Lightning danced across the leaden city skyline, a gleeful counterpoint to the echo of grumbling thunder. Beneath the burgeoning storm, in a vacant lot surrounded by aging, smog-shrouded buildings, three hags huddled together, looking much at home amid the long, wild grass and windblown trash. In the nearby rush-hour streets, traffic lights twitched from yellow to red to green, and the horns of irate drivers and the shriek of too-worn brakes joined the hellish song.
The first hag raised her thin, grating voice to be heard above the clamour. “When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?”
The second hag groaned in exasperation. “Cripes, Agatha. It’s the twenty-first century. Must you keep quoting those tired, worn-out lines?”
“Sisters!” crabbed the third and final hag. “Speaking of tired, worn-out lines, you two have this same argument year after year. Could we just get on with it so that we can get back indoors?” She looked up at the darkening sky. “My corns tell me it’s about to rain.”
“Well,” harrumphed Agatha, who towered above the others but was so thin that she sometimes seemed to pass through doors without opening them first. “If your corns say it’s going to rain, then who am I to argue?” As if in answer, a large raindrop splatted onto her overlarge and crooked nose.
Gertrude, the second hag, suppressed a smile. It was no wonder she stood shorter than Agatha. She was horribly misshapen, with one shoulder much higher than the other, and a back so crooked that her chin was buried in her chest. “Very well, the short version. Where will this season’s supplicant meet us?”
The third hag, Netty, stood no taller than a child and tended to sound as if she were screeching, even when speaking softly. What she lacked in height, however, she made up for in girth. “At the Dairy Queen.” The onion-shaped hag grinned through missing teeth while tapping her fingers together with excitement.
“The Dairy Queen?” Agatha’s craggy face darkened to match the sky.
“Well,” said Netty. “The nearest heath is 140 miles away, and our supplicant claims that school bus passes don’t cover that distance. I settled for the Dairy Queen across from his school.”
“School!” Gertrude’s ancient eyes danced with fire. “We haven’t entertained a university supplicant since . . . Oxford, 1872.” The rumpled witch rubbed her grubby palms together. “I do love universities. Students are so vain. Almost as vain as the professors.”
“Don’t get your hopes up.” Netty rolled her head on her round shoulders. “We’re not talking university.”
“What, then?” asked Gertrude. “College? Trade school? Fine arts? Please tell me it’s fine arts.”
Netty’s voice came as little more than a whisper—screeching still, but a whisper. “High school.”
“High school!” Agatha and Gertrude crowed together.
“Is that even legal?” asked Agatha.
The other two gave Agatha a blank stare.
“We’re witches,” Gertrude murmured in the soft, reasonable voice that was her trademark. “Everything we do is illegal. Otherwise, what would be the point?”
“Whatever.” Agatha scowled at Gertrude. “You skipped over when. As in: When shall we three meet again?”
“Right,” said Gertrude. “I got confused by Netty’s corns.”
“Don’t go blaming my corns!” The squat hag wagged a plump finger in her deformed sister’s face. “It’s your own fault. You’re the pin-up girl for that attention defy . . . defa . . . defi— Oh, that AC/DC thing where you can’t keep your thoughts in a straight line.”
Gertrude stared at Netty. Then her lips moved. “What was the question again?”
Netty smiled.
“When,” thundered Agatha, “shall we three meet again?” The tall hag’s words were punctuated by loud claps of actual thunder.
“Later today,” Netty said quietly. “After school.”
“Right, then,” said Agatha. “We meet again at the Dairy Queen after school. I’m glad that’s settled. Now we can adjourn and go indoors for a nice hot cup of tea.”
Agatha’s two sisters began hobbling away.
“Where are you going?” demanded Agatha.
Netty looked back and screeched against the storm. “We’re adjourning.”
“We have to say the words,” Agatha called back.
“No,” murmured Gertrude, her soft words somehow penetrating the wind. “We don’t.”
“Frizzle frazzle,” Agatha mumbled then hastily uttered the closing words: “Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air.”
While scuttling to catch up to her sisters, the tall witch muttered, “You’d think that after doing this for four hundred years, it would get easier.”
“What?” Netty screeched at her.
“I said—” began Agatha, but her words were drowned out by a sudden downpour.
Paul Samson always enjoyed this time of year. First day of school. Classes not yet started. Nothing gone wrong. Yet.
He stood alone in Ashcroft Senior High’s five-hundred-seat auditorium, wearing his traditional teaching attire—Paul Stewart sport coat, corduroy pants, and Calvin Klein penny loafers—waiting for his grade-twelve students to arrive for the first drama class of their final year. As he always did when standing in an empty auditorium, Paul felt at peace. Through the drawn-back curtains, he could see out into the risers, row upon row of empty theatre seats, the stage itself bereft of props and backdrops. So quiet. If only every day, every moment, could be like this.
“Sir?”
Paul looked at his watch then turned to consider his senior-year assistant, Lenny Cadwell. Somehow the boy had crept up on him.
“You’re early, Lenny.”
“Yes, sir.”
Lenny Cadwell was Ashcroft’s rising star. Rail thin; straight, black hair that tended to get in his eyes; and handsome in a standoffish, bad-boy way, Lenny was polite and efficient offstage and a flaming prima donna when in front of an audience. He was exactly the kind of actor no director in his right mind would hire. All efforts to rein him in had not so much failed as gone unnoticed. Lenny was one of those rare people who saw and heard only what he wanted. To everything else he was blind, deaf, and dumb. Of all the candidates from last semester Paul could have chosen as his assistant, Lenny had ranked dead last. Unfortunately Lenny was also the only senior student who took drama seriously and, therefore, the only real candidate. Paul was stuck with him.
“Well, what is it, Lenny?”
“Class will be starting soon,” the boy said. “Do we know what play we will be putting on this term?”
Well, so much for peace. Drama for grades ten and eleven was like a still pond, the only disturbance being the actual students, all of whom thought they were born actors and didn’t need any actual training. Grade twelve, by comparison, was a whirlpool, a maelstrom of decisions and consequences that threatened each year to drag Paul down into oblivion. While the tenth- and eleventh-grade curricula had lists of approved plays from which to choose, twelfth grade was another story. It was up to Paul to select plays that would both challenge and best use the skills of the students, most of them now in their third year of drama instruction. But with so many brilliant plays to choose from . . . Well, Paul always hated making the choice. And no matter what he chose, someone would disapprove—usually quite loudly.
Even so, Paul had spent the summer mulling over the question of which play his twelfth-grade class should perform for first term. He had narrowed his list down to a dozen popular high school plays that he felt would illicit the least objection. Then he had run out of time. Since breakfast, he had reduced the list to three by the simple means of following his whimsy. But whimsy went only so far. He still had two choices to eliminate.
“Well, Lenny? What play do you think we should put on?”
The boy stared at him, surprise breaking his wonted unruffled expression. Paul had to force himself not to laugh or smile. He couldn’t remember ever asking Lenny his opinion. Not once.
But Lenny recovered quickly, his prima donna persona taking over. “How about Tony and Tina’s Wedding? It’s been playing at the Carousel Dinner Theatre forever, so it must be good.”
And that was why Paul rarely asked students their opinions. He ran the fingers of his right hand through his thinning brown hair, an alternative to strangling the idiot would-be actor. Never mind that Tony and Tina’s Wedding was not a play. It was dinner theatre. And a musical.
Calmly Paul said, “That it is playing now, right now, downtown, is precisely why we would not do it here. We want to put on a play that people can’t see somewhere else. Something that they haven’t seen recently.”
Lenny gave him the look that said I don’t understand what you are talking about, so I am forgetting it right now. See? Forgotten.
“How about Grease?”
Another musical. Was that all kids cared for these days? Musicals? Paul shook his head. “And which of our third-year students can sing? Can any of them sing? And what kind of lesson does Grease teach, anyway? Give up being straight laced and join a gang?”
Again, Lenny gave him the look.
Paul drummed his fingers against his lips. “A lesson. That’s what we need. Something that educates as well as entertains.” He ran his remaining three plays through his mind then began reviewing the nine he had capriciously dismissed. Did any of them teach a lesson?
“How about—?” Lenny said, but Paul shushed him.
“Wait, wait, something’s coming.” Paul remembered how last June several eleventh-graders, some in his own drama class, had been suspended for cheating on their final exams. Summer school had caught most of them up, but several were repeating eleventh grade. The affair had blemished Ashcroft’s reputation, but Paul was more concerned about the cheating itself. None of the students had felt bad for doing it, only for being caught. Surely there must be a play about the evils of cheating.
“Sir,” said Lenny. “It’s almost time.”
“That’s okay, Lenny.” Paul found himself slowly nodding his head. “I have chosen our play.”
“Sir? What is it?”
“Macbeth!”
“Who?”
