by Nette Hilton
‘Right, everyone.’ Miss Everest lifted her conducting hand. ‘After three. One. Two. Three.’
Joseph and Mary started their walk across the front of the stage. Miss Everest hit the ‘play’ button and we all started to sing.
I sang loudly and strongly with my mouth wide open the way Miss Everest had taught us.
The music swelled out into the hall, booming so loudly and perfectly from the speakers it filled me to overflowing.
I lifted my head and knew exactly what it meant to sing my heart out. I had my head tipped right back and my eyes closed the way real singers do. I had to fight to keep my hands folded one on top of the other because they wanted to swing out wide and embrace the whole audience that I imagined watching me.
I didn’t even notice Serena leave our bench.
By the time I opened my eyes she was gliding out the front and didn’t stop until she stood in front of Miss Everest.
Her dress whispered along behind her like a little pet that knew to hover closely and not get tangled or it might get a really sharp kick. It whirled itself into a neat pool when she stopped.
Everyone stopped singing. They were watching Serena and she was pointing at me.
Miss Everest leaned closer and nodded.
‘I think we have a problem, Mr Henderson,’ she said. I think it’s funny the way she calls him Mr Henderson. I bet she doesn’t call him that when they’re by themselves.
‘A problem!’ he boomed. ‘A problem from the best singers in the whole school?’
He hurried across the hall making a joke out of whatever problem it was that Serena had discovered. I didn’t think I was the problem.
Miss Everest had moved me up and down the bench a couple of times and had finally put another chair on the end of the bench to make more room for my wings.
But now she was listening to Serena, who was pointing to her hair and then to mine. Serena has blonde curly hair, as do Angela and Katie, and mine is dark and straight.
But it was going to be curly tonight for the concert.
I started to raise my hand to say about the curls when I saw Serena lifting her dress and then pointing to mine.
7 7 7 7 7
Mr Henderson creased his brow and pursed his lips. He scrubbed his hand across his chin as if it were, indeed, something very serious that had to be considered.
‘What do you think, Mr Henderson?’ said Miss Everest in a voice loud enough for us all to hear. ‘Should I put my blue angel right there in the middle. Serena is worried that Aimee doesn’t quite fit.’
Mr Henderson looked at us. He walked all the way around us and he looked rather severely, I thought, at Serena. ‘You can’t have a middle if you only have four angels,’ he said.
He walked to the back of the hall.
He bent sideways and he straightened up.
Everyone was watching him. They didn’t take their eyes off him.
Except Serena.
She did, just long enough to smile a quick smile up at Angela and Katie.
Angela smiled back, but Katie looked at her toes and took a very long minute to straighten her dress.
‘Do you know,’ he boomed across the empty hall, ‘I’d put the blue angel right in the front. Right there …’ He galloped up and stood right slap bang in the middle of the stage in front of everyone. ‘In the very front where everyone in the audience can see her.’ He turned around and addressed the non-sheep. ‘What do you think?’ They all cheered and said ‘Yes’.
I cheered too. On the inside. But I think it beamed right out to the outside when I opened my mouth to sing.
I sang the loudest I’ve ever sung in my whole life.
Even Miss Everest noticed.
And that was nothing to how I was going to be tonight. I was going to be the very best, the most important, the truest actor and angel on the stage.
And everyone, absolutely everyone was definitely going to see.
Because I would be standing right where nobody could possibly miss me.
By the time we finished our rehearsal and went back to our room and got changed and re-hung our clothes on their hangers ready for tonight lunchtime was nearly over.
I thought Serena and Angela and Katie would have been looking out for me to gloat all over themselves because now they had the back bench all to themselves.
But I didn’t see them. Not until I went into the toilets just before the bell rang.
And even then they must have been right behind me because they were standing waiting when I opened the door.
They watched me while I washed my hands and then drifted closer as I started to leave.
‘What?’ I said.
‘Where’d you get that dress anyway?’ Angela said. She leaned back against the sink and looked at her fingers like she had something really interesting stuffed under her nails.
I thought she probably knew where I’d got it. Serena certainly did.
‘My mum,’ I said. ‘She got it in India. Ages ago.’
‘Smells like it,’ Angela said. ‘Smells like somebody died in it.’
‘It’s really rather nice,’ Katie said. ‘I like those stars and things on it.’
Serena leaned across her. ‘You mean the things that float around because they’ve come unstitched?’
I don’t think Katie meant that at all but she wasn’t saying. She stepped back so that she was behind Serena.
‘What are you wearing on your feet?’ Serena sang sweetly. ‘I’ve got some old ballet slippers you can borrow if you like.’
‘I’m not wearing anything,’ I said, but I was seeing my dress and the way it hung under the window in the classroom. The blue looked too bright and happy against the soft snowy whites, like the loneliest kid at a birthday party.
‘Just thought I’d offer.’ Serena smiled. ‘Your dress isn’t long enough to cover your feet, that’s all.’
I wanted to look at my feet but I didn’t. They were snugged away in their big, old school shoes now. I knew what they looked like, all bony toes and the knobbly little one that poked up when it should sit flat.
