The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

The Stage, Your World?

Previously: "The Leftovers" 

Every place you've checked at school looks risky, but the theater looks like a less risky bet than any of the others. So that's where you return.

The lights in the auditorium are off, except for a single dim spotlight focused on the empty stage, and you stand in the back, blinking as your eyes adjust to the dark. You strain your ears toward an inarticulate murmuring the spills out of the front rows.

Gradually you start to make out that there are two people seated down there, their heads visible only as humped silhouettes against the dim puddle of light on stage. One of them looks around, and you dive into the back row. When you peep out again, you see that the figures has risen and is making its way toward the back. You hold your breath—will you get in trouble for coming in? But the figure turns the other way just as it reaches your row, and goes out the door you came in. You squint against the sunlight that comes pouring inside, and can only make out that whoever it was that went out, it's a guy.

"Elle?" a voice drifts up from down below. "Ellie, Ellie, Ellie, Ellie, Elle?" it drawls. Must be Charles, you think. It's too languid to be anyone else.

A girl in a white sweater and a tan skirt comes out on stage. She's got a round face curtained on both sides by flat drapes of hair that might be brown and might be a dark blonde. She could be pretty if she smiled, but she's not smiling now. From the front row, Charles says, "While we're waiting for your co-star to finish unpinning her mittens from her sleeves, could you show us how you're going to take Lord Bottomley's phone call?"

The girl—Elle, is that her name?—looks around the set. Charles says, "Ddrrring-ddrrring!" Elle gives him a look, and puts a cell phone to her ear. Charles says, "It's nineteen-forty, Ellie dear, you won't be getting any reception on that!" Elle makes another face at him and shifts her hand to mime holding an old-fashioned telephone receiver.

Before she can start, Charles says, "There's a transatlantic call for you, Lorraine. It's London."

For the third time, Elle grimaces. "That's not my cue," she says.

"Pretend it is."

Elle rolls her eyes, then puts on a simpering expression as she talks into the tip of her pinkie finger.

"Hello, London?" she says. "Hello ... Cedric? Why Cedric, is that you?" She gasps and throws her head back. "Why Cedric," she crows, "what a surprise, how'd you know I was here?"

You almost bolt from the theater.

But your eye is caught first by a glow from a seat a few rows down in front of you. It looks like it's coming from a cell phone screen. With a start, you realize that there's someone else hiding back here in the dark, watching the rehearsal.

"Darling, don't talk so fast, and you won't stutter so!" Elle exclaims.

You creep further down your own row, trying to get a better look at who is back here with you, but you can't make out anything of them.

"What? Oh, darling!" Elle cries out. "A ha ha ha ha ha!"

"Is that a laugh or a hiccup?" Charles snarks.

"Is that direction or heckling?" Elle retorts. Without waiting for a reply, she stomps off into the wings. Half a minute later she reappears with a backpack on her shoulders. She marches across the stage, jumps off the far edge, and hauls ass up the aisle toward the exit. Charles says nothing. She bangs the door open, and it bangs shut after she's gone.

Well, it seems that you've got a choice of targets in here, assuming you catch or isolate any of them. The person a few rows down is the most isolated, but who knows if Charles will, at any moment, turn around to shout up to them. There's Charles himself, maybe and there's probably people back stage. Or you could go chasing off after Elle, or that guy who left earlier.

Next: "Masks and Rough Play" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 1)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)"