Paul considered the twelfth-grader. “One of Shakespeare’s most famous plays?”
The boy’s face blanched. “Shakespeare.”
Paul spoke through gritted teeth. “You can’t be an actor without performing at least one of the Bard’s plays.”
Again the look. Wisdom: in one ear, out the other.
A bell rang and the doors at the top of the auditorium banged open. Students began dribbling down the aisles.
Paul gave Lenny a penetrating look. “Go visit Mrs. Shean in the library. Ask her for Macbeth. She should have several copies of the Penguin Popular Classics paperback edition. We’ll see how far we can read today.”
Scowling, Lenny slouched off to do as he was asked.
“Are you out of your mind?”
Winston’s beady eyes looked ready to explode, which, for Ashcroft High’s principal, was his normal look. Paul decided that the overweight and habitually unhealthy-looking administrator’s expression would look great on a production poster. He just wasn’t sure which production. Perhaps Mutants from Mars?
“What, um, seems to be the problem?” Paul asked.
Winston gave him a one-word answer. “Macbeth.”
Paul whistled. Word traveled fast. Class had ended ten minutes ago.
“I found out five minutes after your class started,” Winston said, apparently reading his mind. “I know everything that goes on around here.”
Everything except half a hundred students cheating on their exams, Paul mused. “So what’s the problem with Macbeth? Schools have been teaching Shakespeare forever. You can’t get more classic than Shakespeare.”
Winston tugged a handkerchief out of his rumpled suit coat pocket and wiped his face. “The parents will revolt. We can’t have a school play about something as inappropriate as witchcraft.”
“Witchcraft?” Paul’s heart almost stopped in his chest. It hadn’t even occurred to him that the brief appearances of the witches would be an issue. It’s not as if they flew on broomsticks, sacrificed goats, or performed magic in the story. Macbeth’s witches were little more than cryptic fortune-tellers.
“Macbeth isn’t about witchcraft. It’s about cheating. Remember cheating? Macbeth is the most appropriate play we could put on right now. As for witchcraft, that’s merely the plot device the play uses to facilitate cheating. If anything, the play is antiwitchcraft.”
Winston shook his head and had, in fact, had been shaking his head the entire time Paul had been speaking. “The parents don’t look that deep. All they see and remember is ‘bubble, bubble, toil and trouble.’ They’ll surround the school with pitchforks and picket signs.”
Paul sighed and decided that correcting the flawed quote from the play would not be helpful.
The school principal smiled. “Why don’t you put on Romeo and Juliet instead?”
“Romeo and Juliet?” Paul echoed. “A play about teen sex and suicide. The parents will accept that?”
Winston burst out laughing and dabbed at his face again. “You’re right. A horrible topic. The parents love it, though. Most popular Shakespeare play for high schools, I understand.”
“Well, I don’t understand,” Paul said. “And I’m a parent. I’d quit before I directed a high school production of Romeo and Juliet.”
“I’m not asking you to quit.” Winston folded and tucked the handkerchief back into his pocket. “And you don’t have to do Romeo and Juliet. I’m only asking you to reconsider Macbeth. Be forewarned. If you proceed with that play, you will regret it.”
“Are you out of your mind?”
Paul had stepped out of Principal Winston’s office, only to be cornered by Elizabeth Cadwell, president of the Parent-Teacher Association. She was also the spitting image of her son, Lenny, only thinner and paler. And from Paul’s past encounters with the gorgon lady, as she was adoringly dubbed in the teacher’s lounge, the fruit didn’t fall far from the tree. Paul was not surprised to see her. Winston might think that he knows everything that goes on around here, but the gorgon lady was usually three steps ahead of him.
The human lizard repeated her question. “Are you out of you mind?”
“Apparently.” Paul wagged his head. “Winston just suggested that I put on Romeo and Juliet instead.”
The gorgon smiled. “What an excellent idea. The parents will love Romeo and Juliet.”
“Especially the sex scenes,” Paul said.
The gorgon lost its smile. “The what?”
“You know, thirteen-year-old kids defy their parents and sneak out for hanky-panky. I much prefer the sex over the suicides.”
“The what!” The gorgon’s blanched face turned an ugly red. “Are you screwing with me? Because if you’re screwing with me—”
“Or,” Paul said, “we could do A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Great costuming, though skimpy at times. And dancing! Oh, the dancing!”
“That . . . doesn’t . . . sound . . . too bad,” the gorgon admitted.
“And the orgies.” Paul clasped his hands together. “Think of the fun the kids will have.”
“Orgies!” the gorgon shouted then froze and looked around.
Mrs. Kennedy, the school secretary, was smirking into her sleeve. Several students sat in the waiting area, staring at the gorgon in disbelief. Then they laughed and mimicked her.
“Orgies!” they cried and pressed the backs of their wrists to their foreheads. “Orgies!”
Paul sighed, wishing they were in his drama class.
The gorgon wagged a finger in Paul’s face. “We’ll see what Winston has to say about this!” Then she turned and barged into the principal’s office.
“You don’t have an appointment!” Mrs. Kennedy called after her.
As Paul walked away, several of the students saluted or rose from their seats to give him a high five. Apparently the gorgon was as popular among the students as she was among the teachers.
“Double, double, toil and trouble . . . Is he gone yet?”
Netty made one final slurp through her milkshake’s straw then rolled her bulbous head to peer toward the door past Agatha’s narrow, yet towering, shoulder. “Aye, Sister.”
“What a schmuck,” said Gertrude. “Do these mortals never learn?”
All three witches cackled, drawing looks from a nearby table of teenagers.
Agatha let out a long, rancorous breath. “If they did, wouldn’t our lives get boring?”
“How many Macbeth pretenders does that make?” asked Gertrude. “We’ve been doing this shtick how long? The story has to get old someday.”
Agatha shook her wrinkled jowls. “So long as they put on the play, there will be actors looking for a leg up. And frankly, this last actor needs all the leg he can get.”
“He’s just a lad,” said Netty. “Hasn’t even come into his own yet.”
“And now perhaps he never will,” said Gertrude.
Netty pursed her fleshy lips. “He did accept the bargain.”
“Perhaps he’ll find his way,” said Agatha.
The other two looked at her.
“Well, there’s always a first time,” Agatha rasped.
All three witches fell silent and shook their heads.
“That drama teacher,” said Netty. “Not much of a challenge.”
Gertrude chuckled. “Can you believe it? He thought Macbeth was his idea.”
“A morality play about cheating?” Agatha chortled. “Oh, yes. Macbeth is the first play that comes to my mind.”
“So susceptible to suggestion.” Netty poked at her teeth with a gnarled finger. “I was hoping for a bit of a tussle.”
“Were you?” asked Agatha. “We’ve had hundreds of years of experience at this. That drama teacher’s had . . . what? Forty years of mortal coil? And face it; mortality isn’t as coiled as it used to be.”
Again, the three witches cackled.
“People have gone soft,” Gertrude said. “This job isn’t a challenge anymore.”
Netty nodded. “Used to be we’d have to use lies and illusions to trick people into making mistakes.”
“Now all we have to do is point.” Agatha pointed a long, skinny finger across the table, as if to demonstrate. “Damn disappointing in my book.”
Again, silence.
“I’m going to do it,” Agatha said, breaking the awkward moment.
“Do what?” asked Netty. “Rain down curses upon The Bard’s Play and everyone involved?”
“Maybe later. I was talking about today’s special, the poisonberry Blizzard. I’m going to give it a try.”
Gertrude snorted. “You need glasses. The sign says boysenberry, not poisonberry.”
“I’m a witch,” said Agatha. “I can’t wear glasses. You ever see a witch wearing glasses?”
“Well, I—” Gertrude began.
“I’m talking real witches. Not those Wiccan wannabes.”
Gertrude drew a long breath in through her nose. “If you put it that way, then no, I haven’t seen a witch wearing glasses. Though I have witnessed my fill of stubborn, half-blind witches who can’t tell a broomstick from a coat rack.”
“I rest my case,” Agatha said then frowned.
“If you’re purchasing a Blizzard,” said Netty, “get an extra spoon. I want to sample a taste.”
“Make it three spoons,” said Gertrude. “Heh. I’ve always been fond of boysenberry.”
Agatha grumbled as she rose from the plastic bench seat. “The things you put up with when you’re a witch.”
“Macbeth. That’s nice, dear.”
The words shocked Paul into immobility. “You know, you’re the first person today who hasn’t told me that I’m out of my mind.”
Sylvia, Paul’s wife of twenty years, looked up from her magazine and cast him a familiar smile. “What was that, dear?”
The shock began wearing off. “I said, you’re the first person today who hasn’t told me that I’m out of my mind.”
Smile still in place. “I gave up telling you that years ago. If you don’t know by now . . .”
“Fine, fine. Supper—”
“Is in the fridge.”