I remembered a picture in a book that Miss Everest had shown us. It was a drawing of the Little Match Girl before she dropped dead. Her dress hung down and didn’t cover her feet either.
And her hair was dark and flat and straight.
I didn’t want to but I thought about my wings and how they looked hard and angry and poked out at the world with mean, gold tips flashing in the light. Angels would never be allowed to fly in anything so harsh and heavy. They’d be dropping out of the sky like dead ducks.
Or geese.
‘Miss Everest said my dress is lovely,’ I said and thought how much I sounded like one of the little kindy kids just before they give somebody a big, fat shove to knock them over.
Serena turned the tap on and then turned it off again. ‘She has to say that. She’s a teacher and she’s not allowed to say that your dress isn’t good enough.’ She wiped her hands through her hair and then leaned back against Angela. ‘That’s why we thought we should tell you.’
‘Yeah,’ said Angela. ‘We’re your friends and that’s why we’re telling you.’
‘Telling me what,’ I said.
‘Come on.’ Katie started to move away. ‘We have to go.’
Serena didn’t move. ‘You can go if you’re too afraid to tell her the truth.’
‘It’s not true.’ Katie didn’t leave though. I didn’t want to stay there and listen and it would have helped a bit if Katie had left.
‘Tell me what’s true.’
‘Your dress stinks,’ said Serena. ‘It smells like the bottom of a wardrobe and old shoes. It looks old and it’s falling apart. It doesn’t even fit you.’
I pushed her.
I gave her a really hard push right in the middle of her chest. She would have fallen over except for Angela who acted like a mattress when Serena went backwards.
She pushed me back and I had no one to bounce me up again except t
he wash basin. I got a bit jammed and before I could give her one more good push they were gone.
‘You can borrow my ballet shoes if you like,’ Serena called out.
I could hear them laughing all the way out to the playground. I wasn’t too sure about Katie but it’s best to laugh if you’re on Serena’s side. And I don’t think Katie wants to be dumped yet.
I dragged myself back out from between the basins and looked at the wet splotches on my uniform.
I sat in the toilet with the door shut until my face stopped being so red and my eyes stopped filling up with tears. I hate cry babies.
But every time I thought about my dress waiting for me, all proud of itself and hanging so blue and glittery against the others, my eyes filled up all over again. I saw my wings that looked so wonderful in my kitchen and so awful next to fake swan’s down.
I told myself that geese aren’t supposed to hang around with swans anyway. You never saw them swimming around together. If I was a goose I’d peck a swan right on the head.
Hard.
I saw my mum making my dress and how proud she was.
I saw my dad hanging out at Mr Lucas’s farm plucking goose feathers off the slower geese.
I saw me looking like my dress, the one that didn’t quite fit, in front of the whole audience.
We were both so wrong.
I stayed in the toilets a long time.
I didn’t come out until Miss Everest came to find me. ‘Didn’t you hear the bell?’ she said.
I took a deep breath. ‘I’m not going to be an angel,’ I told her in a rush before I had time to think about Mum and Dad and old Mr Lucas sitting in the audience looking for his goose feathers.
Miss Everest said she was going to speak to Serena and Angela and Katie, and I thought she was pretty clever because I hadn’t said their names at all. It made me feel a little bit better but it didn’t matter.
I said it wasn’t their fault, I just didn’t want to be an angel any more. I’m a bit like Katie and I wasn’t quite sure what Serena might do if I got her into really big trouble.
‘But there’s no time,’ Miss Everest said. ‘The play is on tonight and I want you to be in it.’
‘I’ll be in it,’ I said.
But I won’t be an angel. I won’t be anything that anyone will see. That way they won’t look at me like they look at my dress. Like something that’s too loud and too tatty and smelly and whole lot too showy for its own good.
‘Oh, please,’ said Miss Everest. ‘What can you be if you’re not going to be an angel.’
‘I’ll be’—I had to swallow hard so I didn’t cry—‘I’ll be the cow’s bum.’
‘You’re the saddest angel I’ve ever seen,’ Mum said as we pulled up to the school gate.
‘I’m all right,’ I said.
‘She’s just nervous.’ Dad gave me a bit of a shove the way he does when he thinks I need cheering up.
I didn’t even shove him back.
All the other kids were rushing off to get changed in the classroom. I could see Javin’s shirt flapping around above his head as he lined up the angels to snap it around their legs. I was hoping he’d snap it good and hard, but Miss Everest’s hand snatched it away before it could get going.
‘Are you sure about this?’ she said when she saw me come in. ‘You look lovely in your angel dress and the wings are the best ones I’ve ever seen.’
She had to say that. I knew it now.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I think I’d rather wear the cow’s bum suit.’
Miss Everest didn’t even rouse at me for swearing. She bent right down in front of me and was looking so deep into my eyes I thought she might cry.
‘It’s what I really want,’ I said to make her feel better. I looked away though. I think Miss Everest would pick a fib when she’s looking at me so closely.
She stood up slowly and drifted her fingers through the new curls that Mum had twisted into my hair.
7 7 7 7 7
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I’d told Mum when she sat me on the stool and started spraying my hair full of foam. ‘I’m not going to be an angel anyway.’
