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Authors: Richard Peck
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electrician. We’d practiced how to sit stone still for up to five minutes.
When we froze in place, I ought to have been looking into the manger at Baby Jesus. But the curtain caught me staring out at the audience, so I had to stay that way.
“Long lay the world in sin and error pining,” sang the choir as I counted the house. The full pews gasped as we came into view, a living picture. And why not? Milton in bathrobe and false beard. Carleen like Sally Rand without her fans. Ina-Rae looking like she was about to take off. Me in baling wire and three sheets, showing a Cuban heel.
As I stared unblinking at the far door of the church, it opened. Grandma walked in. It had to be her. She filled the door. A tall man was with her. I watched her scoot people along a pew and sit. The pew popped like gunfire beneath her.
When the choir went into “What Child Is This?” the star lit up and sent a beam down on Ina-Rae’s doll. This was to be the high moment, and was. The minute the beam hit the manger, Baby Jesus roared out a loud wail.
Milton moved. A shepherd’s crook clattered to the floor. I couldn’t hold my pose. I shifted my crowned head to see in the spotlit manger a real live baby, red as a beet, punching the air with tiny fists. Carleen was upstaged and went completely out of character.
A wave of wonderment swept the pews. Some people may have thought a living baby had been cast in the part. And if so, whose? But then Ina-Rae, flapping her wings, shrieked out, “Where is my dolly?”
Miss Butler fell back, and the choir broke ranks, never to reach “We Three Kings of Orient Are.” Reverend Lutz, Principal Fluke, and Mr. Herkimer all advanced on the manger, like wise men in street clothes. But a newborn in a damp rag for a diaper, or swaddling clothes, stunned them.
Now people stood on pews, trying to see. Suddenly, Grandma was there, heaving up the steps past the pulpit. Her hat was alive with pheasant feathers. She reached into the manger for the red, squalling baby. She lifted it up, and the light was good.
The baby had one blue eye and one green. Grandma blinked. She held it up to the audience. “It’s all right,” she hollered out. “It’s a Burdick!”
They talked about that Christmas program for years. In its way, it was the best one they ever had, though Miss Butler never really got over it. Of course the baby was another reason why Mildred Burdick never had been back after my first day of school in September.
Just when the Burdicks had managed to spirit an unwanted baby into the manger, we couldn’t imagine. And why they thought the whole town wouldn’t know another Burdick when they saw one, nobody could say. Grandma pointed out that the Burdicks weren’t broke out with brains. The general view was that the United Brethren orphanage could find the baby a better home.
The evening lay in ruins on the stable straw at our feet. But there was one more miracle. I looked up at the tall man behind Grandma, and it was Joey.
Taller and leaner and handsomer. But Joey—changed and the same. And so I was looking my Christmas in the face. I hugged the wind out of him, tangled him in my sheets, nicked his chin with my halo.
It was Joey, fresh from the west, off the evening train. Grandma had sent him the ticket. That’s where most of the fox money went. That’s what it was for.
I had to turn away, quick. There was a lump in my throat, and that would mean tears on my face, and I didn’t want Joey to see them. Then with a rush of wings, two angels lit on either side of me. The gawky one was Gertrude Messerschmidt. The dumpy one was Irene Stemple.
“Is that your brother, Mary Alice?” wondered Gertrude, suddenly my new best friend.
“Oh, Mary Alice, honey, he looks just like Tyrone Power,” Irene breathed, feathering out. “But taller.” Her pudgy small hand found mine in the drapings and she clung to me.
After we got home that night, Grandma showed me another ticket. It was a
When we froze in place, I ought to have been looking into the manger at Baby Jesus. But the curtain caught me staring out at the audience, so I had to stay that way.
“Long lay the world in sin and error pining,” sang the choir as I counted the house. The full pews gasped as we came into view, a living picture. And why not? Milton in bathrobe and false beard. Carleen like Sally Rand without her fans. Ina-Rae looking like she was about to take off. Me in baling wire and three sheets, showing a Cuban heel.
As I stared unblinking at the far door of the church, it opened. Grandma walked in. It had to be her. She filled the door. A tall man was with her. I watched her scoot people along a pew and sit. The pew popped like gunfire beneath her.
When the choir went into “What Child Is This?” the star lit up and sent a beam down on Ina-Rae’s doll. This was to be the high moment, and was. The minute the beam hit the manger, Baby Jesus roared out a loud wail.
Milton moved. A shepherd’s crook clattered to the floor. I couldn’t hold my pose. I shifted my crowned head to see in the spotlit manger a real live baby, red as a beet, punching the air with tiny fists. Carleen was upstaged and went completely out of character.
A wave of wonderment swept the pews. Some people may have thought a living baby had been cast in the part. And if so, whose? But then Ina-Rae, flapping her wings, shrieked out, “Where is my dolly?”
Miss Butler fell back, and the choir broke ranks, never to reach “We Three Kings of Orient Are.” Reverend Lutz, Principal Fluke, and Mr. Herkimer all advanced on the manger, like wise men in street clothes. But a newborn in a damp rag for a diaper, or swaddling clothes, stunned them.
Now people stood on pews, trying to see. Suddenly, Grandma was there, heaving up the steps past the pulpit. Her hat was alive with pheasant feathers. She reached into the manger for the red, squalling baby. She lifted it up, and the light was good.
The baby had one blue eye and one green. Grandma blinked. She held it up to the audience. “It’s all right,” she hollered out. “It’s a Burdick!”
They talked about that Christmas program for years. In its way, it was the best one they ever had, though Miss Butler never really got over it. Of course the baby was another reason why Mildred Burdick never had been back after my first day of school in September.
Just when the Burdicks had managed to spirit an unwanted baby into the manger, we couldn’t imagine. And why they thought the whole town wouldn’t know another Burdick when they saw one, nobody could say. Grandma pointed out that the Burdicks weren’t broke out with brains. The general view was that the United Brethren orphanage could find the baby a better home.
The evening lay in ruins on the stable straw at our feet. But there was one more miracle. I looked up at the tall man behind Grandma, and it was Joey.
Taller and leaner and handsomer. But Joey—changed and the same. And so I was looking my Christmas in the face. I hugged the wind out of him, tangled him in my sheets, nicked his chin with my halo.
It was Joey, fresh from the west, off the evening train. Grandma had sent him the ticket. That’s where most of the fox money went. That’s what it was for.
I had to turn away, quick. There was a lump in my throat, and that would mean tears on my face, and I didn’t want Joey to see them. Then with a rush of wings, two angels lit on either side of me. The gawky one was Gertrude Messerschmidt. The dumpy one was Irene Stemple.
“Is that your brother, Mary Alice?” wondered Gertrude, suddenly my new best friend.
“Oh, Mary Alice, honey, he looks just like Tyrone Power,” Irene breathed, feathering out. “But taller.” Her pudgy small hand found mine in the drapings and she clung to me.
After we got home that night, Grandma showed me another ticket. It was a
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