Dunces Anonymous (3 page)

“Did Magnolia tell you that I dreamed of playing Juliet when I was a girl?”

She lifted a hand to her forehead and recited, “‘In fair Verona, where we set our scene, a pair of star-crossed lovers take their life!'”

“Star-crossed lovers! Sheesh!” Magnolia rolled her eyes.

“Never underestimate the power of true love, sweetheart.” Magnolia's mom sighed. “You are a beautiful flower in the bloom of your youth! Enjoy it! Enjoy every moment!”

That sounded like a dramatic exit line if Magnolia ever heard one, and sure enough, her mom swept out of the room, back to the saga of
Young Hearts Afire
. Little Garland was left behind in the living room, trying to pull down the pile of magazines so that he could reach the cookie plate. Magnolia scooped up her baby brother and set him on some cushions in a corner with a couple of cookies to keep him happy. Then she turned back to the boys.

“Honestly, you guys, do I look like a star-crossed lover?”

She held out her arms so they could see how much she
didn't
look like a star-crossed lover. She was wearing plaid pants and a fake zebra-fur jacket that she'd found at a thrift shop.

“Not really,” said Wang.

“Not exactly,” said Josh.

“Not at all! Sheesh! What am I going to do?” Magnolia flung herself backward, landing, arms outstretched, in the floral armchair.

“Maybe,” Josh piped up timidly, “you could just flub your lines?”

Magnolia frowned but didn't answer. Actually, she'd already thought of that. If she flubbed her lines, obviously she wouldn't get the part. But the solution seemed so dramatically unsatisfying. Anyone could flub their lines! It didn't take an actress to do that! And Magnolia was a serious actress. Last year, she had played Schoolgirl Number Three in the television miniseries of
Anne of Green Gables
. The part of Anne had been taken by a natural redhead. You couldn't fight typecasting.

“I know!” said Wang. “What if you were suddenly paralyzed?”

“Paralyzed?” said Magnolia.

“By stage fright,” Josh suggested.

Paralyzed by stage fright! It had dramatic possibilities. Magnolia rose from the armchair.

“I walk on stage,” she began, acting out the idea as she thought it through. “Suddenly, the glare of the lights hits me. I freeze.” Magnolia froze. “My mind is a blank! I can't remember why I'm here! I can't remember what play I'm auditioning for! My ears are filled with a buzzing…no, no, a ringing sound! My hand begins to shake.” She held out her hand. It was trembling. “Suddenly I feel faint! The room begins to spin! I fall to the ground!”

Magnolia let her knees crumple beneath her. She was aiming to collapse onto the carpet in the narrow space between the television set and the coffee table, but as she swooned, her outstretched hand hit the pile of magazines on the table and sent the plate of cookies flying.

“Tookie! Tookie!” Garland screamed. The kitchen door flew open.

“Magnolia! What's happening?” her mother exclaimed. She rushed to the place where Magnolia lay on the ground, eyes half-closed.

“Oh! You're rehearsing the death scene!” her mother cried.

Magnolia heard a thump on the carpet as her mom fell to her knees beside her.

“‘What's here? A cup clos'd in my true love's hand?” her mother excalimed. “Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end!'”

“Mom!” Magnolia tried to sit up, but her mother pushed her back to the floor.

“‘Yea, a noise? Then I'll be brief! Oh, happy dagger, let me die!'”

Magnolia watched as her mother pretended to stab herself in the heart with an imaginary dagger. Then, before she could squirm out of the way, her mother collapsed on top of her in a flowery heap that smelled of beef stroganoff.

“Mom! Get off me!”

But her mother wouldn't move until the dramatic moment was over. Magnolia stopped struggling and sank back into the carpet. Sheesh! If her mom wanted to play Juliet so badly, why didn't
she
audition for the part?

The school gymnasium was swarming with Juliets on the Friday afternoon of the auditions. Magnolia hadn't seen so much satin and crinoline in one place since her kindergarten's Halloween party, when all the other girls in the class had dressed up as princesses. Magnolia had worn a dragon costume. No such luck this time, she thought, as she tugged at the sleeves of the lacy, pale blue gown her mother had rented from the costume shop especially for this audition.

“I feel like Tinkerbell in a nightie,” she muttered to Josh—not too loudly, because her mother was hovering nearby.

“Don't worry,” Josh whispered back. “Remember: stage fright.”

“Right.” Magnolia nodded.

