The Rapunzel Dilemma Read online

  ‘That’s a relief.’

  Lily turned her back on Ronan and found that Max was behind her holding out her water bottle. She nodded gratefully and was about to reach out and take it when Ronan said, ‘I’d like to paint you, too.’

  She turned. ‘What?’

  ‘I’d like to do a portrait of you.’ He tapped his sketchbook. ‘This picture’s no good. I need a lot more time to get you right.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Lily.

  He reached out, lifted a loose strand of hair from her shoulder and coiled it around his forefinger. ‘We could meet up,’ he said softly. ‘In the evenings and on weekends. You could come over to Pendragon. We’d need maybe half a dozen sessions together. Would that be okay?’

  Lily stared up into those green-and-gold eyes and her heart melted.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  CHAPTER 17

  ‘I hear Ronan Carver was talking about me,’ said Gemma to Lily as they queued for dinner that evening.

  Lily nodded.

  ‘Someone said he really liked the drawing he did of me in Movement and that he talked about painting me. Is that true? What did he say?’

  Lily looked at Gemma’s eager face and tried to think of an answer. She didn’t want Ronan painting Gemma. She knew that was selfish and mean and not even her call, but she hated the idea of Ronan and Gemma spending hours together. Besides, he’d changed his mind, hadn’t he? He’d asked Lily to sit for him, so it was unlikely that he’d want to paint Gemma as well.

  ‘He did mention the drawing he’d done of you,’ said Lily after a pause.

  ‘Really?’ Gemma’s face lit up. ‘What did he say about it?’

  Lily hesitated, and then the words just tumbled out. ‘Not much.’ She spooned some cauliflower cheese onto her plate. ‘He wasn’t really happy with what he drew today. He said it was hard to capture movement on paper, and then he talked about destroying what he’d done.’

  ‘Oh.’ Gemma’s face fell.

  ‘I – I’m sorry, Gemma,’ said Lily awkwardly.

  ‘That’s okay. It’s just that I thought . . . Someone said . . .’ Twin spots of colour flared in her cheeks. ‘Never mind,’ she said and turned abruptly away.

  Lily didn’t eat much that evening. She felt bad about lying to Gemma and kept glancing down the table to where she sat beside Charlotte, also picking at her food.

  Max sat next to Lily and seemed not to mind her monosyllabic answers to his update on the Christmas play. ‘Apparently Dr Frank is thrilled we’ve chosen the Dream,’ he said. ‘The Dane’s going to start us working on it tomorrow and then the rest of our teachers will follow suit. You wait, we’ll be doing A Midsummer Night’s Dream in every class, including fencing – even though there aren’t really any proper swordfights in the play. Although,’ he added meditatively, ‘I suppose Demetrius and Lysander could fight each other with swords after Puck tricks them and has them fumbling around in the dark.’ He spread butter on a bread roll. ‘Apparently the Duck told Liam that she wants us to start working on the backdrops this week.’ He licked some butter off his finger. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a great play, but I won’t be surprised if we’re sick of it before we’re done.’

  Lily nodded absently. She’d just decided to go and tell Gemma the truth about Ronan when Max said, ‘So how did it go with Ronan Carver in class today?’

  ‘Okay, I guess.’

  ‘He seemed to like drawing you,’ said Max.

  ‘He drew Imran and Gemma, too,’ Lily reminded him.

  ‘Yeah, but I don’t suppose he really wanted to,’ said Max. ‘I mean, Gemma’s no oil painting, is she?’

  ‘Actually –’ Lily stopped. She couldn’t tell Max what Ronan had said about wanting to paint Gemma – not before she’d told Gemma, anyway.

  ‘Actually?’ queried Max, quirking an eyebrow at her.

  ‘Actually, I – I don’t know much about art but . . . but maybe Gemma would be a really good subject for a painting,’ faltered Lily, avoiding Max’s eyes.

  ‘Maybe,’ he agreed, and there was something in the way he said it that made Lily squirm inside.

  She pushed back her chair and almost crashed into Charlotte. ‘Sorry,’ said Lily, ‘I didn’t see you.’

  ‘We’re going up to our room to read the Dream,’ said Charlotte abruptly, indicating Phoebe and Gemma behind her. ‘Do you want to join us?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Lily, surprised. ‘Sounds great.’

