~~~

                      “Do we really have to do this here?”  Kate asked looking over her shoulder. The brunette actress was clad in a pale tunic with a filmy white over-dress.  Her hair was woven with “flora and fauna” as Zoe called it. 

                      “Come on Kate, what’s more cliché than a graveyard at midnight?”  Sadie said reasonably. 

                      “But it’s not even midnight!”  Kate protested, wrapping her arms around her to keep warm through the flimsy material of her gown. 

                      “So why are you complaining?”  Jo asked, snapping sharply at the hem of Kate’s gown.  She stood up snippers in hand.  “Kay, we’re good to go.” 

                      “Right then people, let’s get a move on!”  Anna yelled from her spot beside the camera.. 

                      “Isn’t there a rule about not getting to yell at the crew until you’re an official director?”  Olivia asked her brother as they stood around shivering and awaiting orders.  

                      “Yeah, but we’re not exactly arguing with her.”  Oliver pointed out, rubbing his hands together for warmth.  Besides, we  are  the crew.”

                      “He’s a got a point you know.”  Zoe popped up beside them.  Olivia noted that Zoe seemed to popping up around Oliver a lot lately.  Then again, it was Oliver. 

                      “I can’t believe it!  We’re never going to get started!”  Anna strode over briskly.  If it isn’t Kate fussing, it’s Adam piddling about the nitty gritty.  He keeps saying his costume doesn’t fit right.  Sadie’s about to go grey over it.”

                      “She might look good grey.”  Jo pointed out, appearing from nowhere. “And if Adam’s giving you problems just threaten him with the chainsaw. 

                      “Wait a minute.  Aren’t costumes your department?”  Olivia looked a little confused by all the bureaucracy.  She spent most of her time in front of the camera.  

                      “Not if Sadie’s going to handle it.”  Jo smirked.  Her opinion of Adam being a pompous ass-yet still a momma’s boy had long standing in the group.  

                      “Guys!  We need to get started I’ve about had it!  First Adam, now Kate’s getting fidgety, you know how it is!”  Sadie stalked over furiously.   

                      “Yeah, and I know it’s supposed to be a “graveyard at midnight” but I’d like to be wrapping up by then, okay?”  Anna said to the crew around her.  “Okay, Kyle, will you set the scene once again please, I’m sorry.”  Anna waved them all into position.  “Sadie will you take a look at Colin’s make-up again?  His scar looks like it’s coming loose.  Alright, places everyone, and action.”  With much glee Olivia jumped in front of the camera with a clapper that had “Midnight Graveyard-Take 1” scrawled on it. 

                      Kate began taking tentative steps towards the camera, fall leaves swirling picturesquely around her feet.

                      “Kate look more ethereal!”  Anna yelled.  Kate raised her head and stretched out her arms, letting Jo’s magnificently designed sleeves flutter in the wind provided by Zoe on fan detail.  

                      “Nice work.”  Sadie muttered to Jo as they watched Kate almost float along in her filmy gown. 

                      “So easy.”  Jo muttered back.  “Just stick the wet fabric through a cookie drying rack and let it dry.” 

                      “No kidding?”

                      “Sadie, you’re entrance is coming up!”  Anna yelled fearlessly, knowing that Dan, their sound guy extraordinaire would edit it all out.  

                      “I have an entrance?”  Sadie muttered in confusion.  “Oh right!”  She looked down at her arms, already covered in special effects make-up.  “My arms have an entrance.”  She said walking off to the back of the set.  Around her the wind began to pick up more than just the fan Zoe was running.  Additionally a thick layer of fog had begun to creep in along the graveyard floor.

                      “Guys, ease up on the fog a little.”  Zoe hissed to Oliver and Olivia.

                      “We didn’t turn it on yet.”  Oliver whispered back. 

                      “This fog is amazing!”  Anna exclaimed aside to Kyle, manning the camera. 

                      “I didn’t know our machine was this good.  You gotta hand it to the drama department, they know their fog.” 

                      “And now!”  Anna willed all her players to come on the stage at just the right moment. 

                      “Of course, when does anything go according to plan? 

Copyright~S.E.B. '05

