Noah McNichol and the Backstage Ghost

by Martha Freeman

  Fuli came over, sat, opened her carton of milk, put her napkin in her lap. “Don’t you usually sit at the drama table?” she asked.

  “We’ve been exiled,” I said, which was a lie but sounded appropriately dramatic.

  “Ostracized,” Clive agreed.

  “Relegated to outsider status,” I said.

  Fuli took a small, tidy bite and chewed it thoroughly. “ ‘Relegated’? Such a big word.”

  “His parents are professors,” Clive said, “in case you didn’t know. And Emma’s are lawyers.”

  “Attorneys,” I clarified. “And don’t compare me to her, please.”

  “Why this relegation?” Fuli asked. “I would not call either of you an outsider.”

  “Sure I am. I’m the Black kid,” Clive said. “Half Black. Look around. Sea of white faces. Do you see any more like me?”

  “And I am the Asian,” Fuli said, “the girl with the dumplings. And by the way, Clive, I bet my skin is as dark as yours.”

  “No way,” Clive said.

  Fuli rolled up her sleeve. “Compare.”

  Clive rolled up his sleeve, laid his arm on the table next to Fuli’s. Sure enough, two arms, one color.

  “Hey, talk about ostracized,” I said. “I may be pale-skinned, but I’m Jewish, and, uh… my arm has freckles.”

  “What do you say, Clive?” Fuli asked. “Shall we let him be an outsider too?”

  “I guess,” Clive said, “honorary status. And we could invite Diego. He’s another one of us brown ones.”

  “Where does he go at lunch, anyway?” I asked.

  “No one knows,” Clive said.

  “I do,” Fuli said. “Art room. Ms. Mock lets him fool around on the fancy computer, the one with all the graphics stuff. She thinks he’s some kind of artistic genius ever since he made that collage with rat teeth.”

  Even I knew about that collage. Diego had made it in fourth grade, and he and Ms. Mock both got in trouble with the principal for a while, but then my parents and some of the other university types defended them, and the trouble went away. Tempest in a teapot, my dad would say. Still, it had been a big deal at the time.

  Clive said, “For real, Fuli. You can’t call yourself an outsider anymore. You got cast as Hamlet.”

  “Don’t remind me!” I said, all drama, and Clive shoved me, and I shoved him back, and Fuli ignored us and kept eating.

  “Seriously?” Clive went on. “What could be more inside than Hamlet, Prince of Denmark?”

  Fuli drank her last sip of milk, wiped her mouth with her napkin, refolded it, set it on her tray. She looked at Clive, looked at me. “All right, if you say so, I am an insider. But I still don’t have a place to sit at lunch.”

  Fuli wasn’t trying to be dramatic, I don’t think. She was stating a fact. Still, I felt a twinge in my heart, and I guarantee so did Clive. All those episodes of Gossip Girl, right?

  “You do now, Fuli,” I said. “Anytime.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  (SCENE: Dining room, early evening. NOAH, DAD, and MOM are eating dinner.)

  DAD: How’s the play going, Noah? How was rehearsal today? How’s that odd director you’ve told us about…? Matt, is it?

  MOM and NOAH: Mike!

  DAD: That’s it. Mike. He wears a fedora or a porkpie or a Stetson or a Yankees cap… and he is somewhat mysterious.

  NOAH (hastily): Wait—mysterious? Says who?

  DAD (taken aback): Uh, you?

  NOAH: No, no, Dad. He’s perfectly normal. Ordinary. Usual. Forget I said anything different and, uh… today’s rehearsal? It was good. We blocked the whole thing with the ghost in act one and, oh, another big thing—this kid Justin sprained his shoulder and can’t play baseball, so he’s doing lights and sound and all that from the booth. Mike calls that job holy spirit—you know, because of “let there be light”?

  DAD: Funny guy.

  MOM: And how is Fuli doing as Hamlet? Are you still smarting about that?

  DAD and NOAH: “Smarting”?

  MOM (sheepishly): So I’m old, Father William, and in my youth we said “smarting.” It means are you still sad that you didn’t get the part?

  NOAH: Nah, I’m over it.

  (MOM and DAD trade sympathetic looks. NOAH busily spoons baked beans.)

