Falling For Alaska

Chapter Twenty: You Can't Play With Us

With the play this Saturday and only four days away, Carter was filled with a maniacal fever and worry, especially since almost no one knew their lines (well, with the exception of Alaska and the Kurt Hummel kid, naturally). To be honest, I almost even felt bad for Carter-- the play was sure to be a failure and a maasive embarassment. And while I would normally celebrate Carter's humiliation, being known as the adult who wrote the trainwreak of a play about talking trees-- well, that would be a hard one to get yourself out of. Really, Carter was capable of humiliating himself enough without a play concocted whilst on drugs.

Even from on the stage, everyone could see the balls of sweat perspiring from his forehead and hear the nervous laughter between scenes. "Alright, guys, let's try this again, but this time, actually remember your lines!" Carter smiled uncertainly, his voice wavering, as if he knew the situation was rather hopeless. Which it was, don't get me wrong, but his faith, or lack of faith, in us was a little concerning.

Not surprisingly, I found that a majority of the hippies, despite their everlasting love for the environment and fat donut-eating police officiers, were not exactly the greatest actors or really, good at faking enthusiasm. Being a tree really got tiresome after a while, I guess. Maybe it just wasn't as fun as planting trees.

What I found ironic was that while at the start of the play, all the hippies were concerned about my ability playing a gay tree, at this point, I figured that the nature elves were just happy that someone else would soak up the embarrassment and lessen their own humiliation.

With a yell from Carter, the scene began again, with the tree bullies playing a game outside, while I, poor Frankie Treesome, looked towards the group of friends with jealousy and self-pity. Meanwhile, Alaska hid behind some bushes, apparently stalking Frankie.

Naturally, Carter thought that: what better way to start a scene than start with a song and dance number?

Just cue the excitement.

With the piano introduction, the trees got in their positions surrounding little Frankie, all striking intimidating poses.

Thankfully, during this song properly entitled as "You Can't Play With Us," (seemingly named after Mean Girls, and really, I had no doubt that must be his favorite movie, how I know this is not important) I don't sing or speak a single word. Instead, I just stand in the center of the mean trees pretending to cry (if you counted glaring as crying, that is).

The hippies, dressed as suspiciously human-like trees, span around in circles, pointimg and jeering towards me. If this wasn't a play, I would have either punched the lot of them or questioned what drug they were currently high on.

The wonderful lyrics, coined by the esteemed composer Carter, included quality phrases such as "We play games, you aren't the same" and, how could I forget-- "We're too cool for you, you massive tool."

With lyrics like that, how had Carter never won a Grammy?

Rolling my eyes as the hippies orbited around me, I prayed for the scene to quickly end, or even better, for Carter to just freaking cancel the play. I'm sure that no one would even mind.

After the last lyrics, "Go away, don't stay," the bastard trees them proceeded to freaking throw stones towards me. Actual stones, too (I bet Carter was responsible for this).

What a nice bunch of trees, I know.

Hell, I don't care if this was a play-- do not hit the face. Really, do not harm the moneymaker.

Even after countless threats, it seemed like it had become a game for the hippies to hit me in the face as many times as possible. I'm relatively sure that that damn Kurt Hummel kid even started offering a cash prize for anyone that gave me a concussion or landed me in the hospital.

Covering my face with my hands, I quickly ran through the trees, hopefully avoiding any direct hits in the face.

After running off stage, Carter had the audacity to yell "CUT" and demand that we rehearse the scene again because apparently, "it wasn't realistic enough."

What? Was his definition of "realistic" synonymous with my pain?

Sorry, but as much as I love hanging out with the hippies, I'm not going to let them lay a few low blows at me with the excuse of it being a play.

Really, at this point, I was just cursing Carter's decision of not buying fake rocks or just paper balls painted, but actually using freaking stones from the park. I swear, that had to be some type of abuse or at least, illegal.

Thank you very much, but this wasn't the eighteenth century and I wasn't going to be stoned to death for some dumb childish play.

I sighed as we got in our positions to rehearse the scene again, and silently prayed that my face would still be intact by the end of play practice.

This time, at the end of the song when the evil trees threw the rocks, I started grabbing the fallen rocks and throwing them back towards them. It was almost amusing watching the enjoyment change to confusion to horror to fear.

With an almost sadistic grin as I threw thr rocks, I was determined to hit at least a few of the bastards before Carter broke it up. It was almost quite fun, I could understand how the hippies looked so happy doing the throwing.

Due to a small amount of kindness and pity I had for the poor hippies, I didn't even aim for their heads (although in the rare occasion that I "accidently" hit them square in the head, I couldn't exactly say that I was apologetic).

While Carter was currently occupied with yet another hot dog, I knew that he would soon be alerted about the spectacle happening on-stage, especially with Alaska in attendence. Besides the screams of pain and terror were also a minor issue.

When Carter finally broke out of his hot dog induced trance, he quickly screamed a loud, "FORREST!" and a loud "CUT" soon followed that.

Giving me a glare that couldn't even make a baby quiver in fear, Carter stepped on the stage, his rolls of fat heaving up and down in anger. "What do you think you're doing?" he asked, in a dangerously quiet voice, in a similar manner as a teacher would when catching a student cheating.

I shrugged, before smirking. "Thought I'd... spice it up a little."

Carter gave me a disbelieving look, before shaking his head exasperatingly. "Just don't do it again, Forrest." Surprising, he dropped it at that. Perhaps he realized that having some angry hippies throw rocks at an anti-environmentalist and proclaimed enemy could cause a lot of problems.

With one last glare, Carter walked back down to his seat and with a sigh, told us to move on to the next scene and to "not throw the stones as hard" during the actual play as it wouldn't be "family-friendly" otherwise. Really, I was flattered that Carter was obviously worried more about my own personal welfare than his play being appropriate for families.

With a loud sigh as I got in position for the next scene, I could only pray that this scene wouldn't be as painful.

***
a/n. gosh this chapter was so short, I really apologize. woah so punny: you can't "play" with us. haha

anyways thanks for reading and remember to vote and comment!

dedication to karyn because she encouraged/reminded me to update!

until next time,
meyer w.