Chapter 9

"The Second Act"

So, following the truce made by Ron and Josh, Kim and Ron returned to their seats for the second act of Fantasia. As they sat, Ron was beginning to plan ways of getting Kim to make love to him, despite Mr. Barkin's warnings.

"I know what Barkin said about being put in detention the next school year," he thought to himself as he looked at Kim. "But, this is different. Kim's my girlfriend, now and nothing is going to change that."

Just then, the lights to the theater went dark again and Deems Taylor once again was shown on screen to introduce the second act…or so that everyone in the theatre thought so.

"Before we get into the second half of the program," he began. "I'd like to introduce somebody to you, somebody who's very important to Fantasia. He's very shy and very retiring. I just happened to run across him one day at the Disney Studios. But when I did, I realized that here was not only an indispensable member of the organization, but a screen personality. And so I'm very happy to have this opportunity to introduce to you the soundtrack."

A long single line was shown and with each word spoken by Taylor, the line would move and make a series of noises. Both Kim and Ron found this to be most amusing.

"Always the funny line isn't it?" Ron chuckled, elbowing Kim in the arm. But, all Kim could do was chuckle at her boyfriend upon hearing those words.

For the next few minutes, the soundtrack continued to make a series of musical noises. At one point, the soundtrack blew a raspberry that caused everyone in the theater to break out laughing. But, the fun was soon over and the time had come for Fantasia to continue.

"The symphony that Beethoven called the Pastoral, his sixth, is one of the few pieces of music he ever wrote that tells something like a definite story," Deems Taylor began. "He was a great nature lover, and in this symphony, he paints a musical picture of a day in the country. Of course, the country that Beethoven described was the countryside with which he was familiar."

"Certainly we've seen plenty of country sides," Kim remarked, referring to the many missions that she and Ron went on together.

"But his music covers a much wider field than that," Deems Taylor continued. "And so Walt Disney has given the Pastoral Symphony a mythological setting, and the setting is of Mount Olympus, the abode of the gods. And here, first of all, we meet a group of fabulous creatures of the field and forest: unicorns, fawns, Pegasus the flying horse and his entire family, the centaurs, those strange creatures that are half man and half horse, and their girlfriends, the centaurettes. Later on, we meet our old friend Bacchus, the god of wine, presiding over a bacchanal. The party is interrupted by a storm, and now we see Vulcan forging thunderbolts and handing them over to the king of all the gods, Zeus, who plays darts with them. As the storm clears, we see Iris, the goddess of the rainbow, and Apollo, driving his sun chariots across the sky. And then Morpheus, the god of sleep, covers everything with his cloak of night as Diana, using the new moon as a bow, shoots an arrow of fire that spangles the sky with stars."

;;;

The Pastoral symphony was a much more comical number than the numbers in the first half and seeing the Centaurs and Centaurettes on screen only made Ron's lust for Kim grow ever higher. While Kim was mesmerized by Beethoven's music, Ron put his hand on Kim's leg below the knee and rubbed it slightly. The material of her stocking made her leg feel silky like some of the old shirts Ron had previously owned.

But, it was only for a second and to avoid any public embarrassment, Ron lifted his hand off of her leg and his mind quickly turned to the comical Greek god of wine and his faithful steed as the part about the wine making process had begun. Sure enough, following the scenes with Zeus, Vulcan, Iris and Diana, Beethoven had left the building and Deems Taylor was back on for the introduction to the next segment.

"Now we're going to do one of the most famous and popular ballets ever written: the Dance of the Hours from Ponchielli's opera La Gioconda," said Deems Taylor. "It's a pageant of the hours of the day. We see first a group of dancers in costumes to suggest the delicate light of dawn. Then a second group enters dressed to represent the brilliant light of noon day. As these withdraw, a third group enters in costumes that suggest the delicate tones of early evening. Then a last group, all in black, the somber hours of the night. Suddenly, the orchestra bursts into a brilliant finale in which the hours of darkness are overcome by the hours of light. All this takes place in the great hall, with its garden beyond, of the palace of Duke Alvise, a Venetian nobleman."

But instead of nobleman and their ladies, only the sights of ostrich's, hippos, elephants and alligators were seen. The music was starting to make both Ron and Kim get into a dancing mood and they wanted to be like the hippo and the alligator on the screen, but again, they didn't want to be a distracting presence in the theater. As he watched the Dance of the Hours, Ron had begun to picture himself and his girlfriend on that screen.

"If only Kim and I could do that," he thought to himself and soon, the Dance of the Hours had concluded and it was soon time for the final segment of Fantasia.

"The last number in our Fantasia program is a combination of two pieces of music so utterly different in construction and mood that they set each other off perfectly," said Deems Taylor. "The first is A Night On Bald Mountain by one of Russia's greatest composers, Modest Mussorgsky. The second is Franz Schubert's world-famous Ave Maria. Musically and dramatically, we have here a picture of the struggle between the profane and the sacred. Bald Mountain according to tradition is the gathering place of Satan and his followers."

"Wonder if Drakken and Shego were ever sent there," Ron joked to Kim. "They would make good company with the Devil."

Kim had to chuckle at that as Deems Taylor continued his introduction.

"Here, on Walpurgnisnacht, which is the equivalent of our own Halloween, the creatures of evil gather to worship their master. Under his spell, they dance furiously until the coming of dawn and the sounds of church bells send the infernal army slinking back into their abodes of darkness. And then we hear the Ave Maria, with its message of the triumph of hope and life over the powers of despair and death."

Now, both Kim and Ron knew that these two segments were their individual favorites. Ron liked the Night on Bald Mountain sequence for its music and some of the demons. Two or three scenes were erotic, but Ron was whelmed by the dark themes of the sequence and didn't experience any lust.

However, when it came time for the Ave Maria segment, it was at this point that Kim had done something that she had been unable to do all night and that was become slightly emotional. The music of the Ave Maria had made her eyes water slightly and she was trying her hardest not to cry as to not ruin her makeup.

Seeing his girlfriend get emotional, Ron grabbed Kim's hand and held it tightly as she looked over towards Ron and with the music setting the mood, the two of them got closer and hugged each other romantically as the soloist began to sing her number:

Ave Maria!

Heaven's bride

The bells ring out in solemn praise, for you, the anguish and the pride

The living glory of our nights,

of our nights and days

The prince of peace your arms embrace, while hosts of darkness fade and cower

Oh save us, mother full of grace,

in life,

and in our dying hour,

Ave Maria!

As soon as it ended, the screen went black and the audience rose to its feet and gave Walt Disney's masterpiece a standing ovation as the lights in the auditorium came on and everyone began to leave the theater.

"I hope you are ready for the festival, KP," said Ron said as they rose from their seats and joined the crowds of people heading out into the streets. "We still have two hours before your dad puts me in a black hole."

But, Kim chose to ignore the remark as they headed out of the theater and back towards Mr. Barkin's car where the next part of their date would soon begin. Meanwhile, still wearing his disguise, Eric arrived at the Middleton Days Festival and blended in with the crowds.

"It won't be long now until my revenge is at hand," he said to himself, brandishing the gun and knife he kept under his pocket. "It won't be long."