by Nette Hilton
‘Hello, Aimee. That’s a super skirt you’re wearing,’ Serena’s dad said. ‘Did your mum make it for you?’
I just looked at it and smiled.
Dad was shaking hands with Dave, Serena’s dad. ‘She sure did,’ he said and grinned at me. ‘She made some muesli crunch and left it in the kitchen for you and Serena as well.’
‘Muesli crunch?’ said Serena. ‘Ew. What’s that?’
‘It’s delicious,’ said Dad as he steered Dave up onto the verandah and down towards his little office. I was pretty sure Dave would have had a proper door on his office and wished that Dad’s door wasn’t just an old door that he’d found up the coast and cut in half so he could have the top open and the bottom shut to keep Roly out. ‘Don’t eat too much though. We don’t want you popping out of your jeans before you get home.’
Dave laughed.
Serena didn’t. She waved her hand above the verandah floor to frighten away any dust and then sat on the very, very edge.
‘Let’s go sit inside so we don’t get dirty,’ she said.
I took Serena inside. She wandered through our lounge room looking at the walls and the pictures and the desk and the lounge and the cushions that Mum had made.
‘How come you’ve got a desk in the lounge room,’ she said. She ambled closer and picked up a little cannon that Dad had found. She turned it over and put it back down while I was still trying to think of a reason why we had a desk in the lounge room.
‘Where’s your room?’
I’d tidied my room specially and Mum had put my Barbie bedspread on the bed. It has a matching pillowslip and a pink frill that sits under the mattress so you can’t see the junk under the bed.
‘Do you still play with Barbie?’ Serena said. She smoothed a spot and then sat down. ‘I haven’t played with Barbie for years.’
My Barbie dolls were sitting on the shelf that Dad had put up for them last year. I still love my Flying Barbie even though I haven’t given her a good fly for a long time. She has the loveliest wings that shine like oil when you spill it across water.
‘My gran sends them to me,’ I lied.
Serena had opened my cupboard doors. She was looking at the clothes hanging in the wardrobe. ‘What’s that?’ she said.
I peered in behind her. It was an old sari that my mum had bought when she visited India before I was born. Before she even met Dad. It’s a beautiful pale blue with soft silver threads all around the bottom and twisted petals and flowers twining themselves in and out around the edges.
I told Serena about it and we pulled it out. She wrapped it around herself and trailed it behind her over to the mirror.
‘It smells a bit, doesn’t it?’ she said.
‘It’s dust. And incense that Mum used to burn whenever she wore it.’
Serena let the sari fall. She stepped over it and wandered back out to the lounge room.
‘Look at that,’ she said and pointed to the crack in the wall where the chimney doesn’t quite meet. ‘Why’s that like that?’
‘The timber’s shrunk,’ I said. ‘It’s okay, though. Nothing will happen.’
‘Things could crawl through that,’ Serena said.
I was going to tell her that only very skinny things would crawl through there and what would it matter anyway? Whatever wanted to come in would come in through the doors or the windows or down the chimney with Santa if necessary. But I didn’t bother. Dad reckons it’s a special celebration marker, because the sun shines through there only at a particular time of the year and that’s when we have to run around the yard chanting made-up songs and make wishes. We write our wishes with white pens on silver paper and burn them in a little brass bowl.
Serena was touching things and lifting bits and pieces on the desk, like she was in the bargain centre of the Dollar Shop.
She opened the lid of a box that held my dad’s drawing pastels. She chose one and scribbled a little line on a piece of scrap paper. ‘I suppose we could do some drawing. Have you got any paper?’
I was glad she’d finally found something that we could do together.
‘I have to ask Dad if we can use his pastels.’
We went up the verandah to the office. Serena stepped carefully as if she was scared she might disappear through the bendy verandah boards at any second.
‘Excuse me,’ she said in a soft, lispy voice. ‘Could we please use your drawing pastels, Mr Appleshore. We’d be really, really careful.’