~~~

                      The thing with Jo Alcott was that she was highly misunderstood.  At least, that’swhat her poor bewildered mother chose to believe.  After all, how in a family of generations of perfectly normal people did Jo come along?  The other option was that she’d grow out of it.  But seeing that Jo was practically past “growing up” that didn’t seem like a viable option anymore.  Everyone but Jo refused to acknowledge the truth that in a family of sensible normal, albeit boring people-Josephine Valancy Alcott was hopelessly odd.  For starters she didn’t hold with the ideal that children were seen and not heard. Jo was generally not seen at all,.  Family functions when not interminably boring where only a distraction from the more important things in life, like thread.  Jo, unlike other children was quickly pacified by spools of brightly colored thread from her mother’s embroidery basket faster than any pot or pan. 

                      Perhaps it was for this reason that Jo became known to her roommates as the “Ninja Stealth Stitcher”.  There wasn’t much that Jo couldn’t get her head around in terms of understanding clothing and costume.  What she preferred to do, however was to restore and reproduced replicas of historical clothing.  And that was what usually took her downtown to the sleepy little Clairmont library.  And truth be told, it was what she’d rather be doing right now, instead of some last minute research for the film festival.  As much as Jo loved a good research project, she had some lovely renderings of 1720’s underpinning that were just crying out for muslin mock-ups.  But she was good friend, and a fantastic roommate, she kept telling herself.  And that’s why she was here on Sadie’s behalf, because the girl had stretched herself too thin once again, and had offered on this bright Saturday morning to face-paint a group of kindergartners from Clairmont Elementary.  

                      Jo smiled at the librarians as she walked in, and passed a few moments of small talk with Miss Ida and Miss Eva, who at the age of 74 found knitting tea cozys a passion a new.  She passed through the rich dark walnut shelves, shining darkly with years of dutifully applied Old English lemon oil. to the microfesh viewer at the end of the room.  The projector was hidden in a old rolltop desk.  Consulting Sadie’s quickly scribbled list, Jo selected a dusty vial of microfesh and fed it into the viewer.  After several magnifications the antique type became somewhat more readable.  She started jotting down notes about mysterious disappearances, strange happenings etc, becoming more and more lost in her task.  The sooner she got this done the sooner she could get back to the costume shop, and her project.  

                      “Hey.”  Jo fought the impulse not to jump three feet in the air, and managed to stifle a gasp.  Usually, she was not so easily taken off guard. 

                      “What do you have here?”  A tall skinny boy with mismatched eyebrows looked at her screen with marked curiosity. 

                      “Didn’t your mother tell you not to stare?”  Jo said turning around in her chair.

                      “Didn’t have a mother.”  The boy said conversationally and pulled up a nearby chair.

                      “It’s just research, for a project.”  Jo said feeling distinctly uneasy about the boy’s obvious intentions to stay and strike up conversation.  People in general make her uneasy, well, except the girls of course.  But they were different.  She knew how to read them.  Unknown people were-unpredictable.  Especially the male variety, there were like spiders, one was never sure if they were the scurrying kind or the jumping kind. 

                      “What kinda project?”  The boy said with interest.

                      “A school project.” 

                      “Oh.  You go to Christie’s don’t you?”

                      “Ye-es.”

                      “You’re wondering how I knew, right?”  Jo barely nodded.

                      “You can tell-besides we look about the same age, and I haven’t seen you in class so there we have it.”

                      “There we have it.”  Jo repeated feeling some of her old spunkiness return.  The boy was obviously not out to get her, and talking to him was surprisingly natural albeit, unpredictable.  She looked up at the clock and panicked, it was high time she was home already, and she didn’t have a gate pass if she missed curfew.

                      “You have to go.”  The boy said needlessly.  He stood up and waited for her to collect her things off the small desk, and turned off the microfesh projector for her.  They walked to the front desk where Jo dropped off the key to the desk.  

                      “Have a nice walk, but I think it’s going to rain soon,” her strange new companion said.  The sky was clear as day, but Jo chalked it up to the already displayed weird behavior. 

                      “By the way, I’m David.”  The boy said, sticking out his hand. 

                      “Josephine.”  Jo said taking it. 