  ‘I thought we were going to try out parts tonight,’ said Max. ‘I booked the rehearsal room, remember?’

  Lily frowned, ‘Did we decide that? I’m sorry, Max, I don’t remember . . .’

  ‘No problem,’ said Max. ‘I can join you ladies and –’

  ‘No, you can’t!’ snapped Gemma. ‘This is girls only! We’re –’

  ‘We’re going to discuss the female characters,’ said Phoebe gently.

  ‘In detail,’ added Gemma.

  ‘Can’t I come, too?’ asked Max in a wheedling voice.

  ‘Not tonight, Max. We’re doing an in-depth,’ said Charlotte coolly. ‘And, despite your considerable knowledge and expertise in so many fields, I don’t think female motivation or relationships are your particular speciality.’

  Max’s face darkened. ‘Don’t bet on it, Charlotte. I know a lot more than you think.’

  ‘Ditto,’ said Charlotte, meeting his gaze. ‘Anyway, I’m sure you can spare Lily for one evening. After all, it’s for her benefit as well as ours.’

  To Lily’s relief, Max laughed, and the moment of tension was gone.

  ‘We can read lines together tomorrow night, Max,’ she said, patting his arm.

  He smiled his beautiful smile and said lightly, ‘Of course we can. I’ll look forward to it.’

  The evening passed smoothly and Lily found she enjoyed reading lines with her roommates. They took turns playing the different female roles and Lily was surprised to discover that Gemma made a wonderful Helena.

  She was so good, in fact, that when Gemma got up off her bed, pointed her finger at Lily and said vehemently:

  ‘I will not trust you, I,

  Nor longer stay in your curst company.’

  Lily almost forgot she was playing a part. She was about to confess there and then that she’d lied about Ronan wanting to paint her when Charlotte said thoughtfully, ‘Very good, Gem, but I wonder if you’re being too angry? I know Helena’s been really hurt by Hermia but . . .’

  A lively discussion followed and Lily didn’t have the heart to spoil the evening by telling the truth. As she got ready for bed, she promised herself she’d tell Gemma about Ronan first thing in the morning.

  But in the morning, things did not go to plan. Lily had stayed up late, learning lines under her duvet with a torch, and found it hard to get up. Phoebe prodded her a couple of times before giving up and following the others down to breakfast. Consequently, Lily was late to the dining hall and late to fencing, where Mr Sutton made her run laps before putting her through several strenuous practice bouts.

  When she got to Mime, she discovered she’d left her assignment in her room and had to ask Ms Lynch for permission to go up and get it.

  As she ran upstairs, Lily wondered whether Ronan would be at lunch. If he were, she’d ask him to talk to Gemma about painting her. She felt better just thinking about it and almost skipped into the bedroom.

  But when she pushed open the door, all thought of Ronan was banished from her mind.

  The room looked like it had been hit by a hurricane. Clothes and shoes and books lay strewn across the floor and furniture, while Gemma’s bed had been stripped and her bedclothes tossed into an untidy pile behind the door.

  Lily stood there trying to make sense of the chaos. It was several seconds before she realised that Gemma’s side of their shared wardrobe was empty and it was only Gemma’s stuff that had been thrown about.

  With a strange sense of foreboding, she lifted her roommate’s favourite dress from behind Cha
rlotte’s bureau and held it up just as Gemma came pounding into the room.

  ‘Someone said –’ she broke off and stared in horror at the chaos. ‘What the hell?’ Her glance fell on the dress in Lily’s hand, and her expression changed from bewilderment to anger. ‘What did you do?’ she demanded, snatching her dress from Lily’s grasp.

  ‘Nothing!’ cried Lily. ‘I came up here to get my Mime essay and found it like this!’

  ‘You’re lying!’

  ‘I’m not!’

  ‘I told Charlotte and Phoebe not to trust you,’ declared Gemma, hauling her bedclothes onto her bed. ‘And I was right.’

  ‘I didn’t do this, Gem,’ said Lily, trying to speak calmly. ‘Honestly.’

  Gemma stared at her suspiciously.

  ‘Let me help you tidy up,’ said Lily.

  ‘No thanks,’ said Gemma. ‘Just close the door on your way out.’

  Gemma didn’t speak to Lily for the rest of the day and by teatime, Lily had decided that confessing she’d lied about Ronan was probably not such a great idea.

