Stagestruck

by Shelley Peterson

  The Blue-Winged Fairy believes him. She takes pity on the puppet and shrinks his nose back to normal size. She shows her pleasure as he dutifully heads for school.

  The Blue-Winged Fairy exits the stage as Wickley, the bad boy, appears in the schoolyard to entice Pinocchio away from school to Runaway Island.

  Abby breathed deeply. It had gone well. She had no more scenes until after the intermission.

  When the doors opened at intermission, Cody scanned the crowd for his Abby. Samuel Owens had been preparing his equipment, but now Cody watched him slide down below the windows in his car to become invisible to the crowds of people streaming outside to stretch their legs.

  Some smoked. Some got drinks. But all of them chatted noisily. Cody knew that these humans were happy about whatever they were doing inside the big old barn. The place where his Abby remained.

  Fifteen minutes later, the people began to re-enter the theatre. The second act was about to begin.

  Samuel Owens’ head appeared. Cody shifted his position. He was patient.

  The second act began on time.

  The curtain rises on an extravagant, colourful carnival scene, with jugglers, acrobats, candy carts, and gambling games. Shifty dealers lure boys into card games. All the boys are yelling and eating candy. Some boys have donkey tails. Others have tails and ears. Some are total donkeys, fur and all.

  Pinocchio has grown a tail and ears, but doesn’t know it until he goes to the pond for a drink of water and sees his reflection. He is horrified and begins to cry. “What will Geppetto say?” he wails.

  The Blue-Winged Fairy appears. “Pinocchio, it’s me, the Blue-Winged Fairy.”

  “Oh, Blue-Winged Fairy, help me, please. I’ve been bad, and I want so much to be good, but I don’t know how. What should I do?”

  “You should leave this place and go back to school. It’s not good for you. The boys are so selfish that they’re turning into donkeys, as you well see. And so are you.”

  “But how can I go to school looking like this?” Pinocchio grabs his tail and pulls it. He takes an ear in each hand and tugs. They don’t come off.

  “I can help, but you must promise me something.”

  “Anything, anything at all!”

  “Will you keep your promise this time?”

  Pinocchio looks sheepish. “Yes. I promise I will.”

  “Then you must go to the Truant Sea and find Geppetto. He is heartbroken. He searches for you endlessly. He thinks you’re lost at sea.”

  “I’ll do it!” cries Pinocchio. “I’ll go right now!”

  As the audience watches, The Blue-Winged Fairy magically removes his tail and ears with a wave of her wand. She winks, then disappears, tail and ears hidden in a convenient pocket in her billowing blue skirt.

  Each actor removes a cart or a table or a piece of scenery as they go. The lights change. The boisterous carnival is replaced in seconds by an angry sea, with Geppetto rowing a boat through huge waves created by offstage workers pulling and flapping stretches of green, blue, and grey fabric. The boat is on swivelling wheels, with a cut-out section at the bottom where Geppetto’s feet create the movement.

  “Pinocchio!” Geppetto hollers mournfully. “Pinocchio! I’m here to save you!” The old man looks exhausted. The wind howls and the ocean roars.

  “Pinocchio!” Geppetto calls. He’s a beaten man, rowing against the waves.

  He is unaware of a giant dogfish stealthily moving up behind him. The giant predator opens its fearsome jaws.

  Pinocchio appears on the bank. Seeing Geppetto about to be consumed, he jumps headlong into the raging sea and swims toward him, dodging waves and breathing hard.

  “I’m here, Geppetto! I’m coming to save you!”

  Just as he reaches the rowboat, the dogfish swallows them whole—Geppetto, Pinocchio, rowboat, and all.

  The waves disappear as a painted scrim rolls down from above, hiding the mechanical dogfish. A huge interior mouth complete with tonsils and glottis covers the entire stage area. Geppetto and Pinocchio appear to be inside the dogfish with their ruined boat.

  “Pinocchio, my brave little puppet!” Geppetto hugs Pinocchio.

  “Father! I’ve been bad!” Pinocchio hugs him back, repentant.

  “Never mind all that. It’s so good to see you!” Geppetto heartily forgives him as he pats his back joyfully.

