“Who designed your sets?” Mr. Noble asked as they started to program in the choreography of Peter’s secretive arrival at the Darling Nursery.
“Louise did.” Mr. Howe’s focus was wholly on Jillian as she cartwheeled through the air, fifteen feet up. “In fifth grade, we turn everything over to the kids. Louise designed them and the class built them.”
“Really? Wow.” Mr. Noble gave a tip of a hat to Louise while keeping his eye on Jillian. “Your set is amazing for flying. Most productions forget about the three-dimensional aspects of the play and just do one level. And I really like the New York skyline twist. Never saw that before.”
Louise blushed. She’d considered possible flight movements when she designed the set but it had been only a few minutes of thought, now lost in a flood of all the other considerations such as visual impact, ease to construct, cost, movability and convertibility. The little loft area of Wendy’s bed was actually the flipside of the Jolly Roger’s poop deck, the ship’s railing hidden behind the princess bed. The two sets of steps joined together to make the Jolly Roger’s grand staircase. The long elevated landing between the steps turned to become the gun ports. She’d actually been feeling guilty that she’d designed something fairly plain considering some of the work she’d done on sets for their videos. Then again, those sets had been virtual and didn’t need to be moved down twelve stories when done.
* * *
Because the four actors were taking turns getting individual instructions, they didn’t take a break until the third period bell.
“It’s been three hours!” Jillian cried after Louise updated her on the series of failures. “Who the hell is she talking to?”
“Earth.”
“All of Earth?” Jillian flailed slightly on the stage floor, too tired to do more of a display of frustration.
“Everyone she knows only has one day a month to call her.”
“We’re running out of time. We only have until midnight and it’s almost eleven already. Half the day is gone.”
“We’ll just keep calling until we get through,” Louise said.
“Peter!” Mr. Noble called.
“Coming!” Jillian leapt up and bound lightly onto stage as if she wasn’t tired and struck a pose. “What need do you have of the great Peter Pan?”
Louise was still wondering why Jillian thought she was the brave one. She didn’t feel brave. Her heart jumped in her chest every time she hit redial. The only thing she’d done all morning was listening to busy signals. Jillian seemed fearless, leaping into the air, doing flips and cartwheels, sparring verbally with Mr. Noble while trading lines with Elle.
Did Jillian really think she was the one that led the way? Louise always thought of Jillian was the one that led. It was because Jillian wanted to be a movie director that they did the videos.
Distracted, she wasn’t prepared for the phone to actually ring and then be answered before it rang a second time.
“Dr. Shenske’s residence, can I help you?” A man’s voice snapped over the speaker. “Hello? Anyone there? Oh, freaking hell, stupid phones!”
“Hello? I’m here!” Louise cried before he could hang up. She dropped her voice to a lower, more adult pitch. She should have brought Tesla to act as a filter. “I—I need to talk to Lain Shenske.”
“Dr. Shenske is busy at the moment. She’s supervising loading the van with botanical specimens. There was a big twenty-car pileup on I-279, so the van is way behind schedule. It will be at least two hours until she can come to the phone. I’m fielding all calls from Earth.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Richard Hill. I’m a post-doc from Cornell; I’m doing research for Dr. Karen Purcell. I’m helping out now but I’m going have to fly shortly if I want to get back to Earth today. Startup waits for no man.”
“I really need to talk to her. This is an emergency. Life and death.”
“Oh, geez, you interns are all the same. You’re the third to call this morning. Suck it up and learn how to deal with standard procedures. There’s no cutting corners in field research paperwork.” And he hung up on her.
Louise stared at the phone, dismayed. Should she call back? Try to explain before he hung up on her again? No, the man would hang up as soon as he recognized her voice. She should hook Tesla into the loop and use his filters to disguise her voice. Actually, she could get Tesla to do the calling and have him loop her into the conversation only if he actually got through to a human.
* * *
So the day went. The telephone number was busy every time Louise tried, except for one time when the connection went through and she heard someone shouting in the distance. “Watch! Watch! Don’t yank out the leads or the spell will collapse!” the woman cried and then they were disconnected.