The Wednesday Wars (10 page)

"Why so sneaky?" asked Meryl Lee. "Are you playing a girl's part?"

"No, I'm not playing a girl's part. It's a part from
The Tempest,
" I said.

"Gee, so when Mrs. Baker said you were playing a part from
The Tempest,
she meant that you were really playing a part from
The Tempest,
" said Danny Hupfer. "We know a whole lot more now than we did before."

"Ariel. I'm going to play Ariel."

"That's a girl's name," said Meryl Lee. "Isn't it a girl's name?"

"Suspicion is an unbecoming passion," I said. "Ariel is a warrior."

I know. That sounds like a lie. But Presbyterians know that every so often a lie isn't all that bad, and I figured that this was about the best place it could happen.

"Who does the warrior fight?"

"The rebels who usurped Prospero's kingdom and who want to murder him and his daughter."

"That sounds all right," said Danny Hupfer. "So you get to fight for them, like a knight who's their champion."

"Yes."

"And you get to wear armor and stuff like that," said Danny Hupfer.

"Stuff like that," I said.

"Maybe I'll come then, to see the armor," he said. "But it'd better be over in time for Mickey Mantle."

"It still sounds like a girl's name to me," said Meryl Lee.

We ignored her again and headed back into the classroom.

But just before we got in the door, Mai Thi stopped me with a hand on my chest. She looked at me for a long moment and then whispered, "Not good to be warrior." I looked at her, I guess kind of startled, and she went in to her desk before I could say a thing.

But what did she know?

***

At the next rehearsal, I asked Mr. Goldman if Ariel could wear armor instead of yellow tights.

"Armor? We have no armor," said Mr. Goldman.

"You have no armor? What do you do in a play if you need it?"

"We don't put those plays on. We should buy armor just to do
Julius Caesar?
No. And why should Ariel wear armor?"

"Because he's Prospero's champion. He's fighting, like a jousting knight."

Mr. Goldman shook his head. "Like a jousting knight? Holling, you are a fairy. Go put on your tights. We have a dress rehearsal."

I didn't get to wear any armor.

The next Wednesday, as soon as everyone left for Temple Beth-El and Saint Adelbert's, Mrs. Baker took out her copy of Shakespeare from the lower drawer in her desk. "Mr. Goldman says that you are doing very well, though you need some practice on interpretation."

"He said that?"

"He did. Open your book to the fourth act. I'll be Prospero. We'll start with 'What would my potent master' and continue through to the end. Begin."

"He really said I was doing very well?"

"And that you need some practice. Begin."

"What would my potent master?" I said.

"No, no, Mr. Hoodhood. You are an enslaved magical creature about to be given your freedom if you perform well these last few moments. You, however, sound as if you're waiting for the crosstown bus. You're almost free, but not quite."

"What would my potent master?" I said.

Mrs. Baker crossed her arms. "There is supposed to be a passion in your face that works you strongly. You're on a knife's edge."

"What would my potent master?" I said.

"Indeed, there you are," said Mrs. Baker. "Stay on the knife's edge. And now Prospero..."

I stayed on the knife's edge, because I couldn't help it. When Mrs. Baker read Prospero's part, it was like Prospero himself had come into the classroom, with his flowing cloak and magical hands. She
was
Prospero and I
was
Ariel, and when she gave me my last command and said, "Be free, and fare thou well!" I suddenly knew what Ariel felt. The whole world had just opened out in front of me, and I could go wherever I wished, and be whatever I wanted. Absolutely free.

I could decide my own happy ending for myself.

"That," said Mrs. Baker, "should please Mr. Goldman."

And it did. When we finished rehearsal that night, I could almost imagine myself leaping out into the airy elements and dropping the insubstantial pageant of life behind me.

At least, that's what it felt like on the stage.

It didn't feel like that in Camillo Junior High, where Mrs. Baker reminded the class to purchase tickets in advance, and where I dropped hints almost every day that the Long Island Shakespeare Company's Holiday Extravaganza was going to run really,
really
long, and that there was no chance in creation that anyone could go see the Extravaganza and make it to Mickey Mantle, too.

