Sophie chose a card with number nine on it. That meant she and Arthur would be the ninth act to go onstage. She squeezed the card to her stomach and wished her insides weren’t so fluttery.
Then she saw Elizabeth Proctor! Her worst enemy! Elizabeth was dressed in fancy white ballet slippers and a frothy white tutu that was pulled up over her round tummy. Her blond hair was curled into long ringlets and tied back with a big white bow.
Sophie didn’t know where to look. Elizabeth was certain to be mad at her still for throwing the rock, but when Elizabeth did notice her, she said, “Hi, Sophie,” as if nothing was wrong.
“Hi,” Sophie replied.
“What talent have you got?” Elizabeth asked, smoothing her tutu.
“We’re going to sing. I mean, I’m going to sing and my brother’s going to play his harmonica.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” Elizabeth said as if she were talking to a two-year-old. “And are you going to sing one of your cute little French songs?”
Before Sophie could answer, the woman with the pink lips clapped her hands. “Your attention please, everyone,” she said, staring at Sophie. “You must all be very quiet backstage. No talking. We’ll begin our first act now. Who has number one?”
“We do,” said a woman who looked like Elizabeth, only taller, older, and plumper.
Elizabeth waved her fingers at Sophie and said, “Bye for now.” She flounced onto the stage, and the audience clapped and whistled.
Sophie could see the stage through a crack in the long velvet curtains. The woman with the pink lips went to the shiny silver-coloured microphone and announced, “Now, the first contestant in our talent contest will be Elizabeth Proctor, accompanied on the piano by her mother. Elizabeth will dance ’The Dying Swan’ from the ballet Swan Lake.”
The audience clapped and cheered some more and Mrs. Proctor began playing the piano. Elizabeth pranced and pirouetted about the stage. She did the splits and bowed low with her hands joined above her head.
“She thinks she’s so great,” Sophie whispered to Arthur. “Dying Turkey would be more like it!”
Arthur rolled his eyes.
“Hush,” the woman with the pink lips hissed. “Quiet backstage!”
Sophie bit her tongue and pressed her lips together.
Elizabeth pranced and flapped about the stage some more and finally finished her dance with a deep curtsy. The audience clapped and cheered and whistled as she fluttered off the stage.
Her act was followed by a boy who tried to juggle some oranges but kept dropping them. He had to stop when one of his oranges rolled off the stage and there was a mad scramble in the audience to get it.
Then two girls went onstage with their pet cat. When they tried to make it jump through hoops, it scampered off and started clawing its way up the velvet curtains. It took them a long time to get the cat back down.
The next act was a boy with a dog who danced on its hind legs. But when the dog spied the cat offstage, it took off through the curtains and out the exit door, its young master chasing it, yelling, “Come back, Mimi! Come back, Mimi!”
After the dog act came a pair of cute five-year-old tap-dancing twins who were great until the end when they kept bumping into each other on their way offstage.
“Why do we have to go last?” Sophie moaned.
“Because you picked number nine,” Arthur whispered, patting his Jughead hat and straightening his glasses. “Stop whining.”
“It’s so hot back here,” Sophie complained. She scratched under her arms and pulled at her sweater sleeves. “Maybe I should have worn my Sunday dress instead. What if I forget my lines?”
“Yeah, right! ’Oh, you better watch out.’ What’s there to forget?”
After a few more acts, the woman announced, “And now for our final contestants. All the way from Montreal, Quebec, let’s welcome Sophie LaGrange, singing with her brother, Arthur LaGrange, who will play his harmonica.”
While the audience clapped politely, Sophie pulled up her knee socks and smoothed her plaid skirt. Then she took a quick breath and followed Arthur through the curtains and onstage. She stood beside him in the centre of the stage in front of the microphone that was clipped to a tall silver-coloured stand. She blinked at the bright stage lights. They dazzled her so much that she couldn’t see the audience, but she could hear breathing and whispering above a steady crackling of popcorn bags.