Serena batted her eyelashes at Dad and folded her hands into a little boat in front of her.
‘Sorry, Serena,’ Dad said. ‘They’re strictly for my use only, but …’ He leaned over his desk and lifted out a shoebox. ‘There’s a whole lot of stumps and bits and pieces of colour in here, and Aimee has some nice pencil sets in her room. Why not use them?’
I raced back along the verandah and get the set of 500 colours that Mum had bought for me from the Dollar Shop. They cost more than a dollar but they were excellent value, Mum said, at five dollars. I got my crayons as well. And some glitter sticks and my glue and glitter stars.
‘We can draw our costumes for the Christmas play,’ I said. ‘I’m going to be an angel.’
Serena looked at me as if I was nuts.
‘That’s nice. I think I’m going to be an angel as well.’ She smiled. ‘So are Angela and Katie.’
I’d have a chance if it were only Angela and Katie.
I smiled back and bent closer to my paper and drew a border around the edge with stars and halos and little clouds in it. I wasn’t smiling inside and I think my halos were a little bit yellower than halos should be. And they dug into the page a bit as well, but my fingers were hanging on so tight to the pencil I couldn’t seem to help it.
Serena Sweetmay got chosen for everything.
I glanced up at her. Her face was soft and round and pink-cheeked. Her eyelashes curved onto the face in a long, luscious wave. Her hair let little drifty bits go so they curled onto her forehead and in little wisps down in front of her ears.
Her lips were rosebudded and shiny, although I think she’d been using some lip gloss to make them as shiny as that.
Everyone, everyone, everyone beamed on Serena Sweetmay.
Even people who didn’t know her chose her to do things. The bloke who turned up with the puppet show and a set of big drums didn’t know her. He’d never seen her and he chose her out of about five hundred kids. He chose Javin too, but that was because Miss Everest had already moved Javin to the front and the bloke had tripped over him trying to get to Serena.
It wouldn’t have mattered so much if she’d messed up. It would have been great if she’d blooped on the tuba and fallen over the drum kit or slapped when she should have slammed, but she didn’t. She never, ever does.
Even when the tuba made a noise like a constipated elephant she managed to smile sweetly and all the adults for miles around thought how lovely she was.
Yuk!
I started drawing my angel. I gave her dark hair like mine and long skinny legs. And enormous wings made out of lots of little thin lines so they looked like feathers.
I dreamed my angel as I drew.
I dreamed me being my angel as I drew.
As I drew a white fluffy cloud for my angel to stand on, I glanced over at Serena’s sheet.
Her angel wasn’t anywhere near as good as mine. She’s not an artist and her faces and bodies are always wrong.
I didn’t kid myself that it would make a scrap of difference.
Whether Serena could draw an angel or not wasn’t going to make a scrap of difference. If Serena decided she wanted to be one, we could all be sure she was going to get chosen.
It mightn’t make her the star of the show though.
I drew a big star on top of my angel. I rubbed it for luck, but it didn’t make me feel a whole lot better.
Being a star on the same stage as Serena Sweetmay was going to take a bit more than luck.
I told Mum all about the Chr
istmas play when we were putting the groceries away. Roly had curled up on the couch and gone to sleep. Mum said he wore himself out trying to get out of his stroller. She looked pretty worn out as well.
She leaned on the bench and had a break while I told her all about it.
‘I loved being in plays when I was little,’ she said. ‘I was a blind man once.’
I wasn’t sure how excited I’d be if my role was a blind man.
‘I can’t wait,’ she said. ‘What do you want to be?’
‘An angel.’
She went back to stacking tins into the cupboard, but I could tell she was thinking about it. The tins looked like skittles by the time she’d finished. They usually just land where she’s shoved them.
‘Doesn’t everyone always want to be the angel?’ she said. ‘There’s always heaps of them. Don’t you want to be something different?’
I didn’t want to be different. I wanted to be the angel.
