Just two more performances, I think to myself, and then intermission.

Tiredness has come over me, now. We've been in this hot, smelly, overcrowded gym for an hour, watching performance after performance go wrong. Thankfully, we will be having a fifteen minute intermission soon, and everyone will get refreshments, making the rest of the night somewhat bearable. But presently, we are waiting for Jasper to finish practicing so that he can amaze us with his deep soul. I get the signal that he's ready.

So now, I take the stage and the microphone.

"Up next, Jasper Hale will be reciting some poems for us."

As Jasper enters, I give him a thumbs-up for encouragement. He just stares back. As always, Jasper is looking, well, constipated. I guess being in a room with such a large amount of people is overwhelming for him. But, he begins anyway.

"Hello," he says, quietly. "First, I will recite one of my favorite poems." He clears his throat.

"'Alone', by Edgar Allen Poe:

'From childhood's hour I have not been

As others were; I have not seen

As others saw; I could not bring

My passions from a common spring.

From the same source I have not taken

My sorrow; I could not awaken

My heart to joy at the same tone;

And all I loved, I loved alone.

Then- in my childhood, in the dawn

Of a most stormy life- was drawn

From every depth of good and ill

The mystery which binds me still:

From the torrent, or the fountain,

From the red cliff of the mountain,

From the sun that round me rolled

In it's autumn tint of gold

From the lightning in the sky

As it passed me flying by,

From the thunder and the storm,

And the cloud that took the form

(When the rest of Heaven was blue)

Of a demon in my view.'"

The audience claps and Jasper waits, timidly.

Then he says, "Now, I will recite another poem.

"'Nothing Gold Can Stay' by Robert Frost:

'Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day

Nothing gold can stay.'"

There is a little more clapping, but this time, Jasper stops it with a raise of his hand. "I will do one last poem."

What will he do? I think. Up until now he's done stuff I'd want to slit my wrists to. I hope it's nothing too depressing.

Jasper clears his throat. "I will now recite 'Father William' by Lewis Carroll:

"' You are old, Father William," the young man said,

"And your hair has become very white;

And yet you incessantly stand on your head--

Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

"In my youth," Father William replied to his son,

"I feared it might injure the brain;

But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,

Why, I do it again and again."

"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,

And have grown most uncommonly fat;

Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door--

Pray, what is the reason of that?"

"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his gray locks,

"I kept all my limbs very supple

By the use of this ointment -- one shilling the box --

Allow me to sell you a couple?"

"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak

For anything tougher than suet;

Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak--

Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,

And argued each case with my wife;

And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw

Has lasted the rest of my life."

"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose

That your eye was as steady as ever;

Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose--

What made you so awfully clever?"

"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"

Said his father; "don't give yourself airs!

Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?

Be off, or I'll kick you down-stairs!"

No, I think, that was not depressing.

Actually, the audience is laughing. Even Emmett has taken a break from hiding

from Rosalie to laugh and clap for his brother. Unfortunately, Jasper doesn't take the laughing as a positive thing.

"Stop it," he says. "Stop laughing at me!" But no one can hear him over the laughter and clapping. "Stop it! STOP IT! Ahh!" And with that, Jasper runs off the stage.

The room gets quiet and the crowd is confused.

I step awkwardly on stage. "Aw, poor Jasper. I guess he didn't realize we were laughing with him and not at him. Oh well. Next up, Carlisle and Esme doing a duet! And then intermission!" The crowd begins to cheer. "Thank God," I add under my breath.