  NOAH (swallows, mumbling): She’s doing okay. (He looks up, speaks up.) Actually, she’s doing a lot more than okay. She’s kind of amazing. I mean, I’m boffo and all, but I never could have done such a good job. Mike calls it range—charming in one speech and whack the next, but she always makes it seem natural.

  DAD: She is mad north by northwest then—boom!—she knows a hawk from a handsaw.

  MOM (frowns): Act two… I think?

  DAD: Paraphrasing.

  NOAH: Yeah, act two, and sheesh, Dad, for someone who hates theater, you really know your Hamlet.

  DAD: I don’t hate—

  MOM: It seems to me you enjoy talking about the play and the rehearsals.

  DAD: I enjoy lasers, too.

  MOM: So there’s room in that big brain of yours for both.

  DAD (pats head): It is rather a big brain, isn’t it?

  (MOM and NOAH make gagging sounds)

  NOAH: So speaking of theater, I have a question. You know Miss Magnus, right? Do you know where she lives? I tried to look it up, but I couldn’t find an address.

  MOM: Somebody at Sal’s will if I ask.

  DAD: Who’s Miss Magnus?

  MOM (looks at the ceiling): Oh, sweet heaven, I sometimes wonder if we all live in the same house in the same town or what. (She looks at DAD.) Don’t you ever stop thinking of laser beams and muons?

  DAD: Not often. And so I repeat: Who’s Miss Magnus?

  NOAH: The real director? Who broke her leg on Broadway? Basically a legend at my school? That Miss Magnus?

  MOM: A legend?

  NOAH: She works seriously hard. One year she stayed up all night sewing sequins onto Juliet’s wedding gown.

  MOM (after a beat): Wedding gown? In Romeo and Juliet?

  NOAH: At the end. You know, when Romeo and Juliet get married.

  DAD: No-Trauma Drama strikes again.

  NOAH: That’s not the real ending? Let me guess—in Shakespeare’s version, everybody dies.

  MOM: Not quite everybody.

  DAD: Only Romeo and Juliet.

  MOM: And Mercutio.

  DAD: And Tybalt.

  MOM: I think the nurse survives.

  DAD: No wonder I hate theater.

  MOM: We’re not starting that again.

  DAD: We’re not. But do you mean the Miss Magnus who lives over on Beekman?

  (Astonished, NOAH and MOM look at DAD, who takes a bite, chews in a self-satisfied manner, looks from one to the other.)

  NOAH (recovers, sets fork down): But how—

  MOM: Yes. How?

  DAD: Her niece was one of my TAs last year. So I think of Miss Magnus as Samantha’s aunt, not a legend, but I believe I have it right. I knew she taught something.

  NOAH: Where on Beekman?

  DAD: I don’t know the house number, Noah. Sheesh. I only remember at all because I ran into Samantha and she was rushing off to walk her aunt’s chihuahua.

  NOAH: That’s Miss Magnus, all right.

  DAD: I can get the house number from Samantha if you want.

  NOAH: That would be great.

  MOM: But why do you want to know?

  NOAH (ready for this, piously): Poor, poor Miss Magnus. I feel so bad for her stuck indoors with her broken leg. I just thought she might like company. (He sighs sadly.)

  (MOM and DAD look at NOAH skeptically.)

  DAD: Touching. But not credible.

  NOAH (hurt): You don’t believe me?

  MOM: And neither do I.

  NOAH (fist to heart) : Can’t I do a nice thing without being questioned and doubted all the time? Is that too much to ask?

  (DAD and MOM look at each other quizzically, seem to come to an agreement.)

/>   DAD: You’re overacting, Noah.

  MOM: Even so, whatever you’re up to, I can’t see that it’s too terrible. Besides, Miss Magnus probably could use company.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I gave myself two weeks to save the day.

  I should have made it three.

  First, I was busy rehearsing and memorizing lines for four separate characters.

  Four!!!

  Take that, Fuli, who only has to play Hamlet, and Clive, who thinks he’s some kind of a big deal because he gets to be the villain.

  After that—boom—it was Passover.

  * * *

  For the memorizing, I gave up playing ShredSauce and stayed awake an extra half hour every night, which, when you think about it, that’s commitment to my art right there.

