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AUDITIONS FOR THE MUSICAL were held late one afternoon in the second week of March. It seemed that the whole school had turned up — half to audition and the other half to watch and pass comment. Samantha felt her confidence begin to ebb away as she stared around at the crowd and saw Cindy Atkins and her group sitting in the middle of the hall, but Jessie was determined and would hear no talk of backing out.
When she discovered that auditions for the male roles were being held separately at Clifford Heights, Jessie was annoyed, but Samantha was relieved. Auditions were embarrassing enough without adding a gaggle of boys to the equation.
Mrs. Borman took up position in the centre of the stage, from where she boomed out, “Good evening, ladies. Welcome to the auditions for the female roles in The Sound of Music, a joint production between Clifford House and Clifford Heights. A production of which I shall be the director.”
Here she paused expectantly. There was a moment of silence, and then someone began clapping enthusiastically from somewhere in the front row of seats. Craning her neck, Samantha saw that it was Cindy. Mrs. Borman inclined her head graciously at this sign of appreciation.
“She’s only sucking-up because she wants a good role,” Jessie said, echoing Samantha’s own thoughts.
“I would like to introduce you,” Mrs. Borman continued, “to Mr. Matteson, who will be coordinating the male cast from Clifford Heights.”
A slim man, with fair hair and pale skin, stood up from behind the table which had been placed in front of the stage.
“Tonight, Mr. Matteson will be assisting me in casting the female roles. I must inform you, at the outset, that the roles of the adult and older females, that is to say, the roles of Maria, The Baroness Elsa Schraeder, the Mother Abbess and Liesl, will be filled by girls from our senior grades — grades ten to twelve.”
There was a collective groan of disappointment from the younger pupils.
“It’s not fair!” Jessie protested.
“Our younger students may audition for the roles of the Von Trapp children, and will also be allowed to play the roles of nuns. Now,” — Mrs. Borman frowned down at them — “this production will be a great deal of hard work, with regular rehearsals. Please do not even bother auditioning unless you are prepared to commit yourselves fully. We need you heart and soul! Let us begin. Anyone wishing to audition for the role of Maria, please come up to the stage now. I said, seniors only, Miss Delaney!”
Jessie slumped back in her chair as a dozen or so girls made their way onto the stage. Some rushed eagerly while others seemed determined to appear cool and unconcerned, and took their time strolling forwards. Each girl, in turn, stated her name and then sang “Do-Re-Mi”. It soon became clear that most of the girls could not sing nearly well enough. There were a few nasty comments and sniggers, but these were soon shushed by those girls who realised that, before long, it would be their turn to stand on stage and sing.
Mrs. Borman and Mr. Matteson sat at the table as the girls auditioned, making notes and occasionally shaking their heads or whispering to each other.
Mrs. Borman stood up and said, “We have narrowed our choice down to these three girls: Chelsea Somers, Bongiwe Letseka and Megan Macarthur. The rest of you — I’m sorry, you didn’t make it. You are welcome to audition for one of the other roles.”
The group of girls shuffled dejectedly offstage. Samantha could not help thinking that she would soon be in a similar group. The remaining three girls each had to sing more songs from the score and to act out two scenes with Mr. Matteson reading the role of Captain Von Trapp. It seemed to Samantha that Chelsea Somers, a pretty girl with shoulder-length blonde hair and brown eyes, had by far the best voice and was good at acting, too.
“I reckon Chelsea will get it. What do you think?” Nomusa said.
Samantha nodded and Jessie said, “She’s got it in the bag — no contest.”
Eventually, Chelsea, Bongiwe and Megan were allowed to sit down, and auditions for the other roles began. Samantha, Nomusa and Jessie first auditioned for the roles of nuns along with a lot of other junior girls. Nomusa sang well, and what Jessie’s voice lacked in pitch, it made up for in volume. When it was Samantha’s turn, she wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans, took a deep breath and began singing. Her own voice always sounded strange to her, but when they sat down after their try-outs, Nomusa said, “I didn’t know you could sing so well!”
“Thanks,” Samantha said, relieved.
A little while later, they tried out for the Von Trapp children. Cindy, who had also tried out for the role of a nun, was again onstage and volunteered to go first. She sang reasonably well, but her chief strategies for landing a part seemed to consist of smiling brightly at Mrs. Borman and Mr. Matteson and psyching out the opposition with filthy looks and muttered insults. When it was Nomusa’s turn to step forward and sing, Cindy sneered in a voice loud enough for Nomusa to hear, but too soft to carry to where the teachers were sitting, “Yeah, right, like anyone’s going to buy her as a Von Trapp. She looks so much like an Austrian — not.”