  It was Phoebe who brokered a truce between them by insisting that Gemma give Lily the benefit of the doubt. ‘It was probably another one of Harry and Justin’s stupid practical jokes,’ she said.

  ‘But they denied it,’ said Gemma as she got ready for bed.

  ‘Of course they did,’ said Phoebe. ‘They also denied shortsheeting people’s beds last week, but everyone knows it was them.’

  ‘Well, I still think we should tell the Director, or at least Mrs Wilson, what Lily did,’ insisted Gemma.

  ‘You’ve got no proof it was Lily, Gem,’ said Charlotte. ‘Better to just let the matter drop and go to sleep. I think we’re going to need all our energy for tomorrow’s classes.’

  Charlotte turned out to be something of a prophet.

  The very next day, the Dane started them reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She made her expectations clear from the outset.

  ‘This is a play to be read and re-read, savoured, explored and enjoyed. I expect you all to study it in your own time as well as in class.’ She held up the script. ‘At this stage, I do not intend to assign parts because each of you must understand what the play is about before you can begin to think about interpreting your own role in it.’ She smiled. ‘Over the next week or so, you will have the chance to play most of the characters. And I,’ she added dryly, ‘will have the pleasure of observing you.’

  As the week progressed it soon became clear that every teacher had his or her own view of how the play should be approached and Lily very quickly filled her notebook with their comments and advice.

  Dr Frank insisted that each word of the play be ‘letter perfect’. ‘And more than that,’ she told them, ‘you must know the punctuation inside out and back to front!’ She leaned on her cane and in rich, rounded tones declaimed, ‘As the great actor Sir John Gielgud once told me, “the secret to Shakespeare is to observe the punctuation”.’

  In Movement, Serge Dreyfuss informed them, ‘Zis is a very pheezical play! How you moof matters! You must know not only how your character moofs as an individual, but also how he or she moofs in relation to ozzers. Remember, moofment is character, and character is moofment!’

  Their Clowning teacher, Mr Bagy, rejoiced over the potential for comedy in Bottom’s character as well as in the ‘play within the play’, while in their Mime class Ms Lynch was at pains to emphasise the importance of those characters with no lines to speak. ‘You will have the opportunity to project your characters, to make them live and, in living, they will enhance the action of the play.’

  Lily wasn’t sure about this last piece of advice but she dutifully wrote it all down. She knew she didn’t want a non-speaking part; the more she read the play, the more she longed to be one of the main characters.

  She said as much to Ronan when he asked her about it over lunch on Friday.

  ‘Everyone seems pretty hyped up,’ he commented, nodding at Imran, who was up on his chair pretending to be Oberon.

  ‘The Dane’s giving us our first private critiques this afternoon,’ explained Lily. ‘I think everyone’s hoping to impress her.’

  ‘What about you?’ he asked.

  ‘It was always my dream to train under Arathula Dane. But now that I’m actually taking classes with her . . .’ She paused.

  ‘You have a new dream, right?’

  Lily nodded.

  ‘You want her to like you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And to think you’re good enough for a leading role.’

  Lily blushed and hung her head a little. ‘Do you think that’s conceited of me?’

  ‘No,’ replied Ronan seriously. ‘Greatness usually requires a decent-sized ego.’ He touched her hand. ‘So which part do you want?’

  ‘Hermia, Helena, Titania, Hippolyta, Puck. I’ve been memorising their parts all week and any of them would be amazing.’

  He looked around the crowded dining hall. ‘So how’s the competition?’

  ‘Tough,’ said Lily with a smile. ‘But I think I stand a chance.’

  ‘I think you do, too,’ said Ronan. ‘Maybe I’d better paint you before you become a superstar.’

  She laughed. ‘Maybe you’d better.’

  ‘How about this weekend?’ asked Ronan. ‘I’m out of town tomorrow but what about Sunday? Can you come over to Pendragon after lunch?

  Resisting the temptation to ask him what ‘out of town’ meant and whether it had anything to do with snake-tattoo guy, Lily smiled and said, ‘I think so. I’ll just have to clear it with Mrs Wilson.’

  ‘Okay. How about two o’clock? I’ll meet you in the foyer.’

  ‘I’ll be there.’

  As soon as she’d finished eating, Lily hurried to the drama hall. She wanted to get there early and try out some gestures for Puck that she’d thought of in the shower that morning. Only yesterday the Dane had said she wanted the girls to read the part in their next class.

