The Secret Hen House Theatre

by Helen Peters

  Lottie tried it out. “The Secret Hen House Theatre. Yes. It sounds just right.”

  Friday morning, eight thirty-five. Hannah sat in the far corner of 7B’s tutor room, racing through her history homework and trying not to be distracted by the presence of Jack Adamson, who for some reason was perched on the edge of Miranda’s desk.

  “Hey, Miranda,” said Emily. “Did you know the prize money’s gone up? For the festival? Five hundred pounds for the winning theatre!”

  Five hundred pounds!

  Imagine having five hundred pounds to spend on the theatre.

  Red velvet chairs in the auditorium…

  A huge dressing-room mirror with lights all around it…

  Gold curtains…

  “Five hundred pounds?” said Miranda. “How strange, that’s the same amount I had for my birthday.” She gave a little tinkling laugh.

  Imagine Miranda’s dumbstruck face when the Secret Hen House Theatre won the five hundred-pound prize…

  “You know what else is strange?” said Jack.

  Hannah glanced up. Jack sounded deeply thoughtful.

  “Ronaldo’s transfer fee is eighty million pounds,” he said, “and that’s the same amount I had for my birthday.”

  Hannah giggled. So did everyone else. Miranda looked unsure whether to be offended or join in the laughter. She settled for a tight little smile and a toss of her head.

  Lottie walked in and Hannah wiped the smile off her face. Lottie flung her bag on to the classroom table, sat down and dropped an envelope in Hannah’s lap. “Look at this,” she murmured. “The post came just as I was leaving.”

  Hannah glanced at the clock. Still ten minutes to go and she was on the last question. There was plenty of time.

  She picked up the plain white envelope. “What is it?”

  “Look and see,” whispered Lottie. She drummed her fingers on the table in excitement.

  Hannah prised the letter out of its envelope.

  Dear Miss Roberts and Miss Perfect

  Many thanks for entering the Linford Arts Festival’s Youth Theatre Celebration. We are delighted that your drama group has chosen to participate in this exciting event and enclose the complete festival programme and competition rules for your information. We very much look forward to seeing your play, By Her Majesty’s Appointment. Mrs Fran Butler, one of our team of adjudicators, will visit your theatre to watch your performance at 3p.m. on Saturday 20 March…

  “What!” Hannah jerked her head up, wide-eyed. “That’s only—”

  “Three weeks. I know. Keep your voice down – Miranda will hear.”

  “Three weeks!” whispered Hannah. “There’s no way we’ll be ready by then. We haven’t even had one rehearsal. Oh, my goodness, I can’t believe we’ve entered this.”

  “Think of how much we’ve already done, though. The theatre’s nearly ready, isn’t it?”

  They had spent every evening since Monday hacking a path from the back of the thicket to what they now called the stage door, and then smuggling all the junk out of the shed and concealing it around the farm.

  “It’s not exactly ready,” said Hannah. “We haven’t even built the proscenium arch yet.”

  “The what?”

  “Proscenium arch. You know, the walls at the front of the stage, either side of the curtains. Can you come for the whole day tomorrow? We can make the arch with fence posts and sacking.”

  “Won’t the others be around, though?”

  “Martha’s going to Jade’s house in the morning.”

  “Jade? Danny’s sister Jade?”

  “Yeah, can you believe it? Typical Martha to be best friends with Danny’s sister. But at least she’ll be out of the way.”

  “Cool,” said Lottie. “Then on Sunday we can start rehearsing. And the performance date’s a week into the Easter holidays, so we can rehearse every day then. Oh, and the new script’s brilliant.”

  “Really? You like it?”

  “It’s great. Although I didn’t understand half the words the queen uses.”

  “I did use my thesaurus a lot. Good words though, aren’t they? My favourite was ‘mellifluous’. And ‘serendipity’. And ‘solipsistic’.”

  Lottie shook her head. “Your granny should never have given you that thesaurus. It’s like a deadly weapon in your hands.”

  Hannah looked at the letter again.

