by Day, Susie
Time for me to put my detective skills to work, starting with the basics: interrogation.
Mycroft Christie shines bright light in the eyes of the guys he’s fleecing for information. I don’t see why nonsentient baked people should be any different. I take the gingerbread man from his perch beside my Pinocchio alarm clock and prop him up against the base of my desk lamp. One of his eyes got a bit squished while I was bringing him home, and he’s starting to look sort of sweaty, but we can put that down to my intimidating detective demeanor. He still smells delicious, though. I’d be tempted to eat him, if that didn’t open up a whole can of associated dodge now that he’s my boyfriend.
Interrogation #1 goes something like this:
A tiny cell. Heidi sits on her chair backward. The gingerbread man stays standing, due to his legs not being bendy.
HEIDI: Hello, sexy. Please inform me of your vital statistics.
GINGERBREAD MAN: (enigmatic silence)
HEIDI: OK, perhaps the “sexy” thing is a bit forward. Please don’t sue me for sexual harassment?
GINGERBREAD MAN: (enigmatic silence)
HEIDI: Although, come to think of it, you are technically naked, so we’re probably about even on the inappropriate behavior front.
GINGERBREAD MAN: (enigmatic silence)
HEIDI: So, what kind of music are you into? Who would win in a fight: astronauts or cavemen? Boxers or briefs?
GINGERBREAD MAN: (enigmatic silence: possible sarcastic expression)
Mycroft Christie makes this look easy. But he has a leather-clad sexy sidekick to help him. And maybe my Gingerbread Ed’s like Mycroft: one of those stoic noble types, who gets tied to a chair and thumped about once a week, till he just wriggles prettily and then escapes.
Or maybe Mycroft Christie has just never tried to interrogate a gingerbread man.
OK, this is getting embarrassing.
FOE.
CUSS.
Betsy said to keep it simple. To stick to something familiar. I’m going about this all wrong: trying to come up with a brand-new imaginary person, when I can just borrow one. Trying to be the hero, when the hero’s what I’m hunting. After all, there’s one person I already know inside out and backward. And he’s definitely the type to wear The Coat.
Interrogation #2:
A dimly lit penthouse, belonging to time-traveling gentleman detective Mycroft Christie. He returns home to find a young lady mixing him a cocktail. It’s not his usual colleague, Jori Song, but the equally foxalicious Miss Heidi Ryder.
HEIDI: Good evening, Mycroft. I’m from the Time Bureau, here to give you your new assignment.
MYCROFT CHRISTIE: Time Bureau? Madam, there’s no such thing!
HEIDI: Ooh! That’s from episode 1.4, “Lost in Metropolis,” the scene in the Chinese restaurant where the evil journalist woman tries to expose you. Right before you pour soup all over yourself so you can run away. I love that bit.
MYCROFT CHRISTIE: (attractive crinkly smile) It appears you know me rather well.
HEIDI: Episode 1.13, “Cavalry,” when it looks like you’re about to tell Jori everything, and then don’t. And yes, I do know you rather well. Almost as if I’m some sort of scary obsessive fangirl with your entire life on DVD. Or something. Anyway, this new assignment. I need you to go undercover as my boyfriend.
MYCROFT CHRISTIE: I can’t cook. I’m terribly afraid of the dark. I have a severe allergy to bee stings, shrimp, and unrequited love.
HEIDI: Perfect! I am taking notes. No quoting from season 3 allowed, though. That’s when you grew The Horrible Beard. Ed can’t have a Horrible Beard.
MYCROFT CHRISTIE: When I was just a little older than you, I fell off my hoverbike and broke my leg in three places.
HEIDI: No hoverbikes, either.
MYCROFT CHRISTIE: I was nursed back to health by the most charming young woman.
HEIDI: Bingo! I smell a potential “How We Met” anecdote! You’re pretty good at this. Anymore?
THE MOTHERSHIP: Hi, babes!
MYCROFT CHRISTIE: (breaks chair over her head for interrupting)
HEIDI: Er. Don’t do that. Well, do, but not right now?
We’re not in a penthouse. I’m not foxalicious. And the Mothership is looking at me kind of funny, which is fair enough, because I’m probably all pink-faced and ridiculouslooking, what with the talking to people who aren’t there.