“Oh, Magnolia, did you see Emmett?” A girl burst through the crowd and appeared at Magnolia's elbow. She was wearing a long pink ball gown, and her blond hair was swept up beneath a silver tiara.

“Hi, Hannah,” said Magnolia.

“Did you see him?” Hannah repeated, gesturing to a corner of the gym. “Isn't he gorgeous?”

Magnolia looked over to the corner, where a small knot of boys was standing around awkwardly, waiting for the auditions to start. They were all dressed in ordinary jeans and T-shirts. All except one. Emmett Blackwell. Emmett was wearing purple velvet pants and a shirt with ruffles down the front.

Emmett was one year ahead of her, in grade seven, but Magnolia knew him from the
Anne of Green Gables
miniseries. He had played the part of Gilbert, Anne's admirer, and Magnolia remembered how he'd strutted around the set like he was some big movie star. He wouldn't even talk to her because she was just Schoolgirl Number Three. No doubt he was auditioning for Romeo! She hoped he'd get the role of Third Gravedigger.

“He's wearing purple pants,” Magnolia said to Hannah. How could anyone have a crush on a guy who wore purple pants?

“I think I'm going to faint!” Hannah moaned.

“Oh, give me a break!” said Magnolia. Before Hannah could carry through on her threat, Mrs. Karloff appeared on the stage at the front of the gymnasium. She clapped her hands for silence.

“All right, people!” she announced. “We'll start with the lead roles. Anyone wishing to audition for the parts of Romeo or Juliet, come backstage, now! Everyone else: Quiet in the house!”

Hannah grabbed Magnolia's hand and began dragging her toward the stage.

“Break a leg, darling!” Magnolia's mother called after her.

“Break two!” shouted Wang, grinning.

Easy for him to say. He didn't have to fake an attack of stage fright in front of his own mother. Maybe I really will get stage fright, thought Magnolia, starting to feel nervous. Wouldn't that take the cake?

“All right, quiet down!” Mrs. Karloff commanded, as the last of the Juliets straggled into the wings. Mrs. Karloff was dressed all in black, with a chunky necklace of glass and wooden beads around her neck and a black beret on her head. She wore the highest-heeled shoes that Magnolia had ever seen, and they rapped the stage like a conductor's baton, calling the actors to order.

“Now, for this audition, you're going to be playing the famous balcony scene. That's Act Two, Scene Two, if you'd all turn to that page in your scripts.”

Mrs. Karloff gave everyone a moment to find the right page. “Okay, Romeo”—she turned to the boys— “you've just met Juliet at a party and you've fallen madly in love with her. There's only one problem. Your family, the Montagues, are the deadly enemies of her family, the Capulets. If your father knew you loved her, he'd kill both of you.

“Okay, Juliet”—she turned to the girls—“you've just met Romeo at a party and you've fallen madly in love with him. There's only one problem. Your family, the Capulets, are the deadly enemies of his family, the Montagues. If your father knew you loved him, he'd kill both of you. Right. Now in this scene, it's nighttime. Juliet, you can't sleep. You go out onto your balcony, thinking about how much you love Romeo.

“Romeo, you sneak into Juliet's garden, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. There she is on the balcony, a vision of beauty. You exchange your vows of true love. Think of the danger! Think of the passion!”

Mrs. Karloff looked down at the clipboard she was carrying. “All right! First up, we'll have Vincent Nguyen as Romeo and Hannah Flynn as Juliet. Hannah, you'll start at ‘O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?…' When you're ready!”

Mrs. Karloff strode off the stage, her high heels clacking down the stairs, and went to stand in the center of the gym floor to watch the audition.

Hannah squeezed Magnolia's hand.

“Wish me luck!” she whispered.

“Good luck!” said Magnolia. And she meant it. She was starting to feel a twinge of guilt about the trick she was going to play on her mother. Magnolia peeked out from behind the wings. There was her mom, sitting on a folding chair facing center stage, her hands clenched in her lap. Magnolia knew her mom would weep if she didn't get the part of Juliet—even if it was caused by an “innocent” case of stage fright. Why couldn't she understand that Magnolia didn't
want
to be a romantic heroine? But no, it would be Magnolia's fault for dashing her mother's hopes.

Maybe one of the other Juliets would pull off such a fantastic audition that Mrs. Karloff would award her the role on the spot. Then Magnolia wouldn't have to go through with the charade. She looked hopefully at Hannah, who was gliding onto the stage in her ball gown.