“Is Susie home yet?”
“Been. Gone.”
Paul sighed. “I never tire of domestic bliss.”
“Me neither,” said Sylvia, her nose back in her magazine.
Paul sighed again and went into the kitchen to inspect the contents of the fridge. Whatever supper Sylvia had alluded to escaped him, so he made himself a peanut butter sandwich and retired to his study.
The study was Paul’s refuge. His Fortress of Solitude. It was also a mess.
Sylvia hadn’t entered the room in years, having told him that if he wasn’t going to keep it clean, then neither was she. Books and boxes lay on every available surface, including the floor. Papers lay strewn everywhere, as though a hurricane had made a mad dash about the room. There were cups and plates and occasional silverware, some of which hadn’t seen the kitchen in days.
Paul’s desk was the cleanest area in the study. Not that clean was an apt description. Organized shambles came closer. Everything on the desk was currently in use. If it wasn’t, Paul would place it elsewhere, such as on the floor.
Even so, with the start of a new school year, Paul knew that he would have to clear his desk. He took a bite of his sandwich then picked up several books he had planned to read during the summer but hadn’t gotten to. A survey of the room revealed four bookcases with not an inch of spare capacity. No wall space for a fifth bookcase, either. Spotting a reasonably stable stack of books on the floor, he added those from the desk and watched a moment to see if they would topple. When they didn’t, he frowned at some papers that lay across his computer keyboard. Unable to remember what they were for, he added them to a pile of similar papers on the spare chair. Then he stacked several small plates, including the one with his sandwich, and placed them on top of the papers on the chair, promising himself that he would take the dishes to the kitchen. Later.
It was enough to get started. He took another bite of sandwich and peered about the room.
In addition to books, papers, empty dishes, and some clothing, his study was awash with boxes of scripts, many with Ashcroft Senior High stamped on them, some from other schools, most with no stamp at all. Paul had been collecting scripts for almost twenty-five years. In all that time, he had never developed anything remotely akin to a filing system. As a result, it took forever to find a loose-leaf script of Macbeth.
When he finally found one, he ran his fingers through the remains of his hair and mentally kicked himself. How could he have forgotten? And neither Winston nor the gorgon had even mentioned it. There, below the title, in only a slightly smaller font, were the words The Cursed Play.
Paul dug through his desk drawer for a bottle of correction fluid and, fingers trembling, obliterated the warning. He didn’t believe in superstition. What modern person did? But he couldn’t deny the play’s history. Countless renditions of Macbeth had been plagued by accident, tragedy, and even death. Macbeth’s reputation as The Cursed Play was well earned, and anyone who knew anything at all about Shakespeare was aware of the curse. He was aware. Yet he had forgotten.
Then again, perhaps the curse should be forgotten. Though he had never before directed Macbeth himself, he had seen several productions that had gone off without a hitch. He couldn’t help but believe that the accidents were a self-fulfilling prophecy. Was that it? Ignore the curse, and it ignores you?
None of his students had mentioned the curse. Many claimed never to have heard of Macbeth, though he found that difficult to believe. Even with computer games and texting, is it possible to grow up ignorant of Shakespeare? Even so, after today’s read-through of the Penguin edition, they seemed eager enough to anticipate cast assignments. Well, as eager as disinterested students taking an elective course could be.
Curse or no curse, it was too late to back out now without looking the fool. And he could just see the gloating look on the gorgon lady’s face. He would never give her that pleasure. No, The Cursed Play it was, and if anyone complained, he would simply ridicule them as superstitious. It was about time that he turned the tables and became the ridiculer rather than the ridiculee.
With the skill and concentration of a surgeon, Paul worked his way through the script, writing up a list of roles as well as some production notes. Unlike the paperback edition from the library, the production script included stage directions and plenty of white space for performers to mark their lines and write in notes. When he was done, he turned the stack of sheets over and almost choked when he saw the title page.
The Cursed Play glared up at him, with no evidence of the correction fluid he had applied earlier. It flaked off, he told himself. The bottle is old. But he saw no sign of any flakes, and the Liquid Paper had seemed fluid enough when he had applied it.
Paul opened the word processor on his Mac computer and typed up a new title page, excluding the subtitle, and printed it on his inkjet printer. He crunched up the original page and threw it into an already overflowing wastebasket.
The paper, ink, and font of the new page didn’t match the rest of the pages, but no one would notice. Tomorrow he would take the loose-leaf script to Mrs. Shean and have her make thirty stapled copies.
Paul arrived for the second day of classes and found the Ashcroft-Tate Auditorium almost filled to capacity, which was surprising as there were five hundred theatre seats and only thirty students in his class. Three hundred of the occupants were misbehaving, shouting into cell phones, engaging in loud conversation with their neighbours, or fidgeting with the contents of purses or briefcases. All of them were near Paul’s age. That left the students, sitting in the front two rows, calm as angels.
Paul didn’t even have to look around. “Mrs. Cadwell, I see you’ve been busy.”
The gorgon lady did not stand up from one of the seats, but instead stepped out from behind a backstage curtain and swaggered across the stage like a queen—a drama queen. She was a poorer actor than her son. “This play must be stopped!” she demanded.
The Parent-Teacher Association occupying the seating area cheered.
The Ashcroft Senior High School PTA was renowned as the most active Parent-Teacher Association in the country. It also had the rare distinction of having no teachers among its members. There were times when Paul felt convinced that many of its members did not actually have children attending the school. The PTA seemed to exist for the sole purpose of making teaching near impossible, and for the most part, they were astonishingly good at it.
This did not deter Paul. He strode toward centre stage and waved his hands for quiet. “This play,” he echoed, “hasn’t even started.”
“Nor shall it,” said the gorgon. “The PTA won’t stand for it.” Again, the PTA cheered. Some stood and she basked in the standing ovation.
Paul again waved for silence and didn’t speak until he got it. He glared at the filled theatre seats. “We’re not going to have much of a discussion if you keep applauding every word Mrs. Cadwell says.”
The PTA cheered.
Paul shook his head. Dumber than the students.
The gorgon lady motioned her followers to silence and immediately received it. “We don’t need a discussion. We are just here to inform you that there will be no play about witches, no Macbeth—”
“But I want to do Macbeth!” shouted one of the students. He rose from his seat and faced down his mother.
“Lenny?” The gorgon lady looked at a loss for words.
“We read the play yesterday, Mum. It’s cool. It’s not about witches. It’s about war. And castles. And intrigue. It’s a James Bond play.”
The rest of the students shouted support for their classmate.
Not the argument Paul would have made, but coming from Lenny, it was probably more effective than anything he could have said.
The gorgon lady looked dumbfounded. She glanced at the PTA and opened and closed her mouth, but nothing came out. Her eyes roved over the front two rows of shouting students then glared at Lenny. She seemed to reach a decision. “We’ll speak about this at home, young man.” To the PTA, she smiled and called, “We have delivered our message. There shall be no Macbeth. Our work here is done.” Then she turned to Paul and wagged her finger. “This isn’t over.”
Paul sighed. “Of course it isn’t.” He could read on the gorgon’s face that she already had a Plan B in mind.
The PTA left the theatre looking confused and shouting questions at Mrs. Cadwell, who answered them all by holding one hand palm out and shaking her head. Some few looked blank faced at Paul. One, an older man who looked as if he might have slept through the protest, asked, “So that’s it, then? No Macbeth?”
Paul shrugged a reply, and the man turned to follow his tribe of lemmings up the aisle.
After the chief obstruction to their children’s education had shuffled out of the auditorium, Paul retrieved the stapled scripts he had brought from the library’s copy room and gave them to Lenny to hand out. “Yesterday we read the words of the play. Today we’ll read them again in conjunction with stage directions. As we do, try to imagine yourself on the stage going through the motions of the characters.”
“When do I get assigned my part?” asked one of the students.
Paul let out a deep breath. “In due time. After we all get a better sense of what the parts are.” He dreaded the response he would receive when he told them they would have to audition for parts. He could already feel the lead balloon landing on his head.
The PTA was meeting in Paul’s living room. Or so it seemed. At least, his house felt as crowded as the Ashcroft-Tate Auditorium had been that morning. But Paul knew that it couldn’t be the PTA because the strangers in his home were cheerful rather than angry. Paul assumed that there must be times when the PTA wasn’t angry, such as when they plotted to re-create the school system in their own image, but Paul had never been present for one of those times.
Sylvia also looked more cheerful than usual. “Paul! Don’t you dare sneak off to your hidey-hole. Come say hello.”
Paul led his wife to a quiet corner of the hallway and spoke in a hushed whisper. “I don’t know any of these people.”
“That’s because every time they come over, you hide in that office of yours.” “They” were the Hinton Valley Realtors Society, of which Sylvia was a member.
