Family Fan Club. Jean Ure

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      “It’s so dreadful to be poor,” sighed Laurel, “looking down at her old dr—”

      “Stop!” Jazz waved her script, in anguish. “You don’t have to say that bit!”

      “What bit?”

      “Looking down at her old dress. That’s a stage direction! It’s something you’re supposed to do.”

      “Oh. Well, how was I to know?” said Laurel, aggrieved.

      “The bits in brackets are what you do. The other bits are what you say. You’d think,” grumbled Jazz, “that you’d know that by now. You’ve seen enough scripts!”

      “The scripts I’ve seen never looked like this,” said Laurel.

      LivinG Rooom, MARch household

      Jazz is lying on; the rug

      Jazz Chritsmas wonT be Chritsmas witout any presnets.

      MEG (sisghs) Its so daredful to be poor (looking dwon at her old dresss)

      “I can’t help it if the typewriter isn’t any good,” said Jazz. “Just get on with it! Rose, say your line.”

      “I don’t think it’s fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things and other girls having nothing at all. Well, it isn’t,” said Rose. “But that’s what happens when you live in a capitalist society.”

      “Do you mind?” Jazz glared at her sister. “Just say the lines! Don’t add bits.”

      “Well, but this Amy person does my head in,” said Rose. “Why do I have to play her?”

      “Because I’m the director and that’s who I cast you as!”

      “But I’m nothing like her,” said Rose.

      “You’re the youngest!”

      “So what? It doesn’t make me like her.”

      “Look, just shut up!” said Jazz. “You’re supposed to be acting. Injured sniff. Give an injured sniff!”

      Rose did so.

      “That was good,” said Jazz. “Daisy! Your line.”

      “We’ve g–got f–father and m–mother and e–each other,” read Daisy, haltingly, from her script.

      “Vomit,” said Rose. “This is really yucky!”

      “It’s not, it’s lovely!” said Jazz. “Don’t be so horrid! It was Mum’s favourite book when she was young.”

      “I cried buckets when I saw the film,” said Laurel.

      “You would.” Rose looked at her eldest sister, pityingly. “The only films you ever like are weepies. And sickies.”

      “I don’t like sickies!”

      “Yes, you do! You just love it if it’s about someone getting ill and dying. You wallow.”

      “Oh. I thought you meant sick like people going round murdering people. I don’t like it when they go round murdering people. I l—”

      “Look!” Jazz, impatient, stamped a foot. Daisy jumped. “Are we rehearsing Little Women or are we having a mothers’ meeting?”

      “Rehearsing Little Women,” said Daisy.

      “Thank you! That is what I thought we were doing. Can we please get on with it? We’ve only got four days!”

      They staggered on, through the script that Jazz had so laboriously typed out on the old machine in the attic. Rose kept saying Vomit and Yuck and “I’m going to be sick!” Laurel didn’t pay proper attention and kept reading stage directions and typing errors.

      “Really, girls, you are both to be balmed – balmed? Oh! You mean blamed. You are both to be blamed, beginning to lecture in her – oops! Sorry! Stage direction. You are old enough to leave off such boysih – BOYISH tricks and tobe have better. What’s tobe have b – oh! To behave better. Why do you keep splitting words up all funny?”

      “I couldn’t help it,” said Jazz. “It’s the typewriter. It keeps sticking. If you would just concentrate—”

      “It’s all yuck,” said Rose.

      Daisy was the only one who really tried, but Daisy wasn’t the most brilliant reader at the best of times. It was as much as she could do to read what Jazz had actually typed.

      “If J–Jo is a r–romboy—”

      “A romboy!” Rose threw up her hands in delight. “Jo is a romboy!”

      Jazz СКАЧАТЬ