Maskerade

Really?” Mr. Bucket’s eyes crossed for a moment. “Well, fine. You can sing while you’re doing it, if you like,” he added generously. “And I won’t even cut your pay! I’ll…I’ll raise it! Six…no, seven shiny dollars!”
    Walter rubbed his face thoughtfully. “Mr. Bucket…”
    “Yes, Walter?”
    “I think…you paid Mr. Salzella forty shiny dollars…”
    Bucket turned to Granny. “Is he some kind of monster?”
    “You just listen to the stuff he’s been writin’,” said Nanny. “Amazin’ songs, not even in foreign. Will you just look at this stuff…’scuse me…”
    She turned her back on the audience—
    —twingtwangtwong—
    —and twirled round again with a wad of music paper in her hands.
    “I know good music when I sees it,” she said, handing it to Bucket and pointing excitedly at extracts. “It’s got blobs and curly bits all over it, see?”
    “ You have been writing this music?” said Bucket to Walter. “Which is unaccountably warm?”
    “Indeed, Mr. Bucket.”
    “In my time?”
    “There’s a lovely song here,” said Nanny, “‘Don’t cry for me, Genua.’ It’s very sad. That reminds me, I’d better go and see if Mrs. Plinge has come rou…has woken up. I may have overdone it a bit on the scumble.’ She ambled off, twitching at bits of her costume, and nudged a fascinated ballerina. “This balleting doesn’t half make you sweat, don’t you find?”
    “Excuse me, there’s something I didn’t quite believe,” said André. He took Salzella’s sword and tested the blade carefully.
    “Ow!” he shouted.
    “Sharp, is it?” said Agnes.
    “Yes!” André sucked his thumb. “She caught it in her hand .”
    “She’s a witch,” said Agnes.
    “But it was steel! I thought no one could magic steel! Everyone knows that.”
    “I wouldn’t be too impressed if I was you,” said Agnes sourly. “It was probably just some kind of trick…”
    André turned to Granny. “Your hand isn’t even scratched! How did…you…”
    Her stare held him in its sapphire vice for a moment. When he turned away he looked vaguely puzzled, like a man who can’t remember where he’s just put something down.
    “I hope he didn’t hurt Christine,” he mumbled. “Why isn’t anyone seeing to her?”
    “Probably because she makes sure she screams and faints before anything happens,” said Perdita, through Agnes.
    André set off across the stage. Agnes trailed after him. A couple of dancers were kneeling down next to Christine.
    “It’d be terrible if anything happened to her,” said André.
    “Oh…yes.”
    “Everyone says she’s showing such promise…”
    Walter stepped up beside him. “Yes. We should get her somewhere,” he said. His voice was clipped and precise.
    Agnes felt the bottom start to drop out of her world. “Yes, but… you know it was me doing the singing.”
    “Oh, yes…yes, of course…” said André, awkwardly. “But…well…this is opera…you know…”
    Walter took her hand.
    “But it was me you taught!” she said desperately.
    “Then you were very good,” said Walter. “I suspect she will never be quite that good, even with many months of my tuition. But, Perdita, have you ever heard of the words ‘star quality’?”
    “Is it the same as talent ?” snapped Agnes.
    “It is rarer.”
    She stared at him. His face, however it was controlled now, was quite handsome in the glare of the footlights.
    She pulled her hand free. “I liked you better when you were Walter Plinge,” she said.
    Agnes turned away, and felt Granny Weatherwax’s gaze on her. She was sure it was a mocking gaze.
    “Er…we ought to get Christine into Mr. Bucket’s office,” André said.
    This seemed to break some sort of spell.
    “Yes, indeed!!!” said Bucket. “And we can’t leave Mr. Salzella corpsing onstage, either. You two, you’d better take him backstage. The rest of you…well, it was nearly over anyway…er…that’s it. The…opera is over…”
    “ Walter Plinge! ”
    Nanny Ogg entered, supporting Mrs. Plinge. Walter’s mother fixed him with a beady gaze. “Have you been a bad boy?”
    Mr. Bucket walked over to her and patted her hand. “I think you’d better come along to my office, too,” he said. He handed the sheaf of music to André, who opened it at random.
    André gave it a glance, and then stared. “Hey…this is good ,” he said.
    “Is it?”
    André looked at another page. “Good heavens!”
    “What? What?” said