Paul put on his best hangdog expression. “But you’ll just spend the evening talking shop. I’ll be a wallflower.”
Sylvia forced a smile. “If you join us, we’ll have something to talk about besides shop.”
Paul hated social gatherings, making small talk with strangers, and being made to reveal his ignorance regarding real estate. Sylvia had somehow managed to combine all three in his living room. He shook his head. “Can’t this time. I have to prepare for classes tomorrow. Start of the year and all.”
Sylvia’s smile drooped into a glower. She shook her head slowly then turned back to her guests.
It had been a while since Sylvia had given him the glower. Paul knew his wife hadn’t been fooled; as a drama teacher, he had more prep flexibility than most high school teachers. He could easily spend some time at her work party. Guilt gripped his stomach as he hurried into his study, forgoing his ritual foraging in the kitchen. He’d wait until the gathering ended or hunger overtook him, whichever came first.
Laughter from the living room echoed in Paul’s ears as he worked on putting together the list of cast, understudies, technicians, and ushers. Most of his thirty students would want to perform on stage, but there were only eight roles of substance and fifteen minor parts. That left seven students who would not get to perform. Two or three of those seven would be unsuitable even as stagehands and would be delegated the duty of usher and possibly receive a failing grade.
Paul hated to fail anyone, but he always had a few students who signed up for his course believing it was an easy ride, that they could do nothing and receive an A for their lack of effort. Even those who did the bare minimum in first- and second-year drama, squeezing by with a C, somehow felt they could do even less in third year. They wouldn’t audition for the larger roles. Or if they did, they wouldn’t try to get the parts. Then they would sleepwalk through the bit parts or be relegated to moving props.
A burst of laughter erupted from the living room, piquing Paul’s curiosity. He cracked open the study door to try to hear what was so funny.
“And then he agreed that perhaps we needed a plumber after all.”
More laughter.
Gossip. Four things in the living room that Paul hated.
He reclosed the door as a fresh wave of guilt roiled through his stomach. He really should spend a few minutes with Sylvia’s coworkers.
It was after Susie was old enough for Sylvia to return to work that Paul noticed that their family was drifting apart. Paul had his teaching, Sylvia sold houses, and Susie had her friends at school. Rare was the time that any of those lives intersected anymore. Paul had no idea what to do about it, and it was killing him.
Other teachers at Ashcroft had told him that this was normal, a phase of family life that hit everyone. It would last until Susie’s first child was born and he and Sylvia became grandparents. Fawning over grandchildren would draw them together again.
Paul couldn’t even imagine Susie having a child. She was seventeen. Still a kid. And people were getting married and having children later in life than when Paul and Sylvia were wed. Would their marriage last until Susie had children? The thought of losing his family tore him up inside.
Would spending a few minutes with his wife’s friends from work make Sylvia happy? Or would he embarrass himself so badly that they’d encourage Sylvia to leave him? Paul could never find a right answer.
The only thing Paul knew that he was any good at was teaching drama.
He finished making his cast list in descending order of lines spoken then added a few audition lines for each role, focusing on dialogue that exemplified the passion and personality of each character. After reviewing his list carefully, he performed the part of his job that he was most uncomfortable with. He opened the Web browser on his computer and logged into the school homework Web page.
Paul considered himself a Luddite when it came to computers. After much pain and anguish, he had learned to use a word processor, which was essential these days for teaching in a public school. Even so, the Internet still put the fear of God in him and no part of the Internet more so than the Ashcroft Senior High School Web site.
After much poking and prodding and starting over several times, he found the page for his third-year drama class and, on the second attempt, managed to upload his audition list. He checked his watch and found he had posted the list ten minutes before he had told his students it would be available. Success!
Tomorrow he would learn if any of them had bothered to check the list and practice the lines. It would be interesting to see if he had correctly guessed which student would audition for which role.
With no good reason to further avoid Sylvia’s friends, Paul found himself trembling at the thought of trying to make small talk with a bunch of strangers. Maybe he’d make himself a sandwich first.
Next day at class, Paul was relieved to discover that the PTA was not waiting to lynch him in the auditorium. Perhaps Lenny was good for something after all. Maybe he had convinced his mother to find some other failure of the school system to repudiate.
While the students wandered in, Paul set up his folding director’s chair and pulled his Cecil B. DeMille megaphone from the locked cabinet in the backstage storage area. He didn’t need either of the stereotypical accoutrements, but the students always seemed to expect them. Theatre was, after all, theatre.
“Audition time,” he said through the horn, and the students stopped their chatter. “You are all third-year students. In the past, I assigned you roles based on what I thought would help you best. But now I have to prepare you for the real world. Out there, no one is going to call you up and offer you the lead in Tony and Tina’s Wedding.” He glanced at Lenny. “If you want a role, you are going to have to audition for it. Auditions start now.”
The groans in the room were silent yet visible on his students’ faces.
“First up is the role of Macbeth, Thane of Glamis, a brave and loyal man who succumbs to his ambitions and commits murder. In essence, he falls off the straight and narrow and cheats to get what he wants. Who is trying out for the role?”
Several boys stepped forward, the quickest of whom was Lenny. Paul was not surprised.
“Okay, Lenny,” Paul said. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
The twelfth-grade student struck an impressive pose, his expression one of fear and perhaps even desperation.
“It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood:
Stones have been known to move and trees to speak;
Augurs and understood relations have
By magot-pies and choughs and rooks brought forth
The secret’st man of blood. What is the night?”
The class offered some halfhearted applause.
“Thank you, Lenny,” Paul said through the megaphone. “Kim, how about you?”
Kim Greyson, an athletic boy with sandy-blond hair, stepped forward and gave a poor and obviously unpracticed imitation of Lenny’s pose. He spoke the words with little emotion and stumbled on “secret’st.” It wasn’t the worst Paul had seen.
“Thank you, Kim. William? You’re up.”
William Page’s performance was marginally better than Kim’s, but he stuttered the lines and got lost after “magot-pies” and was unable to finish. After William’s classmates stopped laughing, Paul said, “Good try. John?”
The final applicant for the role twisted his foot against the floor and said, “I, uh, think I’ll try for a different part.”
Paul was not surprised. During the previous two years, Paul had watched John Freedman habitually bite off more than he could chew. At least he had backed off early this time.
“Okay. Fine. Next up is Lady Macbeth, Thane Macbeth’s ambitious wife who pushes her husband to commit murder, only to suffer a mental breakdown over it and commit suicide. Who wants the role?”
Two girls stepped forward. One was Gemma Henderson, whom Paul expected to not only try out for the role but win it. The other girl was—
“Susie? What are you doing here? You’re not in this class.”
Susie Samson, Paul’s daughter, who had never shown any interest in drama and had not taken his class in grades ten and eleven, stepped forward and handed him a slip of paper. “I have a note.” It was from Principal Winston.
Paul scanned the note quickly then read it through more carefully. When he was done, he counted to ten; it wouldn’t do to show his anger in front of his students. Then he said, forgetting to use his megaphone, “Susie will be joining our class for the rest of the year. Gemma, you can go first.”
Gemma Henderson was not so much an actress as she was an outgoing person, a girl who thrived on being the centre of attention and knew how to smile and make her eyes big on demand to get it. Excellent skills to have but not enough on their own to make someone a good actor. Gemma struck a pose, not unlike that struck by Lenny playing Macbeth.
“Out, damned spot! out, I say!—One: two: why,
then, ’tis time to do’t.—Hell is murky!—Fie, my
lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we
fear who knows it, when none can call our power to
account?—Yet who would have thought the old man
to have had so much blood in him?”
Paul had to think about this one. It wasn’t bad, but something about Gemma’s performance screamed newscaster. And it was a little too . . . cheerful for a woman cracking under mental strain. Still, Gemma was his best student among the girls by far, and with luck would develop a little more range as she worked with the part.
“Very good, Gemma. Okay, Susie, do you think you can do what Gemma did? You’re at a bit of a disadvantage having never taken drama before.”
In answer, Susie jumped straight into the scene, rubbing her hands as though truly bloodstained and speaking the words haltingly, moving her head and arms as though haunted. Even her tone carried a hint of a Scottish lilt. When she was finished, the class just stared at her.
Once Paul recovered from shock at his daughter’s surprisingly good acting, he realized that he had seen Susie’s performance before. It was a relatively decent imitation of Jeanette Nolan’s role as Lady Macbeth from the 1948 film version of Orson Welles’s Macbeth. What Susie lacked in experience, she made up for by doing her homework.
“Thank you, Susie,” he said through the megaphone. “Next is Banquo, Macbeth’s companion whom he murders.”
Paul was relieved to find Susie at home after school. She knew better than to disappear after dropping that bombshell on him in his class. He suspected she had already said something to her mother since supper was waiting when he arrived and Sylvia and Susie were already at the table. Spaghetti, one of Paul’s favourites. He couldn’t remember the last time the three of them had sat down for supper together. It disappointed him that it took a note from the school principal to make it happen.
