The Four-Story Mistake (11 page)

Before long the house was humming with exciting activity. They'd almost forgotten what fascinating work it was to build a show. Mona wandered about the grounds like Duse, reciting her lines out loud. Rush practiced furiously. Randy composed two dances: one to the Golliwog's Cakewalk, and one to The Girl with the Flaxen Hair. Also she made water-color sketches of costume designs. There was always a long streak of purple or green at the corner of her mouth because she couldn't remember not to chew her paintbrush when she was thinking.

They had rehearsals every few minutes. Oliver learned his lines first thing and recited them with all the expression of a granite slab. “No, no,” Mona would tell him, exasperated. “The way you say ‘Your Highness, the Baron Hackensack demands your immediate execution' sounds just as if you were saying ‘No, thank you, I don't care for any more corned-beef hash.'” Poor Oliver, he tried; but it was obvious that his talents did not lie in the direction of the drama. Rush was wonderful in his part, or rather, both his parts. Almost as good as Mona herself. And Randy was what theatrical critics describe as “adequate.”

Yards of colored cheesecloth billowed over the Office table, and very wet posters executed by Randy lay drying all over the floor. You had to move about with extreme caution. Down in Cuffy's room there was a great overflowing box of odds and ends that Mrs. Oliphant had sent to them some time ago. It was a treasure trove! In it there were crumpled bits of gold and silver lamé hardly tarnished at all; chiffons in purple and green and blue, scraps of lace, beaded georgette, a huge red satin petticoat, a velvet basque the color of a pansy, and two large pieces of silk encrusted with sequins! One was gold, and one was midnight blue: dazzling, extravagant things that cried out to be used, worn, admired. In fact it was really because of the sequins that Mona had first decided to write a play. With such exotic material at hand it seemed a sin to waste it.

The invitations were sent out at once. One to Mrs. Oliphant, of course. One to the Janeway family in New York, and two other families there, and to all their Carthage school friends, and the principal, Mr. Coughing, and his wife, and the Wheelwrights, and Mr. and Mrs. Purvis, and several other people. It was too much to hope that they'd all come.

Next they went to work on the program. Rush typed them on Father's machine.

Randy painted little pictures of Glamorosa on the covers of the programs and stitched the pages together with gold thread. They looked very pretty and professional.

There was some debate as to how much admission price they should charge. Mona thought it ought to be a dollar. “For our country, and all,” she said.

“A
dollar!
” cried Randy, scandalized. “Nobody would be able to come!”

“A dollar for grownups and fifty cents for children, I mean.”

But even that seemed far too high. In the end they decided to charge fifty cents for grownups and twenty-five for children.

“And we can get somebody from school, Pearl Cotton or someone, to take charge of the ticket selling,” said Mona.

The great day approached. The sliding doors between the dining and living rooms had been opened wide, and the stage set constructed in the dining room. The Melendys had to eat the last few meals before the play in the kitchen. Standing up, too, or perched on tables, because all the chairs in the house were now arranged in rows in the living room. Would there be enough of them? That was the question. The armchairs were grouped together at the back like a family of bears. The dining-room chairs stood in a righteous and unyielding row in the middle, and beside them the three Melendy rockers tipped jovially at different angles, like rowdy people laughing, splitting their sides, at some secret joke. In front of these there was a strange assortment: kitchen chairs and odd upstairs ones, and the big couch and the little yellow brocade love seat; old and young, spare and fat, in a sort of Memorial Day parade. At the
very
front were Oliver's two small chairs, all the footstools in the house, and some packing boxes somberly draped in steamer rugs. These were for the littlest children in the audience.

Side by side waited the chairs, transfixed, struck dumb before the beauty of the stage set confronting them. Rush and Willy had built the backdrop out of beaverboard, and Randy had painted it. A lonely forest scene: dozens of pale-blue tree trunks and showers of blue leaves. At the right an opening among them disclosed the misty pinnacles of a castle. On the floor the old green rug from Father's study was arranged in mossy folds; and soft blue cheesecloth curtains hung at either side of the wide door. The girls had dyed the cheesecloth themselves, and their blue hands had horrified people for days afterward.

Randy kept wandering into the living room; sinking first into one chair and then into another, regarding with awe the beauty of her handiwork. And this was only the first set, too. Think of that. Behind the forest scene there was the interior of the palace, with a tapestry painted on its wall and a window containing a piece of cloud and a sun with as many petals as a daisy. A throne went with that one, made out of Father's old Morris chair and a bedspread. And then there was the night scene! It was the best of all. Against its dark background were gold and silver constellations, fire-tailed comets, Saturn poised within his rings, and a moon as big as a bicycle wheel. And the magic thing, the really super thing about it was that it was painted with phosphorescent paint! At a given signal Willy was to turn off the lights and the audience would find themselves gazing at a moon and stars that glowed in the darkness with a green, unearthly light. Oh, it was almost too much! They had never, never staged a production so beautifully before. Maybe we should have charged a dollar after all, thought Randy.

Yes, and the costumes! Mrs. Oliphant's sequins and gold lamé added an
Arabian Nights'
opulence to them. Mona was going to look wonderful in her splendid robes: a real princess. You couldn't believe it, looking at her now. She was wearing her oldest sweater and skirt, and her hair was wound up on dozens of little metal curlers. “I'm going to leave them on all day and sleep in them all night, and only take them off just before the performance tomorrow,” she said.

“You'll have a mighty sore scalp,” Cuffy warned her.

“It'll be worth it,” Mona said in an exalted voice. “
Anything's
worth it if my hair just curls enough.”

