Harry enters hesitantly from SR and looks around.

HARRY: (To himself) I’m pretty sure I didn’t write anything about Lucy running off crying. What happened? Guess I’d better set up the next scene.

Harry drags TABLE 2 over to CSR and places it on its side to represent Esmerelda’s bedroom wall. He also moves one of the chairs a little way behind the table and faces it towards the audience. Then Harry exits SL. Esmerelda enters SR. She sits in the chair and mimes combing her hair as if looking in a mirror. Horatio enters SL and mimes throwing stones at Esmerelda’s bedroom window. Hearing the sound Esmerelda rises, walks to the table, and throws open the ‘window’.

HORATIO: Oh beauty! Oh Emma-

ESMERELDA: Esmerelda.

HORATIO: Oh Esmerelda! I apologise for the lateness of the hour, but I had to see you again. Can I come in?

ESMERELDA: My parents are asleep and I’m getting ready for bed.

HORATIO: Do they despise me, your parents, like Juliet’s despised Romeo’s? Can they not see the beauty of our love?

ESMERELDA: I have not yet told them. It’s all happening so fast (aside) without any real plot development.

HORATIO: Love strikes quickly without warning, and when it does we are as puppets to its will.

TRENT: You are. She’s not.

HORATIO: Though others (Looks at Trent) may bring their slings and fire their stones, together we shall prevail, our love shall come through.

EMMA: Woah, Horatio, Harry -

HORATIO: Shh, you need not speak; I see it all in your eyes.

TRENT: What do you see? Contempt? She doesn’t fancy you, deal with it.

EMMA: Wait a moment. Harry, just listen to me for a moment, I think this has gone on long enough -

HARRY: You’re right. You. (points to Trent) You’ve been sat there this whole time criticising, making snide comments. You think it’s easy writing, directing and starring in a play? You think you could do any better.

TRENT: (Shrugging) yeah, I’d give it a shot.

HARRY: (With a sweep of his arms) Then be my guest.

Trent puts down his notepad, rises from his seat and gets up onto the stage.

TRENT: Ok, (To Harry) you go stand over there out the way. (Harry moves US. Trent moves TABLE 2 to one side out of the way then returns to CS. To Emma) Emma – it is Emma, isn’t it? You come over here by me.

Nervously Emma walks over to Trent and stands next to him, both of them facing out towards the audience, but Emma occasionally looking over at Trent to follow his lead.

TRENT: Look at the stars. (He places a hand on Emma’s back, drawing her closer. With his other hand he points outwards and upwards.)

EMMA: They’re.. beautiful.

TRENT: (With exaggerated, powerful, electric acting) I have travelled. I have travelled. I have roamed this world, always seeking but never finding and I have seen so much: Lights dancing like fire over the ice of the North, men killing each other in the Arabian deserts, children running naked and crying through the streets of India, stone triangles scraping the skies of Egypt, and yet always those stars have hung over me, unchanging, pitiless and beautiful. Everyone who ever lived gazed up at those stars: Caesar, Galileo, Newton, all the peasants and the gentry, the kings and their servants, all the poets, and the writers and the lovers. They all looked up at those pitiless beautiful stars. And how do you think they felt, those people looking to the sky? (He looks into Emma’s eyes, holds her gaze.) Some of them saw God, some of them saw eternity, but most of them just felt alone.

EMMA: (Still lost in his eyes) Do you feel alone?

TRENT: (Nods sadly and looks down) It’s hard not to (Pause. Looking up with sudden passion) Kiss me.

Placing his hand behind her head, with the other resting on the small of her back he leans into kiss her. Their lips are centimetres apart. They can feel each other’s breath.

EMMA: What is your name?

TRENT: Trent.

He kisses her, long and passionate, as if no one is watching. When they pull away he takes her hand and they both bow twice to the audience. Trent and Emma exit SR, hand in hand.

SCENE SIX

Harry is left alone on stage shattered. Even the props are at opposite sides of the stage, leaving its centre the same as it was at the play’s opening. With a slow despondency Harry moves DS and sits on the edge, looking out to the audience, perhaps with his head in his hands and his knees drawn against his chest.

