William's Midsummer Dreams Read online

  When William asked, “Inquisition?” the man laughed and said, “Well, actually, just three tough casting directors.” He pointed as he added, “The stage door is around the building to your right. Break a leg, kid.”

  That helped—a little. William didn’t know why, except for the fact that he did know what actors meant when they told each other to “break a leg.” Which was a reminder that he wasn’t a complete beginner. He managed a thank-you and headed in the direction the man had pointed. Then came a long, lonely walk across the front of the huge building and down the other side to an official-looking back door, with a sign that said auditions 9:00 A.M. to 2:30 P.M. William came to a stop, and then quickly, before he could chicken out, pushed open the door.

  Inside the heavy door, a few steps led up to a dimly lit landing. A gray-haired man sitting behind a desk looked up and, by crooking a finger, summoned William to approach. He did, and when the man asked his name, he was barely able to whisper stiffly, “William Hardison.”

  “Okay. Let me check.” The man ran his finger down a page, came to a stop, and said, “Here you are.” He looked at his watch and added, “You’ve come at a good time. Go on in and see if the previous young gentleman has finished. When he does, just walk out far enough to let the casting people see that you’re here, and raring to go.” His grin was sympathetic, but at the same time a little bit amused. Like he thought there was something funny about sending scared-to-death people out to face up to whatever it was that they’d foolishly imagined they were going to be able to do.

  William managed to twitch his lips upward in a sorry imitation of a smile, before he turned toward a cavernous area divided by clumps of hanging curtains and sets. A place that looked a lot like backstage in the high school auditorium in Crownfield, only much wider, and higher, and more intimidating.

  And then he was onstage. On the stage, and moving out toward what he now knew was the proscenium. A proscenium from which he could see an enormous expanse of empty seats and, farther back, two large balconies rising up toward a high domed ceiling. All of it empty except for the first row, where three people were looking up at him, an important-looking man with a little white beard and two women. One of the women was Miss Scott.

  Somehow looking down at Miss Scott’s smiling face only made it a whole lot worse. Worse because she was going to be sorry for him, and terribly embarrassed, since she’d probably told the other audition people how good he was going to be.

  And then Miss Scott said something to the other two, turned, and raised her voice to say, “And so, William. What have you chosen to do for us today?”

  He swallowed, swallowed again, and finally squeaked out, “Act two, scene two, where Puck is looking for Demetrius.” Miss Scott and the others nodded, but their faces seemed to be reflecting the same walking-dead kind of rigidity that he was feeling as he turned away and made his way to the wings. Where he stopped, turned again, caught his breath, entered stage right, reached for—and became—Puck.

  Moving forward on tiptoe, he could feel Puck’s gleeful, roguish disposition curl his lips and flash from his eyes as he pranced and paused, looking from side to side—and then skipped forward again, searching here and there, peeking under imaginary bushes and pushing aside hanging branches as he hunted everywhere for the hard-hearted Athenian who was so scornful of the young woman who was madly in love with him. And whom Oberon, the king of the fairies, had sent Puck to find—and sprinkle with the love nectar from the magical flower.

  When William/Puck reached midstage he stopped and shrugged, and speaking as if to himself, but at the same time, loud enough to be heard by an audience, he began to complain peevishly:

  “‘Through the forest have I gone,

  But Athenian found I none,

  On whose eyes I might approve

  This flower’s force in stirring love.’”

  When he said, “this flower,” he held up an imaginary bell-shaped flower that he could almost see, right there in his hand. Turning it from side to side, he smiled, admiring its beauty. Then he moved on, still searching but less hopefully now, until he stopped to stare, startled by something he’d come on so suddenly he could hardly believe his eyes.

  “‘Night and silence! Who is here?’”

  He circled the sleeping Lysander, checking him out carefully before he went on:

  “‘Weeds of Athens he doth wear:

  This is he, my master said,

  Despised the Athenian maid;’”

  He tiptoed on until he found a sleeping maiden, and then bent solicitously over her and continued,

  “‘And here the maiden, sleeping sound,

  On the dank and dirty ground.

