Darcey Bussell Favourite Ballet Stories

by Favourite Ballet Stories (retail) (epub)

  ‘It was Rose’s before.’

  No, it wasn’t, thought Nicola. It was always mine. She walked through the gate.

  ‘She can do the other one – the one they’re writing in for her.’

  ‘I won’t!’ Rose’s voice came shrilly from somewhere outside in the road. ‘If I can’t do the part I want, I won’t do any!’

  Under cover of the darkness, Nicola pulled one of her squint-eyed faces and stuck out her tongue; then she turned, and stumped off up the path. If Rose wanted to cut herself out entirely, then that was her problem.

  The King and Us

  by Jhanna N. Malcolm

  ‘WOW, THIS IS a zoo!’ Gwen said as the girls filed into the backstage lounge of the Carousel Dinner Theatre on Monday.

  Children of all ages sprawled on the tiled floor, chattering noisily. Meanwhile their mothers had taken up all of the available seats in the cramped room. Four of them sat side by side on an old grey Naugahyde couch in the corner, while three others shared an armchair by the door, one on the cushion with the other two perched on the arms. Another woman wearing a lot of make-up had settled herself among the old magazines littering a rickety coffee table. Everyone was busily filling out audition forms.

  ‘All of Deerfield must have turned out for this thing,’ Rocky groaned.

  ‘You don’t see the Bunheads, do you?’ McGee stood on tiptoe and peered over to where several people had gathered along a counter that held a coffee pot and several Styrofoam cups.

  Zan, who was the tallest of the gang, shook her head. She could hardly talk. It hadn’t occurred to her until this moment that other people might attend the auditions, or even worse, they might be watching them audition. Her stage fright reappeared with a vengeance. ‘Are we sure we want to do this?’ Zan whispered hoarsely. ‘I mean, it looks like they’ve already got all the kids they’ll need.’

  ‘Of course we want to do this,’ Mary Bubnik replied, giving Zan a little shove to prod her into the room. ‘We want to meet Nicholas Blade, don’t we?’

  At the mention of the TV star, Zan felt goosebumps prickle up and down her arm. She took a deep breath and reminded herself that, after all, Nicholas Blade was her hero. She couldn’t let a little case of nerves get in the way of meeting him.

  ‘May I have your attention, please?’ A chunky girl with cropped blonde hair stood in the doorway behind the gang. She wore a plaid shirt with tan trousers. A dozen keys clinked from a chain hanging from her belt. ‘I’m Melissa Davidson, the stage manager, and I’ll be running the auditions this afternoon. You can call me Mel.’ She held up a clipboard for everyone to see. ‘This is the sign-in sheet. I’ll leave it here in the green room by the coffee machine.’

  ‘This room’s not green,’ Mary Bubnik observed loudly.

  Mel heard her and chuckled. ‘I know it’s not. But it’s a theatre tradition to call the lounge the “green room”. Don’t ask me why.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe because this is where actors used to get paid after their performances.’

  ‘Then they should paint it green so people don’t get confused,’ Mary Bubnik whispered to Rocky, who motioned her to be silent.

  ‘Please print your name clearly on this list,’ Mel continued. ‘And then we can begin auditions.’

  Several of the mothers clutched their children by the hand and rushed forward.

  ‘Jason needs to go first,’ one of them cried, lifting a startled-looking boy up over the head of the girl in front of him and dropping him at the stage manager’s feet.

  ‘Oh, no, you don’t!’ a large woman in a flowered print dress shouted, shoving her daughter ahead of Jason.

  The woman with all the make-up checked her watch and declared, ‘I absolutely have to leave in half an hour. My daughter must go now.’

  ‘You should have thought of that before you arrived,’ another woman shot back. ‘Timothy and I were here first, and we’ll be going first.’

  The women began to argue shrilly as the stage manager tried to restore order.

  ‘Those are what’s known as “stage mothers”,’ Rocky whispered out of the corner of her mouth. ‘They couldn’t be in a play when they were little, so they force their kids to be in them now.’

  ‘They’re not going to be in the show, are they?’ Mary Bubnik asked, imagining how unpleasant that would be.

  Rocky waved one hand. ‘Naw. They’ll just hang around before and after rehearsals, getting in everybody’s way, until opening night, when the stage manager will make them go and sit in the audience where they belong.’