Arthur, standing beside her, was frantically going through the pockets of his jeans.
“What’s the matter?” she mumbled, barely moving her lips.
“My harmonica! I can’t find it!”
“Try your back pocket.”
It was even hotter up there under those bright lights than behind the stage. Sweat trickled down Sophie’s sides. She scratched her neck and pulled at the belt of her skirt. “Come on, Artie. Hurry up!”
The audience’s hum became a titter. The microphone had picked up her voice.
Finally Arthur found his harmonica. He rapped it against his palm, put it to his mouth and, nodding at her, blew into it.
Now what were the words again? Sophie tried to remember the song, but her mind was blank. The harder she tried to remember, the more panicked she became. If only she could remember those first words.
Sweat was dripping down her forehead and into her eyes now.
“Oh, you better watch...” Arthur rasped at her out of the corner of his mouth.
Of course! She nodded and he started playing his harmonica again. By now the audience was really tittering, but she took a deep breath and began singing. Her voice came out weak and trembly and a bit off-key. But as she got into the song, she sang louder and remembered to put her mouth close to the microphone, although she had to stand on tiptoe to reach it. Now she couldn’t hear the audience at all, just her own voice and Arthur’s harmonica music.
She felt him pushing and nudging her away from the microphone with his shoulder, so at the end of the verse she stepped back and he had a harmonica solo as they had rehearsed. He even put in some extra stuff that was so fancy the audience clapped and cheered.
When he finished, Sophie stepped forward and stood in front of the microphone. She started belting out the second verse, but he nudged her away again. She couldn’t believe it! He was being such a microphone hog! She had to elbow him away.
Arthur pushed her once more, and she elbowed him back. Hard this time. But instead of nudging him, her elbow hit the microphone stand. It swayed away from her, and before she could grab it, it toppled over with a loud bang and crashed to the floor.
The audience gasped. Sophie leaped back and so did Arthur. They stood there and stared in horror at the microphone on the floor. Its top came off and rolled away.
The audience roared with laughter. “Yippee!” they shouted. “Way to go!”
Sophie gazed at the audience for a second. She knew what she had to do. She clenched her fists, took a deep breath, and sang the song at the top of her lungs. “Oh, you better watch out...” she warbled, shaking her finger at the crowd. And there was Arthur at her side, blowing into his harmonica as if his life depended on it. She sang and clapped her hands to keep the beat, and soon the whole audience was clapping and singing along. Her voice soared above the audience and Arthur harmonized with gusto. When they came to the end of the song, her brother ended his playing with a flourish and they bowed low to the audience.
The crowd rose and everyone clapped and whistled and shouted. “More! More! Encore!” They loved it!
Sophie grinned from ear to ear. She bowed again and the audience clapped and cheered some more.
Miss Pink Lips pounced onto the stage and grabbed the microphone from the floor. She tried to push the top back on. Then she flicked at it with her long fingernails, but she couldn’t get it to work. She glared at Sophie and Arthur and raised her hands until the audience was finally quiet.
“Thank you, Sophie and Arthur LaGrange. Now, all the contestants please come back onstage. The judges h
ave made their decision. We have a winner for our talent contest.” She waited for a moment until the other contestants joined Sophie and Arthur onstage. They all stood in a stiff row beside the woman.
Sophie held her breath. She knew she and Arthur had won. They were the best.
“The winner of our talent contest and our grand prize of twenty-five dollars is—” Miss Pink Lips paused dramatically “—our very own lovely ballerina, Miss Elizabeth Proctor! Congratulations, Elizabeth! Please come forward and receive your prize.”
Elizabeth swaggered in front of Sophie and took the envelope containing the twenty-five-dollar prize. Sophie was dazed. She stared at Elizabeth, who curtsied to the audience, then smirked meanly in her direction. The audience clapped and hooted.
Sophie was glued to the wooden floor. She had a big lump in her throat. That prize should have been hers. Hers and Arthur’s. They were the best. The audience had loved them! Finally Arthur plucked her sleeve and yanked her offstage.