  Once I started to get the hang, Mom helped me run lines. She was good in the scene in the graveyard. There’s a part where Hamlet is talking to a skull and I, Gravedigger One, am hanging around along with Hamlet’s friend Horatio.

  It was Saturday afternoon, and we were at the kitchen table. There were no skulls available, so Mom took a green apple from the bowl, looked at it sadly, and said, “ ‘Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio.’ ” And when the speech goes on—“ ‘Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs?’ ”—Mom’s voice caught, and she got tears in her eyes.

  “Whoa, you’re really into this,” I said.

  Mom sniffed. “I don’t see that line anywhere in the script, Noah.”

  “Oh, sorry. I mean, it’s great that you’re into it. But IRL—are you okay, Mom?”

  “I’m fine. I was”—she sniffed again—“thinking about my dad.”

  “Did Grandpa like apples?”

  That made her smile. “Funny guy. Like your father. And mine, too, I guess, because gibes and gambols—jokes and pranks—make me think of him.”

  My grandfather died last year, some kind of heart something. He was fine, and then my grandmother called, and then Mom was crying and Dad was hugging her, and then we were on a plane to California for the service. That’s where those grandparents lived; when we visited them we’d go to Disneyland and Universal and the beach.

  They never visited us. They didn’t like the climate, they said.

  I was sad my grandfather was dead, mostly sad for my grandmother because now she was by herself. But for real? My grandfather had never been part of my everyday life. It was rare for me to think about him. Now I saw for my mom it was different.

  “They talk about death a lot in Hamlet. Did you notice?” I asked Mom.

  “I noticed,” Mom said. “And Claudius says since death is natural, you shouldn’t be too sad. ‘’Tis a fault to heaven,’ if you are.”

  “I know,” I said, “but Claudius is the villain, don’t forget. It’s not like you can trust him for good advice.”

  * * *

  As for Passover, that was the next week, and my other grandparents came, my dad’s mom—I call her Gigi—and her husband, Ted. Ted is Husband No. 6, according to Dad, but he’s Husband No. 5, according to Mom. This is a joke in our family, the point being that Gigi has had enough husbands my parents can’t keep track.

  The last one, Arnie, was nice and shiny-bald and had a flattened nose because once he was in a fight. I didn’t know any of the husbands before that. The first one must’ve been my dad’s real father—biological, I mean—and the second was Mr. McNichol.

  Mom explained all about this to me once, but since then I forgot.

  Gigi and Ted flew into the airport in Montreal. Dad drove to pick them up. I took the next day off school, but I still went to rehearsal. As Clive would say: priorities.

  That afternoon Coach Fig put in an appearance, wearing his headset as usual. He must’ve been between phone calls because when he spoke it was to us, the people with him in the same room. At first nobody answered, it was so unexpected.

  “Everything okay here?” he asked, looking around the bare stage. “Say, Mike, not to tell you your business, but shouldn’t we be ordering up some plywood and paint? Maybe looking out for costume donations? I’ve got emails from some o‘ the parents and they’d be delighted to step in and help.”

  Mike opened his mouth to answer, but Fig raised a finger, cocked his head, looked into the great faraway. “Yes? This is he… Mother Mary, are you serious! What can possibly be bad about fruit salad?”

  And away he walked.

  “Good to see you, Coach.” Mike spoke to Fig’s retreating back. “And never fear, I’ve got it under control.”

  But did he? In actual fact, we’d all noticed there was no set, not even a throne or a headstone or an arras, which is, like, the Shakespeare word for “curtain.” Polonius is hiding behind one, spying on Hamlet and his mother, Gertrude, when Hamlet stabs through it with a sword and kills him by mistake.

  Emma played Polonius, remember, and this was her favorite part of the show. Polonius never shut up, which meant Emma had to memorize loads of lines. In the scene when Polonius died, she made a horrible gag-gurgle sound and squealed, “Oh! I am slain!” and fell down so hard she went thud.

  You know Emma is less than my favorite person, but when it came to Polonius, she really inhabited the character. One day Diego—he was wearing a grass-green beret—actually burst into applause when she was done dying: “Heck yeah!”

  * * *

  The Sunday after Passover, Dad drove Gigi and Ted back to the airport. It happened to be Easter, a cheap day to fly, which is one of the perks of being Jewish.

