SCENE 1

The North Shore High School talent show.

Enter STUDENTS as audience, including JASON in the front row and AARON SAMUELS. Enter PARENTS as audience also, including SIR HERON, LADY HERON, and LADY GEORGE. Enter SIR DUVALL on the stage.

DUVALL Good evening, friends. You are most welcome to

The North Shore High School winter talent show!

Will ye break forth in thunderous applause,

That our performers, who do wait offstage,

May know you bring your uttermost support?

[The audience applauds and cheers.

Cease now, ere senseless rioting erupts.

Our first act for our wondrous talent show

Doth call himself a star of rising height.

I prithee, clap your hands for Damian.

Enter DAMIAN on the stage.

DAMIAN [sings:] Each day with thee is wonderful,

Each hour joy springs anew,

Each moment feeleth bountiful

When thou dost love me, too.

Enter CADY HERON, GRETCHEN WIENERS, and KAREN SMITH above, on balcony, preparing for their act.

GRETCHEN O, wherefore would Regina send her canes

To ye two lasses, but not me as well?

KAREN Perchance she hath forgotten thou exist’st.

CADY Her acts of late no court would legalize—

It seems to some great oddness she gives birth.

Is something, mayhap, out of her control?

GRETCHEN She told me, recently, her parents two

No longer share a bed in their own house—

Perchance ’tis such as this that thou dost mean.

By Jove, I bid thee tell her not my words,

For like a squirrel trapp’d within a box

They fled my mouth as quick as legs could run.

JASON [to Damian:] Thou art a fop—I bite my thumb at thee!

DAMIAN [sings:] My beauty’s inexpressible,

No word shall bring me down.

Were thy love inaccessible,

’Twould shame my kingly crown.

[The audience claps. Exit Damian.

GRETCHEN Good Cady, no offense to thee I aim,

Yet wherefore would she send thee candy canes?

She doth not even like thee much. Alas—

I call in question the continuance

Of her great love. Mayhap she feeleth weird

While in my presence, for ’tis only I

Who knows the truth of how she chang’d her nose

By prowess of physician talented.

Once more these words rush forth, escape my lips,

Like chickens running from the butcher’s block.

[Exeunt Cady, Gretchen, and Karen.

Enter KEVIN GNAPOOR and his FRIENDS on stage as the next act.

KEVIN [reciting:] Unlock thine ear, each horrible MC—

There’s naught at which thou greater art than me,

From grades I earn to my keen poetry,

No one may lay a hand on Kevin G.

A Mathlete I, so yea, nerd is inferr’d,

Yet still thou must forget all thou hast heard—

Forsooth, I am like Sir James Bond the Third,

This Kevin likes it shaken—never stirr’d.

The G is mute when I sneak in thy door,

And satisfy thy wench upon the floor,

Thou shalt be sure ’tis I she doth adore

When she doth cry, “More, more, Kevin Gnapoor!”

DUVALL My thanks, good Kevin—now thine act is o’er.

Thou hast our ears assaulted long enow.

KEVIN A happy holiday to ev’ryone.

We hope ye did enjoy our number—ha!

[The audience claps. Exeunt Kevin and his friends.

DUVALL This act was K. G. and the pow’r of three.

It may be said: ’twas something to behold.

Enter CADY HERON, REGINA GEORGE, GRETCHEN WIENERS, and KAREN SMITH on the stage, lining up in preparation for their act. Enter JANIS IAN and DAMIAN above, on balcony, watching.

DAMIAN Doth it bring any anger to thy soul,

That still they use thy choreography?

JANIS Nay, stop at once—I am not bother’d by’t;

My heart keeps on the windy side of care.

Enter KEVIN GNAPOOR behind them, on balcony.

KEVIN As I do breathe, thou art a lovely lass,

And prime among the others at our school.

JANIS Why starest thou?

KEVIN  —I happily would see

Thee on the stage instead of these four lasses,

To sway and swing and swerve with symmetry.

[Exit Kevin.

DAMIAN A passing forward fellow, by my troth!

[Exeunt Janis and Damian.

REGINA Before our act beginneth, Gretchen, hear:

Thou must switch sides with Cady in a trice.

GRETCHEN Yet I am wont to stand upon thy left,

And ever have been lo these many years.

REGINA When we were three, then such was sensible,

Yet now, as four, the tallest take the center.

GRETCHEN The dance entire shall backward be to me.

See? I am wont to stand upon thy left!

REGINA Thou show’st a tender sisterly regard,

To wish me dance with one half lunatic;

At present, thou art on my final nerve.

I shall not say’t again: switch thou anon.

[Cady and Gretchen exchange places.

DUVALL Our final act! Pray, welcome to the stage

The helpers of rever’d Saint Nicholas

With their song: “Rousing Rock to Jingle Bell.”

