LITMIR.BIZ

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it from underneath a cushion.

      ‘I read that last time.’

      ‘Read it again,’ piped up Ella. ‘It’s our favourite.’

      Picking up the book, I read it, the three of us joining in with great gusto at the innkeeper’s roared refrain, advising his never-ending stream of visitors to go to the stable.

      Halfway through the story, it hit me. As soon as I reached the words ‘The End’ I bundled the two girls upstairs, calling to Bella to put them to bed, and dashed into the kitchen to pick up my pencil.

      By the time Bella came back downstairs, I’d completed a very rough script.

      For some reason, even though not one of them was over five foot tall, a surge of fear shot through me and my tongue glued itself to the roof of my mouth. They were all looking up at me with wide-eyed interest as I stood at the front of the large hall.

      There was absolutely no sign of Nate Williams, even though when he’d texted back last night he’d said he planned to be here. We’d had a brief text exchange and when I’d told him of my executive decision, he’d agreed that it was for the best and that he would back me a hundred per cent.

      ‘Oak and Apple class, say good morning to Miss Smith,’ said the teaching assistant in a high-pitched, here kitty, kitty sort of voice. She’d been allocated to help me, for which I was very grateful, otherwise I’d have been completely on my own.

      ‘Good. Morning. Miss Smith,’ intoned the class in a deadened robotic rhythm that threatened to suck all of the life out of me. Honestly, it was like facing a crowd of Dementors. I had no idea how they were going to respond to the news that Noah’s Christmas Ark was no more. The children, all in their green and grey uniforms, were sitting cross-legged in front of me on the polished parquet floor, which had probably had thousands of children’s feet pass across its surface over its lifetime.

      I took in a breath and said in a voice designed to counteract their joyless greeting, ‘Good morning, Oak class. Good morning, Apple class.’ I beamed at them like Mary Poppins on acid. ‘Shall we try that again? Good morning, Oak class,’ I bellowed in a loud voice. ‘Good morning, Apple class.’

      ‘Good morning, Miss Smith,’ they bellowed back with a lot more energy.

      Energy was good. I could work with that. I checked my watch. Where was Nate?

      ‘That’s better. I’m looking for people with good loud voices. Do I have any here?’

      A sea of hands shot up, waving like little sea anemones. Better and better. Things were looking up. I could do this.

      I was on the hoof, making things up as I went along. Actually, that wasn’t true at all. I’d planned today with meticulous attention to detail, dividing up the duties between myself and Nate. It was vital we made a good impression as we had to sell them a complete change of plan. I’d decided it was best to be honest and explain that Mrs Davies was too poorly to finish the script, so we were going to start afresh with a new lot of auditions. I’d hoped to palm that job off on Nate but as he still wasn’t here and I couldn’t stand in front of the children looking like a complete lemon, I got on with it.

      Despite a few minor groans most of the children looked interested when I explained that we were going to have new parts and that there’d be fresh auditions today.

      ‘But I still want to be an armadillo,’ said Jack, a touch of belligerence in his square plump face.

      ‘There isn’t an armadillo in this story.’

      ‘I want to be an armadillo,’ he repeated, folding his arms, giving me an implacable stare.

      ‘There’ll be other parts. New ones.’ I smiled gamely at him as he continued to stare at me.

      ‘I’m not happy. I’m not happy.’ He shook his head and I was pretty sure that he was parroting someone else’s words.

      I gave him a vague smile and moved on. Today I had to get my cast together and teach them the new songs I’d chosen. I needed a loud confident boy to play the innkeeper. A bossy know-it-all to play his wife. A serene Mary. A careful, thoughtful Joseph. Three bouncy kings. As many rustic shepherds as I could get away with. A herd of cows, a flock of sheep, oh, and an angel.

      If I could hand all that over to Nate, I could get on and start teaching the children the Christmas carols.

      I looked at the door again. Where was he? I looked back at the children, watching me with expectant interest. I was on my own.

      ‘Does anyone know any Christmas carols?’ I’d already decided on most of them but I was hoping this little bit of democracy would make the children feel more involved and hopefully forget about marmosets, narwhals and flipping unicorns.

      Again the hands shot up, several with that me-me-me fervour you only find in little children. Right under my nose, one little boy waved his hand madly, almost bouncing up and down on the spot trying to get my attention. It would have taken someone with a heart of cold, hard stone to ignore him.

      ‘You there, young man?’

      ‘Do you like football, miss?’

      His mate next to him nudged him and giggled.

      ‘George,’ the teaching assistant shadowing me cut in, ‘if you can’t be sensible, you’ll have to go and sit in Mrs Roberts’ office.’

      George looked as if he might have spent a fair bit of time there before because he gave an irrepressible grin and carried on staring at me.

      ‘Anyone else?’ The forest of hands shot up again and this time I picked another child, a demure-looking girl with plaits and a green headband which matched her regulation green sweatshirt with the logo of a brown and green tree on the right breast.

      ‘Away in a Manger,’ she said in a proud little voice.

      ‘Excellent,’ I said in the sort of voice that suggested she’d just discovered how to sequence the genome. Actually it was perfect and, unbeknownst to her, already on my list. I turned and wrote it on the whiteboard behind me. I’d already decided I needed five carols to break up the action and to extend the performance.

      I picked another waving hand and then realised it was Grace, Nate’s daughter.

      ‘You’re Daddy’s friend,’ she said in an accusing voice. The teaching assistant coughed and put her hand over her face. And for some ridiculous reason I blushed bright red, which probably confirmed her assumption.

      ‘I’ve met your daddy,’ I agreed evenly, with a carefully blank face, ‘when we talked about the nativity. Do you have a carol for me?’

      She shook her head. ‘My daddy’s very handsome. Don’t you want to be his friend?’

      ‘I’m afraid I don’t really know him. I only met him that day.’

      And there, as if by magic, he was standing at the back of the hall, a look of unholy amusement on his ‘very handsome’ face.

      ‘He’s very nice,’ pressed Grace

      Aware of the pinkness of my cheeks, I gave her a perfunctory, ‘I’m sure he is.’ I could see his shoulders shaking even from this distance, the dratted man. I ignored him and turned to the teaching assistant, who had managed to recover from her fit of coughing and thankfully intervened. ‘Perhaps we can stick to the Christmas carols, thank you, Grace?’

      Grace huffed, folded her arms and pinched her mouth together in an expression of too-adult disgust which had me trying not to laugh as she watched me with continued suspicion.

      ‘Anyone else?’ God, how did teachers do it – keep up this bright, sparkly, I’m so excited voice? I pointed to another boy whose hand had shot up dead straight like an arrow in flight.

      ‘Hark the Harold Angels.’

      I bit back a smile. ‘Perfect. Because we’re going

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