Olivia Flies High by Lyn Gardner

straight,” said Jon James. “We’ve already got problems with the other children’s teams. Half the kids in Lakes are down with chicken pox, Meadows team has been decimated by a vomiting virus and it’s press night tomorrow. All the critics will be there, and you know how hard they are to please. Some US producers arecoming with an eye to a transfer to Broadway, too. So I need Tom. But you’ve got to give him a talking to. He’s giving me problems, and I’ve got plenty to keep me awake at night as it is, what with the stage revolve breaking down twice during previews. We had to send the audience home with a refund.”
    “Thank goodness for Katie, at least she’s always hale and hearty,” said Chuck smugly.
    “Yes,” murmured Alicia drily. “Thank goodness for Katie.” Then she added, “I’ll talk to Tom. Leave it with me.” She stood up to go.
    “I’ll walk down to the stage door with you, Alicia,” said Jon.
    When they got there, they were greeted by a rather extraordinary sight. Eel, who was going shopping with Alicia for a new dress for press night, had been left in the care of Bert. He and Alicia were old friends. He’d been stage-door keeper at the Duke’s for years, stretching back into the days when Alicia had still been performing. In order to pass the time, Eel was giving Bert the full benefit of her performance as Gretl, honed to perfection by watching the show in preview for six nights in a row. Bertwas really enjoying it and kept clapping his hands at her cheeky little asides. She was just embarking on “So Long, Farewell”, playing all the parts, when Alicia and Jon James walked into the stage-door area. Eel didn’t notice and carried on wickedly mimicking how some of the children performed, particularly Katie. But when she came to Gretl’s line, she delivered it with a melting sweetness that was all her own. Alicia was rather embarrassed by the spectacle and moved to stop Eel, but Jon put a restraining hand on her shoulder.
    When Eel came to the end, he clapped loudly. “That was great. Who on earth are you?”
    “I’m Alicia Ophelia Rosalind Marvell,” said Eel, once she’d caught her breath. “But everyone calls me Eel because I wriggle a lot. I’m Alicia’s granddaughter.” She put out her hand. “How do you do?”
    Jon took it and laughed. “She’s brilliant, Alicia. Why didn’t she audition? She’d have made the cast easily.”
    “Granny wouldn’t let me,” said Eel. She shook her head sadly. “I could be making my West End debut tomorrow night, and instead I’ll be sitting in the audience watching. It’s tragic.”She said it with such a dramatic flourish that even Alicia had to laugh.

Chapter Twelve
    It was press night. In just over twenty minutes the curtain would rise on the first night of The Sound of Music . Backstage all the Alps children were gathered together in the girls’ dressing room. They had been warming up their voices and were now waiting nervously for the moment when they would be called downstairs to stand in the wings before making their first entrance. They could hear the sound of the orchestra beginning to tune up over the tannoy. The dressing room boasted a posy of flowers sent to the girls by Jon James and there were numerous other little first-night gifts and good-luck cards lying on the surfaces below the brightly lit mirrors.
    Tom shivered when he saw the cards.Alicia had taken him out to tea that afternoon, just before he was due at the theatre for a final children’s rehearsal. But although she had offered him macaroons and cup cakes, he had barely been able to eat he felt so nervous and wretched.
    He knew that Alicia didn’t normally take her pupils out to tea on first nights and he guessed that he was going to get a pep talk; perhaps that she was even going to tell him that he had been given the sack and wouldn’t be required that evening after all. He had noticed that Jon James had started to frown whenever he came near, and