It was a beautiful late-autumn day. Velvet was sitting on the oval frowning at the Chinese characters that she was supposed to translate for homework. They made no sense at all.
Drago joined her for a lunchtime script meeting.
“I don’t get it,” she said. “How come you have trouble reading English, but you can read this?”
Drago shrugged. “I’ve got a good memory. I just remember them.”
He was eating a pie that he’d just stolen from a Year 7 boy. Velvet looked around to see if anyone was watching. She didn’t want people to think she and Drago were going out.
“With English, if you come across a new word, at least you can have a guess at how to pronounce it,” Velvet said. “With a Chinese character, there aren’t any clues as to how it should sound. I don’t understand how Chinese children ever learn to read.”
They worked on Clarence’s murder scene. Drago wanted to make it funny, and it worked out well.
Velvet had an idea. “Drago, why don’t you learn English words the same way that you learn Chinese characters?”
“What do you mean?”
“When you come to word you don’t know, don’t try to read it letter by letter. Just look at it like it’s a Chinese character, and remember it.”
Drago didn’t look convinced. Velvet pointed to a word in her script.
“That’s the English character for ‘winter’. This one,” she flicked through the pages, “means ‘palace’.”
“But Mrs Dwyer writes the new characters on the board and tells us what they mean.”
“I’ll point out words as we go through the play and tell you what they are. All you have to do is memorise them.”
Drago shrugged.
Peter wandered over to them with his lunch.
“Act one is going to be okay,” Velvet said. “There’s a lot happening – the soliloquy, the prophecy, Richard wooing Lady Anne, Margaret’s curses, Clarence’s murder.”
“Yeah, but act two is boring,” Drago said. “Nothing happens.”
“King Edward dies.”
“That’s not exactly an action scene, is it?” Peter said. “He doesn’t die in a fight or anything. He just … dies.”
“Actually, it’s not a scene at all. It happens offstage.”
Jesus and Roula came over and joined them, sharing chips and Twisties with the others.
“It needs some romance,” Roula said.
“A sex scene!”
“Shut up, Drago.”
“It’s boring. People will fall asleep. Can we have some special effects?”
So far, the extent of the special effects was when the murderers put Clarence in the barrel that’s supposed to be full of wine. Taleb had to drink a mouthful of Ribena from a jar inside the empty barrel and come up spitting it out as if he was drowning.
“What about when Clarence dreams that he’s underwater?” Drago said. “We could have a dream scene.”
“Have you been reading the play, Drago?” Jesus asked.
Drago didn’t say anything about Velvet reading it out for him. He saw Taleb near the bike shed and called him over.
“He’s right,” Velvet said, thumbing through her copy of the play. “But that’s in act one as well. Clarence dreams he’s on a boat and falls into the sea. He sees sunken ships and skulls and fish eating dead bodies. Then he dreams he’s dead and he goes to the kingdom of night where there’s an angel covered in blood.”
“Sounds awesome.”
Hailie came out of the girls’ toilets and joined them.
“We could set up the stage like it’s underwater,” Velvet said, “with strips of blue and green material to look like seaweed.”
Hailie turned to Roula. “Could you do that? You used to be good at textiles when we still had an art program.”
“Sure.”
“We’ll need some freaky music,” Drago said.
Everyone looked over to where Taleb was hanging out with the other members of Toxic Shock. He didn’t like to be seen with the cultural studies students out of class.
“Then we can get Queen Elizabeth to come on at the end of act one and say the King has died.”
“What about Richard’s mum?” Roula said. “I’m not in act one at all!”
“You can come on at the end as well, and bawl that you’ve lost two of your sons,” Drago said. “Act one finito.”
“That’s not in the play!”
“Don’t be so picky, Corduroy. No one’s going to know.”
“What about act two?”
“Who needs it?”
Hailie was sitting so close to Peter that their thighs were touching. He ignored her, stretching out his legs and revealing a pair of bright purple socks.
Uniform rules were strict at Yarrabank. Only Year 12s were allowed to come to school out of uniform. The one thing the school turned a blind eye to were socks. Hardly any of the girls wore white socks and only the daggiest boys wore the regulation grey socks. Hailie and Roula wore socks with flowers, spots, pigs or teddy bears on them. Mei, who had a uniform now, wore socks with random English words on them, like “sexy, hairdo, ankle”. Jesus wore Nike sports socks. Drago liked to wear odd socks. Taleb’s were always plain black. Even Velvet had given up wearing white socks. Her favourites were a pair covered with musical notes.