  Pretty soul! she durst not lie

  Near this lack–love, this kill–courtesy.’”

  Moving back to where he had left Lysander, he bent over and carefully sprinkled the flower’s magic dew on one of his eyes and then the other, as he exclaimed,

  “‘Churl, upon thy eyes I throw

  All the power this charm doth owe;

  When thou wak’st, let love forbid

  Sleep his seat on thy eyelid:’”

  Circling around Lysander and then, once more, the sleeping maiden, he stepped back and held out both arms and cried,

  “‘So awake when I am gone;

  For I must now to Oberon.’”

  And then as he headed toward stage right, something, some bit of Puckishness, or perhaps just relief that he’d gotten through it, made him throw in a backflip followed by a brief handstand. Back on the proscenium, William smiled down at Miss Scott and the others, and the smile was still a Puckish one, and when the bearded man said, “All right, young man. And now we’re in act three, scene two, and your cue is Helena saying:

  “‘And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow’s eye,

  Steal me awhile from mine own company.’

  “And the stage direction says Helena ‘lies down and sleeps.’”

  And William/Puck/Robin Goodfellow, with barely a pause, recited and did the business he had planned and practiced all winter, pointing out three sleeping bodies, as he silently counted. One. He moved on to count two. And then three:

  “‘Yet but three? Come one more;

  Two of both kinds make up four.’”

  He reacted to Hermia’s entrance with surprise and then compassion, before he went on:

  “‘Here she comes, curst and sad:

  Cupid is a knavish lad,

  Thus to make poor females mad.’”

  And when that was done, Miss Scott told him the audition was finished, and he would have known by the way she smiled at him, even if Puck hadn’t already told him, that the part was his.

  It wasn’t Puck anymore, but it was a much more relaxed William than the one who had crept in, who stopped for a friendly chat with the man at the stage-door desk, before he went down the steps, and out into an astonishingly bright and beautiful midsummer day.

  As he walked, pranced almost, around the corner of the building, he was expecting to see the same group of people who’d been standing near the entrance. Looked forward to really seeing them, now that he no longer felt like a pitiful impostor about to be exposed as a fake. When he rounded the corner, they weren’t there. But somebody else was.

  Another kid, probably not much older than William himself, but taller and heavier, with a lot of slicked-back hair, broad shoulders, and a determined-looking chin, who was standing near the entrance of the theater. Standing there all by himself, but glancing around as if he were looking for someone. As soon as he noticed William, he came toward him.

  “Hey kid,” he was saying. “Did you just audition?”

  William nodded, standing his ground, but not rushing into anything. Even though some of the Puckish self-confidence was still with him, it wasn’t quite enough to overcome so many years of having been at the bottom of a top-heavy teenage pecking order. When the big kid finished sauntering over to stand only a couple of feet away, he shrugged an
d said, “You were trying out for Puck. Right?”

  William nodded yes, before a bit of remaining Puckishness gave him the nerve to add, “How about you?”

  The big kid grinned. “Yeah,” he said, “I did. I’m Bernard. Bernard Olson?” in a tone of voice that clearly meant that he expected William to say something like, “Oh really? You’re Bernard Olson himself? Gee! I’m so impressed!”

  Since he’d never heard of Bernard Olson, all William said was, “Yeah?” But in a tone of voice that must have made it sound like, “And who is Bernard Olson?” because the Bernard person went on to explain impatiently.

  “My dad is Professor Olson. You know, Dean of Performing Arts.”

  “Yeah?” William said in the same “so what” tone of voice.

  “Yeah,” the Bernard kid said with a shrug that said he was about to give up on William, but he obviously wasn’t quite ready to.

  “So,” he went on, “how did it go?” He nodded toward the theater. “In there.”