  The Blue-Winged Fairy appears. She watches and approves, then fades away. This effect is achieved by lighting. Abby stands on a stool behind the scrim, which is translucent. She cannot be seen until a special light illuminates her. When the light fades, she disappears from view, leaving only the scrim, painted like the dogfish’s mouth.

  Pinocchio and Geppetto worry about how to escape. It looks hopeless, but they have each other.

  When the dogfish finally sleeps, he snores. Pinocchio and Geppetto time the snores and jump out of his mouth at the perfect second. They must swim for their lives, but Geppetto doesn’t swim.

  Pinocchio,becauseofhisbuoyantwoodenbody,dragsGeppetto to the shore, where Trooper waits. Geppetto is unconscious.

  The Blue-Winged Fairy appears on the beach.

  “Pinocchio, you saved Geppetto’s life.”

  “I’ve caused him nothing but grief! Will he live? Will he be all right?” Pinocchio looks with sadness at Geppetto’s unmoving form.

  “Yes, Pinocchio, Geppetto will be fine. Roll him onto his stomach.”

  Pinocchio does this, and says, “I love him more than anything on earth.”

  “That is why I’m here, Pinocchio. You have learned the most important lesson about being human. You’ve learned that loving and caring for someone else is more important than being selfish and doing only what you want.

  “When Geppetto awakes, he will find a real boy sitting with him on this beach. Pinocchio, you have passed the test. You have earned the right to become a real boy.”

  With a grand wave of the Blue-Winged Fairy’s wand, sparks fly and crackle.

  Pinocchio ecstatically tests his arms and legs and feels his skin. Music plays while Geppetto wakes and realizes that his dream has come true. Pinocchio is a real boy. They dance and laugh and leap around the beach.

  Outside the theatre, Cody watched as Samuel Owens laughed like a maniac. The coyote’s ruff bristled. He howled softly.

  “The grand finale!” Owens yelled. He chortled and hooted and giggled as he prepared to light the fuse. His masterful plan would work like clockwork. He’d solved the coyote problem with poisoned meat. If they got past the bait, he was armed with a rifle and a handgun in the car.

  He had doused the theatre with gasoline. The fuse split in three, to ensure there was no escape for the people inside. It ran from Owens’ car to the stage door, the front door, and the side fire exit.

  The theatre was full. Much, much better than the first dress rehearsal. The fireworks had been his rehearsal, too, he rationalized, even though it hadn’t worked. Tonight would be the big one. Tonight would be Owens’ final revenge.

  The best part was that Dancer would be blown up, too, exactly ten minutes after the theatre. A bomb was rigged under a bushel of apples in the field beside the road, programmed to start ticking by remote control. Owens would have the pleasure of watching the demolition of the theatre, and then be able to arrive on time to witness the violent death of the one creature who had caused him more misery than any other on earth. Dancer would die. Owens cackled and hugged himself with glee.

  Owens yelled at the theatre, “You mess with Samuel Owens at your own peril!” His voice screeched with excitement and shook with rage. “You hate me! Well, I hate you more! You’re all a bunch of garbage! I’m doing the world a favour!” He giggled like a hyena as he waved the fire-starter over his head. It looked like a wild firefly zooming crazily in the dark.

  Cody was unsure of what to do. The strong smell of fuel was everywhere. It hurt his nose and made water come from his eyes. The Bad Man was unstable. There was no way to know how he’d react to an
ything. But he must be stopped from hurting his Abby.

  Cody crept closer.

  Owens couldn’t wait to see this stupid, haunted barn theatre explode before his very eyes, destroying all the people who’d thwarted him.

  The Jameses, who’d laughed at him for years because he couldn’t have Dancer. The Caseys, who’d fallen in with the Jameses. Even the beautiful Helena didn’t want anything to do with him anymore, and she would die tonight with all the rest. The Malones with their brat Abby, who had that horrible coyote and had prevented him from shooting Dancer with his cane-gun, over which he’d gone to considerable trouble to have made. Robert Wick, who’d refused to sell him the farm, then insulted him by thinking a mere field would appease him. The Piersons, who butted their noses into his business. It was Pete who’d called security at the Invitational. Even his illegitimate daughter and her children, Sam and Leslie Morris, deserved to die. How dare she name that bastard after him! The insult!