I know. Another lie. But just a Presbyterian lie.

So the days passed, and the Hanukkah and Christmas decorations in Camillo Junior High started to look a little shabby, and the dress rehearsals were over, and Saturday night came, and I put on my bright yellow tights with the white feathers on the butt, and I put on my jeans over them, and I found the newest baseball I had, and my father dropped me off at the Festival Theater—"Don't mess it up"—and the Long Island Shakespeare Company's Holiday Extravaganza began.

And while Mr. Goldman played Falstaff from
Henry IV,
I looked out through the peephole in the wings, and I could see almost every face—and there weren't many, since anyone with any sense was over at the Sporting Emporium. I found Mrs. Baker right away. She was in the center of the third row, sitting next to Mrs. Bigio and wearing that teacher look that makes it seem as if she is about to start slashing at something with her red felt pen. (I suppose teachers just get that way. They can't help it.)

Behind Mrs. Baker and Mrs. Bigio were Danny Hupfer's parents.

Really.

I guess Danny must have told them about the Extravaganza, and they had come to see me play the part of Ariel the Warrior. I guess it didn't matter to them that the Bing Crosby Christmas special was on television tonight, the way it mattered to my parents, who would never, ever miss it. I guess the Hupfers thought that a Shakespeare debut was a whole lot more important than hearing "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas" one more time—even though Mr. Hupfer was loosening his tie and holding his hand over a yawn.

And I guess you can't look out stage peepholes very long, because your eyes start to water, and the stuff in your nose gets drippy, and you have to wipe at them both, and there goes all your makeup.

There wasn't anyone else from Camillo Junior High that I could see. No one. And except for the very front row I could see every seat in the theater.

Let me tell you, when it was my turn to go on, not seeing anyone from Camillo Junior High made leaping out onto the stage hollering "What would my potent master?" and wearing yellow tights with white feathers waving on my butt a whole lot easier.

I stayed on the knife's edge, and when Mr. Goldman, who was really Prospero, sent me to fetch the traitors, or terrorize Caliban, or grieve the king, I did it as though all, all was at stake. When I reminded him that he had promised me my freedom on the sixth hour, I wanted it as badly as Mickey Mantle's signature on a baseball. And when I drew the boatmen into the island, I thrilled at Prospero's line: "Thou shalt be free." And when at last it was done and Prospero stepped to the edge of the stage to beg the audience to send its gentle breath to fill the sails of our freedom, I could hardly keep myself from trembling.

Suppose they wouldn't fill the sails?

"Our revels now are ended," Prospero had said. But when I walked onstage with the rest of the company for curtain calls, the revels felt like they had not ended; they were still ringing in the hands of the audience—who were all standing.

Still ringing in the hands of Mrs. Baker—who was smiling at me. Really.

Still ringing in the hands of Mr. and Mrs. Hupfer—who were waving at me.

Still ringing in the hands of Danny Hupfer and Meryl Lee and Mai Thi—who were standing in the very front row!

Danny Hupfer and Meryl Lee and Mai Thi!

I looked down at them looking up at the bright yellow tights with white feathers on the butt.

But they weren't looking at the yellow tights. Because they were all three crying. They stood in the light from the foot lamps, and their cheeks glistened with tears.

Shakespeare can do that to you.

They clapped and clapped, and clapped and clapped, and Meryl Lee wiped at her eyes, and then suddenly in Danny Hupfer's eyes came this startled look, and there was a passion in his face that seemed to work him strongly—and it was Mickey Mantle.

He pointed to his watch.

"Nine fifteen," he mouthed, and he turned and waved desperately to his parents.

And when the curtain came down and I could be free, I didn't wait for the audience's breath to fill my sails after all. I careened back behind the stage and around to the men's dressing room.

And found that it was locked.

Locked!

I pounded on the door. No one answered.

I heard my name for another curtain call.

I pounded on the dressing room door again. No one answered.

I ran back into the wings, desperate. Mr. Goldman was still onstage, bowing. It looked like he would be bowing for a while.

But he had left Prospero's blue floral cape behind in the stage wings.