“Shut up, Cindy,” Samantha said fiercely.
“Yeah, shut up,” Jessie echoed. “I mean, like anyone’s going to buy you as a nun!”
Cindy gasped and looked ready to slap Jessie, but her rejoinder was drowned out by Nomusa who sang loudly and confidently, as if Cindy’s slur had given her added motivation.
When everyone had auditioned, Mrs. Borman stood up, thanked Mr. Matteson for assisting and said, “Eager as you must be to find out who has been cast, I am afraid that you will have to wait a little longer. Once we have made our final decisions, we will post cast lists on the House notice boards. Good night, ladies, and good luck!”
* * *
SAMANTHA, JESSIE AND Nomusa were discussing the auditions, and arguing about who should get which role, when they walked into their biology class the next day. They were met at the door by Miss Stymen, who was handing out large posters and blobs of sticky Prestik.
“There you are, each of you grab one of these. Pick a spot on the wall and stick it up. Pull down one of the old posters if necessary.”
Jessie needed no further encouragement. She snatched a rolled-up poster from the pile Miss Stymen was holding out and hurried off to the wall alongside her seat.
“I have wanted to do this,” she grunted, tugging enthusiastically at the diagram of the human excretory system, “for the longest time!”
With a final wrench, she pulled the poster off the wall, staggering backward with the force of her tug.
“Jessica, be careful there!” Miss Stymen admonished. “I still need those posters for future lessons.”
“Not if I can help it,” Jessie said grimly.
She rolled the old poster up tightly, stuck it together firmly with several strategically placed blobs of Prestik, and then thwacked it down on Miss Stymen’s desk before sticking up her new poster. It was of a sooty power station spewing great clouds of black smoke into a murky grey sky under the words Pollution kills!
“It’s a huge improvement, Jess,” Nomusa said. “Really adds some colour and light to your little corner, over there.”
Samantha nodded. “Yup, definitely.”
Jessie growled in frustration and pointed at the array of colourful posters which now decorated the class’s walls. “Other people get Blue Whales or cute Riverine Rabbits or Cheetahs. But me? I get to swop human excretion for industrial excretion!”
Miss Stymen called the class to order and handed out assignment sheets to the class.
“Our change of decoration signals a change of focus, girls. Our new theme will be conservation, and you’ll be working in groups on a project.”
Samantha groaned. She loathed working in groups for projects. Somehow, she wound up doing all the work, while everyone got a share of the credit. Teachers always seemed to allocate at least one truly lazy or incompetent person to her group, and Samantha had to choose between handing in a poor assignment or doing all the work herself.
She cheered up when Miss Stymen added, “You may choose your own groups of between three and five people.”
Samantha, Jessie and Nomusa immediately looked at each other and nodded.
“Each group must choose one endangered species — a creature that is endemic to the South African region, please — and complete the project on that species. You will see that it is due three weeks from today. You may use the rest of this period to choose your topic and plan your project. Are there any questions? Samantha?”
“Please, ma’am, is this for —”
“Yes, it is for marks.”
There was a buzz of voices and a scraping of stools as the girls divided themselves into groups.
“Well? What should we do?” Jessie asked.
“Not whales or rhinos, or anything too obvious,” Nomusa said. “I bet half the class will do those. We should try to do something original.”
“How about turtles — leatherback turtles, I mean,” Samantha said.
“Are they endangered?” Nomusa asked.
“Yes.”
“Fine by me, then, though I know absolutely nothing about them.”
Jessie frowned. “I don’t know much either. I may actually have to put some work into this one.”
“Okay, that’s settled then. Who wants to do what section?” Samantha asked. They quickly decided that Samantha, who knew the most about turtles, should complete the section describing the species and its habitat. Jessie took the section on the Endangered Status and Threats to Survival (“Those blimming ghost crabs!” she muttered), while Nomusa volunteered to do the section called What can we do to help? They agreed to get cracking with research and meet in a week’s time to check their progress.
“You know what?” Samantha said. “This might be fun!”
“Put away that smile, crazy-pants,” Jessie said darkly. “Schoolwork is never fun. This might be remotely interesting, but it will not be fun.”