Mum stopped spraying for a moment.
‘Of course you are,’ she said. ‘It’s what you wanted. You’ll be fine when you get there.’
She sprayed another cup full of foam on top of my head and started twisting.
‘I won’t,’ I said quietly.
‘What changed your mind,’ she said?
‘Nobody.’
‘Nobody?’
I knew she’d guess Serena sooner or later. She always gets it right. And she’d say I wasn’t to let Serena rule my life.
She’d said it a thousand times before. And I believed her. And I always agreed. And I always went to school ready to dump right on Serena and Not Let Her Rule My Life.
But Serena’s tricky.
It’s not always easy to see if she’s running my life or not.
And I’m never sure what Serena might do.
It’s why everyone wants to be friends with her. It’s easier. And safer.
It’s why Katie wasn’t game to walk away.
‘My wings are too big,’ I said before Mum could get going.
Mum went back to twisting in a few more curls.
‘Your dad went to a lot of trouble to make those wings, Aimee,’ she said. ‘And they’re exactly the right size. I showed you the picture and you said they were lovely.’
‘They just feel big, that’s all,’ I said.
She popped a kiss on my cheek. A lump of foam caught on her nose and she went all cross-eyed to make me laugh while she brushed it away.
‘Here,’ she said. ‘Let me help you into your dress and wings so your hair won’t get all mussed up.’
She gave me another quick kiss.
‘You’ll be fine.’ She said. ‘Honest.’
I made myself believe it so I could smile. But I knew I wasn’t going to change my mind.
7 7 7 7 7
‘Aimee?’
Katie was standing looking at me. The other two were over in the corner trying to get their halos straight.
‘I think your dress is lovely.’
She reached out her hand to touch one of the silver stars that rippled across the front.
‘Liar!’ I hissed at her.
I liked the way her hand snapped back. I stuck my nose in the air and walked right past her to the head end of the manger cow.
‘Get up, Jimmy,’ I said.
The cow’s head wobbled to its feet. It really looked like a cow when you stood right in front of it. ‘What are you doing?’ it said.
‘I’m getting in the back end, so hold still.’
I straightened up to unhook my wings. It was tricky and they wanted to slip right back and collapse onto the floor. I was surprised when they didn’t. I was even more surprised when I saw Katie take them and hang them neatly on the window frame.
‘You’ll trip over your dress,’ she said.
I ignored her.
Jimmy was so excited he kept turning around to watch me, and whenever he turned the back end went with him. I had to grab hold of him in the end because I was starting to get dizzy.
I unzipped my end and pulled the cow’s legs up over my own and tucked my dress down snugly inside. She had pretty fat thighs for a cow, but I figured it didn’t matter. Her tail swung right out wide, so I bunched a bit more of my dress under it.
I gave it a couple of test swings.
Katie giggled.
‘Get lost,’ I told her. ‘Go and play with your little angel friends and leave me alone!’
I don’t know whether she did or not. I was too busy trying to see how to fit my top end around Jimmy’s bottom end and listen to all Miss Everest’s instructions.
‘Keep your arms here,’ she was saying. Then, to the front end, she said, ‘You’re the leader, Jimmy. You have to watch through here’—I saw her fingers jaggle through the little eye hole in the neck—‘so you don�
�t go the wrong way.’
Jimmy was going the wrong way most of the time. I didn’t want to think too much about that, especially when I was the one following him.
‘We’ll be right, Jimmy,’ I said.
Miss Everest made us stand up and walk in two bits to the back door of the stage. I had to carry my tail over my arm so it didn’t drag in the dirt. We had to go quietly so no one would see us before it was the proper time.
I was the quietest of all.
I didn’t want anyone to see me.
Not anyone.
‘Just remember, Jimmy,’ Miss Everest said when we got to the hall, ‘you have to walk behind the back row of angels and then in front of the manger and stand quietly with the sheep on the other side.’
The sheep were standing up looking red and hot, strapped in their bath mats with their woolly socks tied snugly on their hands and feet.
‘So go slowly, Jimmy, won’t you.’
We all walked silently across the stage and took our places behind the curtain. Jimmy and I weren’t going on until the curtains opened and Miss Everest was staying with us until it was our turn.
I was listening to Miss Everest’s last-minute instructions while she zipped my back end to Jimmy’s front. She left a little gap so I could see the floor underneath us as I walked along. I reached my arms up Jimmy’s sides and had his bottom under my chin.
I heard a couple of kids laugh.
‘Put your head down a bit, Aimee.’ Miss Everest was giggling too. ‘The cow looks a bit like a camel. It’s got a hump in the middle of its back.’
I put my head down.
‘That’s better.’
I heard a few kids agreeing and thought that this was the dumbest, dumbest thing I’d ever done.
The silver stars on my dress were itching at my foot and I lifted my other foot to have a scratch at it.
I heard somebody behind me laugh and Miss Everest telling them to shush.
It was hard bending over and standing still, but bit by bit I could hear the others settling into their places.
I saw the floaty bottoms of the angel’s dresses cream past and I let the cow’s back leg kick out a bit.