HARRY: This isn’t how it was supposed to be. This isn’t how I wrote it. I thought plays were different from real life: I thought people could get what they want, even if it was all make believe. Isn’t that what plays are about? Dreams? Fantasies? Sad people playing happy characters, lonely people falling in love? I always loved Emma, but she never noticed me. I was always sidelined by everyone else, all those confident people who talked with her and made her laugh. I thought maybe if I cast myself as the hero she would finally see me, and even if it wasn’t actually me she was seeing, it was someone I could be. I guess everyone has their own scripts though, their own motivations, and they rarely fit together so easily. (Lucy hesitantly enters USR)

Maybe I didn’t pick the right words to make her fall in love with me. Maybe I’m not a good enough writer, or I’m not a good enough actor. I wish I could be confident like that Trent guy, but I can only act confident, not be it in real life. (Lucy takes a few silent steps towards Harry. HARRY sighs.) I suppose any happy ending for me at this point would be a deus ex machina, but still, that’s all I ever wanted: to be the hero and win over my leading lady.

Lucy is almost directly behind Harry now. Harry sighs again then suddenly becomes aware of Lucy stood behind him. He turns his head, still sitting and looks up at her. She looks down at him. Their eyes lock. Neither speak. Save for the rise and fall of their chests, neither move, Lucy holding herself almost on tip-toe as if drawn up my invisible strings. Count five. Slowly Lucy holds out her hand. Harry takes it and stands up, their eyes never losing contact. For a moment they are level, then she turns away and leads him off stage by the hand.

The Curtain comes down.

SCENE THREE

Extra 1 and Extra 2 sit on the two US chairs. Horatio and Esmerelda enter SR, Esmerelda’s arm linked somewhat uneasily through Horatio’s.

HORATIO: Here we are, at (with strong emphasis for the audience’s benefit) the theatre.

ESMERELDA: What are we going to see?

HORATIO: A play.

TRENT: Obviously.

Emma stifles a snicker.

ESMERELDA: What play, Horatio?

HORATIO: William Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo & Juliet’, a classic love story about two starcross’d lovers who desperately want to be together, but cannot be because their families are at war and they do not have the benefits, the freedoms, of our modern- day life where there is nothing to keep two people who love each other apart.

EMMA: (Momentarily breaking from character to question the script) Are you sure ‘Romeo & Juliet’ is appropriate for a first date?

HORATIO: Oh, uh, I thought you’d say “oh, Horatio, you are so romantic, what a perfect choice?” (pause) Then I would have said, “yes, I thought you would like to see it, beautiful ESMERELDA, I could tell just by the your eyes lit up as you read the pages of ‘Mrs. Dalloway’ in the library” and then you would have said -

ESMERELDA: The play’s about to start.

HORATIO: Oh, uh, yes, you would have said that, um, later.

Horatio and Esmerelda sit in the two vacant seats.

ESMERELDA: The stage looks pretty small from here.

HORATIO: Sorry, these were the only seats left.

EXTRA 1: Shh, you two love-birds can talk when the play’s finished.

For the next couple of minutes, they react to ‘the play’ they’re seeing: gasping, and laughing, perhaps leaning forward in their seats. Horatio, however, is less involved with ‘the play’, and instead keeps looking at Esmerelda, reaching his hand or his arm out as if to touch her, then drawing back. Eventually he stretches out his arm and lays it across her shoulders, only for her and Extra 1 and Extra 2 to rise from their seats in standing ovation at the end of ‘the play’. Horatio, a little out of synch, also rises and claps, and is the last one to stop. Horatio and Esmerelda move away from their seats. Esmerelda sighs.

HORATIO: That was so beautiful, so poetic and tragic.

ESMERELDA: A little old-fashioned though. (sceptically) Do you really believe love like that still exists, or ever even did?

HORATIO: (Taking her hands in his) Yes. Yes I do.

ESMERELDA: (Turning away from him and putting a hand to her forehead) I’d like to believe that.

Horatio moves close behind her and puts his hands on her waist. Emma tenses.

HORATIO: You can.

Horatio leans in to kiss the back of her neck but Emma moves away.

ESMERELDA: Walk me home.

The two walk around the stage while Extra 1 and Extra 2 move TABLE 1 to SL, TABLE 2 to CS, two of the chairs either side of TABLE 2 and two of the chairs to SR. Emma becomes increasingly nervous as Horatio moves towards the kiss scen she knows Harry has written.

