Read Online One Christmas Morning & One Summer's Afternoon by Tilly Bagshawe - Free Book Online

because he was felt to have the most suitable voice.’
    ‘The poshest voice, you mean.’
    Laura bit back her irritation. ‘The music department allocated the children their roles, not me. If you have a problem, I suggest you take it up with them, but this is a dress rehearsal. We are certainly not going to reallocate roles now.’
    ‘We’ll see about that.’ The fat man stalked off.
    ‘What was all that about?’ Gabe appeared next to Laura. In his simply fashioned brown woollen robe and sandals, and with a dark beard glued onto his chin, he looked unrecognizable as Joseph.
    ‘Wow.’ Laura looked him up and down. ‘You look amazing.’
    ‘I look like a knob end. And this bloody beard’s itchy as shit,’ Gabe grumbled. ‘What did Gary Trotter want?’
    ‘Oh, nothing. Just stupid playground politics.’
    ‘The man’s a cock,’ said Gabe.
    ‘Yes,’ Laura agreed. ‘He doesn’t like George Monroe, or his son doesn’t.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘Because he’s posh.’ Laura gave Gabe a meaningful look.
    ‘What are you looking at me like that for?
I
like George. I think he’s a sweetheart.’
    ‘Mm-hmm. So people being posh doesn’t bother you, then?’ Laura asked archly.
    ‘No. It doesn’t,’ said Gabe, annoyed now that he finally understood her meaning. ‘It’s people being bossy, stuck-up know-it-alls that I don’t like. How
is
Daniel, by the way?’
    If the morning had started badly, it was about to get worse. Someone had overheated the hall, no doubt in anticipation of the snow, and the children were wilting under the bright stage lights. Laura, who’d opted for a new, skintight, bottle-green, cashmere polo-neck and slouchy wool French Connection trousers in honour of Daniel’s arrival, was sweating like a Christmas turkey in an abattoir. Her face had turned an unbecoming shade of red, and her freshly blow-dried hair already looked greasy and damp with sweat. The animals fared no better. By lunchtime, one of the heifers, scared by the spotlights, panicked and lashed out with its hind legs, destroying the Baby Jesus’s crib and putting a sizeable hole in the wooden stable wall. Lisa James had fluffed almost all her cues as Mary, and a scuffle had broken out among the Year Four angels that resulted in George Monroe falling off the stage and badly scraping his knee.
    One of the teachers helped the boy up. ‘Are you OK?’
    ‘I’m fine,’ said George. Up on stage, Denver Trotter and his friends had formed a huddle, their whispering interspersed with loud bursts of malicious laughter. Ken Ruddell, the choirmaster, broke them up, but it was obvious what was going on.
    ‘Don’t let them get to you,’ Gabe whispered in George’s ear, taking him aside. ‘They’re just jealous because you’re the star of the show.’
    ‘Thanks, Mr Baxter. Unfortunately that doesn’t help me much. And the teachers never do
any
thing.’ George Monroe was a gentle soul, but he looked up at his tormentors with eyes alight with hatred.
    They broke at eleven thirty for biscuits and squash for the children, and a much-needed cup of tea for the adults. Gary Trotter was still hanging around, ostensibly to help with the children’s drinks and snacks, but actually to harangue poor Ken Ruddell about Denver having been robbed of his rightful position of star of the show. Out of the corner of her eye, Laura saw George Monroe reach for a cup of squash, only to have Denver Trotter snatch it up and down its contents in a single, mean-spirited gulp.
    ‘Children can be so cruel,’ she observed to Harry Hotham.
    ‘My dear girl, they’re animals. Always have been, always will be. There are few environments more ruthless than a primary-school playground, believe me.’
    ‘Spoken by a man who never worked for the BBC,’ quipped Laura. She felt awful for poor George, but there was no time to ride to the rescue now.
    ‘Places, everybody! Two minutes to curtain.’
    Act Two of the play opened in the now-wrecked stable