"Mr Byrne! Mr Mercer!"
The call of Mr Sykes was all that stopped the swordfight practice between Michael and Patrick becoming out of hand. It was an after school practice, and seeing as this was the scene that Sykes was most worried about, he had wanted to start on this scene, with regular rerehursals on it. After half an hour along with yesterday's rehursal, they had already got the rehursed sequence right enough to be able to add in their own little sneaks, each trying to catch out the other, to make them slip.
Up in the rafters of the auditorium, Alex, Damon and the twins watched from above, as they always did - hoping to catch a sight of Steve. They had formulated their own plan during the day which they were putting into action on monday morning. A sound to their right attracted their attention, and they worried that they had been caught out, but found that it was just Charlie, replacing the roof tile that they used for access. Silently, Alex nodded to his father as he took a place on the rafters behind him.
"Does Mom know you're here?" Alex asked in a whisper.
"Yeah." Charlie answered, looking over the edge and grimacing a little as he always did. There would be a lot of broken bones if one of them fell. "She just doesn't know how high up." He hated lying to Stella about anything, but he knew that this was something she would rather not know. Then he looked down and saw Michael holding a sword. "Woah, thats a pretty good prop." He commented, noting the glint of the light against the blade.
"It's a bloody sharp prop." Damon said, showing Charlie a cut into the side of his hand. It wasn't very deep, and had only just broken the skin. "Sykes asked me to move them backstage and they're really sharp."
"Apparently the talent scout had them brought in," Alex explained. "He wants everything to be perfect on the night of the performance because his boss is coming. We heard him on his cell phone earlier."
"Three guesses who the boss is." Charlie muttered, knowing that Steve would be making the performance. It was only six weeks away now, seeing as for some reason, the date of the show had been moved forwards. He looked around, noting that Patrick and Michael were the only people on stage. "Where's Holly?" He asked.
Alex pointed down to the rows of seats. A few rows back, Holly sat with her hair, curling incredibly today because of the braids she had put it in last night, gleaming in the edge of the lights that just about reached where she sat. She seemed perfectly happy, chatting away to a girl who was at least two years older than her. "That's the girls in her scene." He said.
Nick leaned forwards between Alex and Charlie. "You see the girl sitting on the other side of Holly?" Charlie nodded. "That's Alex's girlfriend."
"Shut up!" Alex said, "She's not my girlfriend!"
Charlie smirked, so this was the infamous Amy Allen that Holly had told them about. The boys continued to bicker in whispers, so they weren't heard by the people below, but Charlie looked around him. Was Steve there, hiding, watching as he was? Holly didn't know yet that Charlie came into the practices, but he wanted to be there, ready to corner Steve as soon as he made an appearance. Sykes began talking again, and they all started to listen.
"Right! Now, no more of these little additions!" He said sharply, looking between Michael and Patrick, who were silently glaring at each other as if they would like nothing better than to use to swords for another purpose. "You will do the sequence as instructed - no more, no less, or I shall find other actors." Patrick didn't like the idea of this at all, and glared harder at Michael. "Now, we will try the full scene this time. Where is my Christine?"
Holly, who had been talking with Alyson, who was playing her on stage friend of Meg Giry, hadn't heard Sykes talking, so she had ignored him. Sykes turned around to face her.
"Is Miss Croker going to bless us with her attention today?" Holly looked up, not having entirely heard him. "Well, will you do the graveyard scene or shall I find a stand in?" Sykes asked.
"No sir, I'll do it." She said, standing from her seat, still laughing a little from what Alyson had told her.
"Good." Sykes said, as Holly ran up the stage steps. "We'll start from when Raoul enters the graveyard, after the song from Christine and the Phantom."
Holly took her place before a large makeshift grave type tomb that had been made out of plaster of paris for the production, and Patrick hid to the side of it, away from the audience. Michael went off stage and waited for his cue.
"Are we ready?" Sykes asked, but continued without waiting for an answer. "Action!"
Michael ran on stage, stopping in the middle of the stage calling out as he ran. "No, Christine, wait!"
Holly turned around, feigning a look of surpise. "Raoul!"
Michael went up to her and pulled out his sword from his sheath. He was already liking the idea of this weapon on his hip. "Whatever you may believe, this man - this thing - is not your father!"
Now, Charlie didn't know the story of this play, so he had no idea what was going on, but he did start getting very into the idea of seeing it as Patrick jumped out with his sword and they had the sword fight. They had, indeed, rehersed it very well, and it even looked convincing when Patrick pretended to stab Michael in the arm. In the final production of course, they were going to use fake blood, but they weren't even in costume that day, so they didn't have any extravagents like that. Charlie was starting to think that the storyline went with the Phantom winning the fight, when Michael pinned Patrick down and raised his sword menacingly.
