The Mystery of the Velvet Gown

call Dr. Samet this morning, but I’ll call him from school.” Trixie sat up straight suddenly. “Honey, I thought you and Jim would be riding to school with Miss Darcy. Didn’t she stay over last night?”
    “She got up very early this morning and drove back into town,” Honey answered. “Maybe she had to get some things ready for our first rehearsal.”
    “Don’t remind me,” Di groaned. “After I talked to you last night, Trixie, all I did was practice, practice, practice! I think I’m going to be saying ‘O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?’ in my sleep!”
    “I’m excited about the costumes,” Honey said. “I wonder if we’ll be renting some or making all of them.”
    “You know,” Trixie admitted, “I’m a stagehand, but I’m afraid I don’t even know what a stagehand does!”
    Mart groaned from the seat behind her, then snorted rudely. Turning to Brian and Jim, he spouted pompously, “I ask you, members of the jury, is this not a misrepresentation on the part of Beatrix Belden—to feign knowledge of a special skill of which she is totally ignorant? It’s villainous! This young woman is completely incorrigible!”
    “Fortunately for you, Mart Belden, I have better things to do than to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations. Obviously, you do not,” Trixie retorted smartly as the bus pulled up in front of Sleepyside Junior-Senior High. She gathered up her books and stalked off the bus, followed by Honey and Di.
    “You can’t win ’em all.” Mart shrugged and filed out behind them.

    In between two of her morning classes, Trixie called Dr. Samet’s office and learned that Reddy was doing fine.
    Drama class was held just before lunch hour. The group of anxious freshmen gathered in the school auditorium for their first rehearsal. Eileen Darcy arrived looking tense and tired, but she smiled as she faced the class from the stage.
    “We are very fortunate,” Miss Darcy announced, “in that we will not have to make or rent most of the costumes for this production. A friend of mine,” she went on to explain, “is the proprietor of a costume company in London, and she is planning a show in New York City.
    “She has offered to send some of her Shakespearean costumes ahead for us to use, free of charge—which will certainly help our meager costume budget,” Miss Darcy added.
    “Now, to begin, putting on a play is a serious business. Anyone who thinks this will simply be a time to chat with his friends or to lounge about can do us all a favor and leave right now.
    A play is certainly a great deal of fun, but it is also a good bit of work,” she finished.
    The entire class sat quietly and listened attentively. “Good,” Miss Darcy said. “Now that that obligatory speech is over, we can really begin.” She smiled, and the class smiled and relaxed, too.
    “First, I’ll be dividing you all into groups. The senior aides will assign the stagehands to different crews. We will need one crew for scenery and another for props. The costume crew will be divided into wardrobe and makeup crews. The lighting crew will be under the supervision of senior aide Jenny Ratner.
    “I have asked the art club to help design posters and programs and to help paint scenery. But before we get to work on those things, I want you all to understand some basic stage geography. I am passing out a mimeographed diagram of the stage area, and I want you all to memorize it. You must be as familiar with the layout of the stage as you are with that of your own house. We can’t have people running into each other or not knowing where a prop has to be at a certain time.”
    They all listened carefully while Miss Darcy explained that downstage is closest to the audience and upstage is farthest away. Stage right means to your right as you stand on the stage facing the audience, she told them, and the wings are the areas on either side of the stage, most of the time hidden by parts of the scenery.
    “When you ‘wait in the wings,’ ” Miss Darcy explained, “you’re waiting in one or the other of those areas, either as an actor or actress ready to enter, or as a stagehand with a prop or a change of costume.”
    The divided grid of the stage, as shown on the diagram, looked very confusing to most of the students until the drama teacher explained that U.R. entrance meant that the actor or actress came onto the stage from the upstage-right entrance. The stage was divided into quadrants marked up right