Sylvia was unusually talkative, full of vim and vigour about last night’s realtor gathering and how much fun it was.
“The housing market has been dead for months,” she said. “Getting together for socials is the only excitement we get these days.”
Susie twisted her fork, collecting a dainty spiral of spaghetti dripping with tangy sauce. “Jo-Ann said her dad had a good time.”
Susie’s friend’s dad was also a realtor. She went on to talk about some clothes Jo-Ann had bought, which led to a discussion of Susie’s shoes, which somehow led back around to the realtor gathering and how to properly freeze leftover spaghetti.
Paul sat patiently through it all, enjoying his spaghetti and garlic toast. He even opened a bottle of red wine, which he shared with Sylvia.
When they finished eating, Sylvia said, “I suppose we had better discuss what happened to Susie at school yesterday.”
“To Susie?” Paul said. “The note I read said Susie started another fight.”
“Dad! How come I always get the blame?”
“It takes two people to fight,” Sylvia said.
Paul waved a hand. “Fine. Fine. Why don’t you tell us what happened?”
“Victoria Whitcomb!” Susie snarled. “She kicked me playing soccer. Again. So I kicked her back.”
Paul had heard all this before. From Susie. From Sylvia. From Principal Winston. From Angela White, Susie’s gym instructor. And from Victoria’s parents. He knew that what he was about to say, Susie had heard before. Why hadn’t it sunk in? Maybe he needed to be more blunt.
“Victoria Whitcomb,” Paul said, “couldn’t kick a soccer ball if it was the size of a Volkswagen.”
Both Sylvia and Susie stared at him for several moments then burst out laughing.
“I can’t believe you said that!” Sylvia whispered.
“I never would say that,” Paul said. “Not on school property, anyway. But I’m not speaking right now as a teacher. I’m speaking as a parent. And as a parent, I’m suggesting that Victoria Whitcomb has no business playing soccer or any other sport, for that matter. She kicked you, Susie, because she missed kicking the ball. She always misses kicking the ball. She tries. Dear Lord, she tries. But it’s just not in her. She’s a menace—to the other players and to herself.”
Susie was still smiling at her dad’s diatribe when Paul dropped the other shoe.
“You know this as well as I do, so you should know better than to kick Victoria back. That is why you get the blame.”
Susie dropped her smile. “Yeah, I know. I didn’t mean to kick her. It just hurt and I got angry and I struck back without thinking.”
“Did you tell Ms. White that?” Paul asked.
Susie shook her head. “I just told her that Victoria kicked me first.”
“The school should have called us in,” Sylvia told Paul. “Or you at least. You work there. They shouldn’t just be able to pull Susie out of P.E. Maybe we should call Mrs. Cadwell. She’ll sort this out.”
Paul put up his hand again, this time not in defeat. “The last thing I need is to owe Mrs. Cadwell a favour. I’ll sort this out with Winston myself and get Susie back into gym class.”
“I don’t want to go,” Susie said.
“What?” Paul and Sylvia spoke at the same time.
“I liked dad’s class today. I think I want to stick with drama.”
“Susie,” said Sylvia, “you were never interested before. No matter how much I begged you to take your father’s class.”
“You begged?” Paul said.
Sylvia ignored him. “And you’ve always liked sports. You really enjoyed playing basketball last year.”
“Sports are okay,” Susie said. “But I’ve been there, done that. Watching everyone try out for parts today was fun. And it’s fun pretending that you’re someone else. ‘Out, damned spot!’ And I don’t get to swear playing sports.” She held up both hands. “Kidding. Really, guys.”
“Well,” said Sylvia. “If you’re sure. Paul, are you okay with this?”
Paul had to think for a moment. Being pulled out of P.E. and put into drama class—Paul’s drama class—as punishment didn’t say a lot for drama as a subject or Paul as a teacher. And it could scar his daughter with all sorts of stigmas she hadn’t even thought about yet. But he couldn’t very well say any of this and expect agreement.
“If that’s what Susie wants,” he said, “I’ll support it. Besides, I’m delighted to finally have my daughter in one of my classes.”
Paul sat with his finger poised over the Enter key. He was tempted to turn off his computer and announce the cast assignments in class tomorrow. But he also knew that most theatre companies these days no longer took the time to notify actors of audition results individually. Instead, they posted the cast list in the most impersonal way possible. If Paul was going to teach his students how theatre worked in the real world, he was going to have to play by the real world’s rules, no matter how cold they were.
He also knew that when his students saw the list, there would be tears, arguments, fits, and for many, relief. It was impossible to make everyone happy, especially when so many of the auditions were . . . not very good.
There were too many roles for boys and not enough for girls. Many roles had no more than four lines, though that didn’t stop half his class from auditioning for them.
Paul himself wasn’t happy with many of the assignments. After two years of drama coaching, most of the students were still a long way from being even remotely employable as even the lowest of low-rent actors. But he supposed that was true for all high schools. If you were serious about being an actor, you had to enrol in an acting school, something Paul should have done himself when he’d had the chance. If he had, he might now be on the stage instead of behind it. But it was too late for regrets now.
He was surprised and pleased at how many students had tried out for the major roles. Even his daughter had auditioned for Lady Macbeth, the biggest surprise of all. It was said that seventeen is an age of change, when teens begin putting their childhoods behind them and look toward becoming adults. Maybe he was seeing that in his own classroom. Perhaps some of his students would make him proud with this play. He knew his daughter already had.
“Let the chips fall where they may,” Paul said. He closed his eyes and lowered his finger. When he opened his eyes again, the cast list, along with understudy and stagehand assignments, was posted on the third-year drama homework page. The list included two ushers who were guaranteed a D for the class if they slept their way through the term. He closed this thought in true Shakespearian style. “Tomorrow is another day.”
As he turned out his office light to go join Sylvia in the living room and watch some TV, he heard a muffled whoop emanate from his daughter’s bedroom. Paul couldn’t keep a smile from brightening his face.
Thursday found Principal Winston sitting behind his desk, a cold fire simmering in his piggy eyes and perspiration beading down his cheeks. “I understand you haven’t changed your mind about the play.”
“That’s not why I’m here,” Paul said. “Susie was in a fight on Tuesday, and instead of calling her mother and myself to meet with her guidance counsellor, you expelled Susie from P.E. and assigned her to my drama class.”
Winston’s expression didn’t change. “You were told the last time your daughter was caught fighting that if it happened again, she would be expelled from P.E.”
Paul shook his head. “I could argue that what happened with Victoria Whitcomb wasn’t a fight but I won’t. I can see that your mind is made up. Ashcroft High has lost a star athlete. So be it. I’m here about your putting my daughter in my drama class. You know that she has no interest in drama, just as you know that she would rather die than sit in one of her own father’s classes. This is cruel and unusual punishment, and I demand that you remove Susie from my class immediately.”
A slow smile spread across Winston’s face. “I could do that.” He leaned forward over his desk. “In fact, I will do that. If . . .” He left the word hanging for a long moment. “If you abandon Macbeth and choose a play that will get Elizabeth Cadwell off my back.”
Paul leaned forward and rested his hands on the top of the visitor chair in front of the principal’s desk. “This isn’t even about Susie. It’s about me.” He straightened and, taking a cue from the gorgon lady, wagged a finger in Winston’s face. “This is low, even for you.”
Winston reached across his desk and slapped Paul’s finger away. “I’m the principal and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep the peace. And right now, the biggest threat to peace in this school is that blasted play. Have you considered Death of a Salesman?”
Paul stepped away from the desk and opened the door to the outer office. “I won’t give in to blackmail,” he said loudly, ensuring that Mrs. Kennedy and anyone in the waiting area would hear. “And we did Death of a Salesman two years ago.” He slammed the door and leaned against it.
The three students sitting in the waiting area looked at him with blank expressions. Mrs. Kennedy, sitting behind the secretary’s desk, nodded and offered a thin-lipped smile. “I thought your class did a bold performance of Death of a Salesman.”
“Thank you,” Paul said before walking toward the auditorium. He wasn’t sure if bold was a compliment or a criticism.
Then he smiled. If Winston had had any plan at all to pull Susie out of drama, it would never happen now. Susie was in for the long haul, exactly what she said she wanted.
When Paul arrived at the Ashcroft-Tate Auditorium, several of his students were already there. He had expected Lenny to be waiting, but so too were Kim Greyson and Gemma Henderson. The three of them were arguing over a copy of the cast list one of them had printed out. When they saw Paul, all three began shouting at him at once.
“And so it begins,” Paul whispered and raised a hand for silence. Eventually he received it. “I’m guessing that you are unhappy with your assigned roles.”
