“OK, I’m going to head up to the drama studio,” Mr. Beaconsfield says, grabbing his clipboard from one of the chairs. “I’ll come down to see how you’re getting on at first break.” And before I can say a single word he’s scuttled off.
I look at the blank back wall of the set. This is crazy! If I go anywhere near it with a can of spray paint I’m going to wreck it and one thing I’m absolutely determined about today is that I’m not going to mess anything up. So I do what I always do in an emergency and I text Elliot. We know each other’s timetables by heart so I know that he’s in Latin. Elliot says his teacher is so old he actually spoke Latin when it was still a living language so hopefully he’ll be able to text me back without being spotted.
HEEEEEEEELP!!! MY DRAMA TEACHER WANTS ME TO GRAFFITI THE SET—LIKE PROPER GRAFFITI!!! I THINK HE MIGHT HAVE LOST HIS MIND. PLEASE HELP ME BEFORE I LOSE MINE!!! WHAT SHALL I DO?!!!
I send the text and go up onto the stage and over to the pretend trailer. Maybe I could practice doing a “tag” behind it. Then if I mess it up no one in the audience will ever know and if I do discover that I miraculously have a latent talent for graffiti art, I can save the day—and the play.
I take one of the cans from the bag and flip off the lid. What would my tag be if I were a graffiti artist? I have no idea, so I decide to try drawing something instead. But what? What would people draw in a New York ghetto—that would go really well with Romeo and Juliet?? Maybe some kind of broken love heart?
I cautiously press on the button at the top of the can. Nothing happens. I press a lot harder and a jet of bright purple paint shoots out. I try painting a heart but it looks just like a pair of butt cheeks. Thankfully, at that precise moment, my phone goes off. It’s a text from Elliot.
STEP AWAY FROM THE SPRAY CANS!!! You are a girl of many talents but painting isn’t one of them ;) Don’t you remember the picture you did of the Easter Bunny that time we were babysitting little Jennifer from down the road and how it gave her nightmares for months? Why don’t you ask the lighting person if they can project one of your photos of street art onto the set? Remember the ones you took in Hastings? One of them would look great. PS my Latin teacher has just broken his false teeth biting on an apple!
As I read Elliot’s text, I breathe a massive sigh of relief. I have a solution for the seemingly unsolvable and this fills me with hope. Maybe today won’t be so bad after all . . .
And I’m right—the rest of the day goes surprisingly smoothly. The actors stay holed up in the drama studio with Mr. Beaconsfield, frantically rehearsing, while Tony, the boy from Year Eleven who’s doing the lighting, turns up to do a tech rehearsal and he’s able to project one of my street-art photos onto the backdrop no problem. It looks amazing.
When I do finally see Megan, midway through the afternoon, everything’s fine. Yet again, writing my blog seems to have helped me sort things out in my mind and now that I’ve accepted that I’ve outgrown her friendship, I feel under a lot less pressure. Even seeing Ollie again isn’t too awkward. He and Megan are so nervous about the play, they’re totally preoccupied going through their lines.
Just before curtain up, Mr. Beaconsfield calls us all together backstage. “You guys are going to be awesome,” he says. “And, as my hero Jay-Z says, don’t live life uptight—live up in the sky.”
We all look at Mr. Beaconsfield blankly.
“Break a leg,” he mutters. “Oh and, Pen, I’ll need you to take one more photo for me at the end of the show, when the cast comes out to take their bow. Can you just nip onstage and grab a few shots?”
I feel a sudden flash of fear. This will mean going up onstage in front of a whole hall full of people, aka MY WORST NIGHTMARE. But then Mr. Beaconsfield races off to check that the videographer is ready to begin filming and the others all take their places backstage.
I fetch my camera from my bag and take my seat in the wings. It’ll be fine, I tell myself. After all, it’s not as if I have to remember any lines. All I have to do is go onstage, take a picture, and come off again. What’s the worst that can happen . . . ?
Chapter Ten
The play runs without a hitch. Everyone remembers their lines and says them in exactly the right places, and even Ollie’s accent doesn’t sound too bad. By the time it reaches the scene where Juliet dies, I can actually hear members of the audience crying.
As Mr. Beaconsfield bounds backstage for the curtain call, he looks at me and grins. “Wasn’t it amazing? Weren’t they great?” he gushes.
I grin back at him. “They were brilliant.”
“Don’t take the picture until the whole cast has lined up for their final bow—including me,” he whispers.
I nod and turn my camera on.
As the actors come out from the other side of the stage to take their bows, the applause builds, until it reaches a roar for Megan and Ollie. And even though Megan has made me want to punch, smother, and kick stones at her recently, I can’t help getting swept up in the excitement of the moment. I’m really proud of her.
The applause is so loud now I can feel it vibrating through my body. As the cast line up, Megan gestures at Mr. Beaconsfield to join—a scene they had carefully rehearsed earlier, despite Mr. Beaconsfield throwing his hands up and faking embarrassed surprise. I wait for him to reach the center of the line and then I make my way onto the stage. And even though I’ve been dreading this moment, it isn’t that bad at all. The audience is so busy cheering the actors, I actually feel invisible.