I picked up the bag of carrots and started packing them into the fridge tray. I packed them carefully so they’d fit without jamming against the shelf, but I only saw the angel that was going to be me in the play.
I was going to be in the middle of the bench at the back and I was going to have a halo that was gold and sparkling, and my wings were going to be the sort that had real feathers glued onto each other so they fanned out like an eagle’s wings. Only they’d be white with gold trims and not brown and grey like an eagle.
‘Where do you buy angels’ wings?’ I said. ‘The ones with feathers on them.’
‘New or used?’ Dad joked from the doorway.
I ignored him.
‘I guess it would depend if you’ve got any Fly-Buys?’ He chortled to himself. My dad thinks he’s really funny when he gets going.
‘And I guess you’d have to get permission from the Wing Commander,’ he went on. ‘Or the Flight Lieutenant.’
Mum shushed him. She was trying not to laugh though.
‘I’m not sure,’ she said, as she rolled potatoes into the dish in the cupboard. ‘We could make them, I guess.’
I didn’t want ones made at home. Serena wouldn’t have made ones. Or Angela or Katie.
‘Your dad could make some in no time, couldn’t you, Dan?’
‘Couldn’t I what?’ Dad finished putting the shopping bags away and joined in again.
‘Make some wings for Aimee’s angel outfit?’
I wanted him to say no. But he was leaning against the fridge and he had his fingers against his mouth like when he’s planning a new design.
‘What sort of wings? Big, small, wide, narrow? Feathers?’
‘The bought kind,’ I said. ‘With long, long, soft feathers with gold tips on them.’
‘No worries,’ said Dad.
I was worried though.
‘They have to be really long.’ I drew big hoop shapes with my hands that reached down to my hips. ‘And not too heavy. And with gold tips.’
Roly started to grizzle from the lounge room.
‘I know just what you mean.’ Dad winked as he wandered out to collect Roly and didn’t say another word.
He fetched his drawing book and sat with it and didn’t look up at the tele. Not once.
When I peeked over to have a look, I saw angels’ wings.
Long and feathery and he’d even twiddled little lines at their edges.
Gold tips.
Miss Everest had cleared a big space in the middle of our classroom. She’d pushed all the desks into little groups against the walls so we could spread out and start to get ready for our play.
‘Now,’ she said as she curled her feet up under her. Serena said it sets a bad example, but Miss Everest always kicks her shoes off before she puts them on the chair. ‘Let’s get organised. I want angels in one group, shepherds in another, wise men over there, an innkeeper, a Joseph and a Mary, and the manger cow and a sheep group.’
There were a lot of angels and wise men, a couple of shepherds, five innkeepers, seven Josephs, five Marys, and nobody in the manger cow and sheep group.
‘Oh dear.’ Miss Everest held up the two ends of the manger cow outfit. ‘We really have to use this. Poor Mr Dean will be so upset if we don’t.’
Mr Dean is the old codger who comes in to help Jimmy with his reading. I don’t know where Miss Everest found him, but Javin reckons it was probably out at the cemetery.
‘Hanging around waiting to get in, most likely,’ he’d said.
Miss Everest heard him and now Javin has to sit in Mr Dean’s reading group as well. Javin said it might send Mr Dean there sooner if he had to put up with him every week.
Miss Everest said Mr Dean would love it.
‘He enjoys a worthwhile challenge,’ she said.
Now Mr Dean and Javin and Jimmy spend a lot of time going through old surfing magazines. Javin even asked me for one of my dad’s art books that have airbrushed surfboards and motorbikes in them. My dad’s not like Mr Dean. ‘Not likely,’ he said. So Javin never got them.
‘I’m not doing it,’ Javin said before Miss Everest even got a chance. ‘I read with him every week but I’m not wearing a cow suit!’
‘It’ll be fine,’ Miss Everest said and got busy reorganising everyone.
She’s very good at it and makes everything sound so wonderful that all the groups were changed around about fifteen times before we had it right.
