“Well, it’s following a biological imperative that a female devotes all her attention to the children that carry her DNA as opposed to the DNA of another female.”
“Oh, shut up monkey girl, we are not cuckoo birds, tossing eggs out of nests and getting someone else to raise our chicks. We’re humans!”
“Okay, Wilbur. What are we going to do about Elle and these damn mermaid zombies chicks?”
Jillian giggled. “Oh, it would be worth it if I could rewrite it to zombies.” She grinned. “The boys would love it if it was a zombie play.”
“They’re never going to let us do a major rewrite of a play again.”
Jillian nodded, thinking. “Too bad there are more girls than boys. That way, if we found a play that the boys liked, they could just outvote the girls. Something cool. Like Macbeth.”
“Like Macbeth but in plain English.”
“It should have sword fights,” Jillian said firmly.
“Robots. Dinosaurs.”
“Elves.”
“At least try to think like a boy,” Louise said.
“It has to be a real play, not something we write, that boys will like.”
“Do you think they made Lord of the Flies into a play?”
“It’s all boys. There has to be at least one or two girl parts, just so we can sway the girls that don’t fall under Elle’s spell. If we can get a couple of the girls on our side, it would work.”
They thought for a moment. Louise found herself eyeing Tesla sitting statuelike inside their locker. Their mother had thought he looked liked Nana, the Darling’s Saint Bernard nanny.
“What about Peter Pan? Pirates. Sword fights. Indians.”
“Native Americans,” Jillian muttered, frowning as she thought through the casting. “Elle would want to be Wendy. That would leave Mrs. Darling or Tinkerbell for me.”
“You’d be Peter. He’s usually played by a girl.”
Jillian’s face light up. “Oh god, that’s perfect. Elle wouldn’t want to be a boy, and I would have lead!”
* * *
They had Library as their first period class, so they spent the hour digging through what had been produced for Peter Pan.
“God, I’m starting to understand why Mom only let us read the novel. What the hell happened? You take the most manly of boys—he runs around naked except leaves and fights pirates—and you turn his story into this.” Jillian turned her tablet to show off the big-busted blonde Tinker Bell. “In the novel, Tinker Bell dies a year after Wendy goes back to London and Peter forgets all about her.”
Louise had forgotten that twist. “Ignore her. She’s poison to the boys having any interest in Peter Pan.”
Jillian nodded. “We stick to the original play and focus on Hook and the pirates and the ticking crocodile.”
“But what format are we going to use for the pitch? Boys don’t like to read. And most of the movies are girly.”
Jillian flopped back from her tablet. “How about a music video? All things that are cool, with Peter Pan with this ‘I’m a tough guy, don’t mess with me’ fight song with a heavy bass beat.”
“Let the bodies hit the floor. Let the bodies hit the floor.” Louise sung the first song that same to mind.
“Exactly.” Jillian opened up a file on her tablet and started to take notes. “Or at least something like that.”
“So the Lost Boys, the tree houses, the island, the pirates, sword fights…”
“Yes, a swordfight on the pirate ship!” Jillian called up her storyboard app. “Start with Peter and the Lost Boys at the tree houses, run to the beach, look at the uber cool pirate ship in the moonlight. Then the Lost Boys board the ship and there’s a big swordfight.”
“In two weeks?”
“We can—could crank out a full episode of The Adventures of Queen Soulful Ember in a month and those had a lot more to storyboard, full original animation, dialogue to dub, sound effects and music score.”
“We blew up our studio with all our sets and all our models.”
“We’ll work around that. I can act in front of a green screen for Peter’s part. We can base Hook off of—hm.” Jillian considered the boys in their classroom with narrowed eyes. The plays were a combined effort of both classes of their grade. With the exception of “the Prince,” the boys usually had minor roles like dwarves and mice. Reed normally played the Prince for the same reason Elle got to be the Princess. He was tall, blonde and handsome. Unfortunately, he was clumsy and as much a social wallflower as the twins.
If they needed all the boys, though, they should win over the boys’ leader.