  William grinned. “Pretty good, I guess.”

  Bernard shrugged again. He seemed to have quite a repertoire of shrugs. “Good for you. But if I were you, I wouldn’t count on it.”

  “Oh? Why’s that?” William asked.

  “Well”—another shrug—“my dad talked me into auditioning. He helped me rehearse, and he thinks I’m pretty sure to get the part.”

  It was then that something, maybe that long-lasting shred of Puckishness, made William grin and say, “I wouldn’t count on it.”

  CHAPTER

  10

  June 17, 1939

  Wow! What a day! I went off this morning so scared I really came close to running out to the highway and hitchhiking to wherever the first car that came along happened to be going, as long as it was so far away they’d never find me. What I was so scared of was that I was going to go out on the stage and really blow it and embarrass Miss Scott to death, not to mention myself. But then, somehow, when I walked out there onto the procinium, prosenium

  Scratching out a couple of tries, he opened the dictionary, reminded himself of the spelling, and went on:

  when I walked out onto the proscenium, it was all right there after all—just like it used to be when I was in The Tempest. Maybe even more so. I wasn’t scared anymore, but it wasn’t because I knew how well I was doing. I was just Puck looking all over the forest for a guy dressed like an Athenian because Oberon, king of the fairies, told me I had to. Looking, getting bored with looking, sitting down and pouting for a few seconds, then getting up and finding what I was looking for. And then getting a kick out of playing a trick on a guy who’d been giving a poor lonesome maiden a hard time.

  And when I got back here to Edwin Hall, there was a phone message waiting for me that said I had the part and I could pick up my member-of-the-cast ID card the next time I went to the greenroom. Wow! Wow! Wow!

  Getting up from the desk, William threw himself on his bed and just lay there grinning. After awhile he started remembering how he’d run into that kid named Bernard, who had auditioned for the part too. The kid who said his father was some kind of important person in the drama department, and seemed to think that it was all decided, and he was going to be the one who would get the part.

  William went on smiling after he’d started remembering the Bernard kid. It wasn’t that he was gloating. At least not exactly. It was just … just what? Well, there was the fact that in his Baggetty past, he’d had lots of contests with kids who were bigger than he was. Pretty violent contests sometimes. And the other guy always won. Always. And now, in his fairly new existence as a Hardison, he’d apparently won one, against a kid who was not only bigger, but who had a father who was somebody important in the college drama department—instead of a good-for-nothing Baggett. So it was, under the circumstances, kind of hard not to smile—laugh out loud even. He stayed there on the bed for quite a while, then took a short impromptu nap, and when he woke up it was lunchtime, and he was still grinning.

  The cafeteria was, he discovered, a pretty nice place to eat lunch. Breakfast too, probably, but that morning he’d been too busy dying of fright to notice. After he’d picked out a ham and cheese sandwich and some potato salad, he sat down at an empty table, but the place was pretty busy and before long some other people asked if they could join him. Two of them, a tall, stocky man and a woman with big eyes and lots of curly eyelashes. He nodded and they both smiled, and then the man said, “Let me guess. You must be our Puck. Right?”

  William grinned and said, “That’s right. How did you know?”

  The woman rolled her big eyes before she said, “Oh, the word gets around pretty fast.”

  The man, who had a squarish head and a big, toothy grin, said, “Actually, casting results were posted in the greenroom an hour or so ago. So the word is out—the word about who got the roles that were still up for grabs until today. Which included who is to be our Puck. Very good.” His grin had a sneaky edge to it as he added, “And even better, who isn’t.”

  The woman shook her head and smiled as she said, “Now stop that.” She turned to William and said, “My friend here was alluding to a young gentleman, who shall be nameless at the moment, who’s been making a bit of a nuisance of himself lately by insisting he has the inside scoop on everything that’s going on at the Mannsville Shakespeare Festival. Including who would be playing Puck.”

  William thought he could guess who she was talking about, but all he said was, “Yes, ma’am.”

