A Midsummer Tight's Dream (12 page)

And then it got worse. If Charlie had been hugging me, especially in front of everyone, I would have either done my spontaneous Irish dancing or Tourette syndrome of the leg as some people might call it. Or gone unconscious.

But Honey didn’t go unconscious. She went femme fatale. I had seen her do it before on Ben and his head had practically dropped off. She looked down and then she looked up and looked Charlie straight in the eyes. And she was slightly smiling. And fluttering her false eyelashes up and down. Crumbs, she was going the whole hog. She touched her lips with her fingers, kissed them, and then she put her fingers that she had kissed on his lips and said softly, “Oh, Chawlie, I’ll mith you.”

It was like being in a French film. Possibly. I don’t know, I’ve never seen one. But my grandma said the French were “always at it.”

Charlie cleared his throat and leaned down toward her. I thought he was going to snog her! But he kissed her on the cheek and said, “I’ll miss you too, pet.”

I was thinking, “Oh yes, you’ll miss her, if you’ve got time in between all the other girls that you might miss or you’ve got in your pocket or …”

But then he moved away from her and said to all of us, “Look, girls, I would love to stay around hugging with you all day but we’ve got hopping practice. And I actually came to see Jo because I got a phone call from Phil last night.”

We looked at Jo and she went bright red. She looked a bit frightened as well. What next? Charlie went on, “He says can you make it to the public phone in the village, round the corner from The Blind Pig on Saturday at seven?”

Jo stuttered, “Well, I, er … well, I, er …”

As he turned to go off, he looked back at me and said, “Tallulah, we need to talk about stuff.”

And he was gone.

The others looked at me.

Flossie said, “What was that about, Tallulah? What stuff?”

Honey said, “I think he might like you, Tallulah. He ith thooooo gorguth. You should go out with him. I would. Why don’t you?”

I shrugged and was just about to think of something to say when Jo started hitting tree trunks with her bag.

“Oh, it’s all about Tallulah’s knees! Or Tallulah’s corkers. Or talking or something! Shut up about Tallulah, what about me? This is about me! Phil is going to phone me!!!”

And she started doing run-run-leap around us. Then we heard the assembly bell ring in the distance and we all tore off up the drive to Dother Hall.

We went on running through the main doors, into the cloakroom, running on the spot as we took our coats off and then ran straight into the main hall.

I wish I knew why we were running.

We’d just scrabbled to our seats panting and were doing sitting-down running on the spot because we were so excited, when the stage door opened and Dr. Lightowler appeared. I stopped my legs immediately and got them under control.

Dr. Lightowler said, “Settle down, girls,” and swished her cloak about. It was made of black velvet and looked like it had fun fur on the inside.

I said quietly to Jo, “She’s grown a winter cloak.”

Even though you would have had to be a dog to hear me, her beady eyes swiveled round and fixed on me. And not in a good way. Not in a “hello, Tallulah, how lovely to see you” way.

“And when I say settle down, girls, I particularly mean you, Tallulah Casey.”

Jo said, “Boy, does she hate you.”

I don’t know why she does. It’s something about my legs. She thinks I have grown them extra long just to annoy her. And that I do Irish dancing on purpose. She doesn’t know about having Tourettes of the legs.

Dr. Lightowler went on, “The principal is away on urgent business today. In the meantime, as you know, our winter project is a reworking of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
and I expect you all to fully participate. Keeping notebooks, doing lunchtime performances, etc. I don’t think all of you understand the great honor it is to be at Dother Hall. But can I remind you that this is not Liberty Hall. You have come to work. And work hard. Those of you not up to the mark may well find yourselves, quite literally, as in the Bard’s play, being Bottom.”

What is she talking about? And why is she looking at me?

Monty and Gudrun were trumpeting with laughter at “being Bottom.” In fact, Gudrun got hiccups and had to leave the hall.

It was only half-past nine in the morning and I was already tired. And confused. Having my bottom felt by a serial hugger and then the serial hugger saying, “we need to talk about stuff.”

What did “we need to talk” mean? What does “stuff” mean?

We need to talk about forgetting about stuff? What was stuff?

For our first lesson, Monty turned up with a copy of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
and wearing green corduroy trousers to the knee and a cap with a feather in it. He said, “Girls, good morning, and especially good morning to Honey. Welcome, my dear, welcome back. I hope to hear your lovely voice in our production. Perhaps as the Queen of the Fairies?”

Honey smiled at him in her Honey way. But when she looked round at me, she looked a bit sad. She won’t be in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, she will be riding around in a limo in a Hollywood dream.

Monty went to sit down on a table but his trousers were too tight to bend easily, so he put one arm on the top of the table and leaned back, in a casual storytelling pose.

He said, “Once more we enter the magical, tragical, comedical world of Shakespeare and his wondrous fairy tale. Now, as you may know, a great deal of the action takes place in the woods and to get into the proper spirit we shall ourselves, ‘enter the woods.’ The woods are of course a metaphor for the imagination and subconscious.”

Rain started pelting against the windows.

I said to the others, “I hope he is being ‘metaphorical’ in that he means we will enter the woods in our minds, but not actually have to go outside into the howling rain.”

Honey said, “I don’t want to spoil my bootth, the wain might wuin them for Hollywood. I don’t think they will like thoggy bootth in Hollywood.”

