Sorry this one took so long. Writers block, other fanficsand general fear of research happen. But here's the next chapter. Please review.
Erik decided to see where food was (just in case he might need to know it in the future, though he was not hungry now), so he followed the instrument players, finally hiding behind a drape across the hall from the room they entered. They left the door open as they stored their instruments in small boxes. Many of them then walked down the hall and left the Opera House. A few, however, walked away from the exit. Erik decided to follow these.
They found their way to a room with a big table where the ballerinas were already sitting and eating. Marguerite was there too, but there were too many people around to let her know he was there. It was difficult, but eventually he made his way from one end of the room to the other unseen, by means of the drapes that thickly covered every wall in the Opera House, and through a door that smelled of food and warmth.
Inside he found a bustle of big, cylindrical, metal boxes and thin, wooden utensils. But he was searching for something else. After sneaking behind a large container to remain unseen in the roomful of people, he found what he had sought: food. As he was not hungry now, he grabbed a piece of bread big enough to last him until the end of the following week and snuck back out of the kitchen to watch the people eat from behind the drapes.
Once there, he listened to the ballerinas talking at one end of the table and to the orchestra at the other, adding new words to his vocabulary if he was able to decipher their meanings or to a list he would ask Marguerite when he saw her again. One thing he confirmed was that Marguerite seemed more quiet and polite than the other ballerinas – indeed, there were many there whom he recognized had laughed at him only two nights before – and once again, he thought of those two horrible men and their admiration of her and felt a fierce desire to keep them away from her.
Then, too soon in Erik's opinion, both groups were standing up and walking out the door, the ballerinas tittering about lessons. Erik followed them back to the theater and slunk back to his perch in the planking up above as the dozen or so little ballerinas wandered, still chattering and all wearing the same clothing, onto the stage.
The two men were still out in the middle of the planking. Both elbowed each other and stared down at the girls. Erik felt he had seen starved dogs with nicer expressions. "I got us a bottle for tonight," Old Gautier was saying.
"Mmm," said Richard, staring without blinking at Marguerite. "Something civilized, I hope." He turned to the older man. "Nothing like the rat-piss that upstart Buquet brought us last time."
"Ha!" the old man laughed. "Never! Ba! That was rat-piss, wasn't it?"
"Buquet has slippery fingers and a worser mind," Richard said. Then he turned to the old man. "You have work to be doing up here, old man!"
"Silence boy! I'm twice the stagehand you'll ever be and I gave you the job what puts food in your ungrateful belly."
Richard laughed. "You needed somebody willing to keep you on when you got too drunk to remember your cues. Now let's get our good luck block-and-fall an' get that set off the stage so we won't have to let Gerard boss us 'round no more."
Now it was Gautier turn to laugh. "Anything you order, young Napoleon."
"That's Messeur Giry to you, Gautier – ."
"The day I call you Messeur…"
"Shut that hole in your face and get your drunken ass over here."
Gautier rolled his eyes, gesturing obscenely at the dancers below, who couldn't see him, though Erik could and understood the gesture. "Yes Messeur Giry." Erik, from his hiding place, had never felt hatred burning so bright.
