Cast Me! Chapter 3
Res was dropped off at school by his mother. "Bye mom!" he said to her.
"Bye, hun," she replied, "Have a good day."
Res shut the door and his mom drove off. He turned around and was shoved to the ground by the same wolf he met on his first day of school. Res yelped as he fell and scraped his knee and looked up at the wolf with wide, teary eyes.
"Watch it fag," the wolf said.
Before he could hear the wolf's comment, Bernard came charging up at him and rammed the wolf to the ground, striking a punch into the wolf's face.
Bernard raised his other fist up, but it was grabbed by Res's P.E. teacher. "What the hell are you doing, Bernard?" the lion yelled.
"This ass pushed Res to the ground," Bernard defended himself.
"It was an accident. I saw it. Don't you dare lay a paw on our star football quarterback," the lion threatened, "Go to the office. You, too, pinky." He turned his head to Res as he said this.
Res and Bernard got up and the lion turned around to call the office on his walky-talky. While the lion was turned away, the wolf got up and charlie-horsed Bernard who fell to his knee. The wolf ran off laughing.
The lion turned around to look back at the fox trying to help the polar bear up. "Bernard!" the lion screamed, "Quit tying your shoes and get to the damn office!"
The bear growled and got up, leaning slightly on Res's shoulders as they walked up to the office. An associate principal was there waiting for him. It was a giraffe and the top of his head stood at least ten feet tall.
Res and Bernard looked up and the giraffe said, "So you two were beating on Damion?"
"Is that what Coach Droff told you?"
"Yes."
"Well, it's not true. Res was getting out of his car and I saw Damion push him to the ground, so I ran up and tackled him. He only got what he deserved."
"Let me be honest. You can't expect to walk around this school dressed like...that," he pointed to Res's clothing, "And not expect to get bullied. There's nothing I can do for you. Damion is on the football team. You're just the average student who gets good grades and sits in the back. I'm sorry. I'm going to have to give you ISS (in-school suspension) for two days."
"That's not fair!" Bernard pleaded, "Droff didn't see what happened! This is totally biased!"
"It doesn't matter. Maybe if you got involved in something important." The giraffe handed him a slip with the ISS notification on it, turned around, and walked away.
Bernard hung his head. "I'm so sorry, Bernard. I wish I didn't get you caught up in this...," Res tried to comfort him. Bernard took Res's paw and led him out into the hall which was empty at the time since classes had started.
Bernard looked down at Res and said, "It's not your fault. I just want to protect you." He leaned down and kissed Res softly on the lips, holding the fox close to his warm body. Res knew Bernard would never try to take advantage of him without Res's consent, and felt incredibly safe in the polar bear's arms.
When Bernard broke the kiss, they looked into each other's eyes for a moment, and Res said, "You know I'm a guy, right?"
Bernard went wide-eyed and let go of Res suddenly, backing away a bit. "Wh...What?" Bernard stuttered.
"Please don't be afraid. What you said was so sweet. You really don't feel the same way now that you know?"
"I...I...," Bernard stared, stunned for a few seconds before turning and running away.
Res lowered his ears and sighed, deciding not to go to his first two classes so that he could avoid Bernard in Biology.
Instead, he went to the auditorium down on the second floor and sat in the seats. Onstage, the first hour Techinal Studio class was beginning to build the set for Arcadia. Res smiled to himself and put down his backpack to the seat next to him and pulled out his script. He turned to the first scene and began trying to memorize his lines.
When he got farther into the play, he realized what an astonishing little girl Thomasina was. She was apparently portrayed as mathematical genius even at such a young age. She was always kept out of the adults' problems, but that didn't stop her from trying to get into them.
Chad's character, Septimus, also has an affair with about every woman at the estate in order to distract everyone with his real affair with Lady Croom, Thomasina's mother. In doing so, however, he sleeps with a poet's wife. This poet is named Ezra Chater and is living at the estate. He confronts Septimus about his wrongdoing and gets easily distracted by Septimus's false flattery. Eventually, Chater gets back on course and challenges Septimus to a duel.
Res had to admit that his favorite line in the play was during this scene when Septimus retorts to this challenge, "There are no more than two or three poets of the first rank now living, and I will not shoot one of them dead over a perpendicular poke in a gazebo with a woman whose reputation could not be adequately defended with a platoon of musketry deployed by rota."
Perpendicular poke.
'Tom Stoppard,' Res thought to himself, 'You are quite a jokester, aren't you?'
After memorizing his lines from scenes one and three (he doesn't appear in two), the bell had rung for third block and he put his script away, pulled his backpack over his shoulders and walked off to World Geography. Nothing interesting. Same with Algebra 2.
English was interesting because Res was assigned the first book of the year to read. It was Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.
"Ugh. I heard this was an awful book," said the red panda sitting next to Res. The panda smiled to Res and put his hand to the fox, "Hi. I'm Cecil. Cecil Tyler."
Res was afraid that the same thing would happen to Cecil that happened with Bernard, and so the first words that Res ever said to Cecil were, "I'm a boy."
Cecil flinched back for a second, expecting a name rather than a gender. "All right...That's cool...So am I," he smiled, still holding his hand to Res.
Res blushed hard at his mistake and took Cecil's hand. "I'm Res," he corrected himself, "It's nice to meet you."
"Likewise. Anyways, I heard this book is long, slow and boring."
