Pre-Malory Towers Zerelda

Half of the audience could hardly suppress their chuckles once Zerelda Brass had exited the stage. The only people who were surprised were Mr. and Mrs Brass.

'What on earth are they laughing at? That scene was simply wonderful!' they whispered to each other. Their neighbours were too polite to tell them what they were thinking. Mr. and Mrs. Mauer were watching their son play Macbeth and had endured many long hours of complaining about the leading lady and how awful she was at acting. And Jake was right. The only thing that Zerelda Brass did well on stage was making a fool of herself. Just a moment ago she had shrieked her lines as she hammered her hands against the floor, and there had been a lot of low laughter. But Mr. and Mrs. Brass just sat in their seats, enthralled.

Finally, Jake Mauer had his chance to shine by himself in the last duelling scene. He would make a wonderful Shakespearean actor one day. Zerelda, on the other hand, would only have made it in a music hall had they still existed. During the curtain calls, Zerelda received a raucous applause, which she was obviously mistaking for adulation. Her parents shot up from their seats to clap her. Jake received cheers and whistles, and flowers from a nearby girl in the audience. Zerelda's face clouded for a moment, but smiled again as she suddenly remembered where she was. Mrs. Mauer smiled at her talented son, wondering how he coped with his star-struck co star.

Zerelda marched over to Jake's dressing room. She wasn't at all pleased with him now.

'Why was Harriet Millers right in the middle of the house? And how come she chucked those flowers at you?' she demanded.

'Oh Zerelda I thought that we were over a week ago. We talked about this at least a million times,' sighed Jake wearily. 'And no, I have never asked Harriet out. She's barely past her freshman year. In fact she's been avoiding me ever since all the gossip that she liked me had leaked.' This didn't reassure Zerelda in the slightest.

'Gossip! It was all true! And Dale saw the two of you together outside the locker rooms!'

'Dale tells tales all the time, even you know that. Honestly Zerelda, will you ever learn to grow up? Although,' he paused with an amused smile on his face. 'You seem to get younger with each stage production, so I doubt very much that you'll ever grow up in real life or the stage.' And then Jake led Zerelda out of the dressing room, sensing that she might explode.

Zerelda was so furious that she had no idea what to do at that moment. But Jake was a strong baseball player and would surely knock her flat if she tried to fight him. It was bad enough when he broke up with her, and now he was suggesting that she was a bad actress. Sure she had heard other people whisper bad things about her acting ability, but they were all jealous nobodies. Well, Zerelda Brass would show them all, she thought defiantly. When she was on the screen with the likes of Gene Kelly and Ginger Rogers those kids would be sorry. So would Jake and Harriet. So she fought back her tears and walked away to her dressing room, to find her parents waiting for her.

'Darling you were wonderful! We're both so proud of you!' gushed her mother. After a huge hug she asked 'Where were you before?'

'Oh, just telling Jake that he was good this evening.' She fought back more tears. An actress never lost control over her emotions in the wrong places. 'It's such a shame tonight's our closing night. I want to do this every evening for the rest of my life!'