They all started shouting again, but Paul looked at Kim Greyson, and the three fell silent.
“Kim,” Paul said, “you auditioned for the role of Macbeth and got it. I’m surprised to see you here.”
“But I shouldn’t have got it,” the boy answered. “Lenny did much better than me during the audition. He deserves the role.”
Lenny remained silent but nodded in a cool, I-told-you-so manner.
Paul smiled. “Yes, he did. But I need Lenny to play Macduff.”
“I didn’t audition for Macduff!” Lenny’s voice and manner were the perfect rendition of a petulant child. “Macduff is boring.”
“Macduff is the hero,” Paul said. “He cuts off Macbeth’s head.”
“He’s still boring,” Lenny said.
Paul sighed. “The issue is that no one auditioned for the role of Macduff, and it is a major role. Three students auditioned for Macbeth and only one can have that role, so one of the remaining two has to play Macduff. You”—he pointed at Lenny—“are that student. I’ve made you Kim’s understudy, so you still get to learn and practice the Macbeth role. You just won’t be performing it on stage.”
“What’s the point in that?” Lenny demanded.
“What about me?” Gemma interrupted. “I’m supposed to be Lady Macbeth. Instead I’m a witch!”
“I’m sorry, Gemma.” Paul cringed at what he had to say next. “But Susie’s audition for the role was much better than yours.”
“It was, you know,” said Kim.
Gemma bared her teeth at him. “Even if that’s true, don’t you need Susie to play Lady Macduff? She’s the hero’s wife who comes to a tragic end!”
“No,” Paul said. “I need Susie to play Lady Macbeth and I need you to play Witch Number Three.”
By now the bell had rung and the rest of the class was wandering in. Paul could tell from their conversation that many of them had not checked the school Web site and were only now learning of their assignments. He motioned them all to take seats in the folding chairs on the stage and pulled his director’s chair close in front of them. There would be no megaphone today.
“You’ve all received your assignments for the play. Some of you are happier about them than others.”
“Favouritism,” someone whispered from the group. If Gemma thought she had fooled him, she was only fooling herself.
“Welcome to real life,” Paul said. “Most actors who audition for a role do not get it. Sometimes they are offered a chance to try out for a different role, but usually they get no role at all. This is where the phrase ‘out-of-work actor’ comes from. You may be still be working, waiting tables in a restaurant or washing dishes, but you are not acting.”
Low grumbling sounds emanated from the students.
“Fortunately for you, the school requires that not only do I have to fill all the acting and support roles from this classroom—I can’t look for better actors and stagehands elsewhere—but I also have to give all of you jobs. So none of you will have to wash dishes until you can find another play to audition for.”
Paul gave each student his best piercing gaze. “This is the easiest audition you will ever win.”
“But you have me down as an usher,” said one of the students.
A heavy sigh left Paul’s lips. “Tell me, Trevor, what roles did you audition for?”
Trevor shrugged. “I didn’t try out for any. I thought you’d assign me something.”
“Exactly. No one is going to offer you a role in a play unless you try out.”
“I could be an assassin.”
“Your classmates auditioned to be assassins,” Paul said. “And they got the parts. You—” Paul looked down at his printed copy of the cast list. “—are the understudy for Assassin Number Three. You will learn and rehearse that part, but on the night of the performance, you will be an usher.”
“If I’m just going to usher, why should I learn the part?”
“Because you never know,” Paul said. “That’s the whole point of understudies. Come performance night, Allan may be home sick and you will be called upon to take his place.” To the whole class, Paul said, “What’s our motto?”
Thirty voices recited without enthusiasm, “The show must go on.”
Paul let it slide. “Okay. For today’s class, we’ll do another read-through of the play. Only instead of taking random turns, you will each read your assigned part and get more comfortable with it. I want to hear you read with passion, just as if you’re reciting the lines on the stage. Tomorrow we’ll do it again with the understudies reading. Let’s begin.”
Agatha let out a heavy sigh. “I miss my cats.”
Gertrude let out a softer sigh. “I miss my hedgehogs.”
Netty let out a loud burp. “I’m ordering more fries.”
“Oh, my,” said Gertrude. “We’ve been eating junk food for four days straight. You can’t want more.”
Netty’s eyes chased each other around their sockets then stopped as if reaching a conclusion. “I like Dairy Queen fries. And you’re one to talk. You seem pretty fond of the Dilly Bars yourself.”
“That’s different,” Gertrude said. “Ice cream and chocolate never get old.”
“Perhaps we should just go home,” Agatha said. “I never signed up for a life of burgers and ice cream.”
“I suppose you’d rather be dining on gall of goat and slips of yew,” suggested Gertrude.
“And nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips,” Netty added.
Gertrude ran a gnarled finger down one side of the laminated card. “I think I saw Tartar’s lips on the menu.”
“O well done!” said an apparition standing beside their table. It was possible that she was one of the Dairy Queen staff come to take their twelfth food order of the day, except that Dairy Queen didn’t wait on tables. Neither did their uniforms consist of dragon skin and iron spikes.
The apparition continued. “I commend your pains; and every one shall share i’ the gains. Yada yada yada.” Then she swung herself onto the plastic bench next to Netty, and now there were four witches sitting at the window-side booth.
“By the pricking of my thumbs,” said Gertrude. “If it isn’t Hecate, come to share in the glory of our work without actually doing any of it.”
For a witch, Hecate was rather pleasing to the eye, with the shapeliness, bone structure, and milky complexion of a supermodel. None of the three hags believed it was her true appearance, but that she had stolen it from a magazine, or possibly a comic book titled Wonder Woman.
Hecate’s grin displayed perfect teeth and ruby lips. “It is good to be the boss. Word in the underworld is that someone is putting on The Bard’s Play. I assume that is why you three are slumming it in this dump.”
“You should try the fries,” Netty suggested.
Hecate sniffed the air. “I think not. Hell smells better. What stage is your venture at?”
Agatha rubbed her skinny hands together. “The thespian has acknowledged his destiny.”
Gertrude wagged her gnarled chin. “And now we await the inevitable claim that we haven’t lived up to our side of the bargain.”
Hecate snorted, her delicate nostrils flaring. “Mortals are so eager to latch on to destiny, yet they always fail to understand it.” Then she stood. “I’m off to Hell to ensure a suitable place awaits your thespian. Keep up the good work.” Then she was gone.
“She really should have tried the fries,” Netty said.
“Who?” asked Lenny Cadwell, sliding into the seat Hecate had just vacated.
“Our bo—” Agatha began.
“A coworker,” Gertrude said, cutting off the tall witch.
“Another witch, then.” Lenny flicked his hair out of his eyes and tried to appear disinterested.
“Arguably,” admitted Netty.
“What is it you wish from us this time?” Agatha asked. “Is the starring role in your school play not enough?”
Lenny slammed the table with his hand. “It is enough. And it’s what you promised.”
“Then what is your complaint?” asked Gertrude.
“My complaint? I have no compliant. I just dropped in for a burger.”
“I recommend the FlameThrower GrillBurger,” suggested Netty. “It’s got zing.”
Gertrude snorted. “She’s eaten three since breakfast.”
“Are you sure you don’t have a complaint?” insisted Agatha.
“Well,” said Lenny. “Since you ask. You said I would get the starring role.”
“Yes?” chorused all three witches.
Lenny stood up, awkwardly as he was still sitting in the booth and it wasn’t designed so people could stand. “I didn’t get the starring role. He made me the freaking hero!”
“In truth?” Agatha waved for Lenny to sit back down, which he did. “Usually the starring role is the hero.”
“Or heroine,” said Gertrude. She twisted her deformed neck to look up at Lenny. “Did you wish to be the heroine?” She cast him a gruesome smile. “That can be arranged.”
Lenny blinked a few times, uncomprehending. “No. No! In this play, the starring role belongs to the villain. I want to be the villain.”
Netty laughed. “Well, they do say that villains have more fun.”
The other two witches joined in the laughter, and it quickly degraded into cackling.
Lenny sat through this, frowning.
“Oh, go on,” Agatha said at last. “Go on home and do your homework, or whatever it is you kids do these days when they let you out of school.”
“You wish to be the villain,” Gertrude said. “The villain you shall be.”
“Just like that?” Lenny asked.
Agatha glared at him “Yes. Just like that.”
“We’re witches!” Netty crowed. “It’s what we do.”
Lenny left the table, looked back at them once, then headed toward the door.
“Now,” said Gertrude. “Where were we?”
Agatha scratched a wart on her nose. “I believe we were plotting magical illusions and dark destructions.”
Gertrude wagged her misshapen head. “No, that wasn’t it. Ah! Ice cream and chocolate. Time for a Dilly Bar.”