  Before my grandparents left, our house was all buzzing with activity: hugs and kisses (from Gigi); pats on the back and “Be good, my boy!” (from Ted); my mother dashing from this bathroom to another, holding up bottles of lotion and shampoo and saying: “Is this yours? What about this one? I’m sure it isn’t mine.”

  Finally, Dad ushered the company out the door, and Mom took a grateful breath, then—whoosh—the door opened, and they were back, all three of them. Gigi thought she had forgotten her phone. More thumping on the stairs, more questions:

  “Where did you have it last?”

  “Bottom of the closet?”

  “Laundry basket?”

  It was in her purse.

  They left again. Mom sighed again. Mom went upstairs and, a half second later, thump-thumped down, threw open the front door, and dashed barefoot into the street waving the keys to Ted’s Cadillac. She was breathing hard when she came back, flashed me a thumbs-up, and dropped onto the sofa.

  Visits from relatives are pretty overwhelming, but you get used to having them around. Suddenly the house felt quiet.

  Then I noticed something. “Uh-oh. Did they leave that, too?”

  Mom looked at the coffee table, where I was pointing. There lay a dusty book—scrapbook-size, beat-up, covered in crinkly black leather.

  “That they left on purpose, your Gigi did,” Mom said. “Family photographs or something. Your dad wanted nothing to do with them. Gigi thought maybe you’d take a look sometime.”

  I wasn’t busy, so sure, why not? I started across the room, but my phone buzzed: Clive. Did I want to come over for his family’s egg hunt in the afternoon? Beaucoup candy to be had.

  I’m Jewish, I texted back.

  The Easter Bunny says that’s okay, Clive answered.

  I responded with a thumbs-up. Then I asked my mom and headed upstairs to get ready, forgetting all about the dusty book.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Monday, Rehearsal Week Four, 25 Days till Performance

  Dad got Miss Magnus’s address from his ex-TA Samantha the same day Mom got it from the checker at Sal’s.

  “Here you go, son,” Dad said, handing me the address, 1750 Beekman, on a slip of paper when he picked me up at school. “Hope it helps you out.”

  Mom gave me the same address in ink on the back of a Sal’s receipt in the kitchen a few minutes later. “I think you were looking for this?” she said.

  I thanked them both and never le
t on I’d gotten the intel twice. Somehow, Miss Magnus’s address had become part of the parentals’ battle about art versus science. I’ve lived in this family eleven long years. For the sake of harmony, I knew it would be better if each one thought they’d notched a victory.

  Meanwhile, I had another problem.

  I couldn’t just show up at 1750 Beekman. Wouldn’t that be rude?

  So after dinner I texted Clive, who is polite, and he said, “Write Miss Magnus an email,” and then—having friends can be helpful—he even found the email address after consulting with his big sister, Gillian, who had it in her contacts because once she’d been a Plattsfield-Winklebottom Memorial Sixth-Grade Player herself.

  Gillian’s year they did Macbeth, Tale of a Happy Marriage.

  I sent the email from the dinosaur computer in the basement, which seemed appropriate because Miss Magnus is not so young herself. First, I thought for a while about grammar and spelling, because when Miss Magnus wasn’t directing, she taught English, and then I typed this:

  Hello, Miss Magnus,

  I would like to come and see you to discuss a matter of importance relating to the Plattsfield-Winklebottom Memorial Sixth-Grade Play.

  Is that okay?

  How about Wednesday after school, when we don’t have rehearsal?

  Sincerely,

  Noah McNichol

  Plattsfield-Winklebottom Memorial Sixth Grader

  I hit send and waited. And waited. And decided to do my math homework (graphs) because it was possible Miss Magnus did not spend every moment sitting by her computer anticipating urgent emails from Noah McNichol.

  “Noah?” my mom called a few minutes later. “Time to abandon screens for the day and brush your teeth! Noah?”

  “Coming!”

  My math was done. I checked my email one last time, and—hooray—found this:

  Dear Noah,

  Wednesday would be fine. I will make tea.

  Sincerely,

  Janet Magnus

  Erstwhile Director, Plattsfield-Winklebottom Memorial Sixth-Grade Players

  PS I hope you are not allergic to chihuahuas.