                      “See you later Josephine.”  David said as she walked out the door.  As she walked up to the main gatehouse of Christie’s it occurred to her that she’d never given her full name in introduction before. 

                      “Must be the  microfesh.”  She muttered as it started to rain. 

Copyright!~S.E.B. '05

~~~

                      Things in the West wing were taking a much different turn tonight.  For one thing there was none of this creepy history nonsense.  And for  another thing, there wasn’t much decorum either.  Although the staff members who thought they could prevail with decorum in the West Wing were clearly kidding themselves.  Oliver Stanton, subject of much discussion in Suite 302 was currently entertaining his suitemates by doing impressions of his Shakespeare Professor, Madam Leembruggen.  Currently this involved hobbling about on one leg whilst wearing a jumper nicked from Staff laundry. 

                      “So then…then, she goes- “And Willy was just batty about couplets, you know, just batty!”  Oliver trilled in a high falsetto, fluttering his unfairly thick eyelashes at the boys.  His roommate, Kyle Neilson rolled on the floor, guffawing apeishly, and tossed pillows at him.

                      “Oh man, think of the things we could pull on batty old burger, eh?”

                      “I wouldn’t if I were you.”   Adam Stewart said primly from behind his pile of opera scores.  “She’s senior faculty, you know.”

~~                 “You know what your problem is Stewart?”  Kyle sprung off the floor.  “You’re so caught up in your areas and falsettos  to have any fun!” 

                      “Arias and Fugues, Kyle” Adam corrected in a voice of long suffering.  “And I have fun.  This is fun.”  He gestured to the pile on his lap.  Kyle snorted in reply. 

                      “Now if Colin was here, he’d know exactly what to do.”  Kyle mused. 

                      “Eh, Colin’s rather calculated about his rule breaking you know.”  Oliver pointed out, plopping down on the end of Adam’s bed.  “He doesn’t just run his mouth off out of habit like you.”  He threw one of Adam’s pillows at Kyle. 

                      “Shut up moron!  While we’re talking about running your mouth off, what was with the artista tonight?”  Kyle grinned knowingly.

                      “You mean Zoe?  She said the girls wanted tome to help them with their film for the festival, that’s all.”

                      “Sure took a long time to say it.”  Kyle said.  Oliver refused to pick up on his roommate’s broad hint.

                      “Why didn’’t Olivia ask you instead?”  Adam wondered.

                      “I dunno.  Why don’t you ask her?”  Adam made a noncommittal noise behind his score.  

                      “Look you blunderheads, I’ve got practice at six tomorrow, and lessons at eight.  I’m out.”  Oliver yawned and went to brush his teeth. 

                      “I can’t believe you get up to practice that early.  The only thing I want to see at six in the morning is the other side of my pillow.”  Kyle shook his head.

                      “That’s why you’re not a piano performance student.”  Adam pointed out, tidying his scores on his desk and crawling into bed.

                      “I know-that’s why I’m an artist.  It’s in our blood to be unreliable.”

                      “Sure it is.”  Oliver laughed and turned out the light. 

Copyright-S.E.B. '05

1897 was a fairly peaceful year for the city of Clairmont, excepting the horrible tragedy at the Opera House of Clairmont, founded by the reclusive and wealthy D’ comte Roberto Bellini, rumored to have once been a famous opera singer himself.  The Opera, thought of as the center of all decent entertainment in the city was premiering the performance commissioned by the D’Comte himself.  Unfortunately, during the second act of the performance, a fire broke out in the in the bowels of the theatre, and due to the nature of the building quickly spread.  Most of the patrons were able to escape unscathed, however, several performers and thespians lost their lives in the fiery blaze.  Among the victims was the Opera’s new star ingénue Victoria Jamison.

                      “Well.”  Anna said when Sadie finished.

                      “What’s a D’Comte?”  Olivia wanted to know.

                      “I dunno.”  Jo said  “Oh look-Kate’s gone to look it up for you.  Now you’ve done it.”

                      “Change a couple of names and put in Paris and you have Phantom of the Opera, eh Livvie?”  Zoe nudged Olivia.

                      “Yeah no kidding.”  Olivia pasted a grin on her face.  “Weird, huh?” 

Copyright~S.E.B. '05