Paul couldn’t remember the last time the family had sat together for supper two nights in a row. Neither could he remember the last time he had seen Susie so happy. He smiled and helped himself to more carrots while Susie recounted to her mother how she had waxed elegant, yet manic, as she read Lady Macbeth’s lines in class. She went so far as to begin acting at the dinner table.
In mid stanza Susie broke off and demanded, “How come I have to die offstage?”
Paul looked up from his carrots and saw his daughter staring at him with wide eyes. “What?”
“I die offstage. That ponce of an errand boy marches out and announces that I’m dead. Can a death be more boring?”
“Where did you learn a word like ponce?” Sylvia asked. “I’m not certain what it means, but I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t be using it.”
“Seyton is not a ponce,” Paul said. “He’s Macbeth’s servant. He’s supposed to act subservient.”
“Whatever,” Susie said. “He doesn’t even say how I die. Do I poison myself? Does someone kill me? Maybe Seyton kills me. Perhaps he’s secretly in love with Macbeth—”
“Seyton is not in love with Macbeth,” Paul said firmly, cutting into his pork chop with perhaps more gusto than was warranted. “It’s not that kind of play. The truth is that it doesn’t matter how Lady Macbeth dies. What’s important is Macbeth’s soliloquy regarding death. His realization that life is fleetingly short and, in the grand scheme of things, quite meaningless.”
Sylvia looked confused. “That can’t be what he means. In the next scene, Macbeth is outnumbered and fighting for his life.” Sylvia nodded. “Oh yes, I’ve read Macbeth. Who hasn’t?”
Paul and Sylvia both turned to look at Susie.
Their daughter turned her face back and forth between them. “What? I’ve read Macbeth. Just this morning.”
“Well,” said Sylvia. “You’re taking drama at school. Most of your schoolmates will never read the book.”
“But they will see the play,” Susie said, grinning. “And I’m Lady Macbeth!”
Paul returned to his supper as mother and daughter continued discussing acting. Never in his wildest dreams had he envisioned such a scene playing out in his dining room. It was music to his ears. Even the part where Susie tried to explain what a ponce was in terms that her mother wouldn’t get on her case for.
Friday morning and the school corridors were silent and empty as Paul made his way toward the Ashcroft-Tate Auditorium. He loved it when class was in session. Students busily learning facts and methods that seemed to them as utter uselessness but which, in later years, would serve them well. After twenty years of teaching high school, it still amazed Paul that the less students knew, the more they felt they had nothing to learn. He supposed that applied to teachers as well. And to the PTA—especially to the PTA. Human nature, then. Just the way people are wired. An idiot has no desire to learn anything, while a genius has an unquenchable hunger for additional knowledge.
The bell rang, sounding much like a fire alarm in the empty hallway, and Paul frowned. He had dawdled and now would have to fight his way through a sea of students the rest of the way to the auditorium. Sure enough, doors erupted all along the hallway, and students came pouring out, racing to visit a washroom before their next class started or outside off school property for a few puffs on a cigarette. Most of them simply wanted to get out of the classroom and feel the freedom of the hallways for a few minutes before finding a desk in their next class.
Paul raised his briefcase over his head as students rushed past him on every side, and he slowed his pace to prevent getting his feet tangled as students dodged in front of him, as though he were just an obstacle to barely avoid running into. As he neared a stairwell, he somehow heard, above the talking, the laughter, and the rush of passing students, a thump, thump, thump, aghh! The river of fifteen- to eighteen-year-olds suddenly froze. All heads turned toward the bottom of the stairs, and a hush settled its heavy cloak over the hallway.
Paul lowered his briefcase and held it like a shield. “Make way! Make way!” As quickly as he could, he forced his way toward what everyone was looking at. When he at last reached the bottom of the stairs, he found, lying on the floor, rocking back and forth and holding his right knee, his would-be Macbeth, Kim Greyson.
In an older, simpler time, Paul would have looked around at the gawking students and shouted, “Someone go get the nurse!” But in today’s modern world, he simply pulled his cell phone from his sport coat pocket and called the school secretary.
“Mrs. Kennedy, it’s Paul Samson. A student has hurt himself. . . . Yes, it looks serious. Better call for an ambulance. . . . Kim Greyson. . . . Yes. . . . Main floor. South stairwell. . . . Yes. Thank you.”
He put the phone away and shook his head. “Everyone go to class. Nothing more to see. Kim is in good hands.”
The sea of students began moving again, much gentler than before, respectfully giving the injured student a little space but still rubbernecking as they went by. The bell indicating the start of class rang, and the remaining onlookers drifted off so they wouldn’t be too late.
“Well, Kim,” Paul said.
Kim looked up at him with large, moist eyes and grimaced.
“How did you manage to fall down a flight of stairs that was packed shoulder to shoulder with students?”
“No idea.” Kim rocked gently on the hard floor and grunted. “I think my leg is broken.”
Paul nodded. “Hopefully it is just your leg. Knees are much more difficult.”
“It hurts,” Kim said. The boy’s eyes shimmered, but no tears appeared.
“Yes,” Paul said. “I’m sure it does.” But he wasn’t thinking about the injury. He was thinking that a student with a broken leg couldn’t play a main character, especially not an army general. He’d have to make Kim one of the thanes. Perhaps Angus. Thane Angus has two lines and doesn’t move much. The role of Macbeth would have to go to Lenny.
By the time the paramedics arrived, examined Kim, conversed with the school nurse, then packed the boy onto a wheeled stretcher and carted him away, Paul arrived late to a class of chattering students who immediately quieted as he walked across the stage and sat in an empty director’s chair.
“How’s Kim?” Lenny asked. Rather than the worry or boredom that exuded from his classmates, the boy’s expression carried only hopeful expectation.
“Doesn’t look good,” Paul said, quoting the paramedics. “Broken fibula. Possible patella damage as well.”
His announcement was met with blank stares. Paul sighed. “He broke his leg and may have damaged his knee.”
The news elicited a chorus of ohs and ows. Lenny’s face split into a wide grin.
“Yes, Lenny. This means that you’ll have to be Macbeth. William, you’ll be Macduff. Everyone, open your scripts, and we’ll see how far we get before the bell.”
Paul only half listened as the understudies read lines. How had things gone from top of the world last night to his play’s villain being sent to the hospital this morning? Perhaps the play really was cursed.
No, he couldn’t think that way. Accidents happen. Seventeen-year-old boys were constantly hurting themselves. They still carried a sense of youthful indestructibility, taking risks and operating with general inattentiveness until life stepped up and hit them in the face a few times. How else could you explain falling down a flight of stairs that was crowded with students? No curse. Life had simply hit Kim Greyson in the face. Perhaps he’d tread more carefully going forward.
When class ended, a student Paul didn’t know entered the auditorium and handed him a note. He didn’t have to read it. With a sigh, he headed toward the principal’s office.
Principal Winston was old school. He handed out detentions like they were candy and made the students do work as penance. Most of the students in his waiting area were in detention, waiting for Winston to give them an assignment. Completing the assignment usually meant that detention was over. Neither was Winston above pulling teachers out of class, even though the school board gave him grief over it. Paul was certain that the old fart would have teachers serving detention if he could get away with it.
There were three students still in detention when Paul arrived outside the principal’s office: Winston’s private workforce.
Once Mrs. Kennedy nodded Paul inside, the school principal greeted him with a pronouncement: “Your play is cancelled.”
That took Paul by surprise. The production was in its first week. It usually took at least ten days before Winston reached the point where he threatened to cancel. Paul offered his traditional response. “Because?”
Winston grunted. “I would think that was obvious. One of your students is in the hospital. His parents have already called and given me an earful. The play is too dangerous, so I’m shutting it down.”
Paul was stunned. That was absurd, even for Winston. “Kim didn’t hurt himself in my class. He fell down the south stairwell. Using that logic, you will have to shut down the school, not the play.”
It was Winston’s turn to look stunned. Eventually he frowned and loosened his tie, which to Paul’s eye already looked plenty loose. “He was on his way to your class.”
“It could have been any student falling down those stairs.” Paul shook his head. “This is just a lame excuse, and I can’t think of anyone who won’t see it as such. Go ahead and cancel the play. Then you can get thirty more phone calls from angry parents.”
Winston let that run through his mind for a moment. “Get out of here.”
Paul kept the smile from his face as he left the office and closed the door.
“The drama teacher wins another round?” asked Mrs. Kennedy.
Paul nodded. “That man gets more mental every year.”
Mrs. Kennedy chuckled. “Then he’ll make superintendent in no time.”
Employing a plastic spoon, Agatha churned the remains of an extra-large Mint-Oreo Blizzard. “I still can’t get used to this concept of weekends off,” the tall witch said.
The three hags had changed seats, with Agatha now sitting by the window with her back against the wall. Gertrude shared the same bench, while Netty occupied most of the opposite bench all on her own. It had taken them a week to reach this arrangement. Witches were like cats that way.