The girls’ lacrosse team was doing training laps.
“Look. It’s the drama queens,” one of them said as they jogged past.
It wasn’t a flattering name, but none of the cultural studies students minded standing out from the sporting jocks.
The bell went and everyone got up and dawdled off to their next class. Velvet and Hailie had maths. When they got to the classroom, Mr Axiotis was busily scrawling algebra problems on the blackboard. Hailie sat down and started concentrating. Not on the problems, but on 10F who were straggling past outside the window on their way to French.
“I’m looking for a new boyfriend.” Hailie studied the passing prospects. “I reckon there are three possibilities.”
Velvet was also watching 10F or one of them at least. Taleb was in 10F.
“You’ve got the hots for him, haven’t you?” Hailie said.
“No, I haven’t. Who?”
“Taleb. I’ve seen you checking him out when you think no one’s looking. And you go all red when he talks to you.”
“That’s because he’s always yelling at me for something.”
“It’s cool.”
“Not everybody is boy crazy like you, Hailie.”
“Relax. You don’t have to worry about me going for him. He’s too … intense for me.”
“I know it’s hard for you to grasp, but I’m not interested in boys. The only relationship I want to have with Taleb is a creative partnership. I want this musical to work.”
“Yeah, sure.”
It was easy enough to get Hailie to change the subject. All Velvet had to do was get her to talk about herself.
“So aren’t you interested in Peter any more?”
“I can’t wait around forever.”
“How long has it been?”
“At least a month.”
“You still like him though?”
“I dunno. He’s beautiful, but he doesn’t seem to have any feelings.”
Velvet nodded. It wasn’t very often that she and Hailie were in agreement.
“I’ve finished Mei’s song,” Taleb announced at the next cultural studies class.
“Great,” said Mr MacDonald, who was still trying to get them all to like Mei. “Let’s hear it.”
“It’s where Lady Margaret curses everyone.”
Velvet noticed an uncharacteristically nasty glint in Taleb’s eye as he plugged his guitar into a small amp. He launched into the song, yelling Margaret’s curses in between jarring heavy metal chords. It was loud and aggressive, the total opposite of the one he’d written for Lady Anne.
“You killed my husband. You killed my son.
Give me one good reason to forgive what you’ve done.
My sadness is because of you, you know it well.
I wish you would leave this world and go to hell.
“Bottled spider!
Rooting hog!
Spotted toad!
Foul dog!
I hate you. You … you … you … hedgehog!
“Listen to me, my words will all come true.
Your friends will turn their backs on you.
Your nights’ll be sleepless, your days like bad dreams.
Don’t you others trust him. He’s worse than he seems.”
Taleb yelled the chorus again. Velvet was horrified. Mr MacDonald looked stunned. When it was over they all sat there, listening to the ringing in their ears.
“What is going on in here?” It was Mr Kislinski standing in the doorway.
“We’re just rehearsing our play, sir,” Peter said.
“I thought you were doing Shakespeare.”
“We are, sir. Richard the Third.”
“What was that awful noise?”
There was a moment’s silence while everyone tried to think of something to say. It was Roula who had the brainwave.
“It was a performance exercise, sir. Method acting. It helps you get over stage fright.”
Mr Kislinski swallowed Roula’s story. “Keep it down, could you? You’re disturbing the athletes.”
“Sorry, sir.”
Mr MacDonald hadn’t said a word. The principal glared at him.
“If this production isn’t up to scratch …” He left him to imagine the consequences.
Mr MacDonald looked pale. “You just lied to the principal, Roula.”
“It’s Taleb’s fault.”
“You nearly blew it, dude, with that awful song,” Jesus said.
“It was a joke, right?”
“Absolutely not.” Taleb was unrepentant. “It’ll sound different when Mei sings it in her screechy voice. Margaret’s a crazy old woman.”
Velvet couldn’t contain herself any longer. “It’s horrible. It’ll ruin the musical.”
“I like it,” Taleb said. “It’ll be a contrast to the other sickly sweet song.”
Velvet loved Lady Anne’s song. “The audience will leave.”
“Not everyone’s got your white-bread taste in music, Velvet.”
“Settle down,” Mr MacDonald said, glancing nervously out of the window.
“We should find out what Mei thinks. Drago can you …”
“Ni xihuan zhi shou ge ma?” Drago asked.
Mei thought for a moment. “Xihuan!”
Everyone turned to Drago.
“Yeah, she likes it.”
Velvet glared at Taleb. So much for their creative partnership.