…Divorced, Beheaded, Survived

Anne Boleyn = plum role, attractive role – fought over who would get to play her in the childhood home. Even the boys wanted to play the lady role.

Dressed up as a man: The unveiling pillow, uddbybende, for a royal wedding.

Terry: He played Anne Boleyn. He was undoubtedly convincing. He stole a dress from our mother’s closet – red and white dress from a designer. He wrapped the belt-like dress around ”couch-pillow baby – not a real baby” – just wearing it for a play. Guessing that Terry and first person narrator are related, siblings. The last month Terry got sick was in fourth grade in 1973 and then he got even sicker and in 1974 he got a little bit better – but he suddenly died in 1974. But the symbolic part was referred to as it was the result of Mollys axe – a death behind of time. The name Terry means “Ruler of people” which is a reference to the historical events

He was trying to convince people that it was the future Queen Elizabeth that was supposed to act as the pillow. Telling him that he doesn’t need to be with an old Spanish cow for a wife and have a sour little daughter, when he could be with ”her” instead. He will give him the child/son he wants and derserves.

Everybody wanted to have the role especially for the exection scene. Boys have the tendense to love action and violence and to look matcho so it’s a natural instinct to fight over a role so exciting. But taken the fact that Terry was doing such a good job playing this role and make it come alive was almost worth giving the role up.

Jeff Mandelbaum: playing Hal. He was beeing cooed by Terry who played Anne. “off with her head” Jeff would shout and whereas Johnny would historically correct him, shouting “Divorced, beheaded, died”, referring to Jane Seymor one of the wifes of king Henry that died by natural causes.

Molly Denham, from the house behind ours, whose parents both are C.G Jung pshychiatrist from Swiss, asked to be the anonymous executioner. Straight yellow hair, hanging to waist. Wore a halloween mask, made a deep voice and wore a batman halloween mask to cover her face. Said the same sentence everytime they made an execution: ”Do you forgive me my grace”?

Would Terry say: ”I do sir, I do forgive you”.

Sara: First person narrator, explained that If it was him/her, he/she would offer their hand to kiss and to hold, as she would kneel- they would pray if they were religious – does not seem like it, since that person is referring to people that actually know how to do it. The 1. Person narrator is referring to long hair, and from that I’m guessing it could be a girl – because normally boys would have short hair. Shortly after on page 3Johnny mentioned her, where she describes how pleasing it was when Johnny would applaud her for her great acting and there her name appeared – confirming that she indeed is girl. Sara is now a grown up and is having a flashback from her younger years. Then she goes on about the fact that long-neglected backyard is only a part of Grandma’s and Grandpa’s house and that they only go there for ceremonious occasions such as thanksgiving and Christmas. For occasional weekend trips they go to Manhattan and then into Massachusetts to watch the leaves change colour and celebrate birthdays. She said: “Mark and Coco are four years apart – we had been two years apart, Terry and I. And maybe it was superstition that made my wait that extra stretch of time getting pregnant again” Maybe she is thinking of relationship between Henry and Anne, where she first had a daughter and then her son died, but it could also be about the fact that Terry was two years older and that he got terribly sick.

They didn’t really go to the backyard, but she does remember bringing them to the wild to watch them play the tag game.

Her children are called Mark and Coco.

Lyle: is the husband of Sara and his parents live in California. He wanted the children to be closer in age to keep the parenting really simple and without stress. But SARA wanted that her children were a bit different compared to the children Terry and her were.

Johnny Sandersons: It was all Johnny Sandersons idea: his father was a professor at a medical school and had started up at a university same year that the 1. Persons dad has been joining the history department. A year younger than Johnny and a year older than the first person narrator. He seemed to know a lot about himself and about his surrounding. By the age of 11, he was convinced that he wanted to become a history professor like the first person narrators father. He was much more interested in European history than the American.

He got satisfaction from acting out the scenes of Anne Boyeln’s death. He was deeply identifying himself with the characters and showed some aggression and emotions as if he had been experiencing it all himself. Very invested in the mistery of the whole case. His voice kind of morphed – intensity crept into his voice. But for Johnny it wasn’t only a game, it was a reality. He wanted them to play Anne, so that they would get hooked to the scenes of Anne’s life. But as the first person narrator describes it, they had to go roughly through all the boring wifes of King Henry.

They met after school to act out the scenes of the European horror story of the death of Anne. They ate crackers, food and juice, which indicated that they seem kind of young still. But still they are playing out scenes from a rough period of time. The first person narrator and the sandersons had been meeting at some faculty, formal dinners and such, and in that way they had encountered a relationship to one another.