King of Shadows by Susan Cooper

Master Condell sighed.
    â€œFollow, Nathan,” he said.
    Head over heels over head over heels I went across the stage, faster than Roper, ending with a jump. I was better than any of them; but then, somersaults are easy.
    The boys watched me in silence, warily.
    â€œCartwheels,” said Master Condell.
    One by one we cartwheeled back toward him; Harry turned two, the others three, Roper and I four. Thomas tried to turn one cartwheel and ended in a hopeless heap. This bothered him not at all, and the others seemed to take it for granted, but Roper snorted in disdain. He opened his mouth to say something, caught Master Condell’s eye, and shut it again.
    â€œWalk on your hands,” said Henry Condell.
    Roper and I made it across the stage; Nick and Alex fell down halfway. Thomas couldn’t get up onto his hands at all.
    â€œForgive me, Master Condell,” he said cheerfully. “If I practice for a year, I shall still have no balance.”
    â€œYou never practice at all,” Roper said.
    â€œEach man has his own talents,” Henry Condell said mildly. “Now—I want to see the display you have each devised for me in these last three days. I expect to be gratified, surprised, and dazzled. Or at the least, pleased.”
    Thomas said, “May I be first?”
    Master Condell blinked. “You surprise me already. Very well—let us give Thomas the stage.”
    He hopped over the edge into the groundlings’ yard, with startling agility for someone so round, and we followed him. Thomas stood up on the stage looking pudgy and lumpish, and very woeful. For the next few minutes the sad expression on his face never changed, but he went through a mimed routine that was so funny it had every one of us, even Roper, helpless with laughter. He was playing himself, the hopelessly incompetent gymnast; he went through a huge effort to complete each movement,failing more and more disastrously each time. His longing to succeed was so achingly apparent, and his failure so ludicrous, that it broke your heart while you laughed and laughed. He was a natural clown, of a kind I’ve never seen before or since, and he was brilliant.
    Henry Condell said, wiping his eyes, “Thomas, I thank thee. Thine apprenticeship will never be damaged by thy tumbling.”
    That was the start of my gradually realizing that each of the boy actors in the company called the Lord Chamberlain’s Men was an apprentice, learning his craft. Unlike the boys who were being trained in schools—the real Nathan Field, for instance—they were out in the real world very young, learning to act by doing it. The adult actors were their teachers, and each boy was apprenticed to a particular one of the adults. Harry was Master Burbage’s apprentice, which was why he was living in the Burbage house.
    Thomas ducked his head mournfully to Master Condell, still with his sad clown’s expression, then caught my eye and flashed me a quick grin.
    Each of the boys in turn got up on the stage after that and went through his own little tumbling routine: a mixture of required movements and personal tricks put together to be as showy as possible. If they’d had parallel bars or a vaulting horse, it would have been like watching mini-versions of Olympic routines. They were all pretty good, even Harry, who seemed to have fairly inflexible joints, but Roper was by far the best. He turned cartwheels and back flips and leapt about the stage as if he were made of rubber, and ended with a double flip thatbrought out a gruff “Bravo!” from Henry Condell.
    Roper jumped lightly down from the stage and landed at my side. I said impulsively, “That was great!”
    He looked at me with a twisted little smile that had no pleasure in it, just malice. Nobody had ever taught this boy how to like other people. “Now do better, Paul’s Boy,” he said nastily, and he sat down cross-legged on the ground.
    What