  With a triumphant wave of the fire-starter, Owens knelt to light the fuse. At the same time, he pressed the button on the small remote control that activated the bomb in the bushel of apples in Dancer and Henry’s field. His body was racked with laughter as he imagined the horses happily eating apples, unaware that their last minutes on earth were nigh. “Kaboom!” he hollered. “Die Dancer! Die!”

  Owens jumped into his car. His plan was to back up the hill to get a safe and complete view of the fire that would kill and maim the entire community, then drive the short distance to Hogscroft for the pièce de résistance. He longed to see the panicked survivors screaming and rushing out the doors, clothes and hair on fire. He wished he could see each one’s personal agony. He giggled grotesquely.

  A giant spark from the fizzing fuse flew free. It landed under Owens’ car, where gasoline had splashed from one of the plastic containers. In seconds, the grass caught fire. Fuelled by the spilled fluid, the flames built quickly beneath the car. Poom! Owens’ car exploded into a thousand pieces.

  Inside the theatre, the cast was taking their third curtain call. When the car exploded, the noise was deafening, even above the standing ovation and the music of the orchestra.

  The huge bang was followed by the plinks and whaps and thuds of metal objects hitting the theatre. People froze, unable to make sense of it.

  Ducking the flying debris, Cody raced to the fuse. This time, he knew exactly what to do and wasted no time. Where the single fuse divided into three, Cody grabbed the white cord in his mouth. Dragging and pulling, he managed to free it from the rocks that held it. He ran away from the theatre as fast as he could, while the single fuse burned closer and closer to his face. Up the hill, through the brush to the pond where he jumped right into the water without a pause. He swam until he was sure that every bit of that cord was soaked. He opened his sore jaws and dropped it.

  On stage with the cast, Abby heard Ambrose speak directly into her ear. “Owens is dead, Abby. Your coyote took a lighted fuse to the pond over the hill. He saved all our lives. Well, not mine, I’m already dead. But the big horse is in danger. There’s a bomb in a basket of apples.”

  Cody crawled out of the pond and shook himself off. Quickly, he loped to the crest of the hill. Hundreds of humans were streaming out of the theatre doors and moving themselves far from the building. Sirens pierced the air and flashing lights lit up the dark night. Cody had seen it all before when his own barn had burned down.

  Risking human detection, the wet and exhausted coyote raced toward the theatre below. There was one more job to do. He must make sure his Abby was safe.

  Abby ran out of the theatre and up the hill toward the pond where Ambrose told her Cody had gone. She must first find Cody, then rush to Dancer. “Cody!” she called, unsure of what to expect. Was he blown up in the blast? Was he injured? Would she be able to find him in the dark?

  She moved as fast as her shaking legs would carry her, her mind running faster than her feet. Blue-Winged Fairy costume floating wildly and wand in hand, she tore through the brambles in the dark.

  The small coyote saw her first. He ran to Abby and joyfully jumped up on her, whining his enduring love for her.

  “Cody, oh, Cody!” Abby knelt to the ground and cuddled his soaking, trembling body to her chest. “Good boy, Cody.”

  Ambrose’s warning about the horse left them no time to spare. “Dancer, Cody. Go to Dancer!”

  Cody searched her face for clarity, then dashed away in the direction of Hogscroft. Abby lost sight of him in the crowd of frightened people rushing to their cars and firefighters hosing down the gasoline with chemicals. She followed as fast as she could.

  Stumbling a little on the gravel in the dark, Abby ran down the road. What she’d find, she had no idea. She had even less idea of what she’d do when she got there. Panic gripped her chest as she breathed hard, exhausted, but fighting the need to rest.

  A huge explosion split the air. It came from the direction of Hogscroft.

  “No!” screamed Abby. “No!”

  Abby willed her legs to keep sprinting along. Her heart pounded through her chest wall. Fear tingled in her every nerve. Her imagination created a bloody scene of scattered horse and coyote parts.

  “Please, please!” Abby sobbed. “Please, no!” She prayed for a miracle as she pumped her leaden legs toward the farm.

