Cornucopia

When shall we three meet again
?

In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

The first witch bellowed her lines and the second witch intoned back:

When the
hurlyburly’s
done,

When the battle’s lost and won.

The second witch, being played by Marissa Hart, had a softer but more sinister voice and she cast Lisa Ryan and Trudy Jones into the shade with her acting. Her rendition of the famous lines was creepy enough that I paused in my painting to listen. Mr.
Wallander
, the new drama coach, was allowing the scene to play out without interrupting.

In thunder, lightning, or in rain.
…

Halloween is my favorite time of year: the pumpkins, the leaves, bonfires, ghost stories, spice cake, and apple cider. However, the last two Halloweens had been marred by certain incidences which had—however illogically—made me slightly nervous to see the thirty-first of October rolling around again.

Jacky MacKay and I had grown our pumpkins as usual, but instead of entering them in the local contest to determine who had the largest and heaviest pumpkins in the county, I had volunteered our extras and shocks of Indian corn as decorations for the high school auditorium. The high school drama department in conjunction with the 4-H had decided to put on a Halloween play and the call had gone out to the community for volunteers to support the effort. Somehow, in addition to my pumpkins, they had gotten me to help with painting scenery. No talent was required. Someone from the art department had roughed things in and then numbered everything with a color key. It was like doing really big paint by numbers and the sets were looking great.

The play was
Macbeth
.

The Scottish play, in spite of its reputation for bringing bad luck, was a good choice for the season. It was literature and therefore uplifting, but it had witches, ghosts, and murder. I also liked that it would be the first exposure to Shakespeare for many of the kids in town. Nothing against
Romeo and Juliet
, but I don’t think it is the best choice for freshman boys. Blood and guts and ghosts were much more their speed.

And there wouldn’t be a haunted house this year.
Possibly not any year, since we had had a murder at the last one and parents were still nervous.
That meant another fund-raiser for the 4-H and drama department had to be found. Everyone hoped it would be this play.

The stage was a little
echoey
but I knew from experience that it would feel less hollow when the sets were in place and the four hundred seats were filled with warm, breathing bodies.

Blue loves being in the old auditorium. It is a cornucopia of scents, with the rubbed velvet seats that smell of hundreds of different butts, bolted to the floor with nuts and washers that have trapped a lot of really neat odors of dropped food and dirty sneakers.

The players, whose leads had been chosen after careful auditions, were also very willing to share pets and snacks with her between scenes. All in all, I had nothing to complain of except paint-stained clothes, and since I only used them for gardening that wasn’t really anything to beef about.

Fair is foul, and foul is fair:

Hover through the fog and filthy air.

“Very good!”
Mr.
Wallander
praised, raising his voice to be heard over the clapping. There had been some doubts expressed by the parents when he had taken over from Delbert
Biggers
, who had been the drama teacher since the year dot, but they doubted no longer. Original worries that he would be too
avant-garde
had been allayed by his choice of plays and by the enthusiasm of his students.

“While I have my three witches here, I’d like to do a quick run through act 4, scene 1 and look at the blocking. Hecate, we won’t need you just yet.”

Theresa Bolger leaned against the wall, which she pretty well covered, being built like a linebacker.

The first witch took up her place by the imaginary cauldron.

Thrice the
brinded
cat hath
mew’d
.

Lisa did it well. And she looked the part being tall, angular, and having long black hair. Then Marissa said her line and it was obvious who the best actress was. When she spoke no one noticed she was short, a bit dumpy, and had uncontrollable red hair.

Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.

Trudy, the third witch, was
neither tall nor short, not thin nor plump,
and was overall rather beige. Makeup would fix that though and she was beginning to be comfortable with her part. She also had a convincing cackle which was her natural laugh.

Harpier
cries “
’Tis
time, ’tis time.”

It was difficult to pull myself away from the performance, but Alex would be home soon and I had promised him spaghetti and pumpkin cookies for dessert. That meant I had twenty more minutes to finish the ruined turret and fix up a portion of
Birnam
wood which at present looked far too friendly and safe.

