THE FIRST READ

WEDNESDAY, 10 FEBRUARY, AFTERNOON

It turned out that Mr Devon was not the only one who was surprised by the script. We were all surprised.

One must appreciate how Madam Silvia had only edited the script with a delicate hand. She had to give all the credit to Jasmine who had written such raw and potent characters.

It was true. Madam Silvia barely changed any of the dialogue, she only inserted stage directions and sound effects.

In effect though, now Bulliet, wasn't just a bully. She was a victim of bulimia. All Madam Silvia did was inserted the sound of "Teen girl gagging and hurling" in the scene just before Bulliet steps out of the washroom cubicle and talked privately to Nerd in the girl's washroom.

If you liked what she did to Bulliet, wait till you get a load of the new and deeply troubled Horneo who had a particular addiction.

This was done rather cleverly. At any moment Horneo was alone, his stage direction was to take out his phone to watch videos while the sound effect instruction would be "Sound of pornography playing."

Our kissing scene was also upped by having us step behind the curtains just before kissing and playing sound effects and darkening the stage. And a couple of action scenes turned from the happy Kung Fu ones I imagined to something far more violent in the same way. Just with the insertion of lights flashing and police sirens... There was police involvement in the last fight too.

Oh the magic of theatre!

Our gag skit had turned into a rather disturbing story about bullying, eating disorders, sexual addiction, drugs, and gang violence. Verona High became a very scary public school.

Suddenly, my stint here at Winderhill, vamps and all, seemed quite mild.

"We should change your name to Porneo." I told Harvey during the break.

He growled, "Shut up, Sam."

Marcus overheard and suffered a fit of coughing. But naturally, neither of us repeated the suggestion to anyone else.

It was fun to poke and Henry privately, yes. But even I knew it would be going too far to publicly saddle him with the nickname Porneo. Hahahaha. Privately, it was funny though.

After the short break, Madam Silvia wanted to play a game to help us really dig into our characters. Actually, this part was pretty fun. We had to line up in two rows, one on each side of the stage. The first person of each side would draw a random strip of paper and read the line on it. Then on "action" both actors will walk to meet each other in the middle of the stage and act out that line in character.

Henry and I ended up having to go first. Because we were the alpha and somehow instinctively just stood in front of our rows.

I drew my line and looked. It read, "Elementary, my dear Watson!"

This totally threw me off. I had to remind myself that I was Cynthia. I was Cynthia. I was Cynthia.

"Action!" Ki called.

Oh boy. I strutted out to the middle of the stage. The audience catcalled, again completely throwing me off. I felt the blood rush to my face. Here's hoping Cynthia didn't look as red in the face as I was feeling!

Henry spoke first, smirking, he threw me a flirtatious wink, "I'm the king of the world."

Our audience laughed a little.

"Oh!" I let myself gasp in admiration. I smiled and leaned closer towards him. Tugging at his tie, I exerted my best feminine charm, "Elementary, my dear Watson!"

"Whoooo..." Said the audience. I mean, they were the audience, but for some reason, they suddenly became part of the game.

Henry pulled away, "Watson? Who the hell is Watson?"

I slapped my hand over my mouth, and gasped with wide eyed alarm, "I meant Horneo! Really I did!"

Our audience laughed and clapped.

The game went on with different cast members facing off each other. Some of them were funnier than others.

My favourite was when the Nerd (Nurse) character met Merc (Mercutio) and said, "Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads."

And Merc, played by Marcus, barely able to hold it in, blurted out terminator style, "I'll be back."

Bwahahaha.

Most of us didn't quite follow our character after a while. It was confusing when we were saying famous movie lines.

The other really funny one was between me and Henry again. As usual, he spoke first, "My mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."

To which I replied, "That'll do, pig. That'll do."

I mean...hahahaha.

We were totally wasted by the laughter. Someone in the audience laughed till he fell off the chair.

Madam Silvia was dismayed at our lack of professionalism, but she had a hard time keeping a straight face to tell us.

