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December 19th, Brook Lane, UK
I felt bad—mostly because I'd stayed up too late reading and overslept. That was a mistake, considering today was supposed to be the most important day of my life so far. Or maybe not; after all, I'd just earned £200,000 yesterday.
I really needed to figure out how to store books so they stayed in mint condition. Two of them had something no other first-print copy would ever have: a receipt, which I planned to laminate soon.
It was Friday—the last day of school before all the children headed off on their well-earned holidays. Mother was scolding me, but my mind was elsewhere. I was thinking about how I could now recall memories at will. I still couldn't access everything I'd forgotten and still needed a trigger of some kind, but at least I could keep the memories intact and peruse them in the future. As I thought about recalling and watching memories at a later date, I received another revelation. Strangely, I sensed it had something to do with the Harry Potter series, so I locked that thought away for now; I did not need the spoilers.
"It's not right to stay up late reading books. Your eyes will go blind," Mum was saying.
"I'll take a nap at school. Don't worry, Mum," I replied, hugging her; it usually worked.
"That's not the point," she chided, though she hugged me back.
"Right, we should get a move on. Where's my little Oliver?" she cooed.
"Here I am," I sighed, giving in. Sometimes it was better to let Mum have her way; otherwise, she could get quite nasty, and a mother wanting to mother her children was hard to keep away.
•✦—✦•
"Have you got your costumes?"
"Yerp. Yerp."
"Okay, off you go. I'll see you at the play." Mum caressed my cheek a bit too enthusiastically.
I was relieved to finally get away from her; sometimes she could be stifling. Classes went on as usual, but after lunch, we had a special rehearsal. First, we practiced my solo songs along with the others'.
It seems prudent to introduce the cast of Oliver! at Woodfield. Naturally, I, Wilfred Price, was playing the titular role of Oliver. The biggest reason? I was in Year 4—physically the smallest—the highest, clearest singing voice also belonged to me. To be quite frank, I was pretty bad at acting; Oliver also didn't require the most acting talent.
Next to appear with a speaking role would be Mr. Bumble, played by Thomas Graham (Year 6). He wore the fanciest of our outfits, the most colorful one. Thomas liked the role mostly because he wore a tricorn hat and a beadle (staff) he brandished at every opportunity. Thomas had become a bit of a bully, though it seemed harmless and probably helped his character. Or maybe he just liked having some power; who knew.
Widow Corney, a mean character, was played by Marie Cook, a Year 5 student with one of the best voices apart from the soloists. She was helped by the governors of the orphanage that Oliver lived at. These were being played by girls because Oliver! was originally an all-male play, but Mrs. Moss decided to make it a mixed ensemble, and in my opinion, she'd done an amazing job. Thus, a lot of background characters and people out of Fagin's gang would be girls.
Mr. and Mrs. Sowerberry were played by Jack Clarke and Hannah Adams, both Year 5, with amazing voices. Hannah had the clearest speaking voice, which was invaluable on stage. There were plenty of others, but listing every member of the ensemble would be exhausting.
Oh! Mr. Sowerberry was an undertaker and coffin maker who would "buy" Oliver from the orphanage to make him an apprentice. I watched Keegan Johnson and Sarah Morgan practicing their lines; these two couldn't sing at all, but as Year 6's they looked older and, more importantly, were better actors than even some who were playing bigger roles. It had come down to the fact that it was a musical, and you just couldn't have the two in a role that would deliver half their lines in a song.
And then there was my archenemy, rival (and budding new friend), Henry Harrison. He had it all; he was older than me at eleven, and he was so talented in everything that he touched, which infuriated me greatly. He played the character I was offered but, in the end, was softly told I was too small to play. But I was sure that it was because Mrs. Moss had seen Henry after she had offered me the role. Artful Dodger, or just Dodger for short, was a street-smart pickpocket who recruits Oliver into the gang.
It was easy for me to tell Henry was obviously popular even as a primary school kid because everyone listened to him, yet I couldn't even dislike him—he didn't mean to command attention. He was sweet and nice; exhibit A was him currently reading his lines along with a girl who played Nancy and a clearly very adult man who was playing Fagin.
