Maskerade - Terry Pratchett [103]
“Er…it’s all been changed!” said Agnes urgently. She turned to a nobleman in a zebra mask and tugged it desperately. The singer underneath glared at her.
“Sorry!” she whispered. “I thought you were someone else!”
“We’re not supposed to take them off until the end!”
“It’s been changed!”
“Has it? No one told me!”
A short-necked giraffe next to him leaned sideways. “What’s that?”
“The big unmasking scene is now, apparently!”
“No one told me!”
“Yes, but when does anyone ever tell us anything? We’re only the chorus…here, why is old Troublemaker wearing a monkey mask…?”
Nanny Ogg pirouetted past, cannoned into an elephant in evening dress and beheaded him by the trunk. She whispered: “We’re looking for the Ghost, see?”
“But…the Ghost is dead, isn’t he?”
“Hard things to kill, ghosts,” said Nanny.
The whisper spread outward from that point. There is nothing like a chorus for rumor. People who would not believe a High Priest if he said the sky was blue, and was able to produce signed affidavits to this effect from his white-haired old mother and three Vestal virgins, would trust just about anything whispered darkly behind their hand by a complete stranger in a pub.
A cockatoo spun around and pulled the mask off a parrot…
Bucket sobbed. This was worse than the day the buttermilk exploded. This was worse than the flash heatwave that had led a whole warehouseful of Lancre Extra Strong to riot.
The opera had turned into a pantomime.
The audience was laughing.
About the only character still with a mask on was Señor Basilica, who was watching the struggling chorus with as much aloof amazement as his own mask could convey—and this, amazingly enough, was quite a lot.
“Oh, no…” moaned Bucket. “We’ll never live it down! He’ll never come back! It’ll be all over the opera circuit and no one will ever want to come here ever again!”
“Ever again wha’?” mumbled a voice behind him.
Bucket turned. “Oh, Señor Basilica,” he said. “Didn’t see you there…I was just thinking, I do hope you don’t think this is typical!”
Señor Basilica stared through him, swaying slightly from side to side. He was wearing a torn shirt.
“Summon…” he said.
“I’m sorry?”
“Summon…summon hit me onna head,” said the tenor. “Wanna glassa water pliss…”
“But you’re…just about…to…sing…aren’t you?” said Bucket. He grabbed the stunned man by the collar to pull him closer, but this simply meant that he dragged himself off the floor, bringing his shoes about level with Basilica’s knees. “Tell me…you’re out there…on the stage…please!!!”
Even in his stunned state, Enrico Basilica a.k.a. Henry Slugg recognized what might be called the essential dichotomy of the statement. He stuck to what he knew.
“Summon bashed me inna corridor…” he volunteered.
“That’s not you out there?”
Basilica blinked heavily. “’M not me?”
“You’re going to sing the famous duet in a moment!!!”
Another thought staggered through Basilica’s abused skull. “’M I?” he said “’S good…’ll look forwa’ to that. Ne’er had a chance to hear me befo’…”
He gave a happy little sigh and fell full-length backward.
Bucket leaned against a pillar for support. Then his brow furrowed and, in the best traditions of the extended double take, he stared at the fallen tenor and counted to one on his fingers. Then he turned toward the stage and counted to two.
He could feel a fourth exclamation mark coming on any time now.
The Enrico Basilica onstage turned his mask this way and that. Stage right, Bucket was whispering to a group of stagehands. Stage left, André the secret pianist was waiting. A large troll loomed next to him.
The fat red singer walked to center stage as the prelude to the duet began. The audience settled down again. Fun and games among the chorus was all very well—it might even be in the plot—but this was what they’d paid for. This was what it was all about.
Agnes stared at him as Christine walked toward him. Now she could see he wasn’t right. Oh, he was fat, in a pillow-up-your-shirt sort