It began with a motion.
Audrey Crenshaw tapped the clipboard twice — once for authority, once for echo. “Ladies,” Audrey announced. “If morale is to be restored, we need something festive. Something visible.”
The laminated agenda trembled as she raised it. “A pantomime,” she continued, “would serve both as entertainment and community outreach. Funds to benefit the new curtains.”
Mavis Holt looked up from the biscuit tin. “What’s wrong with the old ones?”
“Threadbare,” Audrey said, as if delivering a diagnosis.
Netta Flinn leaned forward, eyes alight. “So was Cinderella, and she did perfectly well.”
Motion carried. The radiator clanged once, as if seconding the vote.
Reginald Smythe-Harrington, “in a consultative capacity,” was volunteered as Stage Manager before objection. Maggie B. was made responsible for “continuity and props,” which Audrey described as “something quiet but essential.”
Rehearsals began the following Tuesday. The hall smelled of polish, damp coats, and old radiators. The script, printed in Comic Sans, had been annotated by four hands, none in agreement. Netta had inserted “ancestral ley lines” into Act Two. Mavis had added a pudding scene. Reginald crossed out both and pencilled *improvise as needed*.
The cast:
Cinderella: Enid, who forgot her lines but never her sighs.
Fairy Godmother: Netta, who claimed to have once met hers.
Villain: Reginald, reluctant but precise.
Stage Crew: Maggie and Dog; the latter helped where he could.
Reginald’s villain cloak arrived in a dry-cleaning bag on the Tuesday of the second rehearsal, pressed and sombre. He wore it without comment. Audrey had prepared a staging diagram. Reginald consulted it once, refolded it along its original lines, and placed it on the refreshments table.
Enid’s first entrance came from the wrong door. Her second was from the correct door, two scenes early. After the third attempt, Audrey inserted a coloured sticker into the script at the relevant page. This helped with the script. It did not help with the door.
Netta’s ancestral ley lines complicated Act Two for approximately forty minutes. She agreed, eventually, to note them in the margin rather than incorporate them into the blocking. The pudding scene was tabled at the same meeting, though Mavis kept her notes.
The first rehearsal had ended when the curtain rail collapsed mid-transformation, revealing Audrey behind it, mouthing *carry on*. For a moment, no one moved; then someone checked the script for damage.
The curtain was rehung the following week. Someone had mended the hem in thread that did not quite match.
By the third week, optimism had cooled to a manageable temperature. Someone mislaid both slippers. Dog retrieved one from the allotment hedge and kept it. A replacement was found — Audrey had a spare, for reasons she did not explain.
Leonard’s donation of ration-box biscuits for the interval arrived in tiers so symmetrical they induced silence. Each tin was missing precisely one florentine. They were opened at the interval and passed without comment.
Audrey recorded the proceedings in the minutes: Lighting — unresolved. Costumes — ongoing. Enthusiasm — variable.
Mid-rehearsal, Reginald’s cape caught the edge of the tea urn. Mavis beat out the spark with a programme. The room applauded. Even Audrey smiled, briefly, before noting it down.
The night of the performance arrived on a breath of frost and nerves. The hall filled early — every seat taken, even the wobbly ones from Plot 91. Audrey stationed herself by the fire door, clipboard ready. Netta had dusted herself with glitter “for conductivity.” Reginald stood motionless in his villain’s cloak, rehearsing disapproval.
Maggie’s notebook stayed in her coat pocket.
The curtain rose two inches, then stuck. A collective heave lifted it clear, met by applause.
Lines were forgotten, cues collided, and Cinderella entered twice before she was meant to. Netta delivered three incantations not in the script and described them afterwards as “ancestral, but compatible with the venue.” When the villain’s moment came, Reginald stepped forward, said his lines, and stepped back. The front row booed. He gave a brief nod.
When the power flickered mid-scene, plunging the hall into darkness, no one moved.
Then someone laughed — small at first, then widening. Netta’s voice drifted through the gloom: “Every pantomime’s a séance if you let it be.”
Someone struck a match; the room’s edges returned. The lights followed, revealing them all a little out of place, and no one in any hurry to correct it.
Audrey lifted the clipboard an inch, then set it down.
Afterwards, the hall hummed with relief. Teacups clattered; glitter settled on the tables. Audrey read from her final note: “Performance concluded without major incident.” The room applauded again.
No one spoke for a moment.
Lynn found the programme Mavis had used on the spark. There was a scorch mark along one edge. She showed it to Mavis, who looked at it, made a note, and set it on top of the minutes.
Netta pressed a sprig of rosemary into Maggie’s hand. “For remembrance,” she said. “And draughts.”
Audrey’s clipboard lay unopened beside the urn. Reginald poured tea from his thermos. “Could’ve gone worse,” he said.
As chairs were folded, Maggie straightened the one nearest the curtain — a small concession to order. The fabric’s edge was frayed, the mend older than the tear, but it held.
On the walk home, Dog trotted beside her, the glass-slipper handle in his mouth.
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Notebook Entry
Casefile #41 — Without Major Incident