  The winners in each category will be announced and the prizes awarded at the festival’s closing ceremony on Thursday 25 March, to which all participating groups are warmly invited.

  The Linford Arts Festival Committee wishes you the best of luck and much enjoyment with the preparations for your play.

  Yours sincerely

  Martin Dean

  Chairman, Linford Arts Festival Committee

  “What do you think the judge will think?” said Lottie. “When she comes and finds a theatre in a hen house?”

  “She’ll love it. It’s original. And we’re doing everything ourselves.”

  “Yeah. All two of us.”

  “Exactly! I bet Miranda’s group has adults doing everything for them.”

  Miranda had drifted across the room and was flicking through a magazine with Emily. At the mention of her name she turned round.

  Lottie slapped her hand over the letter and slid it off the table, but not before Miranda had seen the logo at the top.

  “The Linford Arts Festival. How come you’ve got a letter from them?”

  “Mind your own business, Little Miss Nosy,” said Lottie.

  Miranda narrowed her eyes. “Are you entering? Are you in a drama group?”

  “Oh, which one?” asked Emily.

  “Yes, which one?” said Miranda, her eyes fixed on Hannah. “I didn’t know you went to a drama group, Hannah. Is it a special group for farm animals?” Her eyes lit up. “What play are you doing? Animal Farm?” She nudged Emily, who giggled on cue.

  Hannah felt a blush rise from deep inside her and start to spread all over her cheeks. Oh, why couldn’t she control it?

  Lottie tilted her chin and challenged Miranda’s stare. “It’s none of your business which group we’re in, Miranda. And we’re certainly not going to tell you.”

  Miranda tossed her head like a mare in a temper. Hannah could almost see her stamp her hoof. “Well, I wouldn’t bother entering the festival if I were you. Our group’s won it for the last three years and my mum’s written the best play ever this year, hasn’t she, Ems? And she’s got her friend who’s a professional West End director to help direct it. No one else stands a chance.”

  “Really?” said Lottie. “Well, you’d better prepare for a disappointment, because you might just have some competition this time.”

  Miranda smirked. “I very much doubt that, Charlotte. I can’t imagine that our group is going to be seriously challenged by you two losers and a bunch of farm animals.” She flicked her hair over her shoulder and turned back to the magazine.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” retorted Lottie. “You’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you?”

  When Hannah got to the theatre on Saturday morning Lottie was already there, perched on an upturned barrel of Cooper’s Dairy Ointment (The Number One Udder Cream), drawing in her red notebook. Shafts of sunlight poured through the gaps in the walls and illuminated her work.

  “You’re early!”

  “I know,” said Lottie. “My mum was still asleep and it’s so boring at home. What’s udder cream? It sounds really gross.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with udder cream. It’s what you rub on cows’ udders if they get sore when they’re being milked or when their calves are sucking from them.”

  “Cow moisturiser?”

  “Exactly. Also a cure for every human skin problem, according to my dad. What are you drawing?”

  Lottie held out her notebook. “An idea I had for the queen’s costume.”

  “Wow,” said Hannah. “That’s amazing.”

  S
he took the notebook reverently. The page was filled with a detailed design of a full-length gown: a riot of clashing colours and patterns, frills, bows and lace.

  “I thought it would suit the queen’s over-the-top personality,” said Lottie. “She has no taste so she just goes for the gaudiest design possible and she thinks she looks great.”

  Hannah stroked the paper. She imagined how it would feel to act Queen Matilda in that dress: the way she would draw herself to her fullest height; the arrogant tilt of her head as she looked down her nose at the poor maid; the rustle of silk as she paraded across the stage.

  “It’s fabulous,” she said. “Are you really going to make it?”

  “Sure. We’ll need to go to jumble sales and get material, then I’ll use Mum’s sewing machine.”

  “It’ll be amazing.” Hannah hesitated. “Have you thought about costume changes, though? We’re going to have to change really quickly, with just the two of us doing all the parts.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Lottie. “I’ll use Velcro. So what’s in that file?”

