Noah McNichol and the Backstage Ghost

by Martha Freeman

  Thanks to my best friend, I now knew I was ignorant about movies, and, worse, I wasn’t done with the mystery. Why had Mike chosen our gin joint—our school play, that is? This was a good question.

  Clive made a random guess. “Maybe Mike did something bad in life and we’re his punishment. You know, like Hamlet’s ghost ‘doom’d for a certain term to walk the night and for the day confined to fast in fires.’ ”

  “Act one,” I said, fumbling for my key, turning the knob. “I don’t think we’re that bad, Clive. And anyway, it doesn’t matter.”

  “How do you figure?” Clive asked.

  Inside at last, I juggled backpack, phone, and coat, bumped the door closed with my butt, dropped into the best chair in the living room. “Whyever he’s here, the important part is stick to the plan. I tell Emma who Mike is, show her a photo, she stops threatening us with the No-Trauma script, the show goes on. Right?”

  “Bring up Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman if you have to,” Clive said.

  Now I was exasperated. “What? Why—”

  “One more thing, bro.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Way to be! You did it! You saved the show!”

  I grinned. Good old Clive.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Since I couldn’t talk to Emma about Mike in front of everybody, I had to get her alone, which was way harder than I expected.

  For days and days I got up as soon as Mom woke me, asked Obi-Wan for help, and ate breakfast in a hurry—all so I could get to the caf before school and catch Emma.

  Only Emma was never there.

  Maybe her parents didn’t have to get to work so early anymore. Maybe people in Plattsfield had stopped getting divorced and fighting over money.

  I couldn’t talk to Emma at lunch or after school, either. She was always in a cluster of girls.

  Was she avoiding me? Why? Wasn’t she afraid of Mike anymore? Meanwhile, no one made us go back to the No-Trauma script, and rehearsals settled into a routine. We did stretching exercises. We checked our props backstage. We spent a few moments getting into character—in my case four characters. And then Mia, the stage manager, announced: “The scene is Elsinore,” which, in case you forgot, is the name of the Hamlet family castle in Denmark.

  After that, we got to work for real. Mike had put tape on the floor of the stage to show us where stuff would be when we got a set—the walls of the castle, Claudius’s and Gertrude’s thrones, the headstones and the grave in the graveyard. Once the whole play had been blocked, meaning once Mike and us actors had worked out where we were supposed to enter and exit and move around onstage, we rehearsed over and over, first scene by scene, then act by act.

  Besides Justin in the booth—the guy who let there be light, I mean—all us players helped out with crew stuff like pulling the curtains and minding the props, which meant we had more to memorize. It was my job, for example, in act three to listen for a trumpet blast provided by the holy spirit and then hand torches (really broomsticks) to Lila and Brianna to carry when they marched onstage with Clive and Sarah.

  If I forgot, Mia hissed at me: “Noah!”

  Really, she had the hardest job of all. She had to know what everybody was supposed to be doing at all times and then remind us to actually do it.

  Also, she had to manage Diego, which was like a whole job by itself. The kid had a big part—Horatio, Hamlet’s best friend. But he seemed to be more interested in snapping photos than in making his entrances and remembering his lines. His idea of hilarious was sneaking up behind Emma and batting her with one of the gift-wrap tubes we used for swords.

  TBH, I thought that was kind of funny too, and sometimes even Emma smiled.

  After each rehearsal, there was something called notes, when we sat in the house and Mike told us what was good and what wasn’t. When I read up on Mike Einstein in life, I found out he’d been tough on actors and had a temper, but he also made a lot of jokes.

  The jokes part was still the same.

  But the tough part?

  Maybe dying chills a person out.

  Mike was positive and patient, treated us sixth graders like, yeah, Shakespeare was hard, but we could get the hang of it, we could do a good job, impress our families, impress the whole darned town of Plattsfield.

  Since he believed it, so did we.

  Of course, I thought of confronting Mike, telling him I knew who he was, who he used to be. But Clive and I talked it over, and we thought: Why? Probably his ghostly knowledge had already picked up the news, besides which, everything was going great. Why risk messing it up?

