A reprieve (sort of)

Monday 2 February 2009

I was supposed to have had play practice tonight, following the schedule made up since the New Year began, but our director, Rick, called out sick and we are off tonight. This is odd because this is the most vital time, known as 'tech week', in which we run the play each night, with no interruptions, and everyone must be completely off book. I made an error once last week but other than that have been off book for the last five or six practises. Shakespeare is more than drama-- it is poetry, and the words all make sense if you have got them right, both semantically and rhythmically. I enjoy playing a comedic character because she rarely speaks in iambic pentameter like Olivia and Orsino do, but there is still a metre to all the lines though having done 'Tempest' and 'Shrew' at HOH I may just have a knack for Shakespeare.

Tonight is also a reprieve as it is the end of a very pleasant, clear, warm day... and you probably know what that means. Jessy was naked before I was. I wandered down stairs, actually hoping to not run into Daddy as I did not want to have to explain myself being naked in the house in February, and spied her skipping across the dormant garden out back. Well I could let her explain that then! --Daddy was probably up stairs in his computer room at the moment! I cautiously opened the glass door at the back of the small parlour, but I already knew it was actually over 60 degrees outside. What could be the harm?

'Hey, you,' I called carefully, assuming Daddy would hear.

She turned, surprised to hear someone calling her, and then waved gaily at me. 'Hey! Come on out!'

'You are nuts,' I said.

'I'm freeeeee!' She threw both arms in the air and cast herself off across the paving blocks, flitting through the air like a pixie. I laughed out loud. 'Janine's scared!' she teased. 'Janine's a biiiiig baby!'

'As if,' I said, and then turning round to see that I was not seen I stepped out of my shoes and slipped outside.

The air was crisp and clean, bathed in the salt spray and the bright sunlight. I tiptoed quickly to the side steps and ducked out the garden gate the way Jessy had just gone. Out on the lawn where we like most to sun ourselves, the garden wall blocked the light yet stiff breeze and left us alone in the afternoon sunlight. Jessy skipped on ahead of me, flinging herself by one arm round a tree and then scurrying off towards the front of the house where there was more clear sun.

We have a 7-foot block wall round the property and it goes across in front of the house about 75 yards away. Between that and the house is what we call the front lawn, but it is divided in two by the entrance drive with a row of fruit trees to either side, just like the one at our old house in Delaware. Where the wall meets the drive there is a pretty panelled wooden gate. It's usually left open, like the one at Lewes, and of course we two teenaged girls with not a stitch on really shouldn't go traipsing past it in broad daylight. However Jessy, in her nearly-mindless abandon, galloped out past the fruit trees and performed a carefree pirouette right in the middle of the driveway.

At once we both heard the sound of a car entering the lane from the road. 'Eek!' squealed Jessy, and she ran off the driveway, straight for me.

'It's probably Mother,' I said sensibly. I wasn't that worried about it.

'Eek! Hide!'

I laughed and turned to follow her, but, sure enough, it was Mother coming in the open gate. We both dashed off and hid behind a tree as she passed, but from where she stopped the car and began to unload Lisa and J.J., they would have a clear view of this corner of the yard,and so we were trapped till they went in. In the shade it was none too warm and we were both shivering by the time the front doors had closed.

'You twit,' I said, slapping her bare shoulder and shoving her ahead of me into the sunlight. 'Serves you right.'

She giggled like an imbecile. 'And you? You're stuck here with me!'

'Only till I go back in,' I said wryly at her.

Suddenly she bolted off again, running full-tilt for the side yard again, her lithe, lean body extended elegantly in the long beautiful strides of a first-class sprinter. She really is a pixie after all.

Our only way back into the house was through the French windows at the back of the little parlour and fortunately Mother had not noticed them unlocked or she could have locked us out. In the house we made our way through the big parlour and ascended to the bedroom gallery. Little Lisa, hearing us, came out and caught us. 'Were you guys outside?' she asked in a mocking scolding tone, even setting her hands on her hips at us.

Jessy only giggled and went into the sanctuary of her room. I made a face and then bent down to kiss Lisa's head. 'We were,' I told her, 'but it's gone cold and we had best stay inside now.'

'Do you want to see my family board from school?' she asked, and then towed me into her room to show me her project which depicted her whole immediate family and on which she had got full marks... and of course she made no issue of the fact that I had nothing on but my high-heeled slippers.

I'm still naked-- only wrapt-up in my favourite blanket now-- and have promised myself to sleep like this. Surely it can't get THAT cold too fast.

...