  A shrill blast from a police whistle brought all the clamour to a standstill. Mel took the whistle from her mouth and smiled pleasantly. ‘Thank you. As I said, we’ll see each child in the order they sign in. No exceptions.’

  She set the clipboard on the counter and quickly left the room. There was a mad dash as each of the mothers tried to be first to get on the list. McGee and the others worked their way through the crowd and finally were able to write down their names. Then the stage manager brought in some folding chairs, and the gang scrambled to sit in them.

  ‘You girls get audition forms?’ Mel asked.

  They shook their heads. ‘We just got here,’ Gwen explained.

  The stage manager handed each of them a form. ‘Write your name and a phone number where you can be reached at the top. Then list your experience and any conflicts you might have.’

  A mother sitting on the couch beside a tiny girl with glasses raised her hand. ‘What kind of experience do you mean?’

  Mel ran her hand through her hair. ‘Any plays or performances the kids might have been in. What kind of dance or voice lessons they’ve taken – that sort of thing.’

  ‘We can put down The Nutcracker,’ Mary Bubnik whispered. ‘That should impress them.’

  ‘Also that we study at the Deerfield Academy of Dance,’ Zan added. ‘The best ballet school in Ohio.’

  As she headed for the door that led to the stage, Mel called over her shoulder, ‘The director will talk with all of you in just a minute, then we’ll begin.’

  Several teenaged girls sat cross-legged on the floor, using each other’s backs as tables to fill out their forms.

  ‘Oh, darn,’ a pretty blonde with waist-length hair exclaimed, ‘there’s not enough room to list all the plays I’ve done. I mean, I put down Alice in Wonderland and that took up almost the entire line.’

  The girl whose back she was using said, ‘Flip the paper over. I was able to list all the plays we did at the Deerfield Children’s Theatre, plus my work with the puppet group, Hand Jive.’

  This time it was Mary who murmured, ‘Gee, maybe Zan’s right. Maybe they do have enough experienced people already.’

  ‘They’re just trying to psych us out,’ Rocky replied. ‘Besides, the notice said the director needed kids. Those girls look at least eighteen. I bet they’re too old.’

  Gwen was the first to finish filling out her form. Under ‘Experience’ she had listed The Nutcracker, and all her years of piano lessons. For a moment she’d considered mentioning the part she’d played in her science class play at school. But she was afraid the director would ask what it was and then she’d have to tell him she’d been a toad eating flies to demonstrate the food chain. That would be too embarrassing.

  Gwen stood up and handed her audition sheet to Mel. Then she spotted several people coming through the stage door and bolted back to her seat with her friends. ‘Don’t look now,’ she hissed, ‘but directly behind you is the cutest guy in the whole wide world!’

  ‘Where?’ Mary Bubnik started to turn around when Gwen punched her on the shoulder.

  ‘I said, don’t look,’ Gwen hissed. ‘He’s standing in the doorway with two other boys.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Mary said, ‘I’ll be subtle.’ She grabbed her small pink purse and made a big show of dropping it on the floor. Then she bent down to pick it up, twisting backwards to get a good look at the door. In the process she leaned over too far and her folding cha
ir tipped over, hitting the floor with a loud boom. As she fell, Mary reached out and grabbed Zan by the arm, pulling her down with her.

  ‘Yeow!’ Zan shrieked, more in surprise than hurt.

  Gwen rolled her eyes at the ceiling. ‘Very subtle.’

  McGee rushed over to see if Zan and Mary Bubnik were all right. They were sitting on the floor, giggling like maniacs.

  ‘I can’t believe they’re doing that,’ Rocky whispered to Gwen. ‘They’re going to make us all look like a bunch of geeks.’ Rocky flipped up the collar of her jacket and she and Gwen both slumped down in their folding chairs trying to hide their faces.

  As McGee pulled a hysterical Mary to her feet, she looked directly into the cute boy’s dark brown eyes. Without thinking, she smiled at him. To her delight he smiled back, and McGee thought she would melt right into the ground.

  She completely forgot about Zan, who was sitting on the floor with her hand outstretched, and hurried back to her seat next to Rocky. McGee quickly removed her baseball cap and tried to smooth out the tufts of hair that had come out of her braids. She made a secret vow to herself that, if he talked to her, she wouldn’t even mention sports.

