Wood Sprites

14: Stagecraft

The next day they started the set construction during the joint stagecraft class. Louise had designed the sets so they broke down into many intricate pieces when they were dissembled, requiring three-dimensional models for each part to be understandable. The Darling nursery in a ghetto of New York City. The Neverland forest with trees that umbrella-opened and the Lost Boys’ houses tucked under the roots of the trees. The mermaids’ lagoon where “the ocean” would shimmer blue via a series of holographic projectors. And then, as a grand piece of design, the massive Jolly Roger pirate ship with three masts and rigging, which, of course, had to stay hidden in the wings until the fourth act.

Mr. Howe and Miss Hamilton reviewed the designs as they gathered in the art room while Louise’s heart hammered in her chest.

“This is ambitious,” Miss Hamilton said.

“Are you sure we can get all this work done?” Mr. Howe asked. “We have less than eight weeks now before the show, and we won’t have access to the stage until the end of this month.”

“These are the time schedules I’ve got worked out for the construction.” Louise pulled up the lists. This was the first year that they would use the large auditorium. Every class put on a play; the productions were set up so each class had private use of the stage for only a month. Since the sixth-graders were currently erecting their sets and doing dress rehearsals, their class wouldn’t have access to the stage until that play was over. “As long as we get the materials on time and have access to the machines like the printer. The big one in the annex.”

“What do you need that for?” Mr. Howe asked. “Do you even know how to program it? Normally only seniors work with that for the advanced robotics and science labs.”

Louise pointed out the magic-generator doubles. “These projectors are usually very expensive because they’re very versatile, but if we use the printer to create them with limited functions, we could do the same thing for just a few dollars.”

“And yes, we know how to program them,” Jillian said.

“Why do we even need these?” Miss Hamilton asked.

“The lagoon is supposed to be a bunch of rocks in the water. It’s basically a protected swimming cove. The mermaids are supposed to be slipping in and out of the water. The script calls for Peter and Wendy to attempt to capture a mermaid. She slips from their grasp and swims away.”

“There’s no explanation on how this is supposed to be staged.” Jillian took up the narrative. “We think Barrie meant for the mermaids to enter and exit via trapdoors, but those were banned in New York schools before we were born.”

Mr. Howe frowned, looking off vaguely as if he was considering time. “It really wasn’t that long ago — was it?”

“It was,” Miss Hamilton murmured. “So you’re going to get around needing to have the mermaid just ‘disappear’ by projecting her?”

“Her and three other mermaids in these alcoves.” Louise pointed them out. “Instead of them being stuck in a fairly seated position, we can pre-record part of their performances and splice them in, kind of integrating film and live action.”

“This is just a fifth-grade play,” Miss Hamilton said.

“We’re within budget and time.” Jillian gave her a carefully innocent smile. “And this is the Perelman School for the Gifted in New York City, not a public school in Detroit. It will be a play that will make parents feel like the money they spend on their kids’ education is justified.”

Louise thought Jillian was laying it on too thick and bumped her slightly. Jillian continued to smile brightly at their teachers and bumped her back.

Louise tried to detour the conversation. “These projectors will allow us to basically hand-wave most of the set for the mermaids’ lagoon. We can do a ‘painted’ backdrop of rocky cliffs, kind of what they did for the movie.” She pulled up a print from the Disney cartoon and a photograph of a Hawaiian cliff for comparison. “See, the real cliff has a black rock and the blues of the water as its primary colors. Disney went with a more purple color scheme; I think to suggest a woman’s boudoir. Don’t think we should go that direction.”

“No,” Mr. Howe said.

“Definitely not,” Miss Hamilton said.

Louise closed the Disney print and centered the photograph. “So what I was thinking is blowing up this photo and printing it out on a color printer on the largest sheets of paper our printers can handle. I think eleven by seventeen inches is the largest. This is the cost of the paper, ink, and adhesive.”

“And mount them on. .?”

“We do both the nursery and the lagoon as a series of panels that lock together to make a full-size wall. The nursery backdrop will be on one side and the lagoon cliff would be on the other. Panels can be flipped as they’re raised and lowered. This is the break-out of their cost, and here’s the model rendering showing them being raised and lowered.”

“You’ve put a lot of thought into this,” Mr. Howe said.

Louise nodded, heart still hammering. She knew that she needed to be completely thorough with all of the set design or the teachers would feel as if they would have to watch over every little detail.

The teachers conferred in murmurs and then nodded in agreement.

“Okay.” Mr. Howe clapped his hands. “Let’s get started then.”

Louise gathered her courage by focusing on what she knew well. “I would have liked to work from the largest item down. First step would be creating the walls for the nursery and lagoon. Since we don’t have the panels yet, we can set up work on Marooner’s rock and the Darlings’ beds and the projectors.”