This was where Holly intervened. "No, Raoul! No. Not like this."
Michael looked back down at Patrick, and then put his sword away, before going over to Holly, grabbing her wrist, and leading her away.
Sykes stood up, applauding, and Patrick got up from the ground. "Excellent. See what you can do when you stick to the script?" None of them answered him. "I think thats all the work on this scene done for the moment." Michael sighed with relief, his arms were aching from doing this scene - but he did like the sword. "Let's try..." Sykes looked through the script. "Phantom of the Opera."
"But, sir!" Holly protested. "We've done that in every practice this week." She was sick of the scene now, having done it nearly a hundred times because something had always gone wrong.
"Oh, all right." Sykes decided, changing his mind. "Well, we can't do the Masquerade without the choir or having learnt the dance routine. Ok, let's try the dialogue before Think of Me. We have yet to get that right. Now, I want all actors on stage." A hurry of the students rushed on, Charlie was starting to like this man less and less. "Mr Byrne, you are not in this scene, neither are you Mr Mercer, if you will please leave the stage. Now I want dancers dancing, and - Carlotta? For heaven's sake where is my Carlotta?" There was no answer. "Has anyone seen Miss Jennings today?"
Leah Jennings, who was supposed to be playing the role of Carlotta, was no where to be seen.
"Sir," A blonde haired boy who was playing Firmin piped up. "She went home, she was sick."
"Sick?" Sykes repeated as if he had never heard the word. "Sick!"
"Yes, sir."
"What do you mean sick? Is she in a coma?"
The blonde boy looked slightly disturbed. "No, sir, she blew chunks fourth period."
"If she is not in a coma, there is no reason why she should not be here!" Sykes said, outraged.
Up in the rafters, Nick turned to his twin and muttered just loud enough for everyone to hear. "Do you think his mood has something to do with the pin on his chair?" All the boys laughed, including Charlie.
"You put a pin in his chair?" He asked in disbelief.
"What can I say," Nathan said. "We're suckers for the classics."
Sykes's luck didn't get any better, and rehursals were disasterous all day. Charlie snuck out of the auditorium to get back to his car, and waited there for the others to come out. Waiting was Rob, in his car, to take the twins up to their grandmother's for the weekend. Somehow, on the way home, for once, Steve was not mentioned. Even after Charlie had dropped Damon and Michael back at home, Holly and Alex remained chirpy and cheerful, chatting eagerly amongst themselves and to their father.
When they got back to the house they managed to stop their playful disagreement long enough to call out to say hello to Stella, before Alex shrugged and turned to his sister. "Settle it over a game of chess?" He asked.
"Cards." Holly said defiantly. Charlie smirked as he hung up his jacket, as well as the school bags that had just been discarded carelessly beside the door - that was his kids, the card sharks.
"Fine then,"Alex said, "Blackjack." His personal favourite - short, sweet, and good for winning money off a drunken Handsome Rob.
"No, Rummy." Holly corrected him. Her personal favourite - slightly longer, more strategic, and good for winning money against a sover Handsome Rob.
"Blackjack."
"Rummy."
"Blackjack."
"Rummy."
"Dad!" They both said in unison.
Charlie looked through his pockets, finding a coin, as he always did.
"Heads." Alex said quickly, getting in quickly before Holly could. Usually, Holly said heads first and Alex always lost on tails. However when the coin flipped, and Charlie caught it -
"Tails." Charlie announced. "Holly wins."
So the pair disappeared off to play Rummy, and Charlie did what he did every day, and went on a search to find his wife somewhere in the house. She wasn't in the kitchen, nor was she in the garden, nor the living room. Eventually, Charlie found her upstairs in their bedroom, just lying on the bed. Her eyes weren't closed, but she had one of the pillows hugged between her stomach and her legs as she curled into a ball.
"Stella?" He asked as he came into the room, sitting beside her. "You ok?"
"She called." Was all her reply came as.
"Who called?" Charlie asked. She didn't answer at first, and he pulled some fallen hair away from her face. "Sweetheart?"
"My-my Mother."
Charlie saw the look of hatred in her eyes as she said the word 'mother', and no one could mistake the way she said it as if the word were poisonous to her.
"What does she want?" Charlie asked, putting on a tone of his own. "She's done enough to you, Stella, surely?"
"She's had a heart attack." Stella said. "She says she wants to see her grandchildren and make up for lost time with her daughter." She said it with a laugh as if she idea was absurd. "She has no daughter."
"You mean, after what she did to Alex, to us, she wants to do it all again." Charlie asked.
