“Nobody’s laughing, Adara,” he said soothingly. Adara’s head snapped around to face him. Elliot lifted his hands in a gesture of peace. “Just here to help, you dazzling apricot of artistry, you. Excited to help out, build sets, see you perform. Can I fetch you a glass of water?”
Adara did not immediately bite his head off and spit it out of the window, which Elliot counted as a win until he noticed that Adara was not looking at him, but over Elliot’s shoulder. Elliot glanced behind him, and saw Luke had stepped back and hit the door he’d just come through.
“Jewel,” Adara breathed.
“Can I have a word with you, Elliot?” Luke asked between his teeth. “I have a strong feeling that I should be somewhere else.”
Elliot leaned back against the door as well. “No. Nope, I think I want to stay and see this one play out.”
Luke stared into space. “Awesome.”
“So here’s the issue,” said Adara briskly. “Mr Fleetwood—”
“Was his first name Mac?” asked Elliot.
“No, why would you ask that?” Adara snapped.
“No reason,” Elliot told her, disappointed. “Continue.”
“Mr Fleetwood retired last year,” Adara resumed, “and there was no teacher on the council course willing to replace him. Several students have quit since then, and the best male performers graduated last year and have not been replaced. The drama group has always been primarily female. It’s something the very few women in the camp can do together! It’s why we put on elven plays, because that means that there are more women with bigger and better parts. But it’s also why the boys don’t want to join! And this idiot isn’t any good at recruiting, due to having the charisma of a rotten leaf.”
Captain Whiteleaf looked deeply wounded.
“We need men,” Adara continued. Elliot figured there was never a bad time to hear things like that from a beautiful blonde. “Specifically, we need someone to play Jewel-in-the-Crown-of-Beauty, our protagonist’s love interest and the most beautiful and virtuous elf in the four forests. Luke, you saved the whole production by coming here. You would obviously be perfect, and you are cast. And you! You’re a boy, sort of,” Adara went on.
“Oh, thanks,” said Elliot.
“More of one than Captain Whiteleaf, anyway.”
“Oh, thanks!” Captain Whiteleaf exclaimed indignantly.
Adara’s indifference was supreme. “Someone throw Schafer a script. Does anyone think that he could play Red Rose?”
Elliot stared.
“Red-Rose-Blooming-in-a-Dark-Garden,” Myra put in helpfully. “He’s often played by a red-haired actor, though some people argue that the name symbolizes the carnal sin and temptation he represents in his place as a minor agent on the side of evil.”
“Sorry, what?” asked Elliot. “Are you telling me that Luke is cast as the maiden fair and I am the bit-part evil floozy?”
There was a pause. Myra was cute, but there were some things Elliot could not put up with.
“How dare you,” Elliot exclaimed. “Come on, loser, we’re leaving.”
“Thank you, Elliot,” Luke said devoutly. “I do not want to be here.”
“Red Rose actually has a very interesting backstory!” Myra burst out, jumping to her feet and shoving her handwritten script in Elliot’s direction. “He was in love with our hero, the valiant knight Radiant-Blade-Washed-With-Blood. That’s Adara. They went to school together, but Red Rose is embittered his beauty is fading with the years, and Radiant’s heart has been stolen by Jewel’s loveliness and purity, so Red Rose turns to evil!”
Myra gazed beseechingly at Elliot. Elliot flipped through the pages.
“Uh, why is Radiant described as a young woman in the prime of her youth and strength while Red Rose’s beauty is fading with his years? Since they went to school together, aren’t they the same age?”
“Eeesh,” said Myra, making a dismayed face. “Good point.”
“Cry me a river of blood tears, you ginger whiner!” Adara exclaimed. “This is a play that will involve a mostly human cast and be played in front of a mostly human audience, and this is not how humans see men and women! It might be good for them to think about how our situation gets flipped around by the elves. I’m not going to have my play ruined by someone who finds it too traumatic to even pretend to walk in someone else’s shoes.”
“Good point,” said Elliot. “You seem really into this play. Why don’t you sit around at the table with most of these fine students discussing the dramatic arts? Not cool enough for you?”
Adara sniffed. “I hardly need to have my habits at the lunch table criticized by someone who fell on his butter knife yesterday!”
Elliot felt he’d won that round since Adara had descended from the philosophical to the personal so rapidly. Adara seemed to feel differently. They glared at each other. Elliot thought she was going to be terrific in the role.
“I think you two would play off each other well,” said Myra hopefully. “And obviously, Luke looks just right to play Jewel.”
Luke looked like a man in a nightmare.
“Elliot’s not hot enough to play Red Rose,” Adara sneered.
“Excuse you, I am a tornado of recently matured sexuality,” Elliot told her. He flipped through more pages. “Oh, Red Rose gets two dance numbers and a song!”
“Elliot,” Luke hissed. “I thought we were leaving. I was happy to be leaving!”
“I’m reconsidering,” said Elliot. He flipped a few more pages.
“I thought we were meant to help Myra with the props and scene painting,” Luke said more loudly. “I don’t want to leave her doing all the work.”
Myra looked touched.
“Fabulous,” said Adara. “You’ll play Jewel and Red Rose, and help with the sets. Thanks for volunteering, Luke. I wish I could help, but my part is very taxing and requires all my concentration.”
“Wow, I can’t believe you volunteered us for double duty,” Elliot remarked disapprovingly. “Thanks for nothing, loser.”
Luke looked torn between weeping and punching Elliot. Elliot understood that this was an eternal struggle.
And that was how they got cast in the school play.
Dinner was a less important meal than lunch in the camp, usually eaten around the fires. The war-training and council-training courses had separate fires and tended to keep to their own.
Elliot left his fire that night and went to find Luke, who was surveying a cut of meat as if he would never have any appetite again due to being in a play.
“Hi, I need something,” he said.
“Will something be another living nightmare?”
“It’s a tiny thing!”
“Is it a tiny living nightmare?”
“I simply need you to put your name down for one of the practice rooms so I can learn these dance routines.”
Luke frowned. “You can put down your own name.”
“Yeah, totally!” said Elliot. “Except no, not at all. People in war training will scratch off my name.”
“Nobody would do that!”
“They have been doing it for literally years,” said Elliot. “Also, they come and beat people up if they don’t take the hint about the name-scratching.”
Luke looked upset. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”