I watch as the kids go from tentative and nervous to being fully into the scene, putting on voices and being silly. They make more and more outlandish suggestions each time and support each other’s choices. It’s brilliant and I find myself clapping and cheering along from my seat in thecorner.
The thirty minutes whizz by and soon enough Seth is ending theclass.
‘See you next week,’ he says with a little wave. ‘And sorry Iwaslate.’
‘You’re always late,’ one of the kidsretorts.
‘Yeah yeah.’ Seth shoos him away. ‘Andremember,guys…’
‘Just say yes!’ the kidscallback.
‘That’sright.’
As the kids file out of the hall, Seth strides over to me and takes a seat in one of the other plasticchairs.
‘So. Olive Maudine. What can I doforyou?’
‘Just Olive,’ I correct him. Then I tell him about the accidental letter beingposted.
He shrugs. ‘Thatsucks.’
Understatement.
‘You don’t understand. It’s a life or death letter,’ I tell him. ‘It was supposed to be hand-delivered. There’s no stamp on it, or address so if I can’t rescue it, it’ll probably just get chucked inthebin.’
‘Why is it so important? Just writeanotherone.’
‘It’s private,’ I tell him, not feeling very keen on the idea of divulging anything to this guy – who knows what will show up on the TV next week if I do. ‘But please trust me when I say that this letter is the only letter of its kind and it is truly, truly important that I getitback.’
I feel my throat swell with unshedtears.
Seth’s cocky face softens slightly. ‘This really matters toyou,huh?’
‘Yes.’ I nod fervently. ‘It really,reallydoes.’
Seth blows the air out from his cheeks. ‘I don’t want to come off as a jackass, but what do you want me to doaboutit?’
‘You are very much coming off as a jackass,’ I mutter. ‘It’syourfault I posted it. If I hadn’t been so concerned with being angry at you for your stupid sketch, then I would have been my usual organised self and I would still have the letter. So you have to help me get it back. I don’t know how. But you are responsible too now. So just help mealready.’
God, what is wrong withthisguy?
He holds up his hands. ‘Fine,relax!’
‘You relax,’ Ispitback.
Seth laughs, though I’m not sure why. None of this is a laughing situation. ‘Okay. I’ll tell you what to do. You have to go to the sorting office on Staten Island. That’s where all the mail gets routed to before it’s rerouted to the boroughs. It used to be Brooklyn, but the rents are so high these days that they moved it to StatenIsland.’
I goggle at him. ‘How on earth do you know so much about the US postalsystem?’
‘I get sent news headlines every week as part of my job. We use them to generate jokes and sketch ideas. The Staten Island postal re-route was a headline a fewmonthsago.’
‘Oh!’ I fold my arms. ‘So some of your sketchesaren’tbased on poor innocent strangers who needed your help on aplane?’
‘I saidsorry.’
‘Didyou?’
‘Yeah.’ He holds his arms out wide. ‘I’msorry!’