When they got behind the curtain, he demanded, “Why did you have to push over the microphone, anyway?”
Sophie shook her head. “You were being such a microphone hog. That’s why.”
“I was not a microphone hog. You were.”
Miss Pink Lips came backstage. “Thank you, boys and girls. Everyone return to your seats now. We’ll be starting our Roy Rogers movie in a few minutes.”
Sophie stumbled down the stairs in the dim light. Her eyes were clouded with tears of frustration. If only that dumb microphone hadn’t toppled over, she and Arthur would have won the talent contest for sure. They had been the best. Certainly a lot better than that stuck-up snob Elizabeth Proctor with her Dying Turkey dance.
She found a seat next to the aisle and sank into it. In the dark she had lost track of Arthur. She didn’t care.
She blinked hard and stared up at the movie. It went on and on. When Roy Rogers and his faithful old horse, Trigger, finally saved the day, Roy and Dale Evans ended the movie by singing “Tumbling Tumbleweeds.”
Everyone clapped and hooted and the theatre lights went on. Sophie rubbed her eyes and stood. She looked around the crowd of milling boys and girls for Arthur but couldn’t see him. Some boys who had been sitting next to her got up. When they noticed who she was, one of them put his hand over his heart and started singing in a high, squeaky voice, “Oh, you better...” His friends laughed and joined him, pointing and making fun of her.
Sophie gave them her meanest Star Girl glare and turned away, then pushed through the crowd and left the theatre.
She felt that a lot of kids were staring at her and whispering behind their cupped hands. Sophie was sure everyone smiling was laughing at her. She went around the side of the theatre to the bike rack and saw Arthur waiting beside his bike.
He scowled at her. “What took you so long? I told you we had to leave right after the movie. You know I can’t be late for my paper route.”
“I couldn’t find you,” Sophie sniffed.
“We’ll have to take that shortcut through the ravine. Come on. Let’s get going.”
Sophie sighed. At least she still had her ravine. Although they had to rush through it to get to the paper shack on time, going down the shady path to the bubbling creek made Sophie take deep breaths of the damp, sweet-smelling, soothing air. By the time she got to the other side she didn’t feel quite as bad. So what if stuck-up old Elizabeth Proctor had won the talent contest? Sophie knew she and Arthur actually deserved it!
That night at supper Sophie wished she could have announced to Maman and the whole family that she and Arthur had won the talent contest. They would have had a big family celebration. But, on the other hand, since they hadn’t won, she was glad she hadn’t mentioned it before. They all would have been so disappointed.
Soon, Christmas came to the LaGrange household. On Christmas Eve they all went to Midnight Mass. Even Zephram went, but he slept right through it, curled up on Grand’maman’s lap while Maman played the organ. Sophie was really sleepy, as well, but managed to stay awake by staring at the creche, which was the scene of Baby Jesus, Mary, and Joseph surrounded by shepherds, sheep, and angels. At the end they all crammed into Papa’s little car, Sophie with her three brothers in the back and Maman, Papa, Grand’maman, and Zephram in the front. It was a good thing they didn’t have far to go, Sophie thought, or she would have fallen asleep for sure.
The next morning the whole family slept in.
After a big Christmas dinner of turkey and all the trimmings, including Grand’maman’s specialties, tourtières and tarte au sucre, the family gathered for a sing-along in the living room. The room was decorated with a sweet-smelling Christmas tree, boughs of holly, and lots of Christmas cards from their old friends in Montreal. Sophie had even received a card from her friend Marcie.
The grey rainy evening didn’t feel like Christmas at all, not the kind they used to have in Montreal. But Sophie felt better when the whole family gathered around the piano as Maman played and everyone sang the old Christmas songs one after another.
“Now who wants to do a solo?” Maman asked, turning on the piano bench.
“We could do our ’Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,’ Arthur,” Sophie said.