  Hannah had read in one of her mother’s theatre books that the director of a play keeps a file of notes about every aspect of the play she is working on. So she had gone to the newsagent’s after school yesterday and spent half of Granny’s Christmas money on a shiny purple ring binder, a pad of paper and some brightly coloured dividers. She had labelled each section: Costumes, Props, Scenery, Hair and Make-Up. In the last section, labelled The Play, she had filed a photocopy of the script, single-sided to keep the facing pages blank for her director’s notes on the actors’ movements and gestures.

  Lottie nodded in approval. “Cool. Let’s get started.”

  They spent the morning making two tall frames out of fence posts. They nailed hessian sacking over them so they looked like huge artists’ canvases. Then they wedged the frames vertically on either side of the shed, from floor to ceiling, to make two side walls for the front of the stage.

  “There!” said Hannah, standing out in the auditorium to admire the effect. “Our proscenium arch. We’ll have wings behind the side walls for our exits and entrances – we’ll make them the same way as we did the proscenium – then hang a backcloth at the back, and then, between the front walls – swish!” With a grand sweep of her hands, she mimed a pair of curtains opening.

  Lottie frowned. “Where are we going to get curtains?”

  Hannah paused, her hands still in mid-air. “Hmm. Has your mum got some old ones somewhere?”

  “Definitely not. She doesn’t keep anything old. It’s a miracle I haven’t ever been bagged up for the wheelie bin in one of her clear-outs. Don’t you have any old ones?”

  “All ours are old,” said Hannah. “But they’re all torn. And they’re all still on the windows.”

  Then she stared at Lottie. “Oh, but—”

  “What?”

  Hannah clapped her hands. “What about the sitting-room ones? They’re not torn. And they’re red and silky. They’d look amazing.”

  Lottie stared at her. “You have got to be joking.”

  “No one will notice. Nobody ever goes in there.”

  “Hannah, you can’t take your dad’s curtains. That’s stealing.”

  “It’s not stealing, it’s just borrowing. We’ll put them back for Christmas; that’s the only time the room’s used. He’ll never know.”

  “They would look amazing,” said Lottie, looking at the bare proscenium arch.

  “Exactly.”

  “What if he finds out, though? He’d kill us.”

  “He’d only kill me. And he’ll never find out.”

  The sitting room had two wide windows, each hung with crimson curtains.

  “Which pair shall we take?” whispered Lottie.

  “These ones,” said Hannah. “They’re not so faded.”

  She dragged a carved mahogany chair dotted with woodworm holes over to the furthest window and climbed on to the torn velvet seat.

  A shrivelled holly branch sat on top of the curtain rail. When Hannah’s mother was alive, the whole room sparkled at Christmas. There was always a huge tree covered in lights and an enormous log fire that crackled and shot sparks up the chimney. Candles burned on the mantelpiece and silver tinsel glittered on the picture rail. Her father cut down great swathes of ivy and holly branches to drape over the gilt picture frames.

  He still decorated the house with greenery and they still made a show of having a happy Christmas. But everybody knew it wasn’t the same.

  Lottie folded each curtain carefully as Hannah handed it to her. Then they carried them through the silent house and into the yard.

  “Oh, no!” said Hannah. Tess, her father’s springer spaniel, was bounding towards her, tail waving like a windmill. “Dad must be around.”

  As she was speaking, her father strode around the corner from the milking parlour.

  “Quick! Hide them!” hissed Lottie.

  Hannah looked around frantically. A dented wheelbarrow, coated with dried-up pig dung, stood outside the garden gate.

  “In there!”

  They threw the curtains into the wheelbarrow. Hannah pulled her coat off and flung it on top of them.

  “Look casual,” she muttered. “We’ve been cleaning out the guinea pigs, OK?”

  They strolled through the yard, trundling the barrow in front of them. Dad passed them and turned up the path towards the pigsties without a glance.

  “Phew,” mouthed Hannah.

  “Oh, no – look.”