  Likewise, I finally stopped worrying about Emma, gave up on reporting my findings to her. Clive and I had a theory about why she’d gone AWOL: Probably she had realized she’d be the least popular Sixth-Grade Player in the history of Plattsfield-Winklebottom Memorial if she carried out her threat, if she either blabbed to everybody and got Mike in trouble, or made us go back to the No-Trauma Hamlet. We had all worked too hard to let anything bad happen to our show. All of us wanted our Hamlet to be fabulous.

  But Emma couldn’t admit she was powerless to get what she wanted. That would be the same as surrender, not part of her personality. Her only option was avoid the issue and avoid me.

  It was a good theory. I only wish it had turned out to be true.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Monday, Rehearsal Week Four, 12 Days till Performance

  Then came the Monday everything changed.

  Clive and I walked to rehearsal that day with Diego and Madeline. Madeline was more chatty than usual, talking about a Broadway show her grandparents took her to one time when she was little.

  Clive pushed open the door to the house. Behind him, we all trooped in, looked up, and stopped… too awestruck and amazed to move on.

  Clive and I and Diego, I mean. Madeline was still talking and kept talking until Clive said: “Holy Hamlet’s ghost!” and Diego said, “Heck yeah!” and I said, “Hush up, Madeline—look!”

  Onstage at the previous rehearsal: dusty floorboards and folding chairs. Onstage now: Elsinore!

  Laughing, whooping, not even believing what we saw in front of us—Clive and I ran down the aisle, vaulted onto the stage, sprinted up four steps to the castle rampart, the place where the sentries are standing in scene one when they see the ghost glide past. The steps, the wall, the castle keep—none of it was made of plywood and paint like every other set I’d ever heard of. The whole thing was probably fake. It had to be fake. But it seemed as rough and sturdy as real stone.

  Upstage, left of center, a gaping drawbridge formed an arch, behind which was the throne room. More fakery, I bet, but it sure looked like velvet and gold and marble and dark wood. Downstage from that was a courtyard, suitable for a duel or, if you rolled in the headstones on a platform from backstage, a funeral.

  Soon all the players had arrived, and, like little kids, we explored. Every few seconds someone exclaimed: “You can, like, raise the drawbridge with this crank!” “Is that real moss on this headstone?” “You guys, I swear, there are fish in the moat!”

  Fooling around, Diego discovered that the throne room sat on a turntable, which of course he had to spin real fast, same as the merry-go-round at the old playground.

  “Don’t do that, Diego. You’ll break something!” Mia warned, and she was right. He would’ve broken Eddie, only Eddie is a star athlete and jumped into the moat before the far side of the turntable swung around, revealing the chapel where guilty Claudius prays.

  “Look at this!” said Sarah, who played Gertrude. “Change out the altar for this chest, and now the chapel’s the queen’s chamber—my chamber! Isn’t it just adorable?”

  “Not the word I would have used,” Clive said.

  “Awesome,” I said, “is the only possible word.”

  Behind the scenery was a painted backdrop, and it was awesome, too, not that I’m any kind of art expert. On it the towers and back walls of the castle snaked away into the distan
ce, and hills covered in gray-green forest shimmered beneath a steely sky.

  Only Emma was unimpressed—no surprise.

  I mean, if Mike’s razzle-dazzle tricks had not impressed her, then what would?

  I think we were all starting to wonder why Mike was so late when—second shock of the day—Fig came in, headset and all, looking into the great faraway and talking about pineapple. “Hold on,” he said to the headset. “Where’s Mike got to anyway? I’ve got a thousand parents who want to know—oh!”

  Having departed the land of the headset, he noticed Elsinore at last.

  “Looking for me?” Since we were about to rehearse the graveyard scene, the platform with the headstones had been rolled onstage. Now Mike appeared from behind one, rose from the grave, in other words. “Sorry I’m late. One of Gertrude’s gowns needed a button, and—”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” said Sarah. “Gowns? Plural?”

  “Costumes are in the music room downstairs, the one the girls will be using as a dressing room,” Mike said. “Feel free to take a look.”

  Squealing, a surge of girls departed.

  “Fan-tas-tic!” said Fig, amazed like the rest of us. “But how did you build it so fast?”

