𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐁𝐄𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐘 • Neil Perry

Chapter 1

INSIDE the auditorium, kids were beginning to distribute themselves into the seated stalls.

There was a humming bustle that made the space truly come alive in a unanimous declaration of excitement and nerves. The only thing that kept Neil going in those moments was the adrenaline rushing through his veins. And it was a rush.

The number of girls was vastly higher than the number of boys, not that he expected any different, but it did make him feel out of his depth. Whether or not he stood a fighting chance—a real one—he had no true way of knowing. But if there was one thing he knew without the shadow of a doubt was that he was more than willing to try.

He was going to try.

There was no signs of the play director, or any staffed authority, so he sat back and let his head reel with the lines of the monologue he had remembered inside out. They were from the second scene of act three in A Midsummer Night's Dream—one the multitude of Puck's monologues:

     "My mistress with a monster is in love.
     Near to her close and consecrated bower,
     While she was in her dull and sleeping hour,
     A crew of patches, rude—"

Two finger taps upon his shoulder tore him from his own mind, and when he spun around to trace it, he was deprived of his breath. A girl, perhaps slightly older than himself, sat a seat over behind him, with mousy hair that curled against her chest and honey-suckle eyes that shimmered with the light from the stage ahead. She, in all her radiance, was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

Then with the curl of her lips, she asked, "Which part are you auditioning for?"

Still swept of breath, Neil had to remind himself how to speak. "Puck."

Her eyebrows raised with an indiscernible surprise. "Really?" she asked amusedly, and the subtle smirk playing on her face perplexed him.

Maybe it was the adrenaline rush or maybe he was simply way in over his head, but he found himself replying, "Yeah. You don't think I'll make the cut?"

"It's not that," she told him, "I just think you'll have some stiff competition."

"Good," Neil said assuredly. "At least that way I'll know I earned it."

The slanted smile that occupied her features crawled across her face and evened itself into a gladdened grin. Somehow, where once he could hardly breathe, Neil had surmounted and found himself on even ground.

"Which part are you auditioning for?" he stammered slightly, but swallowed his waverings down in efforts to conceal them.

"Puck."

Suddenly, the tone of her smile made sense. She wasn't amused at his expense, she was amused by the absurdity of the situation. So, naturally, this time it was his turn to be surprised.

"Really?" he asked.

"Mhm," she hummed matter-of-factly. "You don't think I'll make the cut?"

"It's not that. I just have it on the highest authority that there's some pretty stiff competition this year is all."

She angled her brow. "Pretty?"

"Well, that wasn't exactly what I meant, but... if the shoe fits," Neil shrugged, and the girl in her Henley Hall uniform smiled. There was something unspoken that lingered between them then—something palpable that churned adrenaline into a warmth that inhabited his body.

"If we could make our way to our seats and collect ourselves please," the play director, Mrs Woolworth, announced from the front of the auditorium, catching the girl's eye first before Neil's hesitantly followed. "Auditions will begin shortly."