“I’m…rehearsing. For the Performing Arts Group. Auditions. This week?”
Actually, that’s quite impressive as explanations go. She seems pleased anyway.
“That’s great, babes! Be nice to have you getting a bit more involved in school activities. Not stuck up here watching telly all the time.”
I nog.
“I’ll leave you to it, babes,” she says, backing out. Then her eyes fall on the desk. The lamp. The gingerbread man, standing there trying to look innocent.
I think the Mothership just caught my boyfriend hiding in my bedroom. I feel so grown-up.
“Hei-di,” she says, with a sigh. “I know you and your father think it’s a bit silly, but it does help me to stick to it if you do it, too, and I don’t think he really fits my Traffic Light system, does he?”
“Well, no. But I haven’t eaten him. He’s…my inspiration. If I suddenly feel an urge for naughty Yellow foods on a Red day, I’ll know he’s watching. So just leave him there, yeah? Don’t tidy him up or anything.”
She smooths her hand down one of my braids, tucking in the straggly bits, and makes one of those cutesy Mothership faces: tilt head, sigh.
“Everything all right, babes? Anything you want to tell me?”
I do want to tell her. I’ve got this amazing boyfriend, called Ed, who smells like cinnamon and looks like Mycroft Christie, and I don’t even care how weird it is, because just thinking about him makes me smile, just like Dai does when he talks about Henry, and Ludo does whenever Peroxide Eric sweeps into a room, and Fili and Simon do all the time, because they’re never apart. Maybe even better than that. And I belong, properly belong, and I’ll never be Frog Girl again.
But she’s the Mothership. She understands the rules of netball, but I don’t think she’s qualified to deal with Ed.
And anyway, I don’t have to. I’ve got Gingerbread Ed, my little sentry on the desk, keeping all my secrets safe.
Now Ed’s got a name and a face (I’m picturing a little more Mycroft than Gingerbread Man, though a bit younger, obviously), life is sweet. Now I’m primed to giggle along in any conversation, ready to throw in a casual little detail from my own love life. I’ll have to do some editing, obviously, if anyone asks: Mycroft Christie’s life tends to involve a few more fistfights with evil ninjas than the average not-on-television person’s does. Our first official date was a movie (though killer vampire bats didn’t fly off the screen and start attacking people when me and Ed did it). I’ve clung to his back as he rode Jori Song’s motorbike out into the country (although we weren’t being shot at by the alternate-universe Evil Time Bureau). We’ve had very deep and meaningful conversations about life, and time, and responsibility (but we didn’t always have to fit them into three minutes at the end of the episode).
It’s like being undercover. I could be exposed at any moment but only if I mess up and say too much. It’s a total thrill.
It even makes ITP feel useful. ITP stands for Integration Through Positivity. Or Isn’t This Pointless. It depends who you ask. Pottery and group hugs, to Promote Our Individuality, Embrace Our Diversity, and Capitalize Meaningless Phrases In General, all presided over by the frizzy-haired ethnically-beaded fairtrade-coffee-drinking Mizz Cooper. Except that Mizz Cooper has gone on a yogic retreat in a tent somewhere where they make butter out of yaks for the whole term, leaving the hugs to be delivered by Mrs. Ashe from the Science department. Mrs. Ashe of the lumpy waist-height monoboob, and the glasses-on-a-sparkly-string. The closest she’s ever got to Cooperesque touchy-feeliness before was probably when she bought an organic banana by acciden
t. It’s like being told what periods are by the Queen.
At least I have Fili in my group this year. Plus Dai’s Henry and Peroxide Eric. I like the idea of getting to know them a bit better. And it’s perfect for everyone getting to know Ed a bit better, too.
Ashe sticks exactly to Cooper’s lesson plans from last term, so after half an hour’s team-building a meditation space out of eggboxes and cellophane, we get to the Contribution. In other lessons, the Contribution is known as “that part where you actually have to write stuff down.” This time, it’s “Share a happy memory.”
OUTS.
TAN.
DING.
We get ten minutes’ writing time, then we have to read them out.