“The projectors are large?” Mr. Howe asked, putting a tremble of fear through Louise.

“No, it’s just that each one will take hours for the printer to create. We start one running now, it should be done by first period tomorrow.”

“I’ll set up crews to handle the rock and the beds,” Jillian said. “And Louise can do the programming of the printer. We need to discuss with Reed how to do the swords, since he’s prop master. And there are a few questions we have on the costumes with Zahara before the sewing starts.”

They’d hoped that everyone would work on the assumption that the twins were interchangeable. Either one of them could do the programming. Louise was better at not getting caught, which made Jillian better at talking her way out of things. Since they would be in adjoining rooms, they figured that it would be best for Louise to handle the printing. If she was caught, Jillian could jump in to talk them back out of trouble. That weekend, in preparation for this class, Jillian had trimmed her hair to match Louise, saying it was so she looked more like Peter Pan.

They gave identical inquiring looks to their teachers.

“She’s Louise?” Mr. Howe asked pointing to the correct twin.

Miss Hamilton paused a moment before answering. “Yes, that’s Louise.”

He picked up two cards and wrote “Louise” and taped it to her. The other went on Jillian with her name printed out. “Okay, let’s roll.”

The biggest hurdle to making the magic generator was Mr. Kessler. For computer literacy classes he came to their classroom, but the technology room attached to the art room was his official domain. Louise was upset with herself that she’d insulted him the day before. She knew that they would need the printers; she shouldn’t have lost her temper. Considering how he treated them before Louise snapped at him, he probably would have blocked any attempt to use the printer even without her standing up to him. Now it was almost guaranteed that he would try and deny them access to the technology annex.

The twins had debated how to get around Mr. Kessler. Stealth was no longer an option. In retrospect, even if they had started the printing anonymously, odds were he would have killed the print job long before it came to an end. Because of the long run time, they needed hours of uninterrupted access to the printer that only the play allowed them.

Since stealth wasn’t an option, they would have to use what they had.

After the class was engaged in building the one massive Styrofoam Marooner’s Rock and the three Darlings’ beds, Jillian took Zahara and ambushed Miss Gray with innocently worded questions about the mermaid costumes in terms of strategically placed seashells. Within minutes, Miss Hamilton was dragged into the whispered discussion of possibly scandalous wardrobe versus theater traditions. With the other two teachers occupied, Louise was free to corner Mr. Howe and ask him for help with the printer in the annex.

“I don’t know anything about that equipment. You should ask Mr. Kessler for help. He’s in the room right now.”

“He picks on us.” Louise was glad she could be truthful about it. “I don’t know why, but he doesn’t like us. He teases us in front of the whole class.”

Mr. Howe’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Let’s go see Mr. Kessler.”

She couldn’t read his tone. Aware that he towered above her, she led the way to the annex. Did Mr. Howe believe her? Did he think she was making it up? Was she going to be able to use Mr. Howe to counter Mr. Kessler or were the men going to join together to create an adult wall of stupidity?

Mr. Kessler sat at his desk. He looked up sharply as Louise entered. “This equipment is for big kids, shrimp. Shoo.”

Louise took a deep breath and clung tight to her courage. “I need to use the 3D printer in here.”

“There’s one in the art room for you squirts.” He focused on closing up the windows on his desktop.

“I need the advanced model for our joint-class play. The art room one only prints at a hundred-micron resolution.”

“No.” He glanced up and visibly flinched at Mr. Howe at her back. “Bill? Oh, I didn’t see you. Look, my stuff is not toys. I won’t let the ninth-grade kids touch my printer, because they don’t have the programming skills yet.”

“It’s not your printer, Mr. Kessler. It’s the school’s printer.”

“I know how to program it.” Louise held her tablet tight to her chest, afraid he’d try to take it and erase her work. “I made sure to run my job on a simulator to double-check my work.”

Mr. Kessler stood up and paced a moment behind his desk. “Okay. Fine.” He stormed to the 3D printer. “It’s mine in that I have to deal with all the hassles of getting it replaced if it’s broken.”

“It’s a printer for a high school. If it’s that delicate, it shouldn’t be here,” Mr. Howe said. “And if it’s here, my kids have a right to it.”

Louise linked her tablet to the printer. She had really hoped that she could print the magic generator, but not with both men focused so intently on her. She carefully loaded the program to print the holographic projectors. After double-checking she had everything set up, she started the machine. The printer hummed, and the scent of chemicals tainted the air. Otherwise, it barely seemed like the machine was working.