I had just squatted down with a fully loaded paint brush when a loud crash and a chorus of screams made me blot the castle with the wrong color. I jumped to my feet and hurried out onto the stage to see what had happened. A quick glance at the chaos and necks craning upward in alarm had me using bad language, but only on the inside since there were students present, and also my mother and aunt who had been fitting costumes on some the servants and soldiers in act 5. Mom and Aunt Dot were plainly shocked by the sky falling in, and if Mom hadn’t turned white it was only because she is already as pale as it is possible for a human to be.

“Is anyone hurt?” I shouted, wishing I had Marissa’s ability to project because I was completely ignored.

Before I had done more than push my way to the edge of the stage, I had the impression of a shadow moving overhead and looked up in apprehension. I couldn’t see anything except gently swaying stage sets, but decided I had better make sure that nothing else was about to come down on us.

There was an old iron ladder just offstage to the right, which went up into the rafters where the lights were strung off an old catwalk and where they had hoisted the giant canvases up out of sight. I had a quick look around but the other set paintings seemed secure. I found the vacant spot where the fallen flat had been and had a look at the moorings. The rope that had held the fallen canvas had simply come undone, perhaps not having been tied with the correct knot. This was annoying because I had given the safety lecture myself.

Forgetting that I wasn’t particularly good with heights, I leaned over the railing and looked down at the stage. At first I didn’t understand what I was seeing, but after a moment of adjustment and the students shifting things around, I discovered that the piece of fallen scenery was a flat of
Dunsinane
Castle (interior). From my view I could see that the actors had been in no danger when it had come crashing down, but it had barely missed Mr.
Wallander
, hitting the table he was using as a desk. The dropped flat had a giant multidirectional tear in one corner that the director’s chair had poked through and it didn’t look repairable. The canvas would have to be replaced and repainted.

I was craven enough to be glad that it wasn’t one of my assigned sets, though I knew that didn’t mean that I wouldn’t get press-ganged into doing a new one. I couldn’t plead being too busy at work because the Chief had given me all the release time I needed to help with the play. And I had taken it, since it was help with the play or get dragged into doing Officer Bill at the parade of jack-o’-lanterns in Courthouse Park.

“Is anyone hurt?” I asked again when I was back on
terra firma
and things had quieted. I was feeling slightly dizzy from my trip into the rafters.

There were a great many murmurs of
no
and
I don’t think so
for which I said a prayer of thanks. We did not need another Halloween disaster.

To help themselves recover from the shock, and because they were endlessly ravenous teenagers, everyone including Blue headed for the snack table that the 4-H parents had equipped with various carbonated refreshments and cookies.

Mom was sucking on her finger and scowling.

“You okay, Mom?” I asked her.

“Yes, dear.
I just stabbed myself with a pin. Your poor Aunt Dot poured tea all over herself too.”

“Was it hot?” I asked with concern.

“No, stone cold but it had milk and three sugars. She’ll have to send her sweater to be cleaned.”

A damaged sweater I could live with.

I watched the kids in their feeding frenzy, wondering if I should try to discover who had been responsible for improperly securing the canvas.

Patrick
Amberly
, who usually dressed with the kind of sloth that drove
parents
nuts, was looking rather regal as the doomed
Banquo
. He had two versions of his costume.
One clean and one bloody.
He was presently
ungory
.

Beside him was Richie Maxx who was playing Macbeth. He wasn’t in costume, but I had seen it earlier and it was rather gorgeous as long as you didn’t get too close and notice that the rich velvets were really cheap velour, on sale last month for $3.95 a yard. Richie had long hair which usually looked out of place among his fashionably cropped and shorn classmates but it suited the role perfectly.

Richie’s girlfriend, Alison Brenner, was playing Lady Macbeth. She had at first seemed an odd choice to me because I always pictured Lady Macbeth as a dark-haired, dark-hearted monster. But Alison played her with a sort of sweet insanity that was very effective and not at all expected, at least by me.

A few cookies and energy drinks later and the cast
was
ready to return to brewing hell-broth.

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of.…” Macbeth muttered softly, checking his script between taking bites of a chocolate chip cookie. “I’ll never remember all this.”

Blue shoved her head under my hand, letting me know that she was ready to go. I was too.
Birnam
wood could wait for tomorrow.

“Come on, Blue. Let’s go get some dinner.”