I grabbed it, flung it around my shoulders, and made for the elements, where my father would be waiting for what I hoped would be an illegally fast drive to the Baker Sporting Emporium. I ran out the back stage door—and let me tell you, it had gotten a whole lot colder, and a cape when you're just wearing yellow tights doesn't help much—and sprinted around to the front of the Festival Theater.

My father wasn't there.

I guess the Bing Crosby Christmas special wasn't over yet.

Standing on the street in front of the Festival Theater in bright yellow tights and a blue floral cape covering white feathers on his butt—this was not an Ariel in a happy holiday spirit.

I looked up and down the street.

Not a single car was moving—except one speeding away: Danny Hupfer's parents. I decided I would wait for my father for five minutes. So I counted three hundred Mississippis.

No car.

People started to come out of the theater and point at me.

And then, the scent of diesel fumes came in on the breeze—which was cutting right through my floral cape—and the crosstown bus lumbered around the corner, gritty and grimy and the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. It even had plastic Christmas balls hanging from its rearview mirror.

I sprinted across the street—which probably looked pretty impressive with the blue cape flowing behind me—and stood at the Festival Theater bus stop.

But I wasn't sure the bus was going to stop when the driver saw me. He went two or three bus lengths beyond the sign, and even after he stopped and I ran up, he didn't open the doors at first. The plastic Christmas balls rocked back and forth while he looked at me like I had escaped from someplace I shouldn't have escaped from.

I counted another fifteen Mississippis before he opened the doors.

"Who are you supposed to be, kid?"

"John Wayne."

"John Wayne never wore tights his whole life."

"I need to get to the Baker Sporting Emporium."

"Well, John Wayne, do you have thirty cents?"

I reached into my pocket, which wasn't there.

"I didn't think so," said the bus driver.

"Please," I said. "I need to get to the Baker Sporting Emporium."

"Since Mickey Mantle is signing baseballs, right?"

"Yes."

"He looked at his watch. "You might make it. If you had thirty cents."

"The quality of mercy is not strained," I said.

He looked at me like I had just spoken a foreign language.

"Please," I said.

The driver shook his head. "Okay, John Wayne. But this is the kind of stuff that gets bus drivers fired, giving free rides. And if it wasn't so cold out there, I'd close the door on you. Did you know that when that cape is blowing out, people can see that you have white feathers on your—"

"Yes," I said, and took a seat.

It was mercy alone that there was no one else on the bus.

We drove through the cold night, well under the speed limit. The driver slowed down properly at every light—even if it was still green. He looked both ways twice at every stop sign.

"Do you think—" I began.

"Look, I'm missing the Bing Crosby Christmas special, and I'm putting my job on the line for you, kid. It's not a great night. So do you want to be quiet, or do you want to get out?"

I was quiet. I wrapped the blue floral cape around me.

By the time we reached the bus stop a block away from the Baker Sporting Emporium, I was about as frantic as a fairy warrior being very quiet can ever get. The bus driver looked at his watch. "Nine thirty-seven," he said. "You'd better giddyup, John Wayne."

He opened the door, and I started down the steps.

"You do have a baseball somewhere under that cape, right?" the bus driver asked.

I stopped. Dead. My baseball was back at the Festival Theater, in the locked men's dressing room.

I almost cried. Almost. But I didn't, because if you're in seventh grade and you cry while wearing a blue floral cape and yellow tights with white feathers on the butt, you just have to curl up and die somewhere in a dark alley.

The bus driver shook his head. "John Wayne is always prepared for whatever happens," he said. "Me, too." He reached under the dashboard and pulled out a cardboard box filled with stuff. "You can't believe what people leave behind on their bus seats," he said. He reached into the box and pulled out—I am not making this up—a perfect new white baseball. Every seam tight and clean, like it had never even been thrown before.

"You got no clothes that any decent person would wear," he said. "No bus fare. And no baseball. How're you going to make it in this world, kid?"

At that moment, I truly did not care. I stared at the baseball. Its perfect whiteness filled my whole vision.

The bus driver shook his head. "You'd better meet a whole lot of people who are really kind to you, kid." Then he handed the baseball to me. The perfect new white baseball.