  ‘Oh, no!’ Rocky whispered. ‘He’s coming this way.’

  ‘Don’t move!’ Gwen gasped.

  The boy stepped in front of the girls, put his name on the sign-in sheet, and then stopped in front of McGee. ‘Aren’t you on Fairview’s baseball team?’ he asked.

  Up until that instant McGee had been very proud of her team, and especially of the fact that she was their star catcher. Now she wished she’d never heard of them. McGee bit her lip uncertainly. If she said yes, this cute boy would think she was just another jock, and that would be that.

  She hesitated for a second. Finally McGee shook her head. ‘No. I’m not.’

  ‘Oh, gee, I’m sorry.’ His warm brown eyes were filled with disappointment. ‘You look just like this girl that plays for them.’ Then he smiled and added, ‘She’s really terrific.’

  ‘Oh, thank –’ McGee swallowed hard. How could she thank him? She had to keep pretending it wasn’t her. Instead she said, ‘Do you like sports?’

  ‘Yeah, but I never get to do them much any more.’ He gestured toward the stage and added, ‘Since I’ve started working here.’

  Mel reappeared at the stage door. ‘Say, Brett, the director wants to talk to you for a minute.’

  The boy named Brett waved in acknowledgement, then turned back to McGee. ‘Got to go. See you later.’

  McGee nodded silently. She didn’t trust her voice to speak.

  ‘He must be in the play,’ Gwen said.

  ‘He is,’ one of the girls sitting across from them declared. ‘He plays the King’s oldest son.’

  ‘I wonder how he got that part?’ Mary Bubnik wondered out loud. ‘The auditions haven’t even started.’

  ‘That’s Brett Allen,’ the blonde said. ‘He’s done tons of shows here. He started in The Music Man, and then last year he was one of the leads in A Thousand Clowns.’

  Her friend sighed. ‘I saw it twice. Brett was great.’

  Zan, who had managed to pick herself up and sit back in her chair, said, ‘I think he’s cute, but I’m saving myself for Nicholas Blade.’

  ‘Me, too,’ Mary Bubnik agreed. ‘Now that’s good-looking.’

  ‘All right, listen up, everyone,’ Mel shouted. ‘The director wants everyone to come into the theatre. Follow me.’ There was a nervous scuffling of chairs and papers as everyone jumped up and left the room behind her.

  McGee and the gang followed the crowd out into the auditorium. A tall, thin man in jeans and a purple polo shirt was leaning against the stage. A white sweater was looped around his neck, and a pair of sunglasses rested on top of his salt-and-pepper hair. Another pair of reading glasses rested on the top of his nose. He carried stacks of pictures and a worn yellow copy of the script for The King and I.

  ‘Good afternoon, everyone,’ he announced in a deep voice that echoed around the theatre. ‘I’m Hayden Wilson, the director of this little masterpiece.’

  A couple of his assistants, who were lounging in the front row seats, chuckled loudly.

  ‘Now, we want to move these auditions along as smoothly as possible,’ the director continued. ‘You’ll each get your turn, but when Mel, my better half here, says you are through – please, leave the stage.’ He gestured toward a chubby fellow sitting at an upright piano in the aisle. ‘Johnny Ogden, our faithful accompanist, will play your sheet music, if you have any. I only want to hear a few bars of a song.’

  Johnny Ogden, whose red hair looked like someone had stuck a Brillo pad on top of his head, waved pleasantly.

  ‘Basically, what we’re looking for today are fifteen Asian children to play our King’s kids,’ Hayden Wilson declared.

  There was a loud murmur as the parents and children looked nervously over their shoulders and at the hopefuls milling around them.

  ‘Looks like she’s a shoo-in,’ Rocky whispered, pointing to a tiny Japanese girl who clung to her mother by one of the exits.

  The director chuckled loudly. ‘Obviously, many of you will have to wear make-up to look Asian. But Monty and Cheryl’ – he pointed to a boy and girl wearing white smocks – ‘are our wizards of disguise, and will take care of all that.’

  The teenaged girls who’d been sitting on the floor talking about their theatre experiences burst into applause. One of them even shouted, ‘Way to go, Monty and Cheryl!’

  ‘What is this?’ Gwen murmured. ‘A private club? It looks like everyone already knows each other.’