Arthur grinned, fished out his harmonica, and slapped it against his palm. “Let’s go!”
“Oh, you better watch out...” Sophie began singing and shaking her finger at everyone. “You better not pout...” She sang the first verse right through, then stepped back while Arthur did his harmonica solo. When he was finished, she joined him and sang the rest of the song. Her voice was clear and pure, and Arthur’s harmonica blended with it. When they came to the end, they bowed low.
The whole family clapped and cheered. “Magnifique! Bravo! Encore! Encore!” So Sophie sang the last verse again and everyone joined in: Papa, with his deep baritone; Joseph and Henri harmonizing; and Maman at the piano. Grand’maman kept everyone in time by tapping the floor with her foot as she rocked in her rocking chair, Zephram on her knee.
“That’s wonderful!” Maman said, her grey eyes shining. “I never knew we had such talented children.”
“You could have asked me,” Papa said. “I always knew no one was as talented as my kids.” And he gave Sophie and Arthur a big hug, one child under each of his arms.
Sophie beamed at her whole family as they laughed and clapped some more. Their applause was better than winning a prize in any old talent contest any day.
11
One evening in early spring, there was a meeting of the Notre Dame de Fatima school board around the kitchen table at the LaGrange household. Monsieur le Curé was there with four other men. They were talking with Papa about the new school. And they sounded angry.
Sophie was supposed to be practising the piano, but she had crept up to the door between the kitchen and the living room and was listening. She wasn’t really spying. After all, they were talking about her school.
“This is an emergency! The taxes the government is asking us to pay are too much!” Monsieur le Curé said. “We can’t afford it. Everyone in the parish has given as much money as they can. If we pay this tax bill, we won’t be able to pay our teachers or buy books for the children. It’s crazy!” He thumped his fist on the table, and the teacups jumped and rattled in their saucers.
“What we should do is go on strike,” one of the men said. “Just close the school doors and refuse to educate the children.”
“Strike?” Papa said. “How would a school strike help us?”
“It helped us down at the mill,” one of the other men said. “We have much better working conditions now than we used to, and better pay, as well.”
“If we went on strike, all our children would have to go to the public schools,” the first man said. “The schools would be forced to accept our children. Then the classrooms would be so overcrowded that all the teachers and parents would complain and the government would have to back down.”
“But what about our children?�
� Papa asked. “I wouldn’t like Sophie to miss school. Her education is important.”
“It would only be a couple of days,” one of the men said. “I’m sure those government officials would soon come to their senses.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Papa said, shaking his head. “Why would the government care if the classrooms were overcrowded? In the end it’s our children who would suffer. I’ve seen how a strike can pull a community apart. In Quebec the situation with the unions was terrible.”
“But this is different. It’s just a school, not a mill or a mine,” Monsieur le Curé said. “I’m certain this would be our best course of action. So let’s take a vote. All in favour of the strike, raise your hand.”
Everyone around the table, except Papa, raised his hand. He sat there, still shaking his head.
“Right,” Monsieur le Curé said, clapping his hands. “Friday next week will be strike day. That will give us a chance to get organized. First thing in the morning, we’ll have a grand parade with a band and everything. The teachers will lead the students from the school grounds, through the streets, and we’ll all march to the town hall to present our petition to the authorities.”
Sophie grinned to herself. A holiday from school and a parade! Now that sounded exciting. But later that evening she overheard Papa talking to Maman in the living room.
“I don’t know what they think a strike will accomplish,” he said, frowning. “Do they really think closing the school and going on strike will work? Besides a few complaints from the overworked teachers in the public schools, I’m sure the whole event will hardly even be noticed.”
“If Monsieur le Curé says we should strike,” Maman said, “then we should. It must be the right thing to do. After all, he is the pastor.”
Papa shrugged. “We’ll see.”
Friday arrived, and Sophie was jittery with excitement. It wasn’t every day she got to be in a parade. She wolfed down her cornflakes so fast, they didn’t have a chance to get soggy.
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