That Forgetful Shore by Trudy Morgan-Cole Read Free Book Online

the world through his eyes, becoming Petruchio.”
    â€œBut can I do it? I’m not sure I can.”
    â€œI certainly hope you can; if not, I shall have to recast the part,” says Miss Shaw, and strides away to where the girls playing Kate and Bianca are practising their quarrel.
    Something rises like a tide in Kit’s chest. She thought she wanted Miss Shaw to do what Mr. Bishop would have done when she was a child, to say, “Of course you can do it, Kit. You’re clever, you’re brilliant, you can accomplish anything you set your mind to!” But this is better – this brisk dismissal with no honeyed words of praise. Do the job, or I’ll find someone else who can . This, Kit decides, is a challenge to which she can rise.
    â€œVery well then, let’s take Act One, Scene Three, from Kate’s entrance,” Miss Shaw bellows a few moments later, and Kit walks onto the stage, trying to imagine how a sixteenth-century Italian man might swagger into the courtyard, confident in his right to possess and rule. She thinks what she is doing is actually a poor imitation of Miss Shaw striding into the classroom, but perhaps it will do for now. “Good morrow, Kate, for that’s your name, I hear!” she announces.
    The pert little thing playing Kate – Nancy Ellis from Bonavista – looks up at Kit through fluttering eyelashes. “Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing. They call me Katherine that do talk of me.”
    â€œWhat the – what do you think you’re playing at, Nan!” Miss Shaw’s voice cuts across the lines. “Kate’s not flirting with Petruchio, she can’t abide the man! She’s a wild horse who won’t be broken! Show some spirit, Nancy!!”
    Kit remains Petruchio, does not break character, does not even listen to the voice that says I could have done it so much better! She is Petruchio; she will not disappoint Miss Shaw.
    When the rehearsal ends, Kit goes into the cloakroom to put on her coat and hat when she hears the chatter of a group of girls just outside. “Ahh, I don’t mind Shaw, she’s not so bad,” one girl says. “I mean, she’s a bitch, but she’s a schoolmistress – it’s ’er job to be a bitch. What I can’t take is girls who act like they’re better than anyone else, and you knows ’oo I mean, don’t you?”
    â€œOh yes, prancin’ around up there like she’s God’s gift to the theatre,” the other girl chimes in. It takes no effort at all to recognize the voice as belonging to Liza Butler, who plays Baptista. Only in that context does Kit realize the first girl who spoke was Nancy Ellis. She’s rarely spoken to Nancy except during rehearsals, and the carefully cultivated stage voice Nancy uses for Kate bears little resemblance to her real Bonavista accent, which, like most of the girls’ accents, sounds stronger when she’s excited or upset.
    â€œI wouldn’t care so much if Shaw didn’t make a teacher’s pet out of her,” says another – that would be Grumio, a skinny redhead whose name Kit can’t recall. “Not just in the play – she’s just as bad in class, calling on her all the time, reading out her themes like she’s – oh, I don’t know what.”
    â€œLike she’s better than the rest of us,” Nancy says. Kit, long since dressed for the outside but now trapped in here, hears the other girls murmur agreement. “She wants to be taken down a peg or two, is what she wants – ’oo do she think she is? Miss Kitty Saunders from God-Knows-Where, a cut above the rest!”
    The other girls laugh and Kit hears them getting ready to leave, going to collect their coats from the other cloakroom. She considers, just for a moment, sweeping out of the room before they go, head held high, fixing them all with a cutting glare, and then walking