Shakespeare for Squirrels: A Novel (Fool #3)(58)

“The bitch is dead,” pronounced Tom Snout gruffly.

The Mechanicals all turned to the fallen Francis Flute and clapped politely.

“Oh, brava,” said Peter Quince. “I think you can see, Master Pocket, how Francis has taken your method to heart. He has played the brokenhearted maid since last we met. Was thrown out by his father and declared a simpering pooft by his sweetheart, yet the lad has not broken character. Although we have changed the name of Thisby to Juliet, and the wall is now a balcony, and oh, yes, the lovers die by poison, but there is a smashing swordfight and gobs of blood.”

“All done with good taste, so as not to disturb the ladies,” said Tom Snout.

“But am I to play Pyramus still?” asked Bottom.

“Now you shall be Romeo,” said Quince. “Although the lines are nearly the same. And methinks you’ll need a hat to cover those ears or there may be suspicions our play is not serious.”

“Fear not,” said Bottom. “By midnight I shall be myself again and with a spot of greasepaint I shall be a most passionate and pathetic Pyramus.”

“Romeo,” corrected Quince.

“I shall be the smoothest and most powerful of Romeos,” said Bottom.

And Cobweb chittered angrily from a tree high above.

“Look! A squirrel!” said Robin Starveling.

“I cannot look, for I am tragically perished,” wept Francis Flute, from his heap of femininity.

“Forget the squirrel,” said I. “Bottom, I fear I have sad tidings. As fortune has it, Oberon said he would not change you back to your manly form. Sorry, mate.” I waited then for the news to settle on the ass-man like a cloak of doom. His mates all watched with me, as if waiting for a prompt for their next line.

“But be of good cheer,” I said. “You’ve got cracking great hearing, and your other gifts, I’m sure, will be much appreciated by Mrs. Bottom.”

“If she will have me back,” said Bottom, his crest beginning to fall.

“But you shan’t be able to play Romeo,” said Quince. “Even with superb makeup by Snout.”

“I have been practicing on the wife,” said the tall tinker with the stupid hat.

“My performance shall overcome my form,” said Bottom, a finger thrust aloft as if balancing an idea. “I shall play Romeo as so dashing, so romantic, that all ladies in the audience will be in love with a man of prodigious ears and muzzle, and yearn to—”

“No,” said Peter Quince. “If the duke finds displeasure in our play we shall all be hanged. We cannot risk it. I myself have learned the part of Romeo and shall perform it as well as the chorus.”

“Hold,” said I. “Didst thou say that if the duke finds displeasure with your play you will be hanged?”

Quince nodded gravely. “Oh yes, for offending his sensibilities upon his wedding day.”

“It is part of the honor of being chosen,” said Francis Flute, in his demure damsel falsetto.

“Bloody hanging you if your play is shit?” said I. “You? Tradesmen, ninnies at best, who have never before taken the stage, are going to perform with your lives in the balance?”

“After all, it is his right. Our lives and labor belong to the duke,” said Robin Starveling.

I hit him then—spun the puppet Jones from out of the back of my jerkin and brought the green stick down on Starveling’s bald crown with a crack. But it was not enough, and as the tailor yowled and rubbed his head I swung the puppet around in various directions, growling and hissing and doing a more-than-adequate impression of a madman with apoplexy. “That is as buggering a basket of badger bonk as I have ever heard! That is as slithering a satchel of snake spooge as has ever been spoken! Your lives are not the duke’s.” I waved Jones around a bit more until I began to tire and Robin Starveling ran and hid behind a tree.

“So we don’t have to give him three-quarters of our labors?” said Quince.

“Three-quarters? You give him three-quarters? Of everything?”

“Not everything,” said Bottom. “I was spared him having right of first night with the missus, as she is possessed of a birthmark on her throat everyone in the village thought the mark of a dark spirit.”

“Shagged my Bess before me,” said Snug, “but she is forbidden to talk about it.”

“But Bess is a bit of a slut,” said Starveling from behind his tree. “Respectfully.”

“She was not always, not in those days. Robin Goodfellow turned her,” said Snug.

“Which is why he had to murder the Puck,” explained Quince.

“Yes,” said Snug. “Couldn’t be helped. It was my Bess’s honor.”

Which was when I hit Snug. I do not, generally, go about hitting people. I have traveled, lo these many years, with an oaf of profound dimness in my company, and had I hit him every time he did or said something stupid he would have been little more than large shoes piled with a tower of bruises. But no, other than being imprisoned and probably tortured, he was perfectly healthy. But this lot! This lot of ninnies, these Mechanicals, were a collective of such profound empty-headedness I was not sure that I was not becoming more stupid in their presence, my cleverness drained just by proximity, and thus I was frustrated and rather angry. I flailed around a bit with my puppet stick, cursing in various vernaculars, until the squirrel chirped at me.