  Seconds later, Abby stood against the fence with heaving sides, her Blue-Winged Fairy costume torn and soaked with sweat. The horses ran to her. Dancer nuzzled her neck. Henry breathed into her face. Cody stood on his hind legs beside her, resting his front paws on her hips.

  Fragments of brush and earth were everywhere. A bushel basket innocently rested against the fence down the hill. Apples were here and there, some half-eaten. It looked to Abby that the bushel had been kicked over, possibly by a horse impatient to get at all the apples, or maybe as a result of an argument between the two horses over the sweet fruit. However it had happened, the basket had been sent flying, the bomb had rolled into the trees and exploded far enough away to do no harm to the animals.

  Abby hugged them all. Relief came flooding through all her senses. Slowly, she slipped to the ground as her body released its tension. She had no strength left.

  Epilogue

  WEDDING BELLS

  AUGUST 15 WAS CHOSEN as the night of the double wedding because of the full moon. Laura Pierson strongly believed that it meant not only good luck but also good weather, which would make for a more pleasant event.

  Hilary and Joy, the blushing brides, were allowed minimal intervention, and every detail was planned by Christine James, Fiona Malone, and Laura Pierson. Helena Casey had added her touches, too, and it was she who had suggested that the theatre would be the perfect place for the big event. The decorations were lavish and whimsical, the menu mouthwateringly tempting. It was designed to feel like a midsummer night’s dream, and hundreds of friends and family and families of friends were invited to fill the seats.

  Abby was a bridesmaid. Her silky, fair hair was smoothed back from her face in a low braid entwined with wide ribbons of rose, lavender, and soft ivy green. The colours were chosen to compliment the purples of the theatre decor and the opulent theme.

  Her long, simple gown swept the ground, covering her ivy- green flat satin pumps. The sleeves were elbow length, and the neck was slightly scooped and sat open to her collarbones. The blended linen dress was rose, with a ruffle of lavender, a ruffle of rose, and a ruffle of green below the knees, creating a wave-like action when she walked. Abby loved the way she looked.

  There were six bridesmaids and six ushers, three of each chosen by both couples. Two bridesmaids wore rose dresses, two wore lavender, and two wore the soft green.

  Christine had pinned an elaborate corsage of lavender, pink roses, and baby ivy on the right shoulder of each of the bridesmaids’ dresses. Not only did they look gorgeous, observed Abby, they smelled divine.

  Being part of the wedding was a welcome diversion for Abby. Since the night of Samuel O
wens’ demise, she had been plagued with the image of his body hurtling through the air in the blast. She’d woken in the night several times, shocked and sweaty, imagining the horror if Owens’ plan had been successful, if she and all the people she loved had been killed. If Dancer’s body had been scattered to the four winds.

  That night, Mack Jones had been on the spot almost immediately. He’d personally handled an anonymous call minutes before, and was already driving to the theatre, sirens blaring, when he’d heard the enormous explosion. He’d radioed for ambulances, firetrucks, and police backup. Mack had had no idea what he’d find, but the caller had mentioned Samuel Owens, The Stonewick Playhouse, and gasoline. That was more than enough. He knew it was a potential disaster, and he wasted no time.

  The caller who warned the police turned out to be Owens’ personal valet, Walter Poppins. The man had been cowering in his bedroom when he’d made the brave decision to get involved, consequences be damned. Walter also turned Owens’ cane into police headquarters in Orangeville, which confirmed Abby’s suspicions.

  The weapon had been cleverly designed. It was crafted from silver, with ornate silver sculptings covering the handle. The trigger and target-finders were obscured by these scrollings, allowing it to pose as an elaborate but harmless cane. Walter Poppins had retrieved it the day of the Invitational, on Owens’ instructions, from the metal tubing that supported the call-board at the show grounds. Owens had simply slipped it down a hollow pole when security came running to hold him for questioning.

  Helena Casey had grown fond of the meek, industrious Walter during her ill-fated courtship with Samuel Owens, and had hired him the morning after the explosion. He was happier than he’d ever been. Working for the temperamental and difficult Helena was challenging, but much preferable to the dark, dangerous environment of Owens’ estate.