Shakespeare for Squirrels: A Novel (Fool #3)(65)

There were gasps throughout the audience. The guards were gobsmacked, while the duke and even Hippolyta seemed somewhat amused at Egeus’s dismay. The powerful hold nothing but contempt for those who toady to them, all but the toadies know this.

Egeus sat, leaning to one side as if that were his preference and not because of my dagger by his ear.

“Proceed,” said I to Quince, giving him a grand “by your leave” flourish.

“Fear not, ladies, do not be dismayed, for the dagger you have seen is but a stage dagger, a trick of the craft. Tonight we shall also present a lion, who, while fierce, is also false, and no more than Snug the joiner in costume, so cast because he cannot hold lines in his memory.”

“RAWR!” roared Snug from backstage, and the audience tittered, because Snug’s roar was still shit and really only his saying the word “rawr” rather loudly.

“Also,” read Quince, “when you encounter the moon, do not be afraid, for it is not a real moon, but a stage moon.”

“No one is afraid of the moon, Quince,” said I.

“Fear not the moon,” Quince continued, “nor by the many grisly deaths and gratuitous bonkings be dismayed, for they are but tricks of the stage. Be not afraid.”

“No one is afraid,” said the duke. “Methinks the players are afraid of the play themselves. Play on!”

“Aye, Your Grace,” said Quince. Then, back to his scroll. “Upon a tossing sea tossed the handsome and clever hero Pocket of Dog Snogging.”

The Mechanicals began to make storm noises. Drool, wearing a skirt made of barrel slats attached in the shape of a boat, came forth from behind the tapestries, with Jeff clinging to his head. “I present boat,” said Drool, “and this, Jeff, presents Jeff.” He swept me up in his great arms and held me like a babe as he rocked me to the rhythm of the imagined waves. Jeff climbed partially down Drool’s face and grasped at my coxcomb as we pitched upon the waves.

“And when all was thought lost—” read Quince.

“Oh no,” said I. “All is nearly lost. We shall have to eat the monkey.”

“—Pocket was tossed upon the fair shores of Athens.”

Before I could instruct otherwise, Drool tossed me onto the stone stage with much more enthusiasm than was required. I was not able to get my feet under me before coming down smartly upon one shoulder. I was able to roll to my feet, but I felt a crack in my chest upon impact and my breath left me in a great explosion. I turned back to shout at Drool but could find no air to push it.

“And so,” read Quince, “the hapless fool found himself wandering in the enchanted forest.”

Drool stood on the stage, well past when he was supposed to exit. Instead he pulled a strip of parchment from the front of his shirt and squinted at it, as did Jeff. “I forgetted me line,” said the oaf to the audience with a curtsy.

“You don’t know how to read, you ninny,” I said, finding my breath at last.

Drool held the scrap of parchment up closer to Jeff.

“He can’t read either.”

Quince had had only enough time to write each actor’s sides, the parchment scraps with each of their lines, so there was no master script from which to prompt Drool. Thus, Robin Starveling, carrying a lantern and a branch, drifted onto the stage.

“I present moonshine, or this lantern is the moon, and I am the man in the moon. Be not afraid.”

“They’re not afraid of the fucking moon,” said I.

“Oh no, someone doth break character and ruin the illusion we have endeavored to create,” improvised Starveling. Once beside Drool, he stretched so that he could read Drool’s line, then whispered to the ninny.

“Alas,” said Drool, in Robin Starveling’s voice, which was twice as annoying coming out of a larger package. “Alas, I am carried out by the surf to be dashed to bits on the rocks.” And with that, Drool backed off the stage, through the tapestry, and tossed out the barrel slats that made up his hull, which clattered on the stones. Robin Starveling found himself standing midstage, alone, lantern in one hand, branch in the other.

“And I, moonshine, am also dashed upon the rocks.” And he backed offstage, between the tapestries, and threw the branch out to signify his dashing.

The audience howled. From backstage, Jeff screeched. He was a performing monkey, after all, and the audience’s laughter meant he had done well.

I climbed to my feet and pantomimed looking around in a dark forest.

Peter Quince returned to the corner of the stage. “So the brave and handsome fool found himself lost in the forest, and soon he happened onto a young woman, who was weeping.”

I don’t know if Francis Flute was an excellent leaper or if Drool had flung him headlong through the tapestries, but Flute came to the stage airborne and landed center stage in a heap of limbs, wig, and veil, where he commenced to weep in the falsetto he had practiced as Thisby and briefly as Juliet.

“Dear child,” said I. “What tragedy hath befallen thee?”

“Oh, good sir,” said Francis, turning his wig around on his head so he could see. “I am heartbroken, for I have been used like the wanton tart that I appear to be by the yellow-haired tosser known as Demetrius. He now loves my friend Hermia, who only has eyes for Lysander, and the two of them have fucked off to the forest to be married in secret, and Demetrius has followed, for I grassed them out to the authorities.”