"I want you all to read the first ten chapters by Monday," the teacher, a flamingo, said. The class groaned and the bird replied, "Yeah, yeah. I know you're all so excited."
The bell rang and Cecil said goodbye to Res as he walked out of the classroom.
Res left the classroom too and headed down to the cafeteria. Today, he was determined to find a group of people he could sit with during lunch, and before he came across Damion again.
He walked out into the courtyard and found Yulia and Oxford sitting together with a bunch of other thespians. They waved Res over and he sat happily with them.
"Hey there, buddy," Oxford smiled and greeted him.
Yulia was lying back in her chair, nodded to Res, and said, "'Sup."
"I'm glad you're going to sit with us, Res," Oxford smiled happily to him.
"I'm just happy I found someone to sit with," Res replied.
Oxford introduced Res to the rest of the table. Two of them were Mestian Bariff and Sylvia Underwood, the two actors playing Ezra Chater and Lady Croom in Arcadia respectively. Mestian was a bull dog and Sylvia a bee. Both of their species seemed to match their characters' personalities in the play.
Nathaniel was also at the table. He just continued to stare at Res, and the fox still was unable to tell if it was hatred or some other emotion in the blue jay's eyes.
"What is up with Nathaniel?" Res whispered to Oxford.
Oxford sat up, pretending Res had only made a comment to him. He took a quick glance at Nathaniel and saw that he was staring at Res while chewing on his food. He leaned back into Res and said, "I have no idea. That's really weird for him. If I had to guess, he's jealous that you got the lead part and he didn't."
"But I got the female lead. Shouldn't he be staring at Chad?"
"I think it's just the fact that you got a lead part. Maybe also that you're a freshman."
"But he's a freshman!"
"And he thinks he's better than everyone else," Oxford smiles to Res, "Look. He obviously doesn't understand the true meaning of theatre. It's not about how many lines you get or whether you get the lead part or not. It's about the community, the friends you make, and what you do while you're participating."
Res nodded and smiled back to Oxford, completely agreeing with the concept. He felt a warm feeling within himself and began to ignore Nathaniel's staring.
Lunch was over and Res headed to P.E. They were finally starting the actual class today after learning about some "proper exercise techniques" stuff. Unfortunately, they are all assigned uniforms based on measurements. The worst part is, they didn't measure the students' asses and the shorts were mini-training shorts that only barely covered the ass.
When Res received his uniform and put it on, his ass was overly large and his shorts only covered just over half of his ass. He blushed deeply as several of the other men either stared or laughed at him. He walked over to the coach's office.
"Excuse me, sir," Res said to the lion, who was named Coach Androcles, "My shorts seem to be a little...Umm...Small..."
"What do you mean?" the lion asked.
Res sighed and turned around to show his tight shorts hugging his large ass to the lion.
The lion's eyes went wide and Res noticed this as he turned back around. The coach quickly regained his composure and said, "I don't see the prob...I mean, there's nothing we can do. The school is short on funds and these uniforms aren't refundable. The school has limited funds for the regular P.E. classes."
Res sighed again and turned to go out into the gym, feeling the stare of the lion's eyes against his butt.
What made the class worse was that their first activity was running. They all walked down to the track and as the class ran together, Res noticed that the majority of the class was running behind him.
Class was over soon and French 3 was uneventful.
Drama arrived once again and O presented the class with their very first project. He was going to separate them into groups of five people and they were each to select one scene from any play in the script library to perform in front of the class. No tech was required at all. Res wagged his tail, excitedly, but hoped he wouldn't be placed in the same group as Nathaniel.
Drama was over and Res headed to the lobby for rehearsal. They were blocking the first three scenes. The entire play took place in the same room. On stage right was a door to a piano room and on stage left was a door to the outside where most of the offstage action took place. The room itself was a classroom in which Thomasina had her studies from Septimus. Res was going to be wearing a dress for the entire play, and would even be wearing an evening dress during the final scene. O smiled at this, but Packy seemed to be more than uncaring and just played along as if Res really was a girl.
For the first scene, Res mainly sat in a desk where he would make many movements that a little girl would usually make. Res had a short conversation with Nathaniel's character, Jellaby, the servant, about what was for dinner. He then made a comment to Septimus about how it was strange that if one were to stir in a spoonful of jam, it will spread amongst the pudding like a meteor, but "if you stir backward, the jam will not come together again."
While going through the blocking, Packy explained, "This play is commonly accepted as a comedy, which makes it strange as to why we are doing it during the fall dramas. This play is very educational for the actors in it, and it truly makes one think. However, many things happen in this play that revolves around the aspect of 'drama'. It takes a very intense focus on the contrast between the Classical and Romantic periods as well as the romantic, scientific and literary mysteries of life. From this comes a very heart-wrenching and mind-inspiring classic. That is what qualifies this play as a drama."
The cast nodded in acceptance and understood the way Packy looked at this play. The snake snapped his fingers and said, "Scene 2."
The rehearsal went on this manner with Packy telling the actors how he wanted them to move and where to go, but in a vague style so that the actors could have some room to improvise their character on their own as well.
After the blocking of the second scene, the characters in the present time setting of the play got up to leave since none of them appeared in the third scene. Yulia and Oxford waved goodbye to Res and walked out of the door.
When rehearsal was over, Res got up and walked out to his mom's car after saying goodbye to Packy, O, and the rest of what the remaining actors liked to call, "The Past Cast".