“Waste of a perfectly good building,” Gertrude said. “Standing empty for two full days out of every seven.”
Netty bobbed her round head. “When I went to school, the building never stood empty. Classroom by day. Tavern by evening. Sleep house by night. Used as a church on Sundays.”
The other two hags stared at her. “You went to school?”
The onion-shaped hag cackled. “No, I just slept there!”
“What about Saturdays?” asked Agatha. “You said the building never stood empty.”
“Got hosed down on Saturdays.”
“All day?”
Netty flashed a gap-toothed smile. “Needed lots of hosing.”
“Especially since you slept there,” Gertrude said, nodding her crooked head.
The three hags all cackled.
Agatha gazed out the window toward the high school across the street. “With no one there all weekend, we’ll have to hold off on the curses until Monday.”
“Oh, my!” Gertrude said. “Does that mean that we get the weekend off?”
“I’ve never had a weekend off,” Netty admitted. “Wouldn’t know what to do with one.”
“You could take up cribbage,” Gertrude suggested.
“Cribbage?” Netty scowled at the deformed hag. “Is that a vegetable?”
“It’s a card game,” said Agatha. “With pegs.”
Netty looked thoughtful. “You poke the cards with pegs?”
Agatha stared at her. Then she said, “Yes.”
“Our Agatha is in a cribbage league,” Gertrude said. “Plays most Saturday afternoons. What’s that league called?”
“The BCC,” grumbled Agatha.
Netty smacked her thick lips together, working her tongue around a loose tooth. “The British Broadcasting Corporation?”
Agatha sighed. “The British Cribbage Congress.”
“Well,” said Netty. “You certainly don’t seem happy about it.”
Gertrude chortled. “Agatha must be down in the standings.”
Agatha threw down her spoon. “I am not down in the standings! I’m in second place.”
“Then why so glum?” Netty asked, pushing several fries into her mouth. “Second place isn’t bad. Though I’m a bit surprised. A small curse here and a slight nudge there, and you could be in first place. Why aren’t you in first place?”
“Because,” Agatha said, grating her crooked teeth, “Hecate is in first place.”
“You called?” Hecate asked from where she suddenly sat next to Netty on the bench across the booth from Gertrude and Agatha. The senior witch had her midnight hair up, and her dragon skin cloak was studded with diamonds.
“All dressed up and nowhere to go?” asked Gertrude.
Hecate smiled. “I’m off to the opera. Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. One of my favourites.”
“I always find Wagner a bit tedious,” Agatha said, “especially Die Meistersinger. Four and a half hours. What was the man thinking?”
“This one will be three hours,” Hecate said. “I’m going to burn down the opera house at the opening of the third act.”
“Oh, my!” said Gertrude. “That sounds like fun.”
“More fun than cribbage,” Netty agreed. “Sounds daft, poking pegs through cards.”
“Yes, well . . .” Hecate gave Netty a peculiar look. “Everyone needs a little down time. Cribbage is a good way to let off a little steam.”
Gertrude snorted. “Let off a little steam? National competitive cribbage?”
Hecate shrugged. “Never do anything small. And speaking of small, I see your Thane of Glamis coming.” As quickly as she had appeared, Hecate was gone.
“I hate that witch,” Agatha said.
Lenny Cadwell threw himself down into the space Hecate had vacated. “Kim broke his leg.”
“Kim?” echoed Netty. “Who’s that?”
Lenny twisted sideways and looked down into the bulbous witch’s rubbery face. “My classmate who was going to be Macbeth. Now I’ve got the role.”
“Oh, what a coincidence,” said Gertrude. “Isn’t that the role you wanted?”
“You broke his leg!” said Lenny. He glared at all three of the witches.
“Did nothing of the kind,” refuted Agatha.
“That’s right,” said Gertrude. “We haven’t moved from this spot all day.”
“All week,” corrected Netty.
“All week,” Gertrude admitted. “Well, we have switched seats.”
“We were right here sipping cherry colas when the poor lad had his spill,” said Agatha.
“At the end of first period,” Netty added.
“Poor lad.” Gertrude wagged her crooked head. “I understand that a broken fibula can be quite painful. A bruised patella can hurt even more.”
Agatha let out a loud cackle then covered her mouth with her hand. “Sorry. I don’t know where that came from.”
“You’re not going to do anything else, are you?” Lenny asked. “I mean, I have the role now. You’ve kept your promise. No one else needs to get hurt.”
“No one else needs to get hurt.” Agatha rolled the words off her tongue. “I rather like that line. Do you mind if a borrow it? It could come in handy.”
Lenny stared at her. Then he rose from his seat and wandered out of the Dairy Queen.
Once the door closed, Gertrude said, “Not as dumb as he looks, that one.”
Agatha stared at her, straight faced, and said, “No one else needs to get hurt.”
All three witches burst out laughing.
Friday evening and Susie was off somewhere with her friends. Sylvia joined Paul in the dining room for supper, but the energy of the previous two family meals was absent. Missing was Susie’s excitement about her newly discovered interest in theatre, and Paul was in a foul mood about Kim Greyson’s injury.
He knew that the injury had nothing to do with his choice of play. If he had been forced to do Death of a Salesman again or, God forbid, Grease, Kim would still have fallen down the stairs and Lenny would now be Willy Loman or Danny Zuko. And Lenny should have the lead anyway. He was a better actor than Kim. Paul was just loath to feed the boy’s prima donna attitude. Lenny needed a setback if he was ever to learn anything, but it looked like that setback would have to be something other than not playing the role of Macbeth. The idea that The Bard’s Play was actually cursed was ridiculous.
“I was wondering if I could help with the play,” Sylvia said from out of nowhere, shipwrecking his thoughts.
Paul’s fork froze midway to his mouth. “Help?”
“With the play,” Sylvia repeated.
“Er.”
“It would be fun.” Sylvia smiled.
“I, uh, don’t know what Susie would think. I mean. It’s bad enough that she has to be in her dad’s class. But with her mother too . . .”
“It was Susie’s idea,” his wife said. “Look, the housing market is in a shambles. I haven’t had calls from anyone looking to buy or sell in days. I need something to keep myself busy.”
Paul coughed. “I don’t think the school is actually keen on teachers bringing their spouses to work. Winston would lay an egg.”
Sylvia laughed but whether it was at the image of the Ashcroft Senior High School principal laying an egg or his spouse-to-work comment, Paul didn’t know.
“Don’t be silly,” Sylvia said. “I wouldn’t help as your spouse but as Susie’s mother. You’ve had students’ parents help with plays before.”
Paul bought himself some time by wiping his mouth with a napkin, but he was still at a loss for what to say. “Sometimes that’s unavoidable,” he began and realized immediately that he had taken the wrong tack. “I mean, most of that help was less than . . . helpful.” Even worse.
Sylvia glowered at him. “You’re not suggesting that I’d just get in the way?”
“No, no, no,” Paul said, though that’s exactly what he meant. “It’s just awkward for the students when one of them has a parent running shotgun in the classroom.” He could see from his wife’s expression that he had failed to help matters.
“Susie already has a parent in the classroom,” Sylvia said. “I don’t know how you can get more shotgun than by being the teacher.”
Paul had no choice but to give in. If he kept on the way he was going, he’d be eating his shoes for dessert. “You’re right, dear. Of course. And since Susie’s agreeable, I don’t see a problem. What did you have in mind?”
Sylvia smiled her “score one for me” smile. “Why, set designer, of course. Architecture is my forte.”
Set designer? Paul wasn’t sure how ten years of putting for sale signs on people’s lawns earned you a forte in architecture, but he decided that allowing his wife to take a stab at set design wouldn’t be disastrous.
Before he could say anything, Sylvia reached over to the counter and retrieved a DVD still in its shrink-wrapped plastic case. She turned its face toward him. It was the 1971 Roman Polanski film adaptation of Macbeth.
“We can watch the movie tonight, and I’ll make set notes.”
Paul nodded his head. It might be worthwhile watching the film again. “But tomorrow night we’ll watch the 1948 Orson Welles version. I think you’ll find its set easier to emulate. It also lacks Lady Macbeth’s nude sleepwalking scene that Polanski included.”
“Nude!” said Sylvia. “Not our Susie!”
“You can’t go wrong with Orson Welles,” Paul said.
While his wife pontificated on the audacity of modern directors adding nude scenes to PG-13 classics, Paul recalled the other problem with the Roman Polanski version. After his pregnant wife and several friends were murdered by Charles Manson’s followers, the director had dropped his current project and proceeded to develop the film version of Macbeth that Sylvia had just purchased. Some people theorized that Polanski had already decided to start the Macbeth project, and that it was the play’s curse that had given rise to the murders in his home.
The curse again. Paul had the horrible feeling that he wasn’t going to be able to escape it.