William S. and the Great Escape by Zilpha Keatley Snyder Page B

do that, William?” she asked. “How’d they make a big wind like that blow indoors?”
    â€œIt’s a wind machine,” William told her. “It’s like a great big fan. Can I go on now?” They all nodded. He opened the big book to page 1299 and put it on the counter in the little kitchen, where he could remind himself what came next when he needed to. But he didn’t read it word for word. Mostly he just did it the way he thought they might understand. Like, to begin with, “‘ Heigh my hearties. Take in the topsail or we run ourselves aground .’”
    He ran around then, pretending to be pulling on a rope that was taking in the sails, and leaning back and forth to make it look as if the floor was tilting under his feet. The little kids laughed and clapped.
    â€œAnd now,” he said, “the wind is still blowing, butfour more men come onstage, all dressed up in fancy clothes like kings and other rich people. And one of them has a beard and gray hair because he is an old man named Gonzalo. He’s a good guy. Then there’s a king with a crown named Alonso, and a duke, who’s almost as important as a king but not quite. And the duke’s name is Antonio. Remember Antonio, because he’s the bad guy. The other person is named Ferdinand, and he’s the king’s son and he’s supposed to be young and very goodlooking. You got all that? Okay, action. First I’m going to be a bossy sailor called a boatswain, and he starts ordering the kings to stay down below. William squared his shoulders and stuck out his chin and said, “‘ I pray now, keep below. You mar our labour: Keep your/cabins: You do assist the storm .’”
    William began to recite by heart the argument between the old man named Gonzalo and the boatswain, where Gonzalo says, “‘ I have great comfort from this fellow: methinks he/hath no drowning mark upon him; his complexion is/ perfect gallows .’”
    He stopped when he could tell by the blank looks of his audience that they weren’t getting it. “What that meant,” he told them, “is that Gonzalo is telling the bossy boatswain he looks like someone who was born to be hanged. You know what a gallows is, don’t you? It’s like this platform where they hang people.” Williampantomimed hanging, holding an imaginary rope above his tipped head and letting his tongue hang out. Gasps and giggles from his audience.
    â€œAnd Gonzalo says he is feeling safer now, because if the boatswain was born to be hanged, he can’t die by drowning. So that means the boat probably isn’t going to sink after all.” Jancy giggled, but the little kids still looked pretty vague.
    William checked the book and told his audience, “The first scene ends with everybody still rocking back and forth in the storm, and then there’s a big crashing sound like the boat just hit some rocks, and the curtain comes down real quick. And when it goes back up there are just two people onstage, sitting on a big rock on an island. One of them is an old man named Prospero and the other one is his beautiful daughter, Miranda. Miranda knows that her father can do magical things, so she’s asking him if he caused the storm that sank the ship, because she feels sorry for the people who were in the boat. And then Prospero says to Miranda, ‘ Be collected:/ No more amazement: tell your piteous heart/There’s no harm done .’ Which means that even though he did use magic to cause the storm, he hadn’t let anybody drown. And that’s when he tells Miranda to ‘ Ope thine ear ’ because he’s going to explain everything to her.”
    It was right then that someone else said, “Oh, yes. Iremember that part now.” And there was Clarice, sitting on the top step.
    William was embarrassed. He had no idea how long she’d been sitting there and how much she’d seen and