  All humble-brag, Mike shrugged. “I did some drawing, made some calls.”

  “Well, it ought to shut up the parents for a bit,” Fig said. “I don’t mind saying I’ve been running interference on your behalf.”

  Of the girls, only Emma had stuck around onstage. Maybe she wasn’t that interested in the costume for Polonius. “What about fake blood?” she wanted to know. “We’ll need a lot. And swords. Besides which, when do we block the duel between Laertes and Hamlet? Every time we get to that in the script, Mike says TK—to come.”

  Coach Fig frowned. “You okay, Miss Jessel? Bad case of stage fright?”

  “No!” Emma said. “I just think someone ought to be responsible!”

  “Now, just you hang on a mo,” said Fig. “Is that comment directed at me? Because it might interest you to know, Emma Jessel, that—” He went silent, cocked his head, held up a finger, looked into the faraway. “What’s that? Never heard of such an allergy. Bride or groom’s side?”

  Mike looked after him briefly, then clapped his hands. “All right, everyone, back to work. Today we tackle the final scene, and yes, Miss Jessel, this should make you happy. It’s time to choreograph the combat.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  When the girls returned from their dressing room, Madeline was again talking about the Broadway show she’d seen with her grandparents. But no one was paying attention, and Mia, clutching her clipboard, consulting her stopwatch, broke in: “All right, people. The scene is Elsinore!”

  “And how,” said Clive.

  The end of the real Hamlet is exciting, bloody, and sad. Hamlet and his best friend, Laertes (Fuli and Marley), have a sword fight in front of an audience of almost the whole cast.

  Spoiler alert: Claudius has dipped one of the swords in poison and, as a result, both Laertes and Hamlet die. Afterward—fanfare, please!—Fortinbras, King of Norway, quite a large country, enters from the wings to do mop-up.

  Up till today, Fuli and Marley had hammered each other with cardboard gift-wrap tubes, but along with the set and the costumes, a couple of swords had appeared. Give a kid a weapon and there’s bound to be fooling around, even if the kid is a girl. Not to mention every time Fuli or Marley put her sword down, either Diego or Eddie picked it up and ripped at the air and made samurai noises.

  Finally, Mike got us settled and asked a question. “What is the number one rule in stage combat?”

  Everyone looked at everyone else. Finally, Sarah said, “Don’t actually kill anybody?”

  “Correct,” said Mike.

  “I think we shouldn’t have swords until we know how to use them appropriately,” Emma said. “My parents—”

  “Oh, your parents!” said Eddie Muir. “Best day of rehearsal ever and you’re trying to mess it up.”

  Marley chimed in. “Give it a rest, Emma. Please?”

  Mia said, “You know, Emma, you are not the boss. Even if you aspire to be.”

  Emma said, “Oh, because, you are, Mia?”

  “I want the show to be good,” Mia said. “That’s what we all want, right?”

  “Heck yeah!” said Diego.

  Now everyone was glaring at Emma, whose face glowed sunburn red. It must hurt to be ganged up on that way. A good person would feel sympathy. Maybe I’m not so good? Emma had tried to blackmail Mike and sabotage the show. If she was miserable, I was glad. She deserved it.

  Mike stepped in. “Miss Jessel has a point,” he said. “Theater history is littered with the corpses of actors slain in mismanaged stage combat.”

  “I knew it!” said Brianna.

  “Totally untrue,” Madeline said.

  “Then let’s not start a trend,” Mike said. “Miss Jessel? Where are you going?”

  Emma had turned away from us and stomped downstage. She put a hand down to support herself, dropped clunkily to the floor of the house, kept on walking up the aisle.

  Mia said, “She can’t leave rehearsal. It’s not allowed.”

  Fuli said, “I can go get her.”

  Mike said, “She just needs a moment. As for the rest of us—Fuli? Marley? It’s your duel in act five. Let’s get to it. Does anyone else want to give combat a try?”

  Everyone did—even Brianna.

  “Beyond survival, the priority is learning how to fall,” Mike said. “Falls come in three flavors: side, front, and back. Coach Newton has stacked some mats for us backstage, I think. Let’s grab a few, move downstage, and practice.”