I stayed with the angels.
And Javin stayed with the shepherds. I don’t know if he wanted to be a shepherd as much as I wanted to be angel or if he was just staying right away from the manger cow.
The wise men were happy and so was George, the innkeeper, except that he said he really didn’t want a wife. Especially one that was a girl.
Miss Everest said it was best he did have one, in the kind of voice that meant the innkeeper might not be in the play at all if he didn’t have one. A girl one.
The sheep group was empty. Not even Miss Everest could make walking around on all fours tied up in a fluffy bath mat sound wonderful.
And there was only Jimmy in the manger cow group.
‘We need one more over here,’ she said when she’d reorganised for the sixteenth time.
We all huddled closer.
I liked Jimmy. I was pretty sure that everyone else did as well. But we all knew how hard it was for Jimmy to remember things. He often forgot which way his team was chucking the ball, or which end was his team’s goal when we were playing soccer. Shani even tied her hair ribbon around the goal posts one day because she really, really wanted to win the game.
‘Red, Jimmy!’ she said. ‘Just kick to the red goal!’
She forgot to remind him to kick the other way after half-time and we lost by two whole goals.
Now he sat with the cow’s head on one side and the cow’s bottom end on the other.
‘Never mind,’ Miss Everest said. ‘I’m sure we can sort it out later.’
We all snuggled down into our groups to start working out the right way to act.
Mr Henderson came down to help us practise. He stood very close to Miss Everest and every now and then had to lean over close to tell her something. It was supposed to be about our singing, but I think he was sharing other secrets because she smiled at him and nodded her head before she made her face all serious again and posed her hands ready to conduct us.
Some of Mr Henderson’s class are going to be sheep. They’re not very good at it yet.
‘They all keep going the wrong way!’ Javin said the first time he tried to walk along behind them.
Miss Everest laughed. ‘Just like real sheep,’ she said.
Javin didn’t laugh. I think he told the sheep where lamb chops come from, because they started to get better by the end of our first practice.
I was getting it right too.
I stood in the middle of the back row on one of our benches. I could stand as still as a statue and Miss Everest said I was the best at opening my mouth up wide when I was singing.
Serena and Angela stood on one side and Katie stood on the other. Shani and Carol stood on the floor at the end of the benches. They didn’t want to be in the play and Miss Everest was not sure if they were going to come. Shani said she had to play in the soccer comp and Carol had to help out in her mum’s restaurant.
We practised every week in our classroom for weeks and weeks.
We got very good at packing up and stacking our desks against the walls so we had our own little stage area in the middle of the room.
Mr Henderson would bring his guitar and his sheep and the not-sheep would bring their crayons and paper and we all got better and better and better.
Finally Miss Everest talked to us about our costumes. ‘You can wear whatever you like that will fit your role,’ she said. She gave us some pictures of angels and shepherds and innkeepers and innkeepers’ wives, and written instructions with suggestions about the sort of things that would look right.
I didn’t really need the instructions. I was going to be the most beautiful angel that ever stood on the stage in a Christmas play.
Ever.
Mum put the list of instructions on the fridge. I saw Dad glance at it while we were wiping up.
‘We have to have them ready for next week,’ I said. ‘It’s the dress rehearsal.’
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Do we have to buy tickets for this show?’
‘Next week,’ I told him. ‘I can take the money in on Monday. But we have to have our clothes ready for Wednesday. Miss Everest said we have to have everything ready.’
I stressed everything but he didn’t seem to take the slightest bit of notice.
We’d been practising for weeks and I still hadn’t seen any sign of a costume, even though I kept mentioning it about a thousand times a day.
‘Have you checked your roster?’ Dad said to Mum. ‘It’d be awful if they’d put you down to work late on Wednesday.’
‘I’m right,’ Mum said. She ducked Roly’s head in front of us so we could give him a kiss goodnight. ‘But you’ve got all that art work to be done for Dave. And the car’s not done …’