Flossie said, “I know, and my pants are only just dry from yesterday. I put them on the dorm radiator to dry. If Bob had found them I would have been hung for offenses against the planet.”

Everyone else seemed keen to get into the woods.

Vaisey said, “Come on, it will be fun.” And stuffed her curls into her hat.

Monty started putting on his raincoat. My coat was still damp from walking to Dother Hall, but who said the ladder to the stars was going to be dry? We squelched across the sodden grass and into the dripping woods. A big raindrop went right down my neck. At least no one licked it off.

Monty had his theatrical welligogs on (stars all over them) and bustled along in front of us breathing in the damp forest air as if it was tincture of joy. Then he darted off suddenly and hid behind a tree.

We looked at each other—had we started the avant garde performance already? Then Monty’s head popped out and he put his hand to his ear and said, “Sssshhhhhh. Can you begin to feel it, girls? Do you feel the magic working, girls? ‘What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?’ OOOohhhh, the Bard, the Bard! Genius genius!!!”

We blundered on while he yelled over his shoulder, “You can smell fairies out here!!”

We looked at each other.

Then he stopped and gasped, “Look, girls, look. Drink in the sight.”

He pointed to some moldy old hawthorn berries clinging on to a twig for dear life against the wind and rain. He gazed at them as if he was about to burst into tears and clapped his hands and said, “Two lovely berries molded on one stem.” And went chuckling off farther into the woods.

After about ten minutes it stopped raining and as we lagged behind things began to look quite familiar. And then we realized that he was making for our special tree place.

How did he know about it?

Honey said, “Pwaps the twee weally does have stwange powers?”

Well, it certainly had a big effect on Monty. He threw down his satchel and began skipping round the tree.

“Girls, join in, join hands, join our little fairy throng. Let us make play in the woods, in the green woods.”

We started shuffling around the tree in our raincoats.

“Lightly, girls, lightly, as if you had wings!”

So we did light skipping.

Then he said, “Now, let us talk in fairy language!”

I said, “What if the Woolfe boys come along and see us talking in high-pitched voices and skipping?”

Flossie said, “Well, they’ve seen us wiggling around in front of trees before.”

Monty pursed his lips and started trilling in a tiny tinkling voice. I happened to be next to him in the skipping circle, holding his pudgy hand, and as we skipped he turned to me and tinkled, “Heeeeee … weeee … meeeee. Hewwww.”

And he looked at me all blinky as if expecting something. Flossie, Vaisey, Jo, and the rest had their mouths puckered up. So through my pursed lips I squeaked out in my fairy voice, “Hiddddiddddleeeee didddleeee diddilllleeee.”

Flossie had a coughing fit she was laughing so much.

After half an hour, Jo went up to Monty and said, “Mr. de Courcy, I can’t feel my bottom anymore. Can we go in?”

Monty patted her head. Uh-oh. If I was him I wouldn’t have done that. Jo accidentally stepped on Monty’s foot, quite hard. Then started walking back to Dother Hall.

As we followed her, Monty, slightly hopping, was still in his Shakespeare mood. He gestured after Jo and said, “She was a vixen when she went to school, and though she be but little, she is fierce.”

And trilled with laughter.

As we came out of ballet class that afternoon, I said to Vaisey, “It’s not really fair, is it? You know, ballet for people with my legginess. I mean, if I made Jo do, er … reaching for things on top shelves that wouldn’t be fair on her, would it? Because she’s too short to reach. So that is my point about me and ballet.”

Vaisey said, “I know what you mean, but reaching up to shelves isn’t on our syllabus, is it?”

And we headed up to the dorm.

We were sitting on Vaisey’s bed and Jo was lying on me kicking her legs, complaining. “It’s all right for you, Tallulah, all you’ve got to be worried about is your legs. Phil might be phoning up so that he can dump me.”

Vaisey said, “Why would he do that, he could just not bother getting in touch.”

Honey said, “I think he weally liketh you, Jo, he even liked you when you hit him and jumped on him.”

Jo wasn’t convinced.

“Yeah, but maybe he really did mind and he just didn’t say he minded, but he was storing up minding into a big fat pile of mindiness. To tell me about on the phone.”

Her mood was very catching. I said, “Who knows what boys think anyway? I mean, why would anyone lick your nose? I don’t remember that on Cousin Georgia’s snogging scale. And do you know why? Because it’s not on there.”

Flossie said, “What is on the scale?”

I told them all I could remember. Up to a kiss lasting over three minutes.

Honey said, “After that it’s tongueth.”

We looked at her. She swished her hair about.

Vaisey said, “Tongues? At the same time? What, his tongue and your tongue?”

Honey nodded. “Well, weally you have to impwovise.”

I said, “Yes, but how do you improvise if you haven’t got anyone to improvise with? Ruby said that some boys were so rubbish at kissing that they should practice on something. Maybe we could do that. You know, improvise with something.”

Flossie said, “Like what?”

“Well, Ruby suggested balloons.”

They just stared.

Jo said, “What if you accidentally bit the balloon?”

“Why would you accidentally bite a balloon?” I said.

Honey said, “You can do a bit of a pwactice by using one of your fwends’ legth.”

When it was my turn to practice, I put my lips on Flossie’s calf and Honey said, “Wight, Lullah, try sticking your tongue out just a little bit and sort of darting it in and out.”