It was so simple that Harper felt embarrassed by the old ending she had helped devise. She had spent days arguing with adults about whose child would be the hero. The children had removed the hero entirely.
When they finished, Milo placed a button in front of Harper. ‘Your turn.’
‘I think it’s a stronger ending,’ she said. ‘And I think I owe all of you an apology.’
‘We know,’ Sachi answered, not unkindly.
Harper told them about the release she had signed and about seeing their work at the icehouse. She said Brightline could use the sets as far as she understood, but no one had to accept that as the only future for their story.
‘Can we make them stop?’ asked Ari Ortiz.
‘I don’t know,’ Harper answered. ‘I won’t promise something I can’t do.’
‘Could we perform ours somewhere else?’ Nell asked.
‘Yes, if we find a safe place and enough people willing to help.’
‘Before Saturday?’ Milo asked.
Harper hesitated. Brightline’s polished attraction would open on Saturday. The children wanted to present their version first, or at least at the same time, before an audience assumed their story was the copied one.
‘It’s Thursday,’ Harper said. ‘We have less than two days.’
‘We had a year to make the first one,’ Ari replied. ‘Most of it is already inside our heads.’
The other brother, Ben, pulled a flattened dragon jaw from his bag. ‘And some of it is in a lot of bags.’
They laughed. Harper did too, then stopped as a question formed.
‘What do you want the audience to know about the other show?’
Sachi considered. ‘That they made something pretty, but it isn’t what we meant.’
‘And that our names aren’t decorations,’ Nell added.
Milo moved three buttons into a row. ‘And that this is not a fight between two shows. We want to perform the one we made.’
They voted to attempt a new production. Then they divided responsibilities. Three children would build missing scenery. Two would rewrite scene transitions. Sachi volunteered to coordinate the shadow lights. Harper would find a venue and supervise construction. Odessa offered transport and snacks, then asked whether anyone objected to her helping after what she had done. Nell said she could carry boxes, provided she did not make any more dramatic protests.
It was a small joke, and Odessa looked grateful for it. Harper remained cautious. Forgiveness was not a prop that could be pulled onstage whenever the story needed a happy scene.
After the children left, the librarian, Mr. Ko, approached Harper. He was a patient man with a magnificent white mustache and a habit of carrying a notebook in his shirt pocket.
‘Our meeting room is free on Saturday,’ he said. ‘Seats forty.’
‘The children’s stage needs more room.’
‘What about the covered market arcade?’
‘It’s booked for a craft sale.’
‘You could speak with the vendors. They might enjoy a little theater.’
Harper pictured the long arcade with its stone pillars and broad roof. It had no curtains, no fixed stage, and unpredictable daylight. But it could hold two hundred people without anyone paying admission.
Mr. Ko saw her thinking. ‘Sometimes the proper venue is the one that welcomes the people who need it.’
Harper thanked him and began calling vendors. By six, five had agreed to move their tables. Two refused. One offered an extension cord. Another told her Brightline had purchased exclusive use of the arcade on Saturday for promotional photographs.
‘Exclusive use?’ Harper repeated.
‘Apparently,’ said the vendor. ‘Somebody from Brightline paid the market manager to keep the main aisle clear.’
Harper looked at the children’s list of tasks, then at the calendar. She would need another place. And she would need it quickly.
CHAPTER FIVE: THE PLACE WITHOUT A STAGE
On Friday morning Harper drove past three possible venues and rejected them all. The school auditorium was under renovation. The church fellowship hall could hold the audience but had a low ceiling that would hide the tallest puppets. A private event studio offered a discounted rate that still exceeded everything Harper had in her checking account.
She stopped at a bakery to buy coffee. Inside, the owner, Tamsin Reed, was arguing gently with a delivery driver about a missing crate. Harper had known Tamsin since the bakery opened, and Tamsin had watched the Open Door children perform two short sketches the previous winter.
‘You look as if the roof fell in,’ Tamsin said when the driver left.
‘It might actually be easier if it did.’
Harper explained what happened at the hall and what the children wanted. Tamsin listened without interrupting, then walked her toward a side window overlooking a narrow courtyard bordered by the bakery, a florist, and a closed bicycle shop.
‘We used to hold music nights here before the bike shop shut,’ Tamsin said. ‘The owner still allows the bakery to use the courtyard for delivery access. I can ask whether we can borrow it.’
Harper studied the space. The floor was level, with two broad doors opening onto an alley. It could hold a small audience if the chairs were arranged in three rows and the fire lane remained open. A brick wall offered a sturdy backdrop; the open sky would ruin the effect of projected shadows during daylight, but the children could perform after sunset.
‘What time do you close?’ she asked.
‘Six. The florist closes at five. We’d have three hours to set up.’
‘It’s smaller than what they planned.’
‘Ask them whether smaller is impossible.’
Harper called Nell, who answered after two rings. ‘Did you find a place?’
‘Maybe. It’s outdoors, but sheltered on three sides. We would have to perform after dark, and we’d need to change the way the sets move.’
‘Can we visit?’
‘Yes. Bring two other kids who can make decisions with you.’
An hour later Nell, Sachi, and Milo toured the courtyard. They measured the brick wall using lengths of string, paced the audience area, and discussed sightlines. Harper made herself say nothing until they finished.
‘We’ll need to shorten the city,’ Sachi said. ‘But we can put the characters closer to the audience. People might see how the shadows are made.’
‘Would that spoil it?’ Harper asked.
Milo grinned. ‘We can make that the point. The city learns to listen when everybody sees the hands doing the work.’
Nell examined a drain grate near the back wall. ‘We shouldn’t place the cardboard down here. If it rains, water might gather.’
Harper noted the concern. She appreciated the girl’s practical mind more than she could say.
Tamsin returned with the bicycle shop owner on the telephone. He agreed to let them use the courtyard if the children cleaned up afterward, kept the alley accessible, and stopped by nine. It was the first straightforward yes Harper had heard all week.
They drew a quick floor plan on bakery paper. Sachi suggested using laundry lines strung between two portable frames rather than building a solid screen. Milo would reconstruct the sun. Nell insisted the bird should remain small. The whole point, she said, was that the smallest voice did not have to become enormous to matter.
At noon, Julian Marr called Harper’s phone.
‘I understand you’re planning a competing production,’ he said.
‘It’s the children’s production.’
‘We would prefer not to have confusion surrounding our opening.’
‘Then you should make it clear who created the original materials.’
‘We’ve credited Bellweather Hall in our program.’
‘Bellweather Hall is a building.’
‘Harper, I am trying to offer a reasonable solution. We can invite the children as honored guests on Saturday. I’ll arrange front-row seats and take a photograph with them afterward.’
‘They want to perform.’
‘Our program is set. We cannot suddenly rewrite it around an amateur ensemble.’
‘Then let them perform their own version without interference.’
‘Nobody is preventing them.’ His voice softened. ‘But if families are told that our attraction uses stolen material, we will have to respond. And I imagine you’d rather not discuss the release you signed in public.’
Harper glanced at the courtyard plan. ‘You can discuss anything you like. The children are not accusing you of theft. They’re performing the story they wrote.’
Julian let a silence grow. ‘You have a talent for making your own life difficult.’
‘I’ve had practice,’ Harper replied, and ended the call.
The conversation left her trembling more than she wanted to admit. Her signature was on the release. She had abandoned the hall. A polished organization could reasonably say it had rescued an unsuccessful community project, and plenty of people would believe it. She couldn’t win a contest of press releases. But she could keep her promise to help the children put on a show.