"Yeah."
Charlie remembered vividly one particular day when Alex was in hospital from his burns, which had been caused by Stella's mother, Justine, leaving a boiling hot bath unattended whilst she was asleep and Alex had fallen into it. Once in hospital, Stella had only been allowed one day at her son's side before Justine called the social services and told them that Stella had put him in the bath. Even though it was gruelling weeks that Alex stayed in the care of the hospital, there was one day that stuck with him more than the rest.
Stella was standing outside the hospital room, her forehead leaning against the large window that was the only means she could see her son. Charlie approached her, seeing the tears gleaming on her cheeks as she stared helplessly. Alex had bandages over most of his body, all except his head, the only part of him not scalded, and they were uncomfortable, strange to him. At the moment he was asleep from the painkillers that the doctors had given him that morning, but they knew that he would be waking up before the evening was through. Charlie handed Stella a plastic cup containing the coffee that she needed. If she wasn't sleeping, she needed something to keep her awake.
"I can't stand this anymore, Charlie." She said to him. "I want to be in there with him. I want to be with my little boy." It had been three days now, that Stella had not been allowed to enter the room unaccompanied by professionals from the social services.
Charlie took both of their coffee's and set them down on the table behind them ontop of some magazines. He took her in his arms. "Don't worry, someone will come forward and tell them that we were out that night. Once they realise that you weren't there, you can go to him."
"How can they think I'd hurt him?" She asked, though Charlie had no answer. "I'm not my mother! I would never hurt Alex! Never!"
Stella pulled away from Charlie as Alex began to scream, his signal for having woken up and felt pain again. She watched her son, as he flailed his arms around and waited for someone to comfort him. "Mommy." He cried, and Stella pressed her forehead back against the cool glass.
"Go to him, Charlie." She said desperately.
Charlie said nothing, not sure what to say, and went into the room where his son was screaming. He leaned over him, so that if Alex opened his eyes, he could see him clearly. He put on hand on the side of his face comfortingly to let him know he was there. "Alex," Charlie cooed.
Alex opened his eyes and saw his father. He reached out his arms, "Daddy."
Tentatively, Charlie picked up his son, making sure that he didn't press onto any of the heavily burnt areas as the doctors had instructed him. "Thats right, Alex, Daddy's here."
"Daddy's here." He repeated, clinging to his father. "Mommy here?"
Charlie looked over to Stella, who had turned her back to the glass, and he could see from the way her hands were raised to her face that she was crying. "Mommy will be here soon." Charlie said helplessly.
"Want Mommy." Alex told him.
"I know, Alex."
"She called me at work, said that she knew I'd still be at Dad's shop. She said she was sorry." Stella told him.
"Do you believe her?" Charlie asked.
Stella didn't respond for a while, and when she did, it was undecided. "There's only one way to find out." She said.
Charlie had to shake himself momentarily. Had those words really come from Stella's mouth? Had she really just suggested going to see her mother? And taking the kids? "Stella..." He began. "Are you sure you've thought about this properly? I mean, what she did to you...to Alex?"
"I know, Charlie. They're no safer here. At least there we can be sure that we can watch them all the time. As long as she's around me her attention won't be focused on Alex and Holly." She said. Clearly, to Charlie's disappointment, she had thought this through, and he had never been more reluctant to admit she was right. Justine wasn't strategic enough to take her anger out on more than one person at a time.
"Who knows," Charlie started, only to encourage Stella that she had made a good choice, "maybe she really has turned over a new leaf. Maybe the heart attack was what she needed." Charlie knew that saying a heart attack was exactly what some people needed wasn't a very grown up thing to say, but in the case of Stella's mother, it was sadly true. It did take extremes to get through to her - usually this consisted of an angry argument, having ornaments chucked at you, and walking out of her life for years on end.
"If she has, then maybe when I tell her what a rotten mother she's been, she'll listen for once."
"I say we give the kids full permission to wind her up and be annoying." Charlie suggested lightly, not meaning it, but knowing it could be entertaining to see that awful woman wound up by his kids.
"Sounds good to me." Stella said with a laugh, and Charlie laughed along with her, never having imagined that she might agree to that. "Alex has some revenge to get, after all."
"We can't go anywhere until Holly's play's done." Charlie reminded her. "She won't want to miss that." Stella sighed a little - even at the cost of seeing her mother she was exstatic about leaving Steve behind. "Don't worry - the rehursals are going ahead of schedule apparently, the date's moved forward again."
"Again?" Stella asked.
"It's now October 12th, three weeks away." Charlie told her. "Steve's gonna be there." He told her.
Stella merely nodded. "We'll be ready for him." She said confidently.