  ‘I know.’ Mary Bubnik nodded, a worried frown creasing her forehead. ‘We’re never going to get in this play.’

  ‘Everyone has an equal chance to be cast,’ Mr Wilson announced. ‘Now I’m looking for energy, energy, energy.’ He pounded his fist in his palm dramatically as he repeated the word. ‘That’s why I’ve had everyone come into the theatre to watch. We’ll be your audience, so I want each of you to give it your best shot.’

  McGee’s eyes turned to huge saucers in her face. ‘Brett, too?’ she whispered to Rocky.

  Rocky shrugged. ‘It looks like it.’

  McGee shook her head so hard her braids swung across her face. ‘I can’t do it.’

  ‘Me, neither,’ Zan gasped, her knees suddenly feeling a little wobbly.

  Hayden Wilson gestured to the stage manager, who handed him the piece of paper Gwen had handed her. He glanced at it briefly, then declared, ‘All right, it looks like Gwendolyn Hays will be first.’

  ‘First!’ Gwen squeaked. ‘I – I can’t.’

  The director peered over the top of his half glasses. ‘What do you mean, you can’t?’ His voice was ominously low and calm. ‘If you can’t, then what in heaven’s name are you doing here?’

  Everyone turned to stare at Gwen. She felt her cheeks grow hot with embarrassment and knew she must look like a bright cherry with freckles. ‘I mean, I can’t do it alone.’ She turned, looking meaningfully at her friends. ‘Our song is a group song.’

  The director fluttered his hand impatiently. ‘Whatever. Let’s just keep this thing moving.’

  Zan and McGee had decided to beat a hasty retreat and were headed for the door. But Rocky grabbed each of them firmly by the hand and dragged them up the steps on to the stage. The lights had been turned on and they stood blinking out into the darkness of the auditorium.

  ‘All right, group,’ the director said sarcastically, ‘what are you going to do for us today?’

  None of them could speak. They hadn’t had a chance to discuss their song. Finally Mary Bubnik stepped forward and announced brightly, ‘We’ll be doing “I’m a Little Teapot”.’ She paused, then added, ‘With all of the movements.’

  A loud groan sounded from the gang.

  ‘Mark my words, Mary Bubnik,’ Rocky muttered under her breath, ‘if we live through this, I’m going to kill you!’

  ‘Hays Mortuary – you stab
‘em, we slab ‘em!’ Gwen cradled the phone receiver against her ear as she dug into the cookie jar on the kitchen counter. It was Wednesday after school, and the phone had been ringing when she walked into the house. She stuffed a huge oatmeal cookie into her mouth and waited for the caller to respond.

  There was a long silence on the other end.

  ‘Hello?’ Gwen mumbled with a full mouth. ‘Anybody there?’

  Finally a female voice said brusquely, ‘I’m trying to reach Gwendolyn Hays. Have I dialled the right number?’

  The voice sounded like old lady Phelps, the grumpy secretary at Gwen’s school, whom nobody liked. Gwen reached for another cookie and took a loud crunchy bite. ‘Who wants to know?’

  ‘The Carousel Dinner Theatre.’

  Gwen’s eyes widened, and she nearly choked on her cookie crumbs. After the gang’s audition on Monday she’d been convinced they’d never hear from the theatre again. She still got embarrassed thinking about standing on the stage in front of the director, his assistants, and that cute boy, Brett, pretending to be a teapot. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Mary hadn’t been so off-key. And now some official from the theatre wanted to speak to her, and she’d just acted like a total jerk.

  ‘Uh, just a minute,’ Gwen said, pretending to be her own sister. ‘I’ll see if Gwen’s home yet from her, uh, piano lesson.’ She put her hand over the phone and shouted loudly, ‘Gwen, it’s for you.’

  She held the receiver at arm’s length and called in a thin, high-pitched cry, as if the voice were coming from the other side of the house, ‘I’m co-o-o-m-m-ming!’

  Then Gwen pointed the receiver down at her feet and ran in place softly, gradually making her footsteps louder to make it sound like she was running to the phone. While she ran Gwen struggled to swallow the rest of her cookie and cleared her throat.

  Finally she put the phone up to her mouth, and lowering her voice to what she hoped was a mature tone, said, ‘This is Gwendolyn Hays.’

  ‘Gwen? This is Melissa Davidson, the stage manager from the Carousel Dinner Theatre.’