  When it comes to falling, Mike explained, ’tis better to crumple than to keel. That is, go slow, using either knees, hips, or butt to break the impact. Soon the Plattsfield-Winklebottom Memorial Sixth-Grade Players were dropping dead all over the place, which is hard to do without laughing.

  “Very good,” said Mike. “Tomorrow we’ll work on the same thing, only more quietly, please. As for the duel itself, you need three words of vocabulary: lunge, parry, thrust. Then think of it as a dance step. To start, I’ll be Hamlet. Laertes—Miss Jacobs? Your place is across from me, here. If you like, the rest of you can pair up and follow along.”

  “It would be a whole lot better if we each had our own weapons,” Eddie grumbled. He didn’t mean for Mike to hear, I don’t think, but one thing about a ghost, he doesn’t have to hear.

  “Of course, it would be better, Mr. Muir,” Mike agreed. “And luckily, I thought ahead. If one of you could go backstage”—Eddie was on his way—“and look around, I believe you’ll find an umbrella stand chock-full of swords, rapiers, and daggers.”

  Brianna squealed, but Mike reassured her, “Not to worry. The blades are foam core and foil—lightweight, flexible, and harmless.”

  Eddie’s grin was huge as he brought in the umbrella stand and let us choose. I took a shiny Viking sword with a black handle—hilt, I guess it’s called—as long as my legs (or Clive’s arms) and almost weightless.

  Lunge! Parry! Thrust! Mike demoed the sword-fight tango; we copied him, or tried to, and—before anyone was ready—the clock read 5:30, another rehearsal done.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Clive’s mom was giving me a ride home, so Clive and I walked out together. I was trying to remember the steps to the tango Mike had taught us, the best grip for a dagger, the difference between a rapier and a foil.

  I was wondering if there was anything at home for predinner snack.

  I wasn’t thinking of Emma.

  I guess Emma had been thinking of me, though.

  Heading down the aud steps, I heard a whispered “Noah!” and looked around.

  No one there.

  “Did you—” I started to ask Clive, but he nodded toward the shrubs to our right, and there, among them, was Emma.

  “Are you seriously hiding in the bushes?” I asked.

  “No, that i
s… no. I’m just here hanging out, uh… waiting for you.”

  Shoot, I thought. Shoulda known. She’d been embarrassed in front of everyone. She’d never leave that alone.

  Clive looked at me. “Do you need backup?”

  Yeah, I needed backup. The girl was trouble!

  But Emma said, “It’s private, Clive,” and Clive said, “I’ll tell my mom to wait,” and before I could stop him, he walked off.

  “Okay, what?” I asked, sounding tougher than I felt.

  The sun was still bright, but there was a chill in the air, and Emma looked like she was cold. “We had a deal,” she said. “Who is Mike? Did you find out the way you promised?”

  “Yeah, eons ago, but what does it matter now? The performance is next week. No way we’re going back to the other script.”

  “We’ll see,” Emma said. “Who was he anyway—or who does he think he was? And I will expect proof.”

  No one likes to be ordered around. I wished I could say take a hike. But my brain told me to get this over with. I slipped off my backpack, unzipped the outer pocket, and removed a beat-up piece of paper I’d been carrying for a while—a copy of a profile of Mike Einstein I’d found in a magazine. It had a photo, too.

  Emma read it quickly and looked up.

  “Never heard of ’im,” she said.

  “You’ve heard of Broadway, maybe? You see, he was a big-deal director, not some guy locked up for eating sixth graders. We are way lucky he’s even here, Emma, so how ’bout this? You keep your side of the deal: Stay quiet about the ghost stuff. The show goes on and you don’t become a… whatzitcalled—pariah!”

  Don’t ask me where that word came from. Child of two professors, I guess. It means the ultimate outsider—someone no one will talk to.

  Unfortunately, Emma seemed to know the word too. She turned the sunburn shade again. Embarrassed? Hurt? Plain old mad?

  I didn’t know and only cared because of what she might do.

  “I see the resemblance,” she said, “but he’s not the Mike Einstein in this article. He just thinks he is.”