We ended the exercise early, and when everyone regained their composure, Madam Silvia critique our performance. In a nutshell, she wanted to remind us that we were theaspians, not clowns, and that we had to take our roles seriously. She hoped this exercise helped us understand the importance of being able to grasp and wear our characters, "Just as one puts on the costume and makeup, one must also put on the character."

I did learn one thing though, one precious and fabulous truth - I loved to make everyone laugh. The feeling of being able to make everyone laugh till their belly ached. The feeling of watching their faces scrunch up, and hearing the sounds of laughter fill the black box. I really loved it.

I know I wasn't a naturally funny person, I had three hyenas who would constantly remind me with their sacarstic laughter that I wasn't funny. I don't think Alphas were supposed to be funny either. If other alphas say you were the joke of the century, it wasn't in any way a compliment.

But today, empowered by the magic of theatre, I've accidentally discovered the joy of making an audience laugh. And I left wanting to do it all over again.

I know, I know, I said I was modelling Bulliet after Cynthia, but I decided to rethink my character a little more. I kept wondering, could Bulliet make the audience laugh? If I had played her like the caricature of two-faced Cynthia that I had originally planned, maybe. But now she suffered from bulimia, and that seemed kind of difficult. Why wasn't she happy with herself? I wondered about making Bulliet funny but also sad. Like you're laughing at her, but your heart is breaking for her at the same time.

So not my caricature of Cynthia. I needed to find a new muse!

Wow, I must have been absorbing more of this theatre exposure than I realized.

We ended the first reading on a pretty high note. At least, most of us were still high from laughing too much. Ki told us to continue working on our characters and start memorising the lines. We'd be running through key scenes of the script with a bit of stage directions and props next week.

After that Harvey came to pick me up because Ki had to take Madam Silvia out for dinner. As Harvey drove out of the school we passed the visitors' parking lots and I thought I saw Madam Silvia slide her hand down Ki's back to rest on his bum. Ki turned around and smiled at her.

Omo.

It surprised me a little, because I thought she was his highschool teacher, but what really troubled me was the smile he wore. It was his gentle smile. The one he reserved to mask his unspoken displeasure.

"Did you see that?" I asked my good Beta.

"See what, princess?" Harvey asked as he signaled to right turn outside the school gate.

"Ki and Madam Silvia... just now at the carpark..." I pointed at my window but we had already left the school and were now navigating into the heavy traffic.

"Oh." Harvey said, "No, sorry. I was driving."

Oh. Well, yeah. I guess it only made sense that he would be looking straight ahead.

"Is anything the matter, princess?" Harvey asked.

I shook my head and decided, "Uhn, no."

But I was worried about Ki. Maybe I imagined it. Or it could've been a parallax error. Maybe I was being too sensitive.

Harvey cast me a quick glance.

I shook my head and laughed it off, "It's nothing."

Ki was a grown man. He said so himself. It was silly of me to be worried.

The traffic all the way home was bad. The weather didn't look great either. It had started snowing when we had stepped out of the school, and the snow hadn't let up since. Harvey had started the windshield wipers. I watched the snow fall like icing sugar and cover everything with a dusting of white.

And the the traffic slowed to a crawl while the wind started to pick up. The pedestrians we passed had it really bad. They walked as quickly as they could, hunched and hooded. Some of them put up umbrellas but the wind toyed with them mercilessly.

When our car stopped for the second time, still behind the same traffic light, Harvey pressed his lips together, "Looks like we are in for a storm tonight."

Which was not on the cards because we had been enjoying a pretty mild winter this year. And it was already February, so it was supposed to get warmer from here on out, not colder.

He turned on the radio for the weather forecast. We had to wait a song or two. I listened to the DJ tell us how the weather had surprised us once again. He promised a weather update straight after this song, and dedicated it to our good friends at the weather station.

The song he dedicated began with drums and sounds of clapping, then a very angry guitar that raged through the long intro. I didn't catch most of the lyrics. It was something something something and then "LIAR!"

Hahahaha.

I noticed how Harvey relaxed when the music started playing. He even tapped his thumbs in beat on the steering wheel. I don't think he was conscious of it.

