“Let’s hurry,” said Eddie. “I have a very bad feeling coming upon me, and as you know, we bears are noted for our sense of –”

“Let’s just hurry,” said Jack.

And so they hurried and presently they found themselves, and indeed each other, upon a high gantry, which held the above-stage lighting rigs. There were lots of ropes all about and wires and cables, too.

“We’re here,” said Eddie.

“Yes we are,” said Jack. “About this plan of yours.”

“Let me ask you just one thing,” said Eddie. “Does your plan involve a chandelier?”

“Actually, it does,” said Jack.

“Mine, too,” said Eddie.

“Well, what a coincidence that is.”

“Really?” Eddie raised his imaginary eyebrows. “And yet this is an Opera House, and we did meet the Phantom of the Opera. And the one thing everyone remembers about the Phantom of the Opera, and indeed associates with operas, is the big chandelier that hangs above the centre of the stage. Which gets dropped upon someone.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know about that,” said Jack.

“Nor me,” said Eddie. “I just made that bit up to pass some time.”

“Oh,” said Jack. “Why?”

“Because that,” said Eddie, and he pointed with a paw, “is a very big chandelier and I’m not exactly certain how we’ll be able to drop a thing that size on anyone.”

“Aha,” said Jack. “Gotcha.”

“Gotcha?” said Eddie. “What means this odd word?”

“It means that my calculated plan extends a little further than your own. I know exactly how to drop that chandelier upon the evildoers.”

“Assuming of course they stand directly beneath it when we do the dropping,” Eddie said.

“Eddie,” said Jack, “let’s face it: it’s a pretty preposterous idea. But this is a pretty preposterous situation. All of this is utterly ludicrous.”

“When you put it like that, how can we fail?”

“Well said. Now bung your furry ear hole in my direction and let me whisper into it.”

And so Jack whispered. And when his whispering was done, which, it has to be said, was quite loud whispering as it had to make itself heard above the spirited strains of the orchestra beneath, Jack straightened and Eddie looked up at him.

And then Eddie said, “No way.”

“No way?” said Jack.

“Absolutely no way,” said Eddie. “What do you take me for? You’ll get me killed.”

“It will work,” said Jack. “You’ll be fine. It’s a calculated risk.”

“I won’t be fine, I’ll die. You do it.”

“I can’t do it. It has to be you.”

“And what do I do it with?”

“You do it with a spanner. This spanner.”

“And where did you find that?”

“Backstage, next to the ‘thunder sheet’.”

“And what’s a –”

“Don’t start with me. I know you made up ‘running chuffs’.”

“But I’ve only got paws, Jack. No hands with fingers and opposable thumbs.”

“It’ll only take a few turns – you’ll manage.”

“Oh, look,” said Eddie. “The ballet has begun.”

Now ballets and operas have several things in common. Swanky costumes they have in common, and too much stage make-up. And music, of course – they are both traditionally very musical affairs. But the most notable thing that they share is the storyline. The one thing that you can always be assured of if you go to the opera or the ballet is, in the case of the opera, lots of really good loud singing, and in the case of the ballet, lots of really wonderful dancing, and in the case of both, really rubbish storylines.

They are rubbish. They always are. You always know what’s coming next. Who the baddy is and who the goody. The jokes, such as they are, are telegraphed a mile off. Rubbish, they all are. Rubbish.

Eddie watched the dancers a-dancing beneath. Very pretty dancing dolls they were, of the variety that pop out of musical boxes, only bigger.

“What is this ballet all about?” he asked Jack.

“Boy sees girl, villain sees girl, boy meets girl, villain sees boy meet girl, boy gets parted from girl due to villain’s villany, boy remeets girl and boy gets girl in the end.”

“And that’s the story?” Eddie asked.

“Yes,” said Jack. “Clever, isn’t it?”

“That would be irony, would it?”

Jack said, “We should be doing our stuff!”

Eddie said, “I don’t want to!”

Beneath them, dolly ballerinas twirled. The hero, a wooden dolly who given the bulge in his tights apparently had wood on, did pluckings up on the heroine and twistings of her round in the air and the doing of something that is called a pas de deux. And also a full-tilt whirly-tronce, a double chuff-muffin rundle and a three-point turn with the appropriate hand signals and other marvellous things of a quite balletic nature.

The villain of the piece, imaginatively costumed in black, lurked in the limelight at stage left, posturing in a menacing fashion and glowering ’neath overlarge painted eyebrows.

Eddie said, “Don’t do this to me, Jack.”

Jack said, “It has to be done.”

And then Jack did it, but did it with care. He lifted Eddie from his paw pads, raised him to shoulder height and then hurled him. Eddie, wearing the face of terror, soared out over the dancers beneath. Jack buried his face in his hands and prayed for a God to believe in and wished Eddie well. And Eddie landed safely in the topmost crystal nestings of the mighty Opera House chandelier.

Unseen by dancers, orchestra or audience.

Jack peeped out through his fingers and breathed a mighty sigh. Eddie clung to the chandelier and growled in a bitter fashion. Jack waved heartily to Eddie.

Eddie raised a paw to wave back and all but fell to his death. Jack rootled the spanner from a nameless pocket and waggled it at Eddie.

Eddie steadied himself in his crystal nest and prepared to do catchings.

And it could have been tricky. In fact, it could have been disastrous. That spanner could have fallen, down and down onto dancers beneath. But it didn’t, for it was a calculated throw.

And Eddie caught that spanner between his paws and offered a thumbless thumbs-up back to Jack.

And Eddie peeped down from his lofty crystal eyrie. Through twinkling crystals, which presented the world beneath as one magical, he viewed the dancers, the orchestra and even the backstage, smelling of stables, which lurked behind the flats. It was a pretty all-encompassing overview, and one that brought no little sense of awe to Eddie Bear.

And of course bears are noted for their tree-climbing abilities and fearlessness of heights.

Eddie clung to the chandelier, and if he had had knuckles, these would at this time have been white. As would his face. From fear.

Jack grinned over at Eddie. “Bears are noted for their tree-climbing abilities and fearlessness of heights,” he said to himself, “so Eddie will be fine.”

Beneath, the villain enticed the heroine. Well, menaced was better the word. But as he did this via the medium of skilful dance, a degree of menace was lost.

And Jack looked down from on high, as did Eddie, and then Jack saw what Eddie saw, although from a different perspective.

Along the backstage the two of them crept, one Jack and the other one Eddie. The Jack carried two large suitcases. The Jack upon high’s eyes widened, though the Eddie upon high’s could not. Jack now did blinkings and rubbings at his eyes. That was him below. It really was. Though of course it really wasn’t. But it looked like him and walked like him, or at least Jack thought that it did.

Although it didn’t look altogether right. Jack screwed up his eyes and did long-distance squintings. What was wrong with this picture?

“He’s the wrong way round,” whispered Jack. “Oh no, he’s not – it’s just that I’ve never seen myself like that. I’ve only seen myself in a mirror.” And Jack did frantic wavings of the hands towards Eddie. Frantic mimings of a spanner being turned.