[A recorded singer begins playing as Cady, Regina, Gretchen, and Karen begin dancing.

RECORD [sings:] When jingle bells begin to ring,

Their jolly tune, their jolly swing,

Then angel bands in concert sing,

Hey nonny, nonny, ho ho ho!

The snow a’blowing—O, such fun,

The jingle hopping hath begun,

Make merry yuletide, ev’ryone—

Hey nonny, nonny, ho ho ho!

[Gretchen becomes confused and bumps into Regina. Gretchen trips on the recording device, which malfunctions.

RECORD [sings:] O jin—O jin—O jin—O jin—O jin—

REGINA [aside to Gretchen:] Fix it, and quickly too, ere we are sham’d!

[Gretchen kicks the recording device, sending it into the air. It strikes Jason in the face, and the music stops.

GRETCHEN My Jason, O my sweet—apologies!

CADY [sings:] A time so bright, a perfect night,

A rousing rock shall do us right,

The jingle bells bring us the light,

Hey nonny, nonny, ho ho ho!

[All join in singing the song.

O jingle horse, lift up thy feet,

A happy company to meet,

Our feet enjoy a merry beat,

Hey nonny, nonny, ho ho ho!

[The audience claps and cheers. Exeunt students and parents in audience. Exit Sir Duvall.

KAREN ’Twas better than it ever went before!

Enter AARON SAMUELS.

AARON Well done, sweet lasses, wondrous in th’extreme!

[Aaron begins to kiss Regina.

REGINA Nay, Aaron.

AARON  —What, art thou asham’d of me?

REGINA No, sir, God forbid; but asham’d to kiss,

Because in doing thou shalt smear my gloss.

Enter KEVIN GNAPOOR, passing through.

KEVIN Well dancèd, Africa. ’Twas perfect, by

My calculation.

CADY      —Many thanks, indeed!

[Exit Kevin.

GRETCHEN Look how the lass doth blush with cheeks of red—

Thou likest him, or I do nothing know.

CADY Nay, ’tis not true.

GRETCHEN  —’Tis wherefore thou wouldst be

A Mathlete, to be closer to thy love.

AARON The Mathletes? Thou? Thou hatest mathematics.

GRETCHEN Behold, her cheeks are redder than her tunic.

Thou lovest him and he thinks well of thee.

’Tis fetch!

REGINA      —Nay, Gretchen, “fetch” shall never catch,

Stop hosting an event no one attends.

It shall not hap—the zeitgeist thou art not.

The fad is bad; I’m mad and thou art sad.

[Exeunt Regina, Karen, and Aaron.

GRETCHEN O, when I am again in English class,

I know what is th’report that I shall make:

We study Caesar and his mighty acts;

I’ll lay him low. For who is Caesar, eh?

And wherefore should great Caesar be allow’d

To stomp and lumber like a giant brute

Whilst we do hide from his enormous feet,

Attempting, fearfully, to stay unscath’d?

Whence cometh all the honors he hath earn’d?

Consider Brutus—is he not as fine,

As smart, as likeable as Caesar, too?

When did it happen that a single person

Became the boss of ev’ryone around?

’Tis not what our proud Rome doth stand for, nay!

We should, therefore, stab Caesar—stab and stab—

And let his blood flow down in righteous streams!

CADY [aside:] ’Tis plain that Gretchen Wieners hath been crack’d.

GRETCHEN O, Cady, if thou only knew’st how vile,

How reprehensible, how knavish, and

How horrible Regina truly is!

Thou knowest I may not hoop earrings wear?

’Twas two full years ago she did declare

Hoop earrings as her purview only, yea—

The bound’ry circular of her domain—

Ne’ermore would I be sanction’d in the wearing.

When I, for Hanukkah, receiv’d a pair

From my dear parents—white gold hoops were they,

Expensive in the buying, priceless in

The giving generous—yet ’twas my lot

To act as though I could not stand the things.

She took the ring of me: I’ll none of it,

But must contest her wickedness anon.

Know’st thou she cheateth frequently on Aaron,

Doth make him cuckold for another’s lust?

Each Thursday, when he thinks she is engag’d

In preparation for the SAT,

She earns him horns by being horny with

Shane Oman, o’er in the projection room,

Which sits above the auditorium.

Ne’er have I shar’d this secret with a soul

Because I am, I grant, a perfect friend.

Yet knowledge of it nearly makes me burst,

For Aaron is, in sooth, an innocent man—

If there’s a chance of resurrecting love,

I’m not above returning to the start,

To find out where the heartache did begin.

CADY O, Gretchen, thou hast put thy trust in me;

In faith, I’ll prove a better friend than she.

[Exeunt.