When we have thuffled off thith mortal coil,
Mutht give uth pauthe.’
Fortunately, that was as much of the speech that we had decided to use. I don’t think anyof us could have stood much more of it and the ghosts were getting hoarse from all the wailing and groaning.
‘I think you gyth were all far too loud,’ complained Simon.
‘We thought it thounded thuper, didn’t we guys,’ replied Mike.
‘Yeth,’ chorused the boys.
‘WelI, I didn’t. I’m going to tell Mth Cutter,’ said Simon sulkily. He walked out
slamming the door behind him. We watched him go in relief.
‘How about we do the fight scene now?’ demanded Mike.
‘Nah.’ Brian shook his head. ‘I don’t want to do it too often. It ought to look spontaneous.’
There were a few mutterings about that. The boys were not too keen on how bossy Brain was getting. I think being made stage manager had really turned his head. He had taken to carrying a clipboard around and calling everyone ‘darling.’ All of us girls really resented this but we decided to humour him and we didn’t say anything. Then Brian got totally carried away. He wanted the boys to move over to one side of the room so he said, ‘Over there, guys, hurry it along,’ and motioned them with his clipboard. They all moved reluctantly, with a few more mutterings, all except Hamish. Hamish wasn’t friendly with Brian at the best of times and all of us could see that having Brian bossing him around was really getting up his nose. Brian waited a minute then called, ‘Hamish, move over there, darling.’ That was a big mistake.
‘What did you say?’ asked Hamish incredulously.
‘I said move over there.’
‘You called me darling!’
‘It’s what stage managers say. It doesn’t mean anything,’ explained Brian patiently.
‘Oh, right. It doesn’t mean anything. Right. Well in that case this doesn’t mean anything either.’
Hamish took a swing at Brian and decked him and at that moment Mr Murdoch came back.
‘What’s going on here?’ he asked, although it was fairly obvious.
‘We were just rehearsing,’ croaked Brian as he staggered to his feet looking dazed.
‘Yeah, we were… we were rehearsing the fight scene,’ said Hamish in sudden inspiration.
‘I thought Brian was the stage manager,’ said Mr Murdoch suspiciously.
‘I am,’ muttered Brian.
‘Yeah, he is,’ agreed Hamish. ‘He just got in the way, that’s all.’
‘Hmm.’ Mr Murdoch didn’t look convinced. ‘I think you have all done enough rehearsing for today so you can run along now.’
Brian scuttled out the door and was much more subdued after that.
Things had calmed down a bit by the next rehearsal although the boys were still inclined to mutter and Brian kept well out of Hamish’s way, trying not to make it look too obvious. Sarah stood on a chair,
pretending it was the balcony, and declaimed,
‘Romeo, Romeo. Wherefore art thou Romeo?’
I thought she looked and sounded really good but all the boys made gagging noises, which was fairly typical. All the girls were obviously impressed as well. Janice whispered to me and Ruby,
‘I’m going to grow my hair and dye it blonde, like Sarah.’
‘Sarah doesn’t dye her hair,’ I exclaimed.
‘I didn’t mean that she dyed her hair, I meant that I was going to dye mine so it was the same as hers,’ argued Janice.
‘Me too,’ agreed Ruby. I didn’t think that dying their hair would make it like Sarah’s but I didn’t say anything. Who was I to rain on their parade?
Ms Cutter didn’t bother to come to rehearsals. She had much more important things to do, like buff her nails. Or have long giggly lunches with Mr Gilbert, the Science teacher, who was drop-dead gorgeous but, unfortunately for us girls, happily married. The headmaster can’t understand why all the girls in Mr Gilbert’s science class do so well but he’s the sort of guy you would die for. And if doing your Science homework gets you one of those film star smiles then hey, we’re all keen to do it.
‘I’ve decided to lead the dancers in the Minuet,’ said Sarah calmly. Gemma looked thunderous at this, as I think she had been hoping to do it. ‘Then I’ll show my versatility by joining in the breakdancing at the end.’
I thought that was a great idea until she added,’ You can be my understudy, Chelsea, and learn all the dances along with me.’
‘Why do you need an understudy?’ I asked her indignantly. ‘You never get sick and anyway, no-one else is having an understudy.’
‘Because I’m the star, and all stars have understudies,’ Sarah explained patiently.
‘I thought I was the prompt,’ I protested.
‘You can do that as well,’ said Sarah calmly, and like a fool I went along with it. This meant learning all her lines, well, I knew most of them anyway by the time I had typed them out, then listened to her speaking them all the time. The worst part was learning the dances. As I’ve said before, Sarah is graceful. She glides through life. When she walks you can see people think, ‘Oh yes. Obviously model potential.’ Even when she’s just hanging around with the rest of us at the Pizza Place she gets admiring looks from perfect strangers.
I make my way through life with more of a stumble. I’m the sort of person who trips over the only loose tile in the whole shop and drops their burger on the floor. I’m the one who always steps into a puddle on rainy days and slides on mud patches on bush walks. I’m the one who spills her Milo down the front of a clean white T-shirt or gets the ice block that falls off the stick halfway through.
I talked to Janice during Maths while we were supposed to be working on stuff from our textbooks.
‘Do you want to be Sarah’s understudy, instead of me?’
‘Why? Don’t you want to do it?’
‘Not really. I don’t mind learning the lines but I’m useless at the dances.’
‘No thanks. I would be useless at learning lines,’ said Janice hastily. ‘Anyway, I was hoping I could be a fairy. I’ve asked Gemma and she said that maybe there could be a space for me.’
‘Really?’ I asked in amazement. ‘But Gemma never lets anyone else into her group. You know that.’
‘Well, she said she’d think about it,’ said Janice defensively. She must have really wanted to be a fairy but she was doomed to disappointment. Brian had already told her she could be a witch as she would be perfect for the part. We thought she was rehearsing, as she kept going around muttering, but I got close enough to hear her one day. I was a bit shocked to hear her muttering curses about Gemma and Brian but she wasn’t a real witch so I didn’t think they had anything to worry about. I made sure there were no brooms around, just in case.
Sarah felt sorry for Janice, who was being very obviously unhappy at not having a better part, so she said, ‘Janice, why don’t you help Joey to work the sound system?’
‘Yeah, great,’ said Janice enthusiastically, and went over to stand behind Joey. ‘What does this button do?’
‘Don’t touch that,’ howled Joey, leaping to stand protectively in front of the control panel.
‘I was only asking,’ snapped Janice.
‘Well don’t push anything until I tell you to,’ Joey mumbled.
Joey looked really annoyed. He’s a weedy little kid who doesn’t say much, and most of the time you don’t even notice he’s in the classroom, but he’s a whiz at anything electronic. He even helps some of the Senior boys when they do their videoing and lighting effects and he was not pleased to be given Janice as an assistant. She stood and breathed heavily beside him saying, ‘do I do it now?’ until it was time to throw the switch. The rest of the time she just went around muttering curses, like I said, and when she was actually rehearsing she stood at the back of the group of witches and scowled.
If It Wasn't For Sarah Page 6