Brendan Wilson’s definition of “happy” makes Ashe turn purple in the face and rip the paper out of his hand before he can get more than three sentences in. Peroxide Eric has written about how much he likes pink fluffy bunny rabbits, Honey’s is about buying a handbag, and Fili has written HAPPINESS IS OVERRATED in eyeliner on her paper, and just holds it up instead of reading it out. I’m starting to feel daft for taking it seriously, but then it’s my turn.
I feel happy when I think about my boyfriend, Ed, and how we met. He was here on one of the Goldfinch summer courses for a few weeks, for physiotherapy, because he had an accident on his motorbike and hurt his knee. And all the other people who were here having physiotherapy were old women, so we kind of got talking this one time when I found him on the Manor steps playing “Lola” on his acoustic guitar, and then he stayed on for a few extra weeks just to hang out and talk about music and poetry and bikes, even after his knee was totally better. And now he’s back in a different boarding school in London, so I won’t see him for ages. But if I play that song I can still remember him sitting there, and it always makes me happy.
I can feel my face pinking up as I read. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Fili’s eyebrow rise, curious, amused. The second I stop speaking, I start to panic. The “Lola” thing just came to me at the last minute. I’ve pushed too far: It’s all way too daft. But then Henry reads his, which is about watching Dai jogging round the lake at 6 A.M. when he thinks no one’s watching, when there’s still a layer of foggy cloud sitting on it. His voice is all warm when he speaks: He even gets a little flush in his cheeks, too.
Fili’s still looking at me with that eyebrow quirked, that little smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. I suppose she and Simon are a bit above that sort of thing, but hey, if it’s good enough for Henry Kim, I guess being sappy and ridiculous is OK.
I’m in love, after all. I’m supposed to be a bit dorky.
It works anyway. By the afternoon, it’s filtered back to Dai, who hums the chorus of “Lola” at me all through History.
By the next day, Ludo’s started asking me questions about which school Ed’s at, and where it is in London.
Sometimes, my own brilliance can be a bit of a burden.
I’m lucky, though. Ludo’s pretty distracted with sucking Peroxide Eric’s face, Fili always seems to be hurrying off somewhere at the end of every lesson, and anyway Ed isn’t the big event of the week. Wednesday is the first meeting of the Performing Arts Group, for the grand announcement of what the Wassail performance will be.
Dai grabs me at the end of French and marches me down to the Performing Arts block on the far side of Stables. I’ve been in and out of the music rooms that lead off the foyer before, helping Dad Man move a bunch of weird African drums and jingly bells around over the summer. But I’ve never done more than peer through the windows at the auditorium itself. Venables is already flailing around on the stage, wearing a floaty white shirt that’s got too many buttons undone. (Hairy chest. I make a mental note to keep Ed unfuzzy.) He’s got his usual swarm of girlies in attendance, Scheherezade and Honey and Leila, flicking their hair and pouting up at him. There’s a sort of smog of perfume in the air. Underneath it, patchouli oil and cigarettes, from the Upper School arts geeks. And that strange dusty smell of velvet seats, like an ancient cinema.
“Come on in, guys, take a pew,” Venables yells, waving his arms, and sending his if-I-keep-it-long-no-one-will-notice- I’m-going-bald hair flapping around his face. “Doesn’t matter where you sit. Eat your lunch, pick your nose, do what you like, just need your attention thisaway. Brilliant. Love it. Brilliant.”
Henry’s already snagged us a row smack in the middle of the tiered seating, and he waves me and Dai over. Fili and Simon are there already, locked in their usual inaudible conversation.
The stinky patchouli people sit in the row in front of us. The Venablettes take up position at the very front, sitting up perkily straight. Everyone’s conversations slowly get quieter and quieter, as if someone’s leaning on the volume control.
“Where’s…” I start to whisper.
There’s a bang and a clatter from the doors. Ludo, breathlessly dragging a bored-looking Yuliya behind her.
“That’s it, come in, come in,” yells Venables, beckoning them in as they squeeze into the end of our row. “Plenty of room, folks. Brilliant. OK? OK. I think that’s everyone. Let’s get started, shall we?”
Total silence.
“Bloody hell, you guys are quiet! Can’t have that. See lots of familiar faces here from last year, yeah? You guys know I don’t do quiet. Theater doesn’t do quiet. Theater needs you BIG and BRAVE, yeah?”
There’s a mumble of “yeah”s in return.