HORATIO: Oh, Esmerelda, I know I have known you only a short time, but I feel already attracted to you in ways I can barely describe. When I am around you it is as if a thousand butterflies flutter at my breast; as if my very bones -

EMMA: (Breaking from her ‘character’ to avoid kissing Harry) We’re here.

HARRY: Where?

EMMA: My house.

HARRY: Are we?

EMMA: Yep, we are. (pause) Well, see ya. (begins to walk away)

HARRY: Hey, wait.

EMMA: What?

HARRY: The script says we’re supposed to kiss at the end of our first date.

EMMA: (Imitating herself as Esmerelda) Oh noble sir, I cannot lead you on, I cannot follow this ‘script’ of which you speak, for a lady doth never kiss on the first date. (Esmerelda exits SR)

HARRY: (calling after Emma) But, but, I was meant to say some more stuff. It was poetic and beautiful. It was meant to make you fall into my arms so that I would kiss you, and then we could move towards our happily ever after…

TRENT: Too bad she doesn’t want to.

HARRY: It’s in the script. There’ll be a happy end, she’s just… improvising.

SCENE FOUR

Extra 1 and Extra 2 enter SR.

HARRY: Hey, hey, what are you doing? Our scene isn’t over.

LUCY: But Emma- (Kevin coughs) I mean Esmerelda came backstage.

HARRY: Well go get her back out here, we have to finish the scene.

Lucy looks unsure about what to do, Kevin is resolutely still in character, but visible annoyance beginning to spread across his face.

LUCY: I think she went to the toilet.

HARRY: Well then, we’ll wait.

LUCY: She might be a while.. I don’t think she really wants to act any more.

HARRY: What do you mean?

LUCY: I think she only agreed to be in your play because you kept asking her.

TRENT: Ha!

HARRY: I wrote the part for her, she had to be my leading lady.

LUCY: I’m sure she’ll come around if we just give her some time.

HARRY: Yeah, we’ll wait.

Kevin coughs again, frustration bubbling under the surface of his character’s visage. Lucy looks at him, as does Harry.

KEVIN: Can we please get on with our scene now?

HARRY: No, we’re waiting for Emma so we can finish off our scene with the kiss at the end.

KEVIN: And do you expect the audience to wait? They’ve sat through ten minutes of this amateurishness already. My God! I knew I was the only professional in this play, but I thought the rest of you might at least be able to learn your lines, however poorly written they were!

LUCY: Kevin!

KEVIN: My name is Extra 1, it’s not the name I would have chosen, but I am but an actor, subject to the whims of the writer and the director, (Looking at Harry) however incompetent that person may prove to be. (He pauses to control his anger) Now, Horatio, please leave, that I may complete my date with Extra 2.

HARRY: But your scene isn’t important. It isn’t even relevant. I only wrote it in because you refused to be in my play if you couldn’t have a more significant role and a scene dedicated to you. This play’s supposed to be about me kissing… I mean, about the love of Horatio and Esmerelda, and that last scene was integral to the plot.

TRENT: What plot?

EXTRA 1: (Booming) Horatio! (Lucy and Harry jump) Leave!

Harry looks dejected. Harry exits SR. Lucy looks concernedly after him as Extra 1 moves to behind one of the seats at TABLE 2. Extra 1 coughs to draw Lucy’s attention, then pulls the chair out for her to sit on. She moves over and takes the seat, allowing Extra 1 to push it in behind her. Extra 1 then takes the other chair and sits opposite her. In this scene Lucy slips almost imperceptibly in and out of character in criticism of Kevin, eventually forcing him out of character as well.

EXTRA 1: Have you done something different with your hair?

EXTRA 2: I had it cut.

EXTRA 1: It looks beautiful.

LUCY: Actually, I had it cut last week. You’ve seen me since then.

EXTRA 1: Oh, I, uh, what will you have?

EXTRA 2: A banana split, extra chocolate sauce.

EXTRA 1: You always have that.

LUCY: I like it. Why should I change?

EXTRA 1: I’m, uh, not saying you should? (pause) I’m going to have a raspberry ripple. (Kevin looks around for a waiter) Isn’t there supposed to be a waiter?

LUCY: I don’t think Harry could find another actor.

EXTRA 1: Who’s Harry? What do you mean about ‘another actor’?

