The Two Minutes Before the Curtain

Chapter 1The Empty Hook

At four twenty-eight on Wednesday afternoon, the crown was missing.

At four thirty, the Bais Yaakov class play was supposed to begin.

Leah stared at the empty hook backstage. Below it, her handwritten label said CROWN. The label was excellent. It did not help anyone wear anything.

"Maybe it fell," Baila whispered.

They both looked down. They found a slipper, a thread, and the lid of a biscuit tin.

They did not find a crown.

Beyond the curtain came the rustle of programmes.

Mothers, grandmothers, and girls had taken their seats.

Leah had a speech to make in the third scene. She was the queen. The whole speech began with her placing the crown on the table.

Without it, she would have to place nothing on the table with great dignity.

Chapter 2The Glitter Trail

"It was here at lunch," Leah said.

"And at rehearsal," said Baila. "We counted everything."

A line of gold glitter led from the hook to the costume basket.

Leah followed it. Under a shawl lay a paper feather.

Under the feather lay the old cardboard crown from last year's play.

One of its points bent inward. Somebody had written SPARE inside it.

"There," Baila said.

"That isn't mine. Mine has the blue stones."

The audience settled again. A chair scraped.

Leah held the spare crown between two fingers. It looked like a fence that had lost an argument.

"I can't wear this."

Baila glanced toward their teacher, Mrs. Adler, who was checking the curtain cord.

"Then we need to ask what we can do."

Chapter 3The Last Minute

Mrs. Adler turned toward them. Her navy tichel was pinned neatly above her collar.

Leah showed her the spare crown.

"Mine's gone. I need to look in the classroom."

"Stay here," Mrs. Adler said. "The classrooms are locked now. I can check with the caretaker after the performance."

Leah looked at the wall clock.

"Could we wait?"

"We can delay briefly if we need to. But searching the whole school isn't a plan for this minute. Does the scene need a particular crown, or does it need something the audience understands as one?"

"A crown," Baila answered.

Leah said nothing. She had spent two evenings gluing on the blue stones.

Mrs. Adler did not tell her it wasn't important.

She asked to see the script.

Chapter 4One Line on the Page

Baila opened it to the third scene.

The queen put her crown down and said, "There are times when even a queen must listen."

"The object makes the point," Mrs. Adler said. "The stones don't have a line."

Leah almost laughed. Almost.

Baila offered to straighten the bent point with her fingers. No glue, no scissors, no search for equipment.

"It will still look old," Leah said.

"Yes," said Mrs. Adler. "We can use this spare, or change the action so you take off your royal sash.

We'd need to tell the other girls in that scene."

Two choices. Neither was the blue-stone crown.

From the hall came a small cough.

Leah imagined holding up the crooked crown while everyone waited for her to remember what came next.

Then she imagined everyone waiting while she kept refusing to choose.

Chapter 5The Spare

"We'll use the spare," she said.

Baila straightened the point. Leah put it on, took it off, and set it on the little table.

That was all the rehearsal time they had.

Mrs. Adler told the two girls who shared the third scene. They did not have to change any words.

"And no searching while the play is going," she added. "We need you in your places."

Leah nodded.

Baila hung the spare on the labelled hook.

"Your label has work again," she whispered.

This time Leah did laugh, quietly.

Mrs. Adler checked that everyone was ready, then gave the signal.

The curtain began to move.

Chapter 6The Third Scene

Leah's first entrance went well.

During the second scene, she caught herself peering at the costume basket. Perhaps the blue crown was hidden under one more shawl.

Then Baila touched the script beside the next entrance mark.

Leah looked where she needed to be.

In the third scene, the spare crown caught slightly on her hair when she lifted it. She freed it carefully, put it on the table, and began her speech.

"There are times when even a queen must listen."

She knew the next line. And the one after that.

The audience was quiet in the way an audience is quiet when it is following a story.

One cardboard point leaned sideways again.

Leah kept speaking.

Chapter 7After the Applause

When the play finished, Leah felt relieved and disappointed at the same time.

The scene had worked. Her own crown had still been missing for it.

She helped put the costumes away before asking Mrs. Adler about the classroom.

The caretaker opened the locked room. Mrs. Adler went in with Leah and Baila.

On the windowsill stood a box marked THINGS TO KEEP FLAT.

Inside it lay the blue-stone crown.

Leah remembered setting it there when a younger girl had brushed past the hook at lunch. She had meant to bring it back before the final rehearsal.

She had checked the list afterward, but not the actual hook.

Baila lifted the crown out.

"It's very flat," she said.

Chapter 8What Went on the List

Leah carried both crowns back to the costume basket.

"I moved it," she told Mrs. Adler. "Then I counted what the list said instead of looking."

Mrs. Adler asked her to add the storage place beside each prop on the list. Baila suggested keeping the spare crown too.

Leah wrote SPARE beside it in larger letters.

She wanted another chance to wear the blue stones.

There would not be another performance that afternoon.

But there would be other things that went wrong close to a starting time.

Under the prop list, she wrote the two choices they had actually used: ask the teacher; try the agreed spare once.

Then she crossed out "try" and wrote "check".

A crown on a list was not the same as a crown on a hook. Next time, she wanted to see the difference before the audience did.