The Rehearsal by Catton Eleanor

Author:Catton, Eleanor [Catton, Eleanor]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2013-10-15T16:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

May

The day after the Theater of Cruelty lesson Stanley ran into the victim of the exercise on the main staircase. The boy was walking quickly with his head down, taking the stairs two at a time. His hair was cropped close to his skull now, to even up the patch on the crown that the masked boy had snipped. The shorter cut didn’t quite suit him. He looked a little frightened, his ears and forehead protruding too obviously from under the shrunken cap of hair. He was wearing a new shirt.

“Hey,” Stanley said, reaching out a hand to stall him.

The boy turned guilty eyes up at him and nodded a shy hello.

“I just wanted to say that I went and complained,” Stanley said. His voice sounded huge in the stairwell, spiraling up and up to the floors above and ringing clear and hollow in the vertical shaft like the pealing of a bell. “About what happened. I went to the Head of Movement and complained.”

“Thanks,” the boy said quietly. “But it’s all right now. It was just a dumb thing.” He made as if to continue downstairs, but Stanley stopped him, moving closer and cornering him so he was trapped flat, pinioned against the banister with nowhere to go.

“I’m going to talk to the Head of Acting as well,” Stanley said. “I can’t believe that nobody else is doing anything about this. It’s disgusting. What they did to you was disgusting. And nobody cared.”

The boy looked at Stanley inscrutably for a moment. He reached back with both hands for the banister, and stood there with his arms behind him, tugging gently on the handrail. Then he said, “I was a plant.”

“What?” Stanley said.

“I was a plant. The main guy—Nick, the guy in the mask—he asked me and arranged it all beforehand. I knew they were going to pick me, and I knew what was going to happen, mostly. I knew about the water, and he said they might slap me around a bit. I thought it would be funny. Just for a laugh.”

Stanley was frowning. “But you bolted.”

“I didn’t know they were going to go that far,” the boy said. “My shirt and everything. Cutting my hair. He only told me about the water-trough. I thought it would be okay. I thought I’d help them out or whatever. I said yes.”

“Is there always a plant?” Stanley said. “Every year?”

“I guess,” the boy said. He jerked his gaze away, past Stanley’s shoulder and down the stairs. “They’d never get away with it otherwise.”

“They shouldn’t get away with it.”

“Yeah,” the boy said, and shrugged. “It was just an exercise. It was only to make a point.”

“But why?” Stanley said. He spoke with more aggression than he intended. He felt the same dawning feeling of helplessness that he had felt in the Head of Movement’s office. In his confusion he was scowling at the boy, and now the boy scowled back.

“I was just helping them out. They needed someone for their project. It’s no big deal.

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