LUCY: You know perfectly-

EXTRA 1: Just a minute, I’ll go order for us. (He gets up and moves to SL where he calls offstage) One raspberry ripple, one banana split, extra chocolate sauce, and a strawberry milkshake with two straws, please. (With exaggerated acting he hands over invisible money from an invisible wallet he pulls from his pocket. He then returns to his seat)

EXTRA 2: Didn’t you get them?

EXTRA 1: Well they’ve got to make them first.

LUCY: How long does it take fictional cooks to make fictional sundaes?

EXTRA 1: You sure are acting weird tonight, Lu – Extra 2. So what did you get up to last night?

LUCY: So are you.

EXTRA 1: So am I what?

LUCY: Acting weird. Don’t you think you were a bit harsh on Harry?

EXTRA 1: Who is Harry? (Lucy looks sternly at him, folds her arms) Oh, you mean, Horatio. (Kevin puts his hand across the table for Lucy to take, but her arms remain crossed) I only asked him to leave so that we could be alone together for our date.

For five beats the characters remain frozen, Lucy with arms crossed, Kevin with hands open across the table. Kevin closes his fingers.

EXTRA 1: Ice cream’s ready.

He gets up again and returns to the ‘counter’ SL, picks up two invisible bowls and brings them over to the table. He puts them down. Lucy moves her bowl towards herself and picks up an invisible spoon. She takes a bite and then plays with the ice cream, poking the spoon into it and twisting it round. She continues to do this for the next fourteen lines.

EXTRA 1: (Still standing) I got us a strawberry milkshake as well.

He goes over to fetch the ‘milkshake’ and brings it back to the table. He sits down, then takes a bite of the ‘raspberry ripple’. Kevin looks up at Lucy. She is looking down at the ‘banana split’. Kevin moves the ‘strawberry milkshake’ towards himself and leans down to suck on the straw.

EXTRA 1: Do you want some? (He offers the milkshake to LUCY. She shakes her head. Pause.) What’s wrong?

LUCY: (Looking up) You owe Harry an apology. You know he’s put a lot of himself into this play and I think you really hurt his feelings.

KEVIN: It’s his own fault though. Emma’s not an actress, and he’s not an actor. You know as well as I do that the only reason he wanted her in this play is because he fancies her. And we also both know that she doesn’t fancy him.

LUCY: She might do. Why shouldn’t she?

KEVIN: Why should she? (Lucy looks back down at her banana split) Now can we please get back to the script?

LUCY: No, not until you promise to apologise.

KEVIN: (firmly) The script. We’ll talk about this later.

LUCY: Christ, Kevin, is that all you care about? The script?

KEVIN: Right now, yes. I am an actor, and, no matter how badly written it is, no matter how amateur my fellow performers, I am duty bound to follow the script to the end.

LUCY: Amateur? Is that how you see me?

KEVIN: Well, if you can’t follow a script…

LUCY: Well of course I can’t after the way you were to Harry. I can’t just hold ‘the script’ above all else like you do, Kevin, life doesn’t just stop just because we have to read a few lines from a piece of paper and pretend to be someone else. Oh sure, maybe it does for you, but I’m not a fucking actress.

KEVIN: Ha, don’t I know that.

LUCY: (Standing) How can you say that? I only did this for you, oh sure, it was Harry who asked me to be in his play, but I did it so we could be together. I thought it would be something fun we could do as a couple. But fuck it, I quit.

In a passionate rage Lucy picks up the ‘banana split’ and hurls it into Kevin’s face. An actor to the end, Kevin jerks back in surprise as if physically hit with ice cream, bananas and chocolate sauce. Kevin begins to wipe the invisible mess from his face with his fingers as Lucy storms off towards SR. Before she exits however, Lucy stops and turns round to shout one final insult at Kevin -

LUCY: I may not be an actress, but I can name at least one place where I can act and you can’t even perform – the bedroom. (Lucy exits SR)

TRENT: Burned!

Kevin looks at Trent, at the audience in general, with a mixture of anger and embarrassment. Kevin exits SL. The stage is left empty.

Horatio & Esmerelda

SCENE ONE

The Stage is empty and illuminated with white artificial stage lighting. HARRY walks out to the front of the stage. TRENT is sitting, as he will be for much of the play, in the first row of the audience, writing in a notebook.

