The Exploits of Engelbrecht Read Online Free PDF Page B

British Plant Council to make certain that British Plant actors and actresses should get a fair hearing.
    Just then Engelbrecht gave me a nudge. “Look over there,” he said. “That’s one consolation anyway.” I turned my head gingerly, expecting any moment to be pranged by a thorn, and was just in time to see the Editor of the Fly Paper foiled in a phoney attempt to leave the theatre by way of the skylight. The thing that was “barely a thing” shot him down with a blast on the Vox Humana, and he crash-dived into a spider’s web.
    Soon after that the star of the show, the floppy old hollyhock, made her first appearance as a young shoot. The Id blew a lecherous whistle but an oak boomed: “No disrespect to British planthood, if you please?” And one of the thorn bushes gagged him with a bundle of brushwood.
    That sobered us I can tell you. I mean to say you don’t gag an elemental force like the Id as easily as all that. We sat dead silent till the end of the scene when they handed up a huge bouquet of raw meat to the hollyhock “from her devoted admirers”.
    Presently Lizard Bayliss began to whine that his feet were taking root in the floor. “Can’t you do nothing for me, kiddo?” he whimpered. “I’m turning into a ruddy shrub. I can feel it. If I don’t get out of here soon I’ll be all privet.”
    Just then the scene changed again to the night of April 1st. A streaming wet night it was and black as your hat, so black you couldn’t even see what the Ash and the Oak were supposed to be up to; the dialogue sounded to me like a lot of creaks. I was told afterwards the script called for glow-worms at this point, but the little devils had gone on strike; refused to shine while it was raining.
    Engelbrecht whispered in my ear: “Come on, chum. This is our chance! Let’s try our luck back stage!” and the next thing I knew we were clambering through the branches of the Mighty Whirlitzer, heading for behind the scenes. We brushed past a lot of knobbly fungus that grew out of the oak and made it squeak, causing the Oak to muff one of his lines. He was a bit deaf that Oak; you could hear the prompter yelling at him like a foghorn: “My tough breast gladdens at the touch of spring.” Then we dodged a bramble bush and a couple of pollarded willows that were larking about waiting for their cue—funny ideas of fun some of these trees have—and suddenly we found ourselves in a part of open country right up at the back of the stage. Engelbrecht paused to kick the heart out of a lettuce. “The dressing rooms are over there,” he said, pointing vaguely into the murk.
     
    I stumbled along in his wake, tripping over roots and shrubs and movable sods of turf waiting to come on in the next scene. I got the impression there was a good deal of discontent—more than is usual behind the scenes. The flowers were jealous of the trees and the trees were jealous of the shrubs. I heard a birch say she was damned if she would ever play a scene with a rhododendron in it again and in future she was going to have it stated plainly in her contract.
    Next moment I tripped and fell flat on my face in a bed of pansies. Vicious little devils they were too; one of them bit me in the finger and they called me names I’d never even heard of. By the time I’d picked myself up Engelbrecht had disappeared.
    That didn’t worry me much. Engelbrecht, as you know, can generally be relied on to take care of himself. I wandered on until I came to a row of hot houses with blinds down over the glass and chinks of light showing through. These were the dressing rooms. Then from one of them with a huge great star painted on t, I heard a voice that sounded like Engelbrecht’s yelling for help. I opened the door and peeped in.
    There was Engelbrecht in the grips of a man-eating orchid; a wicked-looking brute it was: all kidney colour with great leprous looking blotches. It had got several tendrils round him and frankly I didn’t think he stood