I relaxed too. Thanks to sharing a room with Savy for so many years, hearing loud angsty guitars and drums with attitude just felt like home.

When the song was over, the DJ read the weather forecast to us:

"If you live along the Northern Plains, you're used to changing weather conditions. But don't get used to the latest warmth, you will need your shovels again this weekend. A major snowstorm will impact the Green and Grey Lands all the way to West Mountains with a huge 3-6 feet amount of snow from Wednesday through Friday. Roads may be impassable. Further south, severe thunderstorms are expected across the White Lands and parts of the Red Lands. Yes, it's Warlock Weather again and Snow Emergency Closures are expected throughout the continent. Please check your local council websites for the latest updates."

We finally hit Gate City. By now, it was really dark even though it wasn't even dinner time yet, and the white snow was like swirling everywhere. It looked like most of the pedestrians had disappeared, but the line of cars heading into the Green Packlands was major. No one wanted to be stuck out away from their family if there was a snow in or road closure.

If that should happen, we could shift into our wolf forms and run home, but the parking in Gate City over the next two days would cost a small fortune. At least that's what I was told.

Our Alpha cars didn't pay parking in the Green Packlands. Not even in Gate City though... But I didn't want to be stranded out here either.

Tim's Dad once left his car overnight in Gate City. He said if he did it again, he would have to mortgage his home to pay for it. He was exaggerating of course.

Dean said his Dad had done it before too. It was less than a hundred dollars. I forgot how much, because after I heard about it being a small fortune and enough to make you mortgage your home, I was expecting a much larger number.

"You can buy a lot of things with that." Dean had informed me huffily when I didn't look particularly impressed or shocked by the amount.

Beta Lucas was far less empathetic when the complaints got to him, "If they can afford the car, they can afford the parking."

But Night Leaf Wolves really hated to pay for parking. I think it was because we didn't have to within Night Leaf. So even having to pay a dollar or two to put your car somewhere while you shop felt like daylight robbery.

We didn't tip in Night Leaf either. Customarily, we paid whatever the bill was, or whatever was agreed beforehand. We were straightforward like that. The Lorents tipped though. They would tip even when the service charge was included in the bill.

More recently, there had been a new trend in Gate City. As Night Leaf wolves got more affluent, the Gate City's business community have become quite willing to adapt to our barbaric idiocrincities.

Free 3 hour parking at certain malls for spends more than $100. Shannon's Mum always parked at one of these when she drives us out to Gate City. If you could squeeze 10 hungry teens into your minivan, they'd spend $100 at mcdonalds alone.

Flynn and Hank had fitness club memberships even though they had almost never used the gym in Gate City. The gym at our packhouse was better, and nearer, and free.

"Then why did you buy the membership?"

"Free parking up to 30 hours a month." Flynn grinned at me.

"How much did you guys pay for the membership?" I asked, effectively wiping off his grin.

And it goes without saying that our wolves would prefer to celebrate birthdays at a restaurant that we didn't have to tip at, even though they charged a 15% service fee in the bill.

It's not about the money. Beta Lucas had explained. It was the principle.

I'm not sure what principle we were talking about. Maybe the principle of not tipping or paying for your parking.

Back to the road, we were in the queue to enter the road home. We weren't that late either, it's just that the coming snow storm closed most of the shops and businesses early today. The queue of cars was so bad, we couldn't even get close enough to the VIP lane for them to open it for us.

And the snow, hahaha. It was bad. Like we were about to all be snowed in on the road kind of bad. Harvey's lips were pressed in a thin line permanently now.

After a while, he signaled a turn out of our place in the queue, "Apologies Princess, perhaps we would need to wait out the storm in the city tonight."

Nooooo!!! I want to go home! But we weren't the only car turning away from the queue.

"Where would we wait?" I asked.

"Don't worry. It's going to be okay." Harvey tried to reassure me.

Which totally had the opposite effect because I wasn't worried...until he said that. Was I supposed to be worried? Was Harvey worried?