HARRY: Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Harold Singer, writer, actor and casting director, and I would like to welcome you to the first performance of my first play, ‘Horatio and Esmerelda’. Tonight I shall be playing the part of Horatio, a shy young man who overcomes his insecurities when he meets the girl of his dreams in a library. Slowly, as their love blooms, she brings him more and more out of his shell, bestows him with that lustre that only love can-

TRENT raises his hand, a pen between his fingers, as if in a classroom

HARRY: (To Trent) Um, yes?

TRENT: What are you doing?

HARRY: Introducing the play, like Brecht did. (He looks at Trent, as if expecting further interruption.) Okay? (Trent nods) So, as I was saying, this is my play, and, well, we’ve had some troubles you know, it’s not that easy making a play, but it’s come a long way from the university project it began as and, as I’ve been told, “a bad rehearsal means a good performance”, so hopefully it should go down okay, and I hope you all enjoy it.

Harry looks nervously around the audience for a few seconds as if seeking their approval, then Harry exits SL.

SCENE TWO

Extra 1 and Extra 2 enter SR bringing with them two tables and four chairs. TABLE 1 they place DSR, TABLE 2 USL. They put two chairs facing each other either side of TABLE 1 and two chairs next to each other and facing the audience behind TABLE 2. The props set up, Extra 1 and Extra 2 exit SL. Esmerelda enters SR and sits in the closest chair on TABLE 1 and mimes reading a book. When Esmerelda walks on, Trent whistles. Horatio and Extra 2 enter SL.

EXTRA 2: So I just started reading that book you lent me, The French Lieutenant’s Woman. (They sit next to each other at TABLE 2) It’s pretty weird, how he keeps talking to you as if he’s there, y’know? Hey, are you listening?

HORATIO: What? Oh yeah, French Lieutenant’s Woman, yeah.

EXTRA 2: What were you thinking about?

HORATIO: That girl over there. She’s beautiful.

EXTRA 2: Yeah, I suppose. Do you know her?

HORATIO: I wish I did. I’ve seen her here before, but I don’t know her name. I bet it’s beautiful though.

EXTRA 2: Her name?

HORATIO: Yeah.

EXTRA 2: How can a name be beautiful?

HORATIO: What do you mean? Of course a name can be beautiful? Haven’t you ever read Lolita? The guy in that talks about how Lolita’s name is beautiful because it is lilting and just rolls off the tongue. That’s how a name can be beautiful, and I bet hers is.

EXTRA 2: If you say so. So are you going to go talk to her?

HORATIO: I don’t know.

EXTRA 2: Go on, you obviously want to.

HORATIO: Of course I want to, but what do I say? What do people say to each other? What does anyone say to anyone? If only I could work that out, if – do you think there’s a magic combination of words, and if you say the right words you can make anyone fall in love with you?

EXTRA 2: I’m not really sure…

HORATIO: There must be. It must be in the words people say to each other, because that’s all we have: words.

EXTRA 2: Seventy-five percent of communication is non- verbal.

HORATIO: But it’s the other twenty-five percent that’s the most important. Oh, what do I say to her?

EXTRA 2: Just say that you’ve seen her around and wondered what her name was. Something like that.

HORATIO: Anyone could say that.

EXTRA 2: What?

HORATIO: Anyone could say that, I could be anyone.

EXTRA 2: And?

HORATIO: And I’m me, I want her to know that, and if I just go over there and say some cliché pick-up line then she’ll just dismiss me without ever getting to know the real me.

EXTRA 2: Well you can’t just go there and spill your life story.

HORATIO: No, but I can’t just distil myself into a handful of adjectives, a neat little synopsis: I’m not some character in a play who you can just label. If only I knew the right words, the right combination.

EXTRA 2: Forget the words. Just go talk to her.

HORATIO: But I know not what to say.

EXTRA 2: Say anything.

HARRY: (Looking unsurely over at Esmerelda, then back at Extra 2, Horatio’s confidence slipping away from Harry) How did you and Kev- I mean Extra 1, get together?

LUCY: Um… (aside, as if the audience wouldn’t notice) was this in the script?

HARRY: (Also aside) I’m ad-libbing, work with it.

LUCY: He was in a play I went to see, he, uh, he moved with this kind of intensity, this absolute confidence, with the spotlights highlighting all his features. He looked so handsome. Then, after the play was over, me and the friend I was with went to the theatre’s bar, and he was there too, with the rest of the cast members.

