Fringe Festival at Pigeon Hole

After tumbling we drive down to Amanda’s at Blackrock in my ute. It takes forever in the Punt Road traffic. When we are almost at the river one of us realises that we forgot all the costumes we’ve been rehearsing with. Damn.
Last night Christy and Luke asked their teenage class what her character should be called and one of them suggested ‘Scout.’ We like it. A lot.
When we get there, Christy and my outfits – in unfinished forms, are hanging from the backs of her dining-room chairs. The peter pan collar uniform and the little shorty overalls. Christy and I make appreciative noises and then try them on, scattering our normal clothes all over the loungeroom and then standing on tip toes in front of the mirror, trying to see our whole selves. We try out cape ideas on Christy and do acrobalance on the shag pile rug to see what happens when the cape is upside-down. Then we all turn to Luke. He’s worried about a football jumper under his suit because its going to be so hot.
Suddenly Christy says, “I wonder…if you’re imaginary then you can be totally superheroed. You can just be what I think a superhero should look like.” We all agree and it shifts a little. Yes. Natalie can wear superhero things but they are things ‘Scout’ has found and dressed her dog in. Scout will be the same. But Terry’s costume will be the full lycra shebang. It makes us all very happy. The only downside of that is that I don’t get to transform into a magic dog with red ears instead of brown ones. But I’m pretty happy being a dog anyway.
We drive back to Pigeon Hole where Christy is going straight into a rehearsal with One Trick Pony. Annie is locking up her bike outside, the One Trick Pony tent is all set up on the grass and Joh is inside chatting to EJ.
Inside, EJ and Flick are putting a show together too. They have an old bubble caravan they have painted mushroom coloured sitting inside the warehouse. EJ is rigging washing-lines up all around it and hanging frilly white washing everywhere. Raku has a projector set up for Piano Boat rehearsals and is doing shadow puppetry. “It feels like the Fringe Festival is at Pigeon Hole,” I say to Luke and we grin at each other. I sit with him for a while and help out with his Ian Potter application. Christy runs in with Kate on her mobile phone, hands it to us and runs back to her rehearsal. Kate likes ‘scout’ and she likes the Terry as full superhero. We text Amanda and give her the go ahead.
I come back later in the evening and we sit under the doona with the butcher’s paper in front of us speaking the script.
After a couple of rounds, Christy suggests that we type it, so as they speak I type like a torpedo. When it’s my go to speak, Luke records me on his i-phone and then plays it back, pausing while I type. The truck is warm and Christy has almonds in a tea-cup which we eat.