As she fled the room, she heard Mr. Howe growl softly. “You seem to have lost sight that these are little kids, Kevin. You are here to teach, not to casually insult them, and you don’t make them a target by singling them out. If I hear about you picking on any of the kids in my grade, or the school for that matter, I will do my best to see to it you no longer work here. I may even feel it necessary to give you a more personal understanding of the effects of being bullied. Hands-on, so to speak. I trust my position in this matter is clear.”

Louise was not sure if Mr. Howe had been serious, but Mr. Kessler seemed to think he was. He avoided her and Mr. Howe for the next few days. She wasn’t sure if that meant he’d peacefully allow them access to the printers. Half-expecting him to sabotage the print runs, she did the two hologram projectors first. Only when they finished successfully did she feel confident in attempting to print the magic generator.

While everyone was working attaching the leaves to the first umbrella trees, she slipped away to the technical annex and programmed in the last job.

“This is the last one?” Iggy made her jump by suddenly showing up beside her.

She nodded, not trusting her voice to answer. She focused on making sure everything was set correctly before pressing the start button.

Iggy perched on the edge of the nearest art table. “You don’t like people paying attention to you, do you?”

“No.” She glanced toward the art room and discovered that all the teachers were focused on the rest of the class dueling with the newly made swords. It was the first time she’d ever been alone with a boy and it made her vaguely uncomfortable even though Iggy had been acting like they were friends.

“Most people actually don’t like being in the spotlight.” Iggy swung his legs back and forth, probably unaware that it made him look very much a little boy. He was, though, the oldest kid in both fifth-grade classes. “Sometimes they find ways to keep people from noticing them. Little things. Like not smiling so much, not looking people in the eye. It’s so little that they don’t always realize they’re doing it.”

Was he implying that she wasn’t meeting people’s gaze? Certainly, considering everything she’d been doing lately, she had been trying not to draw attention to herself. Had he just caught her at stealing printer time? He probably didn’t understand the programming, as it was years above what they were doing in class. She closed the window just in case.

“The problem is that those little things work too well,” Iggy said. “People start to ignore you. But because you’re not totally aware of what you’re doing, you start imagining that there’s a good reason that they don’t look at you. You think you’re ugly and awkward and all the horrible reasons why people wouldn’t want to look at you.”

“I don’t. .” And then she paused, as her breath caught in her chest with the realization that she did. Embarrassment burned up her face. He knew how she felt, like he’d found it written someplace and read all her secrets. “I don’t think I’m ugly.”

“Just not as cute as your sister?”

She ducked her head so he couldn’t see her blinking. Crying in school; only kindergarteners did that.

“Your sister is shy, too.”

“Jillian?” Louise snorted with disbelief. Jillian loved people watching her.

“She doesn’t like people looking at her, but if she can become someone else, have a part she can act, then she doesn’t mind them watching, because they’re not really looking at her.”

“That’s silly.”

“You don’t like acting because you don’t like becoming someone you’re not. That’s why you’re fine with being the stage manager.”

“How do you know? You barely know us. I bet, from behind, you couldn’t even tell us apart.”

“I think I could. Not a week ago, no, but now, yeah. Up to a week ago, you two were like some masked wrestling tag team. The villain type that always cheat by being in the ring at the same time.”

“You watch pro wrestling? You know that’s fake?”

“It’s theater. And yes, I watch it with my dad. I think he’s worried about me growing up with so many sisters, like I might be permanently warped by Barbie dolls and Disney princesses.”

“He’s afraid you might be gay.”

“I’m not! But, yes, in a nutshell, he’s worried I’ll get to like pink too much or something under the pressure. .” He trailed off, blushing red. “My oldest sister. When she’s home and she’s alone, she’s really beautiful. But as soon as she knows someone is watching, she does all she can to make herself invisible. I didn’t notice, not for a long time. I don’t know when it went from being shy to something else. I saw the cuts sometimes on her arms, but I didn’t understand what they meant.”

Something quietly awful had happened to Iggy’s oldest sister. The details were carefully hidden away, but it involved an ambulance outside the school late in the afternoon and her entire class going through counseling the following weeks.

“I’m not like that.”

“I know you’re not.” He kicked at the table leg. “You’re smart enough to figure it out. If you make yourself invisible, then people can’t see how beautiful you are.”

“You — you think I’m beautiful?”

His eyes went wide, and he blushed red. He hadn’t meant it. He slid down off the table, suddenly focusing hard on his shoes. She looked away, her throat suddenly seeming small and raw.

He started to flee, but he paused by the door. “I–I think you’re like my sister,” he stammered without turning around to look at her. “All alone, you’re beautiful. And I wish someone had been able to convince my sister of that when she was younger. It’s okay to be shy, but by trying to hide, you might start to hurt yourself without even realizing it.”