CLUE: STAGE FRIGHT TONIGHT!

HERE'S YOUR FIRST CLUE

CLUE: STAGE FRIGHT TONIGHT!

Cami, the youngest of the two, clung to her blanket, legs kicked up behind her, face glowing from the nighttime TV.  BFF, Cindy flicked away the popcorn underneath and rolled over onto her knees as the cartoon theme song closed the show.

"I justh love Sthylvesther!  'Sthufferin' sthuccotasth!'"  Cami's all-too natural lysp made a perfect imitation.

Dryly delivered, Cindy says, "Duh, I wonder why.  I like Bugs Bunny; he's a classic."

"Girls it's time to go to bed," the girls hear from the hallway.  Cami's mom had all the old, old, old cartoons and got the girls hooked on all things 1980's vintage.

"Okay!" They yell in unison.  Plodding in her footy, flannel Dora pjs, Cami says, "Let'sth put our sthuff away and got to bed justh like Mom sthaid."

"No, no, no, no, no..."  Cindy squints as she looks around the doorway and down the hall.

Cami says in a raspy, curious whisper, "What?"

"Let's get under the blanket with the flashlight and tell ghost stories."

"You're gonna get me in trouble again!" Cami, thinking back to Daddy rushing into her bedroom at the last sleep over, whacking away at the blanket with a kitchen towel to put out the fire.

"That's why we'll use a flashlight this time," says Cindy.  She pulls out two flashlights from her backpack and pitches one to her accomplice.  Cami fumbles the flashlight in mid-air as she agrees, but only to making bunny shadows instead.  Her little seven year old fingers gallop across the wall and over the dresser, appearing three times their size.

"Noooooo.  Don't you know anything about slumber parties?  It's suppose to be...scaaarrrry," Cindy holds the flashlight under her chin & bugs her eye out, looking more like Cami is suppose to check her for a nasal infection than be spooked.

"You're sthcary without the flasthlight," scores Cami.  "Well, have you every heard of...THE CLAW?!"  Cindy grabs the top of Cami's messy bun as if it were a stuffed animal inside one of those machines with the joystick-controlled metal gadgets.

Lisping, as usual, Cami re-ponies her hair.  "Oh, that's just sthewpid."  

"Let'sth do sthomthing else then."  Cindy, occasionally catching her friend's lysp like a cold, shakes her tongue lose and says, "I mean, let's do something else.  How about one of your mom's old games?

"Let's play The Dating Game!"  Cami loved that old, beat up board game, mainly because of the stories her mom told about all of her old sleepovers with her friends.  Her mom always got the cute guy answering the door with a bouquet of flowers.  Her BFF always opened the tiny door on the board to the bespectacled dud that looked like he was gonna bring his mom on every date.

"No, you always get the cute guy," Cindy glowered and Cami beamed thinking, "Just like mom."

"How 'bout Battleship?!" Cindy says, shooting off her mouth.  "Oh yeah, that's a quiet game."  Cami had gotten good at the droll response since meeting Cindy in Ms. Harrington's kindergarten class last year.  

Shifting her eyes through two slits, Cindy got that look that Cami knows will end with a time out.  "Ooooo..mystery..sneaking around," Cindy pauses for dramatic effect..."Let's play CLUE!"

Cami knows that if she agrees to this game it will 1) last forever, 2) will end with more than a time-out & 3) she must claim the best character in the next breath.

"I get to be Misth Sthcarlett!!" and Cami pads her way quickly to the hall closet, gets the Clue game and snatches the Miss Scarlett card, as Cindy concedes by grabbing the Professor Plum card proclaiming, "Fine.  I'm smarter than you anyway."

"Okay, let's set up the game."

Cindy and Cami freeze.  Lights go up stage left on Miss Scarlet in the Dining Room.  Cami, actually Rachel O'Brien, walks stage left where Katie Scheffield is posed in a long red evening gown she purchased at Good Will and faux diamond necklace and bracelet she found in the Red Tag bin at Claire's.

A few coughs and sounds of people shifting in their seats indicate that the play better pick up the pace, or the seats won't be filled the next two nights.  Most of Ms. Yount's theatre students at Biltmore Academy had been in her class for a few years.  Their experience won't show up till the main characters of the play hit the stage, so relying on two relative new-comers to open the new show was risky.  

All was actually going well, despite the final dress rehearsal where not only were actors dropping lines and missing cues, but the novice lighting crew was in the dark and Mr. Green still didn't have his pants.  Seriously, right before they flashed the lights that the play would commence opening night, Ms. Yount's assistant/co-writer/cousin, Ms. Ruth, accosted the first man she saw in the hallway who looked to be Mr. Green, aka Kelvin Weinstein's size and pleaded for his trousers.  When the curtain is going up & despite that their little private school/one-room church didn't actually have a curtain to raise and that the man she stumbled upon was the school's Worldview professor and practical principal, didn't matter.  Mr. Green needed pants now!

Moments later, the spotlight came up on Cami/Rachel and Cindy/Courtney center stage on their tummies eating popcorn with their eyes glued straight ahead and the "Looney Tunes" theme song kicking off the play.  Mr. Worldview sat in the back row in his sweats and suit coat, happy to be in the dark.

Chris cued spot #3 on the library as Cindy scurried stage right and stood all of five feet next to Jarrod Black's six foot eBay-ordered plum suit.  "Professor Plum will be waiting in the Library."

Lights up far stage right on the parlor, which is only a few feet from the library, where Mrs. Peacock sits on the couch--another Good Will find that was used in the last musical and worth every bit of $25.   A fully-clothed Mr Green stands center stage in front of garden-painted curtain.  "Mrs Peacock in the Parlor and Mr. Green in the conservatory," projects Cami/Rachel.

"No fair!  You get two sth-usth-pectsth!" says Cindy/Courtney imitatively, as rehearsed.

"Fine.  You get Mrs. White, but there's only one room left."  Cami sticks out her tongue.

Almost under her breath in concession, Cindy says, "Mrs. White in the kitchen."  High spot light up on the second story kitchen, which is actually a platform held up by two white posts on the stage and a very narrow black staircase and supports backstage, behind the pipe and drape curtains.  

Ms. Yount designs her own sets and her husband constructs them all.  The things that they create out of that little stage are miraculous.  Every semester they haul off all the worship band instruments, cover the glass-block cross so that they can achieve true blackout and Mr. Yount coordinates a small band of drill-toting volunteers to construct his wife's visions.  Of course, that means that one Sunday out of every Semester, Pastor Neal would preach in front of who-knew-what.  This time it is the Boddy Mansion.  Ms. Yount thinks it's clever how Pastor Neal weaves his sermons to utilize the impeding set.  That Sunday, he used the Dining portion of the Boddy set for a dramatic delivery of the communion elements.

"I get to roll firsth!" declared Cami as she scampered center stage.  

"No!  You always get to go firsssth," mocked Cindy.

"Yes I do.  Miss Sthcarlet always getsth to go first," Cami states with a staccato 't' at the end.

"That's not fair!" echos through the sanctuary.

"Sufferin' sthucotasthhh!" Cami spits in Cindy's face.  "Shhh!  Mom will suspect sthomething sthupid."

"Stho."

BLACKOUT

Ms. Yount cues the comical mystery music and six spots as Miss Scarlet, Colonel Mustard, Professor Plum and the other Clue culprits begin walking down stage in preparation for their scene two monologues.  She takes a deep breath and mutters in the tech booth, "Oh Jesus, here we go."

Enjoy Chapters 2 & 3!   Chapter 4 coming soon.  Additional chapters posted upon completion. ~The PorchBaby