Romeo & Juliet • ASOUE Prequel

five • late to the party

"They laughed!" Olaf shrieks, outraged. "I poured my heart and soul into that script and they laughed! Can any of you believe this?!"

Sitting in Kit's dormitory with all of V.F.D, he's draped himself across her small couch grumpily. Kit herself is sitting on her bed, half-asleep. Jacques is pacing the room along with Beatrice. Lemony, still in shock from the whole detention thing that took place the previous night, is stood very still in the middle of the room. Everyone else is sitting on the floor, not really paying attention to the conversation.

"Well, you have just repeated what happened to you in that classroom thirty-seven times, so yes, Olaf, I think we believe you."

"Oh, shut up, Harry."

"It's Larry."

"That's what I said."

"I don't understand," Bertie begins with his posh, matter-of-fact British voice. "You haven't actually told us why they laughed."

"I don't know!" he yells.

Everyone turns to look at him silently. He gulps nervously and clears his throat. Nobody says or does anything, and they all continue looking in his direction. They know that no one would laugh at Olaf unprompted. He'd always do something accidentally hilarious that would cause the laughter. Olaf shrugs his shoulders, and his next words come out small and regretful.

"Well, I suppose that... I... I may have composed a seven-minute rap with no instrumental on the spot about why they should let me play Romeo." He frowns. "But why on earth would they laugh at that?"

Beatrice pinches the bridge of her nose.

"... Oh no," Olaf whispers. "It was my voice, wasn't it?"

"I thought you thought you could sing?" she asks.

"What? No, I can sing. That's not what I'm... what are you insinuating, exactly?"

"Nothing, nothing, I was just-"

"Listen!" Jerome interrupts, doing all he can to avoid a forthcoming argument. He turns to Olaf. "There's still a chance that you could do this, there's still a chance that you could get this role. There's no point in sulking or arguing about it. I don't want to hear it, okay?"

"What's got you in such a tizzy?" Olaf asks him.

"The results for the side character auditions have come out."

"And?"

He mumbles something.

"Huh?"

"I, um..." he pauses, and makes a pained expression. "They narrowed it down to you and Tommy for Romeo. So I said I wanted to be Montague, Romeo's father, if I couldn't be Romeo himself. But..."

Beatrice puts a hand on Jerome's shoulder.

"... I'm playing the Nurse."

Olaf struggles to hide a smirk as he remembers the scripts he was given. "The Nurse? You mean the woman who cracks jokes the whole time and doesn't think Romeo is good enough for Juliet?"

Jerome nods, and when Olaf looks him in the eye he sees that he's actually tearing up.

He raises an eyebrow. "Come on, at least she's comic relief. And, also, Kit told me that Jacques told her that Monty told him that Jacquelyn told him that you told her that you don't care if you play a female role or not!"

"But I don't want to play a comic relief character! I wanted to be a villain!"

"Guys," Kit says, but no one's listening.

"You're the least villain-like person I've ever met!" he shouts in amusement. He glances at Monty, who's lying on his stomach on the carpet and gazing intently at his two tiny catepillars wandering around and doing nothing in particular. "Well, you're one of them, anyway."

"That's not the point!" Jerome shouts back. "I wanted to act! That's what this play is all about! I could pretend I'm a bad guy, Jacquelyn could pretend to be an overprotective mother, you could pretend you're a dashing young romantic-"

"Hey!"

"- and Lemony and Beatrice could pretend they're a horse!"

"Wait..." Olaf looks to Lemony. "You're actually playing the horse with Beatrice?"

"Guys," Kit says, louder this time.

"Yeah, of course," Lemony replies to Olaf.

"I thought you were joking about that."

"Why would I joke about playing the back end of a horse?"

He shrugs. "Anyway, they're announcing who Romeo is today. But I might as well just give up because they're never going to pick me, and it's all your fault!" He points at Larry and clenches his fists.

"What have I done?"

"I don't know, okay? I don't know!"

"Guys!" Kit yells, which shuts everyone up immediately. At the sound of the arguing, she sat up straight and started to look out of the window. After she shouts at them all, she carries on staring outside, a look of confusion on her face.

"What is it?" Olaf asks, walking over to the window himself and looking outside at the Graveyard below.

He immediately sees what she's looking at.

Rather than being in the cafeteria for lunch, all the students – all the male students – are sitting on the bleachers at the end of the yard. A teacher standing in the middle of them all is talking to them. Olaf looks closer.

It's the drama teacher – Mrs Hawk.

"Finally!" he shouts, making everyone jump. They all walk over to the window and crowd around it, stumbling over each other's feet, squishing together and standing on top of each other, wondering what all the fuss is about.

"Ooh, I think they're telling everyone who Romeo is," Larry says.

"You don't say?" Jacques replies sarcastically.

Olaf pushes away from everybody and heads out the door at the speed of light, and only those involved in the play – Lemony, Kit, Jerome, Beatrice and Jacquelyn – bother to follow.

He raced down the many flights of stairs, out into the Graveyard and all the way to the bleachers, not even bothering to tie his shoelaces when they come undone in the midst of his speed. He ran even faster than he did to the audition, yet he was still too late when he arrived.

Everyone was filing away from the benches, all who auditioned looking bitterly disappointed, and Mrs Hawk was nowhere to be seen. Olaf looked desparately among the crowd, but couldn't see her anywhere.

Just as he considers approaching a boy at random and asking who got the part, somebody catches his eye.

"I did it!" one of the boys shout as he runs towards the group, punching the air.

"Who's that?" Olaf asks.

"Tommy," Beatrice replies.

"Oh," he says gravely.

He holds his arm out as Tommy hurries past, stopping him from carrying on away from them.

"Wait, wait," Olaf orders. "Did what?"

"Huh? Oh, wait, you're one of the new kids, right? Hi, I'm Tommy."

"Don't change the subject," he snaps. "What did you do?"

"I got the part!"

"Romeo?"

"Romeo!" he repeats triumphantly, and with that he skips away, practically dancing over to his next lesson.

"Well, he is perfect for the role, don't you think?" Jerome asks cheerily to the others.

"No, I don't think," Olaf mutters, folding his arms.

"Well, now he'd literally have to die in order for you to take it from him!" he continues with a laugh, slapping his arm playfully.

Olaf looks off into the distance, his eyes sparkling with a sudden thought. "Yes, I suppose he would."