  Hannah looked up towards the farm track. The farm’s one working gate was bolted shut across the track. Sitting on the gate, grinning triumphantly, were Jo and Sam. In front of the gate sprawled Jasper, a sheep so fat that he looked like a giant snowball. Jo had looked after him since he was orphaned at two days old, and now he followed her everywhere. He even had his own pet, a half-grown duck called Lucy, who spent her days riding around on Jasper’s back. She was there now, tucked into her vast woolly nest.

  “Uh-oh,” said Hannah. “What are they up to?”

  Jo and Sam didn’t take their eyes off Lottie and Hannah as they approached with the wheelbarrow. When they were nearly at the gate, Jo thrust out her arm, palm up towards Hannah.

  “Stop, in the name of Bean!”

  “What?”

  “The correct password is required to pass through this gate.”

  Hannah rolled her eyes and looked around her.

  “Pig dung?”

  “Incorrect password.”

  “Big fat sheep?” suggested Lottie.

  Jo narrowed her eyes at Lottie. “Incorrect password. Also rude and hurtful.”

  Hannah sighed. “Crazy mad people who call each other bean names?”

  “Incorrect password and an insult to the great and mighty Society of Bean.”

  Hannah turned to her brother. “Sam, please let us through. It’s important.”

  Sam looked at Jo. Jo gave him a stern stare.

  “Do not relent, French Bean. The question is, why is it important? And what is important? That is what the Society of Bean must find out.”

  Hannah blew out her cheeks impatiently. “Sam, why do you do this mad Bean thing?”

  Sam shrugged. “She makes me.”

  “All password attempts unsuccessful,” said Jo. “Entry denied.”

  From the pigsties came a sound of clattering metal, followed by, “Get down, girl! Behave!”

  Lottie glanced fearfully towards the pigsties. “Just stop being so stupid and let us through.”

  She grabbed the bolt and tugged it. It didn’t move.

  “There’s no point,” said Hannah. “It won’t budge with those two sitting on it and Jasper in front like a great fat door stop.”

  “Don’t listen to them, Jasper!” cried Jo.

  “Let us through,” said Lottie in as menacing a voice as she could manage. “Or the sheep gets it.”

  Jo laughed. “I wouldn’t threaten Jasper if I were you. He’s a trained ki
ller. He butts people I don’t like.”

  “Oh, please,” said Lottie.

  There was the sound of wood being dragged across concrete. Dad was shutting the pigsty door.

  “Let us through!” hissed Lottie, glancing at the wheelbarrow.

  Jo caught the glance. “If you want to get through, show us what you’ve got in that barrow.”

  Hannah said, in a higher voice than she’d intended, “We’ve been cleaning out the guinea pigs.”

  Jo snorted. “You?!”

  “Why have you put your coat on top of guinea-pig droppings?” said Sam.

  “Good point, French Bean,” said Jo. “Let’s see what’s under it.”

  She jumped down from the gate and reached for the coat.

  Hannah spreadeagled herself across the barrow. “No! Get off!”

  “Guess I’ll have to call Dad then.” Jo opened her mouth wide and took a deep breath.

  “No!” shouted Hannah and Lottie together.

  Jo folded her arms and looked at them through narrowed eyes. “So. Here’s the deal. We won’t call Dad and we’ll let you through this gate if you show us what’s in that wheelbarrow.”

  “And,” said Sam, “you have to tell us what you’ve been doing all morning.”

  Hannah looked at Lottie in despair. Was the theatre over before it had even begun?

  Clomp, clomp, clomp. Dad’s boots coming down the path towards them.

  “Hannah!” he shouted. “Have you taken my barrow?”

  Jo cocked her head and smiled sweetly. “Shall I talk to him?”

  “Fine,” spat Hannah. “You win. Now open up.”

  As Jo unbolted the gate, Hannah and Lottie grabbed the curtains from the barrow and sprinted off up the track.

  “Hey!” called Jo. “Come back! I’m telling Dad!”

  “Just follow us!” shouted Hannah. “Quick!”

  The curtains, strung on a length of washing line that Hannah had taken from the garden, glimmered and danced as they caught the winter sunlight. Hannah gave a long murmur of contentment. “Now it’s really starting to look like a theatre.”