“All for Art,” remarked Rush. He was trying on the mustache he had made out of a dime-store hair switch which he had to wear as Baron Hackensack. He played two roles: that of the villain, and that of the hero. It made it difficult, since both could never be on the stage at the same time. The prince was forced to cry “Hark! I hear Hackensack and his odious henchman [Oliver] approaching. He shall not find me here!” Or Hackensack muttered, “Yonder goes Paragon the prince. Take cover, men. This is not the moment for our reckoning.” And in the end the battle to the death between Hackensack and the prince had of necessity to take place behind the scenes, with Willy clashing the carving knife against a pot lid, and Rush uttering the dying groans of Hackensack as he ripped off the black mustache and crimson mantle (Mrs. Oliphant's petticoat) of the villain, and replaced the velvet doublet (Mrs. Oliphant's basque), and jeweled crown of the hero. It was during this final scene that Willy turned out the lights and the phosphorescent moon was revealed. Everything had to be done very fast and with perfect coordination, like juggling, and by the time of the dress rehearsal they were all pretty good at it.

The next morning was strange as a dream. Randy couldn't eat her breakfast. Her stomach felt queer and unfriendly. Mona, her head still bristling, as Rush said, like artillery in ambush, wandered about the house, her lips moving as she whispered her lines. She looked pale and frightened, but everyone knew that when the time came she would suddenly blossom, come to life like a rose and make the part of the princess into something fascinating and important. Rush pretended to be perfectly calm; perhaps he really was, you couldn't tell with him. And Oliver? Well, Oliver just quietly went away from it all and retired to his cellar room with a box of toy battle equipment and some apples. He knew what was best for him.

Everyone else took part in the preparation. Even Father. With Rush he went out into the woods and cut big branches of evergreen to decorate the living room, and then with Willy to help them they somehow got the piano down from the Office to the living room beside the sliding doors.

Cuffy had baked hundreds of cookies; there were trays of them cooling all over the kitchen, and if anybody so much as looked hungrily at one of them she banished him sternly from the premises. And there was punch. The old china salad bowl was full of it, and so were the two cut-glass pitchers, the biggest mixing bowl, and several saucepans. Delicious punch, the color of garnets, with little islands of pineapple and orange floating on top.

Shortly after three the people began to come. Randy in her flannel bathrobe saw the first car from the window of Mona's bedroom where she was to dress. Her stomach gave a sort of leap and turned over. She swallowed dryly and said, “Here come the first ones.”

“Who?” asked Mona, beginning to take the curlers off at last.

“Wait a minute. Let's see. Father's out on the front steps to meet them. Why, it's Mrs. Oliphant! And she has one-two-three-four-
five
people with her!”

“Three dollars' worth,” observed Rush in a mercenary tone from the next room where he and Oliver were dressing.

Next came a taxi which disgorged the whole Janeway family from New York. Six of them. Randy was just stopped in time from throwing open the window and yelling to them.

“Not now,” said Mona severely. “It would spoil the
mood!
”

“Oh, all right. And there come the Purvises in the garbage truck; and right behind is Mr. Coughing's black sedan, and—”

“Randy!” There was such consternation in Mona's voice that her sister whirled from the window.

“What's the matter?”

“My hair!
Look
at it. What'll I do?”

It did look queer. It stood out in a great wiry muff all over Mona's head.

“I can't go on,” she kept wailing just like a real actress. “I cannot go on, looking like this!”

Rush came and stood in the doorway. “Whe-e-ew!” he whistled with astonishment. “The Brillo queen!”

“Oh, go away,” said Mona tearfully. “What shall I do, Ran? The more I brush the more it stands up.”

“Wait a minute. I'll get Cuffy,” said Randy soothingly. “If anybody can fix it, Cuffy can.”

She ran down the back stairs in her soft ballet slippers. The house was humming like a wasps' nest. The front door kept opening and shutting, opening and shutting, and there were festive bursts of talk and laughter as still more people arrived. Cuffy, mercifully, was in the kitchen prowling about arranging things. She was wearing her best black satin dress, and a dusting of pure-white powder on her rosy face.

“Lands, I hope I made enough cookies to feed that mob,” murmured Cuffy, looking up abstractedly. “There must be more'n fifty of 'em already. And by the way, why aren't you ready? It's twenty to four and you know you're scheduled to start at four.”

“Something awful's happened,” Randy told her. “Mona's hair. It—it won't lie down!”

“Great day in the morning!” cried Cuffy, rushing for the stairs. “I told her she shouldn't leave them blame things on so long. Bring a bowl of water up with you, Randy, and then hustle right into your costume. Oh, and first bring me the wire hairbrush from my bureau.”

These things being done, Randy hustled. Feverishly she put on the costume she and Cuffy had made for the Golliwog dance. It was a one-piece union suit dyed blue, and the headdress was made out of a blue dry mop attached to a stocking skullcap. She also had blue mittens, blue socks, and her old blue ballet slippers. Mona directed her make-up.

“Put calamine lotion all over your face, Ran. Then talcum powder. It should be white as chalk.” Mona's voice came jerkily and her head bobbed under the vigorous strokes of Cuffy's brush. “Now put blue around the eyes. It's there in that little box; and then a big red mouth that turns up at the corners. Here, let me do it. I've had more practice.” Cuffy stood waiting, brush in hand. Already the wild hair had begun to subside a little. Maybe it would be all right.

As the finishing touches were being applied, there was a knock at the door. “Listen, folks,” said Willy's husky voice. “It's five past a'ready. The folks is all here. Every chair's taken. How soon ya goina start?”

“Right now,” called Rush from his room. He appeared briefly in the doorway. “Keep your fingers crossed,” he said, “and make it snappy, Ran. You be in the wings waiting so you can go on just as soon as they get through applauding my first piano solo.”