"Put more of an accent—like this: 'Don't you take notice of 'em, Oliver,'" Henry said, clear and confident.
Olivia beamed at him. She'd started with a smaller part but had taken over as Nancy when Maude struggled with her lines. She gave the line another try.
"Well done! You'll be brilliant!" Henry encouraged.
Olivia's smile grew wider.
I think I thought of Henry as a rival mostly because of how popular he was. It opened my eyes to the person I had become. I was a child who had received memories of the past lives I had experienced. As a consequence, the formative years of my life were spent in my mind as I discovered the new and old memories. I remembered looking out the window at the school chickens searching for worms. I liked the chickens, as did most kids at my school, but that was usually how I had perused my revelations. Too much distraction made my head hurt, so I had enjoyed looking to the chickens, who were oddly calming. While I spent my time daydreaming, Henry had socialised so much that he had an emotional intelligence that I was simply lacking. At first, I didn't like him, but now I wanted to have him as a friend; we could teach each other so much more.
"You'll be hanged yourself in time—don't worry! Nancy, hadn't you better get back before Bill wakes up?" Mr. Ross said.
He was a new addition, and we had rehearsed with him only a handful of times, and most of it was the dances. Mr. Ross had prominent and high cheekbones to go with his Victorian looks and curly brown hair. He was easily the most experienced actor in here because he had performed for over twenty years, and almost all of it professionally. He knew the character of Fagin really well, but it was easy to tell that he had played one of the child roles before because he gave me, Henry, and anyone brave enough to ask many good pieces of advice.
Also, if I wasn't being stupid, Mr. Ross was, in fact, Mr. Moss; otherwise, Mr. Moss would probably murder Mr. Ross for his wandering hands, if not the stolen kisses that they secretly shared. But I supposed that it could make sense that way too because Mr. Ross was a professional actor at The Gateway Theatre, a pretty famous and unique landmark in Chester. He was also how we had almost all of the top hats and caps that we were to wear, along with some Victorian-style dresses for Nancy and a few female characters.
Also, as much as we had worked on making props for the set, a few burly Cestrians had hauled in benches and tables along with fake walls with brick and rock patterns, stairs in the same color, bars, and a table that was entirely two-dimensional. A few parents of the children had helped tremendously; Maude's father had made a coffin out of plywood, while someone's family had gifted us all kinds of metal cups, candle holders, and cutlery. It was a whole effort from the entire community, and they had put all this hard work onto eight- and ten-year-olds.
"Gather up, kids! We will do a full rehearsal, no singing in this part. I'll sing it on all your behalf. Let's see if you remember all the lines and your coordination," Mrs. Moss told us.
Someone slapped my shoulders. I turned to see Henry smiling at me. "Isn't it all exciting?"
"Yeah, hope I don't mess up," I replied.
"You won't; we'll be great," Henry promised me.
"You'll do great as well," I told him.
"Thanks." Henry smiled shyly.
I realized then that the boy spent all his time complimenting others, but maybe he didn't have many who did the same for him because he was too bright.
"Act 1, stage setup. Chop chop!" Mrs. Moss clapped her hands.
Kids who had not been selected to star in the play were here in the Primary Hall and would be moving the sets, props, and more. Ten kids slid two lightweight benches in and set up a lectern/balcony sort of thing that we would also be using for later scenes.
"Alright, everyone, let's start from the top. Get in positions and in your costumes!" Mrs. Moss clapped again.
We all went to the back of the stage and divided to the left and right; there were hooks and hangers set up with our costumes. All of it was going to be quite simple in that we were always going to be wearing a gray shirt and trousers for the first scene and just wear more clothes as the scenes progressed. Though Henry's Dodger and Mr. Ross' Fagin would be wearing the same costume the entire time. The rest would be playing other characters of the ensemble.
When Mrs. Moss started playing the piano and calling for the start, we couldn't help but start to sing. She let us do it anyway; the song was very fun, and who didn't like singing about food? Mrs. Moss doubled some lines so that we could fix mistakes. It seemed that the rehearsal would never end because there were always more mistakes from children.