During this scene Emma looks up occasionally, expecting Horatio to have come over by now.

HARRY: And what? You just went over and asked him out?

LUCY: Not exactly. I drank half a bottle of wine trying to work up the courage to go talk to him, but by the time I felt ready, he had left.

HARRY: Oh. So then what?

LUCY: I bought tickets for the next night’s performance, and sat alone in the bar just wishing he’d come over and talk to me.

HARRY: And did he?

LUCY: No… Not that night.

HARRY: You went again?

LUCY: I went four nights in a row. On the fourth he came over to me and said “you’ve been here for the last three nights, either you really like this bar, or you really like this play.” I didn’t say anything. All that time waiting for him to come speak to me and I just clammed up. Then he offered to buy me a drink.

HARRY: So you never did go over and talk to him, but it still worked out for you.

LUCY: Well, yes, I suppose, but… only because he came and talked to me, and that’s why you’ve got to go over and talk to Em- the girl over there.

HARRY: What play was it?

LUCY: You’re just trying to avoid talking to her, aren’t you?

HARRY: No, I just want to know.

LUCY: Jack and the Beanstalk. Now go talk to her, Horatio.

TRENT: Yeah, Horatio, go talk to the girl, this bit’s dragging on.

EXTRA 1 enters SL with an armful of invisible books.

HARRY: (Ignoring Trent) Wait. You went to see Jack and the Beanstalk three times?

Extra 1 gives Extra 2 a kiss on the cheek.

EXTRA 1: I’m going to get these books.

LUCY: Okay, just a minute. (To HARRY) Four times. I saw it four times. Now go talk to the girl.

Lucy gives Harry a look of encouragement, then Lucy and Extra 1 exit SR together. Harry still seems unsure, so a spotlight is placed on him and another on Esmerelda. The other stage lights fade away.

HARRY: (Standing) Okay, I shall overcome my shyness and go speak to this angel.

Trent claps sarcastically. Horatio strides towards Esmerelda, at first purposefully but becoming more hesitant as he approaches her. He stands before her.

HARRY: (Nervously, not entirely in character as Horatio) Hi, I noticed you’re reading Virginia Woolf, and I – God, you’re beautiful – I – I’ve forgotten what I was going to say. I’m going to come over again.

EMMA: (In a whisper to Harry) You’re meant to say about seeing me across the library making your heart beat quickly, then you ask my name. Just carry on.

HARRY: Oh yeah. I’ve admired you from across this library many times, my heart quickening with each second I behold you. I must – No, I can’t do it, I’m going to have to start again.

EMMA: Harry, we’re in the middle of a performance. Just carry on and they might not notice.

HARRY: No, I want this to be perfect. I’m going to do it again.

Harry turns away and returns to CS. Emma looks exasperated, but shrugs and gets back into character. Harry returns, striding with the more confident attitude he adopts when he ‘becomes’ Horatio.

HORATIO: I’ve admired you from across this library many times, my heart quickening with each second I behold you. I must ask you, for often I have wondered: What is your name, fair lady?

ESMERELDA: Esmerelda.

HORATIO: As I thought, a beautiful name for a beautiful girl. My name is Horatio. Might I be so bold as to ask you on a date?

ESMERELDA: A date? So soon?

HORATIO: It is soon, but why wait? Does Cupid wait when he lets fly his arrow?

ESMERELA: Sir, you speak so beautifully, yes, I shall go on a date with you. Where to?

HORATIO: The theatre perhaps, so that we may exalt in the electric atmosphere of a play performed live.

ESMERELDA: Yes, I love the theatre. The theatre’s brilliant. (Emma grimaces after delivering this line)

HORATIO: In that case, fair lady, I shall pick you up at eight.

Horatio exits SL. Esmerelda exits SR.

TRENT: (As the two walk OS) You only just met her, you don’t know where she lives. How do you know where to pick her up from? Amateur.

Trent’s questions are ignored: Horatio and Esmerelda have already gone and Extra 1 and Extra 2 have already begun to rearrange the set, moving the four chairs into a row USR and pushing the two tables together DSL to represent theatre seating and a miniature stage. Trent shrugs and writes some notes in his notebook.

Read Part Two