Hannah sure fit the part, with her long golden hair and her slim figure.

Even Vincent Nguyen, who was supposed to be playing Romeo, seemed suddenly too shy to approach her. One of the other Romeos had to shove him onto the stage. Hannah held her hand to her heart and gazed wistfully into the audience. Magnolia crossed her fingers tightly. Then Hannah opened her mouth to speak her first line.

“O Romeo, Romeo, werewolf art thou, Romeo?”

Bang!
Mrs. Karloff's spiky heel came down hard on the gymnasium floor. The sound echoed around the room like a judge's gavel. Magnolia bit her lip.

“Hannah, darling, this is
Romeo and Juliet
, not
Twilight
!” Mrs. Karloff snapped. “It's ‘Romeo, Romeo,
wherefore
art thou, Romeo!'”

“Oh.” Hannah peered at the script. “Right.”

“Try it again,” Mrs. Karloff directed. “From the top!”

Hannah glanced back at Magnolia, who gave her the thumbs-up. Maybe it was a real case of stage fright, Magnolia thought. Maybe once she got started, Hannah would be okay.

Hannah put her hand to her heart and began again. “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo? Denny thy father, and refuse thy name—”

“Stop! Stop!” Mrs. Karloff cried, stamping her heel again. “Hannah, darling, why do you say ‘
Denny
thy father,' when Shakespeare very clearly wrote ‘
Deny
thy father'? Don't you understand? Juliet is telling Romeo to deny his father, to forget about his father, because his father won't approve of their love!”

“Oh.” Hannah looked at the script again. “I thought it was ‘Denny, thy father.' You know, like his father's name was Denny.”

“This is Shakespeare, darling,” Mrs. Karloff sighed. “There are no Dennys in Shakespeare.”

Hannah glanced nervously back at Magnolia. Magnolia forced herself to smile, but her hopes for Hannah's stage debut were rapidly sinking. Hannah took a deep breath and struck her pose again.

“O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name.
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Catapult!”

A Catapult! Magnolia groaned.

“No! No! No!” Mrs. Karloff shouted, waving her arms and slamming her spiky-heeled shoes into the floor. “It's Capulet! Capulet! Not Catapult!”

“Capulet?” Hannah frowned.

“Yes. Of course. Juliet's family name is Capulet!” Mrs. Karloff sounded exasperated. “When she says to Romeo, ‘I'll no longer be a Capulet,' it means she's willing to give up her family for the sake of his love!”

“Oh,” said Hannah. “I thought it meant she was going to catapult someone off the balcony. This
is
the balcony scene, isn't it?”

Mrs. Karloff sighed and looked at her clipboard.

“All right, Hannah, thank you,” she said. “Chelsea Laroque? Chelsea, please, you're next.”

Magnolia gave Hannah's hand a squeeze when she came off the stage, but no amount of sympathy could change the fact that she'd blown her audition. Chelsea turned out to be even worse than Hannah, and the third Juliet was as bad as the first two put together. There was no other way out, Magnolia thought grimly. She'd have to put the stage-fright plan into action.

“Next up,” Mrs. Karloff called. “Magnolia Montcrieff as Juliet. And as Romeo—Emmett Blackwell!”

Emmett Blackwell! Magnolia froze in her tracks. She hadn't reckoned on playing opposite Emmett. As he stepped forward onto the stage, she noticed that besides the purple pants and frilly shirt, Emmett was wearing a pair of shiny black shoes with brass buckles.

“I see you've put some thought in to your costume, Emmett,” said Mrs. Karloff approvingly. “Well, come on, Magnolia. We haven't got all day.”

Magnolia lifted her chin and stepped forward. Who did Emmett think he was anyway? Just because he played Gilbert in
Anne of Green Gables
and she was only Schoolgirl Number Three didn't mean that she couldn't share the stage with him. She was as good an actor as Emmett Blackwell, any day.

“Why don't you begin, Emmett?” Mrs. Karloff said. “We'll start at ‘But soft! What light through yonder window breaks…' Go ahead when you're ready!”

Mrs. Karloff stood still, watching from her post in the gymnasium. Emmett took a few steps toward the back of the stage. Then he crouched down and snuck forward, as though he were creeping through the bushes of Juliet's garden. He stopped and looked up; then, in a voice that sounded like a whisper, yet somehow carried through the whole gymnasium, he said, “‘But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!'”