“Can’t hear you,” says Venables, cupping his ear.
“Yeah.”
“Still can’t hear you! On your feet!”
The floor bounces slightly beneath my feet; everyone stands up. I look up at Timo Januscz’s arse and realize I’m the only one not standing. Dai gives me a look till I give in.
“Let’s get moving, come on! Hands in the air! Waggle them round! Pat your knees! Roll your shoulders back! Roll them forward! BIG and BRAVE, yeah?”
“Yeah!” yells everyone. Well, almost everyone. Fili is rolling her eyes as well as her shoulders. Yuliya is standing quite still, watching the whole thing with her mouth forming a perfect O of horror.
I decide I kind of like Yuliya.
“Heidi, come ON!” says Ludo over the chorus of yeah-ing, windmilling her arms. “You have to get into it properly!”
“Don’t ever let me start a session without a warm-up, you guys, yeah?” bellows Venables, patting the air to tell us we can sit again. “Can’t expect your brains to work if your bodies aren’t moving, right?”
I usually expect my brain to work instead of my body moving, but Venables is blathering something about “kinetic energy” and rifling through his man-bag. Finally, he triumphantly thrusts a pale cream paperback book with old-fashioned black lettering on it toward us.
“Anyone recognize this?”
“It’s a book,” I say, automatically, and a teensy bit louder than planned.
“A book?” Venables cups his ear again. “Yes! It is! Never be afraid to state the obvious, guys. Nothing’s obvious, yeah? But not just any book! It’s a play, called Twelfth Night. Pretty famous. The guy that wrote it is pretty famous, too. The biggest celeb of the literary world? Shakespeare, guys!”
There’s a vague murmuring around the auditorium.
“Come on, I know what you guys are all thinking. It tells us it’s boring! Old Billy Shakespeare: words no one understands, nobody knows what’s going on, everybody gets stabbed at the end, yeah?”
I have to give Venables a few points, there. We did Hamlet in English last year. I liked his proto-emo-kid thing, but I did write an entire essay about how it would’ve benefited from being forty-two minutes long, and finished with a paragraph that read, “In conclusion, NEEDS MORE JOKES.” Prowse gave me a D.
People laugh anyway.
“Well, don’t all rush for the doors yet, guys, yeah? Because first off, Twelfth Night is about cross-dressing and gay sex. And second of all, this play? Billy’s play? That’s not what we’re doing.”
He
chucks the book over his shoulder. Someone claps.
“We’re doing…” There’s more rifling of the man-bag. “This!”
He unrolls a poster, with TWELFTH NIGHT: THE MUSICAL written in huge, crappy marker pen lettering.
HOE.
CAY.
Venables grins like a crazy monkey as mumbling starts up all over, and waves his arms a lot as he starts to tell everyone the plot. There are some impossibly identical boygirl twins, and the girl dresses up like a boy, and a duke falls in love with him, which is apparently OK in Old Billy time because she’s really a girl. Some guy wears comedy socks. And there’s a clown.
“But forget all that stuff about dukes, guys. This is not 1601. No one is going to be wearing codpieces in this production. We’re better than that, guys. We’re going to set this somewhere crazy. Take our audience somewhere they didn’t know they were going to go. Shake up our Shakespeare!”
Venables whips out a marker, and writes “IN THE ‘80s” on his poster, then adds “!!!!” on the end.
Fili makes a little moaning noise of despair.
“OH MY GOD!” hisses Ludo. “Leg warmers! And Lycra! And blue mascara!”
From the look on her face, these are apparently supposed to be good things.
Then we’re all filtering back out of the comfy seats into the foyer to sign up for roles. The acting/singing people have to audition—not in front of everyone else—but I still wrestle the pen out of Dai’s hand and cross my name off from where he’s gleefully written it in. Detectives definitely stay backstage if there are going to be leg warmers involved. I hover over Set Design/Construction, but Timo and the patchouli gang are already signed up, and I’m not sure I can handle poetic angst while standing on a ladder. Simon’s name is under Costume, though. I’ve never made anything more ambitious than my Bubble Wrap bag (and that’s mostly held together with staples), but I always wanted to be one of those kitschy home-sewn kids. And Simon may need some assistance with colors that aren’t black.