  The more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that getting a good part in the Dream was the answer to all her problems. It would give her a chance to really shine – and not just for the Drake, but for her dad as well. Lily imagined the Director and Philip sitting side by side in the front row, watching her perform, and afterwards, her dad would hug her and tell her he’d been wrong . . .

  It was a lovely vision and Lily did what she hoped was a little Puckish kind of skip just as Max and Darcy emerged into the corridor. Darcy had his arm across Max’s shoulders.

  ‘Lily, there you are,’ said Max brightly. ‘I was just coming to find you.’

  ‘I thought I’d get to Acting class early.’ She smiled at Darcy, who nodded.

  ‘Worried about the Dane’s notes?’ said Max cheerfully. ‘We get our first critique today.’

  ‘At least this one’s private, it’s the public one in a couple of weeks that I’m dread–’

  ‘I gotta go, Max,’ interrupted Darcy.

  ‘Of course,’ replied Max. ‘See you after class?’ he added – a touch too anxiously, Lily thought.

  ‘Sure. You’ll get the goods?’

  Max gazed adoringly up at the older boy. ‘Don’t worry, Darcy, you can totally rely on me.’

  Darcy gently flicked his cheek. ‘You know, Max, I really think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.’

  His Humphrey Bogart imitation was so awful that for a moment Lily was tempted to laugh, but then she saw Max’s face. It was as if Darcy had handed him a wonderful gift. She bit her lip.

  ‘Tonight, then,’ said Darcy. ‘Don’t be late.’ He strode away.

  ‘I’ll be there,’ called Max.

  ‘Hot date, Max?’ teased Lily when Darcy had gone.

  ‘Soon, but first I promised Darcy I’d get him a ticket to the opening night of the new Kevin Spacey play, and it’s a little late coming.’

  ‘I thought it was sold out,’ said Lily.

  ‘Not if you know the right people,’ replie
d Max, tapping his nose slyly.

  ‘Must be costing him a fortune.’

  ‘Actually, I’m buying it. I owe Darcy a favour.’ Max looked a little embarrassed. ‘In fact I was kind of hoping you could help me out.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I’m meeting my contact today and I’m a bit short of cash. I was hoping you could tide me over.’

  ‘I guess,’ said Lily after a pause. ‘I was planning to buy myself a front-row seat for the new Daniel Radcliffe play. But I suppose it can wait.’

  ‘Front row. Wow.’

  ‘It hasn’t been the easiest week, what with Gemma’s room being messed up and all, so I thought I’d treat myself.’

  ‘You’re lucky you can afford it,’ said Max enviously.

  ‘My dad gives me an allowance –’ Lily paused, suddenly uncomfortable. ‘Of course, it’s not open slather. I – I’d be happy to lend you some money.’

  ‘I wish my dad –’ began Max and stopped. ‘The thing is, Mother’s being difficult about my allowance again. She seems to think that if she cuts off the money supply, I’ll see the futility of pursuing an acting career and consider Oxford. Dad’s overseas and can’t get the money to me. I’ll pay you back,’ he said diffidently.

  ‘Oh, okay. Sure,’ replied Lily, reaching into her duffel bag for her wallet. ‘How much do you need?’

  ‘Two hundred pounds should cover it,’ said Max, eyeing her wallet. ‘Just until next week,’ he added, seeing her hesitate.

  ‘Two hundred?’ repeated Lily uncertainly.

  ‘I’m good for it, you know,’ replied Max, looking offended.

  ‘I know you are, Max,’ said Lily, hastily pulling four fifty-pound notes from her wallet and pushing them into his hand.

  ‘Thanks, Lily,’ he said, pocketing them. ‘I owe you.’

  As a result of her conversation with Max, Lily found herself distracted in Acting class. Arathula Dane was not impressed.

  ‘Puck is a quick, clever character, Lily. You cannot miss your cues.’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry,’ replied Lily.

  ‘We’ve been through the scene twice already and you do not seem to be hearing any of my advice.’ The Dane tapped the pile of paper in her lap irritably. ‘Please remember that I am giving everyone their first written critiques at the end of today’s class and you are not the only person I need to see perform.’ She glanced at the script. ‘This time we’ll start with Puck’s second speech. Cue her again please, Phoebe.’