  “So, your name is Hardison?” she asked.

  “Yes, William Hardison.”

  She looked him over carefully and nodded. “Looks good to me, Mr. Hardison. Good typecasting, I’d say. And the word is, you can act, too.”

  Grinning, William said, “Good typecasting? You mean there’s not enough here to be cast as a normal flesh-and-blood-type person?”

  They both laughed out loud, and so did William. They went on chatting, and William learned that the woman’s name was Virginia Blake and she would be playing Titania.

  “Yes, Titania,” she said. “Queen of the fairies, who falls madly in love with this guy here. Donkey head and all.”

  The guy then introduced himself to William as Tom Grant, and said he would be playing Bottom, the weaver. Of course William knew that Bottom was the character who got the donkey head, so he made a point of looking carefully at one side of the guy’s head and then the other. And when the man asked, “Do you think I have the ears for it?” they all laughed again.

  They were still laughing when suddenly Clarice Ogden, wearing lots of lipstick and a tight sweater, appeared out of nowhere. Putting down a trayful of dishes, she plopped herself down uncomfortably close to William.

  “Hi, everybody,” she said as she carefully arranged several plates of food in front of her in a neat semicircle. “I’m Clarice Ogden. Who are you?” She pointed at the man and then the woman. “Just you two, I mean.” She leaned toward William and did a wide, slow smile. “I’ve known William for ages.” There was something about the way she batted her eyes as she said it that made William’s face begin to feel kind of warm.

  After Virginia Blake/Titania and Tom Grant/Bottom introduced themselves, Virginia Blake asked Clarice if she was a member of the cast.

  “Oh yes,” Clarice said enthusiastically. “I’m going to be Cobweb.” She turned to William and asked, “You know about Cobweb?”

  “One of Titania’s fairies,” he said, smiling and nodding in a way that must have been too knowing, because she shrugged.

  “I know,” she said. “You don’t have to tell me. It’s not a very big role. But it’s not too bad. I even have some lines to say.”

  William’s grin widened.

  “Okay. Okay. Two words, but most of the fairies don’t get to say anything. And there’ll be really fabulous costumes, and Miss Scott says I can help with makeup, too. I’m good at makeup.” She turned her attention back to Titania and Bottom then, and started explaining about how she was spendin
g the summer with Miss Scott, one of the directors, who was a friend of her parents, and how her parents were both lawyers, and so on and so forth. And in the meantime William was trying to think of a reason he had to be somewhere else in a hurry.

  He was still working on it when Bottom noticed that Clarice had two desserts—two slices of apple pie—and asked her if she had a sweet tooth.

  “Well, I sort of do.” She giggled. “But that piece”—she pointed to the bigger slice—“is for William.” Doing another cutesy smile, she pushed it toward him. When he tried to say no thanks, she insisted. “I know you like sweet stuff, so when that lady behind the dessert counter wasn’t looking, I snitched an extra piece for you.”

  Bottom and Titania were giving each other raised eyebrows and knowing smiles, and William was wishing there was some way he could tell them that what they were probably thinking wasn’t anywhere near true, at least not where he was concerned. When Clarice went to get herself another Pepsi, Bottom grinned in a teasing way and said, “So, we seem to have another midsummer romance on our hands.”

  But Titania looked questioningly at William and asked, “Or perhaps”—she clasped her hands over her heart—“only another lovesick Helena?”

  Bottom practically laughed his head off, but William didn’t think it was funny. After telling Bottom and Titania that he had to go practice his lines, he quickly wrapped the extra piece of pie in his napkin and scooted for the door, and from there to his private room in Edwin Hall. His very private room.

  Of course, saying he needed to practice his lines wasn’t just an excuse. At least he made it the truth by going over Puck’s act 2 speeches once again. And did a good job of it